The Art of Assembly Language Programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.arl.wustl.edu/~lockwood/class/cs306/books/artofasm/toc.html

<comment><USER2> If you aren't fluent in assembly language, the biggest marginal benefit you get from learning it is the ability to read the assembly output from your C compiler for debugging or low-level optimization. For that purpose I've always recommended these two old MSDN columns by Matt Pietrek on Just Enough Assembly Language to Get By:

Part 1: <http://www.microsoft.com/msj/0298/hood0298.aspx>

Part 2: <http://www.microsoft.com/msj/0698/hood0698.aspx>

They're outdated in some ways but still relevant.

Once you have the fundamentals down, the best source for up-to-date knowledge relevant to performance optimization and assembly programming for x86 machines is Agner Fog's manuals:

<http://www.agner.org/optimize/>

That said, there is a lot of room for improvement on Matt Pietrek's columns. This is a great blog post series waiting to happen for anyone up to the task. Take out the cruft about ENTER, LEAVE, LOOP, etc, include more about basics like signed/unsigned comparisons (JG/JGE/JL/JLE are the signed counterparts of JA/JAE/JB/JBE, where the mnemonic is that 'A' stands for above and 'B' for below), and so on. I'm trying to get an assembly guru and technical blogger coworker of mine interested in writing this. If that doesn't work, maybe I'll have to roll up the sleeves and write it myself.

<comment><USER3> Well, that depends on your needs, actually.

If you want to write trainers for video games, knowing Assembly is a must!

Well, sorta. Knowing just enough to get by, and being able to look up the rest is good enough.

I used to write trainers for the original XBox. Unlike PC trainers, which can often rely on simply putting the same value in the same memory location over and over, XBox required that you modify the code in memory.

I still do it for PC games occasionally, but it's gotten harder... Windows seems to try to prevent hacks by loading the code into different places in RAM each time.

tl;dr - There are still uses for Assembly other than just debugging.

<comment><USER2> I said the greatest marginal benefit was from debugging. I didn't say it was the only one. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Your knowledge of assembly language will help you write better programs, even when using HLLs."

Assembly was the first real coding I did after learning BASIC. It taught me:

1) How to build and structure an application - from intrinsics like 'divide' upwards, I now seem more able to build large/complex systems than people who only learnt HLLs

2) Fundamental datatypes like DWORDs that have helped me optimise performance of HLL apps

3) To appreciate the heavy lifting provided by a language like Ruby - and an understanding of how it does what it does

Application developers that have never worked on the bare metal are poorer for it.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is also somewhat dated, although it does make it as far as the Pentium, and it is a brilliant read.

Graphics Programming Black Book - Michael Abrash

[http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/reference/programmin...](http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/reference/programming/140/283/graphics- programming-black-book-r1698)

<comment><USER6> Some funny quote showing it is dated :)

"If a program requires 1.5 megabytes, it will not fit on a 1.44 Mbyte floppy. Likewise, if an application requires 2 megabytes RAM, the user will have to install an extra megabyte if there is only one available in the machine. Even on big machines with 32 or more megabytes, writing gigantic applications isn't excusable."

<comment><USER7> Double the numbers, substitute "mega" with "giga" and "floppy" with "usb stick" and it's up to date again. :)

<comment><USER3> For a short while, anyhow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a much newer version of this book that uses HLA.

<http://nostarch.com/assembly2.htm>

<comment><USER9> The No Starch Press book is really just the Nutshell book for HLA, a language of the author's invention that is a cross between x86 assembly and Pascal. This web site, on the other hand, appears to be the contents I was expecting to find in a book titled "The Art of Assembly Language".

Why oh why did the author give both of these very different creatures the same title?

<comment><USER10> Speaking of, it looks like there are at least three different versions here for free:

[http://homepage.mac.com/randyhyde/webster.cs.ucr.edu/www.art...](http://homepage.mac.com/randyhyde/webster.cs.ucr.edu/www.artofasm.com/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _It is surprising how many people are willing to speak out against assembly language based only on conversations they've had or articles they've read._

Most people will speak out against any language because of some troll or flame-war they've followed on the Internet.

If you want to learn assembly, do it. There doesn't have to be a practical application. You can learn something just because you think it's cool. It's not always about the salary or the market-usefulness of each skill you learn.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is not a good book if you want to learn assembly. Instead the author will teach you his own language HLA (High Level Assembly), which is actually more like Pascal with some assembly mixed in. The writing style is also incredibly verbose.

I don't know a good comprehensive book about modern x86 assembly. Can you recommend one?

<comment><USER13> These are pretty indispensable when it comes to modern x86 assembly: <http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/>

<comment><USER14> Not only the assembly language but also the organization of a whole x86 based computer architecture, including memory buses and interrupt controllers and whatnot. I've spent weeks reading these things and trying to figure out how a modern operating system is built with the hardware at hand.

Every piece of hardware should have a manual like this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I haven't had the need to write assembly language programs in years. However, I've still found x86 assembly quite useful to know due to having to reverse engineer binaries and DLLs.

So knowing x86 still has some practical value, and with reverse engineering, just knowing a small subset of x86 will go a long way.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Unfortunately, MS-DOS is not a modern multitasking operating system and it does not support shared memory. However, we can easily write a resident program that provides this capability missing from DOS. The following sections describe how to create two types of shared memory regions - static and dynamic."

One word: badass.

</comment><comment><USER16> Darn. All the exercises and labs appear to be missing. Anyone know where else to find them? Or am I not missing anything by not having them?

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't consider myself a "real" assembly programmer. I can, however, try to debug compiled c code via gdb disassemble and not get totally lost.

I managed to pick up this ability after getting to know assembly programming, and the subsequent "higher level manifestations" in C/C++, from Paul Carter's open source ebook: <http://www.drpaulcarter.com/pcasm/>

When I first downloaded this book in 2002, I was fairly comfortable with the linux command line, gcc and emacs, but I knew nothing about assembly and computer architecture (registers/interrupts etc).

Whereas other books on assembly were somehow tied to DOS, this was a free book that wasn't tied to any OS and was easy to understand.

</comment><comment><USER18> Along with JWasm -- <http://www.japheth.de/JWasm.html> \-- and DOSBox, this can make for a lot of fun.

</comment><comment><USER19> Assembly provided me with my "there is no spoon" moment on the arduino platform. It's easy to pick up and suddenly, you know kung-Fu.

</comment><comment><USER20> I enjoyed the practical approach. I started off with 8086 in the Microprocessor lab, played with motor Rotations- Serial port and parallel port communication, keyboard interfacing, DOS Interrupts,LED interfacing etc. It was the most amazing time of my career. I fell in love with microprocessors.

</comment><comment><USER21> I always feel these books on assembly are like car user manuals. The knowledge of driving is far from that.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the free book. But there's a need for a good assembly book to learn the ropes.

<comment><USER10> This one is decent. Its teaching style is basically "assembly as a first programming language".

[http://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-Step---Step- Programm...](http://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-Step---Step- Programming/dp/0470497025/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1313101779&sr=8-3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Looks like it might have been nice were not so x86-specific, and obsolete x86 at that.

<comment><USER23> Yeah. These days it's ARM assembly that I care about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Little offtopic: I think the layout and the colors of this site are great!

</comment><comment> alok-g Any recommendations for learning AMD64/x64 assembly programming?

<comment><USER14> Writing it. Lots of it. Assembly is not a language that you can grok by looking at it. Use the official Intel manuals for reference. There are lots and lots of deprecated/incomplete/incorrect assembly language references out there.

I got my black belt in assembly by writing a 1 kilobyte software synth for a 4k intro that was never finished (but the synth was playable). That was one cool project!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Rosasm is the best!

<comment><USER26> Are you betov, the author of Rosasm?

<comment><USER25> I am not. I am making fun of endless battles betov and rhyde had on usenet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jc-denton "Converting CFGs to assembly language" Nice we didn't cover how to actually implement it in our theoretical computer science class.

</comment><comment> jc-denton Nice post, however it's a bit dated I wonder if there is a newer version.

<comment><USER27> The Art of Assembly is, itself, an immensely useful and dated piece of work. I remember flipping through this years ago. Certainly worth the read, though it's likely not worth pouring one's self into too far, as it isn't so easily applicable these days.

<comment><USER28> ...unless maybe you want to write highly-optimized code for special applications, or maybe to write compiler code generators. Assembly language knowledge is still useful otherwise to understand what the machine _really_ does.</comment></comment></comment>


Rumor: Apple plans to move laptops from Intel to ARM processors - <AUTHOR> http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/05/06/rumor_apple_plans_to_move_laptops_from_intel_to_arm_processors.html

<comment><USER2> Obviously Intel could start fabbing ARM parts, but with the x86 they had only 2 competitors, and with ARM they are competing with every single chip foundry out there. Of course Intel has a whole lot of IP that they could use to intimidate other ARM manufacturers, so it should be interesting.

I was wondering if Intel could scale the atom down faster than ARM could scale up, and it looks very unlikely at this point, especially since Apple and Microsoft have every reason to want to commoditize the CPU market.</comment>


A Visual Language For Finance Patterns - <AUTHOR> http://www.saintsal.com/2012/01/a-visual-language-for-finance/

<comment><USER2> SaintSal: It's a good start but apart of semantics (icons with meaning) you also need a grammar to call it a language. In case of visual language it means that there is a way of merging simple glyphs into more complicated icon. Here is an article that describe how it can be done in medicine:

[http://www.sd.polyu.edu.hk/iasdr/proceeding/papers/Collabora...](http://www.sd.polyu.edu.hk/iasdr/proceeding/papers/Collaborative%20Design%20Research_%20The%20Visualization%20of%20Medical%20Concepts.pdf)

I'm looking for an open source project that I could use in my applications. There is <http://thenounproject.com/> but it does not have grammar. The merging of icons is done for you (e.g., the iron icon with one, two, or three dots)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's really helpful. I hadn't thought of grammar explicitly, mainly because I was more focused on something like design patterns.

So far, the emergent grammar has been: equity and/or balance sheet, then an event or a profit/loss, then back to equity and/or balance sheet.

I'd like to see what people try to do with this before insisting on a grammer, so you're right, maybe calling it a visual language is overstating where things are at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very cool idea.

On a technical note, you could define three macros

       \equity{10}{90}
       % where the units are percentages,  and
       \balance{8}{10}
       \RandC{8}{10}
       % where the units are in mm

and use this level of abstraction in your source code. I suggest, the diagrams in a separate column to support the narration, but with tikz you could even put them inline.

These examples should get you started if you want to "program" your graphics: <http://piratepad.net/GVsgD6x5D3>

Speaking of power tools for graphics, check out also <http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/piscript/> and the there-associated book <http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/graphics/manual/></comment>


250 Cameras, A Day Of Soldering, Zero CGI: Party's Mind-Bending Music Video - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1769198/flash-light-party-s-mind-bending-strobe-animated-video-for-androp?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company+Headlines%29 <comment><USER2> Very impressive, but why did they need the cameras? All they needed were external flash units and they could still have been triggered without attaching to the cameras. But the cameras add to the impressiveness..

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I thought there was going to be some crazy Matrix-style 360 degree spins, or something.

<comment><USER4> Thought wrong you did not.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYgw7XRf5nc#t=2m55s>

<comment><USER3> Ah, I take it back. I just saw the long rows of cameras and figured it wasn't possible. I couldn't quite last the whole video...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is about a band named "Party" not about a music video with a party.

<comment><USER6> Actually, the band is named Androp and the ad agency is Party.</comment></comment>


Code I'm Still Ashamed Of - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.com/the-code-im-still-ashamed-of-e4c021dff55e#.76pl74cy2 <comment><USER2> This is tough to read. I've railed and yelled in meeting about ethics and have ultimately discovered that in nearly every case the money talks louder. I remember this company I worked with that had a sign up with a "add me to the newsletter" check box. When leading a ux review it was decided to switch it off by default. One day a friend of mine buzzed me to say she was annoyed at receiving mail even though she specifically made sure that that box was unchecked when signing up. I assumed it was a dev error and checked with the dev team and was told to go check with the CTO. When I did, the CTO said that it was exactly how he wanted it. I wasnt even manager level but I lost it and yelled at the CTO. I was simply told "we need our email signups and dont dare tell me how to do my job". I tried to look for support elsewhere in the company and all I discovered were at best some hushed mutterings in corners. Even laughs of me being on some kind of moral high horse. It hurt to know that the same people I know who did these things are now working on startups that scoop up massive amounts of people's location data. The same people who wrote tiny scripts to collate customer data to give to the sales teams who would give it to clients as part of a sales package even though the terms specifically said we don't share personal info. It bothers me that I don't even know how to fight it since all it takes is the next dev to come along and say yes to end months of protests against something unethical. I don't want regulation and lobbyists pushing their tech onto me as a solution. If anyone has advice, I think this is a great thread to share thoughts.

<comment><USER3> SO many anecdotes we could share. Mine is, I contracted out to do work on an 80211 radio. The company wanted quicker connections on bands reserved for emergency communications in many countries. The FCC rule was, listen before you talk. But its quicker to ping the access point immediately. Quicker but illegal, and obstructive to emergency communications.

I refused flatly. Phrased it as 'as a contractor I'd be liable. I don't have deep pockets'. So they just got an employee to do it, who had absolutely no compunctions about it.

Its not so much that a company wants to do wrong things. Its that there's always an engineer willing to do them.

<comment><USER4> Completely agree. While I like the idea that we all share some responsibility about the decisions we make, and I applaud you for yours, it shouldn't be on the implementor to fix. The companies/heads demanding this should be the ones liable, and heavily so.

To make a crude and polarizing comparison, especially since I happen to land somewhat on the other side of that argument:

You can't blame a tool (bat/knife/gun) for what its agent does with it. If one tool doesn't work for them, they'll get it done with something else.

<comment><USER3> Sadly I suspect corporate decisions get made in a microcosm. Whatever is good for the next quarter or next product. A middle manager would be fired for doing anything else. Or at least reviewed badly. "Sure you did the right thing; but your numbers were down. Sorry no raise/promotion"

So there is no particular person in a corporation that has direct incentive to be responsible.

<comment><USER5> So we need to change that. We need to make sure there is a heavy stick being used against those that decide to make these unethical decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> nommm-nommm >I advised her to get off the drug ASAP. Thankfully, she listened.

This bothers me, this isn't how medicine works. While there's very, very legitimate reasons to be critical of over prescribing and marketing, "I heard about an adverse outcome in someone else that may or may not be related to a drug she was taking" is not a good reason to recommending another person to stop treatment.

All medical interventions are a cost-benefit analysis and _all_ medical interventions have risk, some more than others. Forgoing medical interventions also has risks and benefits. For all we know the risks were very minimal and the drug helped the sister. This could have been very harmful advice if the drug required, say, tapering down and the sister went off of it without assistance of a medical provider.

The author is themselves handing out incredibly rash and potentiality harmful advice.

<comment><USER6> True, the author is no doctor, but in this case this is not the only drug available.

In the article:

"The quiz doesn't work," she said.

"Oh. What's broken?" I asked.

"Well, it seems that no matter what I do, the quiz recommends the client's drug as the best possible treatment. The only exception is if I say I'm allergic. Or if I say I am already taking it."

<comment> nommm-nommm What does that have to do with anything at all? The morale of the story is he or she heard something on the six o'clock news and recommend the sister stop treatment based on that. That's extremely improper advice.

The author is apparently upset about assisting in giving what they believe to be improper medical advice so they proceeded to give improper medical advice themselves.

There's also a huge logical flaw to go from "this drug had a side effect that may have caused death in one person" to "this drug is inappropriate for my sister"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is why Software Engineering as a profession should be regulated and licensed just like other engineering fields - mechanical, civil, electrical, etc. Professional Engineers are bound by a code of ethics stressing first and foremost the welfare of the public. Engineers who behave unethically have their licenses revoked which can be a career-ending event. It is our responsibility as engineers to ensure that the code we ship does not negatively impact anyone's health or safety; especially as software becomes more and more pervasive in society.

[https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code- ethics](https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics)

[http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html](http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html)

[http://peo.on.ca/index.php?ci_id=1815&la_id=1](http://peo.on.ca/index.php?ci_id=1815&la_id=1)

<comment><USER8> > It is our responsibility as engineers to ensure that the code we ship does > not negatively impact anyone's health or safety; especially as software > becomes more and more pervasive in society.

I agree 100% with the above sentence. But I do not think that implies regulation and licensing to be the appropriate solution, at least not universally. Perhaps it is appropriate to require licensing to write code for life-support systems, vehicles, or other systems on which all other engineering requires licensing. But not to write code for Twitter. Not to tweak the PHP on your Wordpress site. Not for the vast pile of code that may be meaningful to the author, but is trivial when considering its risk to the health of the general public.

<comment><USER9> To "act unethically" is what GP was talking about. Nothing about security or liability.

I do not think it would be acceptable to intentionally write unethical code in _any_ of those problem spaces. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm the chairman of the board of a local society of computer scientists. We have bylaws that describe a code of conduct for members governing their work.

      1. Let honesty govern your work
      2. Heed professional responsibility
      3. Do not accept gain from a third party, except with full knowledge of your employer/contract partner
      4. Do not ever use confidential information from an employer of contract partner without informed consent
      5. Increase your professional capabilities
      6. Make sure your conduct is an exemplar of membership
      7. Share your experience with other members

We host meetings once or twice a month where members or guests hold lectures on varying IT topics.

I don't know if tech in Iceland is such a small community that it tends to keep people honest or that transgressions like this happen all the time and are not spoken of. I like to think our members are ethical in their work.

<comment><USER11> I actually don't see any rule in there about being ethical towards your userbase. The integrity encouraged here is towards the employer, which will be the one to insist on screwing over the users.

<comment><USER10> Let honesty govern your work. It's a bit difficult to translate and still keep the language clear.

<comment><USER11> What you really mean is that it's hard to be upfront about saying "Cause your employer trouble over client needs that screw over the user" and still keep a job. The message itself can be crystal clear; broadcasting it where it actually means something is the challenge.

<comment><USER10> No, I mean that going from a verb-based language to a noun-based language is tricky without either losing meaning or becoming "wordy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> An awkward situation, for sure. However, after a lady in my community killed herself (she was on some prescribed drug), a friend of mine in the industry explained his view.

Apparently, these drugs can cause some people to kill themselves. But they also cause some users to recover, meaning they're less likely to commit suicide. It wasn't clear how exactly this balance was measured, but the net effect can be positive.

Still raises some hard questions along the lines of the trolley experiment. Who gets to live, and who gets to die? And what about the fact that we don't even know who it is that will get better or worse?

Regarding coding, the coder is only really able to quit because the market is good. Plenty of people along the same economic chain that led to this are in more precarious job circumstances.

<comment><USER13> Similar thought: should you have a moral quandry about doing work for a car company, given that 1.25 million people per year are killed in road traffic incidents.

<comment><USER14> This takes you down a never-ending and unproductive rabbit hole. We really aren't equipped to encompass the totality of the effects of any particular action we take, which will invariably, at some point in the chain of consequences, have adverse impacts on someone, somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I just wanted to say I hope the OP isn't beating themselves up about what happened. In terms of moral integrity I feel they did very well to, at a relatively young age, take the decision to quit. I understand the point of the article (we may be developers at the end of the chain, and there maybe lots of people legally and ethically responsible above us, but we can still stand up for what is right) but at the same time, until you read something like this, or are in the situation yourself, it is common for people not to appreciate the knock on of what we do. If the OP hadn't made the quiz, someone else would have, this isn't to say people can't take a stand, but it is more to say no matter what they did that person would still be dead.

So my respect to the developer in question, I'm fairly sure I would have continued to work there. I would have just said to myself that these things happen, there are laws in place to protect people, if the laws aren't good enough we should campaign for change, I'm just a developer move data around a machine, etc. But I sort of assume by time I get to my death bed, I'll probably look back over my life and decide I made most decisions wrong, rather than work hard for success, fortune, etc. perhaps favouring compassion, helping others, charity work, etc. would have actually be a life better spent. So for the time being I'll give credit to those who take the moral high ground!

</comment><comment><USER16> Here is mine. The company was going to pitch investors very soon but its product is not ready yet. The CTO copied our competitor's code (well, mangled javascript), replaced their name with ours, updated some public API to our company name. Then asked me to build upon that.

I said this is not acceptable but they said it is ok because they are not releasing it publicly, it is just for demo for investors. I am sure we are either violating copyright or telling lie to investors, and am surprised no one in the company think it is a problem. After all I have to do it, because I was just an intern.

<comment><USER17> If you can, refuse. Tell them that you believe that you get into a big trouble, if this comes out and you are not sure anyway that it does not.

Based on your description they are looking for a scapegoat. If this comes out, they definitely point towards you while saying that they were not aware of this, must be interns initiative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > "Yes. That's what the requirements say to do. Everything leads to the > client's drug."

Working in Pharma Advertising I have seen other devs in my company do exactly that.

I also found out recently that a company I made a website for bought a drug and raised the price 2,000%.

I've already started my new job search.

<comment><USER19> What percentage would you have been OK with?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have code I'm ashamed of as well. I was very young, and told the app was for a fairly innocent cause. After the fact, it became apparent the company was also selling it to a fairly controversial foreign government entity.

I think it's worth standing up to this sort of thing, but good luck getting that new job if you stipulate they inform you before hand who they're going to sell your code to. I'm not sure what the solution is if you don't have a ton of leverage (and if you choose to turn down the job, someone will gladly take your place in this economy).

Interested in hearing other people's suggestions.

<comment><USER21> I note the BCS (a professional body of sorts for British technologists) has a "public interest" clause in its code of conduct for members, which arguably prohibits the sort of behaviour described by you & in the submission:

[http://www.bcs.org/category/6030#publicinterest](http://www.bcs.org/category/6030#publicinterest)

That said, there's no real obligation to be a BCS member, and most people aren't, which somewhat defangs their CoC: like you say, if you refuse the work, someone else will do it. Still, it's a good symbolic gesture, and perhaps points the way to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Expected this to be a "the code I never wrote" thing, from there blog name.

Then thought it might be a "lol look at my bad code that I wrote 6 years ago"

Pleasantly surprised. For more, I recommend"the gift of Fire" by Sara Baase.

</comment><comment><USER23> What I've discovered over the years is simply if you refuse to build it they'll get someone else to do it, and someone else certainly will. That's not too say you should, just that you as a developer have very little power to actually stop it.

<comment><USER24> You have little power to stop it, but you can choose not to be part of it so you don't have it on your conscience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> good read. and kudos for coming out and opening the subject.

i personally think this is not just a developer issue, but affects every person living in a society. the quality of the society we live in depends on all of us doing as much as we can to achieve it. unfortunately, the living today is too precarious, and too many people cannot afford to be too ethical.

the sad thing about our industry to me is that sometimes it seems we give up before putting up any fight. we know how hard it is to control complex systems, how impossible it is to create a perfect system. so a lot of us decide, like that fox in Aesop's fable, that it's actually wrong to even try to do anything. if she can't reach the grapes, then the grapes must be sour. this happens everywhere, but it strikes me in IT particularly if you look at a simple example - most IT people find it obvious, and live with it, that everything we do online is recorded and that it's not that hard to spy on anyone. most regular people don't fully grasp this, and get occasionally outraged. how many of us (i count myself in here) will then just wave their concerns away, and explain that they simply have no choice but to accept this future?

</comment><comment><USER26> This is something I've wondered about.

What do you do if your boss asks you to do something which you believe to be legally questionable or unethical? For example, if you're asked to do something which you thought might be illegal, but you don't know for certain, would the best course of action be to hire a lawyer? Based on what I saw from the recent Volkswagen fiasco, it seems like the developer himself can be held liable. Is this correct?

<comment><USER27> I have been asked a couple of times to do things that were unethical, never illegal but certainly unethical. I resigned on the spot in both cases. I feel this is how professionals should act.

When asked in my interviews why I left I stated clearly that I was asked to do something unethical and resigned as a result when "forced", it was taken positively.

<comment> nommm-nommm The problem with that is people need to eat. Very, very few people are in a position where they can resign from a job on the spot.

<comment><USER28> The market for developers in many locations currently seems to be such that developers make good money and should be able to have some saving and finding a new job isn't terribly difficult.

<comment><USER29> The key word there is "currently". I've lived through several cycles now, and I can assure you that there are times when you will take any job that comes because you want to eat or pay rent this month.

<comment> nommm-nommm Now that I am experienced I am confident that I can get a new job fast. When I was just starting out it took a few months to get my first job everyone wanted experience (I live far away from San Fran). Now I can quit my job on the spot (it helps my spouse also works) but I couldn't have quit my job on the spot back when I had student loans.

<comment><USER29> Key word again being "now". The economy goes in cycles, and there will come another time when few or no companies are hiring. It's happened before.

<comment> nommm-nommm If it wasn't clear I am agreeing with you.

<comment><USER29> Ahh it is now :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was asked a couple of time to write illegal code or hand over log data to management which they are not allowed to see. In Europe we still have working privacy protection laws, you know.

I always said no, and management always reacted professionally and accepted it. Maybe they just don't know software or privacy laws that well.

Having a clean conscience trumps all, and in the end you will have troubles, not your management.

</comment><comment><USER31> Every single CS student should read this.

<comment><USER32> I took a CS ethics class. We generally read better things, with a more interesting conclusion.

The conclusion of this? If you said NO, someone in India would have made it, for likely less money. The only winning end game would be to e-mail the FDA and hope that the right political party and lobbyists are currently in control of the agency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This reminds me of issues we face in the legal profession. Lawyers have convinced ourselves, through elaborate rationalization, that every person deserves legal representation. Yet lawyers clearly make decisions about what kind of work they want to do, and what kind of clients they are comfortable representing. For example, most divorce lawyers tend to specialize in representing husbands or wives (not both), and most employment and labor lawyers either represent the company or the employee consistently, etc. But on the other hand, many defense lawyers become prosecutors, and vice versa. The key is that whatever role we like to take, we make ethical decisions within that role. If I am a prosecutor, I work for the people and my job is to "do justice". If I defend accused criminals, my job is to advocate zealously for the accused b/c anyone may be falsely accused. This system relies on discretion -- that is, the individual professional is free to decide whether to pursue a matter or take on a client. Unfortunately discretion does not exist in most software development efforts. Unless you are contributing to free software on a voluntary basis, it is likely that you will be called upon from time to time to support businesses that you don't like. This is a hard problem and I don't think there is an easy answer. If anything, the answer may require that you forego many of the economic trappings of success if you wish to live an ethical life. I don't expect anyone to make that decision, although I admire those who do. Not so much the Richard Stallmans who can live on their celebrity, but the people who adhere to those ideals and do not have celebrity to fall back on when they can't make their rent.

</comment><comment><USER34> I was asked to scrape details of 50k+ people from LinkedIn and load them into essentially a spam cannon because, you guessed it, we needed the e-mail signups. And follow-up sales calls. So, probably illegal (because spam), generally horrible behaviour, and also a huge violation of LI's terms of service. I said no. Fortunately if I didn't program it in that company nobody was going to do it and all I had to put up with was snark.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't get it.

I mean yes, sure, I realize the author blames himself for the death of that poor girl. But how could he possibly have known? It's neither his job nor his responsibility to know anything about the side effects of this drug. His job was to built a website, according to the wishes of his employer. And so he did.

Hindsight is 20/20, it's easy to say afterwards that what he did was unethical. But to me this seems more like bad luck.

<comment><USER36> On the one hand, it was clear that the website wasn't meant to be informative, since it always recommended the client's drug no matter what the questionnaire returned. Clearly that was a bit shady.

On the other hand... as a general rule, I don't really want software developers deciding what to code based on their personal medical opinions. That can cut both ways.

If the author felt it was unethical at the time (and he says it didn't really cross his mind), the best he could have done would have been to quit. Then, of course, someone else would have taken his place. Perhaps his conscience would have been cleaner, but I doubt any girls would have been saved. The stark reality is that ethical quandaries like this call for an all-or-nothing approach; either you're disturbed enough to report their actions to the authorities, or you don't do anything at all. You can quit, but that won't save anyone, so you're not really helping. (Unless you're irreplaceable, of course.)

There's another important element to the author's story: the sketchy questionnaire and the drug's harmful side effects weren't really linked in any way. Marketing is marketing; as the author says, he knew the job of the site was to promote the drug. Shady questionnaire or not, that's not inherently problematic. If the pharma company misled its customers on the side effects or knew the drug wasn't safe, that's an entirely separate issue that the author simply could not have known of. Drugs are complicated business, and they can be helpful, dangerous, important, and abused all at the same time.

The "last line of defense" statement was a powerful one, but not one I feel I can really agree with. It's often said that pharmacists are the last line of defense for prescription drugs, and that's how it should be; they actually have the training to know what they're doing. Software engineers might be a knowledgeable bunch, but they're not so knowledgeable they should be making calls outside their expertise.

<comment><USER37> I agree with you totally. I'm sure the author feels some responsibility for having some played some part of this, but it's the pharma company that should be ashamed.

With regards to advertising, I'm from the UK so we don't get much medical advertising, but in the US it is crazy. Half the adverts in commercial breaks seem to be for medicines with half a dozen potential side effects.

> Then, if a visitor could prove they had a prescription, they were given > access to a patient portal with more specific info about the drug.

I assume that it was just further information about the drug. In the UK only a doctor can prescribe controlled medicines. I assume it's the same in Canada... if so it's for the doctor, who has had years of training in this field, to prescribe the correct drug. Yes, some drugs cause side effects for some people, and medicines need to be adjusted/changed as a result. We don't know how many people died as a result of the medicine, but that's what government regulation should deal with not allowing untested drugs to be sold.

> We're approaching a time where software will drive the vehicle that > transports your family to soccer practice. There are already AI programs > that help doctors diagnose disease. It's not hard to imagine them > recommending prescription drugs soon, too.

For me this was the most (and only) important paragraph of the post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Applying the term engineer to software is a problem here, there is a lot of law attached to the term, and proper lines between being a Software "Developer" and being a Software "Engineer" have not been drawn yet. I have found that some corporate entities insist on calling an engineer anyone developing software, just so they can point the blame and liability at some employees, like VW tried. Liscensing as an engineer requires at least an ABET BS degree in Engineering, plus tests and years of junior time, but corporations throw this word about like confeti, conferring it on any employee they like. In the licensed world this title indeed means both criminal and civil financial liability in the case of errors. It is strongly advised to use the title Developer, and avoid the title Engineer, unless one wishes to work in harms way of prosecution from some error that harms someone.

</comment><comment><USER39> There is a problem with software engineers. Narcissism.

Its disturbing how many software discussion boards routinely refer to other people as dumb or ignorant.

It's as if everyone should leave their area of expertise and become software engineers.

This kind of hubris that allows some to think they are better than others only paves the way for people to dehumanize others and behave unethically.

And we have seen after decades of posing as champions of freedom and liberty nearly the entire industry has been co-opted into the surveillance economy or state surveillance programs without so much as a murmur with Snowden left holding the baby of these pretensions.

</comment><comment><USER40> I have been asked to do unethical-but-not-illegal things in the past, and in response I (unwittingly) delivered something ethical under the guise of being the requested item. Still dubious ethics, but just between me and the client, not anybody outside.

The most common request is to knock off another site. You can hit the save button, or copy code, but what I do is code up a better similar design from scratch. The result is a superior product so everybody is happy, but I would never take code that wasn't open source. I don't even peek at their code during this process!

</comment><comment><USER41>
        > As developers, we are often one of the last lines of
        > defense [sic] against potentially dangerous and
        > unethical practices

I think this article is a prime example of how professional institutions can be just as important in software engineering as other fields more typically associated with such bodies.

Just because software isn't a physical entity like a bridge that can physically collapse on someone, it seems to be the view of many that a professional body with guidance on ethics, best practice, et al. has no relevance.

<comment><USER42> That spelling of defense is correct in American English.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> That page has the most blocks that I have seen uBlock Origin do - over 120.

</comment><comment><USER44> As others have said, the biggest culprit here is the law that allows prescription drugs to be pushed in this way.

Was the drug in question an SSRI by any chance? If so, that is terrifying.

</comment><comment><USER45> I have seen bad code in my life. Some cases developers don't care about the code ethics OR they are not intelligent/experienced enough to write a good code.

But in many cases its the mistake of product managers or leads. When the product goals/specs are not clear, the design changes very often and you have to meet the tight deadlines. This leads to redundant and inefficient code which is very difficult to clean up and maintain.

</comment><comment><USER46> A lot of drugs have severe side effects. And of course, if a drug is popular enough, there always will be a couple of extremely severe cases.

Does it mean that those drugs are bad? Does it mean that the recovery of millions of patients is outweighted by one where the doctor probably shouldn't have prescribed it in the first place because the patient was already predisposed to depression or depressed in the first place?

<comment><USER47> Your argument sounds like a false dichotomy to me. We can have drugs with potentially bad side effects _and_ make efforts to make sure they're not incorrectly prescribed.

<comment><USER48> I saw nothing in the article that indicated the drug discussed was incorrectly prescribed or promoted.

Honestly, the article could be written about someone doing a marketing campaign for facebook and then hearing about a teenager committing suicide due to facebook. We would all find that absurd, but it is functionally equivalent here. Facebook has been sued for the suicide of teenagers, just like the drug company.

<comment><USER24> What I find very disturbing in US, that I haven't seen in France for example is marketing push (including TV ads) for prescription drugs.

Is it something people do, go to their doctors and say "that drugs looks great because I've seen it on TV/some online quiz told me I need it, please write me a prescription"?

<comment><USER49> Yup. It's a different culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The major side effect of making coding easier is more people will. Some will have fewer scruples about ethics. So as coding tools get easier to use, more such dishonest coding will show up.

I think a solution, alongside our personal integrity, is watching for it. Whether we be Google, or a lone, random programmer, we could any of us chance to ferret out such a nasty site and shine the bright light of day on it.

<comment><USER51> I do a little to help by clicking ads to those fake news sites. Then clicking around and closing the site. Costing them ad money but no sale.

<comment><USER20> Uhhh, they often make money simply by how many clicks they get though...

<comment><USER51> The ads that take you TO the site. Usually there are no ads on the site, just a sales funnel for a questionable product

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Earlier this year while looking for work, I received an offer to start on a project that would scan innocent travelers (through client's airports) and build dossiers on them looking for criminal connections.

I'm proud to say I declined and included the fancy word "repugnant" in my reply.

</comment><comment><USER53> This is a very tough thing to address if you're a security researcher say for the government. The likes become blurry on what is ethical and what's needed for keeping weapons that can protect us..

</comment><comment><USER54> In practice, liability is the yardstick of ethics. Anyone caught in the "unethical/not liable" zone is alone. Which for most of us results in shame. For a few others, it results in pride.

</comment><comment><USER55> Thanks for the story.

I feel this has been an issue for other types of jobs so far, but this example points out how _easy_ is to be borderline with ethics...which _may_ itself be a non-ethical choice IMHO

</comment><comment><USER56> I was reading the comments of the article and I came across an interesting thought.

Whilst we in first world countries may be able to protest against our employers or try and steer them away from non-ethical actions.

What happens when the employer takes away the assignment in question and gives the work to an off-shore company, who's only obligation is to get paid? Where the developers of said off-shore company's obligation is to get paid so they can eat?

Do you think off-shore developers are going to have the same moral stances of a first world developer? I don't think so.

I know there are a couple of voices in this thread who think they can be that knight in shining armor, a bit like Don Quixote. However, you can't rail too much. Lest you find yourself outcast, side-lined or even fired?

I thought it was an interesting situation to ponder.

<comment><USER57> The same could be said if you refuse to do the work and it's given to any other person who doesn't morally object (off-shore or otherwise).

<comment><USER58> Unfortunately, the ethical chain here is only as good as it's most unethical link. Then again, most people really don't have a good feeling being the corrosive link.

<comment><USER59> I don't know what you mean by "ethical chain", but whether something is the right thing to do is independent of whether other people are acting morally or not. Just because others are morally corrupt does not justify one's own moral corruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Amazing how much backlash there was at the idea of legally requiring software to explain its decisions, but this is one example out of many that makes it clear that we either require it or people will die from software with bad intentions. To me, the idea of trusting software authors or companies without the accompanying legal framework to ensure that it isn't blind trust is absolutely insane. I should hope VW (amongst many other companies) has proven that beyond any doubts.

</comment><comment><USER61> If he hadn't coded it, someone else would have. The most effective way to change the world, in my opinion, is to push for political and social changes that change incentives in a manner that reduces the number of unethical economic niches that exist. Sacrificing your own employment opportunities out of principle has next to no effect on the larger picture, and if anything, will reduce your own ability to shape things in a positive direction in the future.

<comment><USER62> I disagree. Even if the boss found somebody else to do it, the fact that somebody had stood up and said no would make a difference. It still would provide an example to other employees. Behavior is contagious. You have more power than you think. If everyone sits back and says "I can't act ethical until we have big political and social changes", I can guarantee you that those changes will never occur. Somebody somewhere has to start the ball rolling, even at some personal cost, or nothing will ever change.

<comment><USER29> It sure would provide an example to other employees. Mike was replaced because he wouldn't write the code he was asked to write. Lesson learned: Write the code you're asked to if you want to keep your job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> My take on this: If someone reads garbage advertisement information on a random website and takes this medication solely because of that, they fail to do the most basic thinking and scrutiny. The gene pool won't miss these people. I know, it's harsh and cynical, but it's the truth (oh boy, this opinion will be unpopular, I already feel it in my bones). If everyone had to take responsibility for such thoughtless behaviour of other people, we couldn't do anything anymore.

However, I do see major moral implications of writing code for things like cars, rockets, robots, pacemakers, etc. This is where the true responsibility of software engineers lies.</comment>


The Science of Sneaker Culture - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/video/the-science-of-sneaker-culture-an-online-course-for-kids-stuck-at-home-in-their-socks/ <comment><USER2> I think of all the stuff I liked as a kid that my teachers and parents thought was trivial. Watching this, I wonder how much more interested I would have been in school if that stuff had been a part of it, instead of mocked.</comment>


The Future of Cities - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@oscarboyson/the-future-of-cities-ba4e26c807fe#.7sst95ui4 <comment><USER2> While I'm glad that this topic is getting addressed, that video was pretty difficult to watch. I know it would be unwise to spend extensive amounts of time on each topic in the video, but the way it was cut made it hard to think about the topic before moving on to the next part.

Otherwise, this topic is likely what I want to focus my career in at some point, understanding how to improve the ways cities run, given how they are more and more the drivers of not only the economy, but a lot of the culture and thinking generated in the world. (As someone who grew up in global cities such as Singapore, Paris, etc., I always felt that these cities had more in common with each other than with other cities in the countries they are in.)

I'm making my way through Jane Jacob's Life and Death of American Cities right now, and it has definitely changed a lot of my thinkings of how cities should be designed (more mixed-used, parks are not necessarily ideal, etc).

I wonder how a company could be created to tackle the issues cities are facing these days, working with local governments (or without if need be).

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Philadelphia was the best-designed city, basically ever. Perfect grid, even spacing between residences, businesses, and parks, and you know what ended up happening? Nearly everybody piled up along the waterfronts, because that's where the action was.

London, meanwhile, had never really been planned at all, and even well- intentioned planning often ended up straddling the line between disaster and farce.

If you want to laugh a lot and learn about ways that London has been "developed" over the years, check out this guy's videos:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yUEHWhO_HdY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yUEHWhO_HdY)

<comment><USER3> I agree in spirit with you, but we should strive not to be reductive about the role of planning in cities. Slums are also unplanned.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash I guess I wasn't clear. My point is that planning isn't perfect, and will never solve all problems.

An example from my hometown of Ithaca NY: this tiny valley was never built with cars in mind, and because there is a lake to the north and steep hills in every other direction, there are only about 6 ways in and out of Ithaca. Usually this isn't a problem but certain times of day the traffic comes to a complete stop as there is no physical way to relieve the congestion. If major charges to roadways were made, it could fix some of the congestion issues, but since nearly all travel through Ithaca revolves around The Commons (literally: one-way streets move traffic counterclockwise around the popular pedestrian mall), it could have a devastating effect on local businesses.

I am convinced that no single entity is capable of creating and executing a plan that improves an urban area in any more than a limited portion without significant and unforeseen consequences.

Speaking of slums: the original plans for public housing projects in big cities like New York failed to account for the lack of maintenance or the effects of drugs being sold or used on the premises, which matters a lot because one prolific drug dealer can drastically reduce quality of life for everybody in the building, especially if they are smart or small-time enough to avoid police interference, thus allowing dealers to become de facto authorities in the projects. That is an example of a planned (but unexpected) slum.

<comment><USER4> There might be a company to fix Ithaca's traffic, but it would be Boring.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Boooo

/s Actually the solution could come from another EM company in the form of self-driving cars, as it would alleviate congestion just enough for it to stop being a problem anymore. The traffic issue really only focuses on certain chokepoints in and out of the city.

You know the deal: everybody stopped at a series of red lights. Light at the front goes green, first car moves, second car behind it has space to move, and so on. If all the cars were able to start and stop in unison based on the state of the traffic lights then the congestion problems in Ithaca would disappear overnight. We aren't big enough to need (or be able to afford) massive infrastructure projects, and as I alluded to earlier, it probably wouldn't be worth the unforeseen consequences. Not to mention the downtown retailers are still reeling from the Commons reconstruction, which put way too many of my favorite stores out of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "We do damage to nature...and we do less damage to nature when we occupy less of it." Edward Glaeser is the man.

<comment><USER6> I have to admit this line of thinking never really resonated with me, and it resonates even less as I get older. My goal in life is _not_ to have minimum impact on my environment, and yes, that includes _nature_.

I think the nuance of the middle gets lost in these conversations. The right tends to think humans should have dominion over all (while ignoring the fact that we haven't "conquered" nature, and we have ample evidence of the carnage we cause when we think we have), and the left seems to take an Agent Smith view that we're a plague upon the planet and need to be contained, quarantined, and engineered until we no longer impact anything (while ignoring the fact that this flatly isn't possible, or even desirable).

So no, I do not believe that "we do damage to nature", because besides it being a nonsense statement, even the kernel of truth in it is wrong-headed in my opinion.

<comment><USER7> everything from our pets to our lawns to our roads and farms does damage to biodiversity though, which ultimately makes all life less resilient.

<comment><USER8> Yay I'm not the only one! Preserving biodiversity is oft-unstated most important goal of environmentalism. It's our meta-darwinian imperative.

<comment><USER9> Why would we care about biodiversity? There are only two reasons that come to my mind, and both IMO should be addressed directly:

\- because it's cool and fun to have all those cute plants and animals around

\- because biodiversity reduces the chance of sudden ecological collapse that would leave _us_ without food

<comment><USER8> \- Ecological fortitude as you say. Good for food but cleaning up our other messes which can harm us.

\- Biodiversity helps us understand life better by providing exceptions to dogmas

\- Biodiversity is the crowning achievement of this earth and would take along time to recover. We can colonize other planets more easily than we can replicate our biodiversity on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > To a family in Detroit, it could mean having non-toxic drinking water.

Wait, did I miss when Detroit had toxic water now too?

<comment><USER11> Well, they have Faygo.

<comment><USER12> whoop whoop

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _> For a rich white dude up in a 50th floor penthouse, "the future of cities" might mean zipping around in a flying car while a robot jerks you off and a drone delivers your pizza._

The guy must think people of color are incapable of attaining that level of wealth.

Unintentional racism, but racism all the same.

<comment><USER14> Well, if you want to go there, it's also sexism. He said "dude". Does that mean he thinks women are also incapable of attaining that level of wealth?

I think he simply wanted to rely on a common stereotype to refer to ultra- wealthy people who live completely different lives and are generally out of touch with reality.

<comment><USER9> Well, had the author said "black gal", half of the Internet would be on Twitter with pitchforks right now. I do believe that people breaking symmetry inherent in racism and sexism are creating a problem in the society. For any statement containing $race and $gender, it's either racist/sexist or it's not, regardless of the actual values of $race and $gender.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I agree, could not watch it past 3 mins - too many editing gimmicks, looks like edutainment nonsense with many fluffy short statements and low actual information density. This video editing talent is wasted for such a topic, would be better used in a music video. Also the author really must hate music.

</comment><comment><USER16> Great concept, but no mention of winter, or poor weather. Would be difficult to grocery shop or go far distances in snow or rain. Cities would have to be as compact as possible for public transport to reach everywhere, and that would be difficult to achieve in already existing cities with a lot of legacy infrastructure.

<comment><USER17> I guess you missed the part where he talks about Copenhagen and how people bike extensively there despite the fact it certainly doesn't have what anyone would call nice weather.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Fascinating!</comment>


Evolution of "Hello World" over 100+ languages - <AUTHOR> http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/40376/8946

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. It is pretty cool!</comment>


Is Hootsuite worth $9.99 a month? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone here use Hootsuite for social media management? is it worth $9.99 a month? What alternatives would you recommend? Buffer? SproutSocial? <comment><USER2> Hootsuite sucks. It's clunky, and the UI is horrible.

Buffer writes great blog posts, but I just don't see the value in its service.

HubSpot, if you can afford it, is what I enjoy using the most to post to social media because of its Social Inbox.

For Pinterest and Instagram, Piquora looks promising and so does Postris.

Read/skim these articles: -[https://blog.kissmetrics.com/automate-pinterest- marketing/](https://blog.kissmetrics.com/automate-pinterest-marketing/) -[http://www.inboundio.com/blog/ultimate-list-23-marketing- too...](http://www.inboundio.com/blog/ultimate-list-23-marketing-tools- software-plugins-pinterest/)

Another great tool I love for social media management is sproutsocial.com.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're asking the question, probably not.

If social media drives a good portion of your business, and it will save you time, $120 a year could be nothing to your bottom line.

In my trial and error, I like Buffer the most. SproutSocial 2nd. I haven't tried HootSuite, but recently read they raised an additional $35M in funding bringing their total funding to over $225M at a valuation of $800M - mind- blowing. My favorite Twitter tool currently is TweetAdder.

</comment><comment><USER4> Gonna throw [http://beatrixapp.com](http://beatrixapp.com) into the ring :) *

better UI than Hootsuite and it helps suggest more types of content such as images, texts etc.

But if you don't think Hootsuite is worth $10 a month, then you probably won't think Beatrix is worth $20 a month. I think the target market for these tools is more like people who _need_ to use them for their jobs. Where $20 to $100 a month doesn't matter as long as it's creating concrete value.

Selling directly to small businesses is a harder sell, I think. The ROI from social media is not as immediate as say, something like advertising or an email newsletter - so it's more difficult to demonstrate value in a short time (e.g. a free trial period).

*disclosure: I'm the founder!

</comment><comment><USER5> Many comments here are from accounts created after the link was posted!! I hope HN does some highlighting of such comments, so it's easy to ignore them.

<comment><USER6> That's pretty disgusting and so easy to verify. Such a shame.

I use this Chrome extension, and new accounts have a -green- name: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news- enhanc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news- enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm)

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure you need an extension for that. I'm reading this on Safari/iOS (which has no plugins) and those usernames show up in green for me too.

<comment><USER5> That seems to be the case on Chrome/Android as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've used all three for clients and my own profiles and prefer Hootsuite Pro. I currently manage five different sets of profiles, so it can get messy easily.

Sprout Social has beautiful analytics, but with a hack I can get the same for only a quarter of the price. I also work better with multiple columns so Hootsuite wins me over there. With more than a couple of profiles, it's too hard working out what came from which profile in Sprout.

I was using Buffer free to post content, but Hootlet is built into Hootsuite and gives me Ow.ly URLs for tracking, so I found myself not using Buffer as much then not at all.

Probably the biggest clincher for me with Hootsuite Pro is the price and extra user. I have a client also managing their profiles, so I set them up with my extra user. At $10 a month it's amazing value. Two users on Sprout Social is at least $80.

</comment><comment><USER9> When you ask if something "is worth" it, it really depends on your business and what kind of value you expect to gain from it. Unless you're talking about personal use, it's hard to believe any service is not worth at least $9.99 to a business unless it's providing negative value.

What do you actually hope to gain from using Hootsuite and how do you want it to help your business?

I'm a developer for HubSpot's Social Inbox and I think our tool is fantastic in helping you schedule/publish content, monitor social media activity relevant to your business, and interact with people interested in your company. If you're searching for other marketing tools as well, I'd suggest taking a look at HubSpot, especially since it integrates well with the rest of HubSpot's products.

<comment><AUTHOR> From a content marketing perspective, I'm looking to monitor what ppl are saying in social media about certain keywords/trends across Twitter and Facebook. Not so much interested in the scheduling and publishing component. How can Hubspot help me in creating timely, relevant content?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hi AznHisoka,

Thanks for thinking about using Hootsuite. We think our Pro service is worth the price. There's a free version as well.

It comes down to what your business goals are and whether you believe social media can help you accomplish these goals.

There's lots of great discussion here already. To be honest, this is amazing feedback for us here at Hootsuite as our goal is to provide a tool to securely manage your social communication.

Here's an article on Social Media Today about the benefits of social media monitoring, and how Hootsuite helps people do so: [http://ow.ly/Bg3E2](http://ow.ly/Bg3E2).

If you have any questions or would like us to help get you set up with a Hootsuite account so you can try it out, reach out to us at @HootClub.

\- David from Hootsuite

</comment><comment><USER11> I been using HootSuite for nearly 4 years and most if not all of the success I had and keep having with social media is thanks to the many useful tools HootSuite provides.

For $9.99 a month is more than worth it BUT you need to take your time to master the platform if not you will not get proper results. Also is very important that you prepare a social media marketing strategy so you know exactly where you want to go. No matter what your social media goals are HootSuite will have the tools you will need to make it happen.

So give it a try and if you have any questions HootSuite customer support is awesome. Also the HootSuite forums are great to ask because the HootSuite community Ambassadors are always happy to help.

</comment><comment><USER12> It is known that Hootsuite allows update, schedule and monitor our activities through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare from one single platform. With the latest dashboard update of Hootsuite it's easier than ever to create publications for these social networks with the renovated profile selector. Not only is it possible to select which social network we want to send, it can be marked as favorites or set them to appear selected by default each time draft a message. Easy to manage, easy to get reports... easy at all!!! Wouldn't you want to pay a small price to make your work easier and fast?

</comment><comment><USER13> I manage multiple Social Media Accounts. Hootsuite saves me time and effort. With Hootsuite I can listen for keywords and with Smart Queries I can easily analyze conversations about my brand, my competitors, doing sentiment analysis on the fly and also geo targeted analysis if required. With Team Functions I can coordinate a social media team in sharing content and answering to prospects. With analysis functions I can monitor KPI and have a clear comprehension of the effects of my communication strategies. Yes, it is really worth 10$ a month

</comment><comment><USER14> I've used Hootsuite and Buffer, and Buffer is the better deal by a country mile IMO. Hootsuite is annoying with its "university" and other nonsense it tries to upsell.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not sure about Hootsuite, but I really like Buffer. I spend an hour every Sunday night scheduling shares for the next week. It works out well for my use case.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hootsuite saves time and makes it easy to manage various profiles across a number of different platforms. Hootsuite's added bonus is its stellar customer service. Got a question? Experiencing technical glitches? Hootsuite's professional and courteous staff are always ready to deliver what you need with a smile. Yes, Hootsuite is definitely worth the cost of admission.

</comment><comment><USER17> Worth every dollar spent, Hootsuite is a very powerful tool, facilitates work in social media, easy to handle, with many options to take full advantage the dashboard, 70 free apps that give us very many utilities which other tools can not give us, and of course i love the Hootsuite help support. And all that for only $9.99?!

</comment><comment><USER18> I use Hootsuite to manage multiple accounts across different platforms. It saves me time, allows me to keep an eye on keywords (that I can geo target if need be) and share clients content. Easily for me the best £10 a month; what's that 33 pence a day?

</comment><comment><USER19> I use it everyday and my results have been great. I use it for so much more than writing and scheduling posts. It's the best social listening tool out there and it provides great social media reports. $9.99? I think it's worth a lot more.

</comment><comment><USER20> Take a look at [http://meople.net](http://meople.net). It might not be a business oriented solution but supports several social networks viewer and multipost (where the post is allowed).

<comment><USER21> Hard to trust company that didn't changed their C dates in footer...

<comment><USER20> Will be fixed soon, sorry for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Of course that you have a lot Hootsuite alternatives. But not any as Hootsuite. Really do you know how work with the dashboard¿? Perhaps in Hootsuite University you would learn more about it

</comment><comment><USER23> Not sure what your looking for exactly but we just launched a tool (still in Beta) that will help you select the right terms before you tweet. Check it out and let us know what you think.

www.12perks.com

</comment><comment><USER24> It depends on what you want to do with it. I use it and I reckon its worth $10 a month because I can post to and monitor all my social media channels at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER25> Yeah!, its worth if you are Social junkie! :) Hootsuite is one of the greatest tools that helps you to manage your social accounts into one account and easy to use!

</comment><comment><USER26> Another option not yet mentioned: [https://respond.ly/](https://respond.ly/) Especially good for doing support via twitter.

</comment><comment><USER27> I use the Hootsuite Pro Version since 2013 and I find it very useful.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've been using Hootsuite for several years, and find it crucial to the day- to-day Social Media workflow. There's just no comparable tools on the market. And add the Hootlet to really streamline your work and you have everything you need.

/ Toby

</comment><comment><USER29> Yes I do, I use the Pro version since 2011 and I love it!

</comment><comment><USER30> I really don't see why people buy Hootsuite when there's an open source self hosted version that you can use on your desktop computer.

<comment><USER31> What's the alternative?

<comment><USER32> Probably this, but just guessing:

[https://github.com/socioboard/socioboard](https://github.com/socioboard/socioboard)

<comment><USER33> This project looks interesting, but the source code looks to be for Visual Studio. Which would limit the DIY option to windows users. They do offer a SaaS option which could run costs even higher.

<comment><USER34> Hi, you can setup socioboard on linux using mono framework. We are porting it to mono for the linux community.

Also an open source desktop version is under the works in python so it will be cross platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've been using Hootsuite for about two years now and I loved it so much that I decided to do the Hootsuite university course and get certified too. With Hootsuite there are so much more to it than just scheduling posts and getting analytics - you can track keywords, URL's, see tweets in your area, see tweets or conversations in any area actually. You can integrate different apps into Hootsuite like youtube, instagram, tumblr etc so you can literally manage EVERYTHING from ONE dashboard. Is it worth $10 per month? Absolutely! P.s - complete the Hootsuite university course to learn about everything you can do with this great social media tool :)</comment>


Deep Learning Conspiracy - <AUTHOR> http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/deep-learning-conspiracy.html <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the response from Yan LeCunn and others:

[https://plus.google.com/100849856540000067209/posts/9BDtGwCD...](https://plus.google.com/100849856540000067209/posts/9BDtGwCDL7D)</comment>


Physicists score double hit in LED research - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-09-physicists-score.html <comment><USER2> The publication at arxive: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.12227](https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.12227)

</comment><comment><USER3> Quite frankly I couldn't see the benefit. We already have solid state led lasers operating at THz speed. What is the actual improvement in this? Nick Holynak already demonstrated laser transistors more than a decade ago ...

</comment><comment><USER4> The most interesting thing from this for me was hearing about LiFi, which is a networking technology I have never even heard of being deployed, but apparently is in some environments.

<comment><USER5> My understanding of LiFi : it's absolutely great apart from when the test room has bright natural sunlight.

<comment><USER6> That does sound like a significant drawback to wide spread outdoors adoption, and some indoor areas too.</comment></comment></comment>


Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/ <comment><USER2> Honestly the headline doesn't match the article at all.

It's the same old advice from 40 years ago: eat your damn veggies and fruit.

<comment><USER3> And exercise. It starts sounding like there's something specific and secret that's been discovered but it's just the same advice. Eat less, exercise, eat better natural foods.

<comment><USER4> What? The article literally starts off by explaining that 98% of dieters fail to keep their weight down long term, and that dieting bodies go into starvation mode, impeding weight loss. That's the bit that no one talks about. That diet and exercise doesn't help a fat person get thin and stay thin.

The one cure they fail to mention is bariatric surgery. It's the only scientifically proven method of long term weight loss.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Messenger, SMS and iMessage - <AUTHOR> http://brooksreview.net/2011/08/sms/ <comment><USER2> People (in the UK at least) have grown so 'comfortable' with using SMS - I'll admit to it myself, I could easily fire up the Facebook and send a message to any one of my friends, all of whom have smartphones and would undoubtedly receive the message within a minute of it being sent. However, for whatever reason, I'll still just send an SMS.

Apple have realised that the only way of replacing this (and eventually killing SMS) is to provide a messaging service which is inherently invisible or 'passive' from a UX point of view. Yes, it is tied into iOS, but the critical thing to consider is that users are required to put in _zero_ effort to send an iMessage.

With this in mind, I don't see how Facebook Messenger is any different to the likes of [insert free web messaging service here], admittedly with a lot more users.

<comment><USER3> While I agree that integrated and invisible is the way to go, the popularity of iMessage will be limited by how many people actually have iPhones. While I know of a lot of people with them, it's certainly not the majority of people I know.

Whereas with Facebook, just about everyone has an account.

The killer feature really is group messaging on-the-go with _all_ of your friends, regardless of their phone. As it stands right now, I have a feeling Facebook are the only ones really going for this.</comment></comment>


"Avengers: Age of Ultrons" crosses $400M in 24 days - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2015/05/24/box-office-avengers-age-of-ultron-crosses-400m-in-24-days/

<comment><USER2> And yet Hollywood studios would have you believe piracy is killing the movie industry. Furious 7 cleared $1.5 billion at the Box Office.</comment>


The Art of City Walking - <AUTHOR> https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/another-hundred-people <comment><USER2> Sounds like the writer has confused flanerie with badaud, quoting a quote from a Wikipedia: "The simple flâneur is always in full possession of his individuality, whereas the individuality of the badaud disappears. It is absorbed by the outside world…which intoxicates him to the point where he forgets himself. Under the influence of the spectacle which presents itself to him, the badaud becomes an impersonal creature; he is no longer a human being, he is part of the public, of the crowd."[Victor Fournel, Ce qu'on voit dans les rues de Paris, (Paris, 1867), p. 270. See Shaya 2004.]</comment>


Microsoft Hates My Name (Not Me, Just My Name) - <AUTHOR> http://garrett.damore.org/2016/05/microsoft-hates-my-name-not-me-just-my.html <comment><USER2> I like to jump on the MS hate bandwagon pretty often but I did get a kick out of the fact that you don't have an apostrophe in your domain name and I don't see a complaint about it.</comment>


You Are Going to Die - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/you-are-going-to-die/ <comment><USER2> I think the part about segregating the elderly away so we don't have to confront death is spot-on.

Even though I was raised in the U.S., I find the American approach to the elderly a bit bizarre. My family is from Bangladesh. My grandparents moved in with their children when they were too old to take care of themselves. Yet here in the U.S., the popular culture strongly pushes back against multi- generational living. So we end up with a fairly bizarre situation: a country that is in crisis about how to take care of retirees, and also faces the challenge of middle class couples not wanting to have children because of, among other things, the enormous costs of child care. I feel like one problem is a built in solution to the other problem.

I'm not trying to criticize anyone's lifestyle choices. But to an extent our lifestyle choices are cultural. See, e.g., the cultural attitudes about young people living with their parents into their 20's in places like Spain versus the U.S. I think one thing the economy and the retirement crisis will force is a changing attitude towards multi-generational living. We're facing a future with fewer workers per retiree. At this instant it's a zero-sum game: we either tax working people more so the elderly can maintain independent lifestyles, or we reduce benefits to older people and force them to depend more on their children. Either way, the efficiencies that are inherent in multi-generational living will be an attractive way to deal with the smaller than expected pie that must be split amongst more people.

<comment><USER3> _So we end up with a fairly bizarre situation: a country that is in crisis about how to take care of retirees, and also faces the challenge of middle class couples not wanting to have children because of, among other things, the enormous costs of child care. I feel like one problem is a built in solution to the other problem_

As someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about this, I feel that the status quo will be remembered as a peculiar little historical blip.

It is so outrageous to me that my kids' grandparents are lonely as heck wasting away in their 55 & older retirement community in an inhospitable desert wasteland at the same time I have spent literally tens of thousands of dollars on child care. Whenever I see other grandparents actively grandparenting, I am filled with jealous resentment.

<comment><USER4> You are absolutely right, I plan to move my parents in when I start having kids. I still remember going to one of grandparents house everyday after elementary and middle school.

I'm mexican so it's normal to have multi-generational homes but I always wondered why white people don't do this more.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if it's a white people thing specifically, at least other than locally and recently. Maybe more of a "recent American society" thing.

Certainly when I was a kid I was usually watched by my grandparents, great- grandparents, aunts, and so on. Only very rarely was I watched by sitters.

Part of it is modern mobility. Parents may live thousands of miles away from the grandparents, and elders are working in their own careers longer nowadays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Americans are afraid to die, sure, but there's something we're much more afraid of which explains all of this so much better.

We're afraid of old people fucking.

We're afraid to know our parents had sex. We're afraid for our kids to know we have sex. We're afraid of what happens when we get old and wrinkly. We're afraid that when we're old and wrinkly, nobody taut and sexy will want to have sex with us. We're secretly afraid when we're old and wrinkly we won't be able to get it up. And, of course, we're terrified that our widowed grandparents might be having sex with other widowed grandparents.

I think the whole youth and beauty thing falls out of this.

<comment><USER7> >I think the whole youth and beauty thing falls out of this.

Yes, you're right but that is more of a side-effect of why we value youth and beauty: our primary drive for sex is to reproduce, and there is a nice bell- curve on the age of a person as to when that is optimal, made clearly obvious by their outward appearance of youth and beauty.

Plenty of older people have sex, and I've heard anecdotally that retirement homes are a good place for finding a partner.

<comment><USER6> > our primary drive for sex is to reproduce

Clearly you and I are not watching the same pornography.

> Plenty of older people have sex

Sure. I'm just positing that the retirement home phenomenon is exacerbated by our cultural fear of finding out about this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The world doesn't have to be like this. Not anymore. It's too late for my little brother - but Kim Suozzi made it, and it's not too late for you, or any of your loved ones who are still alive.

<http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Cryonics>

<comment><USER9> Hey Eliezer, what do you think it would take to bring the price point of cryonics down to a level where it could become commonplace?

Right now, the primary barriers to its widespread addoption are still probably incredulity and religious objections, but I think those would quickly fall by the wayside if it didn't cost as much as a house.

Perhaps an X-Prize style competition to develop more cost-effective technologies and techniques?

<comment><USER10> The cost is low enough today that it could be much more common. Even the most expensive set-up (Alcor whole-body, whole life insurance) is about $130/month for a healthy person in their mid 20's. With term life and neuro (head-only), you could cut that in half. Still, only a couple thousand people are signed up.

Alcor has published a cost break-down <http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CostOfCryonicsTables.txt> and explained it at <http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CostOfCryonics.html>

A big chunk of cash is spent keeping a team on-site while waiting for the person to die. Assisted suicide for the terminally ill would help reduce costs significantly.

<comment><USER11> > for a healthy person in their mid 20's

Oh come on, quoting the cheapest price isn't fair or realistic. How about showing us something more representative, or at least quoting the most expensive rate as well?

<comment><USER10> I'll address it, but I don't think cost is your true rejection[1]. If I was talking about a highly-experimental cancer treatment, I doubt you'd nitpick the price. Doubly-so if you had cancer. In fact, I bet you'd do your best to estimate its effectiveness.

I didn't quote the cheapest price. I quoted what I pay. I have no idea how much older people pay for life insurance. If you looked at their website, you'd see that Alcor dues are $800/year. Neuropreservation is $80k and whole- body is $200k (<http://alcor.org/BecomeMember/scheduleA.html>). This may sound like a lot, but the standard way to pay is to buy life insurance. When you die, the policy pays Alcor. You can see the cost break-down in my GP comment.

Alcor is expensive. Cryonics Institute is the budget option. CI dues are $120/year and whole-body preservation costs $35k. CI members usually pay with life insurance as well. CI can charge less because they have less staff. Their research budget is practically zero. Most importantly, they won't camp at your deathbed. IIRC, Eliezer is signed up with CI and pays around $300/year. _That's_ the cheapest price possible.

It's often said that getting cryopreserved is the second-worst thing that can happen to you. Cryonics gives you a small chance of living a much longer life. I'll be the first to admit that it's highly unlikely to work. But for myself and many others, the expected value calculation heavily favors signing up. After all, consider the alternative: You die slightly wealthier.

1\. <http://lesswrong.com/lw/wj/is_that_your_true_rejection/>

<comment><USER12> "A small change" of living after being cryopreserved after you are declared legally dead is less than your chance to win powerball jackpot with single ticket.

The alternative is that you do a little bit more with your life, because you don't spend $120/year and all the mental energy for planning your after-life.

<comment><USER10> The probability of revival varies based on who you ask. SEM micrographs of cryopreserved mammal brain tissue show intact nanostructure. One can even see synaptic vesicles with neurotransmitters in them. Also, Alcor's cryopreservation protocol has been used to preserve and revive rabbit kidneys successfully (<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781097/>).

If cryonics works, this is the sort of evidence you'd expect to see today. Demanding a revival doesn't make sense, because cryonics relies on the vast gap between preservation tech and revival tech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Strangely enough, the observed / estimated mortality rate is around 93% -- the seven billion living people haven't yet died.

On another somber note, even if we could transcribe our consciousness to machines, achieve singularity, etc -- all we do is delay it by another number. The sun is going to burn out, explode an expand, and eventually stars in general will run out of fuel. Is only hope is to change your conscious understanding of life and existence to accept non existence?

<comment><USER9> _"all we do is delay it by another number"_

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 > 80

<comment><USER12> There are way too many zeroes in that number.

<comment><USER14> True, but I think it illustrates his point further: given enough zeroes, it's close enough to infinity that it doesn't matter :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> barry-cotter Not if Aubrey de Grey, Eliezer Yudkowsky or a number of other people succeed. Donate. Death is not the end of everything but it will be the end of you.

<comment><USER15> Too much government interference right now for that kind of thing to bear fruit. We need radical research not the slow meandering kind that the FDA allows us.

<comment><USER12> Government is way too incompetent to prevent technical progress.

The real enemy of technical progress is natural complexity of things.

<comment><USER15> You don't need to be competent to destroy. As they say, it's far easier to destroy than it is to create. Government destroys incentive by threats, laws, regulations, direct appropriation, usurping the educational system, etc. etc. etc.

You far underestimate the problem. We are now living in a virtual dark ages compared to what is possible under a proper system of government.

<comment><USER12> There are 100+ governments on Earth.

Why wouldn't you pick a proper one?

<comment><USER15> Why do you suppose that there's a proper one? You clearly need to read more history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd like to point out first that this author has an awful attitude, and I'd also like to point out that his opinion about the "flattened bell curve" of life is factually incorrect. Most studies show a linear improvement in happiness during the twilight years of life - <http://www.economist.com/node/17722567> \- it is in face a U-shape, the opposite of a bell curve.

Don't let depressed assholes like Tim Kreider affect your outlook on life. You'll note that he, at age 45, is right next to the statistically lowest point of self-reported well-being. One day he, like his Mother, will learn to enjoy the good things in life and not look so morbidly at his pending doom.

<comment><USER17> It may be an awful attitude, but it coincides remarkably well with mine. And he's not an asshole - just a bit morbid, perhaps.

I think we spend a lot of time and mental energy suppressing the fact of our own eventual decline and death, leading to stress and cognitive dissonance. It's nice to occasionally face the facts directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> We certainly start to come to grips with our own mortality as we age. At 28, I'm having thoughts and concerns about illnesses I never thought I would, even though I'm certainly more aware of what I put into my body than I was just years ago.

I remember a conversation with my mom a few years back, where she started with something like "If I had died a few years ago." That was unfathomable to me because the thought of losing my parents is something I've always wrestled with and my mom is still very much youthful and carefree despite her advancing age.

Its a great piece that highlights the fact that at sometime we can and do come to terms with the fact that we won't be here forever. It's a sobering thought, but one that gives us perspective on life about the things that matter. In addition, realizing that we are mortal makes us want to leave behind a legacy, whether its a family, a product, or a book, we all want to be remembered for something.

I think we all come to this realization at different points in our lives.

</comment><comment><USER19> Death may be inevitable, but there is life to live yet.

</comment><comment><USER20> Life-extension as the pursuit of the every-man: " The mortality rate is holding at a scandalous 100 percent. "

What are YOU doing?

</comment><comment><USER21> The article states that films rarely have infirm or elderly characters, though a great film that does is "Away from her". It isn't the easiest to watch, but it is sobering.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491747/>

<comment><USER3> Similarly, I just saw the trailer for "the Quartet" with Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, and John Cleese and it looks remarkable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Most people act as if they are immortal though.

<comment><USER23> Is there any other way to stay sane?

<comment><USER24> heh, heh, is sanity even possible given the circumstances?

born to die, blink of an eye, gone, become, everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What luck, there is no you.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Hacker News"

</comment><comment><USER26> "the well are without mercy"

This line jumped out at me, as if taken from my own thoughts of the day. I have found, anytime that I am functioning at anything less than 100%, that almost every other human becomes like a jackal. Nonchalantly, politely divesting me of whatever scraps are left of my spirit, dignity or bank account, with a smile.

The same goes for people who are thought to be helpers, like doctors, nurses, counselors, social workers and the like. Human instincts to prey on the weaker seem to trump professional narratives in many cases.

I see this in the way doctors treat my grandfather. I see it in the way well- off members of the family treat poorer. Life is brutal, and as ever, it's we who make it so.

<comment><USER20> By * all * measurable aspects we're living in the most peaceful time known in all recorded history.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen...](http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html)

You should make a conscious effort to see this. Otherwise you're going to begin to believe the amygdala-driven "what is the world coming to" type statements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This article is an obnoxious meander. It is an "anxiety" blog for heavens sake, not very productive.

Getting care for the elderly is nice. Modern medicine is a mixed blessing, where we live long enough to get old with alzheimers and cancer.

Make the most of the years you get, the last one will be bad no matter what you do, unless you die of a heart attack during sex.

And set up your grandparents with Skype or FaceTime or Hangouts, the joy it brings them is beyond measure. Nothing is better for the cost of a device and Internet connectivity.

</comment><comment><USER23> This conversation is not good for mental health.

<comment><USER3> One may argue that the denialist approach to mortality is even worse for mental health.

<comment><USER23> It is too late for us, but spare your friends and especially your children. We who search for all the answers suffer when find the unanswerable ones. The minds who are lucky don't encounter the darkest questions of life, and we should let them be happy, and help protect their innocence.

<comment><USER2> Death isn't an unanswerable question. It is, in a world with finite resources, a necessary inevitability. The only question is whether that death comes in orderly cycles, or catastrophically.

Not everyone wants to live forever. My grandparents lived to their 80's. My father, who is a bit over 60, considers that to be a very reasonable number, and I feel the same way. I don't want to still be here in 60+ years straining the resources of my daughter's generation.

<comment><USER27> Let me know the day you feel you've had your fill and you're ok with pulling the plug, if not due to your body ceasing to function properly.

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'll feel differently in 50 years, who knows. My dad certainly feels more strongly about not wanting to take unusual measures to extend life than he did 10-20 years ago (when he probably hadn't thought of it much).

Death is not a failure of the design. It's an integral part of it.

<comment><USER28> > Death is not a failure of the design. It's an integral part of it.

And that's Stockholm syndrome at its maximum expression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> And water is wet, and the sky is blue.</comment>


Successful Entrepreneurs Don't Have An Exit Strategy - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2012/06/18/successful-entrepreneurs-dont-have-an-exit-strategy/

<comment><AUTHOR> IMHO the best quote in the article was this:

"The cold hard truth is that the desire for money (i.e. an "exit") is simply not enough to get you through all the hell that growing a successful company will put you through. You have to believe in your product, believe that you are doing something better than everyone else and believe that you're the right person to take the company there. If you start following other people's advice, you will never keep yourself in the race, let alone win it."</comment>