Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/apple-cofounder-steve-wozniak-says-most-people-should-g-1836178238 <comment><USER2> The thing that holds me to Facebook is that it's become the town square for my local community. It's where people go to discuss the community's political challenges. So many important dialogs about local issues happen on Facebook, and it's the only real way to be a part of those conversations. Things like zoning, planning, city and county budgeting, ordinances, and so on.

If I leave, not only do I lose the ability to participate in those conversations in a significant way - I lose awareness that they're even happening. The newspaper (what's left of it) certainly doesn't cover them. I have many friends who I see on a regular basis in person, but we don't always talk about all of them. And when we do, it's often inspired by conversations that were already happening on Facebook and a continuation of the conversations happening there.

We need a good replacement for this piece of it. Having an accessible, local town square where all the local activists, citizens, and officials can interact and dialog about local issues is really invaluable.

<comment><USER3> >The thing that holds me to Facebook is that it's become the town square

Yep, but most social platforms are not really tuned to being a town square, and instead are optimized for feeds and stirring emotions. They often rewarding behavior that's counterproductive to finding common ground. We need platforms like DinnerTable.chat [1] that is built around the idea of bringing people together across the spectrum and localities. DTC is an open community- driven live discussion platform that matches you one-on-one with others to playfully challenge perspectives, while unlocking achievements. It's been my passion project for the last two years, and since beta, we've been growing steadily.

[1] [https://dinnertable.chat/about](https://dinnertable.chat/about)

<comment><USER4> I say this with respect and for your benefit: this is the most cringe inducing product description I've ever read.

<comment><USER3> Ah, thanks for that feedback. Would you like to try your hand of writing a better summary here? It would be appreciated, as it's hard to improve from just a single word criticism (cringe).

<comment><USER5> "Product abc.xyz is like Facebook, without the suck."

<comment><USER6> "A cure for the common platform"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just passed my two year anniversary with no FB, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat and I've never been happier. I convinced my wife to cut the cord about a year ago and she completely agrees. For me it was an addiction. I was compulsively checking FB many times an hour to stay caught up with people. This was after culling my friends list multiple times. Turns out, life goes on just fine without a constant water hose of relationship/political drama.

Ultimately, it is no more difficult to stay in touch with my real friends than it was with FB. I rely on text, phone calls, and emails. Occasionally, I will use LinkedIn to touch base with people, but primarily, I just text/call. And honestly, it's great.

I highly recommend cutting the cord.

<comment><USER8> This is great for you! Keep in mind though that some of us never fell in to the trap of compulsively checking FB constantly. I am quite certain that dropping FB wouldn't move my happiness barometer in either direction, it's just not a big enough part of my life to matter. I would lose touch with some people that I'm not keeping very closely in touch with anyway, and that's about it. This is like a recovering alcoholic recommending that everyone who drinks at all should stop immediately and entirely - it's not that it's bad advice, but not everyone is in the same situation.

<comment><USER9> Same here, moreover: I've got friends and acquittances in Serbia, Bulgaria, Germany, UK, US, Spain among other countries, as well as through several states in my home country. Given that I have lived in 6 different cities around the world, and have made good relationships on each of those, I really like maintaining a "thin" contact thread with them.

Facebook does this really well for me. Before Facebook, I would have to "remember" to send an email, a MSN chat or even a postcard (around Christmas) to some of them. And the typical conversation through chat went "q: hey, anything new", "a: no.. no really". With FB I see when this people have had a noteworthy moment, and I can interact with them on that, even if it is just to say a quick hello.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> To me, Facebook provides enough value that I don't feel the benefits of deleting it outweigh the benefits of keeping it.

Without it, I have no connection at all to some of my old friends. While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people are doing every once in a while.

LinkedIn fulfills this desire in some ways, but I don't typically connect with my "outside-of-work" friends on LinkedIn. Plus, LinkedIn has its own host of privacy issues, so it's not really a great replacement in the sense of improving privacy.

There are also the useful community aspects. I often find out about local events through Facebook. I suppose Meetup or similar sites could replace that function. But my friends also use Facebook's events to organize parties and stuff - I don't know any good alternative that's nearly as convenient.

I'm not convinced that deleting your account helps all that much anyways. You do make it harder for Facebook to listen in from your phone and things like that, but I'm sure they still keep a detailed profile on you. And you can get those benefits just by deleting the mobile app, without deleting your account.

I think the better reason to delete Facebook is the mental health issues with the whole spotlight effect or whatever that's called (where you only see the highlights of other people's lives which makes you feel like your life is boring). As long as you regulate your usage in a healthy way, I think whether you delete your account or not doesn't make much of a difference.

For now I just throw on a handful of privacy extensions (uBlock Origin, PrivacyBadger, Decentraleyes, Facebook Container, etc.) and accept that Facebook is going to know many things about me.

As a point of reference - my age group started using Facebook around middle school. So I have a lot of "friends" that I would have no way of keeping up with otherwise, and I'm not used to not having that ability. I suspect the sentiment is different for older generations who are used to losing touch with people. My parents, for example, have a couple old friends from whom they haven't heard anything in many many years. That concept doesn't mesh with the lifestyle I grew up with. It's not that there are many specific people I want to keep up with all the time - it's just nice to get random updates on random people you used to know well.

<comment><USER11> > While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how > people are doing every once in a while.

Why do you choose not to call them and ask them how they are doing? I must admit, I do not really understand this "seeing how they are doing" statement, it confuses me as to why someone would spend time on facebook to see how another one is doing, but would not make the call to ask. Maybe I'm misreading it and the _seeing_ part is the more relevant one.

Edit: anyone care to clarify what was downvote worthy about this comment? did it not contribute to the discussion in some way? if the answer is yes, I don't know why it didn't contribute to the discussion.

<comment><USER10> Actually just wrote an edit to address this but I'll repeat here - I think it's a generational thing. It's not really about keeping up with specific people - when I want to do that, I just message them like you say (side note - in my experience people in my age group don't tend to have many people's phone numbers). Basically, I grew up using Facebook, which meant I've always had these constant life updates from people I know. So I've gotten used to it, and feel like I'd be losing something without it. Objectively, I think my life would be unaffected if I really were to delete Facebook, but I enjoy having those updates nonetheless. To be clear: these updates are usually information I wouldn't bother to find out otherwise.

It's sort of like watching the news - realistically a lot of news doesn't affect our day to day, but it's just interesting to see things happen. Like yesterday USA won the women's world cup. Did that have any impact on my life? Not at all, but it was nice to hear about. In that sense, Facebook is like a more personalized feed of news that always features people I at least used to know. It feels a bit like a mild addiction since it's not totally rational to care about these tiny updates in the lives of people I'm unlikely to ever meet again, but at this point I only check Facebook a couple times a week so I don't worry too much about it.

<comment><USER12> It's not entirely a generational thing. I'm a lot older than you (Facebook became available to non uni students when I was 30) however, I've moved around a lot. Different countries, different US coasts, etc. As a result my friend group is spread over different continents and across different social classes—things that make picking up to go visit or reach out for a simple phone call pretty difficult.

FB has been a great way to not only maintain contact with people but to reunite with people I knew in childhood and adolescence that would have otherwise been lost to me. I don't spend much time in the app at all, but I appreciate being able to reach out or to offer emotional support (congratulations, condolences) in ways that would be impossible were I working my way through a phone book every month or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seconded. I found that I didn't lose anything by leaving Facebook. The "social network" I thought I had was just a list of names I was familiar with and begged the question about any real relationship which had manifested. I had many relationships which were paper thin and folded the moment I left Facebook.

<comment><USER14> I subscribe to if you are not willing to contact your friends without facebook then they probably were not meant to be in your life anyway.

<comment><USER15> That's a weird place to put your goalposts (why isn't it at video calls? or phones? or cars? or walking barefoot to your house?), but subscribe to whatever idea lets you feel superior, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I deleted FB 4 years back and at that time I had around 1000 'friends' on FB. Needless to say I didn't miss a thing and life has been only better.

But there was one subtle interesting thing I noticed that nobody missed me on FB. Nobody was like, "wait, where did that guy disappear".

The people who mattered were always around me and are still around me.

Only after deleting FB I realized what a cancer FB was. I hear it has become even more cancerous.

The only thing I seriously want to give up is this Whatsapp app, especially because it is now FB product. Otherwise, the way I use Whatsapp, it doesn't pose much problem.

<comment><USER17> People might notice but just not saying anything. I notice when occasionally someone is not on FB anymore. I rarely point it out. Because the reason is always the same one or two reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy.

It's important to me for a number of reasons:

\- Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active.

\- For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info about anything that is going on with them. And honestly, I don't mind. It works well.

\- Businesses use it to send deals to their customers, notify them of events, post pictures, etc.

\- I manage business Facebook pages as part of my business, so I can't get rid of my personal account.

\- I also use the Marketplace a lot to sell off stuff from my house and it works brilliantly.

HOWEVER - I have technically stopped "using" Facebook.

For the last 3 years now, I've made my profile totally private. I haven't posted photos or shared stupid things. I un-followed (but stayed friends with) EVERYONE except my wife and parents and a close friend.

My news feed is empty except for posts from the groups I'm a part of and stuff from close family members.

And there's an added benefit - when I DO post something now, on a rare occasion, people actually take notice.

If everyone would only post when it's really important, the system would be useful and interesting. Otherwise, it's full of garbage.

Facebook is not all bad, but certain people ruin it with their constant garbage posting, and that's too bad.

<comment><USER19> If you have a facebook login active then facebook is still tracking you and able to advertise to you, so you are using facebook for the only things they care about. You are still generating content (your web traffic via like buttons) and revenue (via ads).

<comment><USER20> I use Firefox containers (and before that I used a totally separate browser for Facebook) so they haven't been tracking me around the web for years.

It's quite easy to avoid their tracking actually.

<comment><USER21> So you hope. Just because you don't appear as "logged in" doesn't mean they can't tell you're the same person.

<comment><USER20> Sure, they can cluster me by IP address, but they can do that whether I delete my Facebook account or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I respect Woz and his contributions to computer science. Tbh tho every time I see an article like this it makes me scratch my head. It's always something along the lines of "Woz says you should do something that has been old news and most anyone who would care is already doing or agrees with". It's not that he's wrong. It's just... why is this news? He's just making a very safe statement for the audience being targeted.

<comment><USER23> It makes news for a couple of reasons. (and assuming this isn't a rhetorical idealistic question about what is and isn't news…)

1\. He's a notable technologist (or whatever term you'd prefer to use for someone who is seen as intrinsically linked with the rise of computation tech) 2\. It's Gizmodo, they're not exactly looking for revolutionary stuff here. 3\. It's your standard confirmation bias as well. Most people who read the article probably already have fairly strong anti-facebook-usage feelings to begin with. This reaffirms their stance and belief by presenting someone who isn't a dickhead as being on the same side.

All of the above leads to a click and a comment, which is good for the ol' bottom ad-dollar :D.

<comment><USER22> Yeah I guess I just expect more out of the guy (Woz). To be fair, he doesn't owe me or anyone else shit. It's just a let down to see him never take a firm stance on anything until it's very very safe to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Left 4 or 5 years ago for employer/work reasons. Had a couple of hundred friends, and a started few groups that accumulated thousands of members. Not surprisingly, everyone I mattered to managed to find me and reconnect via email, sms etc. I don't miss it at all, and I'm happy I don't waste time like that anymore!

Community argument is compelling, but there are so many ways for communities to stay in touch now. I don't think it has to come at the cost of so many Facebook negatives (privacy, addiction, mental health, etc.)

<comment><USER25> The community argument isn't actually compelling. It creates "ghost-like" relationships, where you don't really know someone anymore and haven't for years, but act like you're still best friends, with occasional empty comments or likes. It's like eating cotton candy for dinner and acting like you have the energy a good steak would have given you. Many of them don't have email though, and phone chats are often difficult to coordinate. I think occasional visits is probably the best way to keep in touch with people you don't live near and thus see regularly. And if neither of you can manage to schedule that, then maybe there's no real connection there after all.

<comment><USER17> How can you do occasional visits if you don't live nearby? A lot of people I know live across the country or in the middle of America or outside the US. Even seeing all of them occasionally would be very difficult. Unless you mean every few years? But that's barely anything.

<comment><USER25> It seems to me life is meant to be lived most with the people you live near. No matter how much technology improves the ability to communicate long distances, it's never the same as being with those people. So maybe it does mean visiting only every few years, and maybe even less often. It's hard when those people are family though, because then you have a permanent connection with them. But sometimes friends drift apart (physically) and you make new ones (locally) instead, and that's okay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> While a great idea the problem of course is there isn't a ready replacement for what Facebook provides.

Where would families migrate to for communication/collaboration/community? The closest free alternative is of course Instagram, owned by Facebook.

Who can build a privacy oriented alternative that charges and also gains a sufficient network effect?

<comment><USER27> I don't have a Facebook, never have, so take any opinion I give with a grain of salt. That said, a lot of us really need to come to the realization that these are social networks. They are not called private networks. So even if you pay, it is highly unlikely that you would get privacy.

And please everyone, if only for the protection of your own privacy, consider thoughtfully whether a company promising "Private" "Social" networks makes any sense? Like dish washing detergents that promise to make your dishes virtually spotless, there is no promise at all actually being made.

These networks are fundamentally about sharing. Once you share something with someone, you can't really control what they are going to do with the screenshot of it. You're at the mercy of the mob.

The only real protection you can get is not from companies, but by having the government make a HIPAA like law with real teeth in it that punishes personal information sharing for commercial purposes. No real need for any new companies, because the new companies will just do the same thing. Pass a law that starts throwing people in prison for sharing, or receiving illegally shared personal information for commercial purposes, and you stop all of that nonsense in its tracks.

<comment><USER28> When I was a Facebook user (closed my account six years ago), I was mindful about what I shared. The privacy concerns that eventually prompted me to close my account were not due to the information that I willfully shared, but rather, due to Facebook's behavior collecting more information about me (and about others, through me) that I was not intentionally sharing.

E.g., tracking users across the web at large, building shadow profiles of non- users, trying to obtain information about non-users through users, etc.

In my observation, most Facebook users share way more personal information than I ever did. Which makes me wonder, given how much information people are sharing willfully, why does Facebook feel the need to try to secretly collect even _more_ information?

Scary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Paying for privacy sound nice but I never had a Facebook account and am 100% sure I got a profile.

Facebook goes through all the data of Facebook users I know.

So I am sure I am tagged on photos and they might already know a lot about me.

And that's what I think is most evil about Facebook. Even people without an internet connection might have a profile.

</comment><comment><USER30> The aggregation of local events on Facebook is second to none. I tried leaving that behind and found I was missing out on a litany of events not broadcast elsewhere. As long as that holds true, I maintain a spartan, unconnected, minimal account there.

<comment><USER31> Maybe that's the next big thing. A few now popular apps started as "that one thing the FB is used for but as a separate app". Instagram comes to mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I imagine a good number of people are like me and would _like_ to close their Facebook account, but are afraid of losing that circle of friends and family that they have no other easy way of contacting.

A useful feature (albeit one that Facebook would never, ever implement, as it would facilitate people leaving their platform) would be to have closure page with a final statement or forwarding address, e.g.:

"I've decided to close my Facebook account. You can still reach me at: firstname.lastname@example.com"

<comment><USER33> you could just close and not delete. it's very easy (too easy imo) to re-open a closed facebook account.

or do you mean the people with whom you don't regularly contact but might one day? i've found this is sort of an unwillingness to close doors type thing, hanging on to things that cannot be hung on to (especially true of more vagabond types, travelers, movers etc. who have a lot of these connections in areas they don't live).

the truly important people you can FB message with contact details, wait until they ack, then proceed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> > "People think they have a level of privacy they don't. Why don't they give > me a choice? Let me pay a certain amount, and you'll keep my data more > secure and private then everybody else handing it to advertisers."

I think advertisers are offering more money ;-)

Maybe the taxes should be higher for companies that make money from selling data.

</comment><comment><USER35> Woz admits that there are benefits to FB. What he's talking about is the privacy angle. So what's the optimal usage pattern here to enjoy the benefits and still keep your privacy safe?

I think it's actually pretty straightforward with regards to FB.

First of all if you find yourself scrolling through the news feed for anything that isn't relevant to your daily life, the argument is more about mental health than privacy here to stop excessive use like that. Same for Instagram, it's highly addictive, but you'll find you don't really need it in your life.

Secondly, use an alternative messaging platform for the small group of people you tend to talk to very often and closely with. Preferably encrypted. For everyone else, it matters a lot less that people might spy on your conversations so just be careful to not talk about radical or illegal things. The benefits of FB messenger are pretty nice in terms of convenience, but if you don't like having to censor yourself get the other person to join WhatsApp, signal, or iMessage.

Thirdly, if you're using FB in the sort of community oriented way with groups and the like, continue to do so freely! There's nothing wrong with doing this on FB, it's a great platform for that and rarely is your privacy going to be violated in this way. And if you think it might, then there are alternatives like a group chat on Signal, or an anonymous/private message board. Those are more sensitive cases which surely exist but I can't think of many situations where one needs to go to these lengths.

I think the way FB and IG make money incentivizes them to violate your privacy through clicks tracking. This only works if you're on the platform like a zombie, clicking for hours on news or influencers or whatever. Maybe some of that truly is useful to you, for example my girlfriend follows a lot of people who do physical activity and exercise routines on IG. And from a privacy perspective maybe it's not even that big of a deal, but I think most people might find they don't need to waste so much of their time on these apps anyway.

So at least for the case of FB, it isn't too hard to protect your privacy the ways it really matters and still get the benefits of FB apps.

</comment><comment><USER36> I wonder if reddit and facebook can be compared, because I go on reddit a lot, even though I only read comments, save wallpapers and articles to read later, I very rarely upvote.

</comment><comment><USER37> Even if you don't have a Facebook account, Facebook still has your browsing history via the their SDK that is usually used to implement the "login with facebook" button. The sdk actually injects a iframe on the hosting website, allowing Facebook to know every time you go to this website.

</comment><comment><USER38> Wow. What I would do to be a fly on the wall in the impromptu, perhaps slightly anxious meetings at FB HQ right now. I imagine they're discussing whether or not they should be worried, what they should do about it, or whether they should do anything at all.

This has to be an insane position to be in. If you're responsible for the PR (or anything else) of a company that an ever-growing number of people are starting to suspect shouldn't exist (at least in its current form), what do you do? Where you do you even start?

The only other such case I can think of is big tobacco. Facebook is (probably) not quite that harmful or toxic, but I imagine FB and Philip Morris would have a few things to talk about over dinner.

</comment><comment><USER39> Question for people who have nuked Facebook: what do you do about a job that needs you to have Facebook for, e.g., API keys or group moderation? Did you just create a new, "friend-less" account and transfer the credentials over to it?

<comment><USER40> Got a fake account for that "benny van gisteren". Funny to translate in dutch. It is a saying for "i am not a fool"). Did not use it for years now. Most companies have a specific account which can be used. Also not into building that social crap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> People have mentioned in this thread why an FB account might be worth having. There's also business reasons.

Maybe an alternative would be to setup a dedicated device with no video or audio for all your dealings with evil empires.

</comment><comment><USER42> Am I the only one who finds this ironic that this discussion is held at TMZ?

</comment><comment><USER43> Facebook is really the only place I'm able to connect with most of my extended family and friends. I'm active on a few FB groups by interest, but also with old friends from H.S. and a lot of other groups of people it would be difficult to break or migrate from.

If there were a social network that charged an active fee, that I could say pay $20-40/year for myself and be able to invite maybe 10-15 others whose fees are covered by my own, that might get people to move. No ads, no selling customer data, minimal intrusion.

</comment><comment><USER44> I recently realized that Facebook is addictive like cigarettes.

Why? Think back 10 years ago when everyone was designing their apps to be engaging, sticky, ect, and judging success based on how long people stayed on their app.

Facebook has turned into the internet equivalent of cigarettes.

What's really strange is the way we all make excuses to continue to use it, kind of like how many smokers make excuses about why they continue smoking.

We're all hooked, even me!

</comment><comment><USER45> I login here and there to Facebook.

I see usage among my circle of even older folks fading fast. Updates are way less frequent.

Having said that, I kinda miss it being an option, for some of these folks I'll probabbly never know what is going on with them again.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is one of those cases where you should definitely consult woz on how to build a hobby computer but take light any advice he gives you on how to live your life.

</comment><comment><USER47> The things that hold me to Facebook are:

\- It is how I know what's going on in the lives of all of my friends. While the bulk of us still live within 20 miles of each other, we might see each other once a year (if that) because most of them are married with grade school aged children and when they do have free time, they're using it to take family vacations or day trips. With Facebook we know what is going on in each other's lives and still interact just like we did in high school, shooting the shinola on each others posts just like we used to in the hall between classes.

\- As a strength athlete, it is how we find out about events. Take strongman, there are 200~ ish of us that are all mutual friends with the bulk of those being here in the United States. When someone creates a new FB event page for a competition, you find out about it because you see "friends a, b and c have expressed the are going/are interested in going" or someone tags you "you going to this?" or when the person putting the event on creates it, they tag 20-50 people that they know are likely to either compete or volunteer to work it. And during stuff like Arnold, those that are of the caliber to actually compete at the Arnold, we get play by play from the people competing and their coaches/handlers and those of us that aren't competing but went. When Jessica Fithen won the SHW championship belt in 2017, I was messaging her congratulations (and getting a reply) from my bedroom in Indiana about a minute before the online online feed even got to it.

There just isn't a way to replicate either of those things without a social media platform. I like know what is going on in my friends lives even though we just don't get to see each other that often. Do we trade some privacy for that? Sure. Do we waste more time on the platforms than we should, for the most part yes, but considering I do get to see what is going on in their lives without having to schedule months in advance an hour where we _might_ get to cross paths if something doesn't come up, then it is worth it to me. And with the strength sports thing, we might be in the same location once a year, even those that are here in Indiana with me we might see each other a few times a year because we are spread out 120-200 miles but Facebook lets us bust each other's chops and support each other and carry on just like we do in person on our phones all day long.

A few weeks ago I was at an event volunteering and had a couple people walking by me "hey Mercer!" that I've never actually met but have this genuine friend/camaraderie connection with because we have this digital space where we are there for each other and do bust each others chops in a fun way.

</comment><comment><USER48> Do people really care what Steve Wozniak has to say on anything these days? He did some excellent hardware work in his day, but not sure that carries much weight on Facebook usage in 2019. He just seems to be a reliable rent-a-quote for journalists to go to when up against a deadline.

</comment><comment><USER49> It's funny watching you all justify your Facebook account

</comment><comment><USER50> While I do not care about / immune to FB, Twitter, etc etc, I liked the first comment I saw on that page: "I really don't need Woz or anyone else telling me what I need to do!"

</comment><comment><USER51> Why do people still care about his opinion?

</comment><comment><USER52> it's just fearmongering pointing the finger at facebook. If you're that worried about eaves dropping then you shouldn't have an apple smartphone or an android smartphone or any kind of smartphone. I think the chances are pretty remote that they're recording you.

</comment><comment><USER53> Agreed, and they should also ditch all Apple products.

</comment><comment><USER54> why not just unfollow everyone?

You can still message people but it isn't addictive because there will be nowhere to scroll outside of messages.

</comment><comment><USER55> think like the mass or think for yourself. Facebook dorks says...think like a mass.</comment>


Facebook's 'Mentions' App Comes to Android - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/11/facebook-mentions-android/ <comment><USER2> The actual app: [https://www.facebook.com/about/mentions/](https://www.facebook.com/about/mentions/)</comment>


React.js Conf live stream [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi62S_MvheE <comment><USER2> Wow the comments in here are awful. How about some constructive discussions folks? If you're not impressed by React or don't think it's useful, what, if anything, can we say or show you to convince you otherwise? I'm assuming that's what you're here - for knowledge - otherwise, why are you here?

I'm glad there have been no major announcements. This isn't an Apple keynote. We should want our tools to be predictable, stable, and paid attention to. Introducing more React stuff would be cool, don't get me wrong. But some of us are actually trying to build products and having stability and feature depth is more important than throwing React at another problem. The React team is fairly small and so they should stick to solving specific problems. There's still lots to be done in React Native.

Looking forward to seeing what the second half of the day brings. A lot of this stuff isn't particularly new to me but that's ok too. It's good to see they're still doing talks which introduce new users.

<comment><USER3> "I'm assuming that's what you're here - for knowledge - otherwise, why are you here?"

To look cool to other developers by shitting all over something.

<comment><USER4> I don't think anybody ends up looking cool -- more like an idiot.

So it's mostly "to vent my frustration for other aspects of my life in needless negativity and aggression in an unrelated topic".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry if I missed it, are there links to any kind of further reading or discussion regarding what Ben Alpert (spicyj) mentioned about implementing layouts in React? I do a lot of render -> dom-measure -> re-render and it's not the greatest. Would love to dive deeper into what the React team has in mind.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm more and more convinced that Facebook is reinventing Adobe Flex. Not sure whether this is good or bad.

<comment><USER7> A big difference is that Facebook is using React in their own products. I don't think they will be as happy to dump the whole thing as soon as there is a slight change in winds, like Adobe did with Flex.

Flex, although still alive thanks to the efforts of a group of unsung heroes, is not a platform on which I would build anything new.

<comment><USER6> To be fair, so did Adobe in a lot of theirs. They did bet hard on Flash as a platform; it just wasn't a very good bet, and very little of it went into improving the actual runtime. Instead, they tried putting sugar on top (e.g. Flex) which obviously just added to the bloat. That said, some of that sugar had some interesting ideas going for them, lacking execution notwithstanding.

Obviously I agree with you, I would never build anything new with Flex, or target the Flash runtime; but that's not to say there aren't good lessons to be learned and concepts to be snatched. Hence, the "not sure if good or bad" comment – it depends on what you steal I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there any benefit in learning React Native since I have to write for both Android and iOS platform?

<comment><USER9> Code reuse - I have an dual iOS/Android React Native app and over 90% of the codebase are generic components. Most of the difference are simply stylesheets, for platform-specific UX.

Besides that, there's the incalculable benefit of being able to use the same mental model (to say nothing of programming language) when developing, especially when designing UI components and animations. Even if you had equal skill with building layouts in both systems, there's great advantage in not having to context switch.

<comment><USER10> And having your project live-reload on physical Android and iPhone devices at the same time is so cool!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Someone give Ben Alpert some water to drink!

<comment><USER12> omfg they just did hahahaha

<comment><USER11> HACKER NEWS FTW!!

<comment><USER13> Something tells me it wasn't related to Hacker News.

<comment><USER2> We did it re-- HN!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ah I missed the live stream. Anywhere I can watch a recording of the keynote?

<comment><USER15> [http://conf.reactjs.com/](http://conf.reactjs.com/)

We put the most up to date version on this page

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> First thing I see, Content editable, the good parts. I'm expecting a Spreadsheets, the good parts coming next year or two base on the way people keep talking about state.

<comment><USER17> The rich text editor framework is open source now!

[http://facebook.github.io/draft-js/](http://facebook.github.io/draft-js/)

HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11153757](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11153757)

<comment><USER18> Yet another rich text editor that requires lock-in with a particular library or framework. Web components can't come soon enough.

<comment><USER17> Well, you definitely don't have to use React for the rest of your app if you don't want to – you can use a Draft component inside any web app.

You could also use the underlying Draft model and manage the view entirely yourself, but React helps a lot here and removes a lot of complexity from Draft.

<comment><USER18> As opposed to just dropping <draft/> into my page? No thanks.

<comment><USER19> So create a web component that wraps draft.js?

<comment><USER18> So your answer is to require pulling in an entire view library just to make a simple rich text editor work?

Also, I'm disheartened by the simple, anonymous down votes my comments are receiving rather than actual rebuttals. At least you had the decency to respond.

<comment><USER20> You are being downvoted for fairly obvious reasons, so I think most people don't see the need to tell you why:

First, you added a snarky, negative comment as the first response to someone open-sourcing a new library. There's no need for this, especially when spicyj is (as far as I've seen) an extremely gracious open-sourcer. Your comment's core complaint, about library lock-in, was actually a valid complaint, and something that should be discussed. But sadly, the way you brought up the idea means that no one else will want to engage.

Then, you replied to @spicyj's helpful response, which had I been him I probably wouldn't have even bothered with, with another snarky negative comment.

Finally, someone else jumped into the conversation with another solution, and you replied to their comment with a sarcastic non-question. Not only that, but you used a strawman of "to make a simple rich text editor work", when clearly that's not all Draft.js is trying to do.

And then after all of that, you complained about being anonymously downvoted. (And even in lodging that complaint you somehow managed to further subtly insult @tlrobinson.)

\---

I actually think your original issue, about library lock-in for text editor's a valid point. I see a lot of work going into separate rich text editors that are all reinventing the same sorts of things, with no clear best solution being developed for real-time use cases like Google Docs or Dropbox Paper. I really wish the perfect, easy solution for those existed.

That said, I'm excited about Draft.js because I think anything that Facebook wants to throw their open-source weight behind will get more love, even if it encourages others to make more competing editor libraries.

<comment><USER18> You're absolutely right. FWIW, Draft.js looks awesome and I should have expressed my concerns in a more productive way. Thanks for responding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Highly recommend the "hide chat" button.

<comment><USER22> I suggest you never visit Twitch if you think this chat is bad.

<comment><USER21> Roger that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Are we expecting any major announcements today in the vein of React Native?

<comment><USER23> They open-sourced their content-editable component, which sounds very impressive (basically, "let's fix content-editable once and for all")

[http://facebook.github.io/draft-js/](http://facebook.github.io/draft-js/)

<comment><USER4> For an "let's fix content-editable once and for all" affair, I don't think the initial widget they present on that page could be any more underwhelming.

<comment><USER17> Thanks, that's valuable feedback. What would you suggest instead?

The goal is that with Draft.js you can easily build any UI you want and Draft.js helps you manage the underlying model and DOM manipulations.

I am sure that several people will build and publish drop-in components using Draft.js within days.

<comment><USER4> > _Thanks, that 's valuable feedback. What would you suggest instead?_

Well, something closer to CKEditor or, if you prefer minimal, something like the editor in Medium.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Glad I can watch from my comfortable office

</comment><comment><USER25> I gather from the slip-up near the end of the Microsoft talk that React Native for Windows isn't here yet, but it's coming. But I'm guessing that will only be for Universal Windows Platform (i.e. mobile and tablet-style) apps, not Win32 desktop applications.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm crossing my fingers for the "one more thing" moment when they will announce that nuclide for React is now available, but it doesn't look likely.

<comment><USER26> I thought nuclide was released several months ago.

<comment><USER7> It was, but the React support is still pending.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Too bad I missed it \- anyone know where we can watch a replay?

</comment><comment><USER28> nice, hope these videos will be archived for later watching.

<comment><USER15> they will

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Note that the URL of the live stream appeared to be wrong for me.

was: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fCEeAgeRC0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fCEeAgeRC0)

should be: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi62S_MvheE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi62S_MvheE)

<comment><USER30> Thanks. How about we just change the URL from [http://conf.reactjs.com/](http://conf.reactjs.com/) to the latter.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you measure your year 2014? - <AUTHOR>

Did you use a framework to measure how you did at end of a year? <comment><USER2> For 2013 & 2014 I used the questionnaire from Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich". It was interesting to see my responses from last year compared to this year. The list can be found here: [http://www.stephenfrasier.com/blog/self- development/grow-ric...](http://www.stephenfrasier.com/blog/self- development/grow-rich-28-questions/)</comment>


Vipassana Retreat – Mindful Living with Asperger's Syndrome - <AUTHOR> http://www.jkp.com/blog/2014/08/vipassana-retreat-a-brand-new-article-from-the-author-of-mindful-living-with-aspergers-syndrome/

<comment><USER2> I hope everyone realizes that Asperger Syndrome has been abandoned for cause -- that as far as psychiatrists are concerned, the name refers to a cultural meme, not a mental illness, and it was a mistake to put it in DSM-IV as a diagnosis. It's been removed from the new DSM-5, and those who removed it discourage its use, a use that can only stigmatize people who may be placed at an advantage by possessing its described traits.

Among those who were "diagnosed" with Asperger Syndrome at the height of its popularity included Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson and Bill Gates. That was when mental health professionals realized their mistake.

From a practical standpoint, what we call Asperger Syndrome, and foolishly tried to stigmatize and treat, may in fact be an advantageous evolutionary trait that's being selected for in our technically advanced culture.

Not unlike homosexuality and many other traits that were once thought to be treatable mental illnesses, Asperger Syndrome has been recategorized as normal behavior by those who had the most to lose -- mental health clinicians who were able to read the handwriting on the wall.

<comment><USER3> Isn't it fair to say that the behaviors would now be described as part of the autistic spectrum?

(Let's say we are talking about the words used by a careful clinician to communicate something, not what some rando on the internet said once about Bill Gates)

<comment><USER2> > Isn't it fair to say that the behaviors would now be described as part of > the autistic spectrum?

No, because there's little that connects the Asperger Syndrome traits with those of autism. Since the abandonment of the Asperger diagnosis, many have argued that it's still with us, because it's been folded into the Autism category. But this misses an important detail -- it wasn't Asperger Syndrome itself that was folded into autism, but those who received the Asperger diagnosis -- which meant people were placed in the position of asking themselves whether they wanted to be thought of as autistic rather than an Aspie.

Among my many correspondents on this issue, being called an Aspie became desirable, fashionable. That was one reason the Asperger diagnosis was dropped -- it had become a popular, desirable mental illness. Psychologists had never before been in the position of having people ask for a particular diagnosis based on its popularity.

> (Let's say we are talking about the words used by a careful clinician to > communicate something, not what some rando on the internet said once about > Bill Gates)

But in modern mental health practice, one cannot really ignore popular trends. It seems everyone knows what ADHD, PTSD and Asperger's are, and how they rank in popularity. A psychologist would be at a severe disadvantage through not knowing that Asperger Syndrome had become a popular, desirable diagnosis, regardless of the social reasons.

Overhead conversation: "So ... what's your diagnosis?" "Well ... I confess .. I don't have one." "You don't have one? What's wrong with you?"

<comment><USER3> _No, because there 's little that connects the Asperger Syndrome traits with those of autism._ is pretty out there.

Like, I can't imagine you could find a single psychologist that would strongly agree with it. I know you have your issues with psychologists, but a fair criticism requires an accurate characterization of what they say.

Or are you arguing from your own set of traits that are reasonably assignable or something? Because difficulty with social interaction, apparently because of differences in brain function, is a pretty big piece of autism and also factored heavily into Aspergers.

<comment><USER2> > _No, because there 's little that connects the Asperger Syndrome traits with > those of autism._ is pretty out there.

If it weren't true, psychologists would have argued against dropping the diagnosis. But they argued in favor of it -- they realized they had made a mistake.

> Like, I can't imagine you could find a single psychologist that would > strongly agree with it.

That's a classic _non sequitur_ in mental health. It's uncontroversial that you can find a psychiatrist or psychologist who will, seriously and at length, agree or disagree with any position whatever. It's a simple matter of looking. I can quote any number of examples -- a Harvard University professor who took alien abduction reports at face value, as though they represented reality. A department of psychiatry chairman who interviewed children about their past lives on Planet Earth, in complete seriousness. And so forth.

Saying that a psychiatrist or psychologist holds a particular view on a topic isn't exactly evidence for the proposition.

> I know you have your issues with psychologists, but a fair criticism > requires an accurate characterization of what they say.

Oh, I agree, because evidence rules and my opinions shouldn't make any difference to the objective evidence.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_E._Mack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_E._Mack)

Quote: "John Edward Mack M.D. (October 4, 1929 – September 27, 2004) was an American psychiatrist, writer, and professor at Harvard Medical School. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, and a leading authority on the spiritual or transformational effects of alleged alien abduction experiences."

" ... the BBC quoted Mack as saying, "I would never say, yes, there are aliens taking people. [But] I would say there is a compelling powerful phenomenon here that I can't account for in any other way ..."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Weiss](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Weiss)

Quote: "Brian Leslie Weiss (born November 6, 1944) is an American psychiatrist. His research includes reincarnation, past life regression, future-life progression, and survival of the human soul after death."

I could go on like this for hours, but surely you realize where it would lead -- my original remark was correct.

> Because difficulty with social interaction, apparently because of > differences in brain function, is a pretty big piece of autism and also > factored heavily into Aspergers.

Yes, but without knowing the actual cause of (a) autism and (b) Asperger Syndrome, we're drawing conclusions based on superficial similarities that may not be connected in any deep way. Sort of like the fable of the blind men and the elephant -- each blind man comes to a different conclusion based on the same evidence.

That's the new direction in mental health -- the field's opinion leaders are recommending a change in direction that searches for causes, rather than a continued emphasis on symptoms. About this change, NIMH director Insel recently said, "The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been "reliability" – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. _The weakness is its lack of validity_."

"Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that _symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment._ Patients with mental disorders deserve better."

Source: [http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming- dia...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming- diagnosis.shtml)

If we knew what causes autism, and what causes Asperger Syndrome, this conversation would be rendered moot by actual scientific evidence, something in short supply right now in psychiatry and psychology.

<comment><USER3> _Yes, but without knowing the actual cause of (a) autism and (b) Asperger Syndrome, we 're drawing conclusions based on superficial similarities that may not be connected in any deep way. Sort of like the fable of the blind men and the elephant -- each blind man comes to a different conclusion based on the same evidence._

That presumes there is a distinction. With no evidence about the cause, there is no good reason to make such a presumption in either direction.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I agree. I was commenting on the mental health field's having made the connection, on no serious evidence.

It's important to realize that mental health diagnoses follow popular taste, not scientific evidence. Homosexuality was a mental illness as long as the public held homosexuality to be unacceptable. In the pre-Civil War era, psychologists labeled a slave's tendency to run away from his master as a mental illness, simply because that was a popularly accepted idea, with support among those who paid the psychologists:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania)

In the same way, Asperger Syndrome seemed to be a way to attract paying clients -- but I don't mean those who received the diagnosis, but the parents who paid the bills, who perhaps wanted Johnny to "fit in" better at school, be more "normal".

In each of the quoted cases, public taste changed over time, and psychologists responded by abandoning a failed mental illness. It's not science, it's a popularity contest.

If only real doctors could retire their diagnoses in the same way -- that would instantly solve the cancer and heart disease problems. But this is silly -- medicine isn't psychology. Medicine is based on science.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What newsletter software do you use? - <AUTHOR>

I looked into Campaign monitor and Newsberry, but both seem a bit steep. $10 per campaign is not cheap.<p>What services could you recommend? <comment><USER2> I use Mailchimp and I like it a lot. It has a lot of features and different price plans. See if it might work for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just checked out Mailchimp and they seem way more reasonable than the others. Thanks for you suggestion.

<comment><USER3> Their API's not half bad either. Was also pretty well documented the last time I used it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use sendmail, mysql, and handful of perl programs. We considered using some outside service a year or two ago but we were doing some targeted campaigns based upon purchase histories, geographic region, etc. and the trouble to pull out lists like that and then sync them with an outside service becomes a problem. Also our lists are large enough that the expense of paying someone to send them starts to add up.

Also, we tag each email sent with a synthetic key to a table that stores the specific email address and time it was sent. This way we can do stats on effects of time-of-day of sending on conversion rates, etc. Not that we're actually doing those stats.

Also, it's surprisingly easy to do mass emails and campaigns with a little perl or python and {sendmail || your_favorite_MTA}

Some of the services are really good and easy to use if you are only sending a few, though. I've heard good things about Constant Contact.

<comment><USER5> Good idea, but please please be careful and take the necessary precautions before you send your IP/domain name to the abyss of spam trapping blackholes.

If you're sending more than 200 messages to the big 4 (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL) take the time to REGISTER with them first and tell them about your messaging habits. Do not change the from FROM field ever! Try to minimize content changes between messages; rewrite the URLs in message bodies for tracking purposes. Don't send a message to an unverified mailbox. Make sure your users consent to receiving your message and you have a way to prove this (a check box on the post sign up screen.) Do not use a misbehaving SMTP server that doesn't accept returned messages and other housekeeping communication; gmail will say "message undeliverable" the first time around and look back at you to see if you acknowledge this, or it might not confirm delivery for a while, to see if you're a phantom smtpd who would disappear after an hour. Get DomainKeys, SPF and other credentials you need. Do all your mailing from ONE domain name, mail.example.com and make sure you have backup servers as well.

Good luck.

P.S. Postfix has various mailing list and newsletter management addons. Qmail was written JUST for that purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used to use dada mail and now I use oempro

If you're looking for a hosted solution that isnt too expensive Aweber is nice.

<http://octeth.com/products/oempro/>

<http://dadamailproject.com/>

<http://www.aweber.com/>

</comment><comment><USER7> PHP List, It's free and works great! - <http://www.phplist.com/></comment>


Julian Assange reportedly turned down a trove of documents related to Russian - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/assange-turned-down-documents-related-to-russian-government-corruption-2017-8 <comment><USER2> Without eliciting comment from Assange, this article comes across as an one- sided, thinly-veiled hit-piece.</comment>


Best Practices Are Not Always the Best - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bloomca.me/2018/05/10/on-best-practices.html <comment><USER2> > There are also tons of evangelists, which promote their > technology/process/approach of choice, giving endless introductory talks and > blogposts, but without answering complicated questions.

I find some programmers are very adamant that there's always a right way and a wrong way to do something and you just have to examine the pros and the cons. Well, what about when it's between a legacy codebase that no one on the team has even spent half a day looking at and an idea that someone read on a blog post that they never bothered to try? You can't honestly begin to identify pros and cons in a situation like that. But this is how our industry is now. So you kind of have to take claims of "best practices" with a grain of salt.

I don't even really engage in discussions on "best practices" anymore. Not because I'm cynical, but because they just lead nowhere. Write some code that runs, show it to me and we'll talk.

</comment><comment><USER3> you know what grinds my gears? when I go looking for help on a problem and the answers I get are "don't do that it's not best practices". like not okay here's how you do it but you shouldn't but just flat out I'm not going to tell you. that's the most arrogant/presumptuous and consistent thing I've ever dealt with and it's absolutely unique to software development. It completely discounts the individuals personal experience (and abilities to make the right decision for themselves) and their circumstances (the project itself) and it's always around something dogmatic/a reflection of fanboyism. most recently on #reactjs I wanted to know if there were a way to have locally scoped styles in react like in Vue - I got only condescension about how react is for "bigboys" and hence eschews the practice. Finally someone said hey maybe try styled- components, which was basically close enough and has 16,000 stars on GitHub (so I doubt it's "worst practices"). software devs are some of the most zealous people I've ever met - everything is an opportunity to bike shed and every question or difference of opinion is an opportunity to quarterback someone else's code base.

<comment><USER4> Best practices are a very wide category, don't parse HTML with regular expressions is the kind of thing you really should just say don't do that. Camelcase is the middle ground where it's a good idea but personal preference may show up yet people get just as dogmatic about it.

IMO, what trips people up is when wisdom says "don't use Oracle products" it's completely accurate, but not that helpful when you inherit a huge mess.

<comment><USER5> > _Best practices are a very wide category, don 't parse HTML with regular > expressions is the kind of thing you really should just say don't do that._

I call BS.

"Don't have a continuously running service parse arbitrary HTML with regular expressions" would be a bad thing.

Parsing specific, given, HTML files, with known structure to the dev, with regular expressions (e.g. as part of a one-off scrapping script) is totally, absolutely, fine.

If my HTML file is like:

      foo

      foo

      foo

      foo

      foo

      foo

      foo

I can parse it just fine with regex.

And even parsing is the wrong word: I can extract the information I want is a better term. I won't be parsing anything in the AST sense.

<comment><USER6> As someone who has created more hacks like you describe than I care to admit, you actually make the case of precisely why you _don 't_ parse HTML with regex.

Because that code works fine for 5 years until it blows up after something upstream changes. From a RoI calculation this might be perfectly fine if you're still around and remember how to fix it - it's a 5 minute fix after all! But if you've left, or if that system became old and crufty and fragile you may have just burned 3 days tracking it down.

If someone is asking this question, it is entirely appropriate to tell them "don't ever do that" \- they obviously lack the experience and big picture thinking to know when it _is_ appropriate to deviate due to business reasons. If you leave it at that I agree you're being a dick - whenever shooting someone's idea down you had damn well better have some appropriate alternative options.

<comment><USER7> "Because that code works fine for 5 years until it blows up after something upstream changes."

I believe the point here is exactly that nothing _will_ change, because the regex in question isn't for a service, it is just for _that specific file_ , right now, today. I've regexed specific HTML files myself too, because even though I am very comfortable with XPath and Beautiful Soup and tree representations in general, regexes are even easier on a static file like that.

<comment><USER8> When I was young, I was asked to print some address labels, so I wrote a quick super-short BASIC program to parse a specific file, right now, today, and got those labels printed. Made all sorts of assumptions, but it didn't matter, because it was a static file, and nothing could ever change in it.

Three or four years later, I was having lunch with the guy I'd done that for when he got a phone call. Turns out they were using that program of mine to print labels monthly now, and one of the completely-safe assumptions I'd made years earlier had bitten them. Fortunately, he knew how to resolve it easily, but I learned a very important lesson that day.

<comment><USER9> What lesson was that?

From my perspective, this other guy was using a program outside of its design spec. That can be fine, but such a thing is prone to the problem of safe assumptions suddenly not being safe. You wrote the program for the problem you needed it for, and for which, it worked fine. Unless part of the problem at the time was "we expect to use this program for a couple years", there is no reason to make it overly robust.

<comment><USER4> "right now, today" and "that specific file"

Code designed to be used once has a habit of sticking around.

<comment><USER5> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it)

<comment><USER4> There is premature optimization and then there is not being stupid. Using one of the 10,000 XML/HTML parsers to get to v0.01 takes about as long on average and avoid ridiculous problems.

The only thing regex has going for it is you might already know it. But, this is one of those time when learning something _is worth it._

PS: XP is doing a depth first search, which can be EXtreamly wasteful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We've iterated on our process quite a bit for my startup. I agree that sometimes you need a completely new approach, but more often than not what already works for another team will most likely work for us with some small tweaks. What I find works pretty well is to think about the problem, apply our existing knowledge and experiences to the solution, make any obvious edits for our unique, then test it out. From there, we make tweaks if needed to get to what works, or we completely scrap what we know and try something completely new. Process, like product, requires iteration. But process is also built off conventions and modeled off core human behaviors. Chances are the wheel doesn't need to be completely reinvented. My advice would be to fork what works on the process side, and use all your creative energy to come up with something new on the product side.

<comment><USER11> I suggest that you work on making your statements more punctual. For example, if I'm not missing anything, all of this could be shortened to:

> We apply best practices most of the time to save time, but we usually tweak > them for our concrete situation. Be sure to spend most of your energy on > your core competence instead of bikeshedding over processes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Evertime I hear someone defend something as a best practice without any other justification, I mentally switch "best practice" with "cargo culting" and lose no information.

Sometimes the best practice in question does have value and can be articulated. But in those cases the articulated reason makes a better argument and you don't hear the phrase "best practice" quite as often. When it is just cargo culting, the only defense is to repeat "best practice" over and over again.

<comment><USER13> I prefer to think of the term as "sensible default". A "best practice" is _usually_ not the worst default to have, and if you don't have the time or bandwidth to dive into a problem and just want to pick a solution from a hat, you could do a lot worse.

The danger comes in that when you want to supplant the best practice with a new practice, you have to genuinely understand the problem in your context, and be able to articulate a full explanation about why the new practice has an advantage.

But there is definitely cargo culting around best practices - see using Redux. Core features of your app shouldn't be left to just acceptable defaults, but instead you should grapple with those problems and choose the best possible answer you can at the time.

<comment><USER14> >The danger comes in that when you want to supplant the best practice with a new practice, you have to genuinely understand the problem in your context, and be able to articulate a full explanation about why the new practice has an advantage.

We're experiencing that exact problem - we're introducing for the first time a company wide best practice, which isn't even defined yet and in a constant state of flux, but it's become a shield the strongest evangelists stand behind "why would you want to do that? It's not best practice?" \- the "best practice" might not last the month, and it's not clear why that's the "best practice", but it's become a magic seal of approval.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Two years into my programming career, there's still almost nothing I do that isn't just implementing the best way someone else thought to do it. And I still have a lot more to learn before I would start off on my own. My only problem with best practices is that sometimes there are too many and living up to them all would take all your time. And some of them are just evangelists for niche ideas and it's hard to tell.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Don't use Goto," "Don't use Regex against HTML." Worse than not following best practices is accepting it without demur. The insight dawned upon when I learned how Chromium's team doesn't use continuous branching. The codebase moves so fast that committing to a single branch is a much better option [1]. I highly doubt Google's engineers made that choice out of sloppiness.

Although, I think it's not simple to foresee long-term implications of our decisions. And, best practices do fill that hole. At the same time, programmers should keep an open mind to use a solution if it's a radically simpler choice.

[1]: [https://medium.com/@aboodman/in-march-2011-i-drafted-an- arti...](https://medium.com/@aboodman/in-march-2011-i-drafted-an-article- explaining-how-the-team-responsible-for-google-chrome-ships-c479ba623a1b)

</comment><comment><USER17> This wikipedia page explains the nuance of best practice: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_practice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_practice)

Not following best practices is more likely to result in inefficiency. But the key word here is "practice".

Practice dancing a lot and you will be able to dance well, in the form of dancing you practiced. There are other forms of dance and thus other forms of practice. Practice for lindy hop is going to differ from practice for tango, or jazz. And the _best_ practice for lindy will result in the best lindy dancing, as it has been developed over time and has the best outcomes.

But if for some reason you need to do lindy hop in, say, a _really_ cramped space, the practice will have to change. Best practice doesn't mean only practice.

</comment><comment><USER18> One benefit of best practices is standardizing the way things are done. I have worked on project where the original developer had invented a "thin models fat controllers" philosophy for Django (best practices are fat models thin controllers). What a mess that was.....

</comment><comment><USER19> When they moved us, programmers and related staff, to "cubettes" \-- not even full cubes, but rather a corner in a shared three-sided "pen" with low walls. Your neighbor's shoulder three to five feet away from you. Cube meetings crowding into their half of the pen. Conversations shouted willy-nilly across the open floor plan.

They called that the "best practice".

"Best" is in the eyes of whoever's calling it a "best practice".

</comment><comment><USER20> Being a tad pedantic and agree with the spirit of the article, but this just seems like a result from the overuse of the phrase 'best practices'.

<comment><USER21> Exactly. "Best" practices don't always turn out to be the best, after all. "Better" practice might be a better (heh) fit.

It's often more useful to look at anti-patterns and avoid those (still with a grain of salt) than it is to go looking for a pre-existing "best" solution to your specific problem.

<comment><USER22> Don't get me started on the other best, "Best of Breed". Nothing in software or programming is a binary system, best and dreadful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Best practices = minimally acceptable

If everyone is doing it. how can it possible make you the best?

</comment><comment><USER24> b2b business is based upon best practices though, you cannot have a startup mentality (hack or disrupt) when its legal consequences would outrisk the possible gain</comment>


The Render Ghosts - <AUTHOR> https://www.readingdesign.org/render-ghosts <comment><USER2> The author writes like they liked reading Sebald. Great essay. So much of life is mood.</comment>


Ask HN: What's up with Rapleaf ads *everywhere*? - <AUTHOR>

Just curious, I see their ads on nearly every site I visit across the Whole World Wide Web - from respectable network news sites to seedy torrent sites. It seems quite inescapable and has been going on for weeks.
Any insights on why they are burning so much cash on ads?
I really hope they've done some A/B testing with those ads. I have my doubts that an ad of 5 white guys in suits hunched over laptops in a field have much of a click-thru rate. If you click thru, you go to http://business.rapleaf.com/ which has a picture of a puzzle and painfully dull copy.
Did they just give up and decide to just sink the rest of their VC money into brute force ads and then go on vacation?
Just curious if anyone knows the back-story ;) <comment><USER2> What websites are you talking about? I haven't seen any Rapleaf ads.

</comment><comment><USER3> which sites do you see them on? i haven't really noticed myself

</comment><comment><USER4> you have been behaviour-tracked!</comment>


A zap to the brain can trigger a lucid dream - <AUTHOR> http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/a-zap-to-the-brain-can-trigger-a-lucid-dream <comment><USER2> "Induction of self awareness in dreams through frontal low current stimulation of gamma activity", Voss et al 2014 [http://img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_174893674.pdf](http://img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_174893674.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Coming soon to Hack-a-Day.</comment>


Ask HN: Does hobbyist-level C02 recapture make sense? - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19842240
This post really interested me.
I asked a fellow HackerNews reader (Rod Fitzsimmons Frey) for his thoughts on the post. He kindly responded with the following outline of steps:
- Capture of CO2 from the atmosphere using a variety of techniques, usually adsorption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage). This takes quite a bit of energy.
- Conversion of the dissolved CO2 into alcohols. Reaction is 2CO2 + 9H2O + 12e-  →  C2H5OH + 12OH- so it's energy-uphill and needs an energy input. Maybe solar cells or a wind turbine. Requires a catalyst, often a variety of copper matrix. Catalysts are the major subject of research. To figure out whether you could do this in your garage you'd probably need to go to the literature.
- Distillation of the alcohols - usually done with heat, requires 800-900 deg C. Possible but hard and energy intensive. This is where Prometheus sits, they have a nanoscale membrane that does room-temperature separation of the alcohols using electricity input (more energy in!)
- Conversion of the alcohols into gasoline, diesel, kerosene etc. This is a pretty well-known process that uses a catalyst called ZSM-5 plus heat (mo' mo' energy!). I haven't looked into the chemistry or the availability of the catalyst.
I think it's pretty clear that... it's most likely not possible to convert C02 into gasoline without using more energy + money than it would take to just go buy a $2.69/gallon of 87 unleaded.
However, what is possible/makes sense at a consumer level? In a modern day society where more and more individuals are learning the impact of climate change, I feel like any form of CO2 recapture + distillation would be a solid business idea from a "demand" standpoint. <comment><USER2> I like how you're thinking from a hobbyist standpoint.

The teaspoon analogy (below) is a little flawed. It discounts technology improvement/growth.

You also have to include that:

1\. teaspoon tech is in its infancy

2\. if teaspoons were a few orders of magnitude cheaper and bigger, the job would be done rapidly

3\. teaspoon tech has lots of promising pathways that haven't been followed

Carbon removal tech was $1,000/ton a few years ago, now it's ~$200/ton. Draw a line through those points and you might get somewhere interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> What does a $200/ton carbon removal stack look like?

There's solar powered fans blowing air over some kind of material that captures C02 out of the air. What exactly is that material, how much does it cost, do consumers have easy access to it?

Then, you need immense heat to react the C02 in the material out, yeah? That's part 2. I think if we focus on it one part at a time, we may get some answers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's a bit like believing you are capable of emptying the ocean with a teaspoon.

By all means, go ahead. But excuse me for believing you will fail.</comment>


Ask HN: App for workouts by body part? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I want to learn ios programming and I'm inspired by this article (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/posture-power-how-to-correct-your-body-alignment.html) to build an app that does exactly what the article describes - suggest exercises based on your body posture/problem. I figured posture issues are universal that it might be useful not just to me but others too! And, the problem is well defined and the solution structured, that it seems straight forward to build a MVP app without giving too much thought to it.
My main goal: learn ios programming while building a MVP.
Here's my question: Is there an api of a workout database by body part, similar to this site - http://exrx.net/Lists/WtMale.html ?
Thanks for your help! And any other tips/recommendations to help with my programming journey is welcome! :)
G <comment><USER2> Tangent: I wonder what sort of app would emerge if your main goal was to learn all you can about posture issues, and what's important to to patient/clients and practitioners?

<comment><AUTHOR> It'd definitely be interesting to see, and one solution could be to recommend patients to practitioners and vice-versa based on their issues. Hopefully, I get to that point in the near future.</comment></comment>


The moon is not the Earth's only natural satellite - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/03/02/earth-second-moon/

<comment><USER3> Was also posted yesterday with a few comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9133147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9133147)

</comment><comment><USER4> As pointed out by the other commenters, Cruithne doesn't orbit the Earth, but orbits the Sun with the in 1:1 resonance with the Earth. Its orbit is highly elliptical: at perihelion it's closer than Mercury, and aphelion further than Mars. Much of the time it's actually on the other side of the Sun to us. Here's a couple of gifs of its orbit:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Orbits_of...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Orbits_of_Cruithne_and_Earth.gif)

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Horseshoe...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Horseshoe_orbit_of_Cruithne_from_the_perspective_of_Earth.gif)

Note that its "orbit" around Earth actually takes _770 years_!

<comment><USER5> More on wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3753_Cruithne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3753_Cruithne)

The yellow kidney bean orbit depicted only takes a year, but it doesn't actually form a loop, and the kidney bean moves gradually away from the Earth around the blue circle. When it goes almost all the way around, it's going to start going back in the opposite direction. 770 years is the time it takes for the yellow orbit to traverse the blue orbit once in each direction.

Not only does it not orbit the earth in any physically meaningful sense - <USER2> doesn't even trace a shape that goes around the earth, which is annoying because I'm pretty sure I've told people that it did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Earth actually has a few _better_ quasi-satelites. (164207) 2004 GU9, (277810) 2006 FV35, 2014 OL339 [1][2][3] these are very small bodies typically ~100-300 meters by 50-200 meters.

That also orbit in 1:1 resonance with the earth, their orbits are less eccentric (not sun diving), meaning they can be reached with relatively very low D-V requirements on the order of 11-13km/s, also incredibly weak gravity of their own. (This doesn't count trojan bodies that orbit Earth/Sun L4/L5 points, which have been observed [5]).

Most quasi-satellites are typically temporary, Neptune currently has a large one ~250km long, Venus even has one that'll only orbit for another 500 years [4].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%28164207%29_2004_GU9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%28164207%29_2004_GU9)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%28277810%29_2006_FV35](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%28277810%29_2006_FV35)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_OL339](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_OL339)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_VE68](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_VE68)

[5] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_TK7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_TK7)

Orbital mechanics and near earth objects are really cool!

</comment><comment><USER7> It's not a satellite of the Earth, it orbits the sun in a resonant orbit with the Earth's.

</comment><comment><USER8> Surely we do give the moon a specific name: "moon". The concept of calling other large rocky natural satellites "moons" almost certainly came later.

</nitpick>

<comment><USER9> Even more confusingly, the Greek name for the body was Io, later allocated to a satellite of Jupiter.

Moon came into Emglish from Danish for 'month'.

Luna was the Roman goddess represented by the body.

<comment><USER10> > Moon came into E[n]glish from Danish for 'month'

This is flat-out wrong. Check etymonline ( [http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=moon](http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=moon) ):

        moon (n.)
            Old English mona,
            from Proto-Germanic *menon-,
            from PIE *me(n)ses- "moon, month"

That's a straight line of descent from proto-Indo-European to modern English. No borrowing at any point.

Interestingly, etymonline also points out that the english word "moon" is cognate with the classical Greek word for the moon "mene". This leads nicely into your more interesting, and less wrong, claim:

> the Greek name for the body was Io

This is a little unconventional. I'm not really trained in classical Greek, but I also thought the word was selene.

Doing a simple search of greek dictionary entries through perseus ( [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/definitionlookup?type=be...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/definitionlookup?type=begin&q=moon&lang=greek) ) quickly tells us that there are many, many, many greek words relating to the moon that use a form of selene or mene (aselenos, moonless; selenion, moonlight; hyposelenios, under the moon; triselenos, of three moons; numenia, the new moon; dichomenia, the full moon; skotomene, moonless night; etc. etc. etc.) Further inspection reveals that the term selene never appears in Homer, while mene does, so mene is probably older. (Knowing that mene comes from a PIE root also supports the idea that it's older.)

Io also appears, with a short gloss of "the moon". But the related dictionary entries don't really deal with that sense; they prefer to define Io as the mythological daughter of Inachus. But there is a citation to "Eust.ad D.P.92" in which Io is the "name of the moon at Argos". Wikipedia's entry on Io (the mythological figure) also says, "The ancients connected Io with the Moon", with a citation to "Eustathius of Thessalonica commentary on Dionysius Periegetes, 92", which looks like the same thing as the LSJ cite perseus gives. Wikipedia also cites this to a 10th-century Byzantine encylcopedia which Eustathius is known to have been familiar with, and to a 5th-century Greek philologist. None of those cites go to web resources, and I would be unlikely to get much out of them even if they did, but it does appear that there was a minor strain of referring to the moon as Io in some places at some point.

But selene and mene are clearly better candidates for "the word for the moon", since only they are used to form moon-related words. (Really, there are two words for the moon -- both terms appear as goddesses, but obviously have an ordinary, non-divine sense.) As far as I can see, Io is a mythological allusion, not "the word for the moon". It's even capitalized in the dictionary entry with the moon gloss.

How'd you learn that the Greek name for the moon was supposedly Io? Do you remember?

Finally,

> Luna was the Roman goddess represented by the body.

Sure, that's true, but luna is also just the ordinary Latin word for the moon. You might notice that the same thing happens with both selene and mene. Personification deities are dirt-common in classical literature. Take the goddess who started the Trojan war, Eris. She's referred to (by us) as the goddess of discord. And Eris isn't really a name -- it's just the word for quarreling and strife.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If we don't get this debris cleared, we'll be demoted from planet status.

<comment><USER12> And then, there were 7 :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> QI did a series of questions on this subject: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXzi89b3LHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXzi89b3LHw)

<comment><USER14> QI is riddled with inaccuracies:-

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/18/stephen_frytard/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/18/stephen_frytard/)

<comment><USER4> According to the Register, that bastion of quality journalism...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The one above is a Quasi-sattelite [http://earthsky.org/space/does-earth-have- a-second-moon](http://earthsky.org/space/does-earth-have-a-second-moon)

An example of a "minimoon" : 2006 RH120 orbitted the earth in 2006 for less than a year before resuming it's orbit round the sun [http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/simulations-show-mini- moons-...](http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/simulations-show-mini-moons- orbiting-earth/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Was that video supposed to clear things up?

I kept trying to figure out how both the Earth and Sun were standing still.

</comment><comment><USER17> So the earth has not cleared its orbital neighborhood, and is a dwarf planet.

</comment><comment><USER18> Thats no moon... its a space station!

</comment><comment><USER19> It is.</comment>