Limiting Antibiotics in Animals - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/opinion/limiting-antibiotics-in-animals.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> > _I am astonished by the letter from Bernadette Dunham, the director of the > Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine, especially > since she told a House committee on April 9 that she was unsure how > antibiotic resistance develops._

I've posted this before, but some people may have missed it.

"Defeating the superbugs" (<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ms5c6>) has a segment showing bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics.

([http://v6.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=24goih4&s=6](http://v6.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=24goih4&s=6)) (Sorry about the lousy host; YouTube's content sniffing detects this as BBC property and blocks it.)

They have a slab of jelly. The jelly has sections of differing strength of antibiotic. There's a section with no antibiotic, then 10x, then 100x then 1000x. (They cannot dissolve any more antibiotic into the jelly at that point.)

A time lapse camera shows the bacteria growing, and developing resistance to each section.

It's an excellent bit of video.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if this can be used to develop useful traits in bacteria.

For example, develop bacteria that can digest some pollutants.

<comment><USER4> It would depend on what sort of pollutant you are talking about. Many antibiotics act in subtle and complex ways because they need to be able to damage bacteria without damaging the human. Effective, evolving resistance is just a small "fix" for the bacteria.

However, some kinds of things like strong detergents, high temperatures, and so on qould require too much change to protect against so the bacteria can't evolve resistance to it. (sure, there are bacteria out there that might better resist these extreme conditions but you won't easily be able to evolve any bacteria you want to do the same)

<comment><USER5> Sure it could probably evolve resistance, it would just take much more time, and in an environment that constantly maintains a reasonable amount of selection pressure, increasing it as they evolve. Humans could assist the process by "island hopping". Like trying to select for ones that produce a certain chemical, then another chemical that requires that, step by step. As opposed to hoping they get a mutation that lets them produce a complex chemical by random chance.

It would still take a while, but bacteria have very short generations and can support huge populations, so it's _far, far_ easier for them to evolve than anything else.

<comment><USER4> What you are suggesting seems awefully hard to do though. Its pobably easier to just get a ready-made gene from some other bacteria and insert it into the bacteria you care about.

<comment><USER5> That only works if such a gene exists already though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Where I live, fruits and vegetables are ridiculously cheap, and meat is rather expensive. For example, apricots (which are just now in season) are $2.50 per pound. When the height of apricot season kicks in, the price will come down to around 50¢ per pound. But if I want a steak I can expect to pay at least $12 per pound.

I take a certain comfort in the notion that this price difference reflects the true cost of producing meat. Likewise, everything is locally sourced because there isn't really any other option, so everything taste fresh. Produce is only available when its in season, but this adds a fun sense of anticipation as the seasons change.

That's one point of view. The other point of view is that feeding antibiotics to cattle improves yield. Transporting produce long distances ensures that it can be grown where conditions are best, and flying fruits in from Chile means that supermarket customers can find what they crave even in the middle of winter.

The US has a long tradition of asking "can we?" not "should we?" Sometimes, as with the Apolo mission, this is a very good thing. Other times, as with the issue addressed here, it can be rather bad.

 _Edit_ : Also, as I always do when this topic comes up, I'll point to this extremely useful list on Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antibiotics> . This battle is occurring on two fronts: the bugs are becoming more resistant, and we're having an increasingly hard time finding new weapons to fight them off.

<comment><USER7> A pound of steak does not have the same level of water content or nutritional value of a pound of apricot, so that comparison is not meaningful. Cost per pound of each nutrient is a relevant comparison.

Dried apricots cost $5-$10/lb. Does that make them overpriced compared to fresh apricots?

<comment><USER6> It was not my goal to compare apricots to steak, but rather the price of apricots here to the price in the US contrasted with the price of meat here to the price in the US. The US has optimized the production of meat such that the price is artificially low, but at what total cost?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't understand, how people, who supposedly must be well educated in biology, allow antibiotics to loose efficiency by feeding them to animals.

<comment><USER9> I've heard that the vast majority of antibiotics that animals are fed are not of a type that has ever been approved for humans.

<comment><USER10> While true, it is also irrelevant. All known antibiotics belong to a very small number of classes by their mode of action. Resistance genes often confers resistance to not just one antibiotic, but an entire class, for example mecA in MRSA. Therefore it is possible for a bacterium to develop resistance to all therapeutic antibiotics without ever having encountered the exact types.

What's more alarming is that bacteria frequently exchange genetic material between species. Just because the resistance genes have not been discovered in a pathogen does not mean that the gene cannot be easily and instantly transferred from another species, and the chance of that happening is greatly increased if the environment is flooded with resistance genes due to selection by human use of antibiotics.

<comment><USER11> Just because it hasn't happened yet is not a reason not to do something. A tornado hasn't wiped out my house yet, should I move because it might happen some day? Of course there is a risk associated with their use, but the estimated risk is miniscule. It's not even measurable yet. Let's worry about problems we can identify and solve rather than wasting time fretting about what may be.

<comment><USER10> If by "risk" you meant the horizontal transfer of resistance, then I point you at genomic studies of horizontal gene transfer across bacteria. It happens with such regularity that the concept of a species cannot be naively applied to bacteria.

[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=horizontal+gene+transfe...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=horizontal+gene+transfer+genomes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While it would be great if the FDA did something about this, there are probably global dimensions to this problem also. Presumably antibiotics are used globally against strains of disease that spread quite merrily from country to country.

I'd assume epidemiology is not domestically constrained: the antibiotic/agricultural practices of one nation impact all others.

I have no idea what is standard practice for domestic agriculture in my own country. Things I think I "know" about agriculture are distorted through the prism of American cultural influence - documentaries like Food Inc., are writ large in the imagination even where these are only concerned with domestic affairs.

What resources exist that document antibiotic use on a global basis?

<comment><USER13> Feeding the animals antibiotics constantly also 'increases yield' because the animals grow larger. You think that the head of any agriculture company is going to sign off on something that decreases yield? We've got quarterly profits to think of! Think of the profits that we would lose! </sarcasm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What an unfortunate name to have in this field!

________________________

 _And for Pete's sake, I do note that I agree with her wholeheartedly on the substance. It's just the name that struck me out of left field ;-)_

</comment><comment><USER15> Animal research/experimentation is a misleading, conglomerate driven force that makes us all believe it is the only/best way to do biological and medical research for the benefit of humans. The reason it is conglomerate/pharmaceutical driven is because these organizations must rely on animal experimentation to get funding.

 _What affects an animal has for the most part no relationship to how it affects a human_

Yes, there are relatively few instances where how something affects humans is the same as how it affects an animal, but leaving that up to chance as we do research is absolutely not the way to do this!

PCP, which has a violence inducing affect on humans is sometimes used as a horse tranquilizer.

Not only are humans biologically, physiologically different than animals, but each animal is biological/physiologically different from one another.

Due to the fact that animal experimentation/research for the most part (relatively speaking) has not had positive results, researchers started to rely on more extreme methods, such as _injecting human DNA into animals_ so that the animals become more human when they do their research. This causes bacteria/virii which normally would not have been able to penetrate a human, to learn through animals being used as a human DNA surrogate, and therefore becoming stronger and knowing how to attack human cells. Hence the topic of this article and antibiotics becoming less and less effective.

edit, references:

1\. Lethal Medicine (Documentary)

Part 1: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iYOTH_krTk>

Part 2: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF3yn4-9obw>

Part 3: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Rp9xxW2yc>

Part 4: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld8F9yhUb4M>

2\. [http://www.livescience.com/7962-human-dna-injected- animals.h...](http://www.livescience.com/7962-human-dna-injected-animals.html)

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7681252/ns/health- cloning_and_stem...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7681252/ns/health- cloning_and_stem_cells/t/scientists-create-animals-are-part-human)

-In 2004, researchers looking to study viral infections injected human blood stem cells into pigs. The unexpected result: pig cells, human cells and some that combined bits of both developed in the pigs' blood.

-In 2005, researchers created a flock of sheep with bits of human organs growing inside of them, part of an effort (alson carried out in pigs) to eventually create human organ factories.

-Some lab monkeys pack a human form of the Huntington's gene which allow scientists to investigate the development of the disease.

-There are mice with human-like livers that allow studying the effects of drugs. _

<comment><USER16> Do you have a reference for the "injecting human DNA into animals" claim you make? It would be extremely disturbing, if true.

<comment><USER9> Why is it extremely disturbing?

Researchers can take human cancerous (cells) and transplant them into an animal to study. So the animal has human cancerous cells growing on it.

The human DNA doesn't change the animal, it grows on top of it.

See: [http://emice.nci.nih.gov/aam/mouse/transplantation-mouse- mod...](http://emice.nci.nih.gov/aam/mouse/transplantation-mouse-models-1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is such a preponderance of FUD about how livestock are cared for that it boggles the mind. People that have never once talked to a farmer or rancher have these huge opinions about how food "should" be produced based on some bullshit they saw in an article or some agitprop documentary.

In this instance the inference is that livestock are just fed mountains of antibiotics indiscriminately. Are you kidding me? Why would anyone do that? While not as expensive as meds for humans, veterinary medications are not cheap and no operator is going to waste money treating a whole herd unless it is absolutely necessary.

Furthermore, take some time to read up on the FDA website about how livestock production is regulated. It is far from the free for all that is so frequently represented.

If you are interested in a very educated and thorough perspective on how livestock are cared for at a feedyard, check out this blog by a Dartmouth educated operator in Nebraska: <http://feedyardfoodie.wordpress.com/>

On a semi-related note, can you name the product that was responsible for the last three E. coli outbreaks here in the States?

<comment><USER18> 80% of antibiotics produced in the US are used in agriculture.

30 billion pounds just last year. That's half a billion cubic feet, or a pile about 800 feet high. And while the more or less official definition of "mountain" is 1,000 feet, I don't think it provides much solace that it takes 2 years instead of 1 for America's livestock to consume a _literal mountain_ of antibiotics.

<comment><USER11> 80% of the antibiotics used in the US are used in agriculture because they make up 80% of the mass. Dosage is based on weight, and it's purely a question of mass, not a choice between animals or people.

I also think your billion is wrong. According the Union of Concerned Scientists, the 30 billion was the cost of the antibiotics, not the weight. The antibiotics weighed 24 million pounds. Besides, what does the total mass have to do with prudent use? If I said we used 100 billion pounds to save people, would you consider that acceptable?

You also need to put that number in context. In 2010, American meat companies produced: 26.4 billion pounds of beef 22.5 billion pounds of pork 5.8 billion pounds of turkey 313 million pounds of veal, lamb and mutton 37.2 billion pounds of chicken

Finally, there is no clear evidence that the proper use of antibiotics in food animals has ever led to a disease resistant bacteria in humans. Don't you find it much more alarming that your GP will prescribe antibiotics to common visitors just to get them out the door? It's far more likely you're going to die purely because someone next to you won't leave the doctor until they get an antibiotic, regardless of their health status.

<comment><USER19> I realize I'm responding to an account created today, which has already posted multiple pro-antibiotic comments, so I understand that gwt561324 likely has a strong vested interest in this and is likely not a regular HN member.

But I would like to point out the final paragraph here is pure FUD rhetoric. "Don't you find it much more alarming", "It's far more likely" (with no evidence to support claim).

The problem here isn't how frequently antibiotics used in agriculture cause resistance, it's the scale of the problem once they do. Sub-prime mortgage derivatives were traded millions of times without a problem, but once the system broke things got very bad very fast. That's the best analogy I can think of for antibiotic resistance, there is a massive systemic risk, being ignored for short-term profits.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I was wrong about Quora as a blogging service - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2011/01/30/why-i-was-wrong-about-quora-as-a-blogging-service/

<comment><USER2> I think this is pretty much expected from Scoble after he was shunned on Quora by bunch of users who didn't like his constant name dropping and pictures in his answers. To be honest I also found his answers quite lacking.

Related discussion: [http://www.quora.com/How-can-Robert-Scoble-modify-his- writin...](http://www.quora.com/How-can-Robert-Scoble-modify-his-writing-or- behavior-to-help-the-quality-of-content-on-Quora)

</comment><comment><USER3> He was miffed by the following answer being killed: [http://www.quora.com/World-Economic-Forum/Is-Davos- nothing-b...](http://www.quora.com/World-Economic-Forum/Is-Davos-nothing-but- an-expensive-boondoggle-paid-for-by-shareholders-or-taxpayers/answer/Robert- Scoble-1) (quite amusing, but perhaps not as intended)

It seems like Quora's business plan was (1) get lots of users and then (2) think of some way to preserve quality. I hope they can flesh out the second part before everyone leaves again.

</comment><comment><USER4> Given that Quora's content is collaboratively organized and in some cases edited, it seems obvious that Quora is not a service for content where the author wants his or her individual voice to be heard.

<comment><USER5> So he's mad he can't be The Star?

<comment><USER4> He's mad because his comment was hidden through the collaborative organization process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Quora's team is either disingenuous or lost themselves. Many of their own people are using Quora as a Twitter - sharing thoughts, chit chats, in a form of questions. How viable is that to sustain a service? If they wanted to create a social-networking site to begin with, than why bother with the QA format?</comment>


OpenLike - open protocol for sharing between web applications - <AUTHOR> http://openlike.org/

<comment><USER2> The current widget has a weakness for non-English-language FB users: [http://skitch.com/alanhogan/dyjqk/openlike-is-a-protocol- for...](http://skitch.com/alanhogan/dyjqk/openlike-is-a-protocol-for-sharing- the-things-you-like-on-the-web)</comment>


How to monetize this AIM robot idea ?  - <AUTHOR>

I have a full time job as a systems administrator.  During my free time I work developing AIM chatbots.   I did this as a hobby because I wanted to create my own bots on AOL, I have created many bots.   RSS AIM bots, Stock Quote and weather bots, Bots that will give you a quote or joke, and other Chatbots including a chatbot that gives you tips on how to save the environment.
I notice that my server is always busy answering to real human requests,  I would say my bots get a lot of daily traffic from mostly teenagers and other people who are bored at their offices or home.   I don't even advertise them that much they get around through word of mouth.
I am wondering how can I turn this into something that can help me make some cash.
I though about making bots for companies, I think there is a market for something like this.   Any ideas on how I can take my side project to the next level ?
Thanks everyone <comment><USER2> references and/or affiliate programs.

for example, if you were to write a movie bot, if your users want to find movie times, display the times and a link to buy a movie ticket, which would send them to fandango through your affiliate link.

solicit other websites without affiliate programs to get similar mentions on your bots.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think an automated, IM-based help system could be a great product. If you have a website for these bots, you might create a help-bot to showcase how effective it can be.

If you want customers, go through Craigslist and for every support job that doesn't specify phone work, let them know how much cheaper they could get the same product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your advice. At work I do tech support so I create an AIM bot that gave people quick answers to the most frequently asked questions. It was menu based and everyone in the company loves the bot, I also included a company directory , we have over 200 employees and remembering everyone's extension or even email addresses was difficult so I built a company directory using AIM.

thank you for all the ideas you are giving me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have a read of this: <http://www.ddj.com/architect/184411635?pgno=2></comment>


Man Chooses to Cut Off His Hand – And Get a Bionic One - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2011/05/19/man-chooses-to-cut-off-his-hand-%e2%80%93-and-get-a-bionic-one-video/ <comment><USER2> Don't get me wrong, the technology is incredible. But the title is misleading. It made me think he cut off a healthy hand since a bionic one was somehow much better. Instead, he cut off an atrophied, useless hand since a bionic one restored _some_ functionality.</comment>


KIC 8462852 Faded Throughout the Kepler Mission - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.01316 <comment><USER2> So it can still be a Dyson Sphere being built ?</comment>


Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/us/politics/asian-students-affirmative-action-harvard.html <comment><USER2> This argument, while important, is the low hanging fruit of the affirmative action debate in my opinion.

We would not need affirmative action if legacy based admissions wasn't so prevalent in top schools.

We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes, test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school extracurriculars, both academic and non-academic to prepare them for college.

The best elementary schools in the nation are driven by property taxes, how many people do you know bought their house because of the school district? You probably did. Yet we really don't take these things into account when having these discussions. Everyone wants a fair and equitable opportunity for students to get a quality education but to really do so we need drastic reform to really enable that. There's enough political will to tackle the symptom that is AA but very few people want to tackle the causes.

<comment><USER3> "The best elementary schools in the nation are driven by property taxes, how many people do you know bought their house because of the school district?"

Sometimes I wonder how much of this is everyone mistaking causation vs. correlation. School districts with high property taxes tend to have a number of other features in common, like: stable 2-parent households; high incomes; ability to afford private tutors and enrichment opportunities; highly-educated parents; exposure to a wide social network of high-achieving peers; lack of environmental stressors; and probably genetic endowments for health & intelligence.

Does anyone know of studies that have tried to tease out how much effect the educational system actually has on student outcomes, once you've controlled for parental wealth/intelligence/education/etc?

<comment><USER4> Anecdote time:

The high school I went to served two neighboring communities, one uber wealthy, the other lower class.

As such, the uber-wealthy income taxpayers allowed our district to pay teachers in excess of $150k. I think our gym teacher made $200k. Several of my high school teachers were former university professors. And besides being qualified, these teachers were in general top-notch educators of high school students.

I didn't notice any difference in achievement between the portion of students from the lower-class area and the portion of students from the wealthy area.

<comment><USER3> I was looking more for studies than anecdotes, like the one mirajshah posted.

My anecdote is that I went to a charter school that served 23 different communities across basically half the state of Massachusetts. Median family income from these communities ranged from $54K (Leominster) to $202K (Lincoln). And there were _very_ noticeable differences in both behavior and academic achievement between students from the Fitchburg/Leominster/Ayer region (poorer and more blue-collar) vs. wealthy Boston exurbs like Lincoln, Carlisle, or Bolton. Almost everyone at the school was white, so this wasn't much of a conflating factor (aside from some Asians & blacks adopted into wealthy white families, and half-Chinese like me who also were in relatively well-off and well-educated families).

Granted, it's a charter school, and my class was the first year they were legal in Massachusetts. This tends to exacerbate differences because you don't go to an experimental charter school unless you're unhappy with your existing school, and top reasons for being unhappy include falling behind classmates or being so far ahead that you're bored. But interestingly, a large number of those who struggled from poor districts went _back_ to their home district, perhaps because they struggled even more when going to a school with a wide mix of backgrounds. This despite my school having a radically individualistic instruction method (every student had a personalized learning plan) and an enviable 1:12 teacher:student ratio.

<comment><USER5> Did your charter school have entrance requirements?

<comment><USER3> No, it was all by lottery, with preference given to students from the school's home town and to siblings. That was mandated by the state's charter school laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The key facts of this story is that Harvard has been discriminating against Asian-Americans based on race, which is illegal in the US.

Harvard knows they've been acting unlawfully, which is why they desperately try to resort to evasive tactics, such as claiming their admission process is a "trade secret" and should never be discussed in court:

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/harvard-university-is- figh...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/harvard-university-is-fighting-to- keep-its-secretive-admissions-process-under-wraps-2018-06-28)

The DoJ is right to conclude that Harvard has been acting illegally.

<comment><USER7> It's actually not at all clear if it's legal hence the court battle. In fact AA is literally legalized discrimination that benefits Minorities so you really don't know what you are talking about.

<comment><USER8> The use of gender and racial quotas in University admissions is unconstitutional, decided by the Supreme Court case Gratz v. Bollinger in 2003.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. Harvard's legal argument isn't that they are racially discriminating and that it's legal. They know it's not.

Their argument is what you'd expect from an institution that is racially discriminating, but trying to weasel out of its culpability: they try to hide their systematic bias in the most subjective and ambiguous candidate score - the "personality" ratings.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/harvard-asian- ame...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/harvard-asian-american- racism.html)

> The report by the plaintiff's expert witness, the Duke University economist > Peter Arcidiacono, revealed that Harvard evaluated applicants on the extent > to which they possessed the following traits: likability, helpfulness, > courage, kindness, positive personality, people like to be around them, the > person is widely respected. Asian-Americans, who had the highest scores in > both the academic and extracurricular ratings, lagged far behind all other > racial groups in the degree to which they received high ratings on the > personality score.

> "Asian-American applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more > than 20% of the time only in the top academic index decile. By contrast, > white applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more than 20% > of the time in the top six deciles," wrote Mr. Arcidiacono. "Hispanics > receive such personal scores more than 20% of the time in the top seven > deciles, and African Americans receive such scores more than 20% of the time > in the top eight deciles."

> Even if the very worst stereotypes about Asians were true on average, it > beggars belief that one could arrive at divergences as dramatic as the ones > Mr. Arcidiacono documents by means of unbiased evaluation.

<comment><USER7> >Harvard's legal argument isn't that they are racially discriminating and that it's legal. They know it's not.

Grutter v. Bollinger 2003 Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the majority opinion that the Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Harvard (and some other schools) used to apply similar subjective criteria to limit the number of Jewish students.

Since there is no real legal definition of race, applicants who might be disadvantaged by this policy are free to select whichever answer on the "What is your race?" question they want. If the system is unfair, there's nothing immoral about gaming it.

<comment><USER11> Almost all the ivy leagues have in person interviews... Also are people supposed to fake their names?

<comment><USER12> Is Elizabeth Warren a traditional indigenous name?

<comment><USER13> No, but then again neither is "Sitting Bull".

English wasn't common in pre-Columbian America.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Notably, the comments section of the article is overwhelmingly in favor of schools not discriminating based on the color of the applicant's skin.

<comment><USER15> How about not discriminating _at all_?

<comment><USER14> Personally, I'd love to see Harvard set aside 75% of their spots for a lottery of students who meet an insanely high threshold (98% percentile in the SAT, for example, or some other objective measurement), and then use the other 25% for athletes, legacies, diversity, etc.

That way you may not get in, but you know you won't get cut because you got assigned an arbitrary 'personality' score if you scored high enough; enables kids to save face with friends/family too.

Not a fully baked idea here, just a potential avenue.

<comment><USER16> Over half of all students accepted to Harvard already have test scores in the top 2%

<comment><USER17> Lots of people dislike the current situation. They might very well prefer a random sampling of the 2% to the weighted-against-asians portion of the 2% that Harvard "already" admits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Harvard does not discriminate against applicants from any group, and will continue to vigorously defend the legal right of every college and university to consider race as one factor among many in college admissions"

translation: "We don't discriminate, but we discriminate."

How can somebody write something that stupid?

<comment><USER17> Start off with four years of Ivy League undergraduate education...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think a lot of this boils down to where the problem can be solved.

With AA, universities and companies have decided that rather than wait for education reform to streak across the US and guarantee proper funding and adequate education regardless of income, they will seek out those with the potential to do great things regardless of their test scores etc.

They have decided to solve the problem in the portion that affects them: aka not solving the root but simply getting different types of applicants in that they think are valuable.

I think the grand solution is to go back and reform education, which I think most agree on. But for now, companies and universities are doing really the only thing they can, which is give students and applicants opportunities that they have not been given earlier in their lives.

Also in the end I believe that most people can do most jobs once you get training. Most jobs are specialized enough to train someone directly and college is meant to learn anyway so if Harvard wants to admit people of various socio economic backgrounds in favor of not admitting solely the top, I think that'd be better for them in the long run. Especially since the metrics for success are measured as if everyone is in the white top-middle class.

</comment><comment><USER20> There's obviously an inequality problem between races in America but why don't we just provide affirmative action to low income people of all races? It could be as simple as boosting the chances of admission for all low income applicants by 5%. Just because systematic racism has lead to the oppression of black people in the country doesn't mean that race is the only factor we can look at to encourage diversity.

<comment><USER21> I'm guessing that the poor students that are academically decent enough for Harvard are mostly Asian with some children of European immigrants and a few of African immigrants.

I think that Asians are even more represented in the set of poor students that can academically fit into Harvard than the set of upper middle class and above students that can academically fit into Harvard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think this, and many similar issues, all come down to the need to clarify one's desire for equality of opportunity, or equality of result. If you are in support of equality of opportunity, then this is obviously a good thing. If you're in support of equality of result, then this is obviously a bad thing.

In my opinion, equality if result is not really a tenable position. I suspect even if we were all completely and absolutely genetically identical, we'd still see different groups perform differently. The reason in this case would be emergent cultures. The culture in area like Palm Beach is going to diverge from the culture in e.g. Nome, Alaska. When Nomians then have, perhaps, better results than Palm Beachians does that mean we now need to start making it harder for Nomians to get into schools? It just doesn't make any sense. And of course this is all built on top of a false premise of each and every group starting with genetic equivalence to each and every other group. Ultimately I don't see any realistic way you can achieve equality of result without turning society into a dystopia.

</comment><comment><USER23> The subtext of the hand-wringing over this case is that somehow Asians have earned or deserve their spot in Harvard for having X GPA or Y SAT scores, and thus it is "unfair" for people with lower GPA/SATs to be admitted over them. But this is just flat out wrong.

The issue is that admissions to top universities isn't strictly meritocratic. Or to put it another way, "merit" in this context isn't simply GPA and SAT scores. Harvard as an institution wants to increase its prestige over time, and so they want to admit students who will go on to be CEOs, Senators, Presidents, etc. They want to pick the future leaders of society, but this is only correlated with GPA/SAT up to a point.

This is where race-aware admissions is perfectly warranted by Harvard. They want students who are outliers as those people will go on to do great things. But being an outlier of your cluster is important signal. And race is a very important cluster in society. That they structure their admissions to make sure they're getting the outstanding people from a broad range of races and circumstances is Harvard just working in their best interest. If Asian applications are very similar to each other, then they have a good reason to weigh such applications lower because you're no longer an outlier in the sense that is valuable to Harvard.

This isn't a moral issue like some are trying to make this out to be. If there is a moral issue here, its whether any institution should have such an outsized influence on the outcome of a person's life, not whether Asians are being unfairly barred from the king-maker institution.

<comment><USER21> It most definitely is a moral issue when students are racially discriminated against. There is a trade-off between racial diversity and racial discrimination.

What you're saying here is that non-Asian leaders who are individually worse leaders take the spot of Asian leaders who are individually better leaders because the race of non-Asian leaders makes them better leaders.

<comment><USER23> >racially discriminated against

But we haven't settled whether they're being racially discriminated against. If some legitimate feature to discriminate or filter against correlates with race, then it will look a lot like racial discrimination when it isn't. Harvard wanting to maximize their future prestige by carefully constructing the makeup of their student body is such an instance. Maximizing leadership potential of their student body will look like racial discrimination. It's similar to how the distribution of housing loans can look like racial discrimination if you didn't already know that income correlates with race.

> non-Asian leaders who are individually worse leaders take the spot of Asian > leaders who are individually better leaders

No. I'm saying GPA and SAT scores only correlate with leadership potential _up to a point_. Once you've passed that threshold, other factors start contributing more, e.g. your background, interests, etc. It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA/SAT necessarily has more leadership potential.

<comment><USER24> > _It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA /SAT necessarily has > more leadership potential._

And somehow these "lacking in leadership potential" students happen to be Asian more often than the norm? Year after year? Seems like a convenient coincidence.

<comment><USER23> You're missing the point. There is no way to quantify leadership potential and so they have to come up with various heuristics. One heuristic is being an outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster. That is, group people by various factors such as race, income, region, etc. Those who are outliers of those groups are likely to have leadership potential: whatever drove them to succeed where others failed in similar circumstances is a strong signal for leadership potential.

<comment><USER24> > _One heuristic is being an outlier in some socially /politically relevant > cluster. That is, group people by various factors such as race, income, > region, etc._

Then, pray tell, which lack of "being an outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster" is common to Asian applicants, year after year? I'm sure we would all be fascinated to hear the specific areas in which Asian applicants are failing to match these heuristics where other minority applicants do.

<comment><USER23> Your responses seem to indicate you don't understand the points I'm making (or you're just very invested in the narrative you're pushing). It's hard to see what I can say that won't invite a further response such as this.

But to put a very fine point on it, Asians with stellar scores, similar backgrounds, similar interests, similar extra curriculars lack diversity in backgrounds, interests and extra curriculars by definition. There's nothing deeper to be noted about this. Whether Asians that apply to Harvard actually have similar backgrounds, interests and extra curriculars is certainly up for debate. But it is plausible.

The issue is that the distribution of leadership potential in the applicant pool is not equivalent to the distribution of top GPA and test scores (past a certain threshold). So when you use your GPA/SAT metric to analyze something that doesn't follow the same distribution, you will conclude there is bias. _But it is your metric that is wrong._ If your argument is that they _necessarily should_ use your GPA/SAT metric, then you have to argue for this directly. It is not self evident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Diversity quotas are the dumbest invention of the 21st century. All they do is create racial discrimination against a group of people. If you want to have a balanced admission process, which isn't biased towards a certain group of people (good schools, parents with money, Asians, etc.) then simply change the entry exams from tests which require someone being very book smart (= coming from a privileged background with access to higher education) to someone who just generally is very (street) smart. Smart people will always pick up what they need in order to succeed university, with or without a previous academic background.

A blind process wouldn't discriminate and doesn't need quotas. Instead of asking questions with the hope for the right answer, ask questions to explore the right thinking which can be equally achieved no matter what someone's background is.

<comment><USER26> "Smart people will always pick up what they need in order to succeed university, with or without a previous academic background." is just a reframing of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and ignores the entire history of inequality in the US.

<comment><USER25> No it's not. It means if you are smart then you are still smart even if you haven't visited a private school and entry exams should be changed in such a way that it actually measures the potential of a candidate instead of their current education history. Also years of inequality don't have an effect on a blind process, because no student today had to live through a century of inequality. People of today have been born into a better world and if we design a blind application process then there is no reason why anyone shouldn't perform well. Quotas are only making it worse, by trying to apply a flaw in order to fix another flaw, which might not even exist anymore.

<comment><USER26> Inequality is systematic and generational, "because no student today had to live through a century of inequality" is a ridiculous statement when we still have major problems with inequality in schooling, health care, criminal justice, the list goes on and on. Just because things are better than they were 50 years ago doesn't erase 300 years of history.

There is no such thing as a completely "blind" process that can somehow "measures the potential of a candidate" outside that candidate's socioeconomic history and outside the history of inequality in the US. It's the dream of a pure meritocracy which is completely impossible in reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is totally against "test takers". Knowing the rules will make them better at taking tests but Harvard wants to be about something else. I may sure be downvoted to say that from my experience asians are the great test takers, and gotta also add that they have amazing rote memory, one of the best imho.

<comment><USER28> Please don't perpetuate stereotypes like this. This sentence has a clear discriminatory undertone implying that asians are less capable of creative/critical thinking.

<comment><USER27> You just said this in one of your comments : "Unless one is going to argue that there are no genetic differences between individuals in the brain, it seems unlikely to me that different races don't have different brains in some fashion."

Then I may ask, if you think different races have different brains , how can you argue against statements on traits by calling them stereotypes? I wasn't implying creativity, It was more general than that, and there's no better one than other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Equivalent Bloomberg article [0] mentions that the ACLU has taken Harvard's side, and they state [1]:

 _While the DOJ's brief does not challenge Supreme Court precedent granting universities the right to freely select their own student body—presumably because it cannot do so at this stage of the litigation—the Trump administration has advocated for "race-blind" policies, which Harvard and virtually all other universities have found are demonstrably insufficient to achieve meaningful diversity, given the reality of historic and continuing racial discrimination in this country._

[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/doj- backs...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/doj-backs-asian- americans-in-harvard-discrimination-lawsuit)

[1] [https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-department- justice-...](https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-department-justice- filing-harvard-university-admissions-lawsuit)

<comment><USER30> I'm not sure I understand the ACLU's statement. Is Harvard's discrimination against Asian-Americans for their race not racial discrimination to the ACLU? Or is it OK because it benefits worse-off races? I'm open to alternatives, I'm not trying to establish a false dichotomy here.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, that is bonkers. Let's use some actual racism to fix some other deficiency, which we assume is the result of some previous racism.

<comment><USER32> If the deficiency is not the result of previous racism, what is it the result of?

<comment><USER22> Take a completely random sampling of 1 million people from populations all across the world. And in fact, take them from the day of birth to avoid any sort of early biases (actually 'harbor' the parents from the day of conception to avoid any sort of prenatal differences). And now put all of these million people on a completely homogenous and equally fertile chunk of land on an island. Raise each and every single one of them identically until they are of an age to take care of themselves. Give each and every one of them the exact same amount of starting 'capital' and set them free to achieve as they will.

200 years later, with a population that's multiplied several magnitudes over - would you expect to still see a completely equal people? I wouldn't. _People are different_. And each child that is born is different, even when born to the same parents. Even identical twins are no longer completely identical by the time of birth. These differences express themselves in different ways (and wow was that the most tautological statement ever), but the point is that I think it's highly illogical to expect to see equality.

Out of genuine curiosity, do you disagree?

<comment><USER33> > 200 years later, with a population that's multiplied several magnitudes over > - would you expect to still see a completely equal people? I wouldn't

I would. South Koreans are 2-3 inches taller than North Koreans, plus a miriad of other biological differences, in a relatively short span of time. This is for the same ethnicity, yet alone race.

For me, that alone is proof we are much more similar than we think, and environmental factors, which your hypothetical scenario accounts for perfectly, has a much greater impact on us compared to genetics.

Which is why, for perfectly randomly selected humans raised identically for 200 years, I would not expect significant differences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Setting the racial aspect to one side, is there anything of value in "admissions readers" in a gargantuan administrative bureaucracy rating young kids on their "likability"?

<comment><USER35> People skills are helpful to success. I can testify to that as someone with insufficient amounts.

<comment><USER36> The parent comment seems to be emphasizing the point that bureaucrats who have never met/interviewed the students shouldn't be the ones deciding which students have the potential to develop positive people skills. Their alleged leaning on stereotypes to make those decisions is unsurprising given such constraints.

<comment><USER37> Especially since the alumni interviewers who actually meet the candidates give Asian candidates basically the same marks for personality as White candidates.

<comment><USER23> But are the students who meet with alumni a representative sample? If I were a socially inept applicant I would take my chances without the interview.

<comment><USER28> It's not just alumni. Asian applicants were rated basically the same on "Personality" scores from teacher letters, counselor letters, alumni interviews, etc. Everything except their final grade (which is the only place that includes essays, I believe).

However, I find it incredibly unlikely that asian applicants are so bad at writing essays that it's singlehandedly tanking their personality score that drastically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Can someone point out the material difference(s) between the Asian quotas, which Harvard is stridently defending, and the Jewish quotas which were repealed and roundly reviled?

</comment><comment><USER39> On 2016 Abigail Fisher sued the university of texas for the same reason, the supreme court stood with the university.

Can anyone tell me why not here and what's the difference?

<comment><USER28> Well, to be clear, the Supreme Court has not ruled on this case yet. The Department of Justice is part of the executive branch, responsible for the enforcement of the law.

As for what the difference is, I'm no expert on law, and can't confidently provide an answer.

To me, the difference seems to be that while white students may be slightly discriminated against through affirmative action, asian students face _much_ larger hurdles.

The Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action have not decided anything as clear cut as "affirmative action is completely allowed", nor "affirmative action is not allowed". From my understanding, explicit quotas are not allowed, but if a school can reasonably argue that their use of affirmative action serves its "education goal", then it's allowable.

<comment><USER39> thanks

It's pretty weird everything, on my country nothing outside "this is your score, this is your admission" would be allowed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Why do people think affirmative action is a good idea?

It's not meritocratic. People should be judged based on their skill, not based on their gender, race, or ethnicity. We should be striving for a fair society, not equality of outcome

It's insulting to those minorities, it implies that they can't be smart enough to make it without this kind of leg up, and they will never know the extent to which this played a role in their success even if they're absolutely solid at what they do. And I think there's definitely a negative psychological effect to minorities by doing these kinds of things

If a student gets into a school which is above their skill level or general academic interest, they could burn out and loose interest in a profession that otherwise would've been a good fit for them. A similar lack of motivation can also happen for someone who can only get into a school that's below their true skill level because they don't feel that their being valued fairly

It isn't all encompassing -- it's not just gender and race, there are ethnicities that are widely discriminated against and they don't get a similar leg up. I don't think AA should be applied at all, just pointing this out

There are problems in some minority communities struggle with for sure, but this isn't the right way to solve it at all

One of big reasons why asian and jewish communities do better here is just culture -- their cultures highly value intellectual pursuits. I knew an asian guy that went to Harvard and they were so poor they lived in the ghetto, which should've messed up his chances because the public school sucked, but he was raised to highly value academic pursuits. And an asian girl I knew that went to Columbia, her mother told her that if she doesn't achieve academically she won't love her anymore. While harsh, they punish their kids for an A- the way other cultures would view an F. But it's a big reason for their academic success

I also knew a girl that was very rich, but she basically didn't have to pay tuition because of her minority. I'm sorry but that's really annoying for someone that had to take out insane amounts of student debt. There were times when I thought I had to drop out because I couldn't even get approved for a loan, and the interest rates were insanely high

The better solution is to find out why some minorities aren't doing well academically in proportion to others in the first place and change that. If it's financial or cultural or whatever else, the underlying cause should be addressed, not this BS

Relevant: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvnTByzTmA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvnTByzTmA)

<comment><USER18> Your initial question is linked to your final remark.

People think affirmative action is a good idea because they think that minorities aren't doing well academically because they don't have role models to identify with. To be clear affirmative action is supposed to be temporary until the culture of minorities that do not do well academically as changed enough.

So paradoxically the goal of affirmative action is to reduce cultural diversity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Asian-Americans should be fighting the Chinese natives not the schools because that's where all the spots have been going to for the past decade.

<comment><USER42> That's not the point. Let's fight the schools with BS vague "personality" tests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think the problem lies with SATs/GREs/GMATs. The tests (especially SAT, GRE) are ludicrously simple. I'm your run of the mill IIT-an and placed 98th and 99th percentile without breaking a sweat in the GRE when it came time for grad school. I think I maxed 2 of the 3 sections and was 98th percentile in both. What's the point of a test like that? Thousands of people max/get to the highest percentile and it becomes useless as a variable. Why not follow the model of the JEE exam instead of the SAT (a different variant of the exam for each specialization). If the exam is harder, the distribution of students is more spread out. You can rank them nationwide. Not being a jerk, I'm honestly curious why people like middle school math problems in a grad school exam? [https://jeemain.nic.in/webinfo/Public/Home.aspx](https://jeemain.nic.in/webinfo/Public/Home.aspx)

<comment><USER17> The SAT, which is the more relevant test for this discussion, was intentionally made easier years ago, so that it would be better suited to measuring the vast majority of USA college applicants. That made it less suited to Harvard's needs, but not as much as one might think. Plenty of Harvard students had less than the maximum SAT scores. Some might prefer that admission be based solely on test scores, but that is not Harvard's preference.

<comment><USER21> Or it works in Harvard's preference by potentially hiding the academic disparities of the different ethnic groups studying at Harvard.

If everyone's score is truncated at 800 on a test out of 1200, then you can't tell the difference between a group that averages 800 vs one that averages 1100</comment></comment></comment>


How does Docker work? - <AUTHOR> https://cameronlonsdale.com/2019/03/25/how-does-docker-work/# <comment><USER2> Really interesting overview. Thanks for publishing. You should probably submit this somewhere into [https://docs.docker.com](https://docs.docker.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> I might! Thanks for suggesting.</comment></comment>


FCC Chairman Ajit Pai canceled his appearance at CES because of death threats - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2018/1/4/16850956/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-ces-death-threats <comment><USER2> While I don't doubt the legitimacy of the death threats, I can't help but to think Pai is taking advantage of the situation in order to fashion himself as a martyr figure, especially in the eyes of Trump's hyper-reactive base.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm no fan of his, but he has been getting a lot of hate lately. After the signs[1] at his home, I imagine he's a little rattled.

[1] [http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fcc-chairman-ajit-pais- fam...](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fcc-chairman-ajit-pais-family- harassed-over-proposed-net-neutrality-rollback/article/2641854)

<comment><USER3> When you're a public official who intentionally and gleefully ignores the people you're paid to represent, I guess you shouldn't be surprised when those people get extremely angry with you. You chose to ignore them to enrich yourself at the detriment of an entire nation... And now you want us to feel sorry that someone posted a sign in front of your house? HAH!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So with the repeal of net neutrality the FCC can't afford to have Pai video- conference in?

<comment><USER5> He could use Cisco's Telepresence with sure mute technology: [https://vimeo.com/53993957](https://vimeo.com/53993957)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't say I like Pai, but I find death threats even worse.

<comment><USER7> Such threats have to be taken with a grain of salt. Daniel Tosh famously gets thousands of death threats, all from fans. Anyone who has run a website or had a clip go viral has received such threats. Many a cop or prosecutor has still gone to work after receiving much more personal and specific threats. I interviewed for an internship once where I was asked point blank whether I would be able to work the day after some angry person screamed such a threat at me in court. For a controversial federal official to take pathetic online threats as a real danger, absent any actual evidence, is at best a convenient reason to avoid an appearance. At worst, it's plain cowardice.

<comment><USER8> While I understand and agree with you, I feel it's important to note that death threats are never okay, even if (and especially if) "everyone gets them"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The 8th thing? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhT6H6pRWg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhT6H6pRWg) I think it is more likely that he didn't want to face criticism. I am going to have to call cite.

<comment><USER10> From that video:

"Recently there's been quite a bit of conversation about my plan to restore internet freedom."

Tom Wheeler certainly wasn't a paragon of courage and clarity before he started to feel the pressure to reclassify ISPs under Title II. But before that, I sure don't remember him taking his opponents' own language like "internet freedom" and brazenly applying it to his own position.

Did he ever do anything like that?

Edit: added apostrophe

<comment><USER9> I love how he trivializes and mocks the citizenship's use of the internet as a funhouse of mirrors for blubs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Threats to hurt someone are always out of line. Did you read that the recent source of the swatting attack that killed the poor innocent person walking out of his house also is apparently the guy who called in the bomb threat before the vote for network neutrality at the fcc [1].

There are sadly people out there who could hurt any public official. He and everyone should be safe, but I also think he doesn't want to face a very very angry public about his joyous destruction of n.n.

[1] [https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/12/kansas-man-killed-in- swa...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/12/kansas-man-killed-in-swatting- attack/)

<comment><USER12> Are they really though? Violence, and the threat of it, is literally what keeps society together at all, and what enforces all of our laws.

Kind of sad to read this thread and see everyone sitting on their high horse thinking they are amazing people for being non-violent while this guy gets away with what is probably worse than murder. When did humanity ever reach such a pathetic state where we let people just walk over us like this?

You think Reddit posts and Hackernews posts are going to ever change anything? These people are probably just laughing at us twiddling our thumbs pretending to actually do something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There was also a bomb threat when voting on net neutrality, but he definitely didn't miss that.

</comment><comment><USER14> also breaking: Internet cancels appearance at FCC hearings because of death threats.

<comment><USER15> How about threats-of-butt-probes-before-next-flight?

I'm pretty sure that one is more likely.

(edit: I interpreted "Internet" as in "Internet users", but I now see it was a joke for the Internet itself)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not in favor of death threats, but if you are a public official and you do something so unpopular without a clear moral agenda (such as equal rights in the 60s) that it results in the vast majority of the people you ought to represent being so outraged that some threaten your life, maybe you ought to reexamine your policy choices.

<comment><USER17> Vast majority of your friends and like-minded people does not imply a "vast majority". The sad reality is the actual vast majority of people don't have a clue what Net Neutrality means, or what is implied by its repeal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So as far as net neutrality goes: it's very vague, in favor of companies like Netflix that want cheap peering(?) at the expense of ISPs (which are acquiring each other, getting huge similar to before Bell was broken up). It's a corporation vs corporation fight

Why aren't ISPs public utilities? These technologies were developed using tax payer money at DARPA, or in government sanctioned monopolies like Bell Labs

I would be interested to hear more about the relationship between South Korea's subsidy of internet and the rise of starcraft and the high tech service economy there

</comment><comment><USER19> Weak. The person or people issuing death threats are idiots, but my guess is that Pai seized upon a probably-not-credible threat as an excuse to avoid being utterly humiliated in a public forum. Accountability is not his style.

<comment><USER20> It definitely could be. But FCC commissioner doesn't get a security detail. And if you go to local police they aren't going to fly people around to protect you, they'll just tell you to lie low.

In his situation, would you risk your life at a big public event?

<comment><USER21> Maybe he should hire private security and send the bill to Comcast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Death threats are Very convenient for him. Makes him look persecuted while he sells out to comcast.

Judging by the number of fake net neutrality comments submitted, I bet my deceased grandfather called in a couple death threats too.</comment>


So I just made butwhysiri.com with no coding experience - <AUTHOR> http://butwhysiri.com <comment><AUTHOR> I was browsing reddit and saw lot of Siri jokes popping up, but couldn't find a single website to view everything in one place i.e. something like lamebook. So I created my own. BTW no coding experience means I don't know how to code, but know my way around PHP, CSS, and HTML. I don't plan on making this into anything, it was just an experiment. Happy browsing!

EDIT: So I'm finally testing out Google Analytics Real Time features. It's good.

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't understand why you've rebrand content from: <http://shitthatsirisays.tumblr.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> The site is more of an aggregator. P.S. users are also submitting stuff using the submission from. Logo is purely for branding, but I'll drop it if the site gets any real traction.</comment></comment>


A few insights gained from a recent excursion into hashing - <AUTHOR> http://chart.bt/1r9cNQX

<comment><USER2> This is pretty interesting but I don't know what they were expecting. These hashing functions are pretty strongly rooted in mathematics, usually implementing the functions defined in math papers is the easiest part. Probably would have worked better if they got a bunch of math majors to do this instead of software developers.

I'm not trying to bash software developers either but most don't have the math background to write their own (good)hashing function.

<comment><USER3> Actually, for example the mathematical relationship between prime numbers and hash functions is unclear. Designing good hash functions seems to be an art relying largely on trial and error. This link has some details: [http://www.partow.net/programming/hashfunctions/index.html](http://www.partow.net/programming/hashfunctions/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is little reason to use non-crypto hash these days, given fast crypto hash like SipHash.</comment>


Ōryōki Web Browser - <AUTHOR> http://oryoki.io/ <comment><USER3> For anyone interested, here are some web browsers that are actually minimalist and not just reskins of chromium:

[http://surf.suckless.org/](http://surf.suckless.org/)

[https://fanglingsu.github.io/vimb/](https://fanglingsu.github.io/vimb/)

[http://www.uzbl.org/](http://www.uzbl.org/)

<comment><USER4> For anyone interested, here are some web browsers that are actually lightweight (if not html5-compliant) and not webkit-based:

[http://www.dillo.org/](http://www.dillo.org/)

[http://www.netsurf-browser.org/](http://www.netsurf-browser.org/)

<comment><USER5> For anyone interested, here are some web browsers that are very lightweight and don't bother with HTML at all:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=spiders&espv=2&biw=1439&bih=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=spiders&espv=2&biw=1439&bih=646&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKiKXags7NAhXL44MKHaEgAxUQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=web+of+spiders)

<comment><USER6> For anyone interested, I'm just gonna stick to Safari on my Mac and iOS.

<comment><USER7> For anyone interested, I hear gopher is making a comeback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > small web browser [...] built on top of Chromium

More accurately, a minimalist web browser UI for Chromium. There's nothing small about Chromium.

<comment><USER9> Even more accurately, it's a minimalist web browser UI for Electron which is an application UI for Chromium which is a fully-featured web browser UI.

These people don't deserve any more Moore improvements.

<comment><USER10> If you wanted to experiment with browser UI, what platform would you choose? And who are "these people"?

<comment><USER11> Guessing from the context of this article, his statements, and your response, he was talking about theOryoki web browser authors who wrapped a browser in a UI framework to make a "small" browser. Apparently the number of UI widgets is what makes the difference between "small" and "full blown".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This project is solving the wrong problem. It's not the interfaces of web browsers that suck, it's the gigabytes of RAM they consume.

<comment><USER13> RAM is meant to be consumed. If your browser is using 50MB of RAM and has to swap every background tab to disk then you're not utilizing the resources of your computer, and getting a crappy user experience as a bonus.

<comment><USER14> Yes, RAM is meant to be consumed, but I still find it incredibly hard to believe that my browser NEEDS multiple gigabytes of memory. Regardless of how much I have to spare.

<comment><USER15> Is this a problem a browser can solve? I mean modern websites are so large with so many crappy stuff and always loading something in the background - <USER2> you have 15-20 tabs with similar background loading web sites your browser is bound to consume a lot of memory.

If I am not missing something obvious, aren't we blaming the wrong thing?

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure about that. Chrome's Task Manager says this HN post is taking 255mb and the front page 101mb.

<comment><USER17> That's weird. Chrome is only using 31 MB for both tabs for me.

<comment><USER18> Do you think it's related to the display? I'm on a 15 inch rMBP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This page is a good example of what's wrong with HN.

Someone publishes their open source _experiment_ in minimal browser UI design, and everyone shits on it for not being a built-from-scratch web browser with low memory usage.

<comment><USER20> This is a good example of what is _right_ with HN. Technical people expressing their technical demands w/r/t a technical project. If you want people to ooh and ahh over a project and keep quiet about its faults, show it your relatives.

<comment><USER21> You don't get it.

Someone built an experiment in _minimalistic UI design_. "Technical people" started a massive pile-on, declaring "this is stupid, this doesn't have a minimalistic codebase at all."

That's _not a technical demand_ , and it's not identifying a product's faults. That's a demand that this project have an _entirely different purpose_.

Personally, I use `chromium --kiosk-mode` as my everyday browser, and this project looks like something I'd be interested in if I were on a compatible OS. Not a small codebase, not a lightweight browser, but _that 's not what I care about_. I want something that has Chrome's features (great devtools, doesn't crash every hour like the webkit browsers I've tried) but with less UI devoted to, uh, chrome that I don't use or want or need.

<comment><USER22> When a experiment has a domain and a splash page, it's left behind the status of "an experiment" and gone into the realm of "a product".

IMHO, free or not, it's a product, and should be judged appropriately.

<comment><USER23> It's easy to register a domain and throw some designing on the wall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For Firefox users, this can all be done with Firefox and custom browser CSS (Vimperator helps), which offers significantly more control (without having to rewrite the core code).

Screenshots: [http://imgur.com/a/qDGP2](http://imgur.com/a/qDGP2)

CSS base (I've made a few modifications): [http://twily.info/firefox/stylish/firefox- css#view](http://twily.info/firefox/stylish/firefox-css#view)

<comment><USER25> Do you own twily? That is an interesting file explorer style thing on the webpage.

<comment><USER24> No. I believe Twily used to be on /g/ frequently, maybe still is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Would be useful to add an "MacOS" label (or Linux/Win) to the HN links when the tools are for a specific OS only, so that users of other OSes don't have to spend their clicks. At least for this project it is straightforward, sometimes it takes a few minutes on a website to find that, well, you can't uset it unless you buy a new computer.

</comment><comment><USER27> Worked on something similar[1] for a school project (although didn't implement nearly as many features)

Electron makes it really easy to experiment with browser UI.

[1] [https://github.com/reedrosenbluth/Concept- Browser](https://github.com/reedrosenbluth/Concept-Browser)

<comment><USER27> Actually, upon further inspection mine has more or less the same features

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Here's another tiny browser: [http://www.netsurf- browser.org/](http://www.netsurf-browser.org/)

At a previous job, we built and installed and ran a system test with that faster than Firefox unpacked the source tarball. OTOH, it's quite limited, and Javascript support isn't really there yet.

</comment><comment><USER29> Not full fledged, and built on electron.

Less features and slower, exactly what I was looking for.

<comment><USER30> I figured this is the whole reason they say

> This is an experimental project

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just in case anyone else is curious:

応量器 Noun 1\. mendicant priest's begging bowl (Buddhist term)

[http://jisho.org/word/%E5%BF%9C%E9%87%8F%E5%99%A8](http://jisho.org/word/%E5%BF%9C%E9%87%8F%E5%99%A8)

</comment><comment><USER32> Talking about Electron-based browser experiments, there's also Paul Frazee's beaker: [https://github.com/pfraze/beaker](https://github.com/pfraze/beaker)

It has integrations for lots of mad science distributed tech such as IPFS & dat and a permission-based filesystem API based on node's fs API.

</comment><comment><USER33> The typical web browser UI is a terrible waste of pixels. It might be a requirement for non-techies but no-one surely clicks the back button or drags the scroll bar, at least no power user does.

I personally use Firefox + vimperator with menu bar, address bar and scroll bars disabled. A single line status bar has all the info I need.

I've also dabbled with some of the "micro browsers" but none was satisfactory without a lot of trouble configuring proxies, etc.

For the future, I am hoping that someone will put together a Servo based micro browser with a keyboard oriented user interface.

<comment><USER34> > It might be a requirement for non-techies but no-one surely clicks the back > button or drags the scroll bar, at least no power user does.

IIRC, back button is one of the most used UI elements of a browser.

I'd probably consider myself a power user (I work on browsers for a living), and I use and most of the features you've described. Especially scrollbars, they're a great "read progress" indicator.

On a side note, we so often forget how small is the bubble of the so-called "power users".

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I fully support innovation in terms of a new web browser... but this isn't really what I'd like to see. I feel like the web browser should be more of an OS than what it is today. Why does the language attribute in the script tag only support javascript? Wouldn't it be rad if I could write C#, and not have to transpile it... wouldn't it be rad if browsers could add more language support automatically (with your permission first). So if you go to hipster.io and they've decided to develop their whole client side in lisp, but you don't have support yet it goes to mozillas module repository and downloads the plugin? Wouldn't it be rad if jquery was installed as a module, and you only downloaded it once for ALL sites, and you only redownload it if the site's version is different/customized...

<comment><USER24> That last one is already implemented with browser caching. Go to a popular website and check the Requests tab on your dev console, it'll probably show 304s for CDNs. But possibly some companies join many JS files together before publishing.

<comment><USER36> That requires you (as a site author) choosing between two evils, however - even though there no real technical reason why you should have to: Either copy framework-of-your-choice.js to your own host and accept duplication - or serve it from the framework's CDN and get great caching but also accept that you don't have any control anymore what scripts run on your page.

<comment><USER37> Or use a CDN and subresource integrity which makes the browser check the script against a hash.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Security/Subres...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Security/Subresource_Integrity)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I really like the draggable windows, and the shortcuts for hiding and showing things. And the omnibox is, like, perfect; that's all I want.

But browsing a little, I immediately had problems zooming the viewport or increasing font size. Zoom gestures don't work, and neither does ⌘+/-. I couldn't find anything in the menu for it. Double-click on text does a zoom, but not enough. And sometimes content is moved off the viewport when you zoom in.

Very cool project.

edit: I'm still playing with it... it's got nice little notifications at the top. When you click a link, it says "loading...", then "850ms", or whatever; the page load time. And then ⌘← to navigate back shows "Navigating back", "Loading...", page load. It's cool. Looks nice. Dev tools open in a new window, and I couldn't find a way to open them in a panel, but maybe that can be set in the preferences.json.

</comment><comment><USER39> Seems similar to Uzbl (a minimalist browser that was receiving a lot of attention a few years back): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbl)

<comment><USER40> Or even Min[0] which was on here a few months back.

      [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11484770

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I like the design and the UX. This is what browsing the web should be like.

<comment><USER42> Push F11.

OK, no, it's not the _exact_ same, but it did take just one keystroke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> this looks really nice, but why isn't anyone just doing this with Servo? Didn't Phoenix come out while Seamonkey/Gecko were still Alpha-quality?

</comment><comment><USER44> Why do these always have to be Mac only?

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't think "small web browser" can refer to anything built on Chromium. Maybe "unobtrusive" would be better.

</comment><comment><USER46> I like [http://qtweb.net/](http://qtweb.net/)

</comment><comment><USER47> I can see that this is useful for reading books only avaialable in the browser. For example for

safaribooksonline.com

</comment><comment><USER48> Using this made me realize how much I rely on search suggestions/autocomplement.

</comment><comment><USER49> the UI reminds me of browser.html

</comment><comment><USER50> > Ōryōki [応量器] is a small web browser

> Ōryōki is built with Electron on top of Chromium.

The first two lines are contradictory.

<comment><USER51> I assume they mean small from a UI perspective, not small from a codebase perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Maybe I'm ignorant but having Electron on top of Chromium sounds somewhat redundant to me. Don't they both have the same core more or less? I mean V8 and Blink?

<comment><USER53> It's just an Electron application. Electron contains Chromium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Why would you use electron for this instead of just modifying chromium?

<comment><USER55> Because Chromium is written in C++ and very hard to work with. The whole point of Electron is to quickly write apps based on Chromium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Making a web browser is hard. You will be dealing with sensitive information, your credentials, etc. Security-wise it is very hard to produce a sandboxed environment. Chromium might provide this to some extent but building on top of it might not magically preserve the same level of security.</comment>


Event-driven network automation - <AUTHOR> https://mirceaulinic.net/2017-10-19-event-driven-network-automation/ <comment><USER2> I have just skimmed the article, but even from this short contact I could see the nice idea of passing structured logs through a data bus and reacting to events found on this bus. This is something distinct from all the approaches people use around the world.

This is how I think monitoring and log collection should work like. I'm not convinced that Salt is the correct tool for being a data bus, but there aren't many tools that can be used this way as a central subsystem of a monitoring system, so whatever works is OK, I guess.</comment>


Android apps on F-Droid will eventually lose access to Google Play purchases - <AUTHOR> https://www.xda-developers.com/f-droid-android-apps-google-play-purchases/ <comment><USER2> We need to stop calling them "Android" phones and call them GMS (Google Mobile Services) phones in recognition of the fact that so many core services and abilities of "Android" phones are being handled in the closed-source, proprietary GMS and very little of the functionality of the phones are handled by the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) portion of the system anymore.</comment>