Surge in South Korea coronavirus cases sparks hospital bed shortage concerns - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea/surge-in-south-korea-coronavirus-cases-sparks-hospital-bed-shortage-concerns-idUSKBN25P08X <comment> just-juan-post I've seen plenty of stories about being almost out of beds but I have yet to see one where anywhere in the world has run out of them and had to turn positive patients away from hospitals.

Has anyone seen stories about people being turned away?

<comment><USER2> In the United States at least The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires emergency departments to provide care to all those who present with a real emergency. From my understanding, that means if you show up at the ED with a legit COVID case, they gotta take you or the feds will go after the hospital.

They've handled it by throwing up some tents in the parking lot to handle overflow. So, they're gonna take you, but do you really want to be the COVID patient in a tent in the parking lot?

Not sure if there are similar laws in other countries?</comment></comment>


What are some groups/forums of travelers to test an app and do a survey? - <AUTHOR> https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/103221/what-are-some-open-closed-groups-forums-of-travelers-where-we-could-do-a-survey <comment><USER2> Try the flyertalk forums</comment>


Security is Mathematics - s-phi-nl http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2008-03-21-security-is-mathematics.html

<comment><AUTHOR> _If you want someone to understand security, just send him to a university mathematics department for four years._

This is a testable assertion.

I've met a bunch of people in data security in the last few years. In fact, I do know one with a math degree and he's very sharp.

But I still think the premise is ridiculous. Math proofs are tall towers of lemmas and theorems existing in an insulated universe.

Logical and rational thought are critical, yes, but in real world security you must be very careful not to build your towers that high. Instead you need a defense-in-depth strategy, one which assumes at least some of your assumptions are going to be violated on a regular basis.

Seen in a crypto paper:

* An attack on [cryptographic primitive] A implies an attack on [cryptographic primitive] B.

* B is not the subject of this paper.

* Therefore, A is proven secure.

<comment><USER2> It's a good point. My uni's Master's level security coursework was surprisingly very math heavy. A typical class started with about 60 people and ended with about 10 very exhausted students.

Folks without a strong math background, expecting to learn how to tweak file permissions or domain controllers or something were in for a rude surprise when we cracked open a textbook that consisted of mostly greek letters and pages of proofs and lemmas.

But having studied some hard maths in my undergrad, I walked away with a feeling I couldn't shake that much of it was form over function. We spent weeks showing proofs of very simple security circumstances "atomic changes to an access control list are provable secure" and then summed it up with "anything more complex than this, like nonatomic changes to an ACL are provably insecure".

And that was that. I came away very disappointed in the field as a whole, that instead of spending time pragmatically finding ways of improving security in an applied sense, we were spending an inordinate amount of time cranking through higher level maths that just showed the whole thing was hopeless in the end anyways.

Depressing.

<comment><USER3> It may be disappointing that many things are provably insecure, but if they are, isn't it good to know that?

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. It's totally not an area I plan on working in, but it was a fascinating insight into the field. I ended up respecting it quite a bit more, there was a lot more thought in the field than I had expected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would argue the opposite: The "security is mathematics" mindset leads to overall system designs that are often less secure. How? The mathematically inclined security experts fail to incorporate (mathematically fuzzy) human factors such as usability and carelessness.

Typical example: Require users to change a password once/month and there's a maximum of one month's time when a password thief has access to an account. True enough. So what do users do (and let's thrown in a requirement for at least one capital letter, at least 1 digit, at least one symbol, 9 character minimum)?

Month 1: Charlie1!

Month 2: Charlie2!

Month 3: Charlie3!

Month x: Charliex!

Meanwhile, formulations for password security that strike a reasonable balance between security and usability (and thus actually get used) are rejected immediately because of mathematical edge cases.

Here's my formulation for a balanced security approach for home users:

"Use a password manager to assign unique, random 15 character passwords for all accounts, protecting them with a strong master password."

I can think of quite a few edge cases where this system will fail. Keystroke logging is the most obvious. In actual practice, there has not yet been a case of a password database being breached due to keystroke logging the master password (at least not among the market-leading password managers).

In actual practice, taking into account human factors, this system is more secure than that practiced by the vast majority of end users. And far more secure than rotating Charliex! passwords.

<comment><USER5> "there has not yet been a case"

How would you know if this had happened?

<comment><USER6> The compromised product's competitors would publicize the failure--at least, if the free market worked perfectly.

<comment><USER7> How would the compromised product's competitors know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since the article references Bruce Schneier, he gave an interesting TED talk where he once again describes the usability/security tradeoff and how humans are very poor (because of hardwiring) perceivers of risk. This might also be why one needs to be "trained" to get a security mindset.

<http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_schneier.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> There are so many instances where non-mathematical variables play an important role in authoring security conscious code. Yes, most security issues arise from not checking edge cases, but you have to know what they are. Mathematics will surely adapt you into thinking about this practically, but it will never teach this.

</comment><comment><USER10> Dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2222191>

</comment><comment><USER11> Nope. Security is primarily social science and engineering. Mathematical training can help [and of course is crucial for areas like cryptography] but it's far from the only way to get a security mindset.

<comment><USER12> someone failed logic

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, he's basically correct — unwarranted assumptions create security holes. But the people commenting here that usability problems create security holes are also correct. If you have a system with no usability problems and no unwarranted assumptions, is it therefore secure? Or are there other ways that security holes arise?

<comment><USER4> There's insider risk. Someone who's job it is to maintain security is most able to breach it.

There's also "hidden back door" risk. Programmers may code in means to get at data for code testing or government sharing purposes, which the security people may or may not fully understand.

I guess you could call these unwarranted assumptions (that insiders are always honest and that no back doors exists or are fully known if they do), but they don't seem amenable to mathematical modeling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Its a weak counterargument to Scheiner's. The ability to think logically (one example of which is writing proofs though I think writing good code requires it as much) is no protection against attacks you don't know exist. If we knew exactly how security systems could be broken then building an unbreakable protocol would just require thinking about how to satisfy a bunch of constraints (which mathematicians and computer scientists are trained to do). But, in addition to being resistant to known attacks, a new security protocol should be stress tested by trying to think of new attacks that could break it. Most university courses on security don't emphasize this way of thinking. That's all Scheiner is saying. This guy doesn't mention anywhere how a math degree trains you to do that.

<comment><USER14> Also why does the title have nothing to do with the point he is trying to make?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> And this is why I trust my files with this guy.

</comment><comment><USER16> Interesting read. Falls into what I feel is a mindset mastery. Some individuals are just good at some things for whatever reason. As an example the best software testers I know have an almost instinctive ability to find obscure bugs.

No idea what can get you to land in this zone (training or otherwise) but if you do fall in one you tend to be very good at whatever it is your brain is wired for.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is this a joke? Navel gazing and patting one's self on the back in one post. This makes it to the front of HN?

I guess he might be on to something. Every philosopher I have ever read has always treated assumptions in a willy-nilly matter. Not to mention any decent legal opinion.

Good security requires critical analysis. The same thing can be said for jurists, inventors, supply-chain logistics...etc.

What a surprise the math guy thought math people have such insight. What's that saying about carpenters and their hammers? At least carpenters don't go around telling everyone that everything is a nail...

<comment><USER18> Patting himself on the back? I thought he was being rather matter-of-fact. If Colin starts patting himself on the back, trust me, you'll know: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35076>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Security _is_ mathematics.

People just occasionally don't use the system correctly: that isn't the fault of the system (in terms of security).</comment>


Ask HN: Made my first github project, how do I get exposure? - <AUTHOR>

I've just completed my first useful library and have shared it on git-hub (https://github.com/anfurny/ALive-Fields).
But nobody cares, or more realistically, nobody is encountering it. Basically, I've spent a lot of my time sharing this library, and I think people could use it, I just don't know of any good place  to connect with those people.
I don't have a blog or a twitter or publicize on (and even if I did I'd still not be sure how to publicize those).
P.S. If this project is redundant because somebody else is already doing it better in PHP, let me know, but I haven't seen anything like it yet. <comment><USER2> If someone can't figure out what it is in the first 30 seconds, they move on -- and that's being generous. The truth is probably more like 8 seconds.

And in 30 seconds I have no clue what your project is, does, or what problem it solves.

Oh and your README isn't IN the README. Seriously?!

<comment><USER3> Exactly. I often find stuff on Github by searching GH or Google. If your project isn't SEO friendly, I'll never find it. If I can't figure out what it does in <10 seconds, that gives the impression it isn't developed well and I wouldn't want to use it anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My impression was that having a wiki for the project superseded a readme (with the home node essentially being a better formatted readme).

But the SEO point is very good, I hadn't thought about that.

I'm still curious about any places I can go and put this in front of people instead of hoping they chance upon it.

<comment><USER4> Firstly, its good you're posting it here, programming.reddit.com is another place, post it to IRC, tell your friends about it, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's exactly what I need. Any IRC servers or channels you recommend? I consider myself very out-of-touch with the programming community but want to fix that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your readme should include:

What problem does it solve? How much effort will it take for me to understand it well enough to use it?

It should _not_ consist entirely of a line telling me to read index.php.</comment>


Hydroxychloroquine Associated with an Increase of Survival in Covid-19 Patients - <AUTHOR> https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202005.0057/v1 <comment><USER2> I take every study with a massive grain of salt, [especially one this size], until solid meta-analysis is done, but this is more promising than I expected for hydroxychloroquine _without_ zinc:

> _Conclusion: in a cohort of 166 patients from 18 to 85 years hospitalised > with COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine treatment with an 800mg added loading dose > increased the cumulative mean survival according to the diagnosis of > severity at the beginning by 1.4 to 1.8 times. This difference was > statistically significant when the clinical picture at admission was mild._

</comment><comment><USER3> "This version is not peer-reviewed"

Here's the problem with preprints like this:

 _In an earlier era, issues with the Santa Clara study would have been addressed during peer review—the process in which scientific work is assessed by other researchers before being published in a journal. But like many COVID-19 studies, this one was uploaded as a preprint—a paper that hasn't yet run the peer-review gauntlet. Preprints allow scientists to share data quickly, and speed is vital in a pandemic: Several important studies were uploaded and discussed a full month before being published._

 _Preprints also allow questionable work to directly enter public discourse, but that problem is not unique to them. The first flawed paper on hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19 was published in a peer-reviewed journal, whose editor in chief is one of the study's co-authors._ [1]

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic- confusing-uncertainty/610819/)

<comment><USER4> That doesn't mean one can't read the preprint and critically evaluate it (I've done so for a few posted here on HN).

On this specific paper, I think tracking survival is not the right metric. Studies which evaluate the time to recovery, like the NIAID trial with remedisivir, are far more important in the current situation.

<comment><USER3> Sure. You can critically evaluate random Internet posts. They are still problematic when they enter public non-specialist discourse without peer review by those that possess the experience and context to properly evaluate them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > There was a non-statistically significant trend towards survival in all > groups, which will have to be clarified in subsequent studies.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm so ready to get past observational studies to real proper double-blind research, The first should go to pre-print next week.

This is hopeful though.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. It's disappointing to see observational study after observational study pumped out and still little-to-no actual causal evidence after _three months_.

<comment><USER4> The U of Minnesota trial (which is a true vs-placebo trial) reported on April 22nd that they needed at least 200 more people to get enough power for their study. According to their web page[1] the interim meeting of the safety board is expected for today.

[1] [https://covidpep.umn.edu/updates](https://covidpep.umn.edu/updates)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > In the study of 368 patients, 97 patients who took hydroxychloroquine had a > 27.8% death rate. The 158 patients who did not take the drug had an 11.4% > death rate.

[https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/health/hydroxychloroquine- vet...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/health/hydroxychloroquine-veterans- study/index.html)

Personally, when I find two studies report opposite conclusions, I take a neutral position. Neutral meaning: lets give drugs to people who need them instead of using a lupus drug to treat flu symptoms.

Might as well try Benadryl and Tylenol first.

<comment><USER9> They aren't nessesarially opposite conclusions. Maybe they used different dosages, for example.

[https://www.randombio.com/hcq2.html](https://www.randombio.com/hcq2.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> " Age distribution according to the severity at admission was homogeneous between HCQ and non- HCQ treatment groups when the clinical picture was mild (57,6 years HCQ – 58,4 years non-HCQ, p=0,865) or moderate (63,8 years HCQ – 70 years non-HCQ, p=0,269). "

Those are some high p-values. Makes sense with a small control group of 43 people. This paper can be put in the bin labeled "no statically significance"

<comment><USER7> They're meant to be high. This means "we didn't find a detectable difference in age distribution between the groups" and therefore that the results are (hopefully) not confounded by age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So Trump was right after all. Guess no newspaper will report that..

<comment><USER10> Please educate yourself on statics and read the paper. Obvious points:

\- It's a pre-print

\- Not reviewed

\- Way too small group sizes to be meaningful

<comment><USER2> > _Please educate yourself on statics and read the paper._

I think you mean "statistics"? Statics is the study of constant forces acting on unmoving bodies (as opposed to dynamics).</comment></comment></comment>


Movie about dot-com entrepreneur struggling through 2001 trailer [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMPR28C7NVA <comment><USER2> Josh Hartnett, David Bowie. It's gonna suck. Though props for the obscure reference to the first season of Saturday Night Live. Landshark?

Someone has already done the real thing,and everyone should watch that rather than give money to bullshit Hollywood movies:

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/>

<comment><USER3> I am sure that the mistakes that clearly caused the failure of the company in "Startup.com" (recklessness, poor planing, wishful thinking) will be show to be genius business aptitudes in this stupid movie.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Course, it's a really handsome actor, doing zillow, getting all kinds of girls, in New York, and (apparently) couldn't hack a square foot of rain forest. It's not the monomaniacal SV we all know and love, but hell, it's a little bit of exposure.

My prediction is that, with all the fortunes coming out of SV, this industry will become more glamorous, the way hedge funds became glamorous in the last ten years (had you heard about them before 2001?). This glamor will attract more gold diggers (partially bad) and more sleazebags (just plain bad) that try to cash in off other people's work.

</comment><comment><USER4> I certainly wouldn't watch it for a realistic take. Actually, I probably wouldn't watch it at all, since so far it's ranked somewhere between Made of Honor and Meet Dave: <http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/august>

</comment><comment><USER5> It's really not that great of a movie.

It was hard to watch all the way through. Mainly because the biggest conflicts were usually trivial things. Also how they ran their business was exactly why most start-ups died that year.</comment>


25 Civil Liberties Orgs Call for Open Hearings on Section 702 Surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/25-civil-liberties-organizations-call-open-hearings-section-702-surveillance <comment><USER2> I wish there was a way to get involved with civil liberty movements like this. I strongly believe NSA spying has harmed free speech in America.

</comment><comment><USER3> These orgs (and all of us) should have legal teeth. We should be able to indict and subsequently prosecute those whose crimes have become obvious and for whome there is sufficient evidence.

Government prosecutors will never do it.</comment>


Automatic Portrait Segmentation for Image Stylization [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/leojia/papers/portrait_eg16.pdf <comment><USER2> I found a more general paper [1] just this morning. Haven't had the chance to properly read it, but it might be relevant here.

Apparently algorithmic rotoscoping (making a mask for separate object(s) in a scene) is called "segmentation" in academia.

[1] [http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jonlong/long_shelhamer_fcn....](http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jonlong/long_shelhamer_fcn.pdf)

<comment><USER3> That's the often cited paper on fully convolutional networks for semantic segmentation.

The differences in this paper were the face specific features

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many of the input pictures look like they were constructed from stock backgrounds. The one with the Golden Gate Bridge from the Marin headlands, for example. That was taken from here[1], but the fence isn't in the picture. Either the model was standing on something to gain height, or was added later. So the algorithm is sometimes just undoing compositing.

[https://goo.gl/maps/XxnVEo7k1LF2](https://goo.gl/maps/XxnVEo7k1LF2)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is fascinating.

How does a study from something like this get into a filter in photoshop? Can anyone implement the features or is it understood to be copy written by the academic journal authors?

<comment><USER6> Hmm, there are a few interesting things not in photoshop et-al. For a while now, I've been wondering if some kind of "code bounty" site exists where suggestions on new pieces of software are given, and efforts combined. Even on HN, you often see people say "I'm working on this/something.." in regards to articles - A collaboration and quasi "ShowHN" site would be good.

Actually, there _was_ something called upboat.us, but I think that closed...</comment></comment>


The key points of Software Design X-Rays - <AUTHOR> https://understandlegacycode.com/blog/key-points-of-software-design-x-rays/ <comment><USER2> Sounds like some interesting approaches to measuring complexity.

I'm consistently appalled by existing tools that claim to measure code quality or programmer output. The whole industry seems set up to prey on incompetent and insecure middle management. And I say that as a middle manager.

<comment> jagged-chisel There's a plethora of incompetent and insecure middle management, so it's a big market to tap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This sounds like a direct pull from Adam Thornhill's CodeScene.io

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, "Software Design X-Rays" is Adam's book that details the theory CodeScene uses. Hence the connection =)</comment></comment>


Twitter in London - <AUTHOR> http://tlondon.linkstore.ru London's news mashup <comment><AUTHOR> updated. Feeds for buy/sell, photos for food</comment>


Supercapacitors from Standard Bricks - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/how-to-turn-regular-bricks-into-electricity-storying-supercapacitors/ <comment><USER2> _Energy density of 222 µWh cm−2_

As a battery, this is not useful.

A standard brick is 2Kg, volume 1300 cm^2, or 0.0015 Kg/cm^2. So that's 148,000 uWh/Kg, or 0.148 Wh/Kg.

That's not much. A lead-acid battery is 30 to 50 watt-hours / Kg. Existing ultracapacitors have an energy density of 5 to 10 watt-hours / Kg. So this is about 1/200th the energy density of a lead-acid battery, or 1/33 of an ultracapacitor. Not bad for a first try. It may be possible to improve on the material. Get the surface to volume ratio up.

But as a capacitor, it's quite good. Use this technology to replace ordinary electrolytic capacitors in power supplies. Capacitors have been the weak point in power supplies for a century. As an ordinary capacitor, it's 1.60F/cm^2 at 1.2V. Farad, not uF. That's very good compared to ordinary electrolytics. The main problem is the low current - 0.5mA/cm^2. That has to be increased for this to be useful as a filter cap. That's mostly a connection problem - getting enough conductor near the capacitor component.

<comment><USER3> It's also not a very good energy per unit cost, at about $600 per kWh (assuming $0.50 per brick, which is fairly typical for bulk brick orders). Meanwhile, Tesla is targeting a supercapacitor cost of $150/kWh.

<comment><USER4> Yeah but if you're building a house, you need the bricks anyway. Why not make your walls a battery while at it?

<comment><USER5> Are there still places where brick construction is common?

Any semi-modern building I've seen in my area is wood-frame with maybe a decorative brick facade on part of a wall.

I can't imagine the cost of building a brick house makes any financial sense when compared to more modern construction methods.

Am I wrong in this?

<comment><USER6> Many parts of the US prefer the aesthetics of brick. It isn't about the cost.

<comment><USER5> > Many parts of the US prefer the aesthetics of brick

At least around here, if you want the aesthetic, you go for wood frame with brick facade.

How does brick work for modern wiring, plumbing, insulation needs? Most of that stuff is traditionally routed at least partially through load bearing walls.

<comment><USER7> >How does brick work for modern wiring, plumbing, insulation needs? Most of that stuff is traditionally routed at least partially through load bearing walls.

it's not much different other than the addition of a masonry drill bit.

in the case of very large plumbing, sometimes whole bricks are left out and the area filled/finished with a conrete mixture and left to set around the pipe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A well explained article from Ars Technica discussing this. As ever, the comments are at least as insightful and interesting as the article.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/how-to-turn- regular-...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/how-to-turn-regular- bricks-into-electricity-storying-supercapacitors/)

<comment><USER9> Ok, we'll change to that from [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17708-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17708-1). Thanks!

For specialized papers it's generally better to submit the highest-quality third party description and link to the paper in the comments. Exceptions would be fields like computing where the bulk of the audience is able to read the specialized paper without much trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if this could be used with the bricks used from expelled tunnel material from the Boring Company. It would dovetail nicely into the rest of Musk Enterprises.

[https://electrek.co/2018/07/13/elon-musk-boring-company- bric...](https://electrek.co/2018/07/13/elon-musk-boring-company-bricks-dirt- tunnels/)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a great result from some off-the-shelf materials (uh, and a vacuum deposition chamber I guess). With some engineering for cheap manufacturing and improved capacity, the modifications might at least pay for themselves.

<comment><USER11> Maxwell was essentially doing this with activated charcoal, weren't they? While it might be surprising to many of us, I doubt it's that surprising to anyone working, or even investing, in this problem domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm confused what the dialectic medium separating the two charged elements is?

<comment><USER13> Figure 5b has a description that reads "Cyclic voltammograms for symmetric supercapacitors using 1 M H2SO4 aqueous electrolyte and poly(vinyl alcohol)/H2SO4 gel electrolyte". Looks like you can either submerge the bricks in a solution or have a gel layer between them to produce the actual capacitor structure.

<comment><USER14> They must be in sulfuric acid? So we're not building houses out of this any time soon.

<comment><USER13> I don't think this would be for building homes, it would just be a potentially cheap way to build large capacitor banks for homes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Question: why is this called a supercapacitor, rather than just a standard one?

<comment><USER16> They have about 4-8 orders of magnitude more capacitance per unit area than film or typical electrolytic capacitors.</comment></comment>


Books for Young Leaders - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/11_books_every_young_leader_mu.html

<comment><USER2> I'd recommend Xenophon's Anabasis.

</comment><comment><USER3> Given the crowd, I'd strongly recommend Models of My Life by Herbert Simon.

</comment><comment><USER4> for the hacker news crowd .... Peopleware</comment>


Show HN: MusicMap, a way to selectively proccess your music - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> This might not be of any use to anybody but me, but it's worth putting it out there.

Basically I got tired of clicking buttons when I wanted to go through my music library and move some older music somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER2> Do you have a link to the app?</comment>


Hackers and hucksters reinvigorate 'Anonymous' brand amid protests - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-protests-anonymous/hackers-and-hucksters-reinvigorate-anonymous-brand-amid-protests-idUSKBN23A06I <comment><USER2> Other discussions this week:

"Anonymous hackers re-emerge amid US unrest" – [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23383291](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23383291) (28 points, 30 comments)

"Anonymous targets police and Trump administration" –[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374823](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374823) (68 points, 14 comments)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a better title "Journalist hucksters reinvigorate the fake message that anonymous is back ".

I understand how this might get traction on Reddit or Facebook, but Hacker News?

<comment><USER4> The same accounts that tweeted about Anonymous and LulzSec 9 years back are being used, this is not "fake news" by some "journalist hucksters".

<comment><USER3> The original anonymous hackers now have children and real jobs. Some random twitter accounts from 9 years ago are not anonymous, one of them was used as a kpop account. Anyone saying anonymous is back is either a dolt or using for political posturing.</comment></comment></comment>


Notion: A Product That Users Love, and VCS Can't Invest Into - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/notion-a-product-that-users-love-and-vcs-cant-invest-into-2g1oe3zwq <comment><USER2> The headline is a bit misleading. I took it they couldn't get VC's to invest for some reason. But it's the reverse, they won't let VC's invest.</comment>


Memory Optimization (2003) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.research.scea.com/research/pdfs/GDC2003_Memory_Optimization_18Mar03.pdf <comment><USER2> At a cursory glance, seems to be a good cache-optimization 101.

Only prefetch related slides were outdated, those should be ignored. In short, don't do manual prefetch, CPU automatic prefetching is good for predictable sequential access. Manual prefetching can even make the execution slower.</comment>


Show HN: Careers for people not going to college, built with Meteor - <AUTHOR> https://raiseyourflag.com/ <comment><USER3> For people nearing the end of high-school, please go to college.

I don't have a degree and have been extremely lucky; I managed to get into middle-management and have been successful.

The problem is that I'm not as "portable" as I would be with a degree - <USER2> other words, a layoff or termination could put my lifestyle in jeopardy. As such, I am going back to school at 29.

Get it over with :)

<comment><USER4> I'm 37. At my age a degree is completely irrelevant if you have the skill set. In fact, ten years ago I was approached by a university to start my Master's degree, with the missing Bachelor's degree being credited through time spent working in my industry at the time.

The reality of education in America is that it's an expensive tickbox. It verges on being a racket. While you don't want to be the lone rebel being crushed under the wheels of the machine, if you can avoid becoming indentured to the government with a student loan then do yourself a favour and choose not to waste money on education you can just teach yourself.

<comment><USER5> > At my age a degree is completely irrelevant if you have the skill set.

This is a dangerous thing to say without any qualifiers. It depends on the industry, economic conditions in your area, type/size of company you want to work for, etc.

I've known a couple individuals who had the skills and 20+ years of experience who lost jobs at floundering companies and weren't able to find anything relevant due to a lack of a degree. In both cases, they had a few interviews that were basically "Wow, you're a great fit experience-wise and it like you've worked with the same technologies/processes we use here and some we're hoping to go to. Oh, except we can't hire you for an engineering role unless you have at least a BS. Would you be interested in an hourly maintenance job?"

<comment><USER6> But that's madness! You'd be great for this job but we can't hire you because you don't have a piece of paper? How long can these self inflicted meaningless restrictions continue?

<comment><USER7> I agree.

Although sometimes there are legal requirements. Like a lawyer in a law firm, don't know how it is in the US (probably the same) but here there's no way you can practice law and represent someone in a court without a master's legal degree. And starting your own firm requires a degree above that. Although you can start a legal advisory firm without it.

I appreciate you may still think that legal requirement is madness but I can imagine there are some jobs where you want a government to accredit a university's degree, as a form of consumer protection and regulation. For example say a doctor, or a financial advisor, you may want to have 'audited' and given some level of quality assurance, which is essentially what government-accredited degrees aim to prove.

What would be madness is if that same government did not try to accommodate for people with degree-equivalent experience to get their experiences accredited with a formal degree at no-cost or low-cost. For example if you're a self-taught engineer who, due to work experience, could actually finish engineering courses without going to any classes because of self-education, then you ought to be able to (after demonstrating said experience) pay for the mere administrative cost of examination (i.e. $50 per exam) and take all examinations in a year for less than $1k and get your degree. Without spending years, going to classes, and paying tens of thousands for teaching you don't need and won't make use of.

This isn't always easy but separating examination from teaching in schools is something I think we haven't explored enough. You can do a GED or GMAT without enrolling in any classes, and just taking exams, and if self-taught or skilled by experience somehow, then the test is just an accreditation of your skills. Yet we don't have equivalents for advanced degrees. It's not easy to set this up of course, but I think we ought to try more. Although for legal professions it exist, the bar exam afaik doesn't require you to ever have gone to law school, if you happen to be able to take it due to e.g. working in a legal office and somehow picking up everything in an assistant role.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I went to school and dropped out twice — Caltech and Georgetown. I think I maybe have 20 credit hours under my belt? I don't even know.

I'm now 24. I've done quite okay for myself. On paper, I'm not that appealing — non-violent/non-drug related felonies, dropped out of two very highly- regarded schools ("there must be something wrong here"), and some baggage from when I was a child ("mommy/daddy issues") that still sneak up on me every now and then, which have just as occasionally impacted my professional life.

But I made it. I'm a rare breed and I'm thankful. If I would have added a college degree to my life's work, it would be one less strike against me. A strike that I wouldn't have to prove myself for or against.

My advice: Anyone who is at or nearing the end of their high school career, please go to college. Two years at a community college, and then two years wherever you want to go. ~$70k and you're done.

While you're on HN, you're in a social circle of where it's not abnormal for people to be successful without a college degree. In the real world, however, this number is much slimmer than it's made out to be here.

That said, don't think that all you need is education either. A diploma is a piece of paper that shows you followed a curriculum, bought someone a new Mercedes, and slaved away for countless hours on end. Your battle doesn't end there — experience in the real world goes a lot further than you think it does.

<comment><USER9> If you have an opportunity to go to a really top-end school, sure, take it. That's really valuable. But remember, that's not an opportunity most people have.

Don't pretend that a degree from the school you see advertised on daytime TV is the same sort of product.

This, I think, is the "big lie" about college. The idea that a poor person with a degree from a shitty college is going to have even just the opportunities that I had[1]... is a lie. There's really no other way to put it. Sure, if you can get into a really good college and make sure you work your way into a peer group of successful people? It can be a great leg up. Hell, if I thought I could get into Stanford, I'd take four years off right now[2]. But going to the sort of college your average poor person is going to go to, and being around other people in that same situation isn't going to get you the opportunities I got for just being born.

[1]to be clear, My parents were pretty solidly middle class, not rich. So am I. I'm a competent but not great sysadmin/programmer; I didn't go to college, but I had all of the advantages that your average kid who goes to a mid-level college would have.

[2]But the sort of mid-level school that would accept a mid-level middle-class mid-achieving guy like me? Maybe a nice UC? Yeah, four years at your average mid-level school isn't going to increase my salary any more than four years of changing my job to focus on the more in-demand bits of my industry. Probably a lot less, in fact. I mean, it sounds like a lot of fun, but I don't know if it's half a million bucks in fun.

<comment><USER8> Incredibly well said.

My parents — probably like yours — are very traditional. And in so, they are convinced that having that piece of paper means you're +$30k a year from the start <at least AND no matter what other circumstances _> (_ except outliers).

I STILL hear this all the time... "when I was your age..."

I reply, "yeah well when Barack Obama was your age, he was the first black President of the United States of America."

When my parents were my age, they could go to school full-time at the University of Minnesota, have a minimum wage job, and at 16 hours a week they would be able to afford their education and living expenses.

Those were the days where it made sense to have an education because it was such a great value at a very affordable price.

BUT. Now, because it's so much easier to get <nearly free money> (a la student loans), Universities saw this as money in their pocket: Since students are getting money easier, that means it's easier for them to get an education; now that there's more money available, let's make more money for ourselves!

It's a terrible fucking system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really like this. It reminds me of Mr. Money Mustache's "50 Jobs over $50,000 - Without a Degree":

[Part 1] [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs- over-50000...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs- over-50000-without-a-degree-part-1/)

[Part 2] [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/05/50-jobs- over-50000...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/05/50-jobs- over-50000-without-a-degree-part-2/)

Quick question: How did you get pagination working? I haven't built anything big in Meteor, but I did go through the Discover Meteor book, and it said that Meteor doesn't lend itself well to pagination, so that you should use infinite scrolling. Does pagination break if the database is updated, or is it not reactive, or am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am using Flow Router [https://github.com/kadirahq/flow- router](https://github.com/kadirahq/flow-router) to route the app. And this is the package I'm using for pagination [https://atmospherejs.com/miguelalarcos/flow-router- paginatio...](https://atmospherejs.com/miguelalarcos/flow-router-pagination). So far it hasn't let me down (there are a few bugs with the subscriptions on each individual page) but if you play around with the work style filter you'll see the collection reactivity and how it's reflected on the subscription and pagination. Thanks for your feedback! Waiting for Meteor to support pagination natively.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the tip! I actually wanted to build something in Meteor a while ago, but couldn't figure out how to set up pagination (and infinite scrolling just seemed awkward in that specific case). It's nice to see that there are ways to get it working.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah the speed that Meteor is accelerating at as a framework is amazing to see, soon enough it will be playing with the big dogs no problem :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My quick 2 minute clicking around critique:

1\. No search? A plumber is one one the best paid impossible-to-outsource- overseas jobs you can get without a college degree. Coming to the site I immediately wanted to search for it and have that be my point of entry to discovering how the site works. A known reference point. I had no desire to fiddle with those sliders.

2\. Union jobs, a.k.a. "the trades". Not college but they have a clear progression and pay is fairly well documented. (a filter for union?)

3\. pay is regional. Union jobs for example pay different depending on location. (see #2)

4\. on the career path view make the breadcrumb dots clickable. [https://raiseyourflag.com/career-path/virtual- assistant/virt...](https://raiseyourflag.com/career-path/virtual- assistant/virtual-assistant) \- text is clickable, so should be the dots on the line above.

<comment><USER12> Founder or Raise Your Flag here. Thanks for the feedback. (#1-3) Completely agree. Trades are missing from the site and are much needed. One reason we started with the paths that we started with is simply because there was no blueprint for those paths. Trades are understood and (at least here in Canada) get a ton of support from the government and push within the school system. We will be adding them very soon.

#4. Agreed. This will be fixed ASAP. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice looking site.

What did doing this in Meteor get you? Why did you go with a framework that focuses primarily on real-time interactions/data streaming?

It seems to me this could easily be a Rails app with some simple Angular components for the Filter Career Paths bit. But, perhaps this betrays my ignorance of the versatility of Meteor...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Me being a 21 year old developer who didn't have his hands in the mud when all the big guys were in play (Rails, Django, etc), I went for a new framework like Meteor to see where my self-learning abilities can benefit me. So far it's been great in terms of the speed we can develop at and the transparency between front end and back-end (no missed import calls anywhere to crash the app). Meteor, to early adopters, and people who haven't played around with it too much, who also have a rich background in other frameworks, might seem like not the go-to but for us it's been great so far.

<comment><USER13> Cool, thanks for the background. Good luck with the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sidestepping the merits of the go/no-go college discussion-- there are a lot of nice touches.

Check out the translate button: English -> French: [http://imgur.com/a/N4U9t](http://imgur.com/a/N4U9t)

At first I wondered why there was French but then I saw Toronto =)

</comment><comment><USER15> Very nice! Coincidently, I've been researching Meteor this past week for a new website as an alternative to my current Laravel stack. Meteor is very exciting and I'm drawn to the Isomorphic JS concept. However, I decided to hold off for now after learning more about the issues with search engine crawling, large initial downloads and difficulty in deployment. Most of these concerns are on the Meteor roadmap, so I am eagerly awaiting future updates.

Meteor is definitely enticing, with it's upcoming Galaxy deployment tool and React/Angular support. It's a very exciting, albeit, fast-faced time for webdev.

</comment><comment><USER16> One of those ideas, which if not executed well, could be misleading and/or condescending. I was pleasantly surprised.

Also very happy to see that it was not filled with Software based jobs.

</comment><comment><USER17> I had to close the tab as i couldn't scroll. Fuck new tech that doesn't work.

</comment><comment><USER18> TL;DR: university gave to me (and to my friends who have degrees) wider interest field, with skills to absorb information about new topics. In my own experience usually drop-outs and people who've did not attend college, have shallower and narrower interest fields.

IMHO, college/university degree is worth it (coming from Europe where education is way cheaper than in US), in regards you will also broaden your skill-set while attending school. Though, if you seek academical career 'real life' skill-set is somewhat less important.

Maybe it's just me and my social circles, but usually I can find out if someone has attended college or not (or just skimmed through classes), just by talking with them.

For reference, I had few colleagues who did their job well, though where completely clueless out of their job requirements range. They have not attended college, or dropped out very early. They had narrower and way shallower interest fields than people I know with degrees.

I want to stress that it's experience from my own social circles and I am not talking about exceptional cases (there are geniuses drop outs and geniuses with PhDs)

<comment><USER8> > For reference, I had few colleagues who did their job well, though where > completely clueless out of their job requirements range. They have not > attended college, or dropped out very early. They had narrower and way > shallower interest fields than people I know with degrees.

Were they engineers? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's not working right now but I think it's a fantastic idea. I don't think a college education will matter as much as it used to in the computing world. I know several successful people without a CS degree (myself included) or a degree period and they are doing fine.

</comment><comment><USER20> My undergraduate degree was math. Looking back, I find it really hard to imagine how I could have learnt all that without going to college. I just don't think it's possible to recreate that combination of extrinsic motivation and interactive learning. _maybe_ moocs can do this but I suspect they fall short on both accounts.

Now I'm able to learn more independently (e.g. type theory and HoTT) but it's still very difficult and I don't think I could do it without my undergraduate and higher degrees.

I see a lot of posts on hn asking the lines of "how can I learn X on my own". Without at least some formal education in college math or cs, I suspect the answer may be "it's not possible "

</comment><comment><USER21> Is the scrolling lag because of MeteorJS or is that the dev's fault?

<comment><USER22> The scroll lag is primarily caused by the top navigation bar's fade-on-scroll effect and the large background image. Remove both of those and the scroll lag disappears.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Background image is now at ~300kb. is it still occurring if you refresh?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm working on my meteor app too. Where are you hosting it? Can you provide more details on the deployment and how much monthly this costs you to keep it running?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are hosting on Modulus. When you sign up, you get a $15 credit which can last you the first month but it all depends on how many servos you need to scale your app. Other great places to host is Heroku. Modulus was a lot easier to set up since it supports Meteor apps out of the box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Amazing, I love these kind of initiatives. It was the missing step to fix some insecurities when taking your own way and not getting a diploma

</comment><comment><USER25> As a self-taught developer who has had serious success without a college degree, I'm curious. But, why are there only Canadian companies?

<comment><USER26> Also a self-taught developer here. I'm not sure how old you are, but do you worry about how not having a degree might affect your chances of finding work later in your career?

<comment><USER27> I always assumed that experience outweighed degrees at a certain point. At say, 40, what would a degree from 15 years ago matter?

<comment><USER28> Checkbox matching in HR processes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Aside from the usual flame of whether or not to go to college, this is HIGHLY impressive in design and function. It's also an amazing idea.

Good job OP!

</comment><comment> stephen-mw From time to time I think about university apart from academics. I went to a state school and left w/ around $15k in student loan debt, but made some of the best memories of my life.

Those are the kinds of experiences money can never buy you again. No sports car later in life will ever bring you that kind of fulfillment.

</comment><comment><USER30> One of the careers listed is Boat Captain. I used to have my captain's license. You can totally do it, and travel the world driving wealthy people around, without a degree.

Another way to get into that profession is to go to a university with a top ranked racing team, and be a professional skipper after you graduate.

</comment><comment><USER31> IMO, just do whatever is right for you. Nobody should be held back from pursuing academic interests. Just like nobody should be held back from learning on the job.

The only thing that we should warn people away from is doing _nothing_. You've got one life, just live it!

</comment><comment><USER32> Why limit it to careers for people not going to college? What is the benefit of that over, say, having all type of careers whether a degree is necessary or not? It seems like a really well organized product you have, but you are limiting its potential.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is excellent. I'd love to see something like this for college degrees too.

</comment><comment><USER34> Great interface! Very clean and I like the career path aspect to it.

</comment><comment><USER35> Beautiful design. Clean, friendly colors, easy to read. Nice job!

</comment><comment><USER36> I like the filtering approach - quite unique criteria, compared to what "similar" job-catalogue websites are offering.

Well done, overall! :)

</comment><comment><USER37> why is "lead android developer" the only software related career path?

what happened to just "software engineer" ?

<comment><USER38> I think a lot of career paths on the site are showing the ultimate goal, and then a "path" to it, the career ladder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> where do people get that kind of styling for buttons? i certainly can't find it in bootstrap

<comment><AUTHOR> I used some custom css for those

<comment><USER39> well done. looks really slick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I clicked through a few careers, tried to get back to HN, back button didn't work.

</comment><comment><USER41> If ever there was a headline designed for HN, this is it.

</comment><comment><USER42> App borken?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, might have been pushing updates. Check now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm seeing huge amounts of commentary about going to college or not. Here's my take and experience for what it's worth, as well as a general response to some of the comments I'm seeing.

1) There is no one size fits all answer to the question is college worth it. Depending on what career you intend to pursue it could be required (i.e. try being a medical doctor without a degree) or silly (music composition degree for a non-academic role).

2) Most HR recruiters and certain 'this-is-what-all-the-other-managers-do' hiring manager types do care about the degree. Without it you will not be likely to get in the door. However, consider if these are the kinds of people you want to work for/with. The other type of hiring professional where the degree matters is the manager that wants 'only people from Stanford (Columbia, Harvard, etc)' or 'only Ivy League'... then the degree only matters if it's from one of those (obviously).

3) Be honest with yourself. We are not equal all equal and facing reality will help you better make choices. If you are brighter, more intelligent, better skilled, more highly productive, and better with self-promotion than the majority of people you know/encounter the college degree (and expense thereof) will often times not be worth it. There are other more effective ways to prove your worth. If you are much more average compared to your competitors, or less interested in proving your worth in terms of career, then the degree will open options that aren't readily open to your more marketable peers; however you will also be competing with a greater number of people in the same boat. Being average or not career driven doesn't make you bad, it's just a consideration.

4) Any job you get you will be competing with others. That competition will be more important than the degree once you're inside. A degree can get you in some doors, but once you're in it will be all about performance. If it's not, you may want to question organizational effectiveness in the business. As your career progresses, the degree will matter less and less and experience/achievement more and more.

5) A good job is one that you enjoy doing and that pays for your desired lifestyle. It's not what your parents wanted you to do or society for that matter. And not all of them require degrees. Not all of them are behind a keyboard or a suitable for telecommuting. raiseyourflag.com looks young, but has some interesting ideas in regard to careers. But there are others touting ([http://profoundlydisconnected.com/](http://profoundlydisconnected.com/)) that there are good jobs with good pay that society (stupidly) tends to look down on. Don't let the opinion of others determine your course of action.

As for me... I have no degree. Despite that, I've managed to be in fairly senior information technology management positions throughout much of my career. I've been a consultant in the professional services group of business systems company and for the past several years I've run my own tiny boutique consultancy with clients ranging from M&A/Finance to frozen meat distribution to mobile app start-ups. More recently I've been doing much more hands-on software development work and enjoying the change. I tend to make as much or more money than the majority of my fully credentialed peers. I'm mid-40s and, true, I do have some college (music composition focused), but the lack of a degree has not stopped me from achieving what I want in career. Anyway, my two bits.</comment>


Help HN: I am trapped and it's making me ill - <AUTHOR> I don't have anybody to ask for help and guidance, so I just hope the HN hivemind might help me.  I am stressed, depressed and I literally have nothing to look forward to, and feeling cornered might be the cause of my constant illness.
My boss passed away from cancer last month. I am a director and have a big minority share. The company is doing great, it's remote, small (4 FT employees) and worth a few millions. The boss before dying delegated his work, the idea was selling after his death, but whoever inherited his majority share don't want to sell now, "probably next year". They don't know anything about the business, so I have to do all the tech work I was doing before + all the business decision now, until _they_ decide it's the right time to sell. I signed up to write code, not to wear both the CTO and CEO hats.
I live alone. I don't have any friends nor family in this country. Every single one left and went abroad for one reason or the other. I talk to family and old friends who all live abroad via the Internet, but no-one has told me "hello" in person in 6 months. My mother hasn't worked in a decade and I've been giving her some money every month to help her get by.
I'm anxious, now it's a panic attack every few days, depression, I can't watch a movie for more than 10 minutes, I used to love gaming, I don't have the energy to even boot one up. I keep the business afloat, do what needs to be done, but I haven't implemented a new feature in months.
I am out of shape because now eating is an emotional outlet. I feel nauseous when waking up or after eating. I leave the house twice a month for a quick walk, and I'm too self-conscious about my appearance to do it more often.
My health and sanity have declined quickly, and I don't know what to do.
I can't quit, it would kill the company and I don't want to lose my share of it. Making friends is hard. Getting fit is a long journey. I'm here breathless and panicky and I don't know what to do. <comment><USER2> Hello there. There is always a way out, don't feel trapped. I was in a similar situation recently, although as an employee. I turned down some job offers earlier in the year. Then coronavirus hit, my job became stressful and it is not easy to find a new job now.

I used Tim Ferris's fear-setting principle, you can find it on YouTube. I evaluated the worst that can happen if I walk away from my job. I lose my income, and lose face with family and friends. In your case the loss of your hard-earned equity.

Then I computed my monthly expenses against my total savings. To see how long I can go without earning a dime. In your case you should include the amount you send to your mum as essential... Please don't consider it a burden. For family and friends, they will all be fine in the long run. At least those that really care about you.

This steps will give you perspective on what will happen if you lose everything overnight.

That is on the most extreme end.

You are not trapped. You can take a break from day-to-day tasks, for a day or a week. You can speak to the other shareholder, of the need for a CEO, or someone or two people to handle the task you don't like. Or they can only come to you for decisions that are extremely important.

If the business suffers as a result of any of these. That should be an acceptable price to pay. Please find a way to accept that.

Also please leave the house more often. I find that morning or evening walks are good for the mind. And some form of human interaction can improve your mood instantly. You can find opportunities to volunteer in non-tech endeavors, where you can interact with people that have a common goal and more positive outlook on life.

I hope this helps you. If you want to talk to anyone, you can reach me through my bio.

</comment><comment><USER3> The facts are your health is rapidly declining and you don't want to quit your job. You have to tell the majority owner you cannot keep juggling both roles at the same time and that you are at your wits end and need his help before you burn out completely.

</comment><comment><USER4> You have to talk to the majority shareholder and tell them the situation: You either need to sell, or bring someone on to assume the CEO responsibilities. And you're out of time so you need to decide now.

If they won't budge, always remember that your health is more important than money. Fear of loss is not a good enough reason to ruin your health. In other words: You may have to quit regardless of the loss. Be ready for that possibility.

But first thing first: Talk to the majority shareholder and make sure they understand the situation on the ground. 95% of problems arise from miscommunication and misunderstanding.

</comment><comment><USER5> > I can't quit, it would kill the company

It sounds like you have some leverage. Have some discussions with the company about what you need.

And see a therapist to help you sort out your issues and figure out how to deal with them.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you quitting would kill the company, then you have leverage. Use it.

Don't threaten, but be clear that the current situation is not viable and that changes are going to have to be made. Suggest the changes and see how they respond.

Then depending on the response, reassess the situation (both the company's and yours). Remember - when health is at risk _always_ put your health first.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hi there! It sounds like you're going through a burnout. I think that once you accept it, then you can take the necessary steps to make the situation better. Hit me up if you'd like to chat, my email address is in my about section.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's not the external events that are the problem, but the way one reacts to them. Healthy people simply deal with their problems keeping more or less positive attitude during the process. The moment you start getting into a downward spiral of retreat from life, sabotaging oneself, having a "crisis" twice a week - you know you need to start digging, because your emotional configuration defines you as not prepared for dealing with the world. Every form of walking in circles for a prolonged amount of time is the same thing.

Psychotherapy. Definitely.

</comment><comment><USER9> Have you considered talking with a mental health therapist? Sometimes that can help.</comment>


Pica – high quality image resize in browser - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nodeca/pica <comment><USER2> Huh, I just now used this in a project of mine. It's pretty cool, and easy to use. I need to be able to do client-side compression on images (users are uploading avatars and small pictures for in-thread sharing, which don't need to be 3000px wide).

It was really easy to incorporate pica in my project. Kudos!</comment>


The difficulties of providing 110-volt power to your airline seat - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/nerds-only-about-ac-power-on-an-airplane/65033/ <comment><USER2> Here's my personal solution. It works for all airlines. It can also power my Cradlepoint 4G hotspot and recharge my iPad, iPhone, and any device using USB power.

<http://www.tekkeon.com/products-mypowerall.html>

I bought a male Adaptaplug and a Magsafe cord from eBay, and after 5 minutes with a soldering iron, it works for my 13" unibody MacBook as well. I plan on upgrading to a 13" MacBook Air soon. I should be able to get 14 hours working time from this setup.

As a companion to my WiFi iPad, it's great. The Cradlepoint will run for 18 hours off of it. (I have the MP3450.) Not small enough for a pocket, but it fits fine in most laptop bags.

EDIT: I bet there's a business renting these things out to people at airports!

<comment><USER3> I've considered these, but I've been afraid of taking it through security without causing any headaches. Have you had any problems?

<comment><USER2> I've only had a problem with the Cradlepoint because I had it on and it was warm. The battery? I just put it in my carryon, and it's never been a problem. I spent almost $7000 in cheap airfares in the last year, so this has definitely been tested!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can't we just have exercise bikes linked to generators in economy class?

About time the lower orders did some work.

<comment><USER5> Hey, if I could get something out of it (like fare), I'd gladly pedal away.

<comment><USER6> On a long enough flight, I'd probably pay to pedal.

Come to think of it. Maybe we should have excercise bikes in 1st powering economy. On board gym?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "I wondered whether, as a technical matter, an airliner could actually produce enough power to keep a planeful of laptop users plugged in through a whole flight. [...] Short answer: No, you probably couldn't make this work."

Given that the power output of the engines of a Boeing 747 is 140MW [1], enough to power 15 copies of the Empire State Building at peak business hours[2], I find this impossibility a bit depressing.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power)#meg...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_\(power\)#megawatt_.28106_watts.29) [2] <http://depletedcranium.com/what-is-a-megawatt/>

<comment><USER8> It is all about costs. Those engines are producing energy to keep the plane flying at 500mph. If you pull some power to spin an alternator then you need to run the engines faster and burn more fuel (which means you need even more fuel on board at takeoff to lug all of this extra fuel to the destination.) Add in the weight of the various inverters and equipment necessary to make this system safe on an airplane and I am surprised they even bother trying to run provide power to the seat at all.

<comment><USER9> Some math: 120V * 2A = 240W * 300 passengers = 72 kW. That's 1/50th of a percent of the existing power output of a 747. If you figure a $600 plane ticket, I'd gladly pay 1/50th of a percent ($0.30) of that for electrical power on the flight.

The numbers get a bit more complicated when you figure in the weight for transformers, alternators, inverters, etc. But fuel is not a major component of this. The math really doesn't support the assertion that it's not cost- effective.

<comment><USER10> "fuel is not a major component of this ... The math really doesn't support the assertion that it's not cost-effective."

How do you figure?

Say some extra weight delta_w in additional equipment is required, and say that the fuel required to complete a given flight is a function f of the plane's weight, and that the cost of the fuel is C. Further, let the lifetime maintenance cost of the new equipment be E, and the lifetime maintenance of the plane's structural components be g, also a function of its weight. As a rough approximation, the additional cost should be

E + C df/dw|_W * delta_w + dg/dw|_W * delta_w

(Note that, really, f is a function of both passenger power consumption and of weight, both of which we're varying here, but I'll buy your argument that df/dp|_P * delta_p is neglible in comparison to f(P,W))

The article asserts that one or both of the derivates in this equation are large enough that its product with delta_w is non-negligible (in fact, prohibitive). I'm guessing that df/dp is not the problem, which is the only term you really addressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a pretty snarky and relatively uneducational article. A lot of speculation, some ignorant rambling (nobody at The Atlantic seems to know where electrical power on a plane actually comes from), and a lot of misplaced vitriol. You'd think people would be grateful that airlines are offering standard electric outlets on the plane at all.

[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2035#c...](http://www.smbc- comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2035#comic)

</comment><comment><USER12> Every pacific crossing I've been on in the last three years (all 747s) has had AC to my seat. As far as I could tell all the seats had it. Large jets have auxiliary engines that power the coffee makers, the ovens they use for cooking in the plane, the lights, etc. You can normally see the exhaust for this engine on the very tip of the tail.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this article is defeated by the actual fact of the matter that some planes do have AC to all the seats.

<comment><USER13> The APU doesn't run in-flight (unless shit gets real and the engines are disabled or need to be re-started). Everything electric pretty much runs off the generators powered by the main engine (in-flight), or ground power (at the gate).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nobody needs 120v AC -- everyone on a plane is stepping it down and converting it to dc! The solution here isn't 120vac to every seat -- it's coming up with a new DC standard that plugs directly to our devices. The hard work of an airplane based inverter is undone by our power bricks, and energy is lost to heat in both. Lots of industry cooperation needed for this to happen, though.

<comment><USER15> That industry standard DC supply is 5V from the USB port. Stick a USB port in the arm of each seat and sell an adapter kit for common laptops and phones on- board. Although i'm not sure a USB port will supply enough current for a laptop.

<comment><USER16> It won't. The solution is to force everyone to use the 'car' (or cigarette lighter) variant of their chargers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Makes you wonder how they even manage to power those 500 Watt aircraft headlight bulbs, tens of KW in avionics, coffee machines and kettles, ovens, in-flight entertainment system per every seat etc etc

<comment><USER18> The reason none of those are a problem is pretty straight forward. Each of those systems were designed to be powered by the aircraft's gen-sets, rather than the other way around.

When designing an aircraft and its sub-systems, the engineer provides power availability specifications. The people who make the headlights, avionics, and coffee machines are all aware of the common power configurations and design their equipment to work with that specification directly. I used to work on light aircraft (private), which all used 24 VDC. Everything in the plane was designed to run on 24 VDC. Commercial airliners likely have more than one voltage specification available, but I'd imagine it's all DC.

Any time you have to convert voltage, you're going to lose some efficiency. Inverters (DC to AC) have some particularly nasty characteristics that make them undesirable on an aircraft. A DC voltage converter would work, but you still introduce some degree of inefficiency. A good switching DC voltage converter can exceed 90% efficiency, but so can an AC inverter. Neither operates at that efficiency all the time though. I know that AC inverters perform best when run at close to nominal load. At lower current levels, efficiency drops. I don't know enough about DC converters to say.

Add to this the fact that inverters and converters are heavy, and you can begin to understand why a power outlet at each seat is problematic.

<comment><USER19> I took 737 mini (two day) ground school about 10 years ago. I believe the commercial jets' main electrical buses are 3-phase 110/200 volt 400Hz AC, created by the starter-generators on the turbines. It's relatively straightforward to tap across two of the terminals and get 110VAC, but it'll be at 400Hz, meaning not everything designed for 110VAC/60Hz will be able to handle it.

(Also, some older private aircraft, such as mine, use a 12VDC standard.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since every laptop has a battery, you could do "rolling blackouts". The laptop doesn't need power the whole flight. I know from going to conferences sometimes just plugging in once in the middle of the day allowed me to make it without being plugged in for the rest of the day.

<comment><USER21> You might have failed to consider conservation of energy here. The laptops use a steady amount of energy whether plugged in or not (more or less), and if they're unplugged for a while, then they'll draw more power during the time they are plugged in as they recharge their batteries. In fact, if the batteries are not perfectly efficient and thus don't provide the same energy that was used to charge them, you're now using more energy per time by running it through the batteries first.

Of course, doing the rolling blackouts might encourage less use of devices, reducing power use.

<comment><USER20> Actually, in OS X my laptop will use less power when on battery power. The clock speed goes down, the display dims, the hard drive goes to sleep faster, the display adapter switches to the less powerful one.

<comment><USER21> That's a good point; it might well outweigh the battery inefficiency's increase in power use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think airlines could pre-wire all seats to be able to provide 110v supply if purchased with your ticket or on-board as an add-on. Then have an intelligent switcher, which only energizes the socket if they have been pre-purchased, reducing the need to distribute live power around the plane.

Most people would really only want a few hours of charging. Then you could have a capped number of active sockets per flight of say 50-100 seats.

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting article, but a whopping quarter of kilowatt to every seat? Isn't that a bit overkill? Assuming that typical laptop charger drinks 80 joules of energy per second at most, and since laptops luckily have built-in energy sources for couple of hours, the power output could be time-divided, eg. every output is powered half of the time in 30 minute intervals. Assuming not everyone needs power at all, two power outputs per three seats should be enough. Suddenly we have reduced the needed peak power to 1/9th of the original!

<comment><USER13> The OEM DC adapters for Apple laptops prevent battery charging, because some in-seat DC outlets don't provide that much power.

I've had trouble connecting a laptop that wants to charge to inverters before, so this isn't without reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> <http://www.seatguru.com/articles/in-seat_laptop_power.php>

For those advocating for a low-voltage DC power source, look at Empower--it's installed on more than 40 airlines. 15V DC, 75W.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmPower_%28aircraft_power_adapt...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmPower_%28aircraft_power_adapter%29)

</comment><comment><USER25> For anyone who was wondering over a 12 hour flight the fuel cost would be aproximatly:

(240 watt) * 12 hour * 500 people / 45 MJ (energy dencity per gallon) / .35 energy effecency = 330 gallons * 6.8 lb / gallion = ~2244 pounds. Granted this is probably +/- 30% depending on the fuel, engine effecency, transmission losses etc.

For comparison a 12 hour flight would burn ~ 43,000 gallons or 292,000 lb of fuel.

</comment><comment><USER26> Given that, in most overseas flights, sufficient voltage is available at every seat to power in-flight entertainment, I wonder if it's an easier engineering problem to have a 15-20 volt outlet instead (though I'm not sure if there's enough juice for the extra 2-3A).

True, not laptops have the same AC plug, so an adapter would be necessary.

<comment><USER27> Not necessarily. Some sockets can cope with the majority of the AC plugs in Europe and America.

[http://img.hisupplier.com/var/userImages/old/selong/selong$7...](http://img.hisupplier.com/var/userImages/old/selong/selong$71811154.jpg)

<comment><USER28> That's similar to what Air Canada had on the seat back for the flight I took SYD<->YVR (economy). My Australian laptop plug worked fine with it.

So it's definitely doable, and I'd be prepared to bet money that it runs off the same APU that powers the entertainment system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Even though the articles claims that its a worst case scenario, most people on an airplane wouldn't use their 19", 8kg über-gaming laptop. Most people would probably use more portable versions, ending up in a avarage effect that is way, way below 220W.

</comment><comment><USER27> If 110V is not feasible, can we try lower voltage? 36V DC is sufficient for laptops with correct adapters.

Also I don't really want to work on laptops in tight space anyway. A 5V USB port is sufficient. All Air Canada flights have this. (Due to RIM I guess?)

<comment><USER30> There is nothing wrong with the voltage (110vAC), the issue is _power..._ and to achieve a given power amount (70W typically for laptops), lower voltage requires higher current. See my comment under the 12vDC lighter plug suggestion <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1828197>.

36vDC would have similar weight problems and, in addition, would require everybody to buy and haul around Yet Another Power Brick since it is oddball.

<comment><USER27> Ah, thanks for clearing it up! Another question: I saw many international flights feature a VOD system with a LCD screen that is playing some movies on the back of every seat. Does the power to drive the system enough to charge a laptop then?

<comment><USER30> I am not familiar with the VOD systems, but I really doubt it. A typical laptop brick is rated at 70W and it probably pulls close to that with a discharged battery.

I would expect the VOD display system to be running around 10W. My guess is 1W lost in a 90% efficiency power supply, 5W for the display, 1W for an ARM processor, the rest for the video decoder chip and miscellaneous support chips.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> They already have 400hz power (not sure of the voltage) from the engines.

Why not just use a switching power supply to change that to 60hz 110v? Why this whole business with inverters?

<comment> a-priori There may also be concerns about insulating the flight electrical system from the cabin electrical system. What if there's a surge or huge load in the cabin? You need to be sure that that sort of thing can't affect the engine operation. The easiest way to be sure is to put an air gap between them.

<comment><USER32> They already tell you to turn off your Gameboy. I doubt they'd let passengers get anywhere _near_ plugging directly into the power from the engines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The difficulty is that everyone wants it yet no one wants to pay for it. (I'm sure it works quite fine in first class)

</comment><comment><USER34> So, why not cigarette adapter DC sockets?

<comment><USER4> Because somebody would plug in something dangerous. Believe me there would be some genius with a George Forman plugin grill or similar.

There are DC adapter plugins in aircraft - the idea is that they are only sold for laptops and are expensive enough that few people use the.

<comment><USER33> It would appear to me that most of the stupid stuff you could plug into a cigarette lighter pales in comparison to the stupid stuff that you can plug into a 120V AC. (eg. You're more likely to find a 120V AC plug on the aforementioned George Foreman grill)

<comment><USER35> Perhaps this would be (or would be posed as) a security problem, too.

I am not familiar with any specific methods of causing a large explosion that access to a 120V AC socket would allow, which not having access to one would not, with what is currently allowed to passengers through airport security [0]; But considering that producing a cigarette lighter or some nail polish remover in the cabin are grounds to be tackled by an air marshal and prosecuted, an electrical outlet is a hell of a lot of accessible power.

      [0] kindly disregard my past five minutes' search history, NSA sniffer</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple's Tim Cook Explains Expensive Prices of iPhone XS and XS Max - <AUTHOR> http://cnbc.com/2018/09/18/apples-tim-cook-explains-expensive-prices-of-iphone-xs-and-xs-max.html <comment><USER2> So, everything he said is true for any earlier iPhone of recent years.

Essentially, it's a lie to disguise that the actual reason is "We think we can get away with it". And most likely, they will, because people value brand over functionality.

<comment><USER3> I think both are true. If someone kept a phone for 2 years on contract, anything priced over ~$750 is absorbed by the carrier (probably made up by reoffering the phone cheaper to someone who doesn't need the latest and greatest). But on the flip side, phones these days are truly impressive. And by raising the prices, Apple is choosing Quality and Speed over Cost. If they have to pump out 3 phones a year, and each has to be better, then spending more allows them to keep going.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one?</comment>


Ukraine bank offers 21% interest rate for doing 10,000 steps a day - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/23/sweating-your-assets-the-bank-that-links-interest-to-exercise-monobank-ukraine <comment><USER2> This won't fly in the EU — inherently discriminatory against the disabled. (Consider the plight of a wheelchair user, or an amputee, or a paraplegic …)

(I can see a US health insurance co offering lower premiums for this crap, but again: only legal loopholes permitting discrimination make it viable.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't get it: apart from buying a gun in order to be able to rob banks, I cannot think of any kind of investment that will generate anything close to 21% ROI. Is this a scam? Is it just a lie?

</comment><comment><USER4> What if those steps occurred on a cam shaft run by an electric motor >_></comment>


Ask HN: Why cloud computing? - <AUTHOR>

For hosting your apps, why go on the cloud? Is scalability the only reason. It seems so much more expensive. <comment><USER2> A couple of reasons that are important to us:

1\. The ability to scale easily. This is going to depend on your application's traffic pattern. Is it predictable? If not, how costly is a failure due to an unforeseen spike? For us, since we host other people's communities, it's very important that we be able to scale easily. I'm willing to pay a premium for this.

2\. Amazon builds into their pricing the cost of handling the day to day routine failures and the bigger 'oh shit' failures. Again, I'd rather pay for this directly rather than having it as a liability by either (a) paying someone on my staff to worry about it, or (b) ignoring it all together turning it into a hidden liability.

3\. The Amazon architecture allows us to do things that we can't do elsewhere easily. For example: easily moving IPs between instances with Elastic IPs. This makes doing certain types of upgrades much easier. We boot a new instance with new software, make sure it's working, then swap the IP over. Also, the combination of EBS and S3 are a lifesaver for doing backups. Again, we're managing other people's data so I'm happy to pay a premium to do hourly snapshots of my data and continuous backup rotation through S3, with occasional movement offsite using AWS Import/Export.

These are just some examples. Amazon makes many things easier, and only a few things harder, and on the surface appears to cost 'more'. However, I believe when you factor in the true cost of running a site, including all of the time involved in handling failures, designing architectures that have been designed before, performing monkey maintenance (swapping drives, power supplies, whatever), you'll find that the Amazon stack is probably on par or cheaper from a total cost of ownership point of view.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, because it reduces the skills base I need on board. I can ignore most issues below the app level and focus on what I do best.

I've used Google App Engine and Azure but am focusing on GAE because of costs and the ability to ignore instances. When I'm not there and the server falls down, the App Engine team will be seriously motivated to get it up. Over time, I expect them to hugely improve reliability without me having to upgrade anything. My VM at Slicehost has been fantastic but is probably less secure than a Google VM.

The crazy thing is that I won't have to pay Google a cent until I get serious traffic.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's actually an element that's way overlooked: peace of mind. Let's say AWS goes down. 1) You can't do anything about it, so while you're upset, you're not losing sleep driving to your colo and back at 3am. 2) Many, many other companies - some of whom are infinitely larger than you - are also down. No one is going to mock you in TechCrunch for being down. They're going to mock Amazon, Rackspace, or whomever.

<comment><USER5> That seems such a dubious reason to do so, just because ignorance is bliss !

<comment><USER6> Depends on how you look at it. If you accept that your own abilities are also limited and that you might make costly mistakes, you might conclude that the total downtime will probably be the same. Say X hours per year. The difference is that if you use Amazon, you don't have to spend X hours (even if those hours are in the middle of the night) running around fixing it, someone else does this.

Then, when you need to explain why, you have an easier time too. There is the 'no one got fired for buying IBM' spect to it, but there is also genuine peace of mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Moving from physical servers to EC2 (with reserved instances, that cut the hourly prices significantly) saved me $300 a month.

And I feel much less stress now that I'm "in the cloud". If a server breaks, one click starts a new instance with the apps and configuration already in place. If a virtual hard drive crashes, one click restores a snapshot.

</comment><comment><USER8> Let's look outside the USA:

Here in Germany, hosting is rediclious cheap. You get decent quad core boxes with 12GB RAM for about 70EUR (~100$) including 2-3TB of traffic.

Compared to ec2 it's reeeealy cheap and located in the middle of continental europe. The Dublin/Ireland location of EC2 has a much higher latency and is more expensive than the US instances.

So most startups [1] rent a lot of those cheap boxes in Germany, doing a loadbalancing/failover setup in front of it. done. If you need more hardware: It usually takes <24hrs to get a new box. So just order 1-2 more than you currently need as backup for scaling and faults.

[1] I analyzed that from the most popular hosting provider of <http://IsItRails.com>

<comment><USER9> Hey rmoriz,

could you tell me the name of that provider? Seems like a delicious option.

Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Depends on what you mean with 'The Cloud' and 'apps'.

Hosting something 24/7 on for example Amazon's EC2 is barely cost effective. On the other hand doing regular hosting combined with EC2 for peaks is extremely cost effective.

<comment><USER11> _Hosting something 24/7 on for example Amazon's EC2 is barely cost effective_

That myth keeps popping up but is simply not true in many situations. There is a wide corridor of use-cases in the mid-range where EC2 is indeed more cost effective than rented or owned servers. Sometimes dramatically so.

The number of factors involved is obviously quite large, but lets just consider the baseline cost of having a "large" instance running for 3 years straight: $10386 (or as low as $4510 if you commit by reservation).

You'll be hard-pressed to match that figure for a rented or bought server, simply because EC2 is a 50.000 server gig and likely yields _slightly_ more economy-of-scale savings than your setup ever could.

<comment><USER12> But to make a large instance comparable to a real server you would need to include some data transfer and persistent storage in with the price of the server. The EBS page estimates a 100 gig store for a DB would be about $26 a month. If you add to that a gigabyte of data out an hour(at $0.17) you would be up to almost 10 grand for three years of a reserved instance. $10,000 / 36 months is $277 a month, for a server.

<comment><USER11> If you add bandwidth and storage to one side of the equation you'll also have to add it on the other side.

Do you get the bandwidth cheaper elsewhere? Perhaps but probably not significantly.

Do you get storage with similar flexibility and scalability cheaper elsewhere? Highly unlikely.

Oh and housing, power and staff aren't free either. Neither are the premium support contracts with your various suppliers to get same-day replacements for failed hardware.

Once you factor everything in you'll realize that EC2 is not nearly as expensive as it may seem at a glance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Recovery is also pretty useful - I posted about our recovery from a worst- case-total-server-death here:

<http://unfeatureddocuments.com/content/disaster-and-recovery>

For a small startup without a dedicated sysadmin I can't think of anything better than EC2 for handling this kind of thing.

</comment><comment><USER14> The main drivers are cheaper startup costs and less of a need to manage hardware yourself (usually including backups).

<comment><USER15> And that you dont have to worry in case your site get a spike due to it being slashdotted.

The other advantage I can think of is to see if a better configuration would help scalability needs. For e.g. if I think a x-bit x-core box would work better for my app, there isnt a need to buy the whole thing before knowing it does no good. I could just pick one from the cloud and pay only for usage.</comment></comment>


AMA with Aaron Greenspan, developer of Harvard's Universal Face Book - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/71uva5/iama_classmate_of_mark_zuckerberg_who_created_the/ <comment><USER2> Unless the Zuckerberg took his code or design this is false claim.We used to have a network for exchanging books in the university in 2001, it didnt go viral nor stolen by facebook. Seeing good idea and making a great global product out of it is more then being the founder. You allways care about competion, scale and market advantage or risk being copied .

</comment><comment><USER3> I am not sure what was stolen exactly. If no source code was stolen, no users, no trademark, no trade secret. Only some ideas that were copied. Seems like Zuckerberg was inspired by this guy's site but grew facebook more shrewdly and without much attention to privacy issues.

<comment><USER4> Well, the name at first. And then look at the claims of his lawsuite against the book and subsequent movie, false statements and omissions.</comment></comment>


Chiara Vigo: The last woman who makes sea silk - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33691781 <comment><USER2> Interesting as it is, the silk and the history of the family, it seems odd that Vigo teaches weaving it to a few people but not how to make it shine. Or at least it wasn't specifically mentioned about the process of lemon juice and spices.

This strikes me more as keeping it a secret within the family more than protecting people from God. Business failed sure but that's no reason to keep the process of making it shine a secret if she is hit by a bus or drops dead that's it for the knowledge.

<comment><USER3> And that's the sad dichotomy between the easy species wide success from sharing and the ineffable drive to hoard and compete. I see this played out in the natural world too. Usually you have to twist a species' arm waaay back around it's back to get it to internally share. Bees, termites, naked mole rats. You get it.

<comment><USER4> Good take. There is some hope from the new information-driven ways of organizing, that at least they can make cooperation more profitable than hoarding [http://breakingsmart.com/season-1/the-zemblanity-of- containe...](http://breakingsmart.com/season-1/the-zemblanity-of-containers/)

<comment><USER3> Seems like a similar thing in quorums of agents playing lots of rounds of The Prisoner's Dilemma. Where Tit-for-tat is the optimal strategy in one on one. But when you have groups of agents that can communicate before rounds and coordinate defaulting instead of cooperating the groups as a whole can score better than tit-for-tat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always enjoy stories like these. It reminds me of this one on making a panama hat from about a month ago.[1]

[1]: [http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/08/08/34068270...](http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/08/08/340682706/hes- just-woven-the-worlds-finest-panama-hat-but-who-will-buy-it)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is an interesting history. And perhaps it's nothing more than uniqueness which makes this interesting; however, ms Vigo seems very well suited as ambassador for this dying tradition. She has the lineage, the myth, and aura to make it interesting for a new crop of artisans now that there is more interest in traditional methods.

</comment><comment><USER7> Good collection of links on the topic a few weeks ago at Metafilter: [http://www.metafilter.com/151993/It-was-necessary-also-to- fi...](http://www.metafilter.com/151993/It-was-necessary-also-to-fish-for- ones-dress)

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone have a video of the silk shining? Would love to see it.

</comment><comment><USER9> A 15 minutes drive from my birthplace!

</comment><comment><USER10> It seems somehow profane, but I'd love to get some into a materials lab and see how it behaves.

<comment><USER11> I'd wager that, at minimum, the U.S. Navy, 3M, and MIT have already done so, pursuant to research on waterproof adhesives.

I know at least that MIT has:

[http://news.mit.edu/2014/new-adhesives-stick-in- water-0921](http://news.mit.edu/2014/new-adhesives-stick-in-water-0921)

<comment><USER10> Shouldn't surprise me really, given stuff like this - [http://www.technologyreview.com/view/537301/spiders- ingest-n...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/537301/spiders-ingest- nanotubes-then-weave-silk-reinforced-with-carbon/) \- there's probably already a group feeding carbon nanotubes to clams on the offchance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing it.</comment>