A Universe Made of Tiny, Random Chunks (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/2/uncertainty/a-universe-made-of-tiny-random-chunks <comment><USER2> If the Planck length is Lorentz-invariant but macro-scale objects are not then does that not imply there is a special universal reference frame against which to measure velocity?

If I have understood the article correctly one would be able to measure the length of a spaceship relative to the Planck length and deduce velocity, entirely locally (i.e. onboard the spaceship).

This is a fundamental departure from general relativity which says there is no special frame of reference.

<comment><USER3> I guess this is simply one of the many incompatibilities between quantum theory and general relativity.

There are many attempts to combine these theories into a universal theory (pun intended), but it is hard to check the corner cases where those theories differ. That's one of the reasons we build better and better particle accelerators.

Either way, it doesn't make sense to apply (pure) general relativity to the small scale, nor to apply (pure) quantum theory to the large scale. The physicists know for decades about of that issue and are already taking care of that.

<comment><USER4> Quantum Gravity is pretty coherent it can explain the universe we see today, it can explain why an apple drops, and it can explain why galaxies form, it cannot explain the big bang and some periods after it but neither can general relativity.

For the most part particle accelerators are not needed to explain quantum gravity, we do use them to find "new physics" but this new physics is more in the lines of the known unknowns.

We also do apply relativity to small scales every day, without relativity muons could not be discovered and without relativity to some extent even large particle accelerators would not "work" because the effects of spatial contractions are pretty important for how we predict and analyse the data coming from particle accelerators especially the "messy kind" like the LHC.

As for the large scale stuff as mentioned earlier quantum gravity is pretty compatible with general relativity in terms of explaining how the universe that we see today looks and works, you can easily explain why and how the moon rotates around the earth, it does rely on a massless spin-2 particle called a graviton which is yet to be "discovered" and it does break if the graviton would have a different spin (for example spin-0 graviton).

So I don't really understand the notion of why people still think that quantum gravity and general relativity aren't compatible to the extent of "what the fuck is going on", which is odd since afterall GR isn't 100% compatible with the Standard Model either, since GR is background independent and does not care about the particular state or shape of space-time while SM does.

<comment><USER3> From your long statement I read that you agree with my criticism that one should not use the plain quantum theory, mix it with the plain general relativity, and wonder why this leads to contradictions. Of course it does! If one wants a coherent model, one should use the Standard Model instead (or one if its variants).

Not sure at which point you disagree with my statement, though.

<comment><USER4> Depends on what you define as GR, there are classical and relativistic versions of Quantom Mechanics.

Each theory is useful for various things because each theory provides you with certain tools and perspectives that are useful for performing specific tasks.

At the end every theory is a set of laws and abstractions you use theories to change the perspective of how you look at things but these are often abstracts.

You can look at particles as particles, waves or fields it doesn't change reality but every one of these viewpoints comes with its unique benefits and you can chose between them depending on what benefits you most to for a specific task or a situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The idea that the Universe is this sort of discrete lattice always makes me suspect simulation. I feel like true reality should not become grainy at some point, it feels like a mark of artificial origin.

<comment><USER6> Or you can simply think of it as the best "resolution" that macroscopic instruments rooted in 3 dimensions can reduce it to.

I feel like the whole "wave-particle duality" is already a hint that the true nature of reality may always remain outside of our observation capability.

In fact, I think that humans may be a little too biased towards picturing everything as made up of discrete parts ("particles"), and that is probably a byproduct of having visual eyesight. Can't wait to meet alien intelligences with completely different senses and see what they think. :)

<comment><USER7> I read about this phenomenon where the two slit experiment could be replicated with drops bouncing on an oil bath (here's an article on it: [http://resonance.is/news/quantum-weirdness-replaced-by- class...](http://resonance.is/news/quantum-weirdness-replaced-by-classical- fluid-dynamics/) ). And one about how a higher-dimensional mathematical object could dramatically simplify certain quantum mechanical calculation ( [http://www.wired.com/2013/12/amplituhedron-jewel-quantum- phy...](http://www.wired.com/2013/12/amplituhedron-jewel-quantum-physics/) ). I realize this proves nothing, but I'm still holding out hope that the randomness we observe is just a result of the interaction that higher dimensional "matter/energy" does when it intersects with our 3/4 dimensions. Maybe god doesn't play dice after all, maybe there's just a whole lot going on before we get to make our measurements.

<comment><USER4> This experiment is pushing towards Bohemian Mechanics, we all like PWT but I'm not sure what does this has to do with the comment above :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article is based on a popular misconception: The Planck length is Lorentz invariant, so special relativity must break down at Planck length scales.

However this is wrong. The Planck length is the minimal length of a 4-vector (a 4-dimensional vector measuring the distance between two events in space- time). But the length of a 4-vector is invariant under Lorentz transformation, so it also doesn't Lorentz contract. So there is no conflict between special relativity and a constant Planck length.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is some of the best pop-sci writing I've read in quite some time. Hat's off to Carl Frederick; itching to go read some of his science fiction now.

</comment><comment><USER10> > it's the only length that can be derived from the constants c, G, and h > without adding some arbitrary constant—so it may retain the same value in > all reference frames, not subject to any Lorentz contraction. But the Planck > length is derived from universal constants, so it must have the same value > in all reference frames; it can't change according to a Lorentz contraction.

The arbitrary constant is 1. How is 1 less arbitrary than 2, 42, or 3.14?

I don't get it - is it trying to say objects of Planck length wouldn't contract due to relativity? If so - why?

<comment><USER11> 1 is the multiplicative identity, i.e. x * 1 = x, hence we can always leave out a "* 1" factor without changing things.

A different factor, like 2, is more arbitrary, since "* 2" can't be left out without changing the value.

You can make the claim that a "* 1" factor is lurking in there, but even from that perspective it's less arbitrary than "* 2", since we could claim that "* 2" also has a "* 1" lurking in it, and so on :)

<comment><USER10> I mostly meant - how is this proving that object of length 1 * planck length won't contract, and object of 2 * planck length will. And if it's not - how is the length special?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Einstein found that the constant distance was the square root of x^2+y^2+z^2 > – ct^2, where c is the speed of light

Units don't match - ct^2 is in m*s, not m^2.

<comment><USER13> It's supposed to be (ct)^2

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there an experiment which can test whether the Planck length really is the shortest possible length?

<comment><USER15> There is no reason to expect that Planck length is the literally the shortest possible length. I'm not aware of any theory that suggests that.

It's more accurate to talk about Planck scale and not think it as strict limit.

Planck scale is where the structure of spacetime itself becomes dominated by quantum effects and the structure of spacetime may start looking really strange. Strange theories like loop quantum gravity, causal sets, causal dynamical triangulation, fractal cosmology, etc. work at Planck scale. According to fractal cosmology spacetime is 2-dimensional in Planck scale and gradually becomes 4-dimensional in larger scales. Loop quantum gravity sees it as "foamy".

Planck scale is also the area where measuring distances (differentiating with different positions in space) becomes impossible.

<comment><USER16> I love these ideas, but they all assume that spacetime quanta, or nodes, or whatever the hell they are, can still communicate and/or change state in some way.

Which suggests internal structure of some kind.

I'm wary of any explanation that says "Well, it's just random", because randomness turns out to be a complicated process.

It's hard to imagine that some kind of prototypical base quantum would be inherently random _just because._

I suppose it's possible. But it would be unexpected.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook wants you to be stupid - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/107808951807533655192/posts/gKkrrhM797i

<comment><USER2> He conflates "wants you to be stupid" with "controls the user experience" without justifying it.</comment>


Between a Rock and a Hard Place: 123-Reg Must Really Need My £11 - <AUTHOR> http://danzambonini.com/post/470521355/123-reg-support-issues

<comment><USER2> What options does PayPal have for disputing a payment? It might be too late for this transaction, but I certainly would be paying close attention to my PayPal account when my other domain renewal dates rolled around, and dispute them immediately.</comment>


Silicon Valley Doubles Down on Censorship - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@getongab/silicon-valley-doubles-down-on-censorship-24f5cab1e83d#.s1hvqw1tg <comment><USER2> This was one long rambling plug for a website.

<comment><USER3> Basically makes the claim that curation is censorship, vast liberal left- leaning conspiracy to silence news from the right, strokes the ego by saying users can figure out real from fake news. Also, if you Google GAB there's a lot of news reports about it being a safe haven for the alt-right to spew hate speech that got them banned from Twitter and other discussion spaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > the rise of populism and cultural enlightenment

It's either one or the other. A culturally enlightened electorate is largely immune to populism.</comment>


Why we hate the new tech boom - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2013/09/27/why_we_hate_the_new_tech_boom/

<comment><USER2> Such serendipity for this article to also be published today: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/google-employees- disappoint...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/google-employees- disappointed-15th-anniversary-par,34023/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is just a bad article. The causal linkages provided by the piece are laughable and infantile.

"First, there is unsettling realization that the middle is losing economic ground while Silicon Valley execs babble on about "changing the world" for the better. Income inequality is growing ever worse, and it is increasingly clear that one of the forces fueling this trend is the technological innovation flowing out of the Bay Area. "

One of the forces fueling inequality are the some of the best employers in the world? New companies creating jobs, and paying living wages?

I could go after many more examples but I have other things to do.

<comment><USER4> It is not about living wages. The anguish is that a smaller share of the boom- profit reaches the bottom.

While a select few people become multi-millionaires, the rest cannot be expected to be happy about the effect of such wealth on everyone else. Even regular programmers are not becoming "rich" per se. Yes, we have high-paying jobs but we are essentially making someone else beyond-your-wildest-dreams rich.

PS: I agree this is a bad article though.

<comment><USER2> High-paying jobs don't mean much when rent and cost of living are incredibly high, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's astonishing how virtually all of the debate around "the new tech bubble" completely ignores the influence of monetary policy. There are _lots_ of bubbles that have been inflated by QE-Infinity. The tech bubble is nowhere near the biggest, but that doesn't mean it isn't a bubble.

> The current freneticism is a very different animal from the original dot-com > boom. For one thing, the companies racing to go public this September > actually have revenues and what passes for real business models, something > that was very often simply not the case in 1999 and early 2000.

Revenue? Great. But at $50+/share, FB has a PE ratio of well over 200. Being able to calculate a PE ratio is nice though. Salesforce, for instance, which has a market cap of $31 billion, doesn't even have a PE ratio because it has no earnings.

Are Facebook, Salesforce, et al. worthless? Of course not. But if the entire stock market wasn't being propped up by the Fed, you wouldn't see these types of valuations, and that would have a cascading effect on the entire tech ecosystem for a variety of reasons.

> The current boom isn't a flash in the pan, doomed to disappoint arriviste > gold miners. It's here to stay. A mature Internet economy is generating huge > riches, and it is remaking the face of San Francisco and the larger Bay Area > in the process.

The internet is here to stay, and there will continue to be riches generated by it, but it's extremely foolish to believe that the internet economy is disconnected from the real economy, which is precisely what so many, the author of this article included, seem to be doing.

<comment><USER4> > Salesforce, for instance, which has a market cap of $31 billion, doesn't > even have a PE ratio because it has no earnings.

And yet they flaunt opulence with a Green Day concert [http://www.greendayauthority.com/news/4473/](http://www.greendayauthority.com/news/4473/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Income inequality is growing ever worse, and it is increasingly clear that > one of the forces fueling this trend is the technological innovation flowing > out of the Bay Area.

This claim is unsubstantiated. By what mechanism is Facebook _causing_ income inequality?

<comment><USER7> Income inequality is, by definition, the gap between those with lower and higher earnings.

So if Facebook et al. pay higher salaries, and other salaries don't increase, then income inequality increases.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it seems obvious that soaring tech salaries will increase inequality.

<comment><USER8> Certainly true. I note that this is causing the "good" half of income inequality, though: the "some people are getting richer" part, not the "other people are getting poorer or staying the same" part.

(I digress, but: we all agree that given three different possible worlds, A, B, and C, where in A, everyone's poor, in B, most people are poor and some are rich, and in C, everyone's rich, C is the best, and A is the worst, right? Nobody's here to argue that A is better than B?)

To the extent that you can draw a causal line from "tech boom" to the bad half of income inequality (the "lots of people are getting poorer or stagnating" part), it's more about "wealth gets tied up in companies that just intrinsically employ fewer people than the labor-intensive manufacturing companies of the mid 20th Century."</comment></comment></comment>


ASK HN: Python framework for someone new to language - <AUTHOR>

In a shocking turn of events, I decided to remove an old language from my brain (Pascal) and replace it with something a bit rad. I looked over Ruby (w/Rails specifically) for a bit and it didn't feel right to me but Python kind of clicked so I'm going with that.
I've read a lot here about Django and from the website the docs & guides seem pretty good and I think I'd be able to pick it up fairly sharpish. However, every time someone mentions Django there is a chorus of folks shouting "use X - it's better!" or "for eff's sake use Y! It has [unfamiliar-construct] which is essential!". Since I'm for all practical purposes on 'hello world' right now, I don't know how to evaluate these comments in the way I could with PHP frameworks for instance.
Now, I could just pick one up and go with it but I'm getting less & less free time these days and I'd like to waste as little as possible. Plus, I don't want to pick something that is perhaps for super-kings and will kill my enthusiasm.
TL;DR: If I go for Django, am I gonna be ok? <comment><USER2> Django will be fine. It certainly has its annoyances but it has a nice ecosystem (= people to help you out, open source code to learn from and packages to do just about anything you need). It also has the best employment opportunities.

Once you're comfortable with Django have a look at some of the other frameworks such as Flask or Tornado - they may suit your way of thinking better and may be more suitable for certain projects (for example GAE stuff). There's no need to get pigeon-holed into one framework.

Whatever you do, however, avoid web2py - it messes with Python internals in nasty ways and will teach you bad habits:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ex54j/seeking_clarif...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ex54j/seeking_clarification_on_pylonsturbogearspyramid/c1bo1v5)

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent. I think I'll go with the Django route. I guess if web2py looks tempting later (based off comment below), I can make an educated switch and know what's what. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> My advice is take 5 minutes with both (Django and web2py). Even if you choose Django, web2py has a web based IDE which will teach you the MVC design (which Django calls MTV).

web2y also takes much less time to get up and running therefore it is no really extra cost to try.

Most concepts translate line by line (Django admin ~ web2py appadmin, Django request.POST ~ web2py request.post_vars, Django request.GET ~ web2py request.get_vars).

The latest web2py also use a thread local object (a cool stolen from Flask). web2py has a pure Python template language, Django has a domain specific language for templates that is not Turing complete. In Django you have to explicit about everything (for example you have to list all mapping of URLs into function calls) while web2py has defaults and conventions (which can be overwritten) and it feels closer to ruby on rails.

Web2py comes with more stuff in the box (more supported databases, runs on Google App Engine including db queries, credit card payment api, multi- tenancy, multiple types of federated authentication, pdf generation, hooks for nginx/gunicorn/gevent, etc).

Web2py does not mess with python internals and has more readable code than Django, for example it does not uses complex meta-class programming for the ORM. What some do not like (but buys you a loot of goodies) is that web2py executes some of your code instead of importing it. This allows hot plug and play of applications (even in production) and allows to run multiple apps under one server without library conflicts.

web2py is very secure. For example it had cross-site-request-forgery prevention 2 years before Django did, despite being at least 4 years younger.

Both can be used exclusively from the shell. web2py can also be used from the web based ide but does not force it on you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You'll be fine with Django. Do the tutorial to get a feel, it should take one or two afternoons.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.web2py.com/book>

A full stack web framework. Try it.

<comment><USER6> I'm invested in web2py and really like it but anyone considering using it should understand that the current python community does not think highly of it. It departs from some python conventions which irks many.

It's hard to go wrong with django but I found web2py much easier to use and more productive.

<comment><USER5> Yes, much much easier than Django. I don't know how teams cope with web2py but for a lone wolf, web2py beats everything out there. I don't know if its just me but Django makes me procrastinate whereas web2py helps me just start. db.define_table rocks.</comment></comment></comment>


Create a Language Compiler for the .NET Framework Using C# - <AUTHOR> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc136756.aspx

<comment><USER2> _You might have noticed that this language definition is short on specificity. I haven't specified how big the number can be (such as if it can be bigger than a 32-bit integer) or even if the number can be negative._

The grammar itself (which, in this case, is expressed in EBNF notation) says nothing about details such as the size of numbers. Grammars only describe what can be _said_ , not what that _means_.

The C grammar, for example, has many different number types. But it's not the grammar which determines if an unsigned long is 32 or 64-bit. That's determined by parts of the language specification outside of the grammar.

<comment><USER3> Yes. That said, it was probably a mistake for C not to define standard fixed- width types such as int8, int16, int32, int64, uint8, uint16, uint32, and uint64. (This limitation is worked around via the <stdint.h> header file; however, that header isn't present in Visual Studio, so anyone who wishes to use those fixed-width types needs to manually download <stdint.h> and include it in their projects. ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stdint.h> )

<comment><USER2> I agree. But, even if there was, say, a uint16 type in C, it wouldn't be the grammar that defines it as 16 bits.

<comment><USER3> Would the grammar define it as a reserved identifier / keyword?

<comment><USER2> Certainly. But the _semantics_ of what "uint16" would mean is not in the grammar. There's nothing to prevent me from defining "uint16" to be a double precision floating point number. That would be stupid and unintuitive, but still possible.

If you look at the specification for any language, the grammar is the smallest part. The C++ grammar takes up less than a dozen pages, but the entire standard is over 800.

<comment><USER3> Can I subscribe to your newsletter?

<comment><USER2> I honestly can't tell if you're complimenting me or calling me crazy.

<comment><USER3> Compliment... you seem to have a lot of experience with C++.

<comment><USER2> In that case, thank you. I've done a lot of systems programming with C and C++.

Understanding exactly what is defined by a language's grammar, though, originally comes from my undergrad courses in programming languages and compilers.

<comment><USER3> Cool. Would you say formal education has made you a significantly better programmer? (The definition of 'significantly' in this context is up to you to decide.)

I'm completely self-taught, but I've wondered if I missed out on something valuable by not going to college.

<comment><USER2> Short answer: yes.

Long answer: it's hard to know for certain. I chose Computer Science as my major having done very little programming. I didn't do any serious programming until my intro to programming course my first semester. I did some programming in a high school course, but really, my start as a programmer coincided with the start of my formal education.

But during my education, I was exposed to things I doubt I would have encountered on my own. In particular, what I learned from my programming languages, compilers and operating systems courses. In fact, if it had not been for my programming language course, I don't know if I would have realized how much I like thinking about how to express concepts in code. If it wasn't for my graduate studies, I doubt I would have become so comfortable with systems programming and performance in general.

I'm also a biases person to ask because I'm close to getting my Ph.D. I have a Bachelor's and a Master's. So I've done a decent amount of schoolin'.

The problem with being self-taught is sometimes you just don't know what you don't know. I know it sounds boring, predictable and constraining to learn a menu of concepts. But the benefit is that lots of people who came before you decided "these things are important to know to be in our field."

(Hope you see this reply, I didn't realize you replied until just now.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This actually is a neat article. Especially the hit-it-home sentence:

 _Now, you too can share some of this glory by writing your own compiler for the Microsoft® .NET Framework._

Made me ready to pick up the phone and buy a "10 Steps to Making Trillions on eBay" book... or write a CLR-targeted compiler.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's not exactly a replacement for 'the dragon book' but it certainly takes some of the mysticism out of compiler hacking.

If you have never actually made a language from the ground up, then please do so ! It will teach you plenty and it will also help you to write better code because you understand better what a compiler will do internally with the code you wrote. Another great source of insight is the 'produce assembly output' switch for your favourite compiler. Have a look at what the compiler does when it parses your code and turns it in to assembler ready to be turned into machine language.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow this is a really great article. Thanks!</comment>


Promising degradable plastic, created from shrimp shells - <AUTHOR> http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/05/promising-solution-to-plastic-pollution/

<comment><USER2> This is great!

</comment><comment><USER3> One question...

How many shrimp will it take to supply a city the size of LA with plastic?

It's a neat idea in theory and for niche applications. But I don't see (unfortunately) petroleum based plastics going anywhere soon.</comment>


People Behind JavaScript: Daniel Ehrenberg - <AUTHOR> https://javascript.christmas/2019/11 <comment><USER2> I love how he's going from being very proud of BigInteger to being really excited about BigDecimal

Cool interview!</comment>


San Francisco has become a predatory government - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/San-Francisco-has-become-a-predatory-government-10641316.php <comment><USER2> Any writer who still characterizes Michael Brown as an innocent victim of police violence has zero credibility in my eyes.

[https://m.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2ndfuo/innocent_young_m...](https://m.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2ndfuo/innocent_young_man_michael_brown_shown_on/)

<comment><USER3> The author should not have included that sentence in the editorial. It simply isn't relevant. That said, your comment doesn't address his criticism of gratuitous fines and the bail system, which is entirely credible.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is HN worried about Quora becoming a better hacker Q/A source than HN? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I wish you could also add some evidence which made you think that __HN__ is worried.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't consider HN a Q/A site first and foremost anyway; so no. I tend to see HN as a news aggregator that also happens to allow questions.

That said, for me personally, for any question that I'd be prone to post to Ask HN, I'd likely cross-post to Quora as well</comment>


Simplest way to assign attribute values from constructor (initializer) in Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://gregosuri.com/simple-way-to-assign-attribute-values-from-co

<comment><USER2> You need to try running code before posting it anyplace.

"initalize" is not going to work.

<comment><AUTHOR> sorry about the typo.. its initialize</comment></comment>


The far-reaching effects of air conditioning - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39735802 <comment><USER4> Lee Kuan Yew, founder of modern Singapore: _" Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency."_

[https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8278085/singapore-lee-kuan- yew...](https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8278085/singapore-lee-kuan-yew-air- conditioning)

<comment><USER5> Japan is further ahead, as they have optimized this with a decade-old policy called "Cool Biz".

To save energy and money by reducing AC, office workers are allowed to wear more casual clothing in the summer:

[https://qz.com/465327/ditch-the-tie-and-reduce-the-ac- japans...](https://qz.com/465327/ditch-the-tie-and-reduce-the-ac-japans-cool- biz-gets-summer-hell-just-about-right/)

<comment><USER6> I wish we had that rule. My last 3 jobs have been in historical buildings. One didn't have AC, and the other two have barely had functional AC.

My desk reaches about 80 degrees once the weather is over 65, and it won't drop below that until the fall. In order to make our AC more efficient they "weather sealed" the windows, which mostly involved gluing them shut. So now I can't open the window when it's cooler outside.

I'm sitting at my desk with my sleeves and pant legs rolled up like a five year old pretending to be a pirate. Most of the women don't mind because they can wear light dresses and slip on shoes.

The did give me a fan after I asked HR if I could wear women's clothing to work.

But seriously, it's kind of ridiculous to be paying to cool a place to a certain temperature when literally nobody in the office has any reason to be dressed up.

<comment><USER7> > Most of the women don't mind because they can wear light dresses and slip on > shoes.

That's a classic example of female privilege: [https://sindeloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/37/](https://sindeloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/37/)

(If the AC is too cool it's male privilege instead)

<comment><USER6> That article was far more sensible and pertinent than I was expecting. Especially relevant, given the fact that a couple weeks ago one of my coworkers was wearing a jacket while I was sweating though my clothes.

Our handbook is pretty terrible to both sexes though. There's two full pages on how women should do their makeup. It can basically be summed up as "You need to wear makeup, but don't look like a whore." So, at least I don't have to deal with that.

Honestly, I wouldn't complain if it didn't affect my work, but when it gets this hot I get dizzy unless I drink water like it is going out of style, which means I have to get up to fill my water and relieve myself. And even then I can barely concentrate.

I still blame the dress code more than anything. I'm comfortable to above 90 degrees or so if I'm wearing shorts and a lightweight tee. Slacks, leather shoes and a long sleeve shirt are not suitable much above 75 as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER8> > I'm comfortable to above 90 degrees

Consider yourself lucky.

I am not comfortable in temperatures above 80 in any clothing bar undergarments, _especially_ not if you want me to be productive cognitively in any way.

And if you add humidity on top of that, it essentially reduces me to a vegetable, unable to do anything but take short naps and cold showers every few hours.

<comment><USER6> I definitely feel that way if I'm in the sun with no breeze. I'm pretty tall and lanky though, and I sweat a lot, so I think the two of those things together combine to keep me fairly cool.

Being hot is definitely tiring though. I'm pretty sure I use a ton of energy just sitting around sweating, and if I have to walk anywhere in that weather I'll just want to take a nap when I get there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> jay-anderson > A study in Phoenix, Arizona, found the hot air pumped out of air > conditioning units increased the city's night-time temperature by 2C

Often I wish places of business and work places wouldn't turn up the AC so much. I have a jacket at work in Phoenix during the summer because they keep it so cold.

<comment><USER9> Better have it too cold and people where extra clothing than have people sweating themselves. You can always put more clothes on, you can't take off your skin.

<comment><USER10> Decreasing the AC doesn't mean people will start sweating themselves. 75 - <USER2> F is perfect but most buildings for some reason turn their ACs all the way down to the 60s.

For athletic centers, of course it makes sense. But in big open libraries, lecture halls, places with little activity in general, it's awful. It's especially bad for your health if you live in a hot region like southern California since your body has to keep adjusting between the scorching heat outside to the freezing cold inside.

<comment><USER11> I suspect it very much depends what you are used to - I probably think of 15C as "comfortable" and 25C inside would be sweltering. Having said that I'm in Scotland - the other day we had heavy rain and it was 8C which is weather we could get at any time of the year!

<comment><USER12> What closing do you use at 15C? After a few years in Norway I can be OK in a t-shirt at 18C. Anything below that still requires a jacket or sweater to stay comfortable.

<comment><USER13> Not OP, but here in Austria I wear t-shirts for most of the year. I even used to go out in just a shirt on warmer winter days with only light snowfall, but nowadays I really notice the cold when I do that. Everything above 10°C is very comfortable to me. Among my friends and relatives I am the exception of course. Most of them dress in more layers, some even in summer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Unless you have lived in the tropical humid heat, you wont be able to relate to this. Moving to NYC recently and living without an AC or even a fan feels so glorious. I bet 10% of my brain was constantly fighting the heat back when I was in south of India.

<comment><USER15> Funny, I remember coming to NYC from Scandinavia thinking it was so humid and warm and impossible to get anything done during the summer months.

Guess it really depends on what you are used to.

Then, in the winter, the old NYC apartments were so dry and warm because of the central heat that typically couldn't be regulated from the radiators in the apartments. They just blasted on all winter and the only way to adjust the temperature would be to open the windows :-)

<comment><USER16> In Beijing, we had central CITY heating in the winter. It was so toasty I would open my window whenever the air pollution wasn't took bad.

During the summer, it was hot and humid. Unfortunately, centra AC wasn't a thing, and the wall units would only do so much. Now I live in LA and the weather is mostly perfect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why did no one mention the Romans yet? They came up with the frigidarium where you could literally cool down with your friends and some private houses even had water running inside their walls to cool it down (or hot air in the colder months).

Temperature control in buildings is 100% architecture and technical add-ons like AC are a poor choice. Look at termites how they use architecture to cool their hives.

<comment><USER18> I wonder why central cooling hasn't taken off like central heating has. It seems to me that the economy of scale would work really well with cold just as it does with heat.

<comment><USER19> Compressed liquid refrigerant is very expensive compared to cheap water for heating. Long pipes full of liquid would be very expensive to initially fill not to mention after leaks. And there would be leaks...

Historically most refrigerants have had "issues" when leaked either environmental or being toxic or otherwise it minimizes danger to keep as little as possible. Even if we could afford to use 1000x as much refrigerant with a central compressor station, it would be bad for the environment to use it that way.

You can move a huge amount of heat with water pressurized to merely 14 psi or so, but I have a puron aka R-410A conditioner at home and that dude runs near 400 psi on a hot day and its difficult to run miles of high pressure pipe.

I'm not sure bigger compressors are that much more efficient than smaller compressors, taking into account the environmental and economic expense of the pipes.

From an engineering standpoint its cheaper safer and less environmentally destructive to push kilowatts thru copper wire than push high pressure expensive refrigerant thru long high pressure pipes if all other things were equal which they mostly are.

<comment><USER20> You do not have to distribute the compressor gasses- you just pump cold water/glycol around. Every factory everywhere does it this way for distributed cooling, as well as hospitals/colleges/corp campuses with central plants.

For a long while, Stanford had an underground reservoir of ice for even better cooling (freeze ice at night when electrical prices are low, melt off during the day) [http://web.stanford.edu/dept/news/news/1999/april21/iceplant...](http://web.stanford.edu/dept/news/news/1999/april21/iceplant-421.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The downside of air conditioned homes is that houses are now built with very little regard to insulation and intelligent use of the sun (to warm the house at winter) and the wind (to cool it during summertime).

My house has a large, paper-thin southern wall and during the summer it gets so hot that it radiates heat into the house at night. So I have to air- condition my bedroom at night. And the windows are stupidly designed, so when the wind blows in the winter I can feel it enter the room - and again I must use electricity to keep the room warm.

Thankfully, "green" building methods are starting to change this wasteful attitude.

<comment><USER22> Being from Texas, that is such a strange perspective to me. Around here, air conditioning is the main reason why you need insulation.

Heating isn't a major concern. Many houses have electric heat because it just isn't worth the cost to put in something more efficient.

But air conditioning is needed a large part of the year. And in the summer it gets quite hot, so electric bills can be very expensive. So in any newer construction, there is a lot of effort to make things energy-efficient. Houses have double-pane windows, radiant barriers, thick insulation, and leak tests to make sure that hot/humid air from outside cannot make its way in.

There are certainly older buildings that aren't very energy-efficient, but around here I don't see that as being because of air conditioning.

<comment><USER18> I guess it is a progression where people learn from the problems they had before.

Step 1: It is too hot/cold here

Step 2: Lets put in heating/AC

Step 3: Damn, the electric costs are getting too high. Lets put in insulation and double-pane windows (well, actually three-pane is standard here in Sweden) to keep down the costs.

The further you live to extreme heat or cold the faster a society progress down the ladder. Which is also a reason the death rates during winter is a lot higher (per capita) in central Europe than it is in northern Europe - <USER3> in the northern parts have long since been forced to learn to build better houses whereas people in mild climates can afford to fail as it isn't that many days a year that it is a problem.

Have any part of Texas considered central cooling? It should be even more effective than having units in every house as long as it isn't too damp and the water needs to be removed as well. But perhaps that kind of solution would be too socialistic for you :P

<comment><USER23> Central cooling/heating probably isn't very popular in the US because of generally lower population densities. A

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The same goes for washing machine:

[https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...](https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine)

"What was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution? Hans Rosling makes the case for the washing machine. With newly designed graphics from Gapminder, Rosling shows us the magic that pops up when economic growth and electricity turn a boring wash day into an intellectual day of reading."

<comment><USER25> A while back a friend of mine told me how her (great-?)grandmother in Malta used to do the laundry down the river as a young woman, and her and her friends used to dream about having a magic box that you could just throw the laundry in, press a button, and it'd be done!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Low-tech magazine has an article on how useful ceiling fans are: [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/09/circulating-fans- air-...](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/09/circulating-fans-air- conditioning.html).

They don't pollute nearly as much and work remarkably well. I live in Manhattan, which gets hot and humid in the summer, and basically never turn on my air conditioning even though I pay for my share of the building's central air conditioning. I don't need it and prefer not to cause the pollution.

<comment><USER27> Here in the South, ceiling fans will let you keep your AC on 80F and still be comfortable. High ceilings help, too, but they're not as common as they used to be.

<comment><USER28> High ceilings probably mean keeping your AC on 80F doesn't save as much power as you expect, because it has to cool a larger volume of space.

<comment><USER29> You're not adding cool, but removing heat. And you're not doing it for the entire volume, but for the 2m layer nearest the floor.

Those high ceilings make it easier to remove heat from that bottom layer, especially with drop ceilings, plenum spaces, insulating spaces, and fans. You are cooling a larger volume of air, but it is not to a uniform 80 degF. The higher layers will be cooled to a lesser extent than the lower layers, so the AC burden is somewhat less overall than if the entire room volume were cooled to a uniformly low temperature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There is a great TV series called "The Secret Life of Machines" that covered some inventions that changed the world: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDpNQQqdSh8&list=PLByTa5duIo...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDpNQQqdSh8&list=PLByTa5duIolYRtq45Cz_GmtzfWJyA4bik&spfreload=5)

There is an episode on central heating: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y08yBdoFsI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y08yBdoFsI)

</comment><comment><USER31> In places like Brazil were AC is everywhere but isolation and heating is limited, it gets really cold in the winter even if its only 15 degrees outside. In places like germany where home isolation and heating is generally very good, you really have to suffer in the summer because rarely any place apart from some offices have AC. Even more so, many don't like AC at home because it consumes a lot of power and can make you sick (not sure if this is actually true).

<comment><USER32> We live in Berlin and the insulation and generally high ceilings make most apartments pretty cool even in the hotter summer days (which are rare and rarely much hotter than 30c).

There are maybe 2-3 weeks per year when I wish we had air conditioning, at most.

<comment><USER33> Once indoors temperature hits 26, I can't get any work done. I know I have short temperature comfort range, but 30 indoors is crazy for me.

<comment><USER34> ido was talking about _outside_ temperature.

I live in one of the hottest cities in Germany (Karlsruhe) and I agree with ido. There's around 2-3 weeks where home air conditioning would really be useful. The rest of the time, temperature is controlled easily enough by opening windows at night and closing the shutters during the daytime while at the office.

Air conditioning for offices is a different story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Throughout the article I was waiting for the "But.." As in some how it also deteriorated the global weather, caused some unknown sort of pollution, etc.

It was good to see that Air conditioning has only improved the world and has no side-effects.

<comment><USER36> It seems nobody has mentioned a near-epidemic of respiratory system infections caused by air-conditioning. And I do not mean the cases where A/C is infected with some rare bacteria (e.g. Legionella) often causing death. Usually it is just common cold or sinusitis caused by overly chilled and dry air. I wonder what are the health-related costs of overusing A/C in moderate climate.

<comment><USER19> The dew point in my house in August when the AC is running continuously is in the 50F to 60F range. The dew point is around 50F outdoors for a couple months before and after August.

The dew point in January during a cold snap spends weeks around -20F. This is fairly self evident, we have some crisp dry snow free mornings around -10 to -20 every winter and obviously if the dew point were above -20 it would be snowing at that time, or at least cloudy. If I try to humidify the house it'll just get moldy so I let it dry out instead.

I have noticed my hands get dry skin problems, skin cracks and gets infected, when the dew point is below freezing for a couple weeks. Winter is a bad time for static sensitive electronic experimentation. I participate in many winter sports activities and when the dew point is -20F you don't have to sweat much to get hypothermia or dehydrated. Dehydration is a big problem for long distance hikers in the winter, you have to carry the water in a thermos or it'll freeze and tradition is to drink caffeinated hot beverages which makes you pee which dehydrates you faster than not drinking at all.

You'd have to live in an interesting climate where the dew point in the winter is higher than the dew point in an air conditioned house in the summer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> If you like this story, I recommend reading _How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World_. Its a quick read and very interesting. And, yes, "cold" is one of the six.

[https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Got-Now- Innovations/dp/1594633...](https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Got-Now- Innovations/dp/1594633932)

<comment><USER38> "cold" is quite broad though. That would cover refrigeration/ freezing which would be a much bigger impact than air con.

<comment><USER39> They're literally the same thing. Only difference is how big the fridge is and how much power you dedicate.

<comment><USER38> With the title "The far-reaching effects of air conditioning" I didn't immediately think "Yup ... that's handy: frozen peas" even though the technology underlying them is the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I live in an area where evaporative coolers are effective. I hate setting it up every year, and was looking into central air. When researching I learned about how efficient evaporative coolers are, and it gave me more appreciation for them.

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

        * Estimated cost of operation is 1/8 that of refrigerated air conditioning

It's really interesting to think about the advantages/disadvantages of geography in regards to power generation/consumption. It didn't really occur to me until going through the above experience.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>----

The design of these systems is really interesting. Most of them have a lot of wearable parts (belt and bearings), which means more maintenance. There are some new designs ([http://www.bonaire- usa.com/products.html#window](http://www.bonaire- usa.com/products.html#window)) that do away with the "squirrel cage" fan ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_fan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_fan)), and a lot of the maintenance. I wonder if the efficiency of the new design is lower than the traditional centrifugal fan design?

I know this can be found - I just don't want to go too deep researching. If anyone knows off hand I'd appreciate an answer!

<comment><USER41> > It's really interesting to think about the advantages/disadvantages of > geography in regards to power generation/consumption.

I've seen air conditioning that amounted to basically a shaft into a natural underground cave and a fan.

I've also heard of people watering the roofs of their houses in the summer to get low-tech just-in-time evaporative cooling for their attics.

<comment><USER40> The cave thing is neat - sounds like an easy form of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heating)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> From the OP

"Historically, a cool building in a hot climate implied thick walls, high ceilings, balconies, courtyards and windows facing away from the sun."

New Orleans is one of the clearest examples of this hot and humid specific architecture[0]. In that picture the second floor balcony represents roughly the height of the 1st floor ceiling. The many doors like porticos, can be opened on the shaded side of the building allowing for air flow. You see this style all over the city.

Apart from reflective coatings on glass in high rises and office buildings and the occasional Leed certified building trying to save on energy usage, you don't see much architectural consideration for the climate.

This is especially true in office buildings (in the U.S. anyways) built 1900-1950 or so with blocky brick buildings in which the central rooms have little natural ventilation[1]

[0][https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-90.0658908,3a,75y,2...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-90.0658908,3a,75y,269.21h,85.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1shFaAE9ft5lzkP8_FWgB0XA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

[1] [http://forgotten-ny.com/wp- content/uploads/2005/01/e149stbus...](http://forgotten-ny.com/wp- content/uploads/2005/01/e149stbusher1.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER43> Surprised the word "sleep" doesn't appear in the article. Sleeping well is what best prepares us for productivity the following day.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/climate/global-warming- sl...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/climate/global-warming-sleep- loss.html)

</comment><comment><USER44> In the Southern USA, AC radically changed the culture. It allowed businesses to relocate their factories to take advantage of cheap labor.

It also changed a slower paced culture where people spent their evenings on their front porch socializing with their neighbors to a more insular, face paced one.

I grew up in South Florida without AC.

</comment><comment><USER45> Not mentioned in the article: Air conditioning makes it possible to stay indoors, away from mosquitoes, thus fighting illnesses like malaria and zika.

</comment><comment><USER46> Wow, it has to be 35c/95f before it is hot. Living in Australia on one mine site the daily temperature was 45c/113f at night 32 c/90f

Amazing how you get used to the temperature. Joys of working in a desert in Summertime. Never use air conditioning no good for my health. And yes termites are pretty smart in keeping things cool

<comment><USER47> Humidity plays a huge role in this. In dry climates, it can be 30-40c without too much problem, you just need to hydrate a lot. If it's humid, then even 25c can be very uncomfortable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Fun fact: Carrier still produces HVAC systems.

</comment><comment><USER49> Odd that no one here has made any comments on the correlation of the massive boom in air conditioning in the last 30 years around the world and climate change.

Wouldn't it seem like having an ever increasing number of these things, humming constantly in both hemispheres all throughout the year and generating loads of hot air and greenhouse gases, is a significant contributor (even maybe main contributor) to the global rise in temperature?

<comment><USER50> That, and they insulate us from the effects of climate change. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I thought -- this is a very pro-capitalist piece for the BBC! And then saw the byline :)

</comment><comment><USER52> Let's not forget about health and the breeding ground for pathogens and bacteria that AC's are.

I used to get really bad colds and coughs during summer, when the AC's went on.

I now carry a spray that puts bacteria in the air that displace other bacteria and no colds and coughs anymore. But that's not mainstream. There's probably a lot of sick people out there, thanks to AC.

<comment><USER53> > _I now carry a spray that puts bacteria in the air that displace other > bacteria and no colds and coughs anymore. But that 's not mainstream._

No, it's not, I've never heard of it! I'm pretty skeptical of new medical claims, though, and I'm curious about this description. From my limited understanding, don't think the bacteria in air are like a bathtub full of objects that take up space, or like an ecosystem that compete for resources and reach an equilibrium: it's more like an ocean full of fish, where spraying more fish into the water aren't going to do much about the existing sharks. Can you provide a link or description of this product?

> _There 's probably a lot of sick people out there, thanks to AC._

This is also a claim I find surprising. Air conditioners are ubiquitous around here in the summer, but I've never heard of a health risk from them. I'm aware that the cheap window units can develop condensation puddles if improperly installed (I cleaned one out in my old apartment that was disgusting), but the typical business has central air and I thought it actually improved the microbial situation by dehumidifying the air. Citations for this claim?

<comment><USER54> As to your 2nd point, go find your indoor blower(furnace closet for split system or outside in a package unit), _pull the power supply_ , then open and take a look inside at the blower wheel. Unless the unit is a less than a year old you will will clearly observe why health risks do exist. If you need more proof see the evap coil & the primordial sludge in the condensate tray/drain. When finished, reassemble, plug power back in & change your air filter.

<comment><USER53> I clean out my evap coils and condenser coils annually, and replace my filter twice a year (for efficiency, not for health). I'm well aware of the dust that my filter removes, which makes my indoor air cleaner than outdoor air. My allergen-sensitive wife proves experimentally that it has a strong positive effect for a couple weeks every spring and fall. And I'm aware of the crud that develops in the condensate tray. There's little crud in my central air system, but when I used a window AC in an apartment and the unit wasn't leveled properly it got pretty bad.

More generally, though, the presence of unattractive substances does not imply a health risk. My yard is, in the most basic sense, an enormous pile of dust, plus a few organics that grow and decay into dust. My home happens to be a few hundred meters from a lovely trout stream, and that stream and its floodplain contain more life from bacteria to algae to fish than any primordial sludge ever had. Neither are dangerous.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How are large tech sites such as LivingSocial and Evernote hacked? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
How are large tech sites such as LivingSocial, Zappos, LinkedIn and Evernote hacked?
I don't understand how these database tables are accessed. Surely it is not SQL Injection, as that should be a thing of the past with prepared statements, I cannot see how changing any session state would effect the application as Unit Tests would have already picked this up, and I cannot imagine that hackers would easily be able to gain root access to the machines which be locked down, with a SSH key.
I ask this because I manage a large database with fields (FirstName, Surname and DOB) and wondering how safe this data is.
Thanks <comment><USER2> In my experience it never, ever, ever, ever, ever has been that they didn't _know better_ but rather it was a time/money issue. Someone makes a page that needs to be used by two or three people only and doesn't bother to secure it because it is quick and dirty project done that afternoon. The developer throws the project together and pushes it out.

Then 18 months later it is exploited :-/

</comment><comment><USER3> You'd be surprised. There are sites out there with millions of users designed by amateur programmers. It really is as simple as SQL injection.</comment>


[video] The Soul of Software – Avdi Grimm - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgbHzFb1hGw

<comment><USER2> The best talk about development the i have watched</comment>


Floating Table Held Up by Only Strings - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76amOgNzdDQ&feature=youtu.be&t=115 <comment><USER2> Another example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_Tower) or (the Dutch page [https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_Tower](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_Tower) has better photos, of the second version)</comment>


Database Design: How Table Normalization Can Improve Performance - <AUTHOR> http://www.ddj.com/architect/186701027

<comment><USER2> I dunno. _Performance_ is comprised of many factors, I'm not so sure that table normalization is one of them.

Table normalization is meant to improve _data integrity_ , not performance.

In many cases where reads outnumber writes, backing off 4th normal form and even 3rd normal form by replicating data can significantly improve performance. Author does mention this as "semi-normalization".

<comment><USER3> Normalization/denormalization is like creating/dropping indexes - it changes physical data layout without changing data model.

Either one of the four can and does in some circumstances increase or hinder performance.

For exmample: if you drop all indexes, queries that depend on it become slow. If you create an index on every column it will take longer for optimizer to consider all possible strategies, and it will take longer to maintain indexes.

If you copletely denormalize your data you may see increased read performance since there will be less need to do joins. Or you may see decreased read performance because now your data tkaes more space on disk and you do more IO.

So, yes normalization/denormalizarion is a valid performance optimization technique. It also happens to carry with it the risk of violating data integrity which must be guarded against.</comment></comment>


Don't Know What to Do with Your Life? Seek Bargains (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/02/24/dont-know-what-to-do-with-your-life-seek-bargains/ <comment> z-tech What have I gained from reading this other than learn that the author is a high achieving person? I'm a software engineer in my late twenties in America. I would guess this blog is geared toward people like me, yet the author seems comedically unaware that very few, remarkably close to zero people, have opportunities like pursuing a PhD at MIT. So you chose MIT... I think most people would have. This is just a self congratulatory story with a cheap facade of wisdom.

<comment><USER2> A $28,000 MIT stipend and PHD does not seem that great..it's not that much money. The odds of producing ground-breaking research are slim even for someone brilliant, as the author evidently is. The $85k Microsoft offer would probably be just enough to cover rent and other expenses, although there is room for promotion. Its not like these are huge sums of money. Then again, I am assuming Seattle living expenses.

<comment><USER3> 85K in 2004 would cover more than "just rent and other expenses" or I'd eat my hat. It was a different time, with different costs, and a much less inflated market. The author even calls it "about as much as you could possibly earn right out of college."

MIT is obviously about the prestige and academic opportunities more than the money.

If you're saying these aren't great options for a college senior in 2004 you need to talk to a _lot_ of college seniors to get some perspective. Your comment sounds like "this college student hasn't made millions of dollars or groundbreaking research, I don't know why you think he's any different than the average kid."

<comment><USER4> People in their 20s don't remember before the banking coup. They think it has to be like this.

<comment><USER3> Shit, 85K as a college grad TODAY still puts you solidly into the upper ranges of your demographic.

If you think that's "just cover rent and expenses" money, how do you think the people you buy coffee, food, or anything else from live??

The author also doesn't seem to discuss _what he did the 8 following years_ , which seems baffling.

> I didn't know which traits I ultimately wanted in my career, but I > appreciated that MIT would offer me more options for the career capital I > generated.

So which traits did you build?! Tell me up front why I should listen to you if I wanted to build a career (it's not cause you had two nice offers coming out of college - that's why I'd listen to you if I was a high school senior).

<comment><USER2> Assuming Seattle living expenses which are higher than national average

<comment><USER5> Back then, Seattle/Redmond was much, much more affordable. In 2004, the Case- Shiller Index for Seattle was 125, while the national index was 140 (!). Today Seattle has a 250 index while the national index is 195.

In other words, Seattle housing went from pretty well below-average to wildly more than average in ~15 years.

So $85k in Seattle in 2004 then would be roughly like $160k in Columbus today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is bordering on tautological, with post-hoc rationalization.

Something is a bargain when it has a large ratio of value to cost.

The trouble with career choices is that the value is in the future - it is, at best, only probabilistically estimable.

Thus this advice merely moves the problem from choosing between alternatives to estimating future value of those choices. This doesn't really decrease the problem difficulty at all.

The justification for "methodology" is post-hoc. There was no guarantee he'd pick up rare and valuable skills in academia; to the degree that he did, using that fact as justification is very shaky.

I've worked with a number of people who spent years in academia and came out in varying states, some less suitable for the workplace, others enamoured with a way of living more compatible with student life than professional life, others more interested in digging into problems than getting things done, etc. I think these risks are real if you're aimless on a post-grad path.

<comment><USER7> Survivorship Bias. Take existing successful people, ask them what they did and what traits they had, and then draw a conclusion that those actions/traits lead to success. Ignore the people who also did those things and had those traits who did not meet with success.

See also: any "how to succeed in business" book like Good To Great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I couldn't understand how the title related to the advice until I finally looked up the definition of "bargain".

"an agreement between two or more parties as to what each party will do for the other."

I've never, ever heard anyone use the word "bargain" in the way that the author is doing. I can't deny that it technically fits the definition, but if you want to be understand, I think it's important to use language the way other people use it.

The author repeated uses the word "traits" in the body of the text instead, and I think changing "Seek Bargains" to "Seek Traits" makes the title _way_ more understandable.

<comment><USER9> > _I 've never, ever heard anyone use the word "bargain" in the way that the > author is doing. I can't deny that it technically fits the definition, but > if you want to be understand, I think it's important to use language the way > other people use it._

This surprises me as much as the author's usage did not. Are phrases like "bargaining chip" or "more than they bargained for" not common enough that this sense of "bargain" is widely understood?

<comment><USER10> I think it is about the phrasing. "Seek Bargains" sounds very similar to me as "Bargain Hunting", which would lend to an object more than a negotiation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Completely agree with what is stated. Jobs where you can learn something are much more valuable than jobs that pay well from the beginning.

I'd like to add that at least for me it was confusing how many valuable skills I need before I can really sell myself consistently. It's not enough to just develop in a programming language. You need to know how to QA your code, how to project manage, how to deploy your code to users, how to sell, how to survive office politics, and on a higher level how to survive the office politics that happen at your customer/partner companies where you are not on- site on a daily basis.

Not the single skill is the value, but the combination of the right skillset. Think about it from a customer perspective. You don't pay for a car that only screwed together correctly, it also needs to drive, it also needs to be useful quickly to you (intuitive), and needs to get repaired if it breaks down, even if you are the one who used it incorrectly. Only if you have the feeling you get all of that then you will buy the car.

<comment><USER12> Oh boy.

I sold out and took the money to be a program manager.

I use the money to pay for my pet projects that I hope one day will explode.

Goal is to be a leader, not a laborer.

<comment><USER11> The thing is that a leader without labor experience is not a leader but an a*hole idiot boss, and not idiot because people don't like him. More like idiot in the traditional sense.

No, seriously. If you never went through producing anything, the trouble of actually making it happen, the difference between the nice university theory in contrast to the real life experience of working with people, too little time and resources, etc. The stuff you never learn in any school because no teacher has the experience either.

It's really hard to express, but you are completely unable to lead without productive experience, as in show the way forward, as in organize resources, as in understanding organizational problems.

The best laborers are what becomes the best leaders, if they learn to use their laboring skills to improve others' performance and make people work together in a similar direction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, having worked as a database guy in a number of academic institutions I find it hard to believe that he is suggesting academia over a high paid stable career in MS.

Maybe CS PhDs are different, but biology ones who I have worked with are low paid, stressful, and highly competitive to get past a couple of postdoc positions.

It might be more interesting work, but is your work the only real interest you have in life? There is so much more to explore than sitting in front of a screen trying to make code work.

<comment><USER14> CS PhDs _are_ different than biology PhDs. They are still low-paid relative to industry, stressful, and competitive. However, multiple postdocs in CS are pretty uncommon, and it is not uncommon for a PhD candidate to get faculty offers with no postdoc (though many do a year of postdocing anyway, since it's less pressure than being junior faculty but at least twice the pay of being a grad student).

I think a reasonable rule of thumb is that the quality of life for grad school in area X is directly proportional to the employability of a BA/BS or MS in area X. In CS most anybody doing a PhD at a decent school could leave for a CS job paying at least twice as much. In biology this is less true, and in the humanities it's even less true. IMO this explains mych of the difference in grad student experiences across these areas.

<comment><USER15> With CS, it's not twice as much, it's more like 4x-5x as much if it's something like ML/AI, Security, etc.

$1mm-$5mm+ compensation packages are not rare by any means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you are unsure of the next best move choose the next move which leaves you with the most options.

The meta point being that advance programs recognize this pattern and then judge you accordingly.

The meta meta pattern thus leads to making all your moves seem like they were all planned from the start.

This is sort of encapsulated by a saying attributed to GE executives: "if at first you don't succeed, bury all evidence that you tried."

<comment><USER12> Andddd this is how I wait another year and another year to have children...

<comment> 52-6F-62 You're not alone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Making life decisions is no different than trading Bitcoin. I learned this the hard way. Sure there are the obvious ones: If you make a bad choice (ie: do drugs and not save any money on your young years the trading equivalent of "you invest in a scam ICO), it'll end badly.

But given two similarly good options, it's a shot in the dark. The OP could have gone to Microsoft and became a CTO or CEO. Then he'll be writing how his Phd friends wasted their time in an academic career blablabla

You can't "see into the future of something". Especially when we are talking very long time frames (10-15 years). Someone who moved into Asia in the last 10 years would have done massive growth compared to someone who would have invested in south America (ie: Venezuela).

</comment><comment><USER18> I took my current job for the money vs. a low paying job into a new field I've been wanting to get into for 10 years. (Film/TV Production)

....I regret it.

<comment><AUTHOR> What are you currently doing?

<comment><USER18> Mortgage Banking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "the right way to build a remarkable life is to first identify the traits that define your vision of "remarkable," then pursue only jobs that will reward you with these traits if and when you master rare and valuable skills."

That's a tough read. I think I read this sentence 10 times, and I still didn't know what it meant.

Finally moved on to the rest of the article to discover that he's talking about aspects of a job, such as having an impact.

So to rephrase, if you want to make an impact in your career, take the job that will allow you to make an impact if you do that job very well. Substitute 'impact' for whatever aspect of a job you'd like to have. Maybe a bit obvious when stated this way.

</comment><comment><USER2> The article seemed to be lacking. I was hoping for actual substantive advice than just a brief story of his career choice.

</comment><comment><USER20> A question about "rare and valuable skills" \- since many want to have valuable skills, and so they become common, is the only way to get rare skills is choosing to learn very difficult things?

<comment><USER21> I think that's one way, but not the only way. A single specific rare and valuable skill ("software engineering") can make you stand out, but a bundle of related or even unrelated skills can be even better (software engineering + design + business skill + good writer).

Scott Adams talks about combining skills like that in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything And Still Win Big [0]. He talks about his own combination of skills being "funnier than average" and "decent at drawing". I thought it was a good read. His talk of systems vs goals was also very worthwhile.

0: [https://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything- Still/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything- Still/dp/1591847745)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Where are they now of some of the early microsoft employees:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-1978-photo-2016-10#...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-1978-photo-2016-10#bob- greenberg-left-microsoft-then-worked-on-the-cabbage-patch-kids-6)

Counterpoint to the article very few stayed at Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER23> A lot of the top comments seem to be intentionally misunderstanding the point of the article to score cheap privilege points. Yes, the author happened to have the luxury to choose between two objectively good options.

The core advice could be rephrased as "optimize for convexity (in the Taleb sense)" or even, "optimize for long term rather than short term value".

Put this way, it seems uncontroversial, as many HNers agree with these sentiments.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What are some examples of "rare and valuable" skillsets?

Programmers, Physicians, well paid musicians....

</comment><comment><USER24> Skate Better: The Blog Post

</comment><comment><USER25> Weird, link broken

<comment><USER26> works for me

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The top comment on that article:

"This site is way better than Perezhilton.com"

Cracked me up.</comment>


The troubled history of the Bitcoin exchange MtGox - <AUTHOR> https://anders.io/the-troublesome-history-of-the-bitcoin-exchange-mtgox/ <comment><USER2> This was the first time i really understood the problem with this "bug" that mtgox and bitstamp is having - very well written!

</comment><comment><USER3> Mt. Gox and other crypto markets need to switch to using a common, Open Sourced solution. Their use of proprietary software represents a threat to the entire Bitcoin ecosystem.

There's nothing wrong with them keeping a proprietary ledger of accounts, but attaching their crap code to the network is a crime of epic proportions. Hopefully Ethereum will help with this.

<comment><USER4> Your unregulated financial institutions fail to take basic security measures to protect consumers, they frequently halt withdrawals without warning, your uninsured deposits are sucked into the void, your speculative 'currency' experiences extreme daily deflation and inflation...

Better blame proprietary software. Whatever you do, don't question your assumptions. And under no circumstances should you think about the fact that fiat banks in the US all use proprietary software and rarely experience serious problems (and when they do, consumers' deposits are insured up to a large amount).

<comment><USER5> I heard of a cool tech called the dollar so I figured, what the heck, I'll give it a try.

Turns out they try to make you spend it by continually inflating the supply of them out there with no end. In order to keep your head above water, you have to put in a "bank".

Fine, it compensates you for the loss of purchasing power, so no biggie, right? Wrong. They actually _lend out the dollars_ that are supposed to be in your account so when you come to get your dollars out, they might not even be there!

Now, they claim to have this handled, but it's kind of a hacky solution: supposedly what happens is that they'll go to a head honcho and get a temporary loan to be able to pay you, but they only give this privilege those that can get the political connections.

They also have have this system where you money is "insured" so that even if they can't get a loan "your dollars are safe, you'll still be able to get them out!" Kludgy, but it should work, right? Well, it turns out the insurance fund couldn't actually handle everyone pulling their money back out!

So, yeah, kind of hip, but I don't think it can catch on as a serious model, especially once auditors and whatnot get involved.

<comment><USER6> Amount of losses due to depositary institution failure since 1934:

$0.

This is a rather good record compared to bitcoin.

<comment><USER7> Whaaa? Deposits over $100K (now $250K) were uninsured.

<comment><USER8> They guarantee up to that amount but so far have been covering the full amount due to the negligible difference overall IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So... anyone willing to learn enough about BitCoin to build something to find all the "fixed" transactions? It shouldn't take much analysis to determine whether or not MtGox has been drained.

All these articles written about what happened but no one able to just look at the blockchain and give hard numbers.

<comment> lhc- Do we actually have an exhaustive list of wallets controlled by Mt Gox though? That would seem like difficult to obtain and likely proprietary info they would not want to reveal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I still cannot believe anyone has any "real" money tied up in something like MtGox. Disturbing, stunning.

<comment><USER11> In other news that may also surprise you, there are people who put millions of dollars into companies that don't even have working products yet.

<comment><USER12> A great example of the difference between investment and speculation. Pouring money into a company without a product helps fund development of that product.

<comment><USER11> People buying shares on a secondary market aren't really helping fund product development, at least not in any direct way.

But you'll still see folks putting large sums of money into something like a small biotech company that doesn't have a working product yet.

It's speculation, of course, but that's the point. People speculate all the time, some of them with large sums of money. Shouldn't be surprising news.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jack Garman, Whose Judgment Call Saved Moon Landing, Has Died - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/us/jack-garman-whose-judgment-call-saved-moon-landing-dies-at-72.html <comment><USER3> I think I have read various aspects of this event. I would feel enlightened, if someone with more knowledge could provide more details to flesh out my (false?) memories. Different aspects I have read are (1) The programmer (a woman) set up the code, so that in a case of overload it could be simply rebooted; (2) Buzz Aldrin claimed that he took the decision to not abort - <USER2> guess he had the final call; and (3) The overload occurred because Buzz didn't shut down one function of the computer system that he was expected to.

It's interesting to me that there can be many viewpoints to such a critical incident. It would be good to have the whole picture.

<comment><USER4> The chief programmer of both Apollo guidance computers was Margaret Hamilton.

The computer had only non-volatile memory. Upon restart it would clean some parts of it up, but most of what the user would think of as the state would remain.

No clue about whose decision it was. Runbook said "go if no apparent degradation of control" for this alert.

The overload occurred because the rendezvous radar was on _and_ was started in a way that caused some signals to be out of phase. AFAIK it shouldn't have been on. The values is provided were ignored, but incrementing and decrementing hardware counters is what took the time. Alas, Buzz also noticed that alerts appeared only when he started a routine that refreshed a display of some data on his display, which he was supposed to start. This turned out to be true -- the computer was this close to having exactly all of its CPU busy that this simple routine would tip it over the edge.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. Good info. It helped my search.

THOSE ALARMS

 _" It wasn't 10 seconds after the LEM was secured on the (lunar) surface that NASA was on the phones to the (MIT) Lab. This was the Lab's responsibility, our system, our machine, our alarms. "What were those alarms? We're launching (the lunar module from the moon's surface) in 24 hours and we're not going with alarms. We must have an operational computer." We really went to work. The computer seemed to be operating at 80% of its normal speed, but why?

We turned to our simulation facilities. We had a high-fidelity digital simulation of the computer and the executing programs, surrounded by a digital simulation of the LEM vehicle, the equations of motion, and the gravitational environment. We also had an analog simulator with the real guidance computer, the inertial measurement unit (IMU), and a man-in-the loop. We tried every anomalous condition. We examined the executive code, the alarm mechanism, and the fundamental algorithms. We worked all night and time was running short. Our NASA buddies called us every 15-30 minutes anticipating, demanding a solution. We had to find it. We re-covered old ground, new ground, brainstorms, crazy ideas, anything."_ Fred H. Martin

[https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.1201-fm.html](https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.1201-fm.html)

[https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.1201-pa.html](https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.1201-pa.html)

[http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/A11_MissionReport.pdf](http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/A11_MissionReport.pdf) Mission Report with 22 pages of text and 22 pages of diagrams describing significant problems during the Apollo 11 mission.

[http://www.htius.com/Articles/r12ham.pdf](http://www.htius.com/Articles/r12ham.pdf) Margaret H. Hamilton describes the software's global error detection and recovery mechanisms she helped design.

[http://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html](http://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html) Don Eyles describes the components of the Lunar Guidance Computer.

<comment><USER4> > > [https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.1201-pa.html](https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.1201-pa.html)

I'm sorry to say that this particular article contains some inaccuracies.

First: The Apollo 14 fix didn't involve providing any new code to execute. The fix changed some data values in erasable memory so as to fool the computer into thinking an abort has already started. For more details see: [https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/index.html#Final_exam_for_the...](https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/index.html#Final_exam_for_the_advanced_student_)

\-- Edit: The following paragraph is wrong. --

In fact, it was impossible to execute code from erasable memory: it was a Harvard architecture machine and code memory was in the nonerasable memory.

\----

In fact, the ranges of adresses for ROM and RAM were disjoint and the code likely never jumped to RAM, so it seems to have been impossible to have any executable code from RAM be executed.

Second: The Apollo 11 problems were not caused by an undesired piece of software operating during the landing. It was caused by a mechanism for updating hardware counters that used up CPU cycles. In order to simplify concurrency issues, hardware counters were not directly manipulated by hardware in LGC. There were "increase" and "decrease" interrupts, which were raised when the counter would need to be increased or decreased. These interrupts had a hardwired interrupt service routine that called a "hardware counter inc/decrement" instruction (this instruction didn't even have an opcode, because it wasn't designed to be called from actual code). This took some CPU time each time it happened. Rendezvous radar angle was the counter that caused the problem. The reason that counter caused the problem was that when the radar was not set to computer control, the radar position signals going to computer could indicate random quickly changing garbage. For more details see: [http://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html](http://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html)

Why do I trust my sources more? In the first case, because I can actually verify that solution on the simulator and because the machine language documentation that was used to create the simulator makes it clear that code and data address spaces are separate. In the second case, because it's a more detailed description that matches what I know about LGC from other sources and because it comes from Don Eyles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We can all wish to do something significant with our time on earth like this guy.

<comment><USER6> (s/wish/try) and I agree with the first part of your sentence 100%

<comment><USER5> I am trying, but I'm not sure if my work building new database optimization and execution engines is what my contribution should be. I'd rather be working at space x or tesla.</comment></comment></comment>


Winklevoss Twins Will Appeal Facebook Case to Supreme Court - <AUTHOR> http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/20110516/winklevii-go-for-gold-say-theyll-take-facebook-case-to-the-supreme-court/

<comment><USER2> I wonder if they realize how foolish they look. In my social circle, Winklevoss has become a verb. It means to take more than your fair share of something, or to try to screw somebody over.

"dude you said you'd help move on saturday; don't Winklevoss me on this"

Or

"Stop Winklevossing all of the beer."

<comment><USER3> On the other hand: it looks they have been done wrong by Zuckerberg and are seeking justice. Although I would be on a beach if I was one of them...

<comment><USER4> It's probably true Zuckerberg broke some contracts and maybe stole some IP, but the Winklevi seem to think that if Mark Zuckerberg never existed _they_ would have been able to build Facebook into the company it currently is therefore they're entitled to X% of Facebook's current value, which is completely ridiculous.

So far the only thing proved is they had an idea similar to Facebook (as did probably dozens or hundreds of other people at the time) and they're [kind of] good at filing lawsuits. If they want to be known for anything except "those guys who almost-but-not-really created Facebook" they should move on and build their own great company with their $100M+ from the settlement.

But they won't, because they know they can't.

<comment><USER3> You're probably right about that but the fact remains: Zuckerberg did them wrong, we don't know what would have happenend and someone in a similar position made billions with their idea and strategy. How they hypthetically would have executed if they had hired someone trusthworthy should hardly matter in a court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At some point you'd think these guys would just want to move on with their lives and enjoy their millions of dollars. But no, perpetual court dates are some how more appealing. I wish someone would sue them for wasting everyone's times.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. They have a Harvard education, more riches than they could spend in a lifetime and still all they want to do with their lives is act like money- grubbing losers.

<comment><USER7> > more riches than they could spend in a lifetime

I don't think this is true of anyone, even Warren Buffett or Bill Gates.

It's _really_ difficult to let someone get away with stealing from you. The Winkelvoss twins may feel they've been legitimately slighted, since it would seem they're not just in it for the cash.

<comment><USER6> > I don't think this is true of anyone, even Warren Buffett or Bill Gates.

I meant that as a figure of speech of course :)

> It's really difficult to let someone get away with stealing from you. The > Winkelvoss twins may feel they've been legitimately slighted, since it would > seem they're not just in it for the cash

Yes it must hurt, but they received adequate compensation. The point however is that they could be doing something more productive with their time. They'll go nowhere trying to bring Zuckerberg or Facebook down.

After The Social Network portrayed them in a good light and Zuckerberg as a thief, you'd think they'd feel vindicated. But that hasn't stopped them from throwing more lawsuits demanding money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Once this is rejected by the supreme court, I hope Facebook takes every dime they have to cover it's legal fees from this nearly decade long waste of court resources. Don't get me wrong, I truly believe that Mark screwed them over while he was building Facebook but they got a decent settlement out of it(odds are much more than they would have if they'd actually ran Harvard Connection) and yet their greed won't let them enjoy the tens of millions they have. Sometimes it's better to just take the deal and move on with your life.

</comment><comment><USER9> Here's a thought for the judge: at the time Mark supposedly stole their idea, he wouldn't have thought he was stealing $50 Billion, and the Winklevii wouldn't have thought it was worth $50 Billion. Let's say they had $10 million on average in their minds. Given that the Winklevii, as far as I can see, have done squat in the meantime online, or of any achievement, had the pair worked together as they had hoped they may have been lucky to exit on $2 million, if that, and it would've been on Mark's doing. The pair should get $1 million between them, and then they should be penalized for wasting legal resources that could've been put to better use. They deserve Zilch, and their awards so far confiscated. Mark could help pay for legal costs, because it was his actions that led to the dispute.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why would the Supreme Court hear this? Is there anything novel about this case? I haven't read all the filings, but I'm just not aware of something unusual / precedent setting here.

It would be stunning if it's each party's responsibility to make sure that the other has absolutely no misconceptions in a settlement, and as far as I can tell, that's really the only question on the table, right?

The winklevoss twins would be better off suing counsel for not doing due diligence on the cap table, I'd guess. I suppose counsel doesn't have billions floating around, though.

</comment><comment><USER9> Throwing tantrums in the name of justice, but really it's for glory, yet the the glory is parasitic. Would you do business with these guys? Mark was right.

</comment><comment><USER11> Since pointing fingers at the Winklevoss twins is a common theme in these threads I'll just post at the top.

Regardless of who's side you're on in this you have to accept that the value of what's contested (who came up with / owns / started Facebook) is worth much, much more than ~$65 million (the original settlement amount). Call it greed or call it white-collar entitlement, but these guys seem serious about seeing it all the way through. Who wouldn't? No sane lawyer is going to advise them to settle for a fraction of what they might actually have a legal right to. Too much money is on the table.

The crux of the argument (for me personally) is whether or not these guys hired Zuckerberg to build the original version of what became Facebook. I've not read up enough to be convinced either way, but again, lawyers will weigh the options and advise accordingly. At the end of it there will at least be some more case law around who-owns-what under similar circumstances.

<comment><USER12> "Regardless of who's side you're on in this you have to accept that the value of what's contested (who came up with / owns / started Facebook) is worth much, much more than ~$65 million (the original settlement amount). "

If you mean the value of Facebook, of course it's worth more. But nobody would give them the entire value of Facebook, not even close. They settled because, apparently, their lawyers thought it was the best deal they were going to get. Otherwise why settle in the first place?

They're not trying to get the settlement undone because they didn't like the settlement itself. They're just claiming that Facebook lied about _how much money exactly_ they were getting as part of the settlement.

"No sane lawyer is going to advise them to settle for a fraction of what they might actually have a legal right to. Too much money is on the table."

Well first of all they _did_ settle, originally. And by the way, they refused to pay their first lawyers (who did the settling) for 2 years. Recently, a judge ordered them to pay their lawyers.

"The crux of the argument (for me personally) is whether or not these guys hired Zuckerberg to build the original version of what became Facebook."

They _did_ hire Zuckerberg to build their site. This is not contested. I'm pretty sure it's also uncontested that Zuckerberg didn't copy any of their code or anything. How similar the two ideas are is something that's pretty hard to say, though.

<comment><USER11> First off, I never said the _entire_ value, but meant to point out that their potential stake could be worth far more than $65 million. According to the linked article they're claiming Facebook lied about its value at the time of the settlement, and they they're entitled to an amount promised based on its true valuation.

Your point about _what_ they hired him to do is closer to what I was getting at, but I suppose that point seems clear enough given that they came to a settlement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> i've been avoiding it, but is it worth seeing the movie?

<comment><USER14> Absolutely, 100%. Strongest possible recommendation. It's rare that what we do here makes it to the big screen. Even emacs gets name checked, accurately.

<comment><USER15> I might have to see the movie just to see emacs mentioned and giggle like a schoolgirl.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My settlement was negotiated by the same mediator, so this is of interest insofar as it might shed some light on how strong his rather informal style is. I've been told that it's pretty strong.

Now if only they could both lose...

<comment><USER17> You can see in my HN comment history that I have no love for neither the twins nor MZ -- but I have to wonder if their perpetual legal battle is egged on by the lawyers who stand to gain much but lose nothing should this continue.

The twins could lose (everything?) a lot should this be thrown out. I think the lawyers are pushing for this all the way...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> you took the deal. suck it up.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think they are actually like the movie.

<comment><USER20> I'm wondering now if the film toned them down a bit to make them more believable...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm sure there are some lawyers doing it just on a success fee basis. The stakes are def high enough.

Marcin / <http://linkfindr.com>

<comment><USER22>
      Please don't sign comments, especially with your url.
      They're already signed with your username. If other users
      want to learn more about you, they can click on it to see
      your profile.

Source: <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

<comment><USER21> yeah, already got that under another post - sorry :)</comment></comment></comment>


Jeff Bezos has sold almost $3B in Amazon stock over the past week - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jeff-bezos-has-sold-almost-3-billion-in-amazon-stock-over-the-past-week-2019-08-05 <comment><USER2> the top.

<comment><USER3> I thought the market topped at 3 years ago, I've been in bonds ever since and missed out on a near doubling. I'm not worried about that though as if the market had crashed I would be in a far worse position. Discretion is the better part of valor or so I hear.

<comment><USER2> Yes. Do not time the market as an whole. However, if the biggest private shareholder start dumping, it is the top for a specific company.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN on: Controlling trolling - <AUTHOR>

What do you think the best response to it is: 1) Ignore 2) Mock 3) Reason with<p>I'm leaning towards ignore. <comment><USER2> 4) Delete, but still display to the troll

<comment><USER3> This encourages continued bad behavior, because as far as they know, their comments are still there for the world to see. They should see they've been deleted, but get no reason as to why.

<comment><USER2> Trolls and other misfits are trying to get attention, however negative. Denying it to them is the best way to get rid of them.

It's fine if they keep posting: after a few posts of theirs are soft-deleted like this, the moderation system should soft-delete their posts as they're posted. Let them waste their time shouting into the void.

<comment><USER3> Right on your first sentence. Denying them attention is the best way to get rid of them. That's why you delete their posts. If you make them think you didn't, they'll continue because they think their posts are still being read by others.

Eventually by actually deleting them, they realize how long it takes them to write the posts and how short a time it takes you to get rid of them and give up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In my experience (and I should mention, I have a LOT of it) delete and ignore. They'll give up eventually. At some point they have to realize each attempt at trolling takes minutes of their time to write and only a click or two for you to delete.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's a "Troll Whispering" session at Web 2.0 Expo SF this year and also some good info in the blog post we put up about it: [http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/03/troll- whispering-a...](http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/03/troll-whispering- at-web2open.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> ignore.

Mock and you feed the troll, reason with and you fall into his trap.

<comment><USER6> too late: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=162680>

<comment><USER7> Yes, it is a blatant troll, but it's also an interesting question. As long as a troll brings interesting discussion and not flame wars, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

<comment><USER6> Asking why someone is special is not a thoughtful question. This is a rare case where a troll has managed to spawn coherent anecdotes. If you read over the comments, there is no real discussion, there isn't even a topic. It's just a bunch of biographies from people professing pg to be their personal jesus. It reads like an infomercial.

Ignore the trolls. Start a proper discussion because topics like this get killed, like this one just did.

<comment><USER7> Meh. Good points. I and probably a lot of other people are probably feeling pretty stupid right now for falling for this. I think I have a certain combination of gullibility and skepticism that makes me a perfect target for these things. I'm a skeptic in that I am quick to consider that someone could be just _wrong_ , but I'm gullible in that I'm slow to consider the possibility that someone is _lying_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Usually just ignore. In some situations, however, I think it makes sense to make one response, and then ignore. These are situations where the troll brings up some idea you would otherwise like to comment on (and presumably others might want to read your comment).

</comment><comment><USER9> Disemvowel.</comment>