What We Get Wrong About Dying - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/55/trust/what-we-get-wrong-about-dying <comment><USER2> "We live in a culture where it has been rubbed into us that to die is a terrible thing. And that is a tremendous disease from which our culture suffers, and we notice it firstly in the way in which death is swept under the carpet.

This is one of the major problems in hospitals — when a family conspires with the doctor to keep from grandmother the knowledge that she is dying. Grandmother suspects that she is dying but probably doesn't really want to know for sure and her family talk with her in such a way as to say, 'Well you're probably be getting alright in a few weeks' — because they have this funny feeling that it's important to build up courage and hope. And so they become liars and the mutual mistrust develops. So the person is left to die alone, suddenly, unprepared, and doped up to the point where death hardly happens. And there is no derivation from it of the peculiar spiritual experience that can come with death."

– Alan Watts

<comment><USER3> I don't know...I see a silver line here. There are many situations where putting everything on the table might make the situation worse. Something like a negative placebo effect can occur here and, for patients that may still have a battle in them, the depression and fear resulted from knowing too many things might worsen things.

My father died 8 years ago and I remember that we all knew he had just a few weeks left in him. We didn't tell him and no doctor did either. He was still talking about how he can't wait to go fishing once he gets out of there. I think it was something nice to keep him from diving down in panic attacks and depression as I imagine I would knowing that my situation is that bad.

I'm not so brave and I don't know if I would like someone to tell if I'm about to die soon...maybe I would; this is hard to discuss from outside.

<comment><USER4> Panic attacks and depression _are_ what we often _imagine_ being told we'll die will do to us, but I've heard anecdotes that suggest the opposite: a sense of peaceful resignation and acceptance.

<comment><USER5> This is one of the reasons so many people in execution videos seem resigned to their fate; because they are. Just listen to stories people tell about narrowly escaping these kinds of deaths. Many of them talk about how they knew what was coming and had come to terms with it.

<comment><USER3> You are surely referring to the last moments of their lives and not the journey from finding out they're going to die until that moment you are talking about. There's a lot of adrenaline and other chemicals being released in such situations. I had a friend pass out 1 second before hitting a pillar with the car (her boyfriend had to pull the wheel and crash into a dog house). The brain finds ways to protect you from pain and it often shuts down in such cases when there's no room to contemplate. I think the subconscious kicks in/takes over.

I was talking about the long wait many have to go through from finding out...to their final breath. From denial to acceptance might be a long road that scares me and I'm not sure if every bit of information can be beneficial or detrimental.

<comment><USER5> I have personally been in a few of these moments in my life, when I was thought that I would be killed. I have never been a hostage on my way to my own execution, but I have narrowly escaped death in combat a few times when I thought beforehand that surely I would not make it. There is a lot of adrenaline, and the human mind definitely employs some tricks to shield us from realizing our own fate, or at least to stop us from applying much critical thinking about the situation. Being so close to death is a very base, very visceral, animal thing. Incidentally, this is closely related to one of the reasons I grew to feel at peace while fighting and at war -- and the chief reason I have such a hard time with civilian life afterwards -- and in a way, I came to enjoy it (I waited a couple of days to post this comment because the reality of it will shock the conscience of many, but I wanted to be honest). Not of course the moments where things are going quite badly, but the more base existence.

That feeling is totally unique, of being there on the edge of life where everything is so simple, and where nothing else matters, or nothing else seems to matter very much. From talking to people and hearing stories, I suppose most people think of family when they're close to death. I didn't so much think about family as much as I had kind of very simple and straightforward "aw-shucks" moments of regret about not doing the things I wanted to do in life before I got into those situations where thought I would be killed. Incidentally, after my tours, I traveled a lot in order to settle those regrets and ended up meeting a woman that became my wife. I also created some very deep and meaningful friendships. I'm kind of getting off track here, but my original point was that what you've said is true, but at least for my part, "the long wait" is only happening after the fact. Navigating through the civilian world has been a really tough experience after all that, specifically those times where I thought surely I was a dead man. That was something I didn't expect, "the long wait" coming after everything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _This will sometimes result in clinicians performing painful and pointless procedures on a dying child as weeping parents stand by, watching their child's final moments in horror, having not understood what they were signing on for._

My father had cancer in his late 60s. He wasn't expected to live. He did live about 2 more decades. But following his surgery, he spent considerable time in ICU.

At the same time, another elderly patient spent the last two weeks of their life there in ICU. They repeatedly _coded_ and had massive intervention. Doctors routinely did things like drain a gallon of fluid from the lungs, restart their heart, etc.

My mother was pretty disgusted. She felt the family knew this woman was never going home again and these torturous treatments were not extending life. They were merely dragging out her death horrifically because the relatives were not yet ready to accept it.

In many cases, this is the better answer:

 _...they tell us that attempting resuscitative efforts that are likely to be futile is not consistent with their values. In these situations, rather than asking for intubation and chest compressions, parents just want to hold their child and find meaning in those final moments of contact._

<comment><USER7> My dad had cancer in a lymph node that spread to the lungs, significantly reducing his lung capacity. After a few years of steady decline, he caught pneumonia.

After a day of treatment, he knew it was all downhill from there. Doctors said further treatment would likely make him recover from the pneumonia, but that could take months, and scar tissue from the pneumonia would reduce his lung capacity further. Even before the pneumonia he was reliant on oxygen supply at home just to sit in a chair.

So in the early hours of the second day, he requested they turn off the oxygen supply. A doctor got called in to ensure he knew what the consequences could be, which he did, and then they turned off the oxygen.

He passed away peacefully a few hours later.

Painful as it was to lose him, I'm so glad they respected his decision.

<comment><USER8> In which country did this happen? This sounds illegal in quite a lot of countries that I know of

(nothing judgemental in this comment, I'm genuinely curious)

<comment><USER9> You're wrong and/or confused, it's _certainly_ not illegal to refuse treatment in _any_ free country as long as the patient has all their mental facilitates and there is no danger to public health. Nobody can _force_ you to stay attached to a machine if you don't want to be.

In fact, preforming medical treatment against someone's expressed will is assult or battery and could land the doctor in prison.

I think you're confusing voluntarily withdrawing of life sustaining treatment with physician assisted suicide, they are nowhere near the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "Never forget, if you accompany your patients only until the battle is lost > and they are dying, if you abandon them at that point and leave them alone, > you have done only part of your job, and not done it well. Your job is to > accompany your patients until they are either better or safely on the other > side."

Worth reading for this line alone. Beautiful.

<comment><USER11> Do we really get that part wrong, though? There are specialties like hospice care and anointing of the sick, which accompany patients after "the battle is lost" and ensure they comfortably and safely make it to "the other side." These tasks are just done by people other than your oncologist.

<comment><USER10> It reminds me a bit (perhaps oddly) of technical consulting work. Sure you can check the box, deliver the letter of the contract, and collect your pay. There's a difference between that and building what the customer wants, not what they need; driving end user adoption to make the project successful; caring about outcomes and satisfying your stakeholders, not just about solving the technical challenge as it is presented. There are specialist techies who want nothing to do with half that equation, and don't need to pretend that they do because they are so valued for the specialized thing at which they are a truly expert professional. If you're not like that, another way to add value is by blending technical skills with the other half of that equation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The biggest thing we get wrong is living like we will live forever and assuming we will never die and therefore never prepare for it whether it be financially or spiritually

<comment><USER13> How should one prepare financially for the fact that you're going to die one day?

<comment><USER14> Have money to be independent in your final years so that you can be cared for appropriately without burdening your family.

<comment><USER15> That could be a decade or more. For instance, some people are living longer because of medical advances. Alzheimer's might be more of a problem as more people live into their 80's, 90's...

[https://www.livescience.com/59261-alzheimers-deaths- increase...](https://www.livescience.com/59261-alzheimers-deaths- increase.html)

<comment><USER16> That's true but it doesn't effect what GP said.

Many of us on HN are in professions where we are able to save enough money to live without being productive after the age of 65.

But also many of the people reading this will be 50 years old and have the option to purchase a second (vacation home), or a boat, or a fancy sports car, OR completely secure their retirement. Many of us will choose one of these luxury items and hope everything works out rather than saving for a retirement that could last into our 90's.

<comment><USER17> And many still might forego those luxury items and instead save for retirement, only to be dead, buried and forgotten at 71, all the same.

It's a balance.

Money, Age, Enjoyment. Most can choose two, some can choose all, and some can choose none.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Our culture, and even our language, fails us by treating death as a given and as something we passively accept.

There are many avenues of research to achieve radical life extension, and it's a worthy thing to pursue.

<comment><USER19> That's true in the abstract sense, but this article primarily deals with the weeks, days, and hours immediately preceding death.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A truly cathartic read. This soulful article's understanding of the process and trauma of bereavement touched me profoundly. Such empathy is rare in modern bureaucracy -- something about doing things at scale numbs us to the emotions of individuals.

For another keen perspective on how doctors deal with terminal illness in personal life, as humans, rather than as professionals, see this: [http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2013/03/06/in-the- magazin...](http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2013/03/06/in-the- magazine/health-in-the-magazine/how-doctors-die.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> The biggest thing? Since arguably sometime in the 1930s the technological capacity has existed to store at least the brains of dead individuals at liquid nitrogen temperatures indefinitely, waiting on a future that can restore them. In a different, better world, the funerary industry was swept aside by mass cryopreservation, and the vaults of those who would one day live again would be now be vast. The biggest thing we get wrong is that we continue to equate clinical death to oblivion, rather than it being only the second worst thing that can happen to you, and acting accordingly.

<comment><USER22> If anybody wonders why this is currently downvoted it might be because it shows a huge lack of understanding of the real issues here. Let me mention a couple:

Who decides people living now are more worthy of living than future generations?

Who decides who will live forever?

<comment><USER23> There's not necessarily a "who is more worthy of living" judgment here. Future generations are free to turn off the cooling mechanisms which suspend the bodies or heads of the dying, if they deem it important to have the resources now. In the meantime, it doesn't take _that_ many resources to suspend a head; and the burden would become less if suspension became common enough practice that the "extremely expensive, will either fail or make the rest of your life a hell" procedures were phased out and those resources freed up.

The problem I have with your sentences is that they prove too much. They can easily be read, for instance, as advocating that it might be worth abandoning medical science.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I struggle to find enough words of gratitude for people like the author. The amount of trauma and stress they endure to do someone else some good is something I cannot even imagine myself doing.

</comment><comment><USER25> Relevant article from Slate Star Codex - Who by very slow decay:

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow- decay/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow-decay/)

One of the most impactful things I've read in my life.

<comment><USER18> With sufficient time and resources, death can be prevented.

[https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html](https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html)

<comment><USER26> I think death can never be prevented. Just made less probable. Or forestalled. Even the universe dies at some point and I don't see anything outliving that.

<comment><USER27> That's just semantic confusion. He meant prevention of senescence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> temp-dude-87844 There are several things we -- as a broad generalization over many societies -- get wrong about dying, and this article illustrates one of them in the medical, caregiver sense.

While there are several contributing factors, like an activist reading of the Hippocratic Oath and fear for malpractice claims against the caregivers, this reckoning is consistent with the value system of many societies that assumes that one's informed choices must always tilt towards their continued life, and any feelings to the contrary are morally corrupt or simply misinformed, and therefore don't confer valid consent.

It's impossible to separate analyses of one's own medical death without considering wishes of one's death in the general case. Modern societies tend to make discussing death taboo, not just because it's an uncomfortable topic to grapple with, but also because people who can control the terms of their own exit have an opportunity to do great harm in ways that can't be disincentivized by punishment. It's no accident that religions attempt to rectify this loophole by ensuring that mortal deeds will determine one's fate after death.

</comment><comment><USER28> We live in a world where death is inevitable. All of our systems wear out. Within the various cultures across the globe, death is viewed in very different lights.

Sometimes we can do something about it, sometimes we can't. Death can, in some cases, be quick and painless and in others slow and painful. How an individual handles this is very much up to that individual's internal being. What doesn't help is other people acting and living their lives in such a manner that brings hopelessness to the individual affected.

The medical fraternity is one group that regularly hides death from themselves and the patients and their families. Yet they will also regularly kill those who they feel have nothing left to live for and without regard to those individuals themselves.

When I was at university all those decades ago, the medical students of the time had courses in handling death - how to deal with death themselves and how to deal with patients who are dying and how to deal with families so affected.

It didn't seem to help those medical students.

My own wife has survived four different kinds of cancers. The treatments she has undergone over the years has adversely affected her body and she suffers much now from those treatments from the past. We have been blessed that we are together and that we have seen and are seeing our children grow and our grandchildren grow.

Just by living, each of us will face both good and bad. How we live each day is predicated on what gives us hope and what we see for the future. If there is no hope then death is a dark time ahead.

For me and mine, death, when it comes, will be a doorway into a better, greater future in the glorious presence of my God and Saviour. Till that time, we are here to live as examples to those around us with hope, joy and love.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm sure this is interesting, but if I can't read a simple article without enabling cookies, the site isn't worth my time.

<comment><USER30> as usual pf is your friend:

[https://app.printfriendly.com/print?source=homepage&url_s=uG...](https://app.printfriendly.com/print?source=homepage&url_s=uGGC_~_PdN_~_PcS_~_PcSAnHGvymHF_~_PcSvFFHr_~_PcSff_~_PcSGEHFG_~_PcSJunG- Jr-trG-JEBAt-noBHG-qLvAt)</comment></comment>


US: Megaupload's Hosting Company Might be Sued Next - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/us-megauploads-hosting-company-might-be-sued-next-120415/

<comment><USER3> next up sue the power company who's electricity facilitated and enabled copyright infringement... the land holder who harboured copyright infringes... then the local government who provided services to copyright infringer's... then the state government who knowingly collected revenue and who who turned a blind eye to the actions of local government thereby facilitating copyright infringement... all the way up to the federal government who can sue itself ensuring that this lucrative little enterprise of the copyright legal mafia stays on the taxpayer funded gravy train... protecting American jobs!

</comment><comment><USER4> I hate to state the obvious, but an analogy that might be communicable to the knuckle heads working for the prosecution: _Suing the hosting company would be the equivalent to suing a roads authority for people speeding on highways._

<comment><USER5> The flip side is if you speed to much... you risk losing your drivers license. Caparthia could have terminated them as clients.

<comment><USER4> And who's job is it to regulate the speeding drivers? _Hint: Not the road authority._

Carpathia were not driving anything in this analogy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why are there so many articles from torrentfreak on HN lately? Every time I visit there's a couple on the front page.

Can we please get some non-biased news if we're going to continue talking about Megaupload?

<comment><USER7> This is the only article I've found about this news to be honest.. TorrentFreak seems to cover everything Megaupload related quite well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> To delete the contents on the servers, or not to delete... I hope they won't but, heck, the US Government doesn't seem to mind if they do.. But if they do, where's the evidence?! You can't really sue people from screenshots, surely? This whole Megaupload case is just one big joke all together.

<comment><USER8> I don't see anyone bring prosecuted for the "weapons of mass destruction" lies that led to the deaths of many thousands of people, so I don't think having evidence is too important.

<comment><USER7> There's a big difference here from what I see.

A) These lies came from the government. I know, this shouldn't make any difference, but sadly, it does.

B) The WMA case you mention is different - there is no evidence in that case, indeed. However, there is evidence that illegal files are hosted on the MU servers. Unless, they decide to delete it.. In which case, it'd be the same, agreed. And even if there are illegal files on the server, the US government has a law in place that should protect them from this kind of bullshit - <USER2> can force them to delete the files with DMCA notices - if they don't respond to them, then they're in fault...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why don't Carpathia just backup the data? I know it's a lot of work and data, but burning 10.000 blurays (or other backup media) probably costs fairly less than 9.000$ per day.

<comment><USER10> There's nothing 'just' about backuping 25 petabytes of data. Even taking the ridiculous idea of burning it on blu-rays/dvds, for which I don't even want to think about manpower and hardware costs (do you expect their servers to have bluray burners?), the raw disks would cost, at say 50 pence per 25GB disk, 500k, and burning the 1000000 disks using 100 blu-ray equipped servers would take ~500 hours. All the while someone has to shuffle the disks every half an hour.

Oh, and then you have to store them somewhere.

Even tape storage would be extremely expensive for this, which is why Carpathia is asking for assistance.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Cloak – Incognito mode for real life - <AUTHOR> http://usecloak.com <comment><USER2> I find the page rather content-free, which makes it seem useless.

I'm used to the scrolling pages and general dearth of useful information such as specs/FAQs/technical details by now (which I still find infuriating, but it seems this is becoming depressingly common thanks to the metro-inspired dogma that giving users choice and information is bad), but this has absolutely nothing at all other than a screencap. Try including some information about how it works for those of us who don't use apple products.

From the screencap, I can assume it shows other people's location in realtime (or close to it), but there is no information about how the app works or where its data comes from (facebook etc checkins? ibeacon? bluetooth/802.11x listening? voluntary data submission from other users of the app?), pricing, usage details, or even a basic FAQ.

I kept clicking all over the place expecting some hidden link, but even examining the page source has revealed nothing.

Ironically, I opened the thread because I was interested from the title, but having people need to install an app to see what is actually does isn't a great model even if it does push your market stats up and inflate the "x people installed this app" counter.

I realise this probably comes across as mean, and I apologise for that (I'm sure my tone is influenced by it being monday, and not a great one at that), but it isn't really showing people if only a subset of those interested can see how it works. Even a comment with an overview of what it is and how it works would go a long way. I have seen metro-ish product sites done somewhat well (perhaps ironically, one of the best was apple's one for the dustbin, although that still suffered from a lack of specs), but people have to feel like they aren't looking at what might as well be a placeholder if it wasn't for the javascript and store link.

<comment><AUTHOR> :(

<comment><USER2> No judgement on the product itself; I actually find the concept interesting, but I feel that linking directly to the itunes page itself would be more effective.

<comment><USER3> (To be fair, you did start your comment pretty harshly: I doubt this is the _worst_ product site you've ever seen.)

<comment><USER2> I can't think of a specific one that comes to mind, but I guess anything fresh in memory will be more likely to tend towards an absolute. As it is, I've revised my comment a few times to be more fair, and have now changed that line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So this is an app that lets me put my phone on a green table? Site is absolutely useless.

Sure the product is great but I have no idea what it does.

</comment><comment><USER5> From the name I thought this was Cloak the VPN tool.

[https://www.getcloak.com/](https://www.getcloak.com/)

I'm surprise the app store allows two apps to be named so similarly.

<comment><USER6> +1, I also immediately thought of Cloak VPN, especially with the description as "Incognito Mode".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The submission title immediately reminded me of the gevulot from Hannu Rajaniemi's "The Quantum Thief."

</comment><comment><USER8> How does it know who you'd want to avoid? How do you get their info and location?

<comment><AUTHOR> It scrapes Instagram and foursquare, giving you a map view of all the people. Then you can set special alerts.

<comment><USER9> Seriously, please put at least these two sentences on your website.

<comment><USER10> And seriously, make it so I can see more than just your enormous tagline on mobile. I have a 1080p screen; that oughta be plenty. But literally everything I know about this app was learned from reading derisive comments in this thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I understand the draw towards this, I can't help but think that it is emblematic of our growing inability to deal with interpersonal conflict in a constructive way.

Are there _that_ many people in your life that you MUST avoid in order to keep yourself sane? I would wager this says a lot about you.

Everyone has that crazy ex that they would stay away from. I do. But it's really not that hard to avoid her. See her coming? Turn around and walk away. She calls you over? Say no, straight up.

Or maybe the authors posted this as a sort of social commentary.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not to be confused with Cloak VPN [https://www.getcloak.com/](https://www.getcloak.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks cool. I can't help but think this will definitely shed some light on the risks of sharing so much personal information online, knowing all this is scraped from social media accounts - a user would surely think twice before tweeting their location in the future.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's always great to see a new app launch and I always want to be supportive!

But: I'm the founder of GetCloak.com, the company that makes Cloak. We've been around for several years and obviously are going to have to defend our name. No fun.

I've sent you an email about this. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER15> Couldn't this help you connect with those people just as easily as hiding from them? Either way, cool idea.

Since Foursquare isn't so big here, additional networks would be useful to have as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1) I doubt most people know what "Incognito Mode" is.

2) Why does the background & image move around with the mouse? It doesn't have anything to do with the app.

<comment><USER16> _" 2) Why does the background & image move around with the mouse? It doesn't have anything to do with the app."_

That's what got me. To me it implies that when someone is within proximity of the phone, it will vibrate/notify the user; other than that, I have no idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Pointless app unless your circle of friends is absolutely glued to their phones. Only utilizes foursquare and instagram too.

Great UI though, I really like it.

</comment><comment><USER18> So cool!

What has been the feedback so far? And what have you planned for a next iteration (if any)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just launched!</comment></comment>


US Exports: "The Cloud"? - <AUTHOR> http://journal.dedasys.com/2010/04/09/us-exports-the-cloud <comment><USER2> Data sovereignty is a huge deal in Europe. There is no way a US hosting provider can gain a meaningful market share without using local facilities. See Amazon's ec2-eu-west.

That means losing the advantage of a weak dollar, since you'll be paying a lot of bills in the local currency.

<comment><USER3> > Data sovereignty is a huge deal in Europe. There is no way a US hosting > provider can gain a meaningful market share without using local facilities.

That's not obviously true. The US' Safe Harbor scheme is acceptable in the EU for some things.

Google "safe harbor eu data" for general information and "appengine safe harbor eu data" for a specific case.

<comment><USER2> It doesn't matter what's acceptable from a legal standpoint. The overwhelming _perception_ in Europe is that hosting data in the US is a risk. That perception might not be entirely grounded in reality, but it has a very real impact on the market.

<comment><USER3> > It doesn't matter what's acceptable from a legal standpoint.

I agree.

> The overwhelming perception in Europe is that hosting data in the US is a > risk.

Which stakeholders have that perception? (Serious question.) Specifically, what kind of customers care? What kind of investors care?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If "the cloud" becomes an important export, people in Notamericastan beware: Screw with us, and find out your data is subject to American law, subpoenas, and courts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everyplace has laws, subpoenas and courts. The US legal system has certain well-known defects, but so do many other countries' systems.

<comment><USER4> My point is that people might be subject to a rude shock when they realize their data produced by and for their business processes is subject to the laws of a foreign country.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, yes, that's certainly a potential sticking point. It will be interesting to see how legal systems evolve and adapt to how easy it is to "globalize" via the internet.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introduction to HAProxy Stick Tables - <AUTHOR> https://www.haproxy.com/blog/introduction-to-haproxy-stick-tables/ <comment><USER2> _Stick tables are a type of key-value store where the key is what you track across requests, such as a client IP, and the values consist of counters that, for the most part, HAProxy takes care of calculating for you. They are commonly used to store information like how many requests a given IP has made within the past 10 seconds._

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey, author of this blog post here. If you have any questions feel free to ask (or if you want to insult me that is also acceptable).

<comment><USER4> Hi, can you explain the:

> tcp-request inspect-delay 10s

line, under "http_req_rate" section. In the article you wrote: "The second line is what inserts or updates a key in the table and updates its counters.". I think with that you were talking about the third line and that you skipped the second line in the explanation.

<comment><USER3> Your right, I frequently look as inspect-delay as not being a real line given that it doesn't do much itself. I have an explanation of inspect-delay a bit further down: When tcp-request inspect-delay is present, it will hold the request until the rules in that block have the data they need to make a decision or until the specified delay is reached, whichever is first.

Basically if an ACL requires an http request (such as updating the http_req_rate counter) but the action is tcp-request it tells HAProxy to wait until it has a http request before it continues. If using an http-request track-* action its not required as HAProxy won't process http-request until it has an HTTP request to add to the counters.

Since HAProxy won't send a request to a backend in HTTP mode until it has a full request inspect-delay doesn't actually delay the request at all; just the processing phase for a bit (in TCP mode where it doesn't it gets a bit more complicated).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Side note: anyone have their HAProxy die at configuration read time due to warnings about ignored statements in the config?

Just started happening in our containers earlier this week.

<comment><USER6> Hello, feel free to hop on the HAProxy Slack: slack.haproxy.org or optionally on IRC: Freenode/chat.freenode.net #haproxy and we'll be more than happy to take a peek at the errors / configuration in question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stick tables are great. Just make sure you put the statements in the right order. The new simplified syntax might alleviate that but I haven't tried it yet.</comment>


How Python Makes Working with Data More Difficult in the Long Run - <AUTHOR> https://jeffknupp.com/blog/2016/11/13/how-python-makes-working-with-data-more-difficult-in-the-long-run/ <comment><USER2> Writing or modifying either program, the explicit Go one and the automagical Python one, requires reading and understanding exactly the same amount of etcd documentation: both programs are going to perform the same computations with the same parts of the JSON structure.

If etcd changes its file format or API, both programs break in the exact same way. Fixing the Go program requires adjusting boilerplate code that the Python program doesn't have, but it's unlikely to be difficult.

Comments and names in the Go example summarize etcd documentation and API for no good reason, creating significant ambiguity and an unnecessary maintenance burden. The only point of authority is etcd documentation, not client code.

The "uh" programmer in the example is a strawman and an idiot. Remotely professional real people read documentation instead of guessing or making assumptions; no significant skills are required.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Python's dynamic type system means that, in most cases, you don't have to > enumerate the complete set of fields, types, and value constraints that > define the data as it moves through your system. You can just jam it all in > a dict! Heterogeneous values FTW!

Then he goes on to complain about working with the data in this way.

I don't usually the problems he complains about,because I usually put my data in a relational database essentially "enumerating the complex set of fields" before working with it.</comment>


Ask HN: Who are some real fringe scientists? - <AUTHOR>

and their works and who's your favorite? <comment><USER2> if you're looking for loons, look no further than 'captain cyborg' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Warwick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Warwick)</comment>


Contraceptive use responsible for 86 percent of the decline in teen pregnancy - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/04/06/teen_births/ <comment><USER2> I don't believe it! What about abstinence education? Because that's all that's federally funded, and often all that's state funded, too.</comment>


Show HN: I trained my MLP (link in the comments) to detect me in front of the PC - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcWJdgruG74 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/victorqribeiro/mlp](https://github.com/victorqribeiro/mlp)

The code I wrote to create the tools needed to complete this experiment will be soon on git, I just need to sleep for a few hours.</comment>


Firefox axes add-ons, developer pushes back - <AUTHOR> https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/08/20/firefox-axes-add-ons-developer-pushes-back/ <comment><USER2> title is a little clickbait-y. Firefox didn't "axe add-ons" (ie, the add-ons isn't going away):

> Mozilla has wiped 23 extensions from its directory of Firefox browser add- > ons after finding what it says were inappropriate functions in the code.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mozilla's complaint is that a developer's privacy policy is the only place where it is mentioned that an add-on performs extensive data collection. The developer's response implies that there might be legal consequences if they disclosed it elsewhere without using proper language.

What legal issues could the developer worried be about?</comment>


Ask HN: People who made it to Google. What was your experience like? - <AUTHOR>

Probably all people I know who interviewed at Google and got rejected has a horror story to tell. On the other hand, it seems like people who made it there (although I don't know the whole lot) often have the same story "It wasn't hard, they just asked me DFS". It'd be curious to read stories of people who made through a complicated interview and got an offer. <comment><USER2> I interviewed and was hired almost 5 years ago. My experience was largely positive, though the process took a long time.

I had 5 interviewers. I made it clear to each up front that I had never worked in one of the canonical languages (Java, Python, C++, Go) and that my background was mostly C#. All of my interviewers seemed to take that point, so the questions I was asked were mostly pseudo-code. The one language-specific thing was about Java iterators, so I had to ask about the Iterable/Iterator contract before I could start. My pseudo code was pretty C#ish and that's pretty close to Java, so I was able to intelligently discuss differences or explain my intent.

The crazy thing about my interview (and the interviews of most people that I talked to) was that I thought that I crashed really hard. One guy let me fumble around for almost the entire time trying to answer his questions (it dealt with statistics and big data). Of the five, I feel like I knocked it out of the park with two of them, flubbed it with two of them, and the fifth was meh.

Later, I talked to the recruiter about it. I was feeling a lot of impostor syndrome (very common) and trying to understand why I was hired and make sure that it wasn't an accident. In the end, recruiters are looking for very high or very low scores from your interviewer, and interviewers give a lot of points for trying. Even the ones that I thought I failed on gave me medium scores because I did a good job of connecting with them on a personal level, and I talked through my work as I did it. So I ended up with 3 moderate scores and two high ones, which was enough.

As for passing but not getting hired, that's a little different. You don't really pass the interview. You do a phone screen and then the recruiter decides whether to proceed. After that you come in for interviews, and once you're scored again the recruiter decides whether to proceed. Then you go to hiring committee, where they decide hire or no hire. The recruiters have a pretty good idea of what hiring committee will say, and they tend to send borderline people. After hiring committee you go to offer committee and then you get the offer letter. After you accept the offer, if you're a general purpose SWE, then you talk to teams to determine placement. The whole process took about 3 months for me.

For my prep, I actually went on other interviews and read books (particularly on solving by induction - these things show up often on interviews).

Everybody has a different experience, but when I read posts by people who claim they were passed over because they couldn't solve a specific problem, I suspect the problem was really poor culture fit, resulting in low scores across all of the interviewers.

<comment><AUTHOR> How the team placement looked like? You weren't actually assigned to a team and were given a choice?

<comment><USER2> It was pretty awkward. I was given three teams to pick from and was told that if none of them were really a fit I could reject them all, but it was kind of frowned on. I had already given notice at my job (where my boss literally said "you'll never work in this town again"), so I felt a little forced. But that was probably my own biases. When I mentioned to my recruiter that the second option was literally a shill for the first, she seemed very happy to go find me another team. But I ended up selecting the third team.

Each of the teams dealt with problems that my background could help with (two in finance where I worked for 8 years and the third was C# which was my stack of choice), so they weren't random placements. Also, they're really big on mobility, but they strongly prefer that you stay in a role for 18 months before you transfer. If it's "transfer or I'm leaving the company," they'll usually let you (barring special circumstances), but it's a bit of a pain.

I suspect there's a tendency to push new hires towards less glamorous positions, but I've seen newcomers in all departments. I suspect that more glamorous positions are usually filled quicker and with a more valuable asset via internal transfers.

<comment><USER3> > where my boss literally said "you'll never work in this town again"

Oh, please tell. How long had you been working there? Was it a small town? That's a very odd thing to say!

<comment><USER2> It was in Silicon Valley. The company was owned by a huge conglomerate on the east coast, but was mostly left alone and entirely managed from Silicon Valley.

I had worked there for almost 2 years. I was originally hired at about 2/3 of my previous pay (it was a rough time to look for work), and they suspected I was looking around (it's stupid not to at least look once in a while). They tried to retain me by making me a lead over 2 other engineers (don't care) but not by modifying pay, though I made it clear that that would help.

When it was clear I was still looking around, boss called me in to try to get me to sign a "pledge" to stay at the company for 2 years. I refused.

A couple weeks later I got my offer and gave two weeks notice. There were a few meetings with management where they claimed they were going to make a counter offer, but they never actually offered me anything.

That meeting was the last one. Immediately afterward the lead counsel called me in for a meeting and apologized. He said that the other meeting was supposed to be a substantial cash offer (significantly more than Google was offering), but I declined pointing out that I wasn't ever going to be able to work in this town again; certainly not for him at least and the lead counsel said he didn't blame me.

I tried to help with transitions and stuff, but I was told that I'd be paid for my 2 weeks, but to not bother coming in. I hear it didn't go very well after I left.

<comment><USER4> > boss called me in to try to get me to sign a "pledge" to stay at the company > for 2 years.

Wow, in return for what? It's so ridiculous someone would do something like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll be starting work at Google a week from Monday as an SWE. It was my second time interviewing(first time was 2 years ago as an SRE). This time I had actually put in effort into preparing for the interview, CS Fundamentals, Systems Design and all...

Every interviewer brings his own personality. Most people(probably all) will stay to-the-point. Actually the more to-the-point they are, the more time I get to solve the problem, so that's kinda by design. Emphasis on behavioral stuff is near zero. But a couple of people asked me questions related to stuff on my resume. E.g. one interviewer asked me a VHDL/Verilog related question(I think of it as a sanity check question, to make sure I'm not BSing on my resume), the other had already asked me two questions, so he used it as a topic of chit chat. Some interviewers are poker face to the point that you feel the pressure, one interviewer wasn't big on hints(at one point I could hear the wall clock ticking so loud, I wanted to throw it on to the floor and smash it), one interviewer liked to make encouraging comments and was somewhat chatty. The others were like just any dudes you might run into at a party, very casual.

The CS/Coding Questions covered topics like Dynamic Programming, trees, arrays, bit manipulation. The questions were not easy. I think I did ok in 3 of them(one/two might be even slightly below par). The Dynamic programming question I solved in 15 minutes, then I got asked a second question(which was easier in my opinion) I finished that too and I still had 10 minutes left. I imagine I impressed that interviewer. That might be the reason I got through.

The system design question was a very interesting one, I loved it. But it wasn't your typical large scale system design question like designing a service and so on. It was about designing a file system. I enjoyed it so I thought I did well there. Since I seemed to have talked all I wanted to about that question, I got asked a second systems question(in the same interview), an open ended question about internet system. I did ok in that one.

I didn't ace most of the interviews(Dynamic Programming interview being the exception). I thought it could go either way, since Google has a reputation for being very picky.

I had put some time into preparation this time. Friend of mine is coaching for interviews, so he provided me very well defined structure to focus my efforts, including videotaped mock interviews and feedback on it( interviewkickstart.com for anyone interested. Highly recommend!). Through the mock interviews I realized that I was talking too much, both in behavioral questions and during problem solving. Not only could that test the interviewer's patience, it also meant I had less time to solve problems. So I had to strategize about that. I think that helped me go that last mile.

Lunch interview was very casual. The guy was very friendly and liked to chat. I asked him whatever I thought I should about Google and the people there. Got some insight into Google that way, even though I know friends who work there already so I could have asked them anything.

<comment><USER6> Can you talk more about your preparation and the resources you referred? How did you prepare for system design and what level of detail was required? Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You know there are people who pass the interviews but still don't get an offer, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> How do they know they passed? They solved everything, but got no offer? I haven't heard of such stories. Share if you know any.

<comment><USER8> This happened to me, I was going for the Customer Solutions Engineer role.

After the phone interview, they flew me to Mountain View. All day of one to one interviews; some face to face, some over Google Hangouts, did a coding- problem using Google Docs.

Got a phone call from the recruiter a week later saying I had passed all the interview however they had to go with a person who had a bit more experience in the particular customer industry they wanted to place the role. Judging by the questions and angle they were asking, I think it was Television (I come from the movie industry).

They still phone me from time to time again, asking if I'm interested in other roles (had an interview in London last year with their Android Team), so I guess time will tell if they find a position for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I wonder if they will make you go over the interviews again if they find a position ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> quiz != interview

<comment><USER10> That was my experience. I was quizzed about Java, no questions about my background. Maybe life is better when you aren't living on the farm.</comment></comment>


Claims that tomato juice is good for the heart not backed by evidence - open-source-ux https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/claims-tomato-juice-good-heart-not-backed-evidence/ <comment><AUTHOR> I still wonder why anyone is still spending money on studies without a control group, it makes the whole study useless. And it wouldn't be that expensive since you wouldn't even need to give them tomato juice, just measure their cholersterol and blood pressure levels.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, but both kinds of studies are useless. Your proposition is observational and needs a big sample. (Not that any nutritional study does not need one, just an order of magnitude bigger.)

Tomato juice is liable to get lost in the noise of various diets and genetics unless you truly control the whole of the diet, which is reasonably easy to do with free, well done boxed meals. Then you just need a sample size of few thousands instead of few hundred thousand.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I totaly agree, I just wonder why - even if it's observational study - they decided not to have a control group at all. They might as well choose not to have any study at all, the result would be the same.</comment></comment></comment>


Hit testing for arbitrary paths on the iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.dragozov.com/2009/10/hit-testing-for-arbitrary-paths-on.html

<comment><USER2> This approach seems really dumb to me.

1) Testing rectangles against paths is an easy thing to solve on the CPU.

2) On the first iPhone models if you're doing anything graphics related the bottleneck is likely to be the GPU, so why give it more work?

3) Having the GPU rasterize into a user surface (which by definition must be available immediately) is going to cause an ugly stall as you wait for the drawing pipeline to be flushed. (no lock semantics in core graphics).

4) Having the CPU block on results from the GPU mid-frame is one of the worst things you can do in architectures that feature graphics acceleration.</comment>


With Open Graph, Facebook Sets Out To Make The Entire Web Its Tributary System - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/29/with-open-graph-facebook-sets-out-to-make-the-entire-web-its-tributary-system/ <comment><USER2> Facebook is really taking over everything. Social media is going to be a HUGE part of the future. It seems already facebook and tweet and part of the majority's vocabulary. Now its crossed generations. My grandma now has a facebook. What is the world coming to? My University <http://www.drury.edu/> recently adopted a social media major. You can major in facebook here! crazy. As social media continues to expand like this, its going to become more and more a part of our daily lives.

<comment><USER3> _You can major in facebook here!_

Seriously?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought the explanation they used at the dev garage yesterday was a bit surprising. They said something very specific that, to me, narrows the scope of a super cool project.

</comment><comment><USER5> Vaporware....</comment>


Ask HN: "A good story to repost" - <AUTHOR> I received this today by courtesy of HN's repost experiment:
Hi there,

   <URL> looks good, but didn't
   get much attention. Would you care to repost it? You can do so
   by clicking here: <REPOST URL>.

   Please use the same account (hliyan), title, and URL. When these match,
   the software will give the repost an upvote from the mods, plus we'll
   help make sure it doesn't get flagged.

   This is part of an experiment in giving good HN submissions multiple
   chances at the front page. If you have any questions, let us know.
 I'm wondering: is this determined by a human mod or an algorithm. If it's an algorithm, I'd be very interested in knowing what type of natural language processing is involved in determining whether HN will like a story! <comment><USER2> We use algorithms to do some filtering but when the email says "url looks good", "good" is determined by humans.

I've written about this at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8790134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8790134) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9866140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9866140) if you're interested.

Also, on reposts: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9828818](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9828818)</comment>


wallpapers designed to hide the notch on the iPhone X - j-kent http://notchless.space/ <comment><AUTHOR> This was bound to happen. If I get an iPhone X, I'll use one of these wallpapers. I am waiting for iPhone XI, though.

<comment><USER2> you mean iPhone X Winter creators update? :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.cromulentlabs.com/notcho/](https://www.cromulentlabs.com/notcho/)</comment>


Why Spaceflight Will Never Be as Safe as Modern Aviation - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/why-spaceflight-will-never-be-as-safe-as-modern-aviation

<comment><USER2> The article makes a case that large energies are needed and insinuates that it's necessarily unsafe.

The power per passenger in a jet is about ten fold compared to a car, where it is perhaps ten fold compared to riding a horse which might be ten fold compared to bicycling.

Which do you think is safest, and why?

<comment><USER3>
      Per trip walking, bicycling, horse, car, airplane, space shuttle.
      Per mile space shuttle, airplane, car, horse, bicycling, walking.

The shuttle is a great example of that relative trend. 2 accidents over 537,114,016 miles vs 2 accidents per 134 flights. Though commercial airplanes are fairly safe private planes are little better than cars.

<comment><USER2> I think bicycles are less safe than cars even per trip, because in a bicycle- car collision the bicyclist always fares worse.

The point was to illustrate that it's not some uncontrollable law of nature that more energy / power yields less safety.

<comment><USER3> Your assigning deaths caused by cars to bickes.

Your also assuming all trips are in mixed traffic.

And then without looking up any statistics you assume your correct.

...

I don't know where to begin.

<comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Comparison_to_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Comparison_to_other_modes_of_travel)

In this table, bicycling has 170 deaths per billion journeys while flying has 117 and cars 40.

Different countries have different safety numbers for various reason. For example bicycling tends to be safer the more there is of it.

<comment><USER3> That chart is using 15 year old numbers because recent history is less flattering. Strictly speaking the

International Space Station is the safest way to travel, 17,150 mph, and zero deaths. Further, Deaths per billion journeys:

Car: 40 Foot: 40

But wait, more people are ~8x as many people are killed in cars vs walking in the US. So you only walk somewhere every few days?

Let's sanity check that: 1.24 million deaths occurred on the world's roads. 7 billion people let's say they all average 2 trips a day * 365 days a year. That's ~485 deaths per billion trips.

Ok, so that chart is pure B.S.

<comment><USER2> I think some countries have orders of magnitude worse road safety, as the USA too had in the past.

On the other hand, most of the world's population doesn't drive a car so the number of trips is probably a lot less, making the number higher.

I think you have good points but your somewhat aggressive style is unnecessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Obviously with current rockets, it's necessary for that energy to be expended nearly all at once (8-12 minutes). But is that a law of nature or just a drawback of current technology? In other words, could you travel slowly into space?

<comment><USER5> Sure, if you use a space elevator. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator)

This won't get you out of Earth orbit, though. If you want to go to other planets, you have no choice other than reaching escape velocity.

However, once in orbit, I'm pretty sure you can reach escape velocity as gradually as you want. You'd just gradually increase your orbit's apogee until you stop orbiting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Because space.

Getting to it, and returning from it, is inherently more dangerous than not going that far, across those kinds of boundaries, and returning. I don't think it's an issue of power, but the nature of what that power is being used for.

<comment><USER7> I tend to agree. An analogous article title might be, "Why deep-ocean submersibles will never be as safe as cruise lines."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Never say never. Most accidents happen during launch and re-entry. Once you are in space the potential for accidents is smaller. The accident rate should drop if we built a space elevator. Energy expenditure too.

</comment><comment><USER9> Someone has forgotten a prime lesson from Mary Poppins: never say never.

<comment><USER10> That was my first reaction: the title could be better rephrased "I can't figure out how space flight will be safer than modern aviation". I'll eat my hat if that turns out to be true.

But, we're going to run out of steam with technology at some point. In this modern world it feels like progress is the only constant, but eventually, we're actually going to run up against physical limits and figure out optimal configurations of atoms for particular tasks.

In other words, we're on an S curve, but it looks very exponential from our perspective.

Of course, I'd be shocked if the optimal configuration of atoms for launching humans in to space ever has a fatality, without being caused by some kind of event that also wipes out earth in the process.

<comment><USER11> In other words, in the long run, it's well worth the risk trying to get off of the planet, because the planet is doomed.</comment></comment></comment>


Americans Disapprove of Government Surveillance Programs - <AUTHOR> http://www.gallup.com/poll/163043/americans-disapprove-government-surveillance-programs.aspx This poll is almost the exact opposite of the one Pew Research did, http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-phone-tracking-as-acceptable-anti-terror-tactic/. <comment><USER2> > _There are significant partisan differences in views of the government 's > program to obtain call logs and Internet communication. Democrats are more > likely to approve, by 49% to 40%. Independents (34% vs. 56%) and Republicans > (32% to 63%) are much more likely to disapprove than approve._

It's too bad they didn't bother to separate "technologically clueless" from the "technologically clueful", which would probably speak volumes.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious what HN users would ask as a qualifier to being technologically knowledgeable. What would the ideal question for that be?

<comment><USER4> Can the internet fit in a small box?

<comment><USER5> No, but it will fit in an oil tanker[1]

[1]: [http://what-if.xkcd.com/23/](http://what-if.xkcd.com/23/) (second from the last answer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And yet, this Pew Research poll from two days ago:

> _" Overall, 56 percent of Americans consider the NSA's accessing of > telephone call records of millions of Americans through secret court orders > "acceptable," while 41 percent call the practice "unacceptable.""_ [1]

The Pew question only specifies phone data monitoring, while the Gallup question mentions both phone and internet data. I'm sure the poll-question- phrasing-savvy can provide some more insight on the differences.

How much of the difference can be attributed to people's minds changing in response to further revelations, the quality of the government's response, the opinions of their peers, etc?

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans- suppor...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-support-nsa- tracking-phone-records-prioritize-investigations-over- privacy/2013/06/10/51e721d6-d204-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html)

<comment><USER7> Well we've always known that both the wording and sequence of questions can affect poll results. I don't know by how much exactly but the effect has been seen to be significant enough to mislead pundits on seemingly every side of a given issue until right before an election.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The key takeaway is this: "Twenty-one percent of Americans disapprove of the government's actions, but say there could be circumstances in which it would be right for the government to carry out such a program, yielding a combined total of 58% of all Americans who either approve or could theoretically approve under certain circumstances."

I'd bet there are a lot of people in the administration who dislike the idea of surveillance in general, but approve of surveillance in this particular case because of the specifics of the situation. Not saying the belief is justified, but rather that this is always how such beliefs are justified. See the movie The Siege.

<comment><USER9> And if you look at poll data from similar scandals in 2006, a very healthy (about half) of people who objected now, when a Democrat is in charge, thought it was awesome then, and vice versa.

If you were an intelligence professional, how could you not look at this and shrug? Is there really a message from the public when about half the people who seem to care apparently care only for the political hay they can make of it, and about half the rest just don't know enough to know whether they approve or not?

To me, that's a real negative of the secrecy -- it sets up low-information scenarios where the public can't have a real opinion, and so is easily discounted by insiders, leading to yet more secrecy and potential abuses.

<comment><USER10> Well, nothing demonstrates that they're the same people. Strictly, there could be a chunk of the populace that shifts their allegiance to whoever is more spy-happy.

... don't think that's actually the case, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Over the past few years every company listed in the Prism scandal has done everything possible to ink information out of us, including the information we were giving them by using their service. It seems to me like over the past decade or so more of these companies applications have been developed around the information gathering protocol. Back in 09 when I left facebook it was because at the time I was getting friended by people that were just random from my neighborhood and it sorta hit me that I bet facebook could pin point my childhood address by looking at my friends and other data. Its all creepy. But its all worth a ton of money to the government. In my opinion, facebook or google wouldn't have the value it has today without the information sharing. I thought that was a given before this scandal broke out.

My point is that I am afraid that the big tech companies were acting as robots for the government and relying on developing technology around the surveillance program, rather than innovation.

</comment><comment><USER3> A more important question is "How passionately do you disapprove?"

For example, even though most Americans believe in tougher gun restrictions, it's not a high priority in how they vote. That meant politicians weren't going to spend any of their political capital fighting for that issue.

I suspect privacy isn't a major voting issue with many Americans, so this number is probably even weaker in terms of swaying politicians. It's politically easier for a politician to be strong on security with spying than to stand up for privacy and later have it revealed that information about an attack could have been known through these spying methods.

Edit: topic clarification and paragraph structure.

</comment><comment><USER12> to speculate a bit, the 49% of democrats who approve must be viewing this whole kerfuffle through the partisan lens that it's an attack on the administration, rather than as an attack on the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 apparatus that, at least in part, predate the current administration.

<comment><USER13> I think the converse is true, and the partisan effect is increasing disapproval because of conservatives who want to believe that the Obama government is inept and overreaching.

Either way, not a great discussion to have on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Obligatory: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA)

</comment><comment><USER15> 37% approve, which seems pretty high. I wonder what the response would have been if it the question wasn't phrased as "the government obtained records", but as "the government obtained _your_ records".

<comment><USER16> This is why a majority of polls are absolutely useless, you can get the answers you want by asking the questions in certain ways.

Also, what people say they'd do and what they actually do are two completely different things. You could ask people if they are sick of hearing about a tabloid scandal thats been running in the press for a few weeks and they'll say they are, yet any publication that runs the story has their circulation numbers go up.

As the saying goes: "Lies, damned lies, and statistics".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The problem with these polls is the phrasing. For example:

 _Are you comfortable with the NSA listening in on private phone calls and reading private emails in order to prevent terrorism?_

vs

 _Are you comfortable with the NSA listening in on your private phone calls and reading your private emails in order to prevent terrorism?_

People have a strong bias towards thinking that it wouldn't happen to them, but, as we all know, it has to happen to someone.

<comment><USER3> _" listening in on your private phone calls"_

I thought the programs that were in the news had nothing to do with _listening_ in on phone calls. This poll also has nothing to do with the question of _listening_ to phone calls.

Listening on a call and collecting metadata are two extremely different things. I'm personally opposed to both but they are miles apart from each other and shouldn't be confused.

<comment><USER17> You're right, that part is incorrectly phrased, but it's also not really the point. Change "listening in on" to "collecting metadata about" if you like. It's still the same problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What does it matter if "most Americans" disapprove, from any standpoint? It doesn't mean they won't vote in the same bastards that did this to us in the first place. And, philosophically, "A lynch mob is majority rule stripped of its fancy trappings and its facade of respectability." If 90% of Americans said they're ok with the programs, would that make it alright to violate the rights of the other 10%?

</comment><comment><USER19> To me it's significant that 37% of Americans support a program that's undoubtedly unconstitutional. I wonder how much the poll participants actually knew about PRISM. Either they support it out of ignorance or for political reasons -- or there's widespread, fundamental misunderstanding of the federal Constitution.

<comment><USER20> I'd take this further and do a poll of people to find out how many people agree with individual provisions of the Constitution. Like literally show people one clause/section at a time, have them read it and ask them what parts they agree and disagree with.

<comment><USER21> Some experiments have been performed, and the results are not pretty:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/when-congress- voted...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/when-congress-voted-down- _n_3332586.html)

 _The House killed Watt 's amendment [the literal text of the Fourth Amendment] by nearly a 3-1 margin._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very surprised that Democrats would be in favor... perhaps because it's a Democrat president in office that's presiding over these programs? I can't think of any other rational reason.

<comment><USER23> It's possible, but it's probably more indirect. E.g. the Democratic leadership is playing damage control, and the media that panders to Democrats plays along, so the Democratic public see the played-down version in the media they watch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The title of this article is wrong. That is why you should be scared.

37% Approve. 57% Disapprove. 10% Don't care.

That means only 20% more disapprove than approve. 10% of people are blissfully ignorant. 37% are deliberately ignorant. 57% are actually thinking.

You call those good numbers? I call that: fucked.

We are only 7% stronger than the blissfully and deliberately ignorant.

<comment><USER25> Why do you assume people who disagree with you are "deliberately ignorant"? Maybe they feel that way because they know know more than you.

<comment><USER24> No.

They feel that way because they believe in the ability of a government to protect them, without making any mistakes.

I would give them credit for thinking this way, the idea that they could be protected, or that it's good.

What makes them stupid is thinking such a system is so infallible that it wont end up putting them behind bars one day because of a clerical error.

<comment><USER25> And you know this... how?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Public opinion is a double edged sword. Be careful when you grasp onto it. One terrorist attack and it swings back the other way in a hurry. If you truly believe that these programs violate the fourth amendment, then it doesn't matter what the majority thinks, your individual rights are protected from the majority by the constitution.

</comment><comment><USER27> I guess what I find somewhat disappointing is that "most Americans" in this context means 53%.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree I would have thought well over 70% would have found this horrific. Yet we have been "wussified" so much that many people feel anything that "keeps them safe" is worth it. So the terror propaganda has worked.....

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> And we have all their names.

</comment><comment><USER29> According to Gallup, Mitt Romney is also the current president.

</comment><comment><USER30> So basically, whatever party is in power tends to get a pass for its bad behavior... SSND...

</comment><comment><USER31> i'm surprised at the democrat vs. republican split on this. i would have guessed the opposite result.

<comment><USER32> This is enough to make me suspicious of the poll numbers. This has a very partisan slant. The Democrats are, to a small extent, rallying around a Democratic president, while Republican respondents are doing the opposite. The numbers would likely be flipped around, had this NSA scandal been exposed during the previous (Republican) president's administration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It took a poll to figure this out?</comment>


Show HN: The Marker Game, a turn-based combat game on a hexagonal grid - <AUTHOR> https://trykon.itch.io/the-marker-game <comment><USER2> You can try to improve some details of the UI.

For example, when I want to change the character I tries clicking on the name (on the left) instead of pressing "tab". To attack, I tried clicking in the member of the opposing team instead of using the other mouse button.

Also, dead characters must not have 0 movement and 0 attract steps.

I think you can change the statistics of the characters, some character have more/less HP and some more/less attack. It's made more interesting to choose which character to attack.

It would be nice to be able to see the statistics of the opposing team, and be able to identify each one. In particular to see which one is wounded.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Creator here -- this is the third game I've made for One Game a Week 2019. This is the battle system from a game my brother and I originally devised almost twenty years ago, except in those days we played it on a piece of paper with colored markers.

Read more about The Marker Game here: [https://www.trykonstudios.com/post/the- marker-game-recap](https://www.trykonstudios.com/post/the-marker-game-recap)</comment>


Correcting for the effect of misinformation on memory is almost impossible. - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/07/11/3265013.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the actual paper: <http://www.springerlink.com/content/dlp3455520r4lqk2/></comment>


Hands On: New Cool-er E-Book Reader Turns Up the Heat - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/05/cool-er-e-book-reader-turns-up-the-heat/

<comment><USER2> Looks like a neat little device but it's overpriced when compared with the Kindle.

I want a Kindle but I also want some better competition to Amazon's offering. Any serious competitor is going to have to figure out a way to disrupt the ENORMOUS content distribution advantage that Amazon has, short of something illegal.

And a 1GB storage slot? Give me a break.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why you are opposed to the 1GB of storage, a book is fairly small.

My to-read folder on this computer has 248 pdfs in it most of which are academic papers a few (maybe 10 or so) are books. Even a 500 page imagescan of a book is 63 megs.

I found a bibliography of cryptography on a university page (I think it was MIT or Berkley) a while back which was 700mb over about 2 728 pdfs large.

I wouldn't be so worried about 1GB, the amount of dead trees you can fit on there will keep you busy for months. Unless I guess you want to have massive amounts of audio books but then I'd wonder why you wouldn't just get an iPod instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They want to launch an AppStore for an e-book reader? I am not sure this is a good idea. The refresh rate is a killer for most visual applications and the battery life kills the others.

I wonder what kind of apps they're hoping for?

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting until I got to the price: $250, with no built-in storage or wireless. No thanks; I'll the extra $109 and get a Kindle.

<comment><USER6> This mightn't be interesting to US readers, but here in Europe, where there is no Kindle, it actually sounds quite a lot more compelling.

The most widely available reader on sale here is Sony's at around 250GBP, so something costing 80GBP less for similar functionality sounds quite enticing.</comment></comment>


Headphones can be hijacked to surreptitiously record audio - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/11/great-now-even-headphones-can-spy/ <comment><USER2> Here's a neat party trick for you.

I had a MacGyver moment in the past where I made a phone call with only are pair of old earbuds and a phone cord (no switches, no dial pad).

A speaker is basically the same thing as a microphone in reverse. Normally it takes an electrical signal to move a physical element that creates the sound waves. But you can also move the element and it will generate an electrical signal.

To dial you can use the old rotary trick. The old phones dialed by pulses of quickly disconnecting and reconnecting. You can do that by hand if you want but it might require a little bit of practice and dexterity. Basically if you want to dial a 5, just disconnect the wire from the headphone to the phone cord and then reconnect it 5 times in a row.

You have to both listen and speak through the ear bud. Not the best quality or easiest to do but it works.

<comment><USER3> How do you dial a zero?

Edit: Just realized why a zero is in the '10' position on a rotary phone. Huh.

<comment><USER4> Yes, except in the Swedish phones, where the numbering starts from 0. So dialing 0 would make 1 pulse, dialing 1 would make 2 pulses, and dialing 9 would make 10 pulses.

<comment><USER5> And New Zealand, where it was like Sweden, but backwards. 0 made 10 pulses, 1 made 9 pulses, and dialing 9 would make 1 pulse.

This is why the emergency number in NZ is 111, we had equipment from the UK, where the number was 999.

As to why it was backwards, I have no idea.

<comment><USER6> 112 still works as an emergency number in the U.K. to this day.

<comment><USER4> That's more like "ever since digital mobile phones came around". The number 112 is in GSM standard.

Technically, the network gives it a priority, and you can make a 112 call even without a SIM card, or even if your operator does not have coverage. The call goes through any operator that has coverage. (You can actually see this in the phone display when making a 112 call; it handles it quite differently. I have done it a few times; unfortunately, most of those times, someone has died...)

If the network is so busy that all traffic channels in GSM are occupied, and you make a 112 call, one of the existing calls is dropped and you get the emergency call.

This had some interesting side effects in China. There, prior to introduction of GSM, the number 112 was allocated to phone company technical complaints. Police was 110 and fire alarm was 119 and so on.

So, if you were making a GSM phone call to a friend, and the network was full - not that infrequent in China - you wouldn't get through. But you could call the technical complaint line at 112, and this was a priority service which dropped one of the existing calls. Once the technical complaint service was ringing, you could drop that call (to the network, an emergency call) and you'd have one free GSM time slot in your cell. And you could call your friend.

Until the next guy did the same, and your ongoing call would get mysteriously dropped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The bit you want to know:

> Their malware uses a little-known feature of RealTek audio codec chips to > silently "retask" the computer's output channel as an input channel

<comment><USER8> Reads like a back door to me.

<comment><USER9> This feature allows you to plug any audio device (input or output) into any audio jack on the computer and it will JustWorkTM.

Even if the jacks are color coded or annotated, these day they are actually universal.

So it's more of an accidental backdoor.

<comment><USER10> It's the very, very old contradiction between convenience/features on one hand, and security on the other.

The more convenient something is, and the more features it has, the easier it is to hijack it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting research, but with people already plugging those headphones into a portable surveillance set, and plus them using headsets (which are already microphones as well), this seems a bit chasing the wrong target?

(Assuming that the connected computer is compromised also already implies that the attacker has a microphone at their disposal, with most modern devices like smartphones, tablets and mobile computers)

<comment><USER12> For starters, the fact that RealTek is so easily reprogrammable to turn audio output into input is very unlikely just a "bug". It's a feature left their on purpose.

<comment><USER13> It's a selling point. You plug anything at the back then change the jack's purpose in the control panel gui for the audio card.

<comment><USER12> Possibly, but why isn't the feature exposed to end users then?

<comment><USER14> It is. I've seen it on multiple computers.

<comment><USER15> Yep. I remember that feature from the Windows NT days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> paper: [http://cyber.bgu.ac.il/advanced- cyber/system/files/SPEAKE%28...](http://cyber.bgu.ac.il/advanced- cyber/system/files/SPEAKE%28a%29R.pdf)

video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez3o8aIZCDM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez3o8aIZCDM)

"It's no surprise that earbuds can function as microphones in a pinch [...] But the researchers took that hack a step further. Their malware [...] silently "retask" the computer's output channel as an input channel, allowing the malware to record audio even when the headphones remain connected into an input-only jack and don't even have a microphone channel on their plug."

<comment><USER16> The link to the paper is dead. Is there a mirror? I am very curious to see it

<comment><USER17> Replace the %28 and %29 in the URL with parentheses ( ) and the paper loads correctly. The title is spelt like this:

SPEAKE(a)R: Turn Speakers to Microphones for Fun and Profit

<comment><USER18> The error changes from not found to access denied..

Do you have a link to the paper?

<comment><USER19> Use f.e google cache to read it: cache:[http://cyber.bgu.ac.il/advanced- cyber/system/files/SPEAKE%28...](http://cyber.bgu.ac.il/advanced- cyber/system/files/SPEAKE%28a%29R.pdf)

<comment><USER17> HN missed the leading `cache:' and failed to make your link clickable. This ought to work:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fcyber.bgu.ac.il%2Fadvanced- cyber%2Fsystem%2Ffiles%2FSPEAKE%2528a%2529R.pdf)

(I'm getting `access denied' on the original now too, but the Google cache link works.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would be cool if Purism or similar companies had a nice big hardware switch that controlled access to any recording equipment.

<comment><USER21> A camera/mic switch should be required by law on every laptop and phone.

Please don tell me a 5c switch is too expensive for a $300 phone.

<comment><USER22> It's not the cost of the switch. It's the cost of assembly (wiring). And the switch must fit the form factor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One thing that's not clear from the article - are external headphones _required_ for this to work? Can this not be done with the built-in speakers?

<comment><USER24> It seems like something that would work for built-in speakers too. They're driven by the same audio codec chips (eg realtek), but wired directly instead of through an external socket.

<comment><USER25> I think the opposite. Speakers are driven by an amplifier that will not let the audio in reverse, even if the soundcard output was switched to act as an input.

<comment><USER26> But might there be sufficient coupling between the amplifier's output and its input, such that driving the output pins via speaking into the speaker can produce a voltage on what is usually the input line to the amplifier?

I suspect it _may_ be possible, depending on what the firmware allows - amplifier circuitry often utilizes feedback in some form or another, which is essentially coupling the output to the input. And even if the amplifier is powered off, there's bound to be capacitive coupling between the input/output lines, but that's probably too small to be useful.

<comment><USER27> This could totally work in this kind of circuit for example:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_amplifier_applicat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_amplifier_applications#Inverting_amplifier)

While I have seen a soundcard using two such inverting stages in series for headphone output, in laptops dedicated chips are more common which probably don't have such strong coupling. But better safe than sorry if the NSA is after you :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-r Analog headphone amplifiers are quite easy to come by and can fix the problem for the ultimate paranoids.

<comment><USER12> Or USB amps for that matter.

<comment><USER10> If the USB amp uses the same RealTek chip, then good luck with trusting it.

<comment><USER28> If it is constructed just that there is an amplifier after what is supposed to be the output channel, you would probably be fine even if it was the the RealTek chip. There isn't going to be much coupling between a signal input to the output of the amplifier going back to the input as an output.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Great. Now Even Your Headphones Can Spy on You" Ironic coming from Wired, one of the most ad/tracker infested sites you could visit.

<comment><USER30> And a big difference is that you _know_ ad trackers on Wired spy on you, while headphones... eh, unlikely in practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Finally we know why Apple ditched the minijack on the iPhone 7...

<comment><USER32> I'd say USB only makes things worse in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> What we need here is a non-profit to vett devices and appliances against uninvited listening.

<comment><USER34> > What we need here is a non-profit to vett devices and appliances against > uninvited listening.

The Free Software Foundation already does this:

[https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects- your-f...](https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Incidentally, if Wired's ad-blocking "veil" gets in the way, right click, select "Inspect Element", find the "veil" item, right click, and select "Delete Node". No more veil.

</comment><comment><USER36> makes me wonder if the same thing goes for screens, because the reverse photoelectric effect in LEDs can be reversed.

<comment><USER37> You would still need a lens to form an image on the screen.

<comment><USER38> It might be possible to use multiple screens to form a sort-of synthetic lens. Also, there is such a thing as a single-pixel camera ([http://dsp.rice.edu/cscamera](http://dsp.rice.edu/cscamera)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This technique was just as valid 8 years ago as it is today. The only difference today is that the realtek chipsets with port reassignment are more prevalent.

</comment><comment><USER40> Do Apple machines really use Realtek audio chips? Is reassigning port direction possible even when there's just one physical plug?

<comment><USER41> There's not much in the way of direction when it comes to analog audio signals. For output, you're driving the coil with some current. For input, you're reading current from the coil. This particular chip supports both on the same wires, you just have to tell it which one you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I wish there was an easy way to do the opposite in control panel. Having two audio outputs on a laptop comes in handy.

</comment><comment><USER43> The article as a whole is quite sensationalist.

Once people have access to your underlying device - what exactly do you think is going to happen?

"Oh but if you disconnected your microphone then think again". How many bloody people do that? A few dozen in the world?

What a piece of shit.

Now the technical underpinning that jacks can be reassigned isn't new for Realtek, lots of PC motherboards have given the option for years and years.

This is all not really news.

</comment><comment><USER44> Serious question: I understand the argument against the classic "why should I care if someone records my conversations? I don't do anything illegal.", being that once the government starts recording everything you say the freedom of being able to say anything negative against them goes away knowing they could be listening. That said, why should I, a boring law abiding citizen, go around disabling my hardware and covering webcams etc...? If someone were to ask my what I was doing, just the fact that it's possible to hijack desktop mics is that enough for me to start putting faraday cages around myself? Serious question. Thanks :)

<comment><USER45> It's not just the government you need to worry about, it's independent malicious actors as well. Video or audio recordings from your devices could be used to blackmail you unless you're very, very careful what you do or say at all times such devices are around.

With regards to the government, while you may not be doing anything illegal now, it will be illegal when they outlaw it.

<comment><USER46> In the US, ex post facto laws cannot be made.

<comment><USER47> > In the US, ex post facto laws cannot be made.

That fact has been so inconvenient for the government that the entire system has been redesigned to thwart it. Can't prove Al Capone is a mobster? Prosecute for tax evasion.

Keep passing broad overlapping laws and they can charge anyone with something. Then they don't have to change the law, only who they decide to prosecute.

<comment><USER46> Are you saying Capone didn't evade taxes?

<comment><USER47> I'm saying nobody would have been looking at him for tax evasion if he wasn't a mobster, even if he was doing it.

And after Capone the mobsters started paying their taxes, so now they charge them with money laundering, which is essentially a law against paying your taxes on unexplained income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> We changed the baity title to representative language from the article. If anyone suggests a better (more accurate and neutral) title, we can change it again.

</comment><comment><USER49> Are there more details of the 'hack' somewhere? Does this mean that one could take advantage of an extra input channel, or possibly two? What would be sacrificed if anything, latency?</comment>


One year old thinks magazine is a broken iPad - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20120086-71/1-year-old-thinks-a-magazine-is-a-broken-ipad/ <comment><USER2> To say she thinks the magazine is a broken iPad is quite a leap. There is nothing to indicate that she thinks it is an iPad. And there is nothing to indicate that she thinks it is "broken".

She is simply trying familiar gestures on a similar looking media.

Give her magazines for the next couple of days and you may find she tries to turn the iPad over looking for other pages. It's not because she thinks the iPad is a broken magazine. It's simple familiarity. First we try what we know. Failing that, we begin to experiment.

<comment><USER3> When I was her age, I knew that grilled cheese sandwiches worked in VHS players.

<comment><USER4> When I was a little older I learned that remotes belong in microwaves.

My parents learned that VCR remotes where expensive in the early 90s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Notice that the kid is interacting with the magazine outside but the iPad inside.

Ergo, the iPad is a magazine that is broken when you try to use it outside in the sunlight.

(This is mostly a joke, but if we want to go assigning meaning willy-nilly to these videoclips, this one fits too).

</comment><comment><USER6> A week or so after first encountering a Kinect, with its combination of gesture and voice recognition, my little boy was using a restaurant toilet with a touch-free flush, and after realising that it had flushed itself in response to his standing up, he turned round and said "toilet: flush!" to see if it also had voice control.

My son - admittedly the child of geeks, so maybe a little ahead of the curve - is growing up in a world where screens have always responded to touch; where devices can usually react to being tilted or moved; where you can control things through speaking, or gesturing.

</comment><comment><USER7> My kid tries to pinch zoom everything. Laptops, books, television remotes.

<comment><USER8> Hey, my gf (25yo, ph.d in medecine), sometime try to zoom by pinching my macbook screen.. it takes 1-2 secs for her to realize "oh right, this is not the ipad". We always laugh of these moments :D

To be honest, I'm surprised there's not more touchscreen a little bit everywhere. I.e. On the coffeemachine, microwave, etc. It makes it so damn easier as you're not forced to use 1 interface to cover all use cases.. you can simply use a hierarchical smart interface.

<comment><USER9> My microwave is already "touch". Why would it need a screen?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Also, possibly a 1-year old kid who likes to poke and grab things.

<comment><USER11> Except grab things without grabbing them. The kid was doing the pinch gesture without pinching the paper. It doesn't look like grabbing to me, so much as gesturing. The paper would have crinkled if it had been grabbing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Whenever I show a friend a Kindle, their first instinct is to try to turn the page or click a menu option. I think for adults we just assume all electronics are touch screens now.

<comment><USER13> Totally true. And the Kindle Touch will just make it worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The child seems to understand turning pages, strangely enough.

</comment><comment><USER15> The other day I was reading a printed version of the NY Times and I caught myself trying to flick scroll a column with my index finger once I reached the fold.

It made me smile.

</comment><comment><USER16> related but happened to me: once I tried to open my house door with my car remote key =)

<comment><USER17> 27 year old thinks his house is a broken car?

<comment><USER18> 31 year old tries to "full screen" wife.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When my daughter was one years old she thought the box that the iPad came in was a broken iPad. I didn't jump to any conclusions about the superfluousness of packaging or my daughter's inability to understand a world with boxes.

I did, however, tell her to think outside of the box. She didn't get the joke. Probably because she was one. Also, the joke wasn't that funny.

</comment><comment><USER20> Last Christmas we bought a laptop for my nephew. Few days later came to my wife to ask her how to save a file.

\- You just need to click on the "diskette" icon. \- Aunt, what's a "diskette"?

I bet in few years most UX designers will use the Dropbox logo instead of a diskette icon to show where you need to click to save a file :D

</comment><comment><USER21> What does a one-year old do on an iPad (or other tablet for that matter)?

For those who are parents--are there certain apps/games you let your young ones play around on? Or, is the behavior demonstrated by the child in the video learned primarily by way of observation?

<comment><USER22> Definitely. There's a number of blogs dedicated to apps for toddlers. Not sure about a one-year-old, but my two-year-old was finger painting, dragging letters onto words, and rearranging dinosaur parts, and browsing YouTube for videos of trash trucks (he got his older sisters to enter the search terms). My original iPad is basically a dedicated kid computer. The older kids write school papers on it (Pages + keyboard dock), the younger kids play games (educational and otherwise) and sometimes Netflix videos. We do have an XO laptop, and it only gets dug out of the bin when one of the kids is playing "going to work" and needs a faux laptop to lug.

<comment><USER23> I love the idea that little kids who love watching garbage trucks are now getting their older siblings to go find Youtube videos of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I remember reading an article of the difference between 2 year olds and 3 year olds. A two year old will see a picture of a shoe and try to put their foot in it whereas a 3 year old realizes that the picture is only a picture.

I imagine the 1 year old in the video is also falling into the 2 year old trap. But as people have commented this is just how learn and how our brains develop.

</comment><comment><USER25> Pointing, swiping and pinching is perfectly normal for a 1 year old. It has nothing to do with touhcscreens.

</comment><comment><USER26> The psychological development of children is amazing. If only they became potty trained sooner.

</comment><comment><USER27> I haven't gone so far as to do it physically, but I have felt the subconscious niggle to pinch-zoom something in a magazine a little while after a heavy browse of tumblr or ffffound... Very odd & disconcerting.

</comment><comment><USER28> She is not very effective in using that iPad, though.

<comment><USER29> You should see my niece, 18 months old. She can unlock my iPad and find Netflix or Angry Birds as fast as I can. Now of course she needs help past that, but still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The cognitive leap to associate moving a mouse or keyboard (in your hand) with stuff going down on a screen is significant compared to just touching something you see and it moves. The former represents how we typically interact with a computer, the later how we interact with everything else.

It's actually kind of amazing that Apple made both those interaction types - Apple 2 was THE FIRST time you had a keyboard + screen, and the iPhone/iPad are(perhaps more arguably) the most successful implementations of touch screen interaction.

<comment><USER31> _Apple 2 was THE FIRST time you had a keyboard + screen_

I raise you Douglas Englebart and a decade earlier.

<comment><USER30> Yeah sorry - I clearly should have said in terms of an affordable easy-to-use device for the masses (the same being true for the iPhone/iPad).

Edit: Just went a found Engelbart's lecture at Stanford - it's incredible <http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Ready for oblivion: once I had a (sleeping)dream that I was using the mouse to touch and move things in my room.

</comment><comment><USER33> As a parent, I would be very wary of exposing a child that small to any screen for extended periods of time.

<comment><USER34> As a soon-to-be-parent: why?

<comment><USER35> I think because "screens" are 2-D and little kids need to learn that things are 3-D. Also, screens don't have texture. Everything on a screen is artificial, which is fine once you understand what it is trying to represent, but not before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> my nephew, before he could speak full sentences would point to things and say "click." "Click" was his all-encompassing verb. When he wanted cereal, he stood next to the fridge, pointed up to the cereal box and screamed "cliiiiiiiik."

</comment><comment><USER37> What really bothered me was the uploader credited Steve Jobs with coding something.

<comment><USER38> He also referred to her "OS", which as a human, she does not have: so he was speaking metaphorically.

<comment><USER37> I wasn't being 100% direct either. The author still credited, or better yet, blamed Jobs for something he didn't actually do-- design the iPad. It seems pretty common, at least with non-techheads, that "Steve Jobs" is used interchangeably with "Apple".

<comment><USER39> On the other hand, it seems pretty common for techheads to misunderstand what "design" is. I'd say Steve Jobs designed the iPad the same way Frank Gehry designs his buildings: by conceptualizing it and sketching the overall design, leaving the details to his aides.

<comment><USER37> What was the "design" then? A sketch of a really thin tablet PC? That doesn't seem so creative or innovative to me. I think more credit is due to the engineers who brought it to life. Moreover, I haven't actually seen any sketches done by Jobs. I'm not saying they don't exist; I just haven't seen any.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>