Ask HN: How do you work with complete beginners? - <AUTHOR> We've hired a bunch of fresh graduates from college for a software dev job. This could be hard to comprehend but let me try to put it in the best way possible. The part of the world where I'm from, we don't necessarily hire only CS folks for such job.
Most of our IT / Software Dev hires could be ranging from CS to Aeronautical to Mechanical Engineering students. All we look for is an engineering degree to validate analytical skills.
With that background, I've been assigned a couple of absolute beginners who I'd be working with to ship a feature in a __couple of months__.
While I strongly believe it's my responsibility to get junior devs on par in terms of knowledge & execution speed, I really don't have any previous experience working with absolute beginners who'd barely qualify as devs let alone junior devs. What best to do in this situation? Should I accept I suck at this and bail out for everybody's good? Is there anything I __can__ do, to comfortably work with beginners? <comment><USER2> \- Help everyone at first.

\- Filter out those that don't ask the same things 2x - 3x.

\- Those that ask things a lot and can't do much, assign them small tasks.

\- Assign features and more important stuff to the more independent ones.

\- Lessen helping everyone, but move to the "only bother me if you're stuck" mantra. Let them work more independently and use the online documentation to find something.

\- Have a daily standup, so that everyone knows what they are doing. If they have questions, this is when it (from now on) should be requested.

\- Make sure you have an alpha, beta and master environment. Be on top of everything as soon as it enters the beta environment. Don't let them change in production ( except a seperate branch for a bugfix). They develop on the alpha branch or a feature-branch.

\- If someone can't develop or work independently, try to change them more to "testing".

\- Use kanban / agile.

\- Don't be afraid to filter people out, it happens that some beginners take a toll on the time of the team, because they develop errors / don't test code.

\- Try to push the "don't commit, if it doesn't work" mantra.

==

I personally let them develop the entire time and when UX doesn't make sense or has not logical things that keep dragging on. I then spend an evening on fixing it as much as possible and explain the things i've done the day afterwards, without name calling.

<comment><USER3> "Don't be afraid to filter people out, it happens that some beginners take a toll on the time of the team, because they develop errors / don't test code."

I would put a huge caveat here: Make sure you're deeply involved the process and understand what's going before taking any steps to sideline a programmer that's underperforming.

I worked for 3 years on a project that was underperforming by every metric. Major features were constantly riddled with bugs, rewritten, over budget. We had no way to push our issues above the PM who was throwing the developers under the bus.

The functional requirements would change daily, deadlines would not move, we were getting less and less QA time and 0 time to write or update tests and we were trying to write an integration with a service that was still in development (trying to hit a moving target).

They brought in a BA and kid you not, she quit 3 weeks in. That got the notice of management, finally, and our semi-technical schizophrenic partner on the client side was let go. Before we were able to escalate these issues there was a very different impression of the work we were doing. Afterward it was like black and white. Perfect releases, on time, on budget, and we were delivering real value to the client.

<comment><USER2> You are talking about your POV as a developer under a bad PM, which is unrelated to the question in my view :)

I agree, it seems harsh because I talk efficiently. But I suppose most of us try to fill in the social aspects according to their situation of the roadmap I "suggested", we are all adults here and nobody will become a dictator and reference my comment, I hope :p

<comment><USER3> I thought I emphasized the point pretty well: Get involved in the process if you're managing a team of developers and don't just look at metrics. They can be misleading if there is no way for developers to communicate UP to managers or if there are self interested parties between you and your devs.

<comment><USER2> I've never thaught about a PM that isn't "involved" and only relies on metrics.

My experience is that PM's are part of the team ( and mostly a senior developer), not part of management.

They translate management decisions to their team and take responsibility for it. They shouldn't live in their ivory tower and not know what is going on.

Their experience gives them insights in developer efficiency issues and can solve more advanced problems.

Sometimes they help program, sometimes they are doing infrastructure ( Eg. Cloud management) or deployments.

They did good in the past and now do something else as a way of promotion and encounter new social aspects in managing a team and deploying a project.

Some should better stay developers and some like the challenge.

And if I interpreted the OP well, he's a promoted developer close to the team. And not a hired worker that thinks he's a PM without Dev experience.

<comment><USER3> Oh, we've had very different experiences relating to project management! I've never had a PM that was a former developer, and in my world senior developers usually act as solution architects without the title, mostly removed from the day to day development tasks unless they're briefing developers on documentation and implementation details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Coming from someone who never did any coding (beyond assignments in class) during college and learned it within a month after starting my first real job, you'll have to take on the role of mentor for them. One of the things holding me back from learning programming earlier was having no real "entry point", it's easy to get the basics (syntax etc) down but when it comes to actually applying them, I've found it incredibly helpful to have someone I could ask my "stupid" questions. Teaching yourself new things is a skill that comes with time (imo) but when you don't even know what you're looking for, it can be very hard to find that info yourself - so having someone looking over your shoulder who knows things like "oh there's already a built-in function for that" etc is invaluable. You should also get acquainted with the XY problem: [https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is- the-x...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy- problem)

And I second the daily standup suggestion, if only to keep the ball rolling & so everyone keeps track of their progress.

<comment><USER2> Nobody is barred from learning online, they can request a meeting to discuss coding. As long as they plan the questions in advance and don't interrupt every 5 minutes for a new question.

But programming involves so many questions if you are staying. It would be best to let them learn documentation and let them read open source code.

If you want to spend 24/7 on teaching coding, you should have a different profession :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Teaching is difficult because everyone is different. I had an intern once and completely messed it up by giving them the perfect environment for a younger me. I think what I learned is that constant communication is critical, and that you shouldn't assume the way that you learn is the way everyone else learns.

</comment><comment><USER6> How long would it take for you to develop this feature solo?

I would expect for your novices to be a drag on your development speed for these two months rather than contributing anything useful. Heck, for most beginners that would still be the case after 6 months of study.

Use those two pieces of information to determine whether you've been set up to fail, and act accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am assuming that you have reasonably well rounded experience as a programmer and are well versed in your organisations standards and methodologies. If not, then my advice is probably not going to be much use. I have re-trained Cobol and RPG programmers to develop OOP systems using the following. And I have taught SE at university so I have some experience, but never with complete absolute non-programming mindset folks.

"Ship a feature in a couple of months" ... WTF? ... is you management even sane???

Putting that brain snap aside ...

You need to establish what programming language, framework, tools, conventions you will be using. Then with that in mind, create a series of progressive exercises that introduce basic programming concepts (as are applicable to the features that you will be expected to ship over the next 12-18 months). Basically you would do a "teaching session" with handouts, examples and some live-coding on your part. Then you follow that with a "tutorial session" where your team gets to practice what they have just learnt. For a week or two that is all that you are likely to be able to achieve.

Once you get over that initial hurdle, you would need to design that first feature and assign segments to each member of the team. During that time you will be mentoring and assessing how well each member of the group is "coping".

Realistically, if you could complete the required feature on your own in one month, then the above exercise will probably take three months. But the next feature will take probably half that if your team come up to speed at about average rate.

For your sake, I suggest that you have your management on-side. I have seen too many managers who think that programming is nothing more than _typing_. Those PHBs are the bane of any software development project.

I am aware that this is becoming a long read. But I hope that your team is not expected to do analysis nor design. That has to be done by people with considerable domain and development expertise.

</comment><comment><USER8> \- Split up the task you have in mind into smaller tasks and assign each dev to them

\- Make each of them watch online videos and do independent research and learn as much as they can in 1-2 weeks. Measure them every two days.

\- Post two weeks ask them to build a small application in the third week. eg:login functionality with password reset and captcha.

\- In the fourth week, ask them to build the entire chunk of work you cut out for them. Push them a little to achieve it. (They might need 2-3 weeks to get it done though)

\- Keep adding new tasks and assign new learnings.

</comment><comment><USER9> Your typical bootcamp course takes 8-10 weeks. It's (hopefully) a carefully crafted experience that will get people to a standard where they can be useful within a fairly constrained setup e.g. build crud apps with rails. Given that you're not going to be able to provide this and that even if they did have a bootcamp available they wouldn't be available for a couple of months your task sounds impossible. If switching jobs isn't an option you need to work on expectations and push for alternative resourcing options.

</comment><comment><USER10> First, you should try to write everything down. If you have a twiki or internal site, organize the information and how things are done.

Encourage others with experience to also document everything. This will form some of the basis for your on boarding of junior developers.

If you do not have guidelines for how your code should look, how code is tested, and how code is released, get the team together and write them. Having the basics available for the juniors to learn from is incredibly helpful.

</comment><comment><USER11> I come from a non CS background, at the company where I work they let me do some unit testing and it helped a lot to understand how things work!

</comment><comment><USER12> About a decade ago, while working for a large a multinational headquartered in Silicon Valley, I had the wonderful experience of working with a bunch of interns; an experience I believe to be very relevant to your current challenge. Working with junior employees, irrespective of their area, can be an extremely rewarding experience, both for yourself as well as for the new hires.

In my case, the interns were made available due to a direct agreement between my employer and a nearby university (SCU). This reduced the costs of an intern, from a budgetary perspective, to zero. This was significant, imho, because most of colleagues who were assigned interns, considered their value to be equal to their costs, which I believe was a grave mistake. I am mentioning this to further qualify my personal experience.

Regardless, even though from a budgetary perspective, the interns were 'cheap labor' I never considered them as such. From my perspective, I had an obligation towards them. My job, with respect to their 1 year internship, was to teach them how to be a professional. The better I was at my job, the more valuable they would be to me and to my company. This was in strong contrast to how my colleagues approached the interns assigned to them. Suffice to say that within months, most interns ended up under my care.

Now - to finally answer your question; I developed a particular approach to educating the interns. Briefly summarized, these were the steps:

(btw: always try to refer to a framework to aid communication, as you can see below)

1\. Teach your new hires how to communicate. It is impossible to stress how important this step is. The framework I used was based on a training I had taken my myself and is called SCIPAB. "Situation Complication Implication - Position Action Benefit". What this basically means is, whenever they communication they need to tell what they are talking about (Situation), what the issue is that is making things difficult (complication), why that issue is important (implication), what they think about it (Position), what they think I (or they) should do about it (Action), and why that action will make everything better (Benefit). It helps if you know this framework. I made them leave me voicemail messages (max 2 sentences) daily for about two weeks training them on how to communicate to me. The benefit to me was that they could communicate efficiently with me.

2\. Further I taught them what it meant to be a team member. Group projects at university are a terrible way to prepare people to work in professional teams. I used the Belbin team roles framework to discuss this with them.

3\. As the final portion of their initial training, I explained to them the different emotional stages they should expect to experience at work. Elation (at getting the job), Fear (not knowing what is expected, nor how to be successful - fear of failing / impostor syndrome), Depression (finally figuring out what is expected, but struggling to keep one's head above water), Confidence (finally knowing what's expected and how to achieve/exceed expectations. I always added that as soon as they reach the confidence level, I'd immediately 'promote' them so they'd go through the cycle again.

4\. On the first or second day they started, I warned them that I would set them up for failure. Even though I told them in advance that it would happen, it still took them by surprise. You have to make your junior employees fail. Failure is a part of life, it is part of one's career. You, as their mentor or manager, have to create an opportunity for them to fail as part of their training. Giving them an opportunity to fail in an environment you control (a failure which does not negatively impact their careers) will allow them to experience the emotions associated with failure and give them the opportunity on learning how to deal with those emotions constructively.

5\. As a final point, I had the tendency of implicitly trusting my intern's work. For example, a new intern had joined my team less than three weeks ago. I had gone through the first three steps above and had asked him to prepare a document for me. He had sent me a draft of the document via email and I called him, asking him if the document was ready for review. When he answered 'Yes,' which, of course, it wasn't (the intern was kid - what did he know, right?!) I immediately (and without proof reading) forwarded the document the cross- company team leading my project. The people on that team were of a sufficient level that the interns (and most others on my team) would fear their judgment. Now, my intern (as I expected and I eventually confirmed with others in my team) freaked out completely. Though, in his mind, I ended up with the proverbial egg on my face, from that day forward, he always made sure that whatever document he sent me was either ready for scrutiny, or he would specifically review it with me prior to sending me a copy.

This last point, though it seems added as an afterthought, is truly vital. Your employees will deliver work to the level of trust you give them. If you always insist on reviewing their work, they will give you a product in need of review. If you show them you trust their work, they will make sure that they earn that trust. As a side note, if you implicitly trust them and they fail your trust significantly after the first two or three months of employment, you will have to let them go. (This is a difficult thing to learn as a manager. Sometimes it just simply doesn't work out. It benefits neither you, nor your employee, to avoid the inevitable....)

This is but a brief summary and is hardly detailed. There are many more steps to making a green hire competent and valuable. Getting them to become valuable members of your team is the most rewarding part of being a manager.

Anyway, I wish you all the best on your journey in shaping the new engineers which will make your company great!

EDIT: fixing errors in first draft.

</comment><comment><USER13> * Set clear expectations ahead of time. For example, when NicoJuicy says "Filter those that don't ask the same things 2x-3x", if you decide to take that advice then you should be clear with them "When you ask me a question and I answer it, I expect you to both write down the answer in a place where you can retrieve it for yourself and to ask follow-up questions to ensure you understand it." If you are afraid to hide your expectations because they sound harsh to you, then reflect on how stressful it is to know that you are expected to do well but to not have direction.

* Make a learning plan alongside them. You have a _much_ better ability to curate resources that are relevant to your toolset than they do.

* Help them learn what makes a good question. Question-asking is a real skill and since they are fresh grads they might not have it. Julia Evans has some good writing on this[1][2]

* Expand the menu of questions that they know they _can_ ask. For instance, it might not occur to them to ask you for 45 minutes of time on your calendar in order to walk through the structure, interaction flows, or major data models of the project.

* Be wary of asking them for estimates. Estimating software timelines is a __hard __skill. I 've seen multiple new managers ask a junior dev for an estimate, receive "I don't know" in response, and then pressure the junior dev into lying. That sets up a communication roadblock. If you want to work with them on doing the task-breakdown required for an estimate, that can help as a means to teach estimation.

> comfortably work with beginners

Why is it a requirement to do so _comfortably_? Doing things that you are not yet skilled at is both uncomfortable and necessary to grow. It seems to me that you'd want ability to identify situations where discomfort is necessary and to tolerate discomfort.

For instance, you might decide to try programming-out-loud with them. Here, you tell them to grab notebooks and you book a conference room with a projector. Then, pick a ticket and you talk through your whole process of investigating, breaking down, planning your approach, reading through the relevant code, writing tests, refactoring, and writing code to solve the ticket. This could very well be uncomfortable for you to do and it will likely be uncomfortable for them to stop you mid-thought and ask you to explain something they didn't understand. Does that discomfort mean you shouldn't do it? Only you can answer that, but you should probably call out this discomfort explicitly and say you're going to work through it and you expect them to work through their discomfort.

[1] [https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/](https://jvns.ca/blog/good- questions/)

[2] [https://jvns.ca/blog/answer-questions-well/](https://jvns.ca/blog/answer- questions-well/)</comment>


How to build a capability within a big corporate? - <AUTHOR> I've recently been granted a small team in a big corporate. Does anyone have any tips in regards to defining and building a capability within the business? More specifically around DevOps and system architecture? <comment><USER2> Read "The DevOps Handbook", lots of great tips in there. And congratulations!</comment>


Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/world/africa/zimbabwe-mugabe-mnangagwa-chiwenga.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur <comment><USER2> Pre-Mugabe Zimbabwe was known as "the breadbasket of Africa" for the productivity of its farms. Mugabe brought economic collapse and famine, while living a life of luxury and stashing billions overseas. Hopefully whoever comes next will be a better leader.

<comment><USER3> It was a different country. how well can ex-slaves and bushman run a country? democracy is not rooted in every culture, greed is :\

EDIT: just to be clear not every person in charge is ex-slave or something, but as a country even if they started financially strong it does not mean they had the culture to support it

<comment><USER4> Ah, colonialism. Construct a system designed to prevent people from having autonomy or self-governance while shipping their value overseas, then smear them as primitives when they take over and have difficulty with autonomy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> background: President is old and have succession problems. In recent years his wife trying to grab more and more power to be the next president but not everyone in the ruling party like that. last week she (from the mouth of the president) fired "number 2" in the country. since then everyone who was "friend" with number 2 was fired too. when they tried to get rid of the army general (friend of number 2) he refused to leave his office in claim that president wife doing undemocratic things. yesterday he did the "takeover". its not yet clear if the president will switched with the number 2 guy (the friend of the general).

<comment><USER5> Really interested to read more about this. This is really the most critical point of the succession question: Who can get the military to follow him. Both the highest general and the government leader have strong claims for military leadership and there is no pure logical answer if highest general and government leader don't agree. All depends on what happens between the different parties.

<comment><USER6> There's a good summary here: [https://www.thezimbabwean.co/2017/11/standoff- zimbabwe-strug...](https://www.thezimbabwean.co/2017/11/standoff-zimbabwe- struggle-succeed-mugabe-deepens/)

From today: listen to this from around 8:10 (it starts at 6am, so skip to 2:10) [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09drjhz](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09drjhz)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's good to remember that he is in power since 1980. Calling a dictator as a President doesn't make him one. And this doesn't make the takeover good or bad, btw.

</comment><comment><USER8> "While denying that the military had seized power, they said that Mr. Mugabe and his family "are safe and sound, and their security is guaranteed."

"We are only targeting criminals _around him_ who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice,"

This doesn't look good.

<comment><USER9> According to (whoever controls...) the official Zanu-PF twitter account, Robert Mugabe and his wife has been detained.

The former vice president, Mnangagwa (who was sacked by Mugabe last week, so that his wife Grace could take the #2 spot) is acting president, according to an army statement.

Also, reports of gun and artillery fire from northern Harare - the district where Mugabe and his cronies live.

Also, predictably, the army claims this is not a coup, and that they are merely acting to preserve the constitution and the republic. (That being said, if one is to stage a coup somewhere, one could find a less deserving country than Zimbabwe; let's just hope the army has the good sense to hand over power to civilian authorities ASAP.)

<comment><USER10> I know people that live in northern Harare and they haven't heard any gun and artillery fire. They live within a 3-5km radius of RM and his cronies also they haven't seen any tanks - yet. All very curious, but something is up.

<comment><USER2> According to Wikipedia, Zimbabwe's army has no serviceable tanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Shouldn't he have been removed quite some time ago for violating the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide?

<comment><USER12> Removed by whom?

<comment><USER11> I suppose that's one of the UNs weakness in that they lack the ability to enforce a lot of conventions.

<comment><USER13> A world government with a force would be an interesting concept. Corrupt African states has lead to their citizens fleeing to Europe with EU solutions being band-aids like giving Libyan coast guard ships and money to prevent the ships from leaving Libyan waters, the better solution would be to fix corruption and help development in the refugees' home countries, but the EU governments can't do that, can they (giving the governments money would just mean the leaders would be able to afford a new villa and a few more Mercedes Benzes).

<comment><USER14> How many Libyans go to Europe by boat..?

<comment><USER4> Quite a lot: [http://www.euronews.com/2017/06/26/more-than-30-migrant- boat...](http://www.euronews.com/2017/06/26/more-than-30-migrant-boats-left- libya-for-europe-on-sunday-keith-walker)

Not all of them make it. The vessels aren't particularly seaworthy, and they're not allowed to dock, so effectively they dump their passengers in open boats and rely on the coastguard rescuing them and taking them to Italian soil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wish our neighbors well! its been a long time over due.I really hope it will be a peaceful transition, as SA has their own problems they need to deal with(cANCer)! We cannot have a refugee crisis and a civil war on our borders

</comment><comment><USER16> Robert Mugabe has been president of Zimbabwe since 1987. That is, 30 years.

<comment><USER17> And initially he was a very good leader. But lately, if you listen to his speeches, he is downright senile. And he can hardly walk on his own. That's why the general convention of serving a maximum of 2 or 3 terms is so important.

<comment><USER8> As they say - Either you die (or step down in this case) a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

There are multiple cases in developing countries where the family/friends takes over in case of someone powerful going senile.

<comment><USER18> > Either you die (or step down in this case) a hero or live long enough to see > yourself become the villain.

Evil is a choice, not a consequence of time. He destroyed that country, at the expense of the poor and to the profit of his cronys.

I wonder if this will impact North Korea. Zimbabwe is a major source of hard currency in exchange for weapons.

<comment><USER19> > _I wonder if this will impact North Korea. Zimbabwe is a major source of > hard currency in exchange for weapons._

I smell CIA. :- )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> These African countries always remind me of Darwin's Nightmare[0]. There is an interview with Raphael at 1:20:41 in which he says he wants a war because he can earn more money then.

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcnTWAyzhbg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcnTWAyzhbg)

</comment><comment><USER21> A new strong man will appear. He will talk about a fresh start, a new aera, the press will celebrate him, his followers will demand part of the loot- transparency iternational celebrates his existance, the cycle goes on and on.

</comment><comment><USER22> There have been several coups or other undemocratic assumptions of power recently: Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, China (Xi seems to have made himself dictator-for-life), Turkey, and to a degree in Japan, in at least one Eastern European country, and even in France (which AFAIK now has an indefinite state of emergency curtailing rights of citizens).

I wonder how much and in what way they are related to the U.S. changing its long-standing policy from being the guarantor of international order, and from being an advocate for democracy as a universal right. Some examples in my list started before the current US policy went into effect, but perhaps the US is accelerating a trend, merely responding to it, or even taking an active hand (during the Cold War the US played an active role in such things, from Congo/Zaire to Chile to Iran to Indonesia to many other places). Perhaps others are taking active hands now that the US is out of the picture (to a significant degree) as guarantor.

That trend, away from democracy, is very serious and is the headline here for me. Generations fought, struggled and died to establish the legacy of democracy and human rights that we inherited; what are we building for the next generation? It feels like we are just gambling away the family inheritance.

<comment><USER23> First of all, please don't call the U.S. the "guarantor of international order". It sounds as if the U.S. were a benefactor to the world. It is not, it has been all political alliances and power-play. Sometimes the U.S. backed democratic leaders, sometimes not (c.f. Pinochet, Park Chung Hee...).

Second, I myself consider the degradation of the current state of affairs in the world to be due to the global slowdown of economic growth. Less growth means less disposable income, means more social unrest and the rise of autocraty to maintain order.

<comment><USER24> While the US often acts reprehensibly, such as in the case of Chile, Iraq, and so on, the overwhelming majority of the international influence the US exerts is positive. The entire stability of Europe, Japan, South Korea (although Park Chung Hee was a dictator), and a handful of other countries was built by the US government. Counter-examples are easy to list, but somehow the more numerous positive examples are forgotten.

And what are you basing the "global slowdown of economic growth" on? Gross World Product has been growing at around 3% since the second world war, and hasn't slowed down recently at all: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product) And particularly, Africa is growing faster than anywhere else.

<comment><USER25> > _While the US often acts reprehensibly, such as in the case of Chile, Iraq, > and so on, the overwhelming majority of the international influence the US > exerts is positive._ (Citation Needed)

Please see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change)

<comment><USER24> I cited examples right after where you cut off the quote.

<comment><USER25> To say that something is majority, you need to compare with the minority, minority was not provided.

Although I recognize a HN post can't possibly be able to enumerate and compare the magnitude of all possible ways the US influenced the world and tell objectively if it added more benefit than harm.

How did the US improve the stability of Middle East on the 1953 Coup d'Etat of Iran? Supporting Taliban in the 80s?

How helping overthrow (lots) of elected governments in South and Central America help them?

How is it that the US is a democracy champion but is more than happy to support cruel and corrupt military or religious dictatorships for it's own benefit? How does that help the world?

Are you really taking into account the implications of these actions and how they helped shape the current stage on your benefit-harm balance?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


These Free, Remote Coding Lessons for Venezuelans Help Them Find Work Online - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/40491126/these-free-remote-coding-lessons-for-venezuelans-help-them-find-work-online <comment><USER2> Venezuelan that learned to code here.

Thank you platzi for doing this. This startup is changing people's life here</comment>


Humble Bundle releases EA/Origin bundle - <AUTHOR> https://www.humblebundle.com/#origin

<comment><USER2> The involvement of Origin means this is really a loss leader. Buy a small library of EA games on Origin for $25, and suddenly you have a starter library. They sell you the razor at a low cost, donate to charity (good PR footnote), and then they can hopefully sell you more blades.

They need this because Steam has a head start of years, with many people who have huge libraries they won't want to leave, and the availability of titles from almost every publisher _but_ EA. And customers are likely as not to look at purchasing things on Origin as not just being DRM (which Steam also is), but having to deal with running and operating yet another client instead of having almost everything in one place.

This is to EA's strategic benefit whether or not they receive any money via Humble Bundle.

<comment><USER3> > The involvement of Origin means this is really a loss leader.

The involvement of Origin is the reason why I am not picking up this bundle. Such a shame not all the games are available via Steam.

<comment><USER4> Why not pick up the bundle and only use the Steam keys? It's still a great deal...

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not the person to which you are replying, but as I have the same attitude I can at least answer for myself:

I already own the games that register on Steam that are interesting. I would only be interested in the games that don't register on Steam, but I do not want to use Origin.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure what the big deal is. Clearly you aren't that interested in the games in the first place, and it's not _really_ an Origin issue.

Steam has some pretty shitty policies as well, like the fact that you can no longer log in on multiple computers. This means you can't play two different games on the same account. Working backwards from the days when if you bought two games, two people could play them simultaneously.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Clearly you aren 't that interested in the games in the first place, and it's not really an Origin issue._

Clearly how? You are correct that I am not sufficiently interested in order to go through the additional hassle of Origin. I have in the past been very interested in some games but did not want to add on the hassle of Origin and so I never got them. That's pretty much the same case as here.

 _Steam has some pretty shitty policies as well, like the fact that you can no longer log in on multiple computers._

It does but I don't find that relevant at all. For one, I have no need to log into multiple computers anyway. But for the more general case of Steam policies, I have found them a sufficient tradeoff for value. My issue with Origin is not strictly their policies but the fact that I already have Steam running with >500 games in my library and I don't want to be running Origin on top of that. It's unnecessary hassle and it's wasteful of resources.

If I got my buy-in on Origin first, odds are I'd be saying things the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kind of interesting that these "corporate" bundles always remove the EFF from the list of charities.

<comment><USER7> Not that interesting. Origin uses DRM, and the EFF is quite vocal in opposing DRM, software patents, threats to P2P software, and overly-extensive copyright. They have a long history of standing in opposition to groups like the RIAA/MPAA.

<comment><USER8> In that case EFF would also avoid Steam

<comment><USER7> You assume it's EFF that's doing the avoiding. Why would they turn down an opportunity to get donations?

All other bundles were delivered DRM-free, Steam was never the focus of any promotion until customers asked if they could get Steam keys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Note that EA / Origin is not getting money from this, their share of the money is given to charities (see the text box right under the game list on the page).

<comment><USER10> Do any of these games offer DLC? Who profits from that?

<comment><USER11> They all offer DLC; depending on the game, some, all, or none of that DLC is included:

\- Burnout Paradise: offered version contains all DLC

\- Crysis 2: offered version contains all DLC

\- Dead Space: tons of weapons DLC, not included. They're effectively cosmetic or so overpowered it's like buying cheat codes.

\- Dead Space 3: tons of weapons DLC, not included. Like above, they're either cosmetic or shootable cheat codes.

\- Medal of Honor: missing the DLC map packs

\- Mirror's Edge: missing time trials DLC; DLC is incompatible with the Steam version

\- Sims 3: contains a small fraction of the available packaged DLC; game is centered around micro-transactions for things your home (i.e., there are countless items not included).

\- Battlefield 3: missing the DLC map packs

EA, of course, profits from DLC purchases not included in the games on offer: they're not sold through the Humble Bundle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One note on complaints that I hear about Humble Bundles that consist of titles from big publishers (such as the recent THQ bundle).

There are multiple Humble Bundles. The Humble Indie Bundle is not the only Humble Bundle. There are ebooks, music, and big publisher bundles as well. Just because a Humble Bundle is not all indie titles does not mean it's not a Humble Bundle.

<comment><USER13> Well, it's a bundle all right, but there is nothing humble about EA :) I'll wait for the next Humble Bundle, so I can buy more games I don't have time to play.

<comment><USER14> > I'll wait for the next Humble Bundle, so I can buy more games I don't have > time to play.

So much this. Virtually my entire Steam library, Civilization is the only exception I think, is from Humble Bundles, and I can count the games I've played through on no fingers.

(I love the soundtracks they often include, though. Those actually get some listening time.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I remember when Humble Bundle meant DRM free and cross-platform. Man, did they ruin that brand.

<comment><USER16> That was Humble INDIE bundle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> One mac and zero linux games. Am I counting that right?

<comment><USER18> Are you lacking confidence in your ability to count to one? :)

<comment><USER17> Haha! Well the page lacks the usual fanfare about cross platform support that I have come to expect from Humble. I noticed it said that the Sims was available for Mac, I had to deduce it was the only one, and Linux support was altogether missing.

<comment><USER18> When fanfare is conspicuously missing, it's generally safe to assume it wasn't an accident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As much as people detest Origin, they really forget how awful Steam was and sometimes continues to be. I just launched the Desktop application, and it literally took 30 seconds to become usable. About 30x slower than a browser takes. I can't speak for Origin, but the market could use some competition, and it will also hopefully drive the DRM schemes to become more open, at which point we can ultimately build a non-centralized platform.

</comment><comment><USER20> This looks like a good deal, but I heard something about Origin being full of spyware. Is there any truth to this or is it just FUD?

<comment><USER21> FUD. It installs, at worst will ask you if you want it to launch on login (you can turn that off). origin.exe pretty much does what it says on the tin: allows you to download games and play them.

<comment><USER22> Why FUD? DRM always has a risk of spyware. It's in the definition of DRM.

<comment> mh- _DRM always has a risk of spyware_

There is also a risk of centipedes.

Let's not forget what _FUD_ stands for: fear, uncertainty, doubt.

<comment><USER22> You ignore the definition. DRM means - publisher doesn't trust the user and the user doesn't trust the publisher. So DRM by design dictates the risk of malware and privacy violation by the publisher (as a natural mirror towards DRM assuming that users are potential criminal infringers by default). It's a good reason to avoid using any DRMed services - i.e. lack of trust inherent in the DRM _by definition_.

If you prefer to call it FUD, start with the DRM itself. It's FUD towards the users. Naturally users should have a symmetric FUD towards the publishers who shove DRM in their throats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems like a smart move. It could help to dampen the perception of evil attached to EA's reputation, whilst making a sizable ($1m+) difference to a number of charities.

That said, it would be nice to see a greater choice in the number of charities. My own preference would be to donate to smaller and more focused variety. Or, even combining it with charitable crowdfunded projects. eg[1][2]

Although, it may also be logistically harder to pull that off.

 _[1][http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kite- patch](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kite-patch) _

_[2][http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/let-s-build-a-goddamn- tesl...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/let-s-build-a-goddamn-tesla-museum --5/) _

</comment><comment><USER24> More than anything, I am bewildered by the general attitude here. Steam is the good guy, and Origin is akin to a malware? Pepsi and Coke, in my opinion. (I have never used Origin, but I intend to install it for this bundle)

</comment><comment><USER25> The last time I used Origin, I think it summoned a demon.

<comment><USER26> Ah yes, I love Ultima 8: Pagan. That was an awesome game.

<comment><USER25> ....really? I was more a fan of the Underworld diptych :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Reposting my comment from the other discussion:

I don't understand why people are complaining about the Humble Bundles lack of indieness and humbleness now. They have been very popular for a good amount of time, voiding its ability to call itself humble. Even though they popularized themselves through indie games, the humble bundle chose not to restrict itself to just indie games. You also have the weekly sales, which also adds to their delivering of non-indie games. And from an average user standpoint, it seams odd that people are complaining about inexpensive games.

</comment><comment><USER28> This deal sounds great, but I'll take a pass. There's no point in denying that EA is doing something good, but knowing their way of doing business leads me to believe that they're just doing this to make Origin more popular and get more possible future customers. That's certainly not a bad thing, after all they're a company that wants to make more money, but I choose to avoid participating in anything they do.

</comment><comment><USER22> Very disappointing. They should concentrate on DRM free, cross platform bundles. Recently they have too many "Steam only" stuff. Now Origin? No thanks.

</comment><comment><USER29> Bought this and activated all the steam keys. Haven't heard anything good about Origin but since I've never tried it myself I decided to give it a go. Seems to be a steam knock-off and the first thing it told me was that key redemption was currently down. Its like they only want me to use steam.

</comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone managed to activate a game on origin? It's loading forever here.

<comment><USER31> Key redeems are not functional at the moment, either on their Origin client or on their website.

Doesn't help that every major website I've been to today has reported this deal. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> the only games that require origin is battlefield and sims. Worth getting the rest if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER33> Ha, gross. Why would the Humble Bundle people associate with EA?</comment>


Ask HN: Is Twitter selling private email addresses? - <AUTHOR>

Today I got an unsolicited email from peoplebrowsr.com asking me to look at some link they're spamming around.  My twitter account is private.  How did they get this address?
@handle,
To celebrate the opening of our San Francisco Command Center and the 75th Anniversary of The Advertising Research Foundation in New York we commissioned a brief cartoon history of social networking.
It's really fun! Thought you might like it.
BTW - it's trending on slideshare at the moment.
Jodee
This email was sent to email@example.com. If you are no longer interested you can unsubscribe instantly. <comment><USER2> Very unlikely Twitter, Inc is doing that. Maybe you used your account with a third-party Twitter app/service?

(This is why I use wildcards for my domain and sign up with email@example.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't recall ever doing this. I use a second twitter account for signups like that. It's possible, though. How would I know, other than the "connections" tab that shows me which apps are connecting to my account?</comment></comment>


Director of Climatic Research Unit standing down pending review - <AUTHOR> http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate

<comment><USER2> 'overwhelming scientific consensus'

There goes that phrase again. It's the one thing that bugs me the most about all this, particularly in the light of the emails showing the 'us and them' attitude. Can't they just say 'consensus amongst climate researchers at institution x, y and z?' It's clear to me that many other scientific fields don't agree with the climate people : geologists always seem to be disagreeing.</comment>


"Tsugaru" – FM Towns Emulator Project - <AUTHOR> http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/FM/towns/Tsugaru/e.html <comment><USER2> A fun fact about the FM Towns - several American games, originally for DOS, had unique and arguably superior FM Towns ports.

Big ones off the top of my head include LOOM (CD music, 256 colours, uncut dialogue), Wing Commander (fully reprogrammed as a 32-bit protected mode game that actually runs at a consistent speed) and Ultima VI (with Ultima VII-style keywords and a highly questionable voice track).

<comment><USER3> Zak McKracken: The FM Towns version is the only one with 256 colours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When the FM Towns came out, I always dreamt of having one (not the Marty, but the tower one). Only around 2 years ago I managed to pick one up and it did not disappoint. Very top notch when it came out, but only in the Japan.

They had picture in, I think TGM [0] (quick check; seems I have all of these in paper still) we could drool over, but not buy or play with it.

[0] [https://retrocdn.net/Category:The_Games_Machine_(UK)_scans](https://retrocdn.net/Category:The_Games_Machine_\(UK\)_scans)

<comment><USER5> It's fascinating, ever since I first saw the FM Towns II (which was recent; I was not old enough during that era of computing,) I've had a nagging desire to try to purchase one. Sadly, shipping something like this to the U.S. from Japan is quite expensive, so maybe I will just be grateful someone is working on emulation software. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Out of the loop: what exactly is "FM Towns"?

<comment><USER7> Kinda-sorta like a mashup of a DOS PC and a Japanese game console of the SNES / Genesis era.

It's cute and retro-cool but also very Japanese, and thus almost entirely unknown in the west.

<comment><USER8> What made it interesting to gamers was that its sprite handling was well in excess of that offered by the 16-bit consoles of the time, allowing some very accurate ports of early nineties Japanese arcade games. Combined with the big box packaging, this led to many of these ports becoming expensive collectors items.

Being one of the earlier instances of a fully integrated CD-ROM computer with x86 underpinnings, it also saw a lot of PC ports, some of which were enhanced in interesting ways, such as a fully voiced version of Ultima VI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Its nice to see the FM Towns getting some love .

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, _Soji Yamaka_ is not only just one of limited number of persons who try keep FM Towns alive, but also is active FM artist on demoscene.[0]

[0] [http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/FM/e.html](http://ysflight.in.coocan.jp/FM/e.html)

<comment><USER10> I was lucky enough to meet him at last years Demosplash 2019 Demoscene party that was held at CMU. He is a brilliant and very nice guy. The work that he is doing on FM Towns reminds me of the amazing things hackers accomplished back in the day. Hope to see him again at a future Demosplash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Really love the industrial design and UI design of this era of Japanese PCs like the Towns and the X68000. Often try to imagine what computing today would be if these had become the dominant platforms.

<comment><USER12> I remember being in my early teens, ca. 1991, seeing photos of FM Towns and X68000 cases, and those systems' graphics capabilities, and thinking "holy moly THIS is surely gonna be the future!" :D</comment></comment>


Performance analysis of cloud applications - <AUTHOR> https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/05/04/performance-analysis-of-cloud-applications/ <comment><USER2> _Off Topic:_ Can anyone identify the framework used to generate these charts?

[1] [https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google- clou...](https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google-cloud-perf- fig-2.jpeg)

[2] [https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google- clou...](https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google-cloud-perf- fig-3.jpeg)

[3] [https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google- clou...](https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google-cloud-perf- fig-5.jpeg)

[4] [https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google- clou...](https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google-cloud-perf- fig-10a.jpeg)

[5] [https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google- clou...](https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google-cloud-perf- fig-10b.jpeg)

[6] [https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google- clou...](https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google-cloud-perf- fig-11.jpeg)

[7] [https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google- clou...](https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google-cloud-perf- fig-12.jpeg)

[8] [https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google- clou...](https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/google-cloud-perf- fig-31.jpeg)

<comment><USER3> It looks a lot like R's standard lib, but can't be positive. Pinged Adrian to chime in</comment></comment>


Australian govt bullies scientist to alter a peer reviewed paper - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091204/full/news.2009.1126.html?s=news_rss <comment><USER2> As an Australian that deeply offends me. Scientific research should be allowed to be critical of the environment that it is conducted in, any other approach is an anathema to the whole concept of science.

I know someone that worked for the CSIRO and they encountered a similar level of bullying. Apparently science is only ok as long as it also meets the political agenda.

I'm getting a little sick of seeing things like this coming out of Australia.</comment>


Woman With No Fear Intrigues Scientists - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/health/woman-has-no-fear-ptsd-101216.html <comment><USER2> Fearlessness is a trait of psychopaths. It appears that the amygdala is dysfunctional in psychopaths :

" the amygdala is crucial for stimulus–reinforcement learning and responding to emotional expressions, particularly fearful expressions that, as reinforcers, are important initiators of stimulus–reinforcement learning. Moreover, the amygdala is involved in the formation of both stimulus–punishment and stimulus–reward associations. Individuals with psychopathy show impairment in stimulus–reinforcement learning (whether punishment or reward based) and responding to fearful and sad expressions. It is argued that this impairment drives much of the syndrome of psychopathy. Stimulus–reinforcement learning is crucial for socialization, for learning that some things are bad to do, and individuals with psychopathy fail to take advantage of standard socialization techniques."

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2606709/?tool=pm...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2606709/?tool=pmcentrez)

</comment><comment><USER3> While one may want to be fearless or without the ability to feel pain, they are essential emotions and sensations. The lack of either can be life threatening.

Its common among those who cannot feel pain to have bitten of their tongue or crushed their own teeth or jaw bone. Inability to feel pain is often accompanied by inability to sense temperature. People afflicted by this disease rarely live beyond their 20s. The reason being that they cannot monitor and correct for their bodies inner core temperature. The run a way fever or hypothermia turns fatal.

<comment><USER4> Pain, yes. Fear, debatable.

Fear plays a role in helping people to assess danger, and in making decisions related to your survival and well being. Neither of these things _require_ a fear response though. The article mentions that the woman might have found herself in dangerous situations more often due to her inability to fear, but at best this means that fear might be a useful addition to our ability to assess danger.

It seems to me that the vast majority of situations that are dangerous are either a) obviously so, or b) the opposite. In obviously dangerous situations, you should be able to pick up on the danger by common sense and act accordingly (I don't feel fear every time I cross the street, but I also don't step out in front of cars). In situations where the danger element is very hidden away, it's unlikely you'd get a fear response anyway, since your intuition is only as good as its input.

That leaves a third category, that for which the danger is non-obvious, but fear gives us an evolved intuitive-response to be wary. My argument would be that this is a small and constantly shrinking class of situations, because the environment most of us find ourselves in is so strikingly different than the one in which we evolved. You might have an evolved, intuitive fear response to the sound of a lion's roar, but this does no good whatsoever for most people in the world. So most of the dangerous situations we actually encounter, we deal with using reason and learned behavior rather than fear instinct.

That's my stance anyway. The only area in which I can see a concrete use for fear is its ability to stimulate a very quick flight reaction in certain dangerous situations. That is, things that you need to react to before you have time to think them through. Again, less common in the modern western world, but it does put at least one point in the pro-fear column.

<comment><USER5> I think you underestimate how often fear comes into play. I recently was at the park with some kids and I noticed a couple of dogs playing... I then realized they were pitbulls. Maybe perfectly nice dogs, but my fear factor jumped through the roof and I quickly, but quietly gathered up all the kids.

Now fear isn't something that kicks in often, but when it does it usually means you're in pretty grave danger. Not properly reacting to potentially life threatening situations, just once a year, likely greatly shortens your expected lifespan.

<comment><USER6> Pitbulls are _not_ vicious child eaters by their nature. They are called nanny dogs for a reason. May be just the people I am around - but I have yet to see a Pit that is anything beyond sweet, loving and awesome.

Now puddles - those are a kind of beast I would never trust to act decently around my kids.

<comment><USER5> If you read what I wrote, I said, "Maybe pefectly nice dogs". With mine and other peoples kids I really didn't want to find out, especially since their owner was nowhere in sight.

And we've had several incidents of pitbull attacks in this area. Here's a useful site: <http://www.dogsbite.org/dangerous-dogs.htm>

Last thing I'd want to tell a parent is, "You child was attacked... sure I saw the pitbulls, but I just assumed they were friendly, I mean, JanezStupar has never seen a vicious one before".

<comment><USER6> I apologize, but to me you came over like you haven't seen a nice one before :).

I might do the same in your shoes. But the fact remains that pitbull is no more dangerous inherently than your average mutt. Probably less so. Yes when they go wrong they tend to cause a bigger mess - but so does Porsche or Ferrari. But we don't go around banning _the dangerous car_.

<comment><USER5> Well causing a bigger mess is kind of a big deal. If a toy poodle attacks me I can likely win. Against a pitbull, I don't like my odds.

And there are a LOT more pitbull fatalaties than your average mutt. See <http://www.dogsbite.org/bite-fatalities-2010.htm>

<comment><USER6> I can see now what I did there, I'm not a native speaker so formulating complex ideas is still pretty hard for me in english.

It was wrong of me to say that Pits are less dangerous than your average mutt - because that is clearly not the case, since your average mutt is NOT 100 LBS of muscle and determination.

I should of said that pits are (inherently) less likely to attack humans than your average mutt - meaning they take "encouragement" (read training) towards human agression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Previous studies with this patient revealed she can't recognize fear in facial expressions, but it was unknown if she had the ability to experience fear herself."

People have been say "it takes one to know one" for a long time, but real evidence that we can't recognized something unless we have that same capacity within ourselves would be piercing.

Tell me again why are so many self proclaimed good people are convinced that everyone else is evil?

<comment><USER8> > but real evidence that we can't recognized something unless we have that > same capacity within ourselves would be piercing.

It would be difficult to find someone with no capacity for evil, wouldn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _Researchers put out their best foot to try to scare the patient, who they > refer to as "SM" in their write-up in the most recent issue of the journal > Current Biology. Haunted houses, where monsters tried to evoke an avoidance > reaction, instead evoked curiosity; spiders and snakes didn't do the trick; > and a battery of scary film clips entertained SM._

The rest of the article aside: I don't think that's _quite_ conclusive. After a few such trials, it'd get merely interesting or boring, and I have to wonder how skilled at frightening _specific_ people researchers can ever be. On a more fundamental level, I highly doubt you can even perform an accurate test along these lines with a person's consent.

"People" as a whole? Easy, someone's always afraid of something at-hand. A single person, who knows what you're doing? Unlikely. Case in point: a little work with acclimating to spiders, and I'd pass those tests with flying colors. Haunted houses and scary film clips fall somewhere between mild amusement at the attempt and outright boredom, and I like snakes. Plus, snakes don't have legs / claws; get the head under control, and you're fine.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's interesting that most of her other emotions function normally. It was my understanding that the amygdala facilitated a number of emotions, not just fear. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER11> "The diary also had her indicate emotions she was feeling from a list of 50 items. Her average score of fear was 0 percent, while for other emotions she showed normal functioning."

Far apart from the brain structure involved, what amazed me the most is the severability of fear from other emotions. For someone untrained in neuroscience and coming purely from an experiential point of view, it seems impossible that one emotion could be completely absent without having any effects on the functioning of others. For instance, even with an emotion like happiness, it seems like there's some component of the feeling that relates to the enjoyment of being free of fearful things. Perhaps the emotions don't actually function the same, but her perception of them is similar to unaffected patients?

<comment><USER12> I think it has to do with how primitive or instinctive the emotion is. I'd bet that fear is one of the oldest emotions, after all every animal experiences fear as far as I know.

Many of the other emotions are restricted to apes, specially humans. I'd say a dog can't be happy or sad, just excited or not excited. If those human emotions evolved thousands of years apart there is a good chance that they are at different parts of the brain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not only does she not fear, but it appears she cannot assess danger (picked up a snake).

<comment><USER14> If you aren't afraid of the snake, what's the danger?

<comment><USER15> that it bites you and kills you? Fear is not a requirement for that to happen.

<comment><USER16> not all snakes are poisonous.

<comment><USER3> Its only a tiny fraction of all snakes that are poisonous and of them, not all are deadly to humans. But this is largely irrelevant because the chances are high that the snake in front of you has not been sampled uniformly from the distribution of all snakes. A lot of factors dictate the statistical make up of a snake that one may encounter and its aggression level. Geography, weather and time of the year play an important role.

Let me give an anecdotal example. My college has a reputation with snakes, so much so that pea-cocks were artificially introduced to control their population. I would hazard a conservative guess that 50% of all students encounter a snake in close proximity every year. These are almost always a cobra, krait or local species of a viper. All extremely poisonous. Nonetheless in the entire history of the institution there has not been a single instance of a snake bite, and they have actually stopped stocking on anti-venom.

But unless you are trained to handle snakes, picking them up is certainly not wise and my prior would be high that she did not have such a training.

<comment><USER17> This varies a lot by location. I guess you're in India, where there are lots of dangerous snakes. It sounds like SM is in North America, where there are only four poisonous snakes — cottonmouth, rattlesnake, copperhead, and coral snake — and they're all pretty easy to identify, and for the most part, not very aggressive. The vast majority of individual snakes in most parts of the US aren't one of these types, especially in urban areas.

<comment><USER3> You guessed correctly about my college.

What I found fascinating was the difference in aggression level of the same species at different times of the year. The speed of their strike also blew me away. But they can cover very short distances with that, so the trained handlers would pick them up like nothing.

But back to fear and reflexes. I had the opportunity to study one of the aggressive ones very closely in a protective enclosure. How much ever I resolved not to flinch when it lunged at me, I would invariably jump back a pace. The override is just way too strong to control consciously even when you can anticipate it and want to counter it. Even when you know you are not in any danger.

What I find interesting is that I dont think we are hardwired to fear snakes, it is learned. The hardwired bit might relate to sudden motion though.

<comment><USER18> You're correct - fear of snakes is not instinctual in humans. Most young primates will avoid a snake, while a young child who hasn't been taught otherwise will blithely walk over and pick one up.

<comment><USER3> I upvoted you for confirming my hunch. But not sure why it did not get added.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Research into this could have clear and fascinating military applications. They're already well aware that a controlled psychopath is an asset:

[https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/bd7eed04567bfe2b85...](https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/bd7eed04567bfe2b85256e3b002f29c1?OpenDocument)

<comment><USER20> Interesting, though somewhat disturbing. Using this research to select from nature's random yield is one thing, but leads one into something of an ethical minefield. Inducing or enhancing similar characteristics by neural modification would be bad, but people who already exhibit such pathologies wouldn't find that troubling at all.

The author seems a olittle overly-assured of his conclusions but that may just be the result of the short article form - the bibliography seems worth a look. 3-4% of the adult male population is a higher incidence than I'd have expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This woman has missed her calling. She could be one of the greatest poker players the world has ever known.

</comment><comment><USER22> IMO, your arguing with evolution. Its there for a reason.

</comment><comment><USER23> This woman has not met me....

</comment><comment><USER24> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_palin>

</comment><comment><USER25> I think she is suffering from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASPD></comment>


Designing For Evil - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001123.html

<comment><USER2> This and TipJoy have inspired me. What about making a social news site, a Wikipedia-like site, or a classified ads site where you can read and search all you want for free, but you have to make a micropayment to post? Micropayments would be in "credits" that cost 4.5 cents each. $5 gets you 100 credits. (There's a 50 cent processing fee.) You could also write the Terms of Service such that spamming forfeits your $5.

You could even combine this with a TipJoy-like idea and have commenters tipped for every up-vote. (Down-votes would subtract from a comment score, but not affect the tip.)

This would kill off the spammers. Paying $5 per spam post would ruin their business model. I suspect that it would also increase the quality of the posts if posters could earn money from their efforts.

<comment><USER3> specifically, your plan fails to account for

(*) extreme profitability of spam

Spammers would probably be willing to pay more to make each post than legitimate users would.

<comment><USER4> I disagree. Spam has a low success rate, so it's only extremely profitable when the cost per advertisement is zero. If you have a service where it costs _any_ money to post then spammers will go find somewhere else.

I think it could work well for classified ads since that's something people are willing to pay for. Not so well for wikipedia or social news, because who cares enough to pay money for those?

I'd price classified ads at one dollar each -- small enough that it's practically free, but large enough that you could easily make a lot of money out of it if people ever decide to abandon craigslist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's a great piece-- Atwood at his best.

The lesson that "When good is dumb, evil will always triumph" is a simple one, but surprisingly hard to put in practice.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think sites that run some kind of an automatic ranking or otherwise a user- driven voting system are better protected from spam. To make it even better there should the second level with weighted users (user ranking in other words) to compensate massive automatic registrations of fake users.

I'm sure it is much easier for Flickr, for instance, to fight spam than for Cragislist, because Flickr has an excellent automatic ranking system of photos based on users' (implicit) votes plus users' weights. This at least prevents spam from slipping into the daily top-500, and the rest is not that important. They host all kinds of garbage anyway and that doesn't bother the community.

This is what makes spammers turn away from Flickr, I think. I have never seen any spam on Flickr's top-500 page (well, except those crappy images with anything-Apple insanely upvoted by a bunch of Apple fans).

</comment><comment><USER7> This piece is pretty similar to this [http://blogs.concedere.net:8080/blog/discipline/web/?permali...](http://blogs.concedere.net:8080/blog/discipline/web/?permalink=Those- Who-Live-by-the-Spam.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one wondering, why wouldn't Craigslist use a bayesian filter? Plus posting delay so they can't retry quickly.

<comment><USER9> The problems I see with a Bayesian classifier in this application are:

1\. Spammers get instant feedback on whether their post was flagged. When they send me email spam, for example, they have no idea how badly they're doing.

2\. Spammers have access to a large ham database to draw from -- all the posts that were not filtered. With email, they never see any user's highly individualized ham database.

3\. Bayesian classifiers require a significant amount of manual intervention, especially given 1 and 2. I'm happy to correct classification errors in my email when they happen at a rate of roughly 1/200,000, but if I had to stay on top of dozens of false negatives and false positives every day, I just wouldn't. Very quickly the database would become too noisy to be of much use.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is there so much hate to blockchain in Hacker News? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 1\. The vast majority of blockchain/ICO/cryptocurrency startups are buzzword abusing scams and schemes

2\. Everyone else seems to want to use the blockchain for wildly inappropriate applications

3\. There's a small subset of people who have realized and monetized that adding the word "blockchain" will result in more money magically appearing

4\. There's a fair segment that just want to use cryptocurrency to commit illegal acts and evade taxes (we're going to use Monero to run prostitution rings!)

There are some people doing some genuinely awesome things in this space, but for every person using smart contracts for low-cost electricity arbitrage, there's a dozen other people using ICOs to create distributed-blockchains- over-bittorrent that will use "machine learning" and "AI" to solve the unsolvable.

Throwing buzzwords in the mix doesn't create solutions, it only attracts dumb investors.

<comment><USER3> I'd like to add:

5\. Proof of work increases energy usage, and increases the price of energy, making things like burning coal even more profitable than it should be.

6\. Lack of regulation on online wallet holders. There is no FDIC on hosted coin wallets. Mt. Gox died a horrible horrible death where people lost tons of money, and even though it acted like a bank, there was no regulation on those hosted wallets.

7\. Lack of regulation in the exchange markets. This allowed the rise of "shitcoins." (See "Shitcoin and Buttcoin": [https://www.naturalnews.com/counterthink/Shtcoin- Buttcoin.ht...](https://www.naturalnews.com/counterthink/Shtcoin- Buttcoin.html) )

8\. Coins are generally speculative in nature, instead of making their money charging for exchanging of money (like ATMs do) or to transfer money (Bank wire transfer). The business is built on hoping their coin becomes popular.

9\. Blockchain has become a cult, where a large segment of society see the newly minted millionaires, and refuse to confront larger issues with blockchain in general. They literally have their reality distortion fields up to 11.

<comment><USER4> Proof of Work should be called Proof of Waste.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, the amount of scammers and get rick quick merchants starting cryptocurrencies and blockchain based products has likely left a sour taste for many people here, especially when they hear about yet another million dollar ICO that seemingly came out of nowhere.

And it's also meant a lot of people who nothing about tech are starting businesses and projects revolving around blockchains and what not despite not have any real reason to use them or a need that said technology actually solves. So people here end up seeing these projects as the equivalent to 'Uber for dog walkers' or a 'distributed basket weaving platform'.

Oh, and maybe because the topic has been done to death already and people are getting sick of discussing it.

</comment><comment><USER6> For one thing, IBM got people to say "blockchain" instead of "blockchains" the same way that they got people to say "cloud" instead of "clouds" or "the cloud".

Blockchains attract people who know very little about computers or currency. You keep having the same discussions over and over again.

For instance there is the privacy maximalist who thinks Bitcoin is great because the U.S. government can't track his transactions. What he doesn't realize is that the blockchain is public so the U.S. government as well as the governments of France, China, Israel, Iran, organized criminals, extortionists, advertisers, spammers, etc. can all track his activity.

<comment><USER7> Only if they know which addresses are his...

<comment><USER8> Your transactions are recorded in the ledger FOREVER.

Are your addresses going to stay private forever? Are you sure?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have yet to come across _any_ problems that are solved better with a blockchain than with any other traditional technology - except for the original one, a distributed electronic currency.

And I'm totally not against the concept. This is definitely a "prove me wrong" moment. It's just that I've been looking for a long time, and so far, nothing.

<comment><USER10> > I have yet to come across any problems that are solved better with a > blockchain than with any other traditional technology - except for the > original one, a distributed electronic currency.

On my case, I can see another one (for now): Namecoin, which is a decentralised DNS. I can't see any other way to build it apart from a blockchain, it's difficult to create a spam-resistant trustless key/value store without that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would imagine because of the amount of conflation that goes on with blockchain and cryptocurrencies and because of the amount of conflation that goes on with the use cases for blockchain and cryptocurrencies. From what I've seen locally, the number of people I've met at startup events/meetups/etc NYC starting a "blockchain" startup without being able to articulate the value prop of the use for a distributed ledger or equivalent implementation in their idea is mind boggling. Someone I know in the music industry told me just last week they're starting to "pivot their career into the blockchain industry".

</comment><comment><USER12> 1\. Organized lists are not a magical new technology. A lot better database tech already exists. 2\. Almost everything associated with blockchain is fruad-like, skirting nations' established laws and decreasing security. 3\. This type of trading is zero sum. The funds come from a bad place or from someone who has more information than/hidden info from the person they sell it to (manipulated). When you help launder money you're harming your neighbors, yourself, and your country.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's a direct reaction to all the _hype_ for blockchain on HN and elsewhere. There are some interesting things about blockchain technology, but it's not the world-changing panacea some make it out to be. There's a too-high concentration of shady characters and internal politics among people trying to influence things toward their own benefit. These set off all sorts of alarms for true techies, so they push back.

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't speak for the community, but I can speak for myself. I've always found the noise-to-value ratio way off. Blockchain is not a new idea, but it's gained popularity because of bitcoin, and if it didn't survive the 90s on its own merit then how much value is there, really?

I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I'm not going to be the one to going out of my way to prove it right.

</comment><comment><USER15> Because it's a scam disguised as an investment or a currency. It's inefficient and it's sole purpose is to serve itself.

</comment><comment><USER16> I work in a shared office space (a WeWork). For a few months at the end of last year and through this year, there was a wave of "crypto bros" who suddenly appeared and all claimed to be doing ICOs. Having to listen to them talk literally gave me headaches.

Every single one of them would talk about how crypto was "changing the world" and "saving Africa's banking system" and all kinds of nonsense. But when I'd ask them if they or anyone they knew had _ever_ bought anything with crypto besides other crypto, almost all of them said "no". Somehow this technology was changing lives even though they did not know a _single person_ who used it for it's intended, non-speculative purpose.

In other words, watching the the whole crypto fad pass is like watching the British version of "The Office" \- just painfully awkward to live through. From the outside looking in, it seems so clearly overridden with scam ICOs and clueless investors.

For example, a friend tried to get me to invest in an ICO for a "Blockchain Bank." The idea was that by using blockchain, the startup could offer anyone in the world a completely legit, low fee UK bank account - all without personal identity verification (again, because "blockchain"). It would destroy traditional banks AND PayPal!

When I asked very basic questions like how they planned to get around Know Your Customer banking regulations, my friend said "Don't worry, it's all in the white paper!" But I read the white paper and it essentially just said "we'll figure it out!" There was absolutely no explanation of how it would ever work. But my friend was not interested in learning more - they just wanted enough of an appearance of legitimacy that they thought the ICO price would pop.

These are the kind of lame startup pitches that would normally get laughed out of an investors office for having huge conceptual holes. But because they said "blockchain", people are lining up to literally throw money at them. It's not because anyone actually believes (or even cares) the technology will eventually work. It's just because they are afraid that they will miss out on quick returns on the immediate speculation of the ICO.

This doesn't even touch on the widespread fraud, currency manipulation, pump and dump schemes, etc, that infest the crypto world in general.

The point is that even if you are doing something really amazing with blockchain, now you have to rise above the general stink of the cesspool of the wider crypto world. Lots of people already have a pretty bad taste in their mouth.

</comment><comment><USER10> Because like any trendy technology it was way oversold. We are mainly tech people here and when we look at the current state of the art, it's very easy to see the technical shortcomings (the state of the art is still pretty bad). What the blockchain critics on HN generally don't see is the future potential of the current (mostly half-backed) technologies.

</comment><comment><USER17> Most of the talk about blockchain seems to be from the intersection of the set of people who don't understand cryptography with the set of people who don't understand economics, perhaps with the set of people who don't understand databases thrown in for good measure. >99% of the time there's a better solution for the problem.

Blockchains aren't useless. They're just a lot less useful than what they're currently promised to be.

</comment><comment><USER18> I still haven't been told about the benefits of a blockchain at all

</comment><comment><USER19> Probably because many people here missed out on all that easy money.

<comment><USER20> _Easy_ money? It's down > 60%.

<comment><USER19> You must be late to the party.

It's easy money when your cost basis is only a few dollars, like mine.

<comment><USER21> Only if you can turn it into real dollars, and don't end up losing it afterwards as gains from a ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER19> I have. For a while I was dumping $10K/month on GDAX. I haven't had any issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This reason is probably down in the statistical noise surrounding 0% of HN readers, but: it's made PC gaming more expensive.

</comment><comment><USER23> Because people associate blockchain with gambling (ICOs being advertised on billboards solidifies this), people that didn't Gamble and win big are jealous of those that did (crypto-millionaires are definitely a thing) and its usefulness outside of being digital currency are still limited (though I would REALLY like to see it replace centralized ledgers and give the banks/VISA a run for their money).

</comment><comment><USER24> It always appears like most on HN don't actually know much on the subject. So partly that</comment>


Show HN: BlazeBuddies – Encrypted Cannabis Video Calls - <AUTHOR> Https://blazebuddies.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! My friend and I have been working on a video conferencing site specifically for cannabis users all around the world. Now you can smoke with your friends via an end-to-end encrypted video call. The interface is simple, all you need to do is pick a session name and go -- no accounts, no downloads, no bullshit. Check it out at www.blazebuddies.com and let me know what you think!

P.S. because it has peer-to-peer connections via WebRTC, the video calls can only connect with as many people as your device can handle, so accessing it on a computer is recommended over a phone.</comment>


Integrate siri without jailbreaking (via pennapps) - <AUTHOR> http://betterthansiri.com/

<comment><USER2> Proxying all traffic through an unknown network is not a good idea. Although [https://github.com/plamoni/SiriProxy](https://github.com/plamoni/SiriProxy) isn't currently working with iOS7, it's a better alternative (for iOS6 or whenever it's ready).

<comment><USER3> It doesn't proxy all traffic, you can verify it only proxies traffic from Siri that begins with the command "GooglePlex" \- Ajay Patel (a developer)</comment></comment>


Turning Water into Watts - <AUTHOR> https://physicsworld.com/a/turning-water-into-watts/ <comment><USER2> According to the article, one station is rated at ~100kW (that's maximum power output).

A typical nuclear 3rd generation nuclear reactor outputs ~900MW-1GW.

Assuming an impossible 100% charge (ratio between rated and actual generated power), that's still 10000x (!) less power than one nuclear reactor. Put differently, you'd need 10000 of these stations to generate the same amount of electricity as _one_ nuclear reactor.

Then one needs to consider how long that plant can deliver energy. They don't give concrete numbers for that technology, but again taking nuclear again as an example, reactors are designed to run for a a minimum of 40 years (some reactors are now certified for 80 years in the US). Solar and wind are ~20 years.

All in all, love the tech, but the laws of physics are pretty harsh.

<comment><USER3> I've recently become enamored with micro-hydro generation, having seen ways in which it can be totally non-destructive to local wildlife and/or fish going through the generator, and while I completely agree with everything you've said regarding nuclear vs micro-anything, for personal power generation on a farmstead, nuclear is pretty inaccessible.

On the other hand, this guy's[1] manufactured a micro-hydro 2km drop generator capable of producing 5-12kWh per day for ~$50 in parts (turbine 3D printed). That's of course limited to drop power (meaning you have a high body of water and a low body of water and generate power, like a dam, by capturing energy from passing the falling water between them through a turbine) but for relatively level bodies of running water (read: creeks, streams, etc) a small, non-destructive weir dam can capture 100kWh per day from a single diverted turbine if conditions are good.[2]

Of course, conditions aren't always, and not everywhere has access to _any_ immediate water supply from which to generate power, but it seems to me that for those places that do, capturing their own power via micro-hydro frees up other generated power for the folks that don't -- but that might be a naive view.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KyL1-0A0Gw&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KyL1-0A0Gw&t=2s)

[2] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61lZn1sUkzE&list=PLtTypVpmDd...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61lZn1sUkzE&list=PLtTypVpmDd- vkT9bJQkXw4I1t0e_4jMYA)

<comment><USER2> Yes, this is exactly what a dam is (pumping or releasing, or using rain).

Hydo is very cool, and very green.

Some things to remember, however:

\- need to drown whole valleys (very high impact on local wildlife)

\- energy density is not that good (i don't have the numbers but the volumes of water moved are huge, hence dams)

\- very rapid piloting and low maintenance, so nice to absorb spikes

<comment><USER4> > Hydo is very cool, and very green.

Well, maybe. I think this depends on what you mean by "green". If you mean low on CO2 emissions, then sure, but we need to consider habitat loss, methane emissions from decomposition, and the possibility of triggering earthquakes. Hydro is also quite expensive to build, and often requires seizing land through processes like Eminent Domain (in the US).

<comment><USER2> You are right, I was meaning green in the sense of gCO2eq/kWh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://medium.com/otherlab-news/how-do-we- decarbonize-7fc2f...](https://medium.com/otherlab-news/how-do-we- decarbonize-7fc2fa84e887)

"There is enough wind in the world to supply the entire world's energy needs. Solar supply exceeds even that by many times and is by far the largest renewable resource. In reality, wind is a second-order effect of solar energy anyway — the sun differentially heats the oceans, atmosphere, and land, and these thermal differences create the wind. This wind, in turn, makes waves; while there is, in fact, a lot of energy in the waves of the deep ocean, there is very little nearer to shore. Even if we captured all of the waves hitting every coastline on the planet, that's not enough to meet humanity's demand for energy. The ocean is a fragile ecosystem and capturing large portions of wave energy would negatively affect the oxygenation of the oceans, among other effects."

</comment><comment><USER6> > The ocean is essentially a natural engine, converting solar energy into > mechanical energy.

Given the challenges with putting machines in water, it seems futile to pursue this method of energy generation when going right to the source (solar) is also an option.

And how efficient is an ocean at converting solar energy into mechanical energy? Sure, the waves look big, but there's a lot of friction there eating up the sun's energy.

<comment><USER2> Solar is not only intermittent (day/night) but also varies greatly with nebulosity. I would think waves still exist at night.

Also, they advertise the maximum power output, not the actual power output (wind as a ~20% actual power output for instance).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> turning tax money subsidies into watts _</comment>


Tomorrow's Eurovision final forecasted with Bayesian statistics - <AUTHOR> http://mewo2.com/nerdery/2013/05/17/eurovision-2013-final-predictions/

<comment><USER2> It always helps to look at the Eurovision illustrated guide to know what is going on:

<http://i.imgur.com/MoTQRRZ.jpg>

My call: Ireland will place in the top-5.

<comment><USER3> _My call: Ireland will place in the top-5._

For the record, Ireland came last, 26 out of 26, with about 3 votes in total.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting post, but what I don't understand is what data is being used here? You vaguely mention foreign relations and song quality somewhere in the middle, but you don't elaborate on any metrics or data source?

<comment><USER5> You are trying to apply logic to an article about Eurovision? The whole thing is, intentionally, a logic free zone.

<comment><USER6> It actually fits it's own internal logic quite closely. Countries vote overwhelmingly on political grounds, with actual song quality coming in a distance second.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like it - we built an app for Eurovision where we capture the user sentiment for a particular song. We call it the "worm". Anyway this blog article explains more: [https://thelab.o2.com/2013/05/1000-thumbs-up-for-our- eurovis...](https://thelab.o2.com/2013/05/1000-thumbs-up-for-our-eurovision- commentary-app/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Eurovision is biased so why watch it? An older article but still applicable [http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050516/full/news050516-13.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050516/full/news050516-13.html)

<comment><USER9> The songs, the choreography, the kitsch, you just can't miss that :)

<comment><USER10> Well for UK watching it to enjoy Terry Wogans (and now Graham nortons) snarky/camp commentary is the main point.

<comment><USER11> Norton doesn't drink anywhere near enough whiskey during the event to even touch Wogan's eurovision legacy.

<comment><USER10> True but he hasn't had the decades of exposure that Terry had

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 16/1 on Azerbaijan to win on Betfred, couldn't resist a little punt :) Fingers crossed it comes through!

<comment><USER13> The only time I bet on Eurovision was when Finland won it. I got 14-1 because I got an early bet on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Koza Mostra & Agathon Iakovidis (Greece) -- Alcohol is Free is an awesome song. I hope it wins.</comment>


Covidify – corona virus report generator (Python) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/AaronWard/covid-19-analysis <comment><USER2> Here's another chart I built: [https://observablehq.com/@neelance/corvid-19-trends](https://observablehq.com/@neelance/corvid-19-trends) (Yes, typo in the url, can't change it...)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is also a good chart: [https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594...](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

It shows global trend lines, and per-country + per-region data.

That said, nice job to OP.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks very much :))

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks cool but what does it actually produce? Graphs? In what format? Images?

The readme could be a bit more clear in what it actually does, but it looks super interesting!

<comment><AUTHOR> It creates a time series dataset and a summary stats excel report that shows the daily counts, averages, moving averages, deltas, and more (see this excel sheet [https://github.com/AaronWard/covid-19-analysis/blob/master/r...](https://github.com/AaronWard/covid-19-analysis/blob/master/reports/report_2020-03-09.xlsx))

also, it generates visualizations for 4 attributes \- confirmed cases \- currently infected \- recoveries \- deaths

Thanks very much for the feedback :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For weeks I've been hoping to find a way to quickly compare log-plots of numbers infected (optionally normalized to population size) for different countries. IMO the best way to look at world-wide spread, but doesn't seem to be available anywhere. Would be a great addition to this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will look into it, if you want could you add it to the issues what exactly you suggest and ill add it to the kanban board :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why not just make a website?

<comment><USER7> Well it can probably be deployed on one. Its a talent showcase thats interesting to others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would be neat if this could also show the same data for the flu.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you know of any datasources to integrate flu statistics?

<comment><USER8> Not sure where the raw data is but there seems to be various things here: [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Am I the only one who can't get this damn thing to run on macOS 10.14, Debian testing, or SL7-rolling? Despite pandas being installed I still get 'ImportError: No module named pandas'

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ oh well

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you using a conda environment?

<comment><USER9> No, pip everywhere

<comment><AUTHOR> Check where you have pandas and covidify installed and make sure they are in the same site-packages.

ps: pip is just a package manager, you should really consider using conda for creating environments (it will make your life a lot easier)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rails Are a Cult - <AUTHOR> https://artur-martsinkovskyi.github.io//2019/rails-are-a-cult/ <comment><USER2> Yup, that's basically the story of my 7-ish years with Ruby (well, who am I kidding — it was 90% of Rails).

The "easy over simple" is something I was trying to nail, but couldn't; maybe because haven't given it enough thought.

Re: Ruby without Rails: fuck it, I'm too stupid for it and the whole dynamic typing mess; just gave it up in favor of Haskell.</comment>


Scoble: I'm a phone freak - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2008/06/10/im-a-phone-freak/

<comment><USER2> _I have three separate SIMs, er, three separate phone numbers (I only use one for voice calls, though, and ..._

Though this isn't the main point of the article, it resonated with me as I've always wished for phones that can take multiple SIMs at once. This would be so useful: business/personal numbers in one phone, or when abroad, simultaneously using a local and a home (roaming) SIM, etc.

Clearly, the network operators have a vested interest in discouraging you from using anything but their service, but is there a technical constraint in GSM/UMTS that prevents one phone (with 1 antenna) from logging onto multiple networks at once?

</comment><comment><USER3> Carrying three phones? I was surprised not to find any mention of the phrase 'ladies man' in his wikipedia entry.

</comment><comment><USER4> Dammit, I was almost expecting him to admit to being a fone phreak.</comment>


Classic Computer Science Papers - <AUTHOR> http://e7l3.org/classics.html

<comment><USER2> Nearly every paper I wanted has a broken link. Nice collection, though.</comment>