Professional and Home-Made Face Masks Reduce Exposure to Respiratory Infections (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/ <comment><USER2> It's interesting how much commentary there has been in the last week about why masks supposedly don't work (for example, [https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face- masks/](https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/)).

It's a sort of "sensible contrarianism", designed to appeal to the vanity of readers who view themselves as being above the fray.

Another trope is making fun of people who are preparing for possible quarantines and supply chain disruptions, or comparing the absolute numbers of people who die from seasonal flu to Covid-19, and pronouncing it overblown (more common on social media).

Now to find a face mask...

<comment><USER3> I don't know about the situation worldwide, but it is at least reported that in the USA currently there is a severe shortage of masks and that shortage is adversely affecting health professionals. Discouraging the casual mask purchaser (although not with false information) seems to be of at least temporary value here.

<comment><USER4> Surely doctors get their masks from medical suppliers and not off Amazon or from corner stores?

<comment><USER5> The same companies make both masks, and we have a run on the bank right now.

Most likely 3M and crew are tooling up their production and diverting product to medical customers, but it's still going to be tight for a while.

<comment><USER6> According to early February's reports, 3M's mask making factory - in China - was nationalized by the Chinese Government. Ships en route to the US with mask deliveries were supposedly ordered to turn around and bring the masks back to China.

<comment><USER7> Source? I'm listening to NPR doing an interview with 3M's mask-making division as I read this and there's zero mention of the supposed nationalization you report. I strongly suspect you have fallen prey to trolling.

<comment><USER6> Whitehouse trade advisor Peter Navarro made the claim in an interview on February 24th:

[https://youtu.be/4nM0gDDKYDQ?t=205](https://youtu.be/4nM0gDDKYDQ?t=205)

 _> "Let's take face masks for example. N95 face masks. Typical problem, China. China basically makes a bunch of them. Well the first thing they did was put on export restrictions so that we couldn't get any of them. Next thing they did was nationalize effectively 3M, our company, in China, to prevent them from sending us any stuff."_

On February 23rd Navarro discussed it as well:

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

 _> "China put export restrictions on those masks and then nationalized an American factory that produces them there."_

<comment><USER7> Thanks for tracking that down. In any other administration I would have considered a White House spokesperson to be as good as a primary source but this administration's messaging does not hold to the same traditions of truth as previous administrations (of either party).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've seen the headline that "masks won't help you so don't bother buying them" about a million times over the past month. But when you start to dig into the justification behind that, it's loaded with assumptions - that I, the layperson, won't have an N-95 mask, I won't wear it properly, I'll leave it somewhere after it's contaminated and it will make someone else sick.

When you dig past this with the people telling you not to bother wearing a mask, another line of reasoning bubbles up - that we need to reserve them for healthcare workers.

It may be true that it's most important to get N-95 masks into the hands of healthcare workers first, but lying to the public isn't the right way to do it. It turns out that plenty of people are capable of understanding how to wear a mask properly, and a lot of them - myself included - May already have access to N-95 masks, like the handful I bought to wear while doing a home improvement project about six months ago.

I have to agree that more than anything else, this line of commentary that masks won't work comes off as holier than though finger wagging. It's at least partially a lie, and it strikes me as an ineffective way to deal with the problem of a shortage of masks for healthcare workers. I also doubt that the masks on the shelf at Home Depot were ever going to find their way into the hands of a healthcare worker if they hadn't already.

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://twitter.com/lwcalex/status/1235091542219448321](https://twitter.com/lwcalex/status/1235091542219448321)

 _" Dr. Pak-Leung Ho, head of Centre for infection at @hkumed, thinks it was due to the stepped-up vigilance of #HKers that no. of #COVID19 cases in #HK didn't skyrocket like Iran and Italy. He highlighted universal mask-wearing as one of the reasons widespread outbreak didn't occur."_

 _" #HKers started wearing masks, universally and regardless of symptoms, even before the 1st confirmed case emerged in the city. Some say panic, some say unnecessary, some say cultural difference, but it is really down to our collective experience of #SARS."_

 _" 17 yrs ago #HKers learnt the impact of a disease outbreak at the cost of 299 lives. We knew if it starts in China, sooner or later it will reach #HK. Afterall, in the 1st week of Feb alone, 100,000 mainlanders entered HK, not to mention returning HK citizens."_

<comment><USER10> So despite being super-prepared they still got it.

This would appear to be line with the statements face masks indeed limit spread once you're sick, but doesn't do much to protect you when you are healthy.

<comment><USER9> > but doesn't do much to protect you when you are healthy.

[https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1233378620690878464](https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1233378620690878464)

 _" If everyone wears masks, sick wear them. If nobody wears masks, they don't If you wear a mask, people will be comfortable wearing a mask with you. If not, not"_

+"Individual, community and government early outbreak response guidelines "

[https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1235354865947365377](https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1235354865947365377)

[https://necsi.edu/individual-community-and-government- early-...](https://necsi.edu/individual-community-and-government-early- outbreak-response-guidelines-version-3)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Face masks to prevent transmission of influenza virus: a systematic review (2014)

> There is some evidence to support the wearing of masks or respirators during > illness to protect others, and public health emphasis on mask wearing during > illness may help to reduce influenza virus transmission.

> There are fewer data to support the use of masks or respirators to prevent > becoming infected.

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and- inf...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and- infection/article/face-masks-to-prevent-transmission-of-influenza-virus-a- systematic-review/64D368496EBDE0AFCC6639CCC9D8BC05/core-reader)

<comment><USER11> Interestingly, the submitted article finds the opposite. According to it, masks are more useful when worn by healthy people than when worn by sick people.

<comment><USER10> Well, the OP just tested how well masks filter particles, and made comments based on these results. They didn't actually study health outcomes, while the review I linked did find studies of health outcomes but didn't find any statistically significant results.

On balance, masks in general usage probably help a tiny bit, but it it's much more important to wash your hands properly, so you're better of buying soap and paper towels.

<comment><USER11> That's a false choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's fascinating about this is they found masks/respirators made out of "TD Cerise Multi® teacloth" to be somewhat effective. I looked for this because I saw some things being tossed around about how to make your own respirators, and I looked for a "legitimate" site that explained it. Since this is on the nih.gov site, it is credible.

<comment><USER12> > Since this is on the nih.gov site, it is credible.

There's no connection with NIH beyond the fact that they host the PubMed Central search engine this journal article appears on.

That said, PLoS One is a very reputable peer reviewed journal, so the fact that this is published here is significant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I saw a picture of someone in china using an inflatable t-rex costume as a makeshift hazmat suit.

<comment><USER14> It wouldn't surprise me if that actually worked to some degree by negative air pressure alone

<comment><USER15> Even if not, it's still awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another study of the efficacy of homemade masks [1]. Seems to find that they are better than nothing; however, the primary author's summary of the research is not effective [2] [1] [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t..). [2] [https://twitter.com/chaiclate/status/1232972182667612162?s=2...](https://twitter.com/chaiclate/status/1232972182667612162?s=2..).</comment>


YInMn Blue - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YInMn_Blue <comment><USER2> > Under this project, he was particularly interested in synthesizing > multiferroics based on manganese oxides. He directed Andrew E. Smith > (Subramanian's graduate student) to synthesize an oxide solid solution > between YInO 3 (a ferroelectric material) and YMnO 3 (an antiferromagnetic > material) at 1,093 °C (2,000 °F). The resulting compound was not an > effective multiferroic; it was instead a vibrant blue material.

The quintessential chemistry story: someone sets out to make something and ends up creating something useful but completely different by accident.

<comment><USER3> Why does this happen so much? I mean, this is science: shouldn't chemicals react as they do in theory? It doesn't seem like it'd leave a lot to chance.

<comment><USER4> Computational chemistry involves solving multiple NP-hard problems. There is an increasing reliance on computational models and simulation, but chemists realize that the models are approximations (since it's computationally infeasible to have perfect fidelity simulations). The only surefire way to observe a compound's properties is to synthesize it and measure.

<comment><USER5> Surely there can't be any problems in computational chemistry that have actually been proven to be NP-hard? Simulating an experiment atom-for-atom is in BQP, which is not known to contain NP (and is suspected not to contain NP).

EDIT: To put it another way, we can't solve NP problems by doing chemistry experiments.

<comment><USER6> Surely you would need to be modelling at a subatomic level to accurately simulate chemical interactions?

<comment><USER5> Sure. It's not an essential distinction though, because subatomic physics is also simulable in BQP.

<comment><USER7> N-representability?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For a small set of other color-related videos, have a look at two from Tom Scott:

• "The Library of Rare Colors": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApTzWboLrA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApTzWboLrA)

• "I Can't Show You How Pink This Pink Is": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzVmtbPOrM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzVmtbPOrM)

The latter video makes me wonder: Is there a good way of finding out if a monitor, or even an entire color space, can contain this color? This may be a pigment where you really can't tell exactly what it looks like on-screen, because either the screen cannot display the color or the color space being used can not encode the color (or because the camera sensor can't properly capture the color).

<comment><USER9> I actually ordered some of this Pinker than Pink! As well as Black 2.0 and a few of his other pigments.

I believe what he's doing is mixing in a pigment that fluoresces from sunlight, at the same frequency as the primary visible-spectrum pigment. Thus, more of that frequency of light is coming off the page than the visible light landing on the page.

It's pretty crazy to look at in sunlight. Indoor, it's not quite as vibrant.

<comment><USER10> Like the optical brighteners that are used in detergents: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_brightener](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_brightener)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > YInMn Blue is chemically stable, does not fade, and is non-toxic.

I'm calling a big old [citation needed] on a compound that's only existed for a decade. It might not be acutely toxic, but recently we seem to be finding all sorts of subtle effects from compounds that've been in common use for decades.

How does one establish non-toxicity?

<comment><USER12> You test it with animals.

It's inorganic, has simple structure and contains only non-toxic compounds, so there is no reason to be worried.

If you want to worry, direct your attention towards Vantablack and other carbon nanotubes. It has specific target organ toxicity from single exposure and while it does not appear to be carcinogenic it needs more testing.

<comment><USER13> > It's inorganic, has simple structure and contains only non-toxic compounds, > so there is no reason to be worried.

So is asbestos...

<comment><USER12> I knew that someone would reply with asbestos when I wrote that. "simple structure" is there to exclude asbestos.

Asbestos is dangerous because it's a tiny spike that sticks into cell. Just like nanotube of similar length.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why do people get to patent the products of federal grants?

<comment><USER15> Why should you deprive an inventor of the rights to his invention merely because he's funded by the government? Do note that, in these situations, you have to notify the government of your intent to file a patent (and you lose the patent if you fail to do so!), and the government gets an automatic license to the patent.

<comment><USER16> > Why should you deprive an inventor of the rights to his invention

"Rights" to inventions aren't innate, they're explicitly granted. Why should we _grant_ an exclusive monopoly on publicly funded research?

<comment><USER17> To add a profit motive, which in effect accelerates the fruits of the research being made available to the public and not hidden on the shelf of a lab. At least, that's the theory...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Reminds me of the story of how Lithium was initially thought help "brain gout" by dissolving uric crystals, but it still ended up working.

Read an interesting story of a physicist that got curious about it. [https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-spin-on-the-quantum- bra...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-spin-on-the-quantum- brain-20161102/)

</comment><comment><USER19> NPR had a good article about the discovery: "A Chemist Accidentally Creates A New Blue. Then What?" [1]

[1] [https://www.npr.org/2016/07/16/485696248/a-chemist- accidenta...](https://www.npr.org/2016/07/16/485696248/a-chemist-accidentally- creates-a-new-blue-then-what)

<comment><USER20> This blue pigment is used on the shrouds of AMD Radeon Pro graphics cards. [https://www.amd.com/en/graphics/workstations](https://www.amd.com/en/graphics/workstations)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here's a great article about the discovery of this color, and the pigment industry in general, which hit the front page of HN a year ago:

The Quest for the Next Billion-Dollar Color

[https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-quest-for-billion- do...](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-quest-for-billion-dollar-red/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16870440](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16870440)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> YInMn is supposed to have high NIR reflectivity useful on a sunny roof. The Apollo 11 Lunar Module used gold foil to reflect heat, I suppose future vehicles could have a brilliant blue foil, apt for Blur Origin.

I liked how the lunar module used gold foil, and Apollo the Greek god was the Sun deity; gold often used to represent the Sun.

<comment><USER22> If all you need is IR reflection for a building then TiO2 based paint will do the job and is much cheaper. The advantage of YInMn is that it also provides color.

<comment><AUTHOR> Under properties one an see the reflectivity and whilst far better than Cobalt blue, its a long way from Gold and silver:

[https://colourlex.com/project/yinmn- blue/](https://colourlex.com/project/yinmn-blue/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here's a nice interview with the discoverer: [https://news.artnet.com/art- world/chemist-mas-subramanian-on...](https://news.artnet.com/art- world/chemist-mas-subramanian-on-the-incredible-discovery-of-yinmn- blue-973700)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yttrium and Indium are two rare earths, Indium especially, used in displays. Mention has been made that the Indium required makes this pigment expensive.

</comment><comment><USER24> Apparently it costs $1k/kg right now, if it were even available.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indium looks to cost $5 a gram, twice the price of silver, although it's supposed to be as ubundant

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is it still true that there are no real inorganic red dyes? Or is that ancient history?

<comment><USER26> It may depend on the definition of red, but that doesn't sound true at all. Cadmium red, lead tetroxide, cinnabar, all in use for a hundred+ to even thousands of years.

I think where that comes from is that there isn't really an inorganic red that is all of stable, durable, non-toxic, and only then even then good looking.

If I remember correctly, once Mas Subramanian sort of stumbled into "I guess I can try to make pigments with these compounds" he's tried making other colors, but sort of the big prize is in finding a good red with properties similar to YInMn.

<comment><USER25> >>stable, durable, non-toxic, and only then even then good looking.

Yes, I think that was the combination.

I was thinking in particular red car paint -- it was only organic compounds through the early 2000's, and therefore all of it fades.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article makes no mention of how the pigment makes the blue colour.

<comment><USER27> It's due to the "trigonal bipyramidal" lattice structure. By changing atoms in the structure, they've created pigments with a range of colors. [https://ws680.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=921441](https://ws680.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=921441)

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent find!

This article also talks of the three other variants for different colours

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As mentioned in this YouTube video by Seeker, albeit in passing, but credit where it's due:

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=lolgjjr8QIU](https://youtube.com/watch?v=lolgjjr8QIU)</comment>


Markets are Efficient if and only if P = NP - <AUTHOR> http://www.moneyscience.com/pg/blog/Admin/read/59574/on-the-nature-of-genius-trading-and-hindsight-phil-maymin-on-his-paper-markets-are-efficient-if-and-only-if-p-np

<comment><AUTHOR> Video discussion of this (quite-readable) paper: <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1773169></comment>


Happy 5th Birthday to jQuery, 1.5 Beta 1 is released. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jquery.com/2011/01/14/jquery-1-5-beta-1-released/

<comment><USER2> Happy Birthday, jQuery Team.

I'm currently using the jQuery UI draggable and droppable stuff to move things around a tree and its pretty cool. Even got location changes recording in the database.

Migrating to Rails 3 now, so moving as much as possible to jQuery.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whoohoo happy birthday jQuery. Changing the web one dom at a time...

</comment><comment><USER4> Any idea what subclassing is? The ticket has no info

<comment><USER5> Basically extend JQ without breaking the main JQ object or having to load a new instance.

[https://github.com/deadlyicon/jquery/commit/4024e67d0f352e4a...](https://github.com/deadlyicon/jquery/commit/4024e67d0f352e4a095f93456bc8e6da63e10759)</comment></comment>


U.S. Says It Will Raise Tariffs After China Reneges on Vows - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-06/u-s-says-it-will-raise-tariffs-after-china-reneges-on-promises <comment><USER2> > The state of the trade talks were cast into doubt after Trump's surprise > announcement over Twitter on Sunday that he planned to raise tariffs on $200 > billion of Chinese goods to 25 percent from 10 percent because talks were > moving too slowly.

It's hard to know what to worry about more: the fact that the President acts unilaterally on trade; the fact that the countries with the two largest GDPs are entering an unprecedented phase of trade war; or the president of United States conducting foreign policy via Twitter.</comment>


Armstrong Drops Fight Against Doping Charges - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/sports/cycling/lance-armstrong-ends-fight-against-doping-charges-losing-his-7-tour-de-france-titles.html

<comment><USER2> TLDR: A soulless corp stops at nothing to tarnish the image of a world-class athlete and all around nice guy. When he gets tired of the fight, the corp declares victory.

</comment><comment><USER3> Armstrong's decision to quit participating in the witch hunt certainly does not 'tarnish' his record - just the opposite.</comment>


Climate Change Is Killing Alpine Skiing as We Know It - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-15/climate-change-is-killing-alpine-skiing-as-we-know-it <comment><USER3> People have adapted almost completely to the idea of snow being some rare, special event. People who fondly remember playing in the snow nearly everyday in winter during their childhood have come to expect 50-60 degree January afternoons and think of snow as a special occasion. These people are saying those twice a year snowfalls are proof that nothing is changing, while knowing full well that they were wearing layers of coats and scarves years ago and walking around in t-shirts now.

Coffee could go extinct and our generation would just have nostalgic idle chats about it here and there, but nothing would really change. Kids who never drank coffee would grow up and never think about it, much less care. Bangladesh could completely sink tomorrow, and you'd have people 15 years from now saying it's all some grand conspiracy and Bangladesh never really existed. You'd just have people saying climate never changed and taking family trips to the beach would be a good way to cool off on those hot Nunavut February nights.

People just kind of adapt to whatever's happening around them. No matter how crazy or awful it is, people just get apathetic after a while. And so long as someone has financial motivations to push the idea that this is normal, people will keep thinking it is and they'll forget just how much things changed.

<comment><USER4> > People have adapted almost completely to the idea of snow being some rare, > special event. People who fondly remember playing in the snow nearly > everyday in winter during their childhood have come to expect 50-60 degree > January afternoons and think of snow as a special occasion. These people are > saying those twice a year snowfalls are proof that nothing is changing, > while knowing full well that they were wearing layers of coats and scarves > years ago and walking around in t-shirts now.

As someone who believes in climate change, and grew up playing in the snow - what on earth are you talking about? Where is this magical place where it used to be snowy all winter long and is now averaging 50-60 degrees with snow now being a rare occasion?

Exaggerating to the extent you are does nothing but hurt the message because it's blatantly and obviously false and when climate deniers read people making claims like you are, the entire discussion loses all credibility.

<comment><USER5> My expectation based on my childhood (I'm in my 40s) is that you would have at least some snowcover from early December through late March. Some winters were snowier than others, but you'd always find a hunk of ice somewhere. There was always 3-5 significant storms with more than 12" of snow. Now we get 1-2, and they typically melt within a week. In any case, the ground would be frozen solid.

I live about 150 miles north of NYC. Last weekend, I planted tulips that I forgot about in the fall, wearing shorts. The weather that we have here today is warmer than the ocean climate around NYC and Long Island was in the 80s when I was a little kid.

<comment><USER6> I spoke with my mother and father about this topic recently. It was triggered by reading US Grant's autobiography. Grant recollected early on that during his youth they would often ice skate on the ponds and lakes in southern Ohio. I grew up not far from Grant. On occasion, from ~85-92, the ponds would freeze with ice thick enough to skate. By the mid-90s, that was simply done. I remember sledding all of the time during the winter during that same period. I'll ask a friend who still lives next to the hill we used to sled on how often his own children sled. My parents are still there, so I know it's not often -- Not even every winter is there enough snow stuck on the ground to go sledding. The last blizzard that I recall living through was in the early 90s, as well. I left the area in 2001, but returned in 2006-2008. During 2006-2008, there were a few snows that I recall that were ~6"-8" but it was all melted inside of a week. My father was telling me recently that they're lucky to see 3" today and it doesn't stick for more than a few days.

My parents grew up in southwestern PA. My mother grew up on a large farm (dairy and ~500 acres of planted crops) and often recollects about the 50s and 60s. They would often travel on the ag run-off canals and smaller creeks, streams, and rivers, to trade supplies with neighbors. They could travel miles on the ice. They didn't have roads in this section of PA until the late 60s and early 70s, when the coal company came in (and state routes were built to support their industry). They would butcher cattle during the winter and could store it in the back of the barn, in a small stone cellar that was only partially below ground. The meat would freeze overnight and remain frozen into the spring.

These things are gone today and it's happened before my own eyes inside of 2 generations of my own family, at that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We have almost no snow around Oslo at the moment, which is quite rare. There are talks about canceling some upcoming ski competitions because it doesn't make sense to use snow canon when temperatures are positive (ºC).

Meanwhile, a company just opened a small ski resort indoors (a bit like in Dubai) 10~15 minutes by car from the city center: [https://snooslo.no](https://snooslo.no). The goal is to have it open and at -4ºC all year long. This is so backwards :(

<comment><USER8> Just wait till the world gets tired of hydro carbons and the "rich" middle eastern countries can go back to being poor like everyone else.

They aren't hedging their bets by learning how to work and create things. This will come back to bite them.

But in the mean time, let's keep snow skiing in the mall with all this foreign money.

<comment><USER9> Dubai has been investing heavily in tourism and business (0% tax, and being pretty liberal for a islamic country) for years.

<comment><USER10> > _being pretty liberal for an islamic country_

For some unpredictable value of "pretty liberal" perhaps?

For instance, sex out of wedlock or cohabitation are illegal, including for tourists.

 _"If you holiday in the emirate unmarried and you come to the attention of the authorities ... if it's then discovered you're sharing a room and a bed you can be jailed and then deported."_

<comment><USER11> "Pretty liberal for an Islamic country" is not the same as "liberal by Western standards".

<comment><USER12> I think the issue in Dubai is more about the _inconsistency_ of enforcing their laws.

They look the other way almost all the time - until they don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cbm-vic-20 $100+ lift tickets are killing alpine skiiing. While in college in southern New England, we'd pile a few dudes in a car, drive up to Vermont/NH/Maine at 5am, get there when the lifts open, ski until they close, and drive back home.

Lift ticket prices have become crazy expensive, and every ski area wants to become a resort destination: the messaging here is that you have to be wealthy to be able to ski.

As a result, a lot fewer young people are going to take up skiing- fewer people getting into the pipeline.

<comment><USER13> What's happened is consolidation with Vail and Alterra buying up many of the most popular areas -- and with it affordable mega-passes (Ikon, Epic) have made it possible to ski at very expensive places for a very low per-day cost -- but only if you are dedicated and can ski more than 10-15 days a year.

And the flip side of that is that per-day lift ticket prices are very high, to milk the casual skier and the luxury-seeking 1%ers who can afford to spent $250 (lift ticket+ rentals+snacks) on a single day at Stowe or Vail or Whistler.

At this point you basically have to either buy one of the mega passes, or seek out the smaller family owned resorts that still charge reasonable prices.

Look into the Indy Pass, it's an affordable pass that gets you 2 days at a bunch independent smaller ski areas.

<comment><USER14> Yep, since I moved to BC I was excited at all of the skiing options but it's just too pricey. Even the local resorts e.g. Cypress.

<comment><USER15> What? Cypress is like $300 for a season pass and it's easily the best local hill. If you want to go to a worse hill, $99 3SKI at Seymour gets you 3 days of lift + 3 days of rentals (anytime in the same season).

If you consider that expensive you moved to the wrong neighbourhood.

<comment><USER14> Where can I get $300 for a season pass at Cypress? My friend paid like $500. Graduating soon so I could definitely manage that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "If greenhouse-gas emissions continue at the same level, snow will almost > disappear at lower levels by the end of the century,"

A common misconception is that if we reduced our emissions, things would get better. The reality is that a particle of CO2 that is emitted today will statistically be there for 10,000 years before disappearing. Once out there it's going to work against us for this whole period. If we reduced our emissions, things won't get better, they will get a little bit less catastrophic and we will have a little bit more time. What we have emitted so far is in the air and it's too late.

Source ([http://hapen.fr/jancovici-pib-ou-co2-il-faut-choisir- science...](http://hapen.fr/jancovici-pib-ou-co2-il-faut-choisir-sciences- po-20190829_fichiers/image049.jpg)):

\- after 100 years, 40% is still there

\- after 1000 years, 20% is still there

\- after 10,000 years, 10% is still there

<comment><USER17> > _A common misconception_

Is this really common?

I'm aware there's climate change denial, but amongst those not wilfully ignorant, I would've presumed the fact that we're now working to _slow the rate of change_ is a well-accepted best-case.

<comment><USER16> I'm obviously using anecdotal evidence, but most of the time I see the issue discussed the people who do believe in climate change don't understand the scale of the thing, don't think the situation is _that_ bad and believe that we will just find a technological way (which, at this point, is more magical than anything) to reduce emissions without impacting our overall comfort and way of life, and without massive climate catastrophes and humanitarian crises

This assumes that even if we stopped all emissions today, things will be fine. Like there's some sort of Pause button. Things won't be fine: if we stopped everything today, we'd reach the +2°C at the end of the century. Things are going to get worse even if we stop emitting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> From the perspective of someone who has been in Garmisch two weeks ago: it's not as bad as the article makes it sound. Garmisch is at an altitude of 700 m (2300 ft), but most of the ski area is much higher (in the snow-covered mountains that can be seen in the background of the first photo). Being able to ski all the way down to the ski resort is a luxury, not a necessity, and only those slopes need snow cannons. Plus, there is also the ski area near the Zugspitze, which starts at 2000 m height. I'm not a climate change denier, far from it, but it will take some more decades until skiing in the Alps will die out completely...

</comment><comment><USER19> On the other hand Ski Touring is on the rise at least for now. Due to the high prices of ski resort tickets and bad snow conditions many (like myself) started to pick it up. It's the healthier and environmentally friendly version of alpine skiing. As many lower altitude resorts are turning off their cable cars the slopes are invaded by beginner and fitness oriented ski tourers. They are perfect for those because there is no danger of avalanches and no mountain experience is required and they are satisfied with less snow than alpine skiers. Some ghost ski resorts have started to have high parking ticket prices now to at least get some revenue out of it.

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't call it healthier due to the risk of avalanches and in my experience it's not negligible. It requires some complex skills of being able to both judge the terrain and act fast if something happens. And even then, accidents happen. How many people die annually on the slopes of ski resorts and how many die in avalanches while skiing?

<comment><USER21> Avalanche training and equipment is necessary. The skills aren't really that complex, there are a few rules to follow that will save your life. I can't prove it but I believe most of the avalanche deaths are people with zero training who don't take the situation seriously. You can learn all the necessary skills in a single afternoon.

<comment><USER22> You can learn the (basic) skills in an afternoon, but being able to use those skills calmly, quickly, and safely in an emergency situation is a whole 'nother ball game. That requires practice, practice, and more practice (at least for me).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It is not that easy, as you can see from the yearly snow height of 2 locations in the alps:

[https://www.eike-klima- energie.eu/2016/02/18/schneemessreihe...](https://www.eike-klima- energie.eu/2016/02/18/schneemessreihen-aus-lech-und-zuers/)

There is no clear trend visible. The reason for this is that during the climate catastrophe not only the temperature rises but also the mass of the evaporated water rises. This results in more extreme cases where there is no snow at all or drowning in snow. This year there is no snow but last year there were some villages in the alps that were no longer reachable because of the amasses of snow.

</comment><comment><USER24> Allow me to offer an optimistic view.

There are solutions in progress - nuclear tech, carbon capture, etc - <USER2> we'll come up with technology we can't yet predict. We're getting better at making things more efficient. Countries have fewer kids and care more about the environment as they get richer, they tend to clean the rivers and air. Trends have been positive the past few decades as poverty has decreased substantially and continues to.

Humans are good at solving slow moving disasters, even when they're of global scope. Remember the ozone hole scare, which was solved beyond expectation. The year 2000 problem, solved beyond expectation. It was long thought we were about to run out of oil and food, solved beyond expectation (indeed creating opposite problems).

We tend to solve these. Climate change may well end up being one of these things that freaked us out for a while, but we figured it out. Then we'll move onto the next slow moving disaster and solve that too.

<comment><USER25> Add overpopulation to that list as well.

It was huge concern in the 1970s and 1980s. Now population growth is expected to be flat by the end of the 21st century.

It's fallen so much that that it's creating problems in some areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > To make up for a lack of natural snowfall, resorts switch on the cannons, > although they're energy intensive

And thus only adding to the climate change problem.

Everyone is or will suffer from climate change, but if even the ones currently suffering don't want to make the changes needed to divert the problem how do we expect people that don't feel the pain yet to change?

And no, things like driving a low milage or electric car is not a change that solves the problem, not driver, or driving less is.

That's why I'm pessimistic this problem will ever get solved in time. Since in order to really solve it (compared to avoiding it for a few generations more) we collectively need to agree that we can't keep on living this way and with so many any longer. Which is just not in our (ironically) evolutionary biological nature as a competitive species.

<comment><USER27> Why assume they're using non-renewable energy? These resorts are in mountainous regions where hydro, wind etc are all very viable options.

<comment><USER28> Most of them dont care where the energy comes from. All they care is to keep the stream of tourists. I know, I live in a skiing country which is about to face the end of this era. Nobody from the tourism industry is willing to accept the facts, all they do is pretend it can be handled with artificial snow.

<comment><USER29> "Most of them", you've done a global survey then, have you? Ski resorts here in Colorado very much care and advertise about their renewable energy usage.

<comment><USER30> Colorado is bottom 10 when it comes to renewable energy production though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> In Austria, where skiing is a big thing for certain areas regarding tourism income, we already compensate with artificial snow since many years. I personally find this extremely crazy. Producing aritificla snow is extensive and likely quite bad for the environment. But since tourism is the holy cow, these projects even get funded with public money. I oppose this, but nobody asks mtheindividual if this way of spending public money is wanted. All that seems relevant is to preserve the flow of tourists during winter time. Frankly, this is nuts. If there is not enough snow for skiing, well, then there isn't...

</comment><comment><USER31> Looking at the charts in: VAL D'ISÈRE SNOW HISTORY [1]

I don't get the impression of reduction in snowfall nor snow depth.

2010 and 2011 look bad comparatively.. but recent years look variable-yet- stable.

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>====

[https://www.onthesnow.co.uk/northern-alps/val- disere/histori...](https://www.onthesnow.co.uk/northern-alps/val- disere/historical-snowfall.html?y=0)

</comment><comment><USER32> And to address climate change, Germany is retiring all nuclear power plant and replacing them with CO2 emitting natural gas plants.

<comment><USER23> fake news:

Germany is switching off the coal plants and replacing them with natural gas which releases only 50% CO2 than coal.

The nuclear plants will be switched off without replacement at all. The over all energy budget will be reduced due to better energy efficiency.

See also the thread from today:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22062968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22062968)

Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable (afp.com)

<comment><USER33> How is that fake news? You literally just confirmed what he said: Germany is shutting off nuclear plants and replacing them with natural gas.

<comment><USER23> No I didnt. That is so tricky about fake news. Giving it another spin by leaving out parts.

<comment><USER30> His post didn't even mention coal. I'm confused.

<comment><USER33> Coal will be shut off "later", the nuclear plants are shut down now, and the idea to reduce the overall energy budget to make up the shortfall hasn't happened either.

So, yah, basically Germany shut down nuclear plants and replaced them with natural gas.

Good job Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> GuB-42 It makes me remember, I went skiing in the French Alps last winter, and the snow conditions should have been terrible (sunny, warm, no snowfall for more than a month), but weren't.

Using snow cannons and by moving snow around, they managed to keep most of the resort open. Obviously, it wasn't perfect, and off-piste was out of the question, but it was good enough to be enjoyable.

So while climate change will certainly affect alpine skiing negatively, but resorts made a lot of progress dealing with less than ideal conditions.

<comment><USER34> Here on the US East coast, we already have several marginal resorts that almost always use snow machines. However, the air temp still needs to be cold enough to support it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I never thought I would see it, but that's what has also happened here in Michigan. The smaller ski areas closed down a few years ago and now even some of the larger resorts, that cater to the more affluent, are struggling to stay open. The winter's here now seem so strange and disquieting from what I experienced as a child.

<comment><USER13> It isn't just climate change. Skiing has become less popular. Places are closing down because of a demographic change. New ski areas not being built, existing ones closing down. Mostly, anyways. There's a bit of an exception to that in B.C.

Cheap flights also mean that people don't bother with their local ski areas in the midwest -- they fly west for luxury vacations instead.

It does seem though that skiing might be having a fairly recent resurgence.

<comment><USER36> No, it's climate change.

If it's anything to do with popularity, it's skiing becoming less popular due to worse conditions.

Japan used to be beautiful fluffy powder snow for 4 months straight.

Now it's icy moguls with the occasional powder day and a sad 1.5 meter base in January.

No one can believe it but climate change is destroying snow country.

<comment><USER35> Agreed. My stepfather used to work at one of these ski areas and the sporadic opening and closures, before the snow just disappeared altogether, drove away business.

<comment><USER36> This is why people are travelling more to ski (ironically, making the snow worse). It's insurance for your holiday. Now people aren't looking for just nice snow, we're hunting higher elevations as we know it's colder.

I actually probably wouldn't bother with a < 1400m Ski resort anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere this year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Now it's getting serious!

Where will financeers spend their winter breaks?

<comment><USER38> More yachting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This seems a little like saying a disastrous hurricane spoiled your golf outing.

<comment><USER40> Whatever moves the needle. Some are moved by the science, some by the inconvenience, and some by catastrophe.

Though, if or when golf starts getting hit by climate change, that will _really_ move the needle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Living next to a low elevation resort this makes me quite sad.

Climate Change will also impact other snow sports:

The future of backcountry skiing (at least in the alps) will be to drive up a mountain pass, get on a E-Mountainbike, drive up ~300m of elevation and then begin skinning.

Nordic skiing (where you need road access and a lot of flat-ish surface) will only be possible in a few quite elevated valleys without much sun.

</comment><comment><USER42> So they'll just convert the lower altitude resorts to more "summer" activities like hiking and mountain biking.

<comment><USER43> Of course people will adapt, but there is also a cultural loss here.

<comment><USER44> There is also an arrogance that the past 120 years represents how geological earth should have remained forever.

<comment><USER45> Forever? Nah, but I'd prefer if things changed at the usual pace - slow enough for species to adapt and evolve without catastrophic extinctions.

<comment><USER44> I don't think having to find a new ski resort is catastrophic. People have only been going to ski resorts for 100 years

<comment><USER46> > _I don 't think having to find a new ski resort is catastrophic._

As if the worst thing is the loss of ski resorts?

How about going finding a new place to live, cultivate, and the huge casualties in human life, animals, etc?

<comment><USER44> Ironically skiresorts aren't a haven of biodiversity

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Good thing I got into downhill longboarding. I think it might well be better for the environment too, I can get my adrenaline fix by taking a bus to the hills outside the city rather than having to fly to the alps.

For those who want to snowboard when there is no snow, a "freeboard" is probably the closest emulation on tarmac.

<comment><USER48> I agree that there are non-snow replacements. For me, they are Esk8, EUC & Onewheel, as I wrote in another comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Arrived in the Sierra Nevada right this moment - to ski.... to find a single patch off fake snow amidst green pastures

<comment><USER50> Guess you'll have to head over to Vegas now instead ;(

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Off-topic but Bloomberg.com related...

How is the video element on this page so persistent?

Using the latest Firefox, I have uBlock origin on with Javascript, pop-ups, and large media elements all disabled for this site.

And yet, the small video player starts and follows me as I scroll the page and when I scroll back to the top, the large video player restarts.

</comment><comment><USER52> But it will only happen at the end of the century. Which, according to even conservative projections, will be way too late.

I am taking the POV that we need to pray for the appearance of immediate, severe-yet-not-deadly impacts on our day-to-day lives.

Things like an acute year-round coffee shortage, or no bananas. Or beef price rockets to 100$/kg, frequent grid downtimes like we had when we grew up.

Let's face it, our morning coffee will motivate us to action better than some civil war in Syria or dying Koalas.

<comment><USER53> The largest fires Australia's ever seen are close.

Put those fires in the US and the national conversation will certainly shift...

<comment><USER54> Weren't those fires the result of arson?

<comment><USER55> The majority were either natural starts (lightning) or accidental (unsupervised campfires and I think one was due to a tossed lit cigarette) however after the fires had been burning for a while there were a few cases of arson because some people just like to see the world burn.

Regardless of which fires were started by what cause however, the fires burn extremely hot and spread fast as a result of conditions caused by climate change. This turns something as simple as a tossed cigarette into a meaningful fire hazard and turns a normal fire into one that spreads aggressively enough to render it nearly impossible to stop with a large amount of manpower. That makes them actually impossible when they are burning all over the country and the mostly unpaid volunteer fire fighting force is spread thin dealing with them.

That's the thing I've taken away from all of this, climate change doesn't necessarily increase the number of incidents to unreasonable levels (the rate goes up but not to apocalyptic levels), instead it takes otherwise minor or normal incidents and sets the conditions to allow them to escalate in increasing severity.

<comment><USER54> How do we know we can attribute the fires to climate change?

It seems like every natural disaster gets attributed to climate change, since 'climate change is happening', and, in turn, all these natural disasters are given as evidence that 'climate change is happening'.

Seems very circular logic.

<comment><USER56> Hotter weather dries out vegetation making fires worse. That overall hotter weather is the result of climate change. It's not circular, nor is it that hard to understand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> This: [https://www.skidxb.com/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=organic&ut...](https://www.skidxb.com/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gmb)

Note that I'm not taking a stance either way - I'm just saying one day we'll find a man-made ski "slope" (that takes an enormous amount of energy to maintain) in a place where there used to be actual snow. One has to see the humour in it. God I miss Douglas Adams.

</comment><comment><USER58> I usualy go to the swiss alps in the summer, and even then you notice each year there is less and less ice on the glaciers.

</comment><comment><USER59> Japan is suffering too. Except for Hokkaido and very high altitude ski areas, we don't have much snow.

</comment><comment><USER60> (Disclaimer: Didn't read the article because of the paywall)

In the New England, (Northeastern states in the US,) climate change hit the ski slopes years ago. Those that invested in snowmaking stayed open and continue to do great business, those that waited for natural snow went out of business rather quickly.

Lesson: If you run a ski slope, once you have 2-3 years of bad snow, it's too late. Invest in snow making early.

<comment><USER61> I don't disagree but it also seems as if there's also been an ongoing shift over the past decades away from local hills with minimal facilities/snowmaking/rope tows towards big mountains with high speed chairs/gondolas/lots of snowmaking.

Some of that may be that the local hills have gotten incrementally worse because of reduced snow (or at least more bad snow years). But it also feels as if downhill skiing has become more of a destination activity. (And many of the big areas have also invested heavily in real estate.)

<comment><USER60> At least where I've lived, it doesn't make sense to go to a local hill when a real mountain is just a few minutes extra.

The local hills were cheap for the sake of being cheap, and probably don't make as much sense in today's world where insurance is a huge unrecognized cost of skiing.

<comment><USER61> It does depend where you live and what constitutes a real mountain. In eastern Massachusetts for example, the sizable northern New England peaks are all 3+ hours away. The areas that range from a smaller mountain like Wachusett to big hills like Nashoba Valley are much closer for most. That said, there aren't many of the even smaller areas left and as far as I know, the rope tow on what's something of a stretch to even call a hill places are pretty much gone entirely.

<comment><USER60> Wachusett: Real mountain skiing, minutes away!

If you've been to Tahoe, a lot of the places there aren't much bigger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Climate change may reduce alpine skiing 'supply', but I also think that 'demand' may also be shrinking.

 _My_ main reason for not caring about alpine skiing, anymore, is the advent of Personal Electric Vehicles (PEVs). An electric unicycle (EUC) can feel a lot like skiing, especially on a mild, grassy hill. An electric skateboard (Esk8) and a Onewheel both, to a reasonable degree, simulate riding a snowboard. I don't have to travel for these thrills. I don't need a lift ticket. I don't need to freeze my feet in hard plastic boots. These devices are not cheap, but neither is skiing.

I expect that there are others that feel similarly -- that the fun of electric rideables have adequately replaced the thrill of alpine snow sports.

</comment><comment><USER62> The slopes I skied on in the 1970s and 1980s were copiously covered in grass during the summer.

</comment><comment><USER46> Alpine Skiing? Of all the things Climate Change will affect, that's the last thing we'll miss.

I mean, we're talking of millions (billions potentially in the future) people out of their homes, horrible droughts, famines, fires, weather phenomena, animals extinct, etc, so skiing is the last thing to concern with...

<comment><USER63> Don't be flippant. As someone growing up in the mountains, the ski resort is the one thing keeping the wheels turning. Loosing it will actually quite literally mean forcing us out of our homes.

<comment><USER46> > _As someone growing up in the mountains, the ski resort is the one thing > keeping the wheels turning. Loosing it will actually quite literally mean > forcing us out of our homes._

Of course there would be negative consequences for mountain villages and such. But ski tourist industry decline is not the biggest tragedy. These people are indeed forced to leave their Alps village but they can still go get some job in the city in a first world country. That's versus millions of third world immigrants or dying kids in Africa/Asia due to droughts/climate change developments for example...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Go with the flow, planet has been warming and deicing for a very long time, such is a cycle.

Plant some trees, develop CO2 capture, etc.

</comment><comment><USER65> Oh, jeez. No it's not. Skiing is doing just fine.

</comment><comment><USER66> Id say the $125+ for a day pass at most resorts is killing it as well. Maybe donate some of those profits

</comment><comment><USER67> Ironically climate change might help improve the Alpine environment in some ways. Skiing has a massive negative impact - whole slopes stripped of vegetation for example, with all the problems that brings.

</comment><comment><USER68> Boy, you live long enough and you hear it all. Talk about the least scientific evidence and undermining true climate change discourse. Look, the last year I lived in metro-NY (2017-2018), it started snowing around Thanksgiving and the storms just kept rolling in until late-March. Snow was piled almost a high as I am tall on either side of the driveway. Is that kind of weather getting rare? Maybe in some regions, but I'm not seeing it.

Last year, the Rockies had the best snow year in 25 years. Some mountain resorts had skiing into late-May, early June. So far this year, it has been a very snowy early season.

I have no doubt the oceans are warming and temps are rising, but using the 'remember-when' gauge of scientific deduction is no way to judge our climate. As a very smart man once said: "...remember when is the lowest form of conversation."</comment>


Unsafe Working Conditions at Tesla's Factory - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/tesla-fremont-factory-injuries <comment><USER2> If Tesla wanted to treat its staff like dirt, they should have moved their manufacturing to the Southeast, where there are weaker union provisions, and cheaper labor.

<comment><USER3> Yet the factories it's operating have significantly higher rates of injury than even those workplaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Want to read the article but ... buzzfeed...

<comment><USER3> They expanded into reporting a while ago now. Do you refuse to read reports from CBS because they also broadcast Big Bang Theory?

<comment><USER5> They built their business on the lowest form of tabloid clickbait that could possibly be imagined. You can't go from a position of 0 integrity, and then say "Hey, we're expanding into an integrity market. You're simply ignorant if you don't read our content".

<comment><USER3> Well, why not? The reporting is adhering to the normal standards of the profession and seems basically firewalled from the meme listicles. Even mainstream news organizations are borrowing a lot of those techniques for engagement anyway. And to return to the CBS example, they existed purely as entertainment for nearly a decade before introducing a regular news broadcast. They don't deserve complete, unquestioning trust, but what news source does?

<comment><USER5> CBS didn't have integrity issues as a broadcaster before expanding into news. Buzzfeed's entire business model has been based on no-integrity clickbait garbage, that's what their brand represents. It doesn't matter if they decide to hire a few "real journalists", or at least what they think "real journalists" are, they have no credibility at all.

<comment><USER3> Fortunately, they've documented where their claims come from, so you don't need to just trust them in this case. And I think your image of the edifying nature of early radio may be unfounded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey, that's a joke: BuzzFeed made it.

<comment><USER3> Who cares if it was published in Tiger Beat? It offers substantial documentation for its claims. It seems like a lot of folks want to attack Buzzfeed because they don't like what the article has to say but don't have any substantive rebuttal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Every week there is a hit-piece on SpaceX, or Tesla, or Musk. Very rarely is the article grounded in reality. It is usually easy to prove the article false within 5 minutes.

I'm not even going to bother to read anything from Buzzfeed. There is almost no chance that any real reporting was done for this article.

<comment><USER8> They were nominated for a Pulitzer not long ago, so maybe check your ego.

<comment> King-Aaron I do see where the sentiment against BuzzFeed comes from... As said by another commenter, it's difficult to go from no integrity to having integrity. I would be interested though to know which piece they were nominated for, as I don't follow that side of things very often. I wasn't aware that they did anything differently to their original formula, so I can understand why others aren't either.

<comment><USER3> It's been the better part of a decade since they began this shift, but I think it was really during the election that they became prominent because they broke a handful of big stories.

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

> Originally known for online quizzes, "listicles", and pop culture articles, > the company has grown into a global media and technology company providing > coverage on a variety of topics including politics, DIY, animals and > business.[7][8] In late 2011, Ben Smith of Politico was hired as editor-in- > chief to expand the site into serious journalism, long-form journalism, and > reportage.

[...]

> BuzzFeed News received a 2016 National Magazine Award in the category of > Public Interest.[35] Other awards won by BuzzFeed journalists include a 2014 > National Press Foundation award,[78] 2015 Sidney Award,[79] and 2017 British > Journalism Award.[80] In 2017, BuzzFeed also won Webby Awards for Best News > App and Best Interview/Talk Show (for Another Round),[81] president Greg > Coleman was named Publishing Executive of the Year by Digiday,[82] and > journalist Chris Hamby was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in > International Reporting.[83] BuzzFeed is a member of the White House press > corps.[84]

At a certain point you're just sticking your head in the sand.

<comment> King-Aaron Cheers for that!

> At a certain point you're just sticking your head in the sand.

To be honest, I don't think this is the case. Personally, I'm not actively going out of my way to avoid Buzzfeed articles - I genuinely just haven't looked at any in about that period of time. There possibly are other people like that.

As an aside, I don't personally have anything against the organization, it's just that their content hasn't really appealed to me in the past (especially so since I'm not in the US), so I haven't consumed it.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, don't get me wrong. It's not like I check BuzzFeed every day or anything. I am just a little annoyed that someone posted this article, which is interesting and involved some real shoe leather, and almost every single comment is just "lol BuzzFeed."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Seamlessly integrate Windows into Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/feature/124908 <comment><USER2> you could also run vnc server on that windows inside the vmware server or on another physical machine.</comment>


Sam Altman on Twitter: It's gross seeing so many root against Tesla - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sama/status/1130913917864034304 <comment><USER2> Criticism against Tesla is not rooting against Tesla. Playing options as a result of a CEO shooting his mouth off doesn't make you against the environment or against green technology. In this case, it just makes you a realist.

I'm an avid environmentalist. Elon Musk has lied so many times that I'm not rooting against him, I'm just afraid that his house of cards is going to come tumbling down and he will be another Solyndra where a good concept is ruined by a conman who has said that within a year you can make $30k/yr letting your tesla be a robotaxi and that in a year and three months there will be a million robotaxis on the road[0].

When criticism is valid, it's okay. We've seen Elon Musk lie about production time and time again. It's okay to distrust him. That's not "rooting against the environment."

[0] [https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/04/23/elon-musk- say...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/04/23/elon-musk-says-tesla- owners-could-make-30-000-robotaxi-network/3549652002/)

<comment><USER3> The tweet was refering to people who make it their life's mission to try and make Tesla fail like shabooshka, the guy literailly lived at the factory taking photos. Not people being critical or disagreeing with what they do.

<comment><AUTHOR> skabooshka observes the factory to document actual Tesla production numbers and prevent it from lying to the public. He may have also thrown a monkey wrench in some kind of "full self driving" fake demo by taking photos of the pilot car they were filming before their investor autonomy day.

If Tesla wasn't lying about its numbers or engaging in some kind of shenanigans at the factory, then how could skabooshka taking pictures make it fail? Let's set aside Tesla's claims that he tries to hurt their employees since the Fremont police report already showed their account on that incident was very deceptive.

<comment><USER3> You can't with any sincerity believe that.

A troll hanging day and night outside a factory parking lot posting absolute crap on twitter is not in any way useful to anyone.

The guy was a nut case with some Moby dick like obsession. I can't find a single time where he was even remotely objective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm seeing a trend that opinions must now involve name-calling, picking sides, and attacks on the reader's self-identity.

Altman doesn't just share an opinion here, he calls those who disagree with him "gross" and suggest that there are only two types of people ("be the person... not the person...")

I wish we lived in the kind of world where the Tweet said this:

"I'm disappointed that so many root against Tesla. I support them because it's good for the climate and I believe in innovation. That's more important than making money on puts."

Is it necessary to call people gross? Just read the other comments in this thread, there are plenty of rational reasons to short TSLA which don't make people gross.

</comment><comment><USER5> Be the person on the side of the law and on the side of safety.

Not the person hoping to make money from dishonest marketing and publicity stunts.

Tesla has achieved way more than I would have expected, had someone told me about it beforehand. But it doesn't magically absolve them, just because the tech is cool.

<comment><USER6> I guess from Elon's POV, safety is sort of relative.

Their numbers[1] show autopilot as safer than human drivers, even though they don't have full autonomy yet. A lot of people consider 1 human death from a computer driving as unacceptable, but hundreds of thousands from human drivers as totally fine.

[1] [https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport](https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport)

<comment><USER7> Let's be clear: Their numbers are bollocks, and a serious reason why not only should we worry about their cars killing people, we should be worried about their callous indifference to lying about it.

>In the 1st quarter, we registered one accident for every 2.87 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot, we registered one accident for every 1.76 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA's most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 436,000 miles.

Take from this 2 things:

1\. Either Tesla drivers are 4x safer than the average driver or their stats aren't comparable with the industry standard measures (1.76m vs 0.43m) and they have no problem with misleadingly comparing the two.

2\. Tesla is not interested in supplying a real metric for how likely you are to crash in a Tesla, but instead provide PR numbers (accident per million miles when Autopilot is overwhelmingly used only on the safest roads?)

<comment><USER6> I said "From Elon's POV", not "From my POV". Don't shoot the messenger :)

I'm trying to explain what he thinks is reality, even if it is detached from what most of the rest of us think as reality. SpaceX's real goal is to send Elon back to mars to be with his real family.

<comment><USER8> > I said "From Elon's POV", not "From my POV"

Elon's POV has access to a lot more data than we do.

He could give more fine grained details about safety. He actively chooses not to:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqvatzjHGyk&t=47m17s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqvatzjHGyk&t=47m17s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Be the person on the side of the climate

Elon Musk is not on the side of the climate, he's on the side of Elon Musk. His forays into tunneling put the lie to his pro-climate claims awhile ago. He has a bizarre hatred for public transport, which is the real solution to reducing transportation emissions in cities. He would rather everyone take a tunnel (in their Tesla, of course) than countenance the possibility real, effective public transport, and he's actively seeked to divert public funding away from public transport to his privately-owned Boring Co. Meanwhile, moving an entire car around for each person is absurdly inefficient, even if it's electric. It still has to be charged up, and that electricity is not certain to be renewable. In fact, in the US, your electric car is not likely to be significantly more green than a very efficient gasoline vehicle:

[http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/02/Sh...](http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/02/Shades-of-Green-Full-Report.pdf)

Of course, that's what the SolarCity acquisition is about, right? Except there is still no solar roof, and Gigafactory 2 is turning into a major scandal - that whole acquisition seems now to been disastrously ill-advised in retrospect, and it's hard not to notice that it was hugely profitable for Musk.

I am on the side of climate. I do not think this requires mindlessly recapitalizing Elon Musk's ventures over and over. He's not the only one working on clean energy. Other people can carry the torch if his hubris and reckless behavior catch up to him and he goes bankrupt.

</comment><comment><USER10> There are only two options here— either you can root against Tesla, or you can be indifferent to the death of Walter Huang. Tesla has been irresponsible with their rollout of self-driving technology, and someone has died as a result.

There's nothing wrong with rooting for other entrants in the self-driving technology space, like Waymo, which aren't willing to grease their path to market dominance with the blood of innocents.

<comment><USER11> Not to be indifferent to Huang's death, but people die in cars all the time. I'm more interested in whether or not Tesla's autopilot is better on total deaths per X miles than human drivers.

I guess this is one of those derail the train or kill the man questions, is society willing to kill a man to save thousands of lives in the future?

Of course it's not quite as clearcut since we're not certain self driving cars will ever be safer than human drivers (although my intuition is that they will be since they won't get drunk, fall asleep, or text at the wheel).

And of course comparisons are a bit difficult since humans are of course at level 5 autonomy and statistics are generated from those conditions, and of course Tesla is not and stats won't be.

Interesting stuff.

<comment><USER12> People die all the time, but when they get in the car, they generally do not agree to be beta testers for an FSD system that one day might be as safe as human driver. Or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not "against" Tesla, but they basically epitomize the advent and promotion of "wealth virtue," where rich people buy a product or lifestyle that the vast majority could never afford and then act like poor people are ethically inferior accordingly.

<comment><USER14> Umm what. I own a Tesla and am middle classed and don't think people poorer than me are ethically inferior. This is a huge stretch.

<comment><USER13> Most of the Tesla owners I've met fall into one of two categories:

a) (this the majority) wealthy virtue signalers

b) (this is the minority) upper-middle class/moderately wealthy tech/gadget lovers

Buying a luxury car isn't a middle class purchase. Maybe you're some sort of angelic exception, I don't know.

<comment><USER15> According to the Pew Research Center the household income of the middle class ranges between roughly $45K-$135K. If you're middle class and buying a Tesla then you're definitely on the upper end of that range. The overwhelming majority of the middle class _cannot_ afford a Tesla.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I find it interesting how every Tesla car autopilot crash is widely reported yet all other car manufacturers' self-driving propositions are not better[0] compared to Tesla's and almost nobody is talking about that -- at least not in the news outlets I've been following.

Media seems to really want to see Musk fail. That doesn't look like objective journalism to me.

(Additionally, did somebody _actually_ investigate Waymo's and Uber's self- driving car departments inner workings and if they report the accident counts truthfully?)

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- driving_car#Incidents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- driving_car#Incidents)

<comment><USER17> From the same article:

Uber's system killed a person. They received a huge backlash and their permission to test self-driving cars have been revoked in the state of Arizona. They also pulled out from testing California as well.

Waymo had 13 non fatal crashes, of which, 12 of them were other drivers' fault. One was caused by the software where the car wanted to maneuver around some sand bags on the road and side swiped a bus. No injuries. Google took the blame and said it's a learning experience. AFAIK, Waymo cars are not available to public by default.

Tesla had multiple fatal accidents as a result of "Auto Pilot" which is just a bunch of driver assistance systems taped together and marketed as a complete self-driving system. At every single accident, Tesla never admitted the blame, and just reiterated it's statistically safer to drive with AutoPilot than without.

Obviously, this pisses people off. The never-take-the-blame attitude gets old and annoying. It's like a colleague who would throw everyone under the bus to avoid taking the blame.

Secondly, I've seen the video of the accident with the Apple employee. It's clearly AP error and I don't care if it's _statistically safer_ to drive with AP, if a system causes and accident that I could have avoided easily, I don't trust that system.

<comment><USER16> I don't disagree. But in the end, looking at statistics, it's still safer to drive with AP indeed.

Self-driving cares are done for the first time (I mean, almost fully autonomous ones). Accidents will happen still. We are very far away from a good generic AI that can adapt to different tasks so it's gonna be a bumpy road, pun intended.

<comment><USER18> > But in the end, looking at statistics, it's still safer to drive with AP > indeed.

There's no publicly shared statistics that show that. You may have been confused by Tesla's PR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's pretty toxic to disingenuously suggest that anyone who has a problem with Tesla is just shorting the stock. It's like coming out and "It's gross seeing so many root against Uber" back when Uber was the subject of a new sexual harassment expose every other week. Sometimes companies with interesting tech behave unethically.

</comment><comment><USER18> I agree. It's also why I can't understand people who root against Theranos. I, for one, am on the side of health.

<comment><USER19> You have perfectly and beautiful illustrated why the linked tweet is nonsense.

That said, even as a Tesla skeptic, I don't think Tesla is a fraud on the level of Theranos. That won't hinder my up-voting!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The vast majority of people I see who are "rooting against Tesla" aren't against innovation, electric cars, or helping the planet. I feel like most people who are bullish on Tesla are really just bullish on Elon Musk.

I don't see many people claiming electric cars are stupid (anymore) or that Tesla's aren't good products. Most of the criticism is that Elon is reckless as a CEO and has over promised what he can deliver at an affordable price which has put Tesla in a tough place financially.

</comment><comment><USER21> I root for innovation, technology and electric vehicles.

But I find the CEO repulsive because he's narcissistic, dishonest and can be downright cruel to other people. This is not apparent, I came to this realization slowly, I initially felt mildly positive about him.

Also, I don't like the general cultishness and stupidity of some Tesla fans.

</comment><comment><USER22> Cool tech. Not so cool CEO.

</comment><comment><USER23> Being 'against' Tesla isn't being against the environment and innovation. The vector of personal transportation is pointed in the right direction here with or without Tesla. They have moved things forward, no doubt. But Tesla and these larger issues can and should be separated.

</comment><comment><USER24> Musk is a lot like Trump. Boisterous, tends to exaggerate, accidentally lies a lot. It's their manner. They don't focus on technical accuracy etc. They're focused on the feeling - the vision - the faith. That's what it takes to do the most difficult things. Realism tends to crush really difficult projects.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think more people are concerned with his poor performance (in several companies), and poor human relations than just with shorting the stock.

</comment><comment><USER26> Truth.

</comment><comment><USER27> It is little surprising Sam Altman say this. The whole notion of startups is that the entire world is rooting against you. The reason why Uber or Pinterest went to VCs and not the banks for loans is because Banks do not give loans to such risk businesses. That aversion to risk is essentially what makes startup success spectacular. It is not just Tesla that people are rooting against. People rooted against Ford Model 3, Google and Internet itself if you simply bother to look at news of those times. Paul Krugman, the patron saint of left liberals predicted that Internet would simply disappear.

Also what you say is irrelevant. What matters is your portfolio. Are you making money off Puts or Calls ?

<comment><USER28> TBF about the Paul and his prediction of the internet, there are some who would argue it hasn't actually produced or improved anything.

<comment><USER14> Hackernews never fails to blow me away.

I can't be the only one who thinks it is insane to say the Internet hasn't produced or improved anything.

<comment><USER29> Gross or net? Gross, huge upsides. Truly. Net? Not so clear. The socialised downsides now include hollowing out and killing mainstreet, the end of privacy, rampant porn and pornification of normal life, spam, and hacked elections.

<comment><USER27> BS !

<comment><USER29> Such compelling argument!

<comment><USER27> Actually calling out BS when it is BS is actually the best response. Honestly FU is a better response than a logical argument for thickos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I agree with Sam. It's just stupid that people are rooting for the failure of one of the most brilliant and ballsy entrepreneurs we've seen in many years.

Those rooting against him deserve to stay in the dark ages.

<comment><USER31> Stock valuation has nothing to do with whether you want a company to succeed or not.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Maybe a mod can explain why a direct link (with no attached commentary) to a Sam Altman twitter post about a prominent Silicon Valley company is flagged?

<comment><USER32> Because everyone here hates on Elon endlessly and hate anything supporting him

<comment><AUTHOR> The results for searches like "Tesla" and "Elon Musk" cast a lot of doubt on your claim. The top-ranked HN link for "Autopilot" is still the NHTSA study which purported to demonstrate a 40% reduction in driving incidents and has since been thoroughly debunked.</comment></comment></comment>


Today, I am announcing an announement - <AUTHOR> It is time for an end to the "I am writing to you today to announce...." or the "Today, I am announcing..." intro.  Please make your announcement, tell us how great it is and how our lives will be better now that your product/service/idea is out there.
With every company CEO, gov't official, and home-based scientist announcing something on a daily basis this starter has run its course.
Your announcement is (hopefully) important and worthwhile - don't hide behind a tired trope. <comment><USER2> Today I announce the end of typos in headlines</comment>


I'm Right - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@adamzerner/i-m-right-8664e19e0045

<comment><USER2> The socially acceptable way is to shout them down or downvote.</comment>


How we implemented Continuous Integration on Engine Yard Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://bigbangtechnology.com/post/how_we_implemented_continuous_integration_on_engine_yard_cloud

<comment><AUTHOR> Our engineer Adam Doeler set up CI Joe on an instance of Engine Yard App Cloud and we'd thought we'd share with you the steps. He ended up writing some custom chef recipes to make it easier for you to get this working on your own.</comment>


Chezmoi: manage your dotfiles securely across multiple machines - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/twpayne/chezmoi <comment><USER2> I am a (happy) user of homeshick ([https://github.com/andsens/homeshick](https://github.com/andsens/homeshick)), but this project really seems to top it by providing the only feature that I've missed until now:

\- use the same source file with different results for different machines (eg. .gitconfig for home and office machines)

\- option to store secrets in a credentials database and extract them from there (because you wouldn't want to store them in a git repo - even if it's a private one)

I'll definitively give it a try!

(EDIT: formatting)

<comment><USER3> Homeshick is indeed great, been using it for years. Every time I've compared it to other solutions, it always comes out on top feature-wise. The other solutions are always missing something, like tracking either files and/or entire directories. Tracking whole directories is very important for e.g. storing an entire ~/.emacs.d in git, and tracking individual files is nice so I can just `homeshick track main ~/.config/some-config-file` without tracking all of ~/.config.

> \- use the same source file with different results for different machines > (eg. .gitconfig for home and office machines)

I do that by storing each machine's copy with its hostname as a suffix and symlinking it into place on each machine. e.g. ~/.config/anacrontab.systemA gets symlinked to ~/.config/anacrontab on systemA, and the repo contains both ~/.config/anacrontab.systemA and ~/.config/anacrontab.systemB. I can even modify one machine's file from the other machine, and it will be updated on the next push/pull.

But having integrated support for this would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a neat git setup for managing dot files:

[https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2016/02/best-way-to- sto...](https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2016/02/best-way-to-store- dotfiles-git-bare-repo/)

<comment><USER5> a slightly bitrotted tool for this [https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh](https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a way to manage different "categories" of systems with chezmoi? For example, a "linux-server" category would contain an essential set of dotfiles, but not all the window manager related stuff from my linux laptop. Looking at the documentation, the only way to do this would be hostname-based templating, but that seems cumbersome as you would have to change every single template to add the new hostname to the section in question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you can define your own template variables in the config file, for example if you include:

      data:
        category: "linux-server"

in your .config/chezmoi/chezmoi.yaml file, you can then use it in your templates and a .chezmoiignore file (which is also treated as a template). A .chezmoiignore file could look like:

      {{ if eq .category "linux-server" -}}
      .windowmanager.conf
      {{ end -}}

I use this technique myself: [https://github.com/twpayne/dotfiles/blob/master/.chezmoiigno...](https://github.com/twpayne/dotfiles/blob/master/.chezmoiignore)

<comment><USER6> Thanks! Just defining it as a config variable is far too obvious in hindsight, I don't know why it didn't cross my mind.

I'll definitely try it out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm using Ansible for that. It has all the promoted features and more. It's made for that, as a configuration management system.

[https://github.com/elnappo/dotfiles](https://github.com/elnappo/dotfiles)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Feel free to ask any questions.

<comment><USER8> Congrats on the v1.0 release!

Êtes-vous Français?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this is pretty sweet, but if I were deciding between learning this and Ansible I would choose Ansible

<comment><USER10> I did this for a while, but then went with a git approach. The problem with dotfiles in Ansible is that you have to write different scripts for different OS', you have to keep testing them e.g. in case a package name has changed. And for me personally, mostly I'm bootstrapping a new version of an OS after a clean re-install, which again can be hard to test (macOS). So for me, Ansible was way too much hassle. YMMV

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Although I regularly work on a number of different Linux machines, I've never felt the need for something like this and I suspect mine is not the target use case. But clearly synchronizing dotfiles is a thing people want. So, why? Who is this for? What problem does it solve for you?

<comment><AUTHOR> For me, the key things are:

\- Security. You don't need to store any secrets in your dotfiles repo, and instead delegate secret storage to LastPass or Bitwarden or similar.

\- Fine-grained control of small differences across machines, accounts, and operating systems. For example, I want my ~/.zshrc to be roughly the same between my personal macOS laptop and my work Ubuntu server, but I need a few differences between them due to email address, paths to binaries, and OS- specific configuration.

<comment><USER11> So in this case, you have two machines, and you want each one to have a different configuration -- why not just have a different rc file on each machine and not bother syncing them. Is there a lot of custom dotfile config that you _do_ want to share between them?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have five machines (personal macOS laptop, work Ubuntu laptop, personal Debian server, work Ubuntu server, personal Raspberry Pi) and yes, there is a lot of custom config that I want to share between them, particularly my git, zsh, vim, and i3 configs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I looked into this and tried porting my dot files over because I was very interested in the templating feature. However, I don't think I'm going to continue because the experience of maintaining these dot files is substantially worse than my current solution. I would be interested in continuing if this feature existed:

I want a command that inspects every file and directory monitored by chezmoi in the target state and updates it in the source state. Specifically:

\- New files in tracked directories should be listed with the ability to import them individually (presently you can only do `chezmoi add -r` and deal with the consequences).

\- Adding files should respect the `chezmoiignore` file (I never want `chezmoi add -r ~/.config/fish` to import my `fish_history` file).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions, I'll implement them.

In the short term, to chose files individually you can do:

      find ~/.config -type f > file-list
      $EDITOR file-list # remove the ones you don't want imported
      xargs chezmoi add <file-list

EDIT: Issues created: [https://github.com/twpayne/chezmoi/issues/123](https://github.com/twpayne/chezmoi/issues/123) [https://github.com/twpayne/chezmoi/issues/124](https://github.com/twpayne/chezmoi/issues/124)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Chezmoi looks very cool. I'll definitely give it a try.

Like some of the other commenters here, I use git branches for different setups, though in practice there's only really the one.

I also wrote a shell script (Dotty) [1] to 'collect' and 'deploy' dotfiles mixed freely with shell commands. Mixing shell scripting in lets me do things like remove unwanted files from my .emacs.d/ after collection, preserving nested directory structures, or any other pre- or post-collect/deploy arbitrary actions.

[1] [https://github.com/joseph8th/dotfiles](https://github.com/joseph8th/dotfiles)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm just using a python script and a local copy of some mustache(?) template- library (even using a .tpml extension). Considering flexibility: I guess the configurability of this is offset by having to know Go to extend this (compared to whichever scripting language you are familiar with), Python/Perl probably are available everywhere as well (at least if you don't care for containers). Still it's nice to see some useful approach shown off, instead of all-the-same useless fuss about different branches (which is basically every blog post about dotfile management I found on Google).

</comment><comment><USER15> stow + git-crypt works well, also. I just added git-crypt two days ago for my very few encrypted dotfiles (cachix key, gist token, etc). Though I understand the desire for it, in reality I've never needed templating for dotfiles, there's always been some other indirection mechanism that was better suited anyway.

`git clone .`, `git-crypt unlock`, `stow --no-folding`, done.

</comment><comment><USER16> For those who prefer not to learn another configuration management system just for dotfiles but already know salt, here is a masterless salt template for dotfiles: [https://github.com/stiletto/salt-dotfiles- template](https://github.com/stiletto/salt-dotfiles-template)

</comment><comment><USER17> I feel so dumb, I just started coding a project to sync my configuration files across multiple machines. I even tried a quick "configuration synchronise" search on Github but came up with nothing. Oh well.

<comment><USER18> Meh, it's a good practice project even if you don't end up using it in the long run. I strongly recommend you follow through with it. Practical real- world problems, like dot-file management and syncing, can lead you to some fun solutions.

I ended up writing my own in Bash about 7 years ago as a way to bring my Bash skills up to snuff. Was well worth it, even if there are good solutions out there. Probably could use some shell hardening and other maintenance, but it works well enough for my use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I use `rcm` from thoughtbot: [https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm](https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm)

</comment><comment><USER20> These suggestions seem like a lot of work.

My home folder is a Git repo and it works great. No complicated setup. Easy to sync remotely and track changes.

<comment><USER21> I cam across this solution not very long ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070797).

The advantage to Chezmoi (or GNU Stow) is that it can handle things outside of your home directory too (if I understand correctly).</comment></comment>


What One Photo Tells Us About North Korea's Nuclear Program – 纽约时报 国际生活 - <AUTHOR> http://cn.nytstyle.com/international/20170227/north-korea-propaganda-photo/en-us/ <comment><USER2> You've got some crazy spacing issues going on there, with your 'apostrophe-S's

The funniest thing in any propaganda photos released by NK are all the toadies in the background, dutifully scribbling down every pearl of wisdom that falls from the Great Leader's mouth.

The country must be full of lovingly preserved notebooks, full of pronouncements like _" Oooh. It's a bit nippy out today, isn't it?"_ and _" Where's your canteen? I could murder a bacon buttie!"_

<comment><USER3> That kind of scribbling would get an apparatchik a seat on the next bus to Camp 14, if some rival or the Dear Leader himself caught sight of it.</comment></comment>


Get Rich Quick: Build The Best "Photoshop Web Edition(TM)" App -- Sell to Adobe, Google, or Microsoft. - <AUTHOR> http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6164827.html <comment><USER2> That seems like a good idea. But what I think is missing in Photoshop is image analysis features. These features will allow you to take image editing to an entirely different level. This is a self-promotion, of course – you can read about some of these features at Pixcavator.com. I have been working on a technology for computer vision/image mining/image search, but recently I realized that being able to analyze the image gives you totally new tools for image manipulation. If somebody is interested in pursuing this, write me a couple of lines.

</comment><comment><USER3> looks like between the three of them they've already got it under control :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure they do. One or all three of them will just buy a startup and rebrand its product.</comment></comment>