The Fall of Suburbia - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime

<comment><USER2> Suburbia these days draws a strong parallel to the NHL in the '90s. The major expansion binge which created hockey teams where they, to be frank, had _no business being_ , watered down the product by spreading talent thinly and damn near killed the sport in the US (it will probably never die in Canada no matter what happens).

In the same vein, most of the country never had a housing crunch like the Bay Area and metro Boston, but home building has been consistently outstripping the economy. Population grows at 0.9% annually, or about 2.7 million people per year; From 2000-2006, the net increase in housing units was 9.0% over the whole span, or 1.4% per year. In 2006 alone there were 1.8 million family units created, and over 2 million in 2005. With 2.3 or 2.4 people per household on average, there _should_ only be 1.2 million new homes per year.

Unless household size is rapidly shrinking, there just aren't enough families to fill the houses being produced.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article is a lot of wishful thinking on behalf of its author. The news of the death of the suburbs has been greatly exaggerated.

No doubt, basic bedroom communities with a lack of transportation options for commuting will suffer with increased energy costs. However, the suburbs that provide a balanced business, commercial, and housing ecosystem and have diverse transportation options to the main destinations outside will actually thrive and prosper.

The simple fact is that not everyone likes nor wants to live in more densely populated areas. Believe it or not, walkability can be nice, but not everyone cares about that.

Signed, A Happy Suburban Dweller

/ I actually do love visiting downtowns like Boston and San Fran and walking to places.

// Fortunately, my home suburb in the Twin Cities (Eden Prairie) has hundreds of miles of dedicated bike paths to get around...

// ...and my commute to work is within the suburb itself.

/// Economically, it would take a tremendous shock to get me to move away. Perhaps, I'm just lucky to live in the RIGHT suburb! ;-)

<comment><USER4> "However, the suburbs that provide a balanced business, commercial, and housing ecosystem and have diverse transportation options to the main destinations outside will actually thrive and prosper."

Technically, then, it's not a suburb. Depending on population, it's closer to an edge city. The fact is that suburban sprawl like one of the examples specifically decried in the article (Windy Ridge is less that 45 minutes from where I live) consists of acre upon acre of packed chipboard-and-vinyl houses that aren't designed to last without extraordinary upkeep. It's predicated upon the notion of cheap, readily available energy, never-ending road construction, and a continual stream of both upwardly-mobile homebuyers looking to move up to something nicer, and first-time homebuyers looking for something cheap they can sell at a profit in a few years.

It's simply not a sustainable model. Sooner or later the market will bust, and in the interim, there's a good chances these cheap-and-cheery neighborhoods will come apart at the seams. They aren't built worth a damn, and they're miles from critical services and commerce. It's already starting to happen here. I hate to think what'll happen if gas spikes and sticks.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I skipped right over "suburban" to "exurban" living. I have over an acre on the outskirts of a small town about 25 miles from the nearest big city. So I'm happy out here, too. But gas bills are already putting a crimp in my lifestyle, so that might well change.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Many of the inner-city neighborhoods that began their decline in the 1960s consisted of sturdily built, turn-of-the-century row houses, tough enough to withstand being broken up into apartments, and requiring relatively little upkeep. By comparison, modern suburban houses, even high-end McMansions, are cheaply built. Hollow doors and wallboard are less durable than solid-oak doors and lath-and-plaster walls. The plywood floors that lurk under wood veneers or carpeting tend to break up and warp as the glue that holds the wood together dries out; asphalt-shingle roofs typically need replacing after 10 years. Many recently built houses take what structural integrity they have from drywall—their thin wooden frames are too flimsy to hold the houses up."

That's progress for you.

<comment><USER2> Thank you parent poster. This was the other part I wanted to cover in my post above but didn't think I could find hard data for. It seems like the contracting business has attracted large amounts of ethically-challenged scum, who are building houses that aren't likely to last as long as the mortgages paying for them. It kind of explains why new-home starts have seemed to be recession-proof in the last decade -- Say's Law lives in a very real sense here -- but at the same time it's hard to build stable neighborhoods around disposable homes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reasonably astute summary of the situation. This is the gospel Jim Kunstler and others have been preaching for years now (<http://www.kunstler.com/>). If you accept the idea of peak oil, you can readily see where the intersection of PO and the re-urbanization trend will spell disaster for the suburbs.

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill There is a lot of wishful thinking and very little fact in this article.

For one, only now, after some 2 years of $3 a gallon gas, has fuel economy begun to make itself felt in new car purchasers' decisions; where it is now in _third_ place. It would take a lot more pain at the pump to get people to give up their quarter acre.

<comment><USER6> I think the whole sticker-shock issue with the price of gas is a chimera. Everyone I know has complained about the price of gas since it passed $1 for the last time in 1999. The price could be 60 cents a gallon and people would complain if they could remember a time when it was only 50 cents. The reason people complain about $3 gas is not because they can't afford it or are unwilling to afford it, it's because they remember paying 79 cents a gallon only 10 years ago. (Like I did with my first car!)

Our current lifestyle means 90% of the gas we buy is an unavoidable cost. If I (living in Lawrence, KS) decided to stop buying gas, or for some financial reason needed to buy less of it, I couldn't get to work, which would definitely make things worse. I also couldn't go buy food, or do much of anything else. People in Manhattan or any European city could probably cut back by using public transport, but that isn't a (realistic) option for me, and I suspect the vast majority of Americans are in a similar situation (if we are anything in Kansas, we are average). I'd be more likely to cut back on food and drop my cell phone than cut back on gas.

The only way to cut gas consumption is a more efficient car... or carpooling. Both are pretty drastic for the average person. Spending $30k to save on gas only makes sense sometimes, and setting up realistic carpooling is harder than paying $3/gallon.

So I bet gas could be $8 a gallon and you wouldn't see (significantly) lower consumption. Like you said, to think people will actually _move_ just to save on gas is far fetched.

I'd move to an urban center just because I like being able to walk/ride everywhere (after living in Madrid)... not because gas is too expensive.

<comment><USER7> This concept is called "elasticity of demand":

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The last bout of irrational exuberance gave us a lot of dark fiber and that obviously had positive effects. However, unsavory elements (porn) and respectable ones (news.yc ? :)) can coexist in peace because of the impermeable barriers of bit packets. Social dynamics are osmotic and will lead to re-invention of the new and newly cheap neighborhoods. But will these reinvented neighborhoods be slums? Changes (the more disturbing ones) observed in the article might be temporary aberration, for slums seem to need a combination of cheap housing and proximity to unskilled jobs that pay by the hour; the daily opportunity cost of the commute is quite literal.

<comment><USER4> "slums seem to need a combination of cheap housing and proximity to unskilled jobs that pay by the hour"

Actually, they need cheap, undesirable housing, and not much else. Slum neighborhoods are more often characterized by their _lack_ of job opportunities, pay-by-the-hour or otherwise. This is one of the things that makes escaping a slum so difficult -- the need to pay to get to any kind of work that enables you to live.

<comment><USER9> broken windows. Thats all they need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Imagine when gas hits $5/gallon.

</comment><comment><USER11> ObHacker: Densely populated neighborhoods can be more cheaply wired for broadband.

</comment><comment><USER12> Book recommendation: Sprawl: A Compact History

Read it for a book club a long time ago. Need to find it again.

</comment><comment><USER13> good post. As a hacker, i just hate the american suburbia. Boring, non- inspiring, and soul drenching.

<comment><USER14> soul drenching?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.google.com/search?q=soul+drenching>

<comment><USER15> #1 result is the parent comment.

Phrase may be a little obscure.

<comment><AUTHOR> that was my joke

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> sell sell sell!</comment>


Samsung admits to posting fake user reviews on the web - alok-g http://www.techspot.com/news/52274-samsung-admits-to-posting-fake-user-reviews-on-the-web.html <comment><USER2> >perhaps the bigger issue here is this: if Samsung has been using these tactics against HTC, are they also engaged in similar marketing techniques with other rivals?

The even bigger issue is, who else is doing this more intelligently than Samsung?

<comment><USER3> This. I love Samsung hardware, but the company seems critically unable to think big. They have no apparent direction or higher thinking, they just make solidly good devices and throw gobs of money at marketing. It's bizarre - <AUTHOR> spite of their devices and a reputation for quality gear, they still _act_ like a cheap Korean knock-off company instead of a market leader.

It's no surprise that when they try to do evil, they do it in a clumsy and public manner.

<comment><USER4> Samsung are one of the biggest and most diversified companies in the world (did you know they are the world's biggest ship builder? Or that they offer life insurance?). I don't have difficulty imagining a lack of organisation and direction in management when they have so many arms doing so many different things.

<comment><USER5> >did you know they are the world's biggest ship builder?

Nope... they are not. That would be Hyundai, and the second largest is probably Daewoo. Samsung could be third. (I worked at Daewoo and Samsung shipyards).

Tangential funny: the shipbuilding division is called "Samsung Heavy Industries", usually abbreviated to SHI. Samsung means "Three Stars" in korean. The shipyard tug was called the "Tristar". Due to unfortunate typography, the name on the ship was "SHIT ristar". True story, I have photos.

<comment><USER4> Haha fair call. I actually misread and it's listed as the 2nd biggest shipbuilder. Still, people tend to be surprised as typically when I think 'Samsung', I imagine TVs, phones and laptops.

<comment><USER6> Samsung are also involved in building processing, rail and port infrastructure for Australia's Iron Ore region.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-28/samsung-c-t- wins-a-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-28/samsung-c-t- wins-a-5-9-billion-order-for-roy-hill-ore-project.html)

<comment><USER7> Not to forget Samsung Artillery.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K9_Thunder>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The title is a bit misleading -- the story is not that Samsung used devious marketing methods, the story is that they were caught. Any number of companies hire shills to post phony endorsements, the trick is not to get caught.

In fairness to companies like Samsung, if everyone is doing it, to stand on principle is to risk being trounced by those who don't.

<comment><USER9> We are talking about Samsung here, this is the company that has pretty much ripped off every successful design in its history. I'm fairly certain they've never stood on principle for anything but a hearty office chuckle.

<comment><USER10> This is just xenophobia, unsubstantiated, and unfair to all the hard working employees.

<comment><USER11> What does xenophobia have to do with it? We don't know where homosaur is from. Even in the US, there are many beloved foreign corporations, such as Nintendo. I don't think anybody discounts Samsung for being Korean, or even cares. Likewise, I doubt many people support Apple just because its American.

Regarding unsubstantiated, they have been openly accused and even found guilty in multiple courts across different countries. It's an ongoing case and you may disagree with the rulings, in which case "unsubstantiated" is not the word you're looking for.

As for being unfair to hard working employees, that is definitely true. Unfortunately for those employees, their executives' actions have brought their hard work into question. Any comments regarding a company are generally a reflection on the company's leadership, not any individual employee.

<comment><USER9> I'm from Murica, and yeah, I do not care about it being Korean and I don't particularly have positive feelings for Apple. I would assume in general Americans have a neutral to positive view of Korea in general so I don't know why that would matter. I do use Mac computers and have been forced by my employer to use their crap phones but I have no great affinity for them or their company.

But yeah, Samsung ripped them off hard. It really isn't even about Apple. Sure the hipsters got upset when someone had a phone that looked like their iPhones but Samsung as a company has a long history of completely ripping off all their designs. Apple was just the hottest at the time so they are who got copied.

I can come up with dozens upon dozens more examples throughout history of Samsung blatantly copying designs but I won't because who cares? Do a search of "samsung copies x" and you will find thousands of pages showing examples.

The only time Samsung doesn't copy well is when they're implementing the "and paste" variety on their phones. As a consumer I don't care but as a designer I do vaguely resent their lack of design innovation. Or even treading water.

(someone will now please link to the blog that shows the dozens of Samsung ripoffs over the years as I cannot find it in my bookmarks)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Imagine the furore if Apple was caught doing this.

<comment> kostya-kow Not on HN, because it is full of Apple fanboys.

<comment><USER13> You lost me at 'fanboys'.

<comment><USER14> That's handy, because that was the last word of his post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I just can't get over how mind-bogglingly stupid this was.

Even having decided to use dirty tricks to strengthen their overall marketing effort... What possessed them to try to go after HTC in _Taiwan_ of all places? As HTC's stronghold, Taiwan is simultaneously the country where:

1\. This sort of campaign is least likely to be effective.

2\. Samsung is most likely to be caught.

3\. Local regulators are most likely to be sympathetic to HTC's complaints.

I mean I understand that people generally overestimate their chances of success and underestimate the chance of being caught, but this is ridiculous.

<comment><USER16> Etiher there are some stupid people making local policy at Samsung Taiwan, or in the places with less chances of getting caught they got away with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> No one is shocked to hear that astro turfing is going on on the internet.

A few too many "English Major style" reviews and it's pretty obvious.

<comment><USER18> That reminds me of how the genuine reviews on Yelp are of the terse, "This place sucks. Their dish XYZ was terrible, service took $NN." style that look spammy and get removed by their spam algorithm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Phony endorsements maybe deemed as "misleading advertisement" as long as they remain trueish (They can argue that the paid reviewers did experience the product and did like it. Nothing much different from a celebrity endorsement) . Fake negative reviews on competitors are really despicable and IMO should be penalized heavily by law.

In general, as a consumer, I feel sick when vendors trying to fool me by pretending to be one of us.

</comment><comment><USER20> I suspect this isn't the first instance they've done this.

Looking closer at Anti-Apple/ Pro-Samsung Google+ posts reveal some questionable user profiles.

<comment><USER21> I really liked Google+, up until #BoycottApple came around.

Really hard to follow any technology news without getting inundated with nonsensical rants against every breath Steve Jobs or Tim Cook took and takes, respectfully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sort of like how Reddit used a bunch of sockpuppet accounts to spark interest in their site?

<comment><USER23> I go there every now and then and still wonder if half the comments are left by bots/shills/etc.

<comment><USER24> Unfortunately, most of the default/large subs are full of jokes/one- liners/"viral marketing" (aka spam).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if this is related to the myriad of "NO SD CARD, NO REPLACEABLE BATTERY, NO BUY" type user comments that littered positive reviews for the HTC One.

<comment><USER26> I made one of those comments (although worded a bit better). I certainly wasn't paid :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's sad that samsung would do this... Is it commonplace for companies to do this?

<comment><USER28> You decide.. <https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=infoman>

The domain was registered one day after the HN account was registered, first post wasn't made for 14 days (aka. when the username no longer appears in green). In his defence, if he is a shill, he's not very good at it.

Edit: hnsearch picked up a hellbanned post (it should appear on the front page, but it doesn't) at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567259> that mentions a couple more accounts

<comment><USER29> Looks like a bot that programmatically shovels trendy topical matter from RSS into HN. The submission and article headlines are identical, down to the curly quotes - smells of automation to me.

<comment><USER30> Bookmarklet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Great, now I have to prove I'm not a "Samsung shill" before being positive about Samsung products.

<comment><USER8> Not really. Most readers look at a person's entire posting history before making that kind of claim. And most people who post phony reviews, post too many of them to escape attention.

<comment><USER32> I'm not sure that people look at posting history even here, where posting is generally considered and careful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Samsung has been doing this for a while in their home market of South Korea. I've heard tales of Samsung hiring 1,000 temporary employees with the sole task of blogging or commenting on blogs/social networks about their products.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't doubt this isn't an activity that most companies engage in, some more than others. There are probably a lot smarter companies who have yet to be caught and might not ever be caught. Some act surprised, but in this day and age of anyone being able to taint or inflate the reputation or a product, brand, location or business you can't really expect anything less.

</comment><comment><USER35> I hope they get sued for this, but I don't believe it's a conspiracy. Rather, just a case of someone trying too hard to meet certain sale expectations and hold on to a bonus.

<comment><USER36> That's the way conspiracies work.

What did you expect, aliens?

<comment><USER35> Samsung is a big company, I meant it's someone in their Taiwan branch rather than their Korea hq.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> it's interesting to note that doing this is illegal; i had no idea. it's also important to note that it's possible to determine whether an entity is engaged in the practice: [http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428222/statistics- unmas...](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428222/statistics-unmask-phony- online-reviews/)

</comment><comment><USER38> One word to describe Samsungs actions Unethical.

This reminds me somehow of when Apple was fixing the reception bars to show more coverage than there actually were on the iPhones.

<comment><USER39> It was the other way around: Apple fixed the reception indicator to reflect coverage _more accurately_.

"We were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. [...] To fix this, we are adopting AT&T's recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone's bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see. We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G."

[http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/02Letter-from- Apple-...](http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/02Letter-from-Apple- Regarding-iPhone-4.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Much of their fluffy positive press in the last few months has the scent of astroturf, too.

</comment><comment><USER41> Samsucks again...

</comment><comment><USER42> Marketing-fraud.

</comment><comment><USER43> ..in taiwan against HTC

</comment><comment><USER44> They all do this.

</comment><comment><USER45> Hm, when reading articles about Apple or Samsung, I tend to read the comments as well on Yahoo!. I notice within the first couple of hours, the comments are all pretty much Apple bashing. There are hundreds of comments in support of Samsung with tons of flaming going on. Reading this, it all makes sense.

<comment><USER32> Reading the comments is not something I ever do anymore, except here and on Asymco. It makes you feel cleaner somehow.</comment></comment>


Highest Vegan food protein density normalized by calories - <AUTHOR> https://kale.world/highest-vegan-protein-density-by-calories/ <comment><USER2> I wonder, though, whether the normalization to 200 calories is very enlightening. For instance, 200 calories from a serving of broccoli is something I could imagine, but 200 calories from, say, parsley?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, there are certain spices and ingredients where it won't be so relevant.

But, At the end of the day, most people want to keep their calories to a minimum while maximizing their nutrients.

<comment><USER2> "Most people" \- I wouldn't be so sure about that...

<comment><AUTHOR> well, perhaps, most people who look up information like this. ;)

Granted, you could is it to maximize protein in take at a given caloric intake</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Accidentally Quadratic? - <AUTHOR> http://accidentallyquadratic.tumblr.com/post/113840433022/why-accidentally-quadratic <comment><USER2> "Don't take slow software for granted."

I wish more developers thought like that. As someone who usually uses hardware that is several years old, I'm always annoyed that my system seems to get worse and worse with every software "update" I do.

<comment><USER3> The opposite effect always feel like magic. I have fond memories to see one CGI software making my old Pentium2 350 do real time physics simulation over nurbs surfaces while the other couldn't even pull correct ones in batch mode (at 3 times the cost).

The first Mac OS X upgrades were similar, they made your old iMac do things faster.

I don't know how to make devs create non bloated programs, I often think we should give them really old systems to write on. Constraint drives creativity etc etc.

<comment><USER4> It's really simple, you need to convince the people holding the purse strings it's worth their money to spend inordinate amount of time on a problem affecting a small portion of their desired demographic. Getting Devs to work on antiquated machines will just make their lives miserable.

<comment><USER3> IMO it's a dynamic equilibrium, with too large resources you'll accept sub optimal situations. Think Google c++ build times. I agree living below acceptable conditions is unnecessary drag but it's good to wave back and forth. An exercise in awareness.

<comment><USER4> Not for me, I don't get extra time to fiddle around shaving milliseconds, my environment is so slow it's all I can do to get working software out the door in the timelines I'm given. I have solutions to improve the speed of my software and environment, but they take time to implement, time that I could be working on features that make tangible differences to the bottom line. Guess what gets priority?

If it were up to me, I'd spend this entire year refactoring, but it's not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One pattern I've seen often is neglecting the cost of crossing layers. You'll have some tool or service that is used and then some client code will end up looping through hundreds or thousands of uses of it. Meanwhile, the otherwise negligible setup/teardown costs that come with crossing that layer adds up, and you end up with horrendous performance because of it.

</comment><comment><USER6> See also "Shlemiel the painter" by Joel Spolski: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000319.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000319.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> > _A coworker, learning about this blog concept, remarked that "accidentally > quadratic" is less exciting than, say, accidentally factorial. But I've > never seen one of those in production software, either._

Not production code, but when learning about recursion at uni someone implemented fibonacci like

fib (a) { return fib(a-1) + fib(a-2) }

(with a base case, obviously). So fib(6) would generate calls to fib(5) and fib(4), which would spawn calls to fib(4), fib(3) and fib(3), fib(2). Those 4 would again spawn 2 new calls each, many of them overlapping.

<comment><USER8> Although thankfully that's still not factorial :-)

<comment><USER9> Exponential?

<comment><USER7> 2^n I think.

<comment><USER10> phi^n, where phi ≈ 1.618 is the golden ratio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a front-end developer and when I run into software that is slow, I assume it is because it includes a 10-pound bag of libraries while only using a minute percentage of their functionality. (And that functionality could be implemented with 10 lines of vanilla JavaScript.)

<comment><USER12> In general code that doesn't get used doesn't increase your run time ( though in the case of JS you will obviously have to download it once, and parse the file on load ).

<comment><USER13> No, but code that does get called in case you've done something weird even though you haven't does. And that's a large chunk of many libraries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In a sort of masochistic way, I'm looking forward to the end of Moore's Law, because it might mean that we get better at programming to get more power out of limited hardware, rather than the sort of "rising tide lifts all boats" approach that we have now.

</comment><comment><USER15> Ironically enough, trying to open this blog's main page crashes my Safari (on an older iPad) _every single time_. I guess that cute little 200ms header animation is too accidentally quadratic for my 'outdated' hardware...

</comment><comment><USER16> I've heard about but never seen 'accidentally factorial' before. It was at a well known SV company - apparently it was rarely noticeable in prod because the arguments were usually fairly small.

</comment><comment><USER17> well, some might remark that a lot of things are implemented with linear algorithms, while they could be log(n) or n.log(n).

It's not bad to use the simplest strategy you can get away with.</comment>


So you thought absolute zero was absolute zero, huh? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mpg.de/6776082/negative_absolute_temperature

<comment><USER2> No. Entropy is S = log of the number of microstates. Temperature is 1/T = dS/dE. We are used to living in an open system, where only absolute zero has a single microstate. In a closed system at the maximum amount of energy, there is also only one microstate, so it entropy and temperature is zero. Drop the energy slightly, more microstates are available, and dS/dE is negative, leading to a negative temperature.

Bear in mind, it's been a long time since undergraduate level statistical mechanics. I may have the details wrong. But this title sounds like needlessly taunting. The actual title is simply "A temperature below absolute zero".

What's new about this work is "We have thus created the first negative absolute temperature state for moving particles". Previous negative temperatures were seen in things like spin-systems.

I would suggest the title "Moving particles with negative temperature".

<comment><USER3> I agree, the current title is bad because "absolute zero" is actually "absolute zero". Negative temperatures are hotter than positive temperatures, but it doesn't change the zero.

I like the proposed title or perhaps "Negative temperature in system with moving particles".</comment></comment>


Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework (1962) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html

<comment><USER2> It also marks the 50th year anniversary of Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad, which inspired/reenforced Engelbart to realize his ideas in this paper, to eventually become what you saw in his "Mother of All Demos".

It's a bit sad, 50 years later, we are still operating in the the same paradigm initiated by Sutherland, and so little in Engelbart's paper has been truly realized.

</comment><comment><USER3> "WHOM TO AUGMENT FIRST

"The experimental work of deriving, testing, and integrating innovations into a growing system of augmentation means must have a specific type of human task to try to develop more effectiveness for, to give unifying focus to the research. We recommend the particular task of computer programming for this purpose."

</comment><comment><USER4> So basically, Emacs.

<comment><AUTHOR> The interesting part is that I found this paper (actually a list of references: <http://kruhft.dyndns.org/item?id=151>) through reading the the editor-people newsgroup/mailing list circa 1981 (through nntp://nntp.olduse.net). Its quite a lively discussion about editors, lisp and human computer interfacing in the days of ed with the new up and comers vi and emacs expanding the horizons of state of the art editing software.</comment></comment>


Comcast makes caps official at 250GB/month - <AUTHOR> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/COMCAST_INTERNET_CAP?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

<comment><USER2> Here's a better suggestion to Comcast:

You want to prevent people from over-using. Fair enough. Put in the 250GB cap, but rather than making it a violation of TOS, do something more creative. You sell 6Mbps cable (as the standard). If someone goes over 250GB in a month, reduce their speed to 5Mbps. If they're under 250GB by 10%, up them back up. Tell them what they can do to lessen their bandwidth consumption (like turning of P2P when they aren't using it). This serves two purposes. First, it encourages people not to be wasteful of bandwidth. Second, when you lower speed, you lower the amount that someone can physically push through in a month.

Oh, and don't forget, if someone is paying for a higher speed connection from you, they deserve a proportionally higher cap. So an 18Mbps user would deserve a 750GB cap if a 6Mbps user gets a 250GB cap.

P2P or server hosting is really the only thing that will put you over the 250GB level - even high-quality Hulu won't push you over the limit. As such, people can control it as long as they remember to shut off their P2P programs. Bandwidth is a utility just like electricity. Leave the lights on 24/7 with inefficient bulbs and you'll pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is generous. I download plenty of things, as well as offsite backups of a multi G database every night, and MMO's, and I don't think I'll blow this. But I'm also a little worried I'll be surprised by how much I actually use.

I've never understood the comcast hating. I've been using their cable modems since the beginning and its easily been one of the best consumer experiences of my life.

Mosty likely they set it this high to frustrate the real hardcore users, the people using enough bandwidth to be their own ISP.

<comment><USER4> I think its mostly set that low to disrupt potential competitors to Comcast like Netflix streaming movies and Hulu.

<comment><USER2> Might be. Just to put it in perspective, to hit the 250GB cap, you'd have to pull 809Kbps every second of a 30-day month. Considering that standard- definition Hulu is 480-700Kbps, you couldn't hit the cap no matter how much Hulu you watched. The 480p video on Hulu is encoded at 1Mbps peak H.264. Remember, that's 1Mbps peak. So, it is theoretically possible if you watched 480p Hulu for every second of every day that you could run into the cap.

Even if you share an internet connection with 3 other people, how much video can one watch? All four of you would each have to watch about 8 hours per day of Hulu to hit the cap. That's tough to do.

It's more against file-sharers. File-sharing is what really sucks bandwidth because people leave it on perpetually. It's also against people who should really be buying a fractional T1. At 809Kbps, you're using more than half a T1.

Plus, video is only going to become better compressed. H.264 is a great codec, but I'm sure we'll do better in another decade. So it isn't like it even hedges against higher definition video in the future.

edit: source of Hulu info: [http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=blog&blog_id=4000000...](http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=blog&blog_id=400000040&blog_post_id=1350025735)

<comment><USER5> But maybe Comcast's intent is to get people used to the idea of a cap. Today it is 250G - what's to say it might not be 150G in 2 years and 50G base in 5 years time and you pay for anything over and above. At that time there won't be such an outcry since the 'unlimited' concept would have become history.

<comment><USER6> Conversely it could be a 500GB cap in 2 years. Bandwidth gets cheaper and faster. My cable modem is twice the speed it used to be and doesn't cost more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You may think 250 GB is generous... today. How long ago was it that people were happy to get 56k modems in their homes?

Its obvious we keep consuming more bandwidth, more disk space. 250GB of bandwidth is good enough for anyone is like that quote "no one will ever use more than 640k of RAM." It may be valid today, but not tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sad.

I'm Swedish and we get un-metered 24mbit up/down for $40/month. Many of my friends have 100mbit down at home. A large chunk of the population also have 5mbit usb-cards of over 3G network in their laptops. You can get it for $30/month.

The crappy Internet infrastructure in the US is one of those things that I really don't understand. What is the reason for this? Failure of market forces?

\- Gustaf

<comment><USER9> I think the same is in Taiwan, high quality service, like 5mbit lines for $30/month or so (converted currency of course)

Uhgh 250gb for a cap is a little bleh. I have 20gb website backups I make every week. Thats already 80gb used in what, 4 days worth of downloads?

Maybe I'll move to Sweden ;)

<comment><USER10> > I have 20gb website backups I make every week.

Well, don't use your private cable-line for that. You could push it to Amazon S3 instead?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While the cap is very generous for the majority of internet users in the US, I can't help but feel this takes us back to the days of pay-per-min dial up. Usage based pricing is not a bad thing, especially considering the increasing range of internet users, but from a consumer's point of view, this feels like a step backwards. Also now that I see $50/mo for 250GB, I really see $50/250GB, therefore, I have the urge to 'use up' my quota.

While I've never had horrible internet service with comcast, I've almost always had bad customer service experiences with them. They hire awful people to answer their phone lines, and I always feel like the person on the other side does not understand anything that I say.

Ultimately, this lies in Comcast's best interest for customers to use their cable VOD services as opposed to online streaming services. Their profit margins on a $5 movie that you stream off their servers to your cable box is much much higher than you streaming a movie off netflix using their internet connection.

</comment><comment><USER12> This seems like an ok entry, but are they planning on having lower requirements on different account levels?

Alright, so almost all of of us know how much Bandwidth costs. Amazon as low as 10 cents per GB when you are over 250GB. They are going to charge $15 per 10 GB this is ridiculous.

This all seems like it could only get worse.

</comment><comment><USER13> I live in a house in a college town. There's 5 of us, all pretty heavy Internet users: I think I personally use more than my now 50GB per month cap. I'm not too happy about this--it's not like it's competitively priced.

</comment><comment><USER14> This really isn't that bad.

Consider my situation: I attend a research-intensive university, and I get 1 GB a DAY. And no, you don't get a warning, or throttled. You get shut off. Completely disconnected after your cap.

Connectivity U is the name of the provider, and I tried to ask them to provide me with additional bandwidth for an extra price. I'm hearing even students at dorms are getting the 1gb raised to 2gb a day.

I'll take 250GB a month any day over my petty 30. And I probably pay the same.

<comment><USER15> That maxes don't reflect what they could tolerate if every customer used them. Presumably Universities have a different customer base, and a lot more would go over 30GB if they could.

</comment></comment><comment> patrickg-zill For those of you familiar with Linux, a good way to measure your bandwidth is to install the Tomato firmware for your Linksys WRT54G/GS/GL etc. series router.

You still get a nice router for your cable connection, and as well you get a nice AJAX-y GUI to set things up, plus, it tracks bandwidth used per-day, per- week, and per-month - automatically.

<http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato> (just a happy user of this free software)

</comment><comment><USER16> Just a data point: in Belgium I pay 57 euro (about 83 USD) per month for a 60 GB limit - which used to be 30 GB until last month. I was buying extra bandwidth at 1 euro/GB most months, but the 60 GB limit seems just about okay now. This is no doubt due to the stranglehold ex-monopolyholder Skynet (yup...) has on the ADSL market here in Belgium. Small markets suck.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't like having a cap but if there is going to be a cap, I'm happy that they're finally telling us what it is.

In the old days, they'd just cancel your account. When you called to ask why, they'd tell you that you _used to much bandwidth_. They would not tell you how much was too much.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What do people think of this? I don't know how much bandwidth I use but I'd bet it's well under 250GB (maybe 50-75GB). Although I think it's a slippery slope to get people used to tiered pricing, I think this is a pretty fair limit for the typical customer.

<comment><USER2>
      it's a slippery slope to get people used to tiered pricing

Yeah. I'm nervous too. I'm also curious. Services like electricity don't have unlimited pricing, but they don't gouge either. Anyone know exactly how that works? Is pricing regulated?

<comment><USER18> _Services like electricity don't have unlimited pricing, but they don't gouge either. Anyone know exactly how that works? Is pricing regulated?_

How do you know they don't gouge? There is no competition in 99% of US cities (there are two cities I know of with competing electric companies), so it's pretty much impossible to say they aren't gouging.

And yes, pricing is regulated, even in the cities with competing companies...they can only compete on service (naturally, consumers in those cities report higher satisfaction than average with their power companies). Consumer energy is very similar to the telcos _before_ deregulation.

It's actually pretty interesting how the regulation of power pricing effects business decisions in the industry. It has occasionally led to pathologically bad decisions. Nuclear power, for example, was more expensive than coal until very recently...but there was a time when many power companies in the US were building a nuclear plant because it would allow them to raise prices (because pricing is based on the amount it costs to produce the power, and nuclear was, for a time, something that the powers that be wanted to happen). It's really quite unfortunate that it shook out that way, because it gave nuclear a really bad name and so we're still several years away from nuclear being considered a politically viable alternative energy source, despite the fact that it is economically and environmentally the best option many locations have available (compared to coal it's downright miraculous).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Capping bandwidth would be more forgivable if they would advertise their true broadband download speeds.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why don't you just switch to a different provider?

<comment><USER21> Easier said than done! Comcast is the only broadband option in a lot of places. I'm fortunate enough to have Cablevision, but who knows when they'll follow suit and start capping too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Somebody please write a trojan to download movies from torrents in order to max the cap and send it to everybody as an emoticon pack for live messenger ;-)

In a week comcast will have thousends of customers complainig their connection has been terminated and they'll have to remove that stupid cap.

</comment><comment><USER23> Comcast deserves some praise for this. They could have just continued with a stealth limit and let their customers ignore it but by placing an explicit 250 GB limit, they are offering more information to the customer and helping the customers make a more informed decision.

<comment><USER24> Until they don't have a choice about their decision. Then all that happens is extreme resentment, especially if Comcast continues to go backwards.

Yes, it's an improvement from the nonsensical stealth limits. It's more realistic than what, say, the Canadians generally have to deal with. But it sucks if you are willing to pay for better but you don't have a choice and you're stuck with this awful ISP.</comment></comment>


LFMs and LFSPs (Michael Vanier via PG) - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/vanlfsp.html A recent post by PG re: Arc spurred me to Google the term LFSP. Surprise, surprise, PG has an article on it on his own site. <comment><USER3> I'd forgotten how well written that was. It's better than 99% of the essays on the web. And yet it was just an ordinary email, not intended for publication.

</comment><comment><USER4> To get wider use of LFSPs, it would be important for more people to learn that you _can_ and it's completely _reasonable_ to interface several programming languages. You need to be comfortable with both languages to work on the interface, but I find it surprising we didn't practice this at school at all.

To explicate what the article touches: Perhaps you really have to use Java because of platform or workforce requirements, but it doesn't mean you have to use 100% Java. More experienced developers can build some of the low-level classes using C++ via JNI. They can also set up BeanShell or Jython for user interface and test scripters.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately, interfacing multiple languages is itself not a strategy for LFM-people, because most of them can (or _believe_ they can) only fit one language into their brains. There are costs to using more than one language on a project. Managers frequently overestimate these costs, because they're the ones who will look bad if their superior (or investor) looks at their development process and say "Wow, this is chaos. No wonder you can't ship software."

There does seem to be a loophole: you can use multiple languages if they all start with the same buzzword. So, the same manager who balks at a Python/C++/SQL solution because it uses too many languages has no problem requiring that his developers learn Java, JavaScript, Java Server Faces, Java Persistence Query Language, Java Expression Language, and the Java Standard Tag Library, because they all start with "Java". Same goes with XML/XSLT/XSLFO/XPath and derivatives.

Based on this observation, I suggest a renaming of all common hacker tools. Python should be renamed "ParrotSnake", Ruby "ParrotGems", Lisp "ParrotParens", SQL "ParrotQueries", JavaScript "Parrot in a Browser", HTML "ParrotTags", Haskell "ParrotMonads", and so on. Then we could freely use any of these on a project, because they're all the same language, duh. Of course, the Parrot project itself should be canceled, because it'd defeat the purpose to have them _actually_ running on a common VM. This is strictly a marketing initiative.

<comment><USER4> Insightful! But does this in your opinion apply only to LFM-people - <USER2> understanding is most LFSP-people don't see multiple languages as an option either?

<comment><USER5> I dunno - most LFSP-people I know use multiple languages regularly, learn new ones as a hobby, and their "preferred" LFSP is just the top of a long list of skills. That's why we call them "smart people". ;-) Take a look at Programming Reddit - most of the Haskell evangelists are also quite fluent in Python and C and usually know Lisp, Ocaml, etc. too.

There do seem to be exceptions - Common Lisp in particular seems to be a LFSP where many of its leading practitioners _only_ know Lisp. Smalltalk, too, but to a lesser extent since all the commercial Smalltalk jobs morphed into Objective C or Java jobs. But I don't really see Lisp as being at the top of the blub hierarchy any more - there's been 20 years of progress since then and some really interesting developments.

<comment><USER6> " _Common Lisp in particular seems to be a LFSP where many of its leading practitioners only know Lisp._ "

The hardcorest Lisp hacker I know wrote the chapter on C++ in the UNIX Haters Handbook. He also wrote a C to Lisp compiler for the Symbolics Lisp Machines. (And he works as a C++ programmer right now. :-))

UNIX Haters Handbook, published in the early 90s: <http://research.microsoft.com/~daniel/uhh-download.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

\- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

</comment><comment><USER8> I totally understand people's complaints about C++. However I am never sure if they are aware of some libraries that may concerns:

boost::function allows you to easily interchange function pointers, memeber function pointers and function objects.

boost::lamda allows you to define transient functions at the call site. This makes the old STL way more useful. To be sure the syntax can be a bit funky...

boost::bind pulls all the fun of boost::lamda and boost::function together.

With only the tiniest bit of discipline boost::shared_ptr's mean you never have to worry about memory management again.

boost::any and QVariants (from the Qt Libraries) help you manage dynamic typing. So an array of boost::any's can hold int's, char's, string's and AnyTypeYouWant's all at the same time.

Everything I've mentioned is either in the standard or will be soon. Really undergrad C++ is only the beginning. The STL and boost are almost a language unto themseleves. I never use raw arrays or naked pointers anymore and it's made development WAY faster while maintaining performance.

PG asked, why use a language where adaptors have to be built to get the functionality of lisp rather than lisp itself (or something like that.) I see his point but if the effort of getting lisp to work with C/C++ based code is greater than the pain of using an LFM, why not make the best of an LFM?

Has anyone had the same experience? Or am I putting the "ass" in masses?

</comment><comment><USER9> for (i = 0; i < N; i++)

Odd example to use. It's always annoying to re-type the same thing over and over. But I recently went through a mountain of my Java code and replaced:

for (Object obj : list)

with

int size=list.size(); for (int index=0;index<size;index++)

I'm definitely very long suffering! It took a few hours but what you get with abstractions is a loss of control over implementation. When you use the tighter loop, the compiler turns everything (roughly) into this:

Iterator it=list.iterator(); //Which calls new ListItr(); for (it.hasNext()) { Object next=it.next();

The abstraction has to do that because it doesn't know whether the list (really, the java.util.Collection) is a LinkedList or an ArrayList or a Set. If your loop itself is in a tight loop, it isn't hard to call it millions and millions of times during program execution--which makes millions and millions of unnecessary allocations and method calls. There is a loss of performance which, at the end of the day, is more important than how much you enjoy your job.

Of course, other languages would allow you to specify an implementation for a given abstraction.

<comment><USER10> The replacements were for performance reasons, and it took a few hours to do. Sounds like it might been more productive to replace only the occurrences the profiler told you were causing problems...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For most of the article, I kept thinking, why hasn't he tried SWIG (<http://www.swig.org>). Keep the needs-to-be-fast stuff in C/C++ (hopefully with a well designed API), and code the fun, flexible, interactive stuff in the LFSP of your choice (sorry apparently not all LFSP supported).

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd be careful with pure research languages like ocaml. It has some advanced features (polymorphic variants, functors, camlp4, etc. ) that even smart people have a hard time understanding, because they are probably the subject of someone's phd thesis. Also, LFSP's can be quirky: in Ocaml, for instance, native integers are only 31 bits (using 32 bits requires the Int32 module, which requires its own set of operations to use. Don't you love static type checking?)

Bugs in LFSP compilers probably appear much more often compared to LFM compilers.

<comment><USER4> Do we admit that smart people aren't infinitely smart? With LFSPs, I often get the feeling I'm too stupid for a language, but in many ways it's better than often feeling the language is too stupid for me.

Who cares whether you got 31 or 32 bits? The different operator names are because Ocaml doesn't have operator overloading. For statically type-checked and "overloaded" operators and functions, see type classes in Haskell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think Joe Average and Joe Boss's perceptions of the advantages of LFMs are completely bogus. The same solution implemented in an LFM and an LFSP will be more readable in the LFSP.

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the features of LFSP's is that the code density is higher, which I'd argue is a good way to make the code harder to read, not easier.

Here's an example in ruby:

     (1...10).each{ |x| print x }

Tell me, does the 10 print or not? You'll need a second glance plus a good memory to answer that question.

Here's the same code in C++:

     for (int x = 1; x < 10; x++)
       cout << x;

Verbosity makes it easier for the non-you programmer to look at a random piece of code and decipher it. You feel smarter for having written that Ruby code (and the C++ is boring, I'll agree). But I'm gonna have to say the Ruby code has less readability outright just because it's so dense.

<comment><USER3> If (1...10) doesn't yield a list of numbers from 1 to 10 inclusive, that's a bug in Ruby. The problem is not density. It's perfectly clear what this code example _should_ mean.

<comment><USER6> Sadly, no:

     irb(main):001:0> (1..10).max
     => 10
     irb(main):002:0> (1...10).max
     => 9

Ruby suffers from a bit of Perl-syndrome, and relies too much on magic syntax and "conventions" created by library authors. It's a nice language and all, but I still prefer Python over Ruby since Python is a simple, clean and elegant language with just a small number of elegant concepts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think this is why all TRUE wizards write in Assembly Language.</comment>


Show HN: Search only the best products on Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://toppp.com

<comment><USER2> Well, thanks to my dumb curiosity, I'm now sure to get some targeted ads for my "interest" in vibrators. PDA: The search goes right through to amazon.com's search if there's no match.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Amazon has account settings to remove particular items from your history.</comment></comment>


Bursting the bubble: we asked voters on the left and right to swap feeds - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/16/facebook-bias-bubble-us-election-conservative-liberal-news-feed <comment><USER2> Not to break my arm patting my back, but this is why I come to HN.

On average, there's a bias (I'd say libertarian -- socially liberal, fiscally conservative), but the standard deviation is huge. I can't split HN into the parts I like (nor do I want to).

<comment><USER3> I think there is more to it than that. HN also has a bias for depth and correctness (relative to most social media garbage; or even uncurated newspapers).

This applies to the quality of article that make it to the front page, but I see it much more starkly in the comments. Sure, we get low quality comments, but it is not out of place to see someone with direct experience in the field come to post about some of the subtleties; or for someone to dig up the primary source (research paper, bill text, etc), and point out details directly from the text that the article misrepresented; or for someone to bring in additional research on a subject.

<comment><USER4> Compared to FB, maybe, but this place is no better about being pandered to its biases.

See the discussion every time the topic turns to the fiction that tech is a meritocracy for example.</comment></comment></comment>


DEF CON: The Documentary is on YouTube - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUhyeY0Fsvw&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> Official 720p torrent: [https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF%20CON%2020%20documen...](https://www.defcon.org/html/torrent/DEF%20CON%2020%20documentary%20720p.torrent)</comment>


Cardinal Health recalls contaminated surgical gowns - <AUTHOR> https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/statement-quality-issues-certain-cardinal-health-surgical-gowns-and-packs <comment><AUTHOR> While it's too early to tell if any patients were harmed by these contaminated gowns, the hospitals impacted reads like who's who that includes Stanford, Stanford Children's, Northwestern, NY Presbyterian, Kaiser, BJC HealthCare, Rush, Jefferson, and Adventist Health.

In addition to the potential for patient harm, this recall will prove costly to hospitals, and ultimately patients. I have it on good authority that some hospitals have been forced to limit the number of elective surgical procedures as they scramble to secure acceptable replacements. Given that it is common practice to include these gowns in "surgical packs" (kits of sterile supplies and equipment used during a procedure), many facilities impacted by this recall will also need to tear down existing packs, re-sterilize equipment, and rebuild packs. This is a non-trivial process that takes time and is prone to human errors that could lead to case delays and/or cancellations.

Big picture: these sort of recalls are more common and widespread than one would think. In the last year alone, medical devices ranging from baby warmers to IV infusion pumps were recalled due to serious patient safety issues. For proof check out [https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals- safety...](https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety- alerts).

Take home point: while it may be trendy to fund biotech startups, it'd be great to see a VC-backed company disrupt the medical supply chain with the goal of delivering safer products at lower cost. If someone out there is up for the challenge, I welcome the opportunity to help.</comment>


Ask HN: Should everyone have their own domain for email and IM? - <AUTHOR>

In light of recent changes at Google such as the upcoming shutdown of Google Reader, the restriction of access to CalDAV, and the blocking of external XMPP contact requests, it's likely that some people are thinking of leaving Gmail. Some of these people, wanting to never be locked into an email provider again, will probably get their own domains.<p>This begs the question: Should every savvy Internet user get his or her own domain in order to have a stable email address and Jabber ID without being locked into a single provider? That seems a bit extreme to me, if only because domain names were originally intended for companies and institutions, not individuals. <comment><USER2> I think a fallback solution is never wrong but to be honest, the comfort of a management-free provider is nice to have too. As Google Apps for Business user, i have all i need now. Even for my private needs, GMail is enough for me. And as JT123 says, it's unlikely that they jump off that ship in the foreseeable future.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have my own domain for email, IM, and my personal website. It allows me to move from one provider to another without having to update my address everywhere. Even if Google doesn't shut down Gmail, something better could come along, and I don't want my email to be tied to Gmail forever.

</comment><comment><USER4> Its unlikely that google will exit email market in near future.</comment>


AlphaGo: Mastering the Ancient Game of Go with Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2016/01/alphago-mastering-ancient-game-of-go.html <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10981679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10981679).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thread with bulk of comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10981679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10981679)</comment>


On The Mastery Of Teaching - <AUTHOR> http://www.skorks.com/2010/04/on-the-mastery-of-teaching/ <comment><USER2> _From pre-school all the way to university, it just doesn't seem like the people who teach are the best and brightest any more._

And when did the best ever do it?

When my mother was at Stanford in the 1950s they were into ability testing. They found that the department with the lowest scores on a wide variety of ability tests was education.

Every piece of evidence that I've seen since has supported this observation. While there are some truly great teachers (one of whom died earlier this month, Jaime Escalante), and many well-meaning and highly motivated ones, on average teaching does not attract the best and the brightest. It never has, and unless we really change the rules, it never will.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best ones live on in time immemorial it seems - Feynman comes to mind.

I should also add Walter Lewin to the list for bringing teaching alive ([http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-02Electricity-and- Magnet...](http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-02Electricity-and- MagnetismSpring2002/CourseHome/))

I don't see why practitioners can't be good teachers really? I had the great pleasure of chatting with Dr. Dennis Liotta (he made the breakthrough HIV drug that more than 95% of HIV patients in the U.S use) the other day and boy can that man teach. I walked out learning not just about chemistry, but also but drug discovery, economics of scale in the developing world, ethical way of making wealth, etc all the while he was teaching.

Perhaps, the better teachers excite, not educate. For the excitement itself is the highest form of education.

</comment><comment><USER4> The NY Times magazine for March 7 had a piece on this: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html?ref=magazine)

</comment><comment><USER5> Great points. I personally find that teaching software engineering concepts/skills to others helps me shore up my own knowledge - in many cases, it actually helps me learn more effectively than just teaching myself.

Also, I believe the key to being a good teacher is putting oneself in the other person's shoes - which is, as the author mentions, essential to explaining technical matters to nontechnical people.

<comment><USER4> The guy who taught my section of calculus years ago said that you don't really know it till you teach it.

<comment><USER5> Ain't that the truth :)</comment></comment></comment>


Wikipedia Updater Fired For Scooping NBC on Tim Russert's Death - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/nbc_scooped_on_tim_russert_death_by_wikipedia_twitter_nyt_et_al_and_wikipedia_updater_fired <comment><USER2> No news here. The employee did something which one of his employer's (IBS's) major customers (NBC) didn't want him to. IBS wanted to preserve the trust that NBC had in them to handle their information they way they preferred.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if anyone updated his wikipedia entry, or if he did it as the management was coming to his desk...

</comment><comment><USER4> That kind of sucks if you ask me.</comment>


Ask HN: Data scientists, what tools do you use the most on a daily basis? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> An answer in two parts:

The software tools: For me, PyCharm and Jupyter for development, Dask for data preprocessing, Tensorflow, Theano, and various scipy libraries for ML, as well as helpers such as PyMC3 and Edward for probabilistic programming.

The important tool: a PhD in applied mathematics that taught me how to think originally and creatively about problems, to abstract and codify them with mathematics, and to approach them numerically and computationally.

I suspect that the answer you were looking for is the first set of tools. This set is extremely nice to have; the second set, at least for me, is essential.

<comment><USER3> Nevertheless, 80/20 (80% solution in 20% time) does wonders with the right set of tools and a rudimentary appreciation of applied maths, 80/20 being often what businesses really need. Unpopular as it may be, the latest tools come pretty good as black boxes, so that creativity is shifted from maths to application domains. No need to scare the OP, then, he is not a direct threat to your job.

<comment><USER2> > No need to scare the OP, then, he is not a direct threat to your job.

I find it a bit disheartening that this is how you read my response to OP's question. The denizens of HN may in general disapprove, but I believe my education to be one of the most important factors in doing my job. I don't think it's fair to respond with thinly-veiled accusations of elitism, especially when I explicitly tried to also give him or her a "practical" answer.

> Nevertheless, 80/20 (80% solution in 20% time) does wonders with the right > set of tools and a rudimentary appreciation of applied maths, 80/20 being > often what businesses really need.

In some cases, you're right, but more and more often I see people assuming that they've found the "80% solution", when in reality it's something like a 30 or 40% solution. My personal experience is that with many problems, a bit of thought shows you that many seemingly simple problems are hiding both a lot of complexity and a lot of potential - and I've seen real money left on the table because of a failure to recognise this.

My opinion is that conceptualising the problem in the first place is what allows you to see really what an "80/20" solution looks like, and in my case I don't think I would be able to do that without my most potent weapon: my mathematical education.

Not every problem is like that: sometimes a simple, out-of-the-box solution does work really well, and solves a concrete business need. My point is that when this is about the limit of what you can do, you don't really know whether your problem is in this class or not.

<comment><USER3> It was not elitism my constructive point but this: "Unpopular as it may be, the latest tools come pretty good as black boxes, so that creativity is shifted from maths to application domains." There are several tech fields and all the human sciences that are directly benefitting from an 80/20 data science approach and these are the new domains being added, they also have higher ceiling if you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That really depends on the task at hand and for each case there are lots of similar tools, so let's consider just the most frequently used.

Daily I'd say RStudio, Excel, Tableau, PowerPoint. Either I'm coding in R or I'm presenting.

</comment><comment><USER5> Development - Jupyter IDE for Python Text Editor - Sublime Text Knowledge Base - Stackoverflow Visualization - Matplotlib + Excel Charts Presentation - PowerPoint

</comment><comment><USER6> Much of the data I analyse has a spatial/geometric/geographic component and for that I wouldn't want to do my job without FME. In fact it's probably may one of my all time favorite pieces of software.

Otherwise jupyter with numpy and all the other great python libraries is where I spend much of my time.

</comment><comment><USER7> Atom + hydrogen addon Python 3 Keras and Tensorflow (I'm doing nlp)

</comment><comment><USER8> Out of interest, is everyone using Spark/Hadoop/etc because you need to and/or you chose to or another reason? IMO, legit use cases seem to me relatively sparse.

<comment><USER9> Let's say you're developing your analysis script, and it takes 45 minutes to run. That doesn't sound like much of a problem, but it means you only really get to try 10 things a day. You can kick something off and then start trying something different, but that's actually quite a burden. It's cognitively easier to run a series of parallel tasks instead of parallel serial tasks. Even if a job is taking 15-20 minutes, that can really wear you down, and give you a pretty unproductive week. It's hard to keep your place.

That said: I think often these 45 minute tasks should be much faster, and folks would actually benefit from optimising their code a bit more. If I have to do a word count in 30gb of text, I'd rather implement carefully or use Hyper Log Log. I find it weird that people would rather use Spark, which I always find quite painful. I guess it comes down to familiarity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Jupyter + Spark. tableau if I'm feeling lazy for viz.</comment>


Conspiracy or Coincidence? Naming of Chinese Origin Viruses Like SARS and Corona - <AUTHOR> https://techtudor.blogspot.com/2020/03/conspiracy-or-coincidence-while-ebola.html <comment><USER2> There is no coincidence, the reason is "Political Pressure". It's essentially like a conspiracy but nobody is hiding it.</comment>


Elon Musk Calls Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars 'Bullshit' - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/10/elon-musk-hydrogen/?cid=co13468454 <comment><USER2> Man with billions invested in electric cars disparages competing technology? I am shocked.

The fact is, you don't need to have a high energy density with hydrogen, as existing gas stations can be used to quick refuel a hydrogen car (with robotic assist, perhaps), without the logistical mess that comes from swapping an extremely heavy, very expensive, potentially user-abused battery with another one. You can even burn hydrogen in an ICE engine, as BMW has demonstrated.

The Honda Clarity FCX, a hydrogen powered car, is the only other car to achieve Type V California ZEV credits besides the Model S. Perhaps that's too much competition for Musk. The range of that car is 240 miles.

<comment><USER3> And how much energy is lost converting energy _to_ hydrogen? Because there are no native hydrogen energy stores. You're either using electricity to crack water, or you're going to crack natural gas.

Its more efficient to simply use batteries.

EDIT: I'd like to point out, generating hydrogen does make sense if you're using an energy source that is essentially free. Too much hydro and you have to dump the water anyway? Make hydrogen. Too much wind and the transmission operator is shutting down your production? Make hydrogen. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to use it as an energy transfer medium.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy#Current_produc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy#Current_production_methods)

<comment><USER4> I know, we'll get it from the atmosphere of Jupiter!

<comment><USER5> I know this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but what would the long-term consequences be of importing large quantities of hydrogen from off-planet and then binding it to local oxygen?

I suppose if we had the tech to do that, we might be able to find off-planet oxygen as well...? Except wasn't most of ours produced by plants splitting carbon-dioxide?

<comment><USER4> More water vapor, which is also a greenhouse gas. It's quite a bit more potent of one than CO2, in fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are many technical problems with hydrogen: metal embrittlement, it leaks even through solid substances, etc. They're not insurmountable, but they make hydrogen not that competitive with electric. Elon is not a fan of H2 for rockets either for those very same reasons-- embrittlement, leakage, cost of storage and handling. Guy is flat out anti-hydrogen, man.

That and once you have hydrogen it's not that hard to go from there to CH4-- methane. Once you're there, natural gas fuel cells and vehicles make more sense as methane is infinitely easier to handle and already has a ton of deployed infrastructure.

They're already doing this in Germany-- making CH4 from H2O and CO2 with surplus renewable energy and then feeding it into the natural gas grid.

<comment><USER7> Pretty much this. Handling pure hydrogen is a suckers game in terms of complexity. The real problem is we don't have a compact, low temperature direct methane/direct methanol/ethanol fuel cell yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> While everyone is talking up hydrogen as a clean alternative. Currently, 90% of hydrogen is refined using fossil fuels. Even if you account for hypothetical/nonexistent future technologies, the majority of hydrogen for the foreseeable future is coming from fossil fuels. Hydrogen is truly, "Bullshit". If it launches nationwide it be because gas companies are behind the push, and they will only do it once their gasoline revenue starts to dwindle.

<comment><USER9> But same can be applied to electricity. Yes you can get green electricity nowadays but majority is still produced by old fashion power stations.

<comment><USER10> I don't understand why there is so much controversy and disagreement surrounding this question. Electric cars are a _requirement_ for a sustainable energy economy. Where the energy comes from, doesn't really matter in the short term as long as it comes from renewable or nuclear energy in the long term.

Regardless, people claiming that electric cars aren't green because the electrical power is often produced from fossil sources, conveniently forget that a lot of fossil fuels are spent producing _petroleum_ fuels. You don't just stick a straw into the ground and have gasoline pour automatically into every gas station in the world.

First, you have to have survey teams (often offshore) find oil. Then you have to build the production infrastructure to get it out of the ground. Then you have to add water injection and other tricks to get it out of the ground. Then you have to transport it to a refinery. Then you have to refine it. Then you have to transport it to gas stations. So it's not as easy as some of the naysayers claim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are three pressing concerns for hydrogen fuel cells, which can be added up to "bullshit". First, energy density. I can't speak to that in detail, but the range problem is serious. Then again, the range problem seemed insurmountable for electric cars until Tesla got within spitting distance.

Second, platinum. Traditional hydrogen cells require some platinum in the catalyst, which is fine at lab scales, but unviable at industrial scale. There have been advances in alternative catalysts recently, but until fuel cells can be built without rare and exotic raw materials, they're just a toy.

Third, power source. Hydrogen comes from cracking water, which requires energy. It's just a storage medium for energy provided during the cracking process. What's the end-to-end thermal efficiency of that process? And where does the power come from? Of course, this problem applies 100% to battery- powered cars as well.

<comment><USER12> See this link about energy density: [http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-10/iss-1/p20.html](http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-10/iss-1/p20.html)

Even liquid hydrogen doesn't come close to the volumetric energy density that seems like it'd be a solution for transportation. And the more compressed or cold you get it has a lot of attendant problems in terms of expansion effects of the gas, or the energy required to compress it.

The permeability of hydrogen in containers, especially at high pressure, is also a real concern. Hydrogen escapes through container walls, and has bad (embrittling, usually) effects on them. A brittle 10,000psi H2 tank on board a car is something you really do not want.

It seems to me the most feasible path to fuel cell power is to use non-pure- hydrogen fuels.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the link. I've always suspected that energy density was a problem, but never investigated it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting comment. I really like Elon but I think he's a bit off here. My reasoning is that fuel is fuel. Basically you get the energy out of gasoline through an exothermic reaction with oxygen, you get the energy out of Lithium Phosphate by the electron exchange reactions with the cathode. Fuel cells can be the middle road, liquid fuel into electron exchange through catalysts.

The "issue" with fuel cells is that you cannot easily make fuel at home. I get that, if we're one end use energy form (electricity) then we can optimize the infrastructure to carry and deliver that efficiently. But arguments about energy density are silly. There is way more energy in a gallon of gas than you can put into an equal volume or weight of battery. That is why you can use it as a fuel at 20% efficiency and still have a viable business model.

So what is 'bullshit' here? Is it that people won't create the infrastructure to make fuel cell friendly fuels? Is it that a parallel fuel structure can't compete with the existing gas distribution infrastructure? So I don't buy the idea that fuel cells as a power mechanism are non-viable but could see and argument that a car eco system based on them is unlikely.

</comment><comment><USER14> As an interesting aside, the leading use for hydrogen today, with over 50% of all hydrogen used, is in oil refining. That hydrogen (along with almost all the balance) comes from steam-reformed natural gas.

It's also true that more electricity is consumed refining gasoline (without even figuring the oil itself's energy) than in producing hydrogen (per gge). The important distinction is that gasoline is an outstanding motor fuel, able to deliver 3000x the volumetric energy density of hydrogen gas, 6x the volumetric energy density of compressed hydrogen and 3x the volumetric energy density of liquefied hydrogen.

Those numbers get even more stark when you add in tank weights.

Musk's Youtube video demonstrates a battery changeout faster than a gasoline fillup (BTW, ever filled up a tank with H2? It's not as fast as gasoline per gge; not even close).

I share the BS opinion on hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen tanks cost too much, weigh too much and better alternatives exist.

</comment><comment><USER15> He's completely correct. I've never understood the allure of hydrogen fuel cell powered cars. It's just a shittier, less-viable version of a battery.

<comment><USER16> The allure was that 15 years ago battery technology sucked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is it more bullshit than the hyperloop? This is not an attempt to troll ... but between the two fuel cells seem more realistic. Musk is exaggerating.

<comment><USER18> Its not that hydrogen is unrealistic. Hydrogen cars currently exist. The problem is that mass producing hydrogen is just as problematic as mass producing gasoline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It kind of bothers me when people talk about fuel cell vehicles as being "emissions free". Producing the Hydrogen required to run a fuel cell requires either electrolysis of water, or extracting it from natural gas. That's really energy intensive. Either the emissions come out your tailpipe or go out a smokestack. Pick your poison.

There are other interesting fuel cell technologies that use liquids, like methanol, instead of Hydrogen as a fuel source, but even Methanol requires energy to be produced.

</comment><comment><USER20> Here's Ballard's 10-year stock performance:

[https://www.google.ca/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&c...](https://www.google.ca/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1382558400000&chddm=983365&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=TSE:BLD&ntsp=0&ei=CwpoUrmRAoP- qAGJ7AE)

Obama cut funding for fuel cell research a few years ago:

[http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/obama- to-...](http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/obama-to-cut- funding-for-hydrogen-fuel-cell-research.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> IMHO hydrogen fuel cell technology is more practical. No charging time means that you can travel any range without delays as long as you have hydrogen fuel stations on your way. That kind of technology gives you more freedom I guess. You feel less limited by your vehicle.

And as far as I know charging li-ion batteries is still very slow, they will go flat at some point, faster you are charging them faster they become flat and they are very heavy.

<comment><USER7> Charging time is overblown. You can charge a modern battery to 80% in about 5 minutes. That's about how long it takes to fill my car with gas at the moment.

You're not going to be refueling a hydrogen fueled car that quick - it's a volatile, extremely high pressure, extremely cold gas. The safety considerations are _substantial_.

<comment><USER21> At what amperage and voltage and how much did it cost to upgrade the charging station connection to the grid.

And how do you cool the battery during such a fast charge? what % of the energy is lost in heat from the chemical reaction - even Tesla has to obey the laws of thermo dynamics.

Thinking about it from a thermofluids angle You could I suppose have a complex system of heat exchangers built in to the the battery pack and hook the car up to a water connection and flush chilled water (or better some non conductive fluid) through whilst charging but water and high voltage and amps are not the best of friends.

Now where did i put my steam tables :-)

<comment><USER10> Tesla's supercharging stations charge at 135kW 400V DC, recharging >50% of a 85kWH battery in 30 minutes. The power is delivered from a large (>300kWH) battery pack installed in the charging station, which is continously trickle- charged from the grid. There will also be swap stations implemented, swapping out the entire 85kWH battery pack in 2 minutes.

This is largely a solved problem, both from the sides of technology and deployment. It's just that public perception hasn't caught up yet. Give it 5 years and just about everyone will want one of these cars. For everyday use you won't even _need_ the quick-charge capability.

<comment><USER22> > Give it 5 years and just about everyone will want one of these cars.

They sold a batch of MiEV / IOn for $15.000 here and so far everybody is very enthusiastic about them. I think 5 years is a tad optimistic but I give it less then 10 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Has anyone looked into running the fuel cell in reverse to recharge it? I remember seeing a demo at a fair where it was a sealed fuel cell and it could go from h2 02 to water and then run it in reverse to recreate the o2 and h2.

If that's feasible it could simply be a new type of battery, no?

</comment><comment><USER24> One advantage is the energy flux. Refueling a fuel cell, or filling a gas tank for that matter, is much faster than charging a battery.

</comment><comment><USER25> Obey the Musk!</comment>


EFF Applauds Amazon for Pushing Back on Request for Echo Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/eff-applauds-amazon-pushing-back-request-echo-data <comment><USER2> The EFF must feel totally hopeless at this point. People are _buying_ microphones with internet connections and sticking them in their homes. They're making the _choice_ to buy "smart" IoT shit that spies on them. They're at a point of defending a major company selling that stuff, because they didn't instantly roll over when approached by law enforcement.

It's like... PETA complimenting a butcher on a clean kill. I don't blame them though... who knew the great battle over privacy would be lost before it even started, because people want their toaster to go online?

<comment><USER3> > who knew the great battle over privacy would be lost before it even started, > because people want their toaster to go online?

I really despise this sentiment, it's quite defeatist and comes across as the "resistance is futile" talking point from the "privacy is dead" camp

What we need is some kind of spousal privilege [1] or secrecy of correspondence [2] for the internet age, ie, for IoT things. Surreptitious recordings from phones, messaging apps, "amazon echo"s, xbone cameras, etc, should be impermissible in court (or some variation on this theme). We struck a balance in the past, we can do it again.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spousal_privilege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spousal_privilege) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence)

<comment><USER2> It's easy to accuse people of "defeatism", or "alarmism", when really you just don't like the simple truth. Your idea is nice, but unless you're capable of producing a workable roadmap and seeing it enacted, who really cares? Everyone has "good ideas" and many people have good intentions, but if you can't produce results that differ from the next guy it just doesn't matter.

Unless you're Churchill rallying a nation to fight, you're in no position to accuse anyone of defeatism for pointing out the reality we live in.

<comment><USER3> My point was more along the lines of "lets stop repeating the 'give up' mantra" and move forward to "lets explore how we might rectify the situation". But alas you are also right, I did not present a shovel ready legal pathway to success.

<comment><USER2> I'm not suggesting that anyone give up, I was suggesting that the EFF must feel despair in the context of their efforts. I would argue that there is more need than ever to fight, but that fight hasn't _really_ materialized yet. Outside of places like HN, so few people appreciate that there even is a fight, and fewer care.

That may change, but until it does, the best you can do is educate people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I'm glad Amazon pushed back, it did set some precedents and isn't exactly a victory.

They eventually handed over the data (at the owner's consent), which does two things: 1) confirms they do have data and the ability to turn it over 2) makes anyone who doesn't hand over the data seems guilty (hey, if you have nothing to hide...)

Privacy is eroded one step at a time.

<comment><USER5> > 1) confirms they do have data and the ability to turn it over

Not necessarily. We don't know what they handed over. For all we know right now, it literally could be a single request to start a timer or check the weather.

The use of the data seems dubious assuming that Alexa has to hear the trigger word before sending data to Amazon. Judging by the traffic on my network, I'd say that's the case. I don't see a persistent stream coming from my Alexa device beyond periodic pings.

<comment><USER2> Keep in mind that a key piece of evidence in the murder case in question is a single datapoint from his smart water-meter.

"Why did you use 140 gallons of water around 2AM? Long shower bud?"

<comment><USER6> How is it not relevant whether someone used a lot of water after the homeowner was dead?

<comment><USER2> _According to police records, a city utility billing and collections manager told detectives that, on the night of Collins 's death, 140 gallons of water were used at Bates's home between 1 and 3 a.m., an amount of water usage that exceeded all other periods there since October 2013.

"In comparison, while all four [men] were together earlier that evening, they never used more than 10 gallons of water in an hour," police reports said. "The amount of water used between 0100-0300 hours was consistent with spraying down the back patio area, which may have resulted in the wet concrete patterns observed on the morning of November 22nd."

The utility department's source? Each home in Bentonville was on a smart meter, police were told, to measure and record the exact consumption of electricity and water every hour._ -Washington Post

The homeowner wasn't the one who died.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would not it be better if Amazon didn't keep those data at all and maybe even made sound recognition on a client?

</comment><comment><USER8> I absolutely support EFF, but it must be said that privacy and decentralization can be in conflict with Free software. Namely, by flooding the world with GPL and liberally-licensed web software, it becomes a commodity item, making "the cloud" possible in the first place, and enslaving people.

<comment><USER3> Ehh, not really, the cloud is similarly possible without free software. Indeed much of the big name cloud provider's backend software would be in-house anyway. Windows VMs exist too.

I guess your point is closer to 'free software makes the cloud cheaper', which in turn makes it easier to ensnare people..</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you think APIs will be the next gold rush? - <AUTHOR>

We're seeing an explosion of APIs; apart the traction will they ever generate some revenue to the developer/webapp? <comment><USER2> APIs - the popular ones - will lead to a ton of requests that they may be able to capitalize on.

However, for indie developers, it's much harder to profit off an API - especially when they can pull the plug any time they want.</comment>


U.S. warns Samsung washing machine owners after explosion reports - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/28/news/samsung-cpsc-washing-machine-explosion-reports/index.html <comment><USER2> Samsung is having a bad year. I really wanted to get a Note 7.

They need to ramp up their QA teams.

</comment><comment><USER3> They really like making things that explode!</comment>


Dota 2 E-Sports Tournament Disrupted by Player DDOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=408051

<comment><USER2> Why must they ruin the fun? Now games for today are cancelled and my half-day from work is pointless, I'll actually have to code or something.</comment>


John Cleese: A lecture on Creativity - <AUTHOR> http://www.vimeo.com/18913413

<comment><USER2> Previous submissions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1604148> <\- Many comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1639049>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671845>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2524122>

<comment><AUTHOR> Just wanted to mention that those aren't the same video I'm posting.

I found the one I posted a little better on the explaining side, since it is 30mins long, and those link you posted lead to a 10min video.</comment></comment>


A Sidenote on iOS Notifications - <AUTHOR> http://taitems.tumblr.com/post/6205343113/a-sidenote-on-ios-notifications-a-lot-of

<comment><USER2> I'd like to see eink used like this.</comment>