Lung Cancer and the Power of Suggestion - <AUTHOR> http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/02/lung-cancer-and-power-of-suggestion.html

<comment><USER3> _Were there millions of depressed people in hiding, in 1955, waiting to come out of the closet in the 1990s? Was 9.3% of the American adult population (the percentage now suffering depression) merely suffering in silence, back in 1955? Or did the drug companies and their media flacks convert a relatively rare psychological condition into a growth industry through massive advertising and media hype (in other words, through the power of suggestion)?_

The author is trying to claim that many (most/majority?) cases of depression are made up and hyped. They are trying to claim that it's _impossible_ for there to be that many actual depressed people now.

But turn it around. How many (openly) gay people/couples are there today? Millions! But there weren't that many in 1955! So what happened? Was it all media hype? <sarcasm>Or are we expected to believe that all those gay people were suffering in silence in the 1950s?!</sarcasm>.

Of course all the gay people were suffering in silence in the 50s. People don't doubt that. So why the doubt about mental illness?

<comment><USER4> I don't think that the author is trying to claim that depression is made up and hyped. What he seems to be claiming is that publicity surrounding depression could have caused an increase in the number of depressed people through the power of suggestion.

He's not saying that mental illness isn't valid, or that the people with depression aren't suffering. He's suggesting that the increase could partly be caused by the immense advertising campaigns surrounding anti-depressants; this is in no way de-legitimizing depression, just suggesting a possible cause.

<comment><USER5> Except America is the only industrialised nation that allows direct marketing of antidepressants to its populace.

Other industrialised countries - Australia, the UK, France and Germany, etc have also experienced a rise in patients under treatment for these conditions, in lockstep with the US experience, despite this difference you suggest is responsible

<comment><USER3> It's like an experimental study that removes a confounding factor!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It appears you've made some sort of resolution to publish and promote a blog entry per day in 2013. 40 entries in 41 days this year vs. 46 in all of 2012. You should reconsider - whatever your reasons were, I doubt they included a desire to develop a reputation for presenting topics that were sensationalized and thinly researched [1] produced with a pace that ensures discredited theories dont get reviewed.

[1] [http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/02/drug-companies- stop-h...](http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/02/drug-companies-stop-hiding- your-data.html)

<comment><USER7> Wow, nice spot and they have all been submitted to HN. I have never seen anyone's submission history be so hell bent on self promotion:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=techdog>

<comment><USER8> You'd be surprised, there are one or two people who are as blatant.

Just for fun, here are a couple of charts. (<http://imgur.com/a/ywor0>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Do Cigarette Warning Labels Help CAUSE Cancer?" No... Long answer: Hell no and stop doing this.

To the next person with a pseudoscientific gut-feeling-bear-with-me-just-a- bit-while-I-pull-a-half-baked-idea-out-of-a-number-set-that-does-nothing-to- corroborate, please don't. Corrolation doesn't equate to causation, no matter what amount of reality bending assertions you apply. Warning those at high risk for cancer know they're at high risk and subsequently confirm the hypothesis doesn't mean the warning was the cause.

<comment><USER10> There seems to be a trend of Very Smart People with no experience whatsoever in a given field, reading some article somewhere, pulling out R and some graphing software, and proclaiming "I've discovered something that nobody who actually works in the target field which I knew absolutely nothing about six hours ago ever found!". I wish those stories would stop getting posted to HN.

<comment><USER11> NO! I absolutely resent that idea that "science" should only be something for the experts, and everybody without a PhD should shut up about it.

As long as it is just random ranting without any data, it is more than welcoming that "regular" people try to understand expert opinion and in fact challenge it. If "facts" are so clear and indisputable, than those amateur research should easily be shown as wrong.

If not, amateur researcher make a highly valuable contribution. They highlight the fact, that social science, especially on social phenomenons, is (often) based on consensus. In this case here, the author makes an excellent contribution just by highlighting how easy correlation and causation can be (mis)interpreted.

For example the other day I read and article published in a well regarded management journal, by authors who claim having found out that the willingness of users clicking on ads is based on the hours of sunshine per day in that region. The correlation equals causation phenomenon is quite common among social scientists who try to show how scientific their contributions are.

<comment><USER10> > I absolutely resent that idea that "science" should only be something for > the experts, and everybody without a PhD should shut up about it.

making some off the cuff, armchair observations within a particular field of study (and blogging and serially promoting them to hacker news) without even making casual efforts to familiarize oneself with at least portions the vast amounts of knowledge publicly available on that field is, generously, pretty bad "science". And less generously, it's just hubris. This is not an "amateur researcher", this is someone who apparently based on posting history has a really high blogging-to-value ratio.

Of course, we all have the right to be clueless. I only requested that perhaps Hacker News doesn't want to encourage a culture of armchair cluelessness and particularly someone who appears to be a serial armchair blogger/HN promoter (see <https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=techdog>).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _In 1955, only 38,200 people in the U.S, were in mental hospitals as a result of disablement due to depression (C. Silverman, 1968, The Epidemiology of Depression, Johns Hopkins Press). Today, depression is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for people aged 15-44 (according to NIMH stats). Depression now affects 20.5 million American adults: 14.8 million in the form of major depressive disorder and 5.7 million in the form of bipolar disorder. That's a pretty huge jump in numbers: 38,200 to 20 million._

He's comparing the number of of people _insitutionalized in a mental hospital_ in 1955 to the total number of people who suffer from depression in the United States now. How is that comparison even relevant to anything? How many people are institutionalized for depression now? My guess is that those numbers either wouldn't support his narrative or can't be found in a few minutes of googling like the rest of his "research".

Also notice how he gets to 20 million (a very dramatic number indeed) by adding together 14.8 million suffering from a major depressive disorder and 5.7 million in the form of bipolar disorder. Are those thing mutually exclusive?

</comment><comment><USER13> If there IS a nocebo effect here, it's mildly implausible that it would have a really narrow effect like "making people more susceptible to lung cancer". At a minimum, I'd expect them to be more susceptible to other cancers, and possibly other diseases and illnesses (the big fat warnings in your face, and having to bypass them to smoke, acting as some sort of immunosuppressant or something like that).

Perhaps, if this effect is real, further research could demonstrate that? Or perhaps there's still a confounding effect somewhere, maybe something related to how people self-select whether they're going to smoke and some factor which is correlated both with making that decision in the face of a big fat warning label _and_ with increased susceptibility to lung cancer?

Anyway. Nice idea for a research paper. Not sure it belongs here until you've done more though. :P

<comment><USER14> +1. Interesting idea for a research article, but post when you've done the research, not when you've just had the interesting wild hypothesis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't understand why it's so infeasible that improvements in cigarette technology could result in cigarettes that are worse for one's health because they've been more aggressively optimised for tar content as officially measured, or shelf life, or cost of manufacture.

As for the theory that modern smokers simply suck harder, I'm not sure that's so implausible. Light cigarettes are more common today, and most light cigarettes seem to get their lightness entirely from lengthier filters that have small holes in the paper. (If you use the tobacco for some other purpose, e.g., as filler for an unfiltered marijuana cigarette, then you'll find the smoke just as harsh and the roach paper no less tarry.) This requires a more forceful draw to avoid that unpleasant "sucking in air" sensation.

I've also noticed, on the occasions that I've checked recently, that cigarettes today tend to have lower advertised tar and nicotine content than the ones I smoked as a teenager. So perhaps that could result in a similar effect.

<comment><USER5> Light cigarettes _are in fact_ Worse as a whole as previously heavy smokers switch brands and start smoking _lighter_ cigarettes

The effect is real and had been studied.

In fact, all of the effect size attempted to be attributed to 'warning labels causing cancer' can be explained by this paper here

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/m/p...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/m/pubmed/16100660/)

<comment><USER16> This URL requires a login from University of Sydney for access.

<comment><USER5> My bad

Smoking and lung cancer - Tuberk Toraks <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16100660/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can we please get this website hell-banned?

Every single article posted by techdog is an article from this blog, and every single one of these articles is factually and demonstrably wrong, written by someone who has very little understanding of statistical analysis or any of the specific topics the article purport to address.

<comment><USER16> But in spite of all that, it has managed to provoke some interesting discussion here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The first article graph of woman lung cancer rates raises some red flags - <USER2> huge increase in woman lung cancer caused by cigarettes would be expected a couple of decades after the huge increase in woman (as opposed to mostly-male) smoking in first half of 20th century.

In order for that graph to facilitate truth instead of misleading, it needs to include either (a) woman smoking rates by year, or (b) male lung cancer rates, not woman.

<comment><USER3> Good point. If at some point the median man smoked 20 cigarettes a day, and the median woman smoked 0, then lots of men will get lung cancer and women won't. If things change to 10 and 10, then the average number of cigarettes will stay the same, but the number of people who smoke at least 10 will have doubled. This is how the lung cancer rate can go up with the number of cigarettes going down.

Another way to measure it would be to look at "how much lung cancer is there per smoker".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seems more like an variation of what psych and behavioral economics calls the "what the hell" effect than "power of suggestion". "What the hell" effect says once your willpower fails and you give into temptation to begin doing negative behaviors, you are much more likely to go all in (think eating a single donut on a diet then polishing off the box). By making the cancer threat real post purchase and reminding of the ultimate consequence every time you light up, they may be pushing people to throw their hands up and just keep smoking.

Of course, like this article, this is just a untested theory I pulled out of my ass.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure how the article goes from interesting hypothesis (which it is) to near certainty.

>If we rule out changes in cigaret design and environmental factors as explanations for the enormous increase in lung cancer, what are we left with?

Seems like a false dichotomy to me. It can't be X, so it has to be Y.

>All of these would affect smokers and non-smokers equally. And yet lung cancer rates have not gone up for non-smokers.

This isn't necessarily true. It could be a synergistic effect, where some external factor increases cancer rates when smoking is also involved.

<comment><USER20> Some data to help think up such effects: <http://www.kidon.com/smoke/percentages3.htm>

Differences in diet was an obvious idea, but it's not obvious to me what Japan and Israel might have in common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Or, very simply, life expectancy has increased significantly during this time period. Since, "Of course, it takes years of smoking to get lung cancer", more people live to the age where they get lung cancer.

</comment><comment><USER22> What about the use of additives in cigarettes that started around the 1960s? From wikipedia on 'cigarette': "According to data from the World Health Organization,[40] the amount of tobacco per 1000 cigarettes fell from 2.28 pounds in 1960 to 0.91 pounds in 1999, largely as a result of reconstituting tobacco, fluffing and additives."

</comment><comment><USER23> Maybe as smoking went from an "everyone" activity to a more marginalized activity, you get worse health outcomes in that group for other reasons.

How does the fitness of the median smoker today compare to the fitness of the median smoker in the 1950s? What about wealth, access to treatment, etc?

</comment><comment><USER24> One other explanation I can think of for higher lung cancer rates is that people are living longer, so more likely to succumb to cancer in the end.

But like someone else said, the idea that these trends have not been examined and explained to death by better-informed people is risible.

</comment><comment><USER25> The only problem I see here is his argument about placebos - while the placebo effect is a strong one (and I believe in it), there is a current lack of control over placebos (I e sometimes drug companies try to use placebos that cause side affects) that are currently used in the industry. Otherwise. This is an interesting idea.

<comment><USER3> If you're testing your drug against a placebo, and the drug has a negative side effect, then you should try to make sure the placebo has the same/similar side effect. The whole point of double blind testing against a placebo is to test against something that appears similar.

Remember doctors aren't supposed to know what patients in a trial are on drugs vs placebo (that's the 'double' in double blind, the patient and the doctor is blind). If the real drug has a horrible side effect and the placebo doesn't, then the doctor will be able to figure out what patient is getting what, and you no longer have a double blind test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am curious about "cigaret," wiktionary says it is a dated form of cigarette.

I have trouble looking at the graph without being distracted by "cigaret" but firefox's dictionary is not marking it as a misspelling so it must be accepted somewhere. Where is this spelling still commonplace?

</comment><comment><USER26> Or it could be all the coal burning pollution catching up to us?

<comment><USER16> Or any of the thousands of other chemicals, such as flame retardants, that we breathe in all our lives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Or you know, people who have smoked is more likely to have kids with cancer or who where second-hand smokers at an age they can't remember now.

Also, campaigns against brest cancer had an exponential grow too but somehow the rate of breast cancer is about the same, or do your hypothesis includes lungs being more affected by perceptions than any other organ?</comment>


Lisp: The Golden Age Isn't Coming Back, Let's Welcome a Bright Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/lisp-the-golden-age-isnt-coming-back-lets-welcome-a-bright-future/

<comment><USER2> This was a good article and I enjoyed reading it, but I have to say I disagree with the central premise. I love the "family of languages" aspect of Lisp and the incredible amount of innovation that is going on with Lisps and functional programming. Lisp has become like Jedi training, you aren't a real Lisp geek until you have built your own light saber (aka rolled your own Lisp dialect). The story should be to tell new people that part of using Lisp embracing this richness. There are implementations that can get people started in a hurry and anyone with ten minutes and access to a search engine can find them.

I used to post and even answer some questions on comp.lang.lisp and I honestly cannot understand where it got the reputation that it seems to have. I can't tell you how many incredibly helpful messages I received from people correcting some of my misconceptions about macros and even helping me track down a type in one of the books I was learning from. The regular posters there really just had a few simple rules that were not hard to live by, e.g. don't ask the group to do your homework, try and make some effort on a problem before asking for help, don't continually make inflammatory claims about why Language X or Feature Y are so much better when you have only been using the language for three days.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I agree with your points. In the article, I was trying to summarize the impression that is conveyed by reading what people have written about Lisp. I actually had the Jedi analogy in a draft but took it out for length - small in number, deceptively powerful, greater than several people armed with clumsier weapons, etc.

As for c.l.l, I've read enough people express trepidation to go there. I think it's mostly the tongue-in-cheek fear that CS students have of compiler class. Also, I don't doubt that most posters are courteous and helpful, but the anecdote about the noob who asked a dumb question and got a script to format his hard drive traveled pretty far. The 1% of people with bad experiences are just a lot more vocal than the rest with acceptable or positive experiences. I think that if there was an easier setup and more thorough online documentation, fewer people would go to c.l.l for help.

<comment><USER3> _the anecdote about the noob who asked a dumb question and got a script to format his hard drive traveled pretty far_

The exact same complaints about the Lisp community were being repeated just as much before that incident as after it. I remember reading that hard-drive post the day it came out and thinking, this is really going to please a lot of people - now they'll have something canonical to point to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is nice. Thanks for the various links and pointers; I dream of the day that I have time to sit back down with Lisp and finally grok the mysteries of the macro, and articles like yours will help.

Language designers seem to agree that the secret to giving Lisp a bright future is to invent a brand new Language of the Future that just happens to encompass Lisp. This is not exactly a new argument around here, since this very site is written in a FutureLisp candidate. Other aspiring FutureLispers include Guy Steele and Matz (<http://www.paulgraham.com/quotes.html>).

The thing to recognize is that Lisp's storied history is not an advantage. It's actually a big problem for the language. People like new languages. They're not big yet. You can grasp them. Their core team is young and obscure enough that you have a fighting chance to join it. They haven't accumulated decades' worth of parasitic features. They have no installed base that must be accommodated. Their design flaws are not yet so old that they've been enshrined as advantages. They are not steered by a committee of middle-aged managers. They haven't spawned so many children that you can't decide between them all. The experts haven't yet had the chance to become intimidatingly skilled, let alone entrenched and opinionated, let alone bitter and burnt out.

The good news is that each decade's new language is a bit more Lispy than the last. Ruby seems likely to tide me over nicely until it's finally time to jump on the Arc bandwagon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Since pg has been pretty mum on Arc and he has designed it more as a pure language than a stack, I'm interested in Qi from Lambda Associates (<http://www.lambdassociates.org/lC21.htm>). That sounds like a balanced approach that solves the library problem and the implementation problem nicely. Hopefully pg will surprise us (this winter, he says! <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=98330> )

<comment><USER4> Well, this is good news. It would be nice to have FutureLisp ready for prime time when the Ruby programmers (weaned on closures and metaprogramming!) get frustrated with their stale, old, crufty language sometime around the year 2015.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this nails the challenge of getting started with Common Lisp:

'With Lisp, newbies say "How do I get started?" and instead of a URL, they get "Lisp is a family of languages, with the primary branches being Common Lisp and Scheme. But these are just language standards with a number of implementations. Which implementation is best for you depends on your platform and computing needs." Huh?'

I think SBCL is closest to being the default CL implementation, but the functionality on Mac/Windows still isn't quite caught up to the Linux version. Threading seems to be the biggest sticking point.

If you have a Mac, the best starting point I know of is ReadyLisp:

<http://www.newartisans.com/software/readylisp.html>

<comment><USER6> A common misconception with SBCL is that it cannot handle threading on OSX. The feature has been there for quite some time and even though it's marked as experimental, don't let that stop you. It should work just fine, especially for development.

If you're curious about how to turn on threading you can see a post I wrote on my blog a little while ago (or you can just read the INSTALL file SBCL comes with).

[http://blog.offbytwo.com/2007/12/03/installing-sbcl-with- thr...](http://blog.offbytwo.com/2007/12/03/installing-sbcl-with-threads-on- os-x-leopard/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've restarted learning Scheme now, and found an Eclipse plugin: <http://schemeway.sourceforge.net/> I don't know how it compares to other Scheme environments, but it seems to work well enough. It bundles Kawa and SISC, but can apparently also be used with external scheme interpreters like MzScheme.

<comment><USER8> That plugin was a little buggy when I used it this summer. If you do something with MzScheme you're much better off with DrScheme. DrScheme is pretty good, and getting better - they just added rudimentary code completion, for example. You can just use DrScheme with Kawa, too, but you lose the REPL (which is not acceptable in my opinion).

<comment><USER7> I don't know, the editor just seemed ugly. But perhaps I'll give it another shot.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the components needed to make a web API? - <AUTHOR> Let's say if I want to make a web API (in java?) which integrates with a website (or mobile application), what are the components required for that.
In my knowledge following things will be required (please correct and add things):
- A web server which will be sending requests to my Java process. (like Nginx? or Jetty?) - I will need a load balancer/ELB (Nginx also can be used as an LB, right?)
Where would I be needing Jetty? And if I am using Jetty, do I still need to use Nginx? I have heard people using Jetty and Nginx together; what are the purpose both solving in those cases?
And if this web API needs to communicate other APIs (how can I make them interact with each other- I can probably use REST APIs, right?). If I am right, this is called discovering APIs. What are they different ways to achieve this?
As you can guess, I have limited knowledge in this area (designing them at an architecture level, them discovering each other and integrating them to be used via the Web or other clients). Please try to fill the gap as much as possible.
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> It depends on how you develop your application.

If you are building a war you need to serve it with a java application server like tomcat, jetty etc.

Some frameworks like spring boot can build an "uber jar" which is basically like a batteries included executable. You just run it with java -jar directly and it begins taking requests.

nginx is generally used as a proxy and load balancer. I would reccomend you use an ELB if you are on aws though. The basic idea is that you setup your application server to auto-start on launch. Bake your instance into an ami (amazon machine image), Then you can create an auto-scaling group using that ami and attach an elb to it. As long as your java application is stateless it will work like a charm.</comment>


What would you consider the "irony of all ironies"? - <AUTHOR> We, the human civilization, have shown amazing capacity for understanding the world around us, and when necessary building some amazing technologies to observe and study those things we can't observe directly.  We have built tools to view and gain understanding of the world at the atomic level.  We have built tools to view and gain understanding of the farthest reaches of the universe.<p>Would it not be the irony of all ironies if human civilization collapsed because we failed to truly understand human nature? <comment><USER2> I don't see that as ironic...the more time we spend looking outward, the less time we have to spend looking at ourselves. I'm not sure that human civilization will collapse out of a lack of understanding of human nature, but rather an inability to prevent human nature from succumbing to its baser instinct to destroy itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's ironic if you consider the fact that all of the "outward observations" are ultimately meant to advance human civilization. If human civilization collapsed what was the point? I don't think anyone (99.9%?) is doing any of this simply as a means for other civilizations to eventually discover our failed civilization and the knowledge we managed to obtain...

<comment><USER2> _all of the "outward observations" are ultimately meant to advance human civilization_

That may be a flawed premise. In an increasingly capitalist society, many of these "outward observations" were done in the pursuit of corporate profits (not the advancement of human civilization), often with the full knowledge of their destructive potential. The recent opioid crisis is a perfect example of corporations actively manufacturing a product with deadly and addictive properties, while doctors where offering it as a cure.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you read a little bit too much into my claim. Obviously I'm not saying "all outward observations that ever occurred".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A modern take on the "paperclip computer" - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2020/02/08/a-modern-take-on-the-paperclip-computer/ <comment> compiler-guy Very cool project. If you think this project is interesting, it is worth checking out Ben Eater's eight-bit computer project.

[https://eater.net/8bit](https://eater.net/8bit)

</comment><comment><USER2> At first glance, I thought they were talking about a home built paperclip maximizer.

<comment><USER3> it would be just my luck to be born in time to witness the technological singularity, but it's all just infinite paperclips.

<comment><USER4> One could argue, from an ecological perspective, that human society has fundamentally become a paperclip optimizer.</comment></comment></comment>


Live Discussion Between Joe Rogan and Jack Dorsey about Twitter Censorship - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZCBRHOg3PQ <comment><USER2> Listening to it now, it's quite interesting.

Kind of feeling back for Jack and Vijaya for some of the questions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> INCREDIBLE amount of respect to Jack and Vijaya Gadde for agreeing to this. Sounds like it could be an incredibly uncomfortable discussion.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tim Poole was gunning a bit hard here. I actually came out of this feeling better about Twitter.</comment>


Ask HN: How to effectively transfer knowledge from senior devs to junior devs - <AUTHOR> The organization that I work for is in a bit of an unusual situation. We have a group of core developers (three people) who have been on this project for over twenty years and a group of junior developers (six people) who have been on the project for less than three years (most less than one year). There's no one in between those two groups.<p>The project itself has been ongoing for over thirty years, and we are struggling to transfer knowledge of the intricacies of the project from the seniors to the juniors. Does anyone have any recommendations for an efficient way to do this? <comment><USER2> I've found pair coding very effective in knowledge transfer for large code bases. It's hit or miss, since it requires certain combinations of personality types, but if you can get this running effectively it can communicate many more details than a traditional presentation-style overview. I'm not aware of any silver bullet for solving this type of problem, but that has worked well for me in the past.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think allocation of tasks is the key - make sure they have tasks that push them, and make them explore different areas of the code base, while not demoralising them</comment>


Apple Missed Its Chance to Fix Credit Cards - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/the-apple-card-a-missed-opportunity-e286f9970b97 <comment><USER2> This reads like fiction. Apple is not becoming a financial company, they are running the card in conjunction with Goldman Sachs; something scarcely mentioned in an article pretending to be a deep-dive. It is not in the interest of GS to shake up the credit card industry, and therefore not in Apple's interest either.

<comment><USER3> If anything, all Apple have done in effect is build a nice shiny internet banking UI on top of a normal credit card.

<comment><USER4> Just like the iTunes-phone collaboration with Motorola in 2005.

[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2005/09/07Apple-Motorola- Cing...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2005/09/07Apple-Motorola-Cingular- Launch-Worlds-First-Mobile-Phone-with-iTunes/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As far as the article's expectations of Apple, they're unreasonable to begin with. Apple isn't even the "everyone" consumer electronics company with many products completely out of reach of people with average incomes.

Why would anyone expect someone like Apple to upend the credit system? The Apple Card is a slightly better than usual store credit card, as most grounded analysts would have predicted.

I fault the author of the article for taking marketing copy so seriously.

As far as the "broken" credit system, the author of the article manages to miss the point entirely:

> Credit cards are a regressive sales tax on society, fueled by financial > illiteracy. Apple had the opportunity to wipe this practice out, offering > the same perks—2% cash back, a fancy metal card—to the many millions of > financially impoverished people in the United States.

It doesn't make sense to ask for "cash back for everyone!" The whole idea of cash back is flawed in the first place. It literally comes out of the merchant's pocket in the form of transaction fees.

Fixing the credit system in the United States would mean capping card transaction fees at a more reasonable rate. The whole idea of a rewards card would go away entirely.

As far as the credit system being inequitable, well, of course it is. Nobody has a solution to that, until we've reached a point where literally everyone is able to pay back their debts.

In my eyes there's nothing wrong with credit scoring itself, the inequities start when people use it for things like hiring decisions (I'm shocked that's not banned).

</comment><comment><USER6> The only thing Apple is selling is their brand with the iCard. Hilariously they say it's not from a bank, but it's not only issued by a bank, but runs through a traditional credit card provider.

Breaking the stranglehold of Visa/MasterCard would be innovative. I personally think they should put their economic weight behind something like stellar so the 'unbankable' of the world has a chance to leave poverty.

<comment><USER7> > _not only issued by a bank, but runs through a traditional credit card > provider_

Goldman Sachs is not a standard consumer bank, and this is their first credit card.

[https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/05/28/apple-card-first- credi...](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/05/28/apple-card-first-credit-card- for-goldman-sachs.html)

They've made some other unusual choices too:

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-and-goldman-sachs- ar...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-and-goldman-sachs-arent- reporting-apple-card-information-to-credit-bureaus-2019-10-15)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "We use ML and Apple Maps to accurately tag your purchases with real store > names and categories"

Monzo does this for transactions in the UK (and has done since they launched a few years ago, IIRC) - it's not novel. I think other banks are starting to do this too.

<comment><USER5> I think Capital One does this in the United States, and the whole Machine Learning and Maps magic that's associated with it is entirely unnecessary.

The credit card companies already have the address of the merchant. They just stick that address on the map.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Regarding CC rewards: how on earth do these 4-5% cashbacks work for US CC holders in Europe? Here, the CC fees are capped at 0.3%, so who is paying the difference if neither the merchant nor the customer pays?

<comment><USER10> Many of the cards you see offering 4-5% cashback on certain categories either have 1) high annual fees, or 2) a foreign transaction fee (the the US credit card holder gets charged a fee whenever they use the card abroad, such as in Europe).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> TLDR: Apple card is more of the same, and they didn't fix the author's pet peeve (US credit card/score system is broken and discriminates people).

</comment><comment><USER12> Weakest article ever. One of his main arguments is that a Taco Bell transaction got miscategorised, lol

</comment><comment> lame-robot-hoax There was a good post on r/personalfinance recently about the Apple Card's mediocrity.

[https://reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/dwmbzn/ive_own...](https://reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/dwmbzn/ive_owned_the_apple_card_for_3_months_this_is_why/)

<comment><USER13> The post incorrectly claims you must pay by mail or phone. It also doesn't mention the security aspect of changing card numbers.

Whilst 1-3% cashback is may not be unusual in the US, ~0.2% is typical in the UK (maybe ~1% with Amex). Some countries have hardly even heard of cashback cards, I think. Looking e.g. here:

[https://thepointsguy.com/guide/best-cash-back- cards/](https://thepointsguy.com/guide/best-cash-back-cards/)

suggests that the US market is also not as generous as commentors make out. Most high-cashback cards are quite specialised, often even changing month-to- month. There is only really one exception at 2% on all purchases.</comment></comment>


Nexus 6 is already sold out - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_6_blue_32gb

<comment><USER2> In a time where every manufacturer produces reasonable high end, top quality hardware and software, the difference between winners and losers comes down to the simple question who advertises and distributes at international scale, and who does not.

Google seems to be willing to invest _some_ money on advertising Android right now. But they still can't ship.

Don't forget that the whole "Nexus 6 not available" thing is only about the US store already being out of stock. In Europe and Asia you cannot even expect to get the device until next year. And when it finally hits, I bet the advertising has already stopped, and Samsung's next big thing is what you see on TV.

Still a great phone.</comment>


Show HN: The AZ Problem - <AUTHOR> http://azproblem.info <comment><USER2> I have seen this kind of problem (a lack of communication resulting in requirements that drive bad design) many times. The most memorable example was a requirement that "Device must run 150 hours on a 9V battery". This was a difficult constraint, and the final design was a complicated thing with multiple power supplies and an intricate method of starting up from sleep mode which involved feeding the power backwards through a power amplifier (i.e. power to V_common initially went from the battery to the amplifier and out through the power supply leg of the amplifier, then reversed once the 5V power supply woke up). Literally the craziest design I've ever seen. Because of all the complexity, debugging took forever and after the schedule slipped for a year I got pulled in. When I asked the engineer why they went through such efforts to save power, they said that it was necessary to meet the requirements. I then asked what was driving the power constraint, why was it so important? He literally said "I'm an engineer. Those are the requirements. It's my job to make a design that meets the requirements. That's all."

So, I investigated the requirement. It turned out that 150 hours was more of a "nice to have", and the real requirement was a need to do a 48 hour measurement, then an additional 48 hour measurement if someone forgot to change the battery. I challenged the requirement and we were able to release with a relaxed constraint of 100 hours. Unfortunately, all that complexity remained baked in, and the design remains clunky to this day.

On the next design, I just switched from a 9V battery to C cells, and eliminated all the crazy power management for a simple supply. It turned out that customers cared more about cost of batteries than weight. The real problem was the 9V batteries. And 9V batteries were originally chosen because it was thought this made the power supply simpler!

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great anecdote, thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you have a decent datetime library or proper datetime implementation like in SQL, you can just use the first day of the next month minus 1 day.</comment>


Ask HN: How does one develop abstract thinking for math and computer science? - <AUTHOR> I'm working through introductory CS and Discrete Mathematics courses on my own and I've come to notice that I have difficulty thinking abstractly. Any words of advice on how to develop my abstract thinking abilities? <comment><USER2> As a profesional mathematician I can say the following: Always start thinking from an example - first take the most simple one that you can come up with, then gradually increase the complexity and include all the possible unusual, weird, extreme, ... cases to really understand why the abstraction is formulated the way it is.

No mathematician ever came up with an abstract theory from the top of their head - they also started from examples and were gradually increasing abstraction only when they understood the matter on a certain level and needed to express this understanding in a simple abstract language in order to move on to the next level of complexity...

It takes quite a lot of time to learn abstract mathematics this way, but it is the only way when you really want to understand what is going on.. But it's normal, mathematical texts are just extremely "dense" \- you are not supposed to read them in the same way (and speed) as say history or biology books. So take your time , read every sentence and every formula, read it multiple times if needed, and always have one or more examples in your mind that on which you visualize (in your mind or on a piece of paper) every single bit of the abstract theory you read. It is slower than just reading, but with experience you will be able to it faster and faster until it will turn into a process that automatically runs in the background of your mind anytime you read a mathematical text..

Good luck!

<comment><USER3> This comment is mainly for the OP but I really enjoyed your reply. I'm currently reading A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics by Jeremy Khun which is absolutely phenomenal so far. But he gives the same advice as above. He states that as soon as you see a theorem or problem in math you need to instantly start writing down examples. Write down examples and then see that they fit the rule.

I found when I took Discrete back in University that advice as very helpful (I got the advice to split up large complex problems into their smallest and simplest cases from a TA at the time.) in proving things you often work yourself up from simple examples to more complex examples generally, but often if you can prove by induction you need only the simplest case (base case) and the abstract case (induction step from n to n+1). Sometimes these abstract cases are hard to spot and they definitely take time, but as you learn more of them over time you'll find that you can do them a lot easier. My Discrete Math teacher said to learn something in mathematics you have to basically already know it. This was just to say with math there is no metaphorical "royal roads" [1] (short cuts) in mathematics and that things come step by step. You'll eventually get enough tools in your tool belt to handle abstract thought better and better.

[1]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Practice. Hard subjects are hard. But there's no deadline. No test in six weeks. You've got years and years to work on it. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yeah for sure no deadlines is a good thing. Maybe too much of a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Many very successful mathematicians "only had a few tricks up their sleeves" when they developed their life's work. They reused these "tricks" over and over. Don't feel like you have to know everything. I've never been more satisfied (and validated) when I have achieve a great solution to a problem, only to find out that I've re-discovered a theorem. You'd think this would be a waste of time, but actually it leads to a sudden explosion of knowledge and gives insight into the edge cases you wouldn't have thought of without a lifetime of effort.

</comment><comment><USER6> Research inductive reasoning. But beware, ideologies gained from abstraction are seductive in their simplicity and can utterly fail to handle complexities of real life. Super Thinking, by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann is a fantastic read on using abstractions as mental models.

</comment><comment><USER7> Look up:

The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

It's a classic text on computer science that starts from basics and goes into functional programming

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad I got this response. This is precisely what the programming course I am working through. CS61A offered by Berkeley. It's in Python though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find drawing abstract ideas helps make them concrete. It's slow at first, but with repetition it becomes easier.

</comment><comment><USER9> The only way to learn is to practice. Use practice problem sets in textbooks.</comment>


Chrome Blocks Major Torrent Sites Over "Harmful Programs" - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent-sites-over-harmful-programs-150710/ <comment><USER2> Pretty sure it'll be because of the semi-shady ad networks that service torrent sites and various other filehosts. The networks themselves aren't shady, per se, but they don't have the resources of Google to adequately police all of the ads that run through their networks. As a result, they end up serving malicious ads that link to dodgy installers or even straight up 0-day browser exploits.

<comment><USER3> Google ads themselves serve plenty of dodgey ads, go search "$popular_software download" for instance.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely, but those ads aren't usually pointing at outright malicious software, just shitty adware like download accelerators or whatever. Google's algorithms and manual approval processes have been pretty good at filtering out anything explicitly malicious, at least in my experience.

<comment><USER4> Even malware makes it into adsense , and if i remember correctly it took a few hours after reporting the ad for it to be removed. It's been a while since i ve had these reports though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At this point, the only think keeping me on Chrome/Chromium is their dev tools. After the 'Ok Google' binary blob and now this shit, I've just about had it. At the very least, there should be an option to unblock sites permanently to fix this. There is absolutely no reason why I should have to turn off all Phishing & malware alerts just because Google suddenly got a paycheck from the MPAA/RIAA. Whatever their reason is, it doesn't matter, as it leads to unsafe browsing regardless. Way to go Google!

<comment><USER6> You sound like one of those people that latch on to those shoot from the hip blog posts without doing any analysis of the issue yourself or visiting a site that does it for you. That binary blob was inactive and had to be proactively turned on in the settings screen. So was it really an issue? No, but the vocal minority of anti-Google people made sure to spoon feed the run of the mill and non tech savvy media outlets about it.

As for turning off all phishing and malware alerts - why would you? Google gave you a warning about a site. If you would like to ignore it then click the link below and continue onto the site. If you would like to use a browser that doesn't care then go ahead and switch.

<comment><USER7> > That binary blob was inactive and had to be proactively turned on in the > settings screen. So was it really an issue? No, but ...

Just to be clear about a thing, there _was_ an issue. The automatic download of the extension occurred in Chromium, the FLOSS software around which Chrome is built. Chromium is shipped in a multitude of linux distributions, including Debian. Debian takes their FLOSS standards very seriously. The automatic downloading of a binary blob by Chromium was a FLOSS ethics issue.

Google went on to address the issue by not just removing the automatic download, but ensuring that the remaining hooks to enable the audio search feature were removed.

That's the entirety of the actual, real controversy. The rest is made up assumptions by people that fail to understand Hanlon's Razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

<comment><USER6> The "actual, real controversy" wasn't the story, though. It was the forced fed made up controversy that was the real story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is some pretty hillarious bureaucracy we're seeing here. First, the world was noticed [0] that google would begin blocking "Unwanted Software", and included a link [1] to their "unwanted software policy". This means that they can claim they gave all the torrent sites good faith notice since february, and even though none of them realized that they would be considered unwanted software, the time ran out, and google quietly swept these sites under the rug. They don't seem to be retracting this, either, which means this is business as usual.

I consider this action to be further proof that "Don't Be Evil" died with Eric Schmidt coming on board. This is stuff I'd expect out of Microsoft, but it still surprises me when Google does it.

0\. [http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.nl/2015/02/more- protect...](http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.nl/2015/02/more-protection- from-unwanted-software.html)

1\. [https://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/unwanted- softwa...](https://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/unwanted-software- policy.html)

<comment><USER9> > Don't be evil

heavy load to carry financially and liably speaking

<comment><USER10> Sure - but Google chose that mantra themselves. As you suggest, it may not be something we can reasonably expect, all things being equal. However, that's not the case here - in this case the commenter is comparing their actual behaviour to their stated policy, which is perfectly reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Instructions to turning the warning off can be found here[0].

0.[https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020?hl=en](https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020?hl=en)

<comment><USER12> If people start skipping and ignoring warnings then what is the point of warning them, google should provide an explanations as to why exactly this has happened otherwise THEY are going to harm their users and this will reflect badly on their brand down the road.

<comment><USER11> I think that the average non-tech savvy user would freak out and immediately leave the website when encountering the warning, which serves the purpose.

If a user chooses to skip the warning, which isn't made intuitive, (i.e. no direct access to the "Skip" button) then they probably know what they're doing but Google should indeed offer explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Given the average user's ability to figure out that blue download buttons are not in fact download buttons, just ad sites that offer you your download by name but in fact give you malware, this is the correct decision

<comment><USER2> AdSense delivers a veritable shitload of ads with big blue download buttons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if politicians have started to notice how much power a few browser makers have? Protecting Mozilla is so important for the future of the web.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is this due to these sites having a lot of advertising (probably serving malware) or is this a deliberate attack from the media industry by trying to scare people?

<comment><USER15> I guess the latter... If you compare kat.cr results with sourceforge.net results, you would assume sourceforge is blocked as well, but it isn't (only individual sub-paths of some projects). kat.cr is even delisted @ google. Also while it's true that kat.cr is serving adware, it does not do so on the frontpage.

[http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnost...](http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://sourceforge.net&client=chromium&hl=en- US)

<comment><USER16> > Also while it's true that kat.cr is serving adware, it does not do so on the > frontpage.

Unfortunately the warning has to appear on any page on the domain, since once you skip it you're essentially white listing the domain. That's why you don't get another warning on every page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember that i was getting popups on many torrent sites just by clicking on the search input field or selecting text, even on tpb and kat.

Not very surprised. The ads they get are pretty bad, and i wonder if the mpaa or riaa don't have some cog in there.

</comment><comment><USER18> Rather amusing to see an advertising company like Google protecting Chrome users from these "extra ads".

I wonder if an OS could block Google's software for vacuuming your information to Google's servers, never to be deleted.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's probably a single sketchy ad network if not a single sketchy ad. Most torrent sites use the same few networks; there aren't a lot of choices if you're a torrent site.

I don't understand the commotion - the warnings look typical, I'm glad google provides them, and they're easy enough to bypass (at your own peril esp. if you use Windows.)

I resent this story for forcing me to say something nice about google. There's a multitude of better reasons not to use Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER20> This alternative link [1] to KAT doesn't have the security error.

[1] [http://thekatroxy.net/](http://thekatroxy.net/)

</comment><comment><USER21> FWIW this isn't just affecting torrent sites. Some software repos have also been affected recently.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's probably a false positive from an ad or user content linking to malware. It's already been fixed.

<comment><USER23> How is that a false positive, as opposed to just a positive?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> half of the links on these pages (not the torrents) lead to malware, surprised its taken this long.

</comment><comment><USER25> All the sites listed were unblocked on Chrome 43.0.2357.132 (64-bit) for OS X.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not just Kick ass torrents, but almost all major torrent sites including Torrentz, ExtraTorrent and RARBG [1]

[1] [https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent- sites-o...](https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent-sites-over- harmful-programs-150710/)

<comment><USER27> From the article:

        Update: ExtraTorrent says it successfully resolved
        the issue with Google through webmaster tools.
        RARBG is also unblocked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> TorrentFreak Article about this: [https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks- major-torrent-sites-o...](https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major- torrent-sites-over-harmful-programs-150710/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Shouldn't google block youtube if they care about massive corporate supported copyright infringement?

<comment><USER30> Who says this is about copyright infringement?

<comment><USER31> Given that this is a torrent site, I think that malfeasance is a natural, and good, first assumption.

Attributing things to ignorance over malice is only going to result in evil people getting away with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Seems like they(3rd party) haven't found a way to stop piracy and started trying so hard to add malicious code, which may lead to blocking out these websites by all the major browser vendors and reduce piracy to some extent.

The one behind this, You're gonna lose the war.!

<comment><USER30> This sounds very conspiracy-theory-ish to me. The more likely explanation is that some ad network allowed malware ads to go through which triggered the block.

<comment><USER33> Especially when you consider that the ad networks those sites are using are rather sketchy. Many of the ads there try to trick you into believing they're the actual download link

<comment><USER34> >the ad networks those sites are using are rather sketchy. Many of the ads there try to trick you into believing they're the actual download link

If that's your definition of a sketchy ad network then there aren't many that aren't sketchy. Google serves ads that do that all the time. It only took me a few seconds to find this misleading fake download link ad being served by Google on one of the download pages of download.com: [http://i.imgur.com/wYAfr7z.png](http://i.imgur.com/wYAfr7z.png)

Would Google blacklist download.com for serving malicious google ads? Somehow I doubt it.

<comment><USER9> still, considering the mess of code they release every year with new Android versions, empty promises ('smooth as iPhone') where the solutions implemented are things like 'project butter' that cranks the CPU frequency to maximum when you touch the screen to overcome 1. ineffective governor design 2. bloated software; and generally poor design, it still doesn't seem outside the realm of reality that

eh, maybe it does.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Being too successful is one of life's biggest risks (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/a10d0e7d8e7354b2

<comment><USER2> Lisp Machines weren't that successful. I was their target user, and I ditched Symbolics to use Lucid on Suns at the first opportunity.

The Lisp Machine software was appallingly baroque. Everything had every possible feature. There was no design, just implementation, and lots of it. The manuals took up a whole shelf, and it was generally faster to write something yourself than to find the predefined function that did it.

A lot of (arguably most of) the badness of Common Lisp is Lisp Machine culture showing through.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a good example of hacker writing in 10 paragraphs the sort of thing that has often been diluted into a 250-page business book.

<comment><USER4> The amazing thing is that there is a lot of repetition even at 10 paragraphs. Some of the other comments here sum it up in twitter-sized chunks.

The missing piece is how to identify over-specialization, and it's missing because it can't be usefully generalized.

<comment><USER5> "The missing piece is how to identify over-specialization, and it's missing because it can't be usefully generalized."

If you read the literature on selective breeding they have extensive methodologies for avoiding genetic problems. If you just want a quick overview, Temple Grandin's book "Animals in Translation" has a couple of really entertaining chapters on the subject.

<comment><USER4> That book looks hugely interesting--thanks for the recommendation!

We've been using biological metaphors in this discussion, but I'm not sure we can extend them this far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Being too successful is a funny way of describing premature optimization and the risks behind great yet narrow specialization.

Specialists are by definition exceptionally successful in exceptional circumstances. I don't think that makes them too successful. It just makes them high risk-high reward takers.

</comment><comment><USER7> The example cited is not death by too much success but rather death by not diversifying the product line.

</comment><comment><USER8> The post made some interesting points about technical success not equating to real world success, but the whole article suffers from a poor definition of the word.

</comment><comment><USER9> Funny, at Toastmasters last night our table topic was "what if you had a different mother?" and we got to pick moms from a random list. My random mom was Angelina Jolie, and I think I made a well-reasoned case that I would have fucked myself to death.

My point is that parent's success probably outdoes your own success.

<comment><USER10> Thanks, I'm going to use that Table Topics theme next time it's my turn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Innovator's Dilemma?

</comment><comment><USER12> high degrees of optimization lead to fragility. look at the current financial situation for an example.

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone know more about the author Erik Naggum? I have run into seen some old posts from him on the Python list and now this. A simple Google search reveals he is an academic/writer from Norway but not much more.

<comment> patrickg-zill He is a huge presence on comp.lang.lisp . Not sure about his prowess as a programmer however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Worse Is Better" again? =)</comment>


Ask HN: what's a good pet for the working programmer? - <AUTHOR> So, here's the deal: I'd quite like a pet of some kind.
I'm a programmer. I work quite long hours sometimes, and I'm not keen on taking things out for walks, so I don't want anything that's very high-maintenance. I have my own apartment, so no roommate drama, but no garden, so no outside poop-space. I want something that's small, low-maintenance, isn't going to chew cables or scratch out the eyeballs of visitors, and is ideally cute and/or cuddly.
What pet do you have? Does it fit well with your lifestyle? <comment><USER3> Cat for sure.

Kittens need a lot of attention though, as do strays you've adopted. But they are the lowest maintenance of any pets.

Dogs are great but are like having developmentally disabled children; they require a lot of attention, patience and forgiveness.

And it is possible to find a cat with a lot of dog like qualities. I had an awesome cat who passed away unexpectedly a couple of years ago that was pretty much a dog. He liked to be walked (on a harness) outside, loved water, playing fetch and other things. He turned a lot of my anti-cat friends into cat owners, he was that kind of awesome. RIP Johnny.

<comment><USER4> Cat's are definitely the best for low maintenance.

I highly recommend Litter Robot (<http://www.litter-robot.com/>). I've tried 3 other automatic litter boxes and this is the only one that doesn't make a mess of things. I can leave it alone for several weeks with no smell and then just swap the bag and add some litter.

For an automatic water supply, I recommend the 360 Drinkwell ([http://www.amazon.com/Drinkwell-D360WB-RE-360-Pet- Fountain/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Drinkwell-D360WB-RE-360-Pet- Fountain/dp/B001NIZAH6/)). Stay away from any water fountains that require you to take them apart to clean/refill. With the drinkwell, I just pour in a cup of water every week and clean every 2-3 weeks.

For food, I've been happy with one of the simplest dispensers out there: [http://www.amazon.com/Doskocil-Petmate-Café- Feeder/dp/B0002D...](http://www.amazon.com/Doskocil-Petmate-Café- Feeder/dp/B0002DI2XC). No need for a timer or anything like that. My cat did overeat a bit initially, but I switched him to light food and it's been great ever since.

Good luck!

<comment><USER5> Honestly, the litter robot makes me think of what a toilet in the death star might look like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have rabbits. Note that keeping an animal in a cage as a pet seems kinda besides the point, so my rabbits are house rabbits. Rabbits are trivially litter trained (see www.rabbit.org) and are active mainly at dawn and dusk, so are good for working people as they are most active when you get home. If you rescue a (neutered obviously) bonded pair (you can pair rabbits yourself but it's tricky), they will have their little social life while you are away anyway. They don't make noise so are very apartment friendly, they are clean, and they are less likely to make visitors allergic (they don't trigger cat and dog allergies - people with rabbit allergies are fewer and generally allergic to horses too). Rabbits live 7-10 years when well cared for, depending on the breed.

The one big caveat is that rabbits do eat cables. There is a genetic drive to do this, probably because they have evolved to keep their warrens clear from tree roots. Geeks with rabbits need to engage in some serious cable management, and supply distractions. The cable management isn't that bad - <USER2> only have to do it once, or you can board off very cable-heavy areas, and everything looks neater as a result anyway. Also, don't go for rabbits if you have antique furniture - some rabbits will attack wood furniture (not all do).

</comment><comment><USER7> I am owned by a cat. He generally sits quietly and doesn't interrupt while I'm working, and has learned to leave cables alone; however, he often wakes me up in the middle of the day to demand that food be presented or doors be opened.

Overall, however, I'd rather be owned by a cat than have some other animal around.

<comment><USER8> Some "instructional videos" that pretty describe what it's like owning a cat: <http://www.youtube.com/simonscat>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hamsters are the best. I had several growing up.

They're personable - you can "cage-train" them and they learn not to bite. They're hilarious when they roll around in their ball -- and remember to cover your stairs! They do the _cutest_ thing with stuffing food into their cheeks. You can easily build elaborate living environments for them using cheap tubing.

You do have to change their cage at least once a week, but it's easy - dump it out and pour in new mulch.

Think of the _cheeks_.

<comment><USER10> I've had several over the years but did get tired of losing them due to their short lifespans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Get a dog. Take it for a walk. Leave your desk. Better programming will ensue. I have a golden retriever.

Nothing like a good walk to get over a tedious bug in your code.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have a python named Sid. A beautiful and surprisingly affectionate critter. Low maintenance and a great conversation starter ... "my kids came back from school with it one day, they were all like: it followed us home Dad can we keep it!?"

<comment><USER13> My cornsnake fits the OP's description (well I think he's cute even if my wife doesn't), is smaller than a python when full grown (5' last I measured, about a half dollar diameter), learned 1 trick (which was one more than I expected), and is much lower maintenance than the dogs and cats (and even fish) I had previously.

<comment><USER14> And plus you get to watch them eat, which can be pretty cool even if you feed them frozen (once I warmed the mouse up, wiggled it around, and my cornsnake attacked with such vigor that there was a smear of blood against the cage.)

I really want to know what this one trick was.

<comment><USER15> Disappearing. Unfortunately, shard is still waiting for him to learn the reciprocal trick. :-D

<comment><USER13> =) Fortunately he's not learned that one yet.

He has learned that when I come near the terrarium, I'll open it, so when he wants to come out, he will come up to the screen and look for the opening. I did not expect a tiny reptilian brain to be capable of learned behavior, it was a nice surprise.

<comment><USER12> There's a lot going on in that "tiny reptilian brain" for sure. Paleocortex seems to drive 99% of human behavior as well - consciousness may just be along for the ride as an afterthought. (Maybe even when coding, sometimes at least!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> By reading your post and all the requirements you have for a pet i think you're not ready. i mean, it looks like you are buying a gadget or something. a pet is a living being and thus requres love and attention. you should get a pet guided by your hart and not by the specs written on a box. just pop down your local shelter and spend a day with the animals there. i am sure you will find a special one that you won't be able to leave :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Just to state the obvious a Penthouse Pet will probably be the best option, since you living alone (might be high maintenance though). Second best I would recommend a cyborg beetle [http://discovermagazine.com/2009/may/30-the- pentagons-beetle...](http://discovermagazine.com/2009/may/30-the-pentagons- beetle-borgs)

Third best will be a cat as long as you understand that you can never own a cat, she will own you.

<comment><USER18> I once told this girl I didn't really think of her as a person, more as an exotic pet (because it was true, I did). She wasn't happy about that.

<comment><USER19> What made you think of her that way?

<comment><USER18> Because I would do all the logistics and she would approve or disapprove. Also, she spent a lot of time preening. We had fun, mind, it just wasn't very scalable.

<comment><USER20> > We had fun, mind, it just wasn't very scalable.

How much "fun" did you have in mind? 2, 3, 100?

<comment><USER18> It could never have scaled into cohabitation, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Another programmer. He doesn't need feeding that often and he's quite well toilet trained...

</comment><comment><USER22> I'll tell you what I'll get, man--Two cats at the same time.

Damn straight, man. I've always wanted to do that. I figure if I were a hacker, I could hook that up. Cats dig guys who can code.

<comment><USER23> A) Hilarious Office Space reference

B) When did you overtake nickb on the leaderboard? Congrats!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> An African grey parrot. Then you can teach it to say things like: "Don't rewrite, refactor!" or "Should you REALLY be doing that?"

They are expensive, but they are low maintanance and quite intelligent.

<comment><USER23> The thing to remember with a parrot is that it may be around for the rest of your life. They are seriously long-lived animals. It's quite a commitment if you aren't positive you want one.

<comment><USER25> Any animal is quite a commitment.

A guy I know bought two dogs because it seemed so 'nice', then he found out how much work it is to have two dogs (and how much it costs), so he ended up giving them away to some lady.

Some people make these decisions much too light and I'm quite happy that the OP takes it serious and is not going on the spur of the moment.

Dogs especially can get very attached to people, if you don't want to make a dog-life-long commitment then please don't get a dog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A pet rock may be the best choice.

<comment><USER27> Fits the criteria.

You could use it as an excuse to visit an exotic location to find the perfect pet rock.

( this suggestion made me laugh. Thank you for that )

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Given your parameters, I highly suggest a cat, fish or both. When programming, I've found that my companion of a cat (two tiger striped male and female, 6 yrs and 4 yrs old) are fantastic mood enhancers, that is when they're not crying like babies for food. Barely any maintenance when compared to a dog, but the only downside for me personally is cleaning the litter box (could always get the automatic litter box that cleans itself), but it's extremely necessary if you expect your pet to be clean, which translates to a more hygienic living space for you too.

Fish are also great mood enhancers but can be a bit more work in my opinion than cats, at least for the initial setup and routine tank cleaning. But overall - just sitting back, reflecting on some code while staring at the fish tank has worked wonders for me producing small epiphanies.

<comment><USER29> You could always teach your cats how to defecate in the toilet. (don't teach them how to flush though as they will continually flush to the chagrin of your water bill and mother nature.)

<comment><USER28> The latter part of your post is largely why we didn't go with this option, although it would be nice if they could take care of their waste themselves.

Not all at the same time, I grew up with cats, dogs, iguanas, fish, ferrets, hamsters and rabbits. By far for me cats have been the most worthwhile investment. Dealing with the small inconvenience of the litter box is something I shouldn't complain about since simply having my cats around for companionship has paid off such valuable dividends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Well I don't think that you really should get a 'pet' (yet). Maybe you could use setup a Cichlid Aquarium <http://cichlid.infocrux.com/Cichlid- Aquarium.html>, <http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/cichlid/first.php>

If you need something more fury there always are hamsters. <http://www.hamsterific.com/SelectingAHamster.cfm>

(For the record, I have the highest-maintenance sort of pets, three kids, who all want additional pets)

</comment><comment><USER31> Duck. Rubber duck actually... ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging> )

</comment><comment><USER32> Fish are pretty cool and relaxing to watch not too cuddly though, Rabbits great fun to have about, and Guinea pigs good for petting. They're all awesome (We have loads of fish, 2 Rabbits, 3 Guineas).

Here's a pic of one of our cute rabbits: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/rollered/3896940499/>

She's called 'Poppy', but I affectionately call her 'two face' (Batman villain).

</comment><comment><USER33> I have my girlfriend's family's 13-year-old cat, and she fits my lifestyle perfectly. She's fine while I'm off at work, and is always there to greet me when I get home (usually because she's hoping for some milk). She's cute and cuddly (to a point, she also likes her space) and is a great friend to have around as I'm currently living alone.

I see you've gotten lots of other suggestions for cats, but I hope I can add a bit of info for you. From what I've been told, male cats really like to be let outside from time to time so they can go hunt/explore/whatever, while females are usually content with napping, bathing, and watching out a window. Further, longer haired cats are more mellow, while short haired cats can be a bit wild.

What I have is a longer-haired female cat, she is totally great. Good luck, hope you find what you're looking for in a pet!

</comment><comment><USER34> I have a small Myers Parrot - he is most of the time pretty cool, although he occasionally de-evolves into a miniature raptor. I usually work out of my home office, and he is usually happy enough sitting on my shoulder while I work.

Parrots are not low maintenance though, requiring lots of attention. I took yesterday afternoon off work and my wife and I took my parrot to a local park (Sedona Red Rock Crossing - google it, then click images, you will be glad you did :-)

Anyway, my bird was so happy getting a ride in the car (he loves the car) and a few hours in the park, that he will be a "good boy" for a day or two.

The point of this little story is: parrots are good pets if you give them lots of attention and don't let them get too bored (they are reasonably intelligent).

</comment><comment><USER35> If you think any pet is low maintenance, you are confused. Even cats, the lowest of the cute and cuddly variety, are notoriously high maintenance. You have to change litter boxes regularly or they will find new places you can't get to. They are mainly nocturnal and will often want to be fed at 4AM. They scratch furniture. Mind you, my wife and I have four and I love them but they are not low maintenance.

All pets require a reasonably high level of maintenance, especially those in the cute/cuddly genre. For you to get a pet and expect otherwise would probably be detrimental to the long term health and happiness of the pet.

<comment><USER36> You don't _have_ to do any of this. You can leave food out for them (which is what I do), and you can use clumping litter, which involves about 30 seconds of scooping a day. Then you will have a happy cat that only annoys you when she wants to sleep on your face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have an English Cocker Spaniel. Needs a walk twice a day, but I don't really mind that. Very affectionate, very intelligent. Also, _the ears_.

The one downside of Spaniels is that they steal socks and underwear and hide them. Ah well.

</comment><comment><USER38> My girlfriend and I are basically pondering the same thing, although we've more or less decided: The Hungarian Vizsla (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizsla>). Very smart and playful dog, requires absolutely no grooming. In many ways it's very much like a cat: Long claws, licks itself clean, loves to cuddle in your lap.

You'll have to enjoy running, though, as this dog requires (once fully developed) about two 1hour instances of jogging/running every day.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm a working programmer, and we have a dog. We used to have 2 but one died recently after a long and happy life. Dogs are great, and very rewarding. There is effort required, but it rewards you, like with many things.

We have boxers. They suit us. If you take a dog, you should research the breed before deciding. Some breeds will suit you more than others.

Dogs need to be walked daily. If humans were pets, they would say the same about us. It works out for the best.

</comment><comment><USER40> i recommend a frog, specially if it can talk too. because a talking frog is cool.

(in case you give up programming ,you can kiss it & turn it into a beautiful princess) ;-)

</comment><comment><USER41> Cat. I have five. No need to go for a walk, won't disturb you, will use the litter box on their own (you don't have to teach them to do that)... Just adopt an adult cat. Two of my cats were adopted already grown and they're just as affectionate as the others (which is greatly affectionate, btw). It really comes from their personalities plus your input. Don't forget to neuter/spay the cat.

</comment><comment><USER42> If you're getting something small and furry, like a rat or rabbit or hamster, be sure to get two and give them some living space. If you're not able to give them a lot of time, at least let them socialize with their own kind.

We had one rabbit, then two, and the difference in the original rabbit's (OR) personality after getting the second was unbelievable.

<comment><USER10> Please be careful when introducing two hamsters together. I have had them kill each other - it was sad and not very pretty. They were even siblings but had been separated then brought back together.

I suppose getting two at the same time that were living together at the pet store would be the best option. Make sure you know their gender first or you'll end up with more hamsters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I currently have a small dog, very independent, but does require the occasional walk.

I think a hermit crab might be ideal for you.

<comment><USER44> It's important to realize that even with something as 'generic' as a dog, there is much variation between breeds. Some breeds like the Bichon tend to be very needy and don't like being alone for extended periods of time.

<comment><USER45> NO dog likes being alone for long, they are pack animals after all; some just put up with it better than others. Generally, smaller breeds tend to be needier and more annoying. The best ones are working or sporting breeds, beagles are the best smaller breed, though I generally prefer retrievers. Avoid breeds that have been overbred as show dogs - the American cocker spaniel was ruined by this in the 70s and 80s and still hasn't recovered, though the British cocker is still good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Time for some anarkitty! <http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2009/10/15/lapsteading/>

Well, it does fit the hacker culture's disdain for authorities.

</comment><comment><USER44> Suggestions: * A pair of rats * Fish

Either way there will be cage/tank maintenance, but it might be more frequent with the rats.

{edit} A tarantula could be good too {/edit}

</comment><comment><USER47> A dog, but not any dog.

It's a white one, I found it lost when he was 2 weeks old and took care of it.

They are loyal and make lot of fun when you are alone.

NB: I have a garden

</comment><comment><USER48> Long walks are definitely good for a programmer who works quite long hours smoetimes.

</comment><comment><USER49> Well, iguanas used to be very popular pets. Just let one roam around your apartment!

</comment><comment><USER50> I have a cat and it works very well except that he does chew cables.

</comment><comment><USER51> I say fish! I used to have a small acquarium with a couple goldfish

</comment><comment><USER25> this sounds like it fits your description perfectly:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218>

or maybe a mechanical_fish ?

</comment><comment><USER52> squirrel. My Girlfriend has one. And I envy her for that. Apparently the squirrel loves to hang with the master when (s)he works.

</comment><comment><USER53> ferrets. several.

<comment><USER54> In an apartment with no garden/yard? Is that a good idea?

Apart from that, +1 for the general awesomeness of ferrets :)

<comment><USER55> you need to get female ferrets if you want to keep them indoors. Male ferrets stink (a lot).

There is no problem keeping them in aparments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Axolotl for the cool name and '+1 regen' ability.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl></comment>


Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/malware-vendors-buy-chrome-extensions-to-send-adware-filled-updates/ <comment><USER2> It's a good point to be aware of and to raise from.time to time, but the subject line should be amended to indicate that this article was written in 2014.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, I have a Firefox extension with around 50k installs, and get emails every so often from people offering to monetize it.

Here's an excerpt from a recent one, from Nick at NJB Brands Sales:

> We offer .50 CTR (per 1,000) traffic and can use each unique IP up to 10 > times a day. There is no limitation to what we will purchase other than the > cap per unique IP. We offer flexible payment options via PayPal, Bitcoin, > WesternUnion or Check. Payment can be done every 1 day, 7 days or 30 days.

<comment><USER4> Ha! We got the exact same message. Really weird getting a glimpse of that part of the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a relatively popular novelty extension and I get approached by ad companies to buy/monetize it regularly. I refuse, because I despise advertising and I don't need the money. But I suspect I am in the minority and that many extension owners probably just decide it is easier to sell it and not think about it.

<comment><USER6> How much did they offer?

<comment><USER5> Anywhere from $2-25k. But most don't give a price upfront and I just send it to my spam folder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Use uBlock Origin [1] and uMatrix [2] instead. Also using Inox [2] browser helps too.

[1] [https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/) [2] [https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix](https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix) [3] [https://github.com/gcarq/inox- patchset/releases](https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset/releases)

<comment><USER8> Instead of what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is why RMS calls auto-updates "universal backdoors".

<comment><USER10> Most people would be screwed without auto-updates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> From the article:

> "Update: Google got back to us, and stated that Chrome's extension policy is > due to change in June 2014. The new policy will require extensions to serve > a single purpose."

</comment><comment><USER12> It appears to be an easy way to at least weaken this practice:

Why doesn't chrome prompt it's user / demands a confirmation of permissions when an extention changes ownership, before updating it again?

It could at least impact the rentability of this buying up of extentions, but definitely help alert users of such things

<comment><USER13> How would they know it changed ownership?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> (2014)

</comment><comment><USER15> Still a large risk, even though this was authored in 2014.

I would be surprised if extensions that "read and change content on all websites you visit" haven't yet been used in some wide-scale account/identity compromise without making much noise.

</comment><comment><USER16> That is why I never install browser extensions.

<comment><USER17> Do you live without adblock?

<comment><USER18> Host blocking at the OS level. No need for extensions.

<comment><USER19> Sometimes you need to temporary disable filters or edit them. How do you manage that? Is it user-friendly?

<comment><USER18> Never ran into a problem really. Maybe a couple times a year I'll manually open the host file and ctrl+f a host I need to comment out temporarily after seeing it's causing an issue via the browser's network tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not even Firefox manually review extensions anymore. Sad, happened twice for me (one was a cryptominer) so now I have like 2 extensions installed.

<comment><USER21> Not true. Extensions are still subject to manual review, however they are permitted to be posted publically as soon as they pass a suite of automated checks.

<comment><USER20> You know what I mean. It's like checking for poison after you eat the entire pie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> (2014)</comment>


Flipboard's Approach to Automatic Summarization - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.flipboard.com/2014/10/summarization/ <comment><USER2> For those of you interested in learning more, do sign-up for the Mining Massive DataSets[0] course on Coursera. It started last week and we covered the exact same concepts i.e. PageRank, Jaccard Similarity etc. talked about in this blogpost all taught by Stanford's esteemed faculty - Anand Rajaraman, Jure Leskovic & Jeff Ullman.

[0] - [https://www.coursera.org/course/mmds](https://www.coursera.org/course/mmds)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ha, I wrote this. Thanks for posting :)</comment>


Ask HN: Developer performance metrics? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone know of, or think, a system for measuring useful developer performance metrics?
I was thinking of something which is purely data driven, connects to build, source control, code quality metrics reports etc and builds a picture of each developer on the team based on their contributions, breaks, fixes, # of languages worked on etc?
Do you think it's even possible to build a good picture of a developer's performance based on data driven metrics? <comment><USER2> Going through the same process myself, short answer there is no easy metric that you can add that really quantifies a developer.

I would start measuring projects or teams first, getting a solid set of metrics for each and once you have that you can start tracking down individual developers.

Even so tracking developer productivity can be hard, a good chunk of our work happens in our head. Who is more valuable the developer that wrote thousands of lines of code or the one that changed one but fixed a critical bug in production?

I highly recommended this book [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920020134.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920020134.do)

<comment><USER3> Moreover, "bugs" can linger around in code for a long time and you can't really track that metric. Code changing over time in a repository could be to fix bugs or refactor/rewrite etc. I think the original posters question was more around whether there are existing resources to track these things to which the answer I feel is no. Combining blogs posts, stack exchange score, speaking topics and other real world things can give you some semblance of a developers engagement with the development community but doesn't translate one-to-one on their actual productivity levels on a team. Although these things usually indicate a greater potential for success.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My challenges are mainly around retention and grooming the team. We work with lots of offshore resources who change frequently and whom we don't talk to directly always. However, when changes happen we want to retain the best and know who to cut. I'd also like to know who I can pull from where when a new project comes up.

I was hoping to gather metrics in the following dimensions:

1\. Versatile (can work on multiple stacks and languages) 2\. Team Player (watches out for the team and does what needs doing regardless if assigned to them) 3\. Detail oriented and delivers quality code (doesn't break the build, good test coverage, adheres to formatting guidelines) 4\. Productive 5\. Communication skills (can and does communicate appropriately)

For many of these, we could gather proxy measures, i.e.

1\. Versatile (in the last year, how many different file types did this person touch or work on. 2\. Team Player (did they fix a build broken by someone else, how often do they fix their own broken builds)

etc etc

<comment><USER4> > 1\. Versatile (in the last year, how many different file types did this > person touch or work on.

These kind of metrics never provide accurate information. You might as well just pick your "good" devs from a hat.

For example, I'm the main code reviewer for our front end solution but I haven't written a single line of code for it. Am I less versatile than a dev who does basic work across the entire project?

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. Leads and other management roles are more difficult to peg but usually this is known simply by the person's role. A good dev lead could be judged by the number of code review comments or % code reviewed. Since a lead is also responsible for the team, their performance could be judged by overall team measures such as % test coverage of the overall code base, amount of time a ticket sits around etc. The team's metrics may become a way to judge the lead?

But I agree, it's all imperfect. I also don't think these metrics would be the only criteria by which someone is judged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm facing the same problem - need to measure performance for each member of my team and indeed no easy solution here.

Currently I'm measuring:

\- How many tickets have been closed by each developer (we use mantis)

\- What is the (average, average of 5 best, average of 5 worst) time for solving tickets

\- For each average from above I obtain number of lines changed and also calculate average (mantis connected with git)

So for given period of time I know:

\- how many tickets were closed by each dev

\- in average - best time, worst time and usual time for solving tickets

\- in average - amount of lines of code for worst time tickets, best time tickets and usual time tickets

I then look if lines representing average score are closer to lower or upper averages.

However all above is just to provide some orientation, my team is still small enough so I know each developer myself and also I'm involved in solving most issues so I base on that knowledge.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure about tickets, but I grade a lot of math tests. In some cases, there are a lot of easy to grade tests (almost empty, straightforward solutions, easy to read fonts, ...) and a few very difficult to understand cases. Some of the graders "specializes" in difficult to grade papers, they read very few, but the contribution is very important.

Not all bugs/tickets are created equal. Just counting them would incentivize to cherrypick the easy ones.

<comment><USER5> That's why number of tickets is only part of the story. The time and lines of code add additional insights. Anyways this was never meant to be "precise" indicator - the goal here was to have some sort of analysis that is easy and fast to come up with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I'm measuring developer performance I look at one stat: Do they make reasonable deadlines without generating a ton of bugs?

Why is this? Well, it's because the amount of tickets, code, or even time spent "logged in" doesn't matter. The only thing that matters to a business is if they can deliver on time so the product can keep moving forward and others aren't waiting for them.

<comment><USER5> So you assume your devs are senior enough to come up with achievable deadlines even when they are under pressure. Such methodology will work in favor to senior people or people who can negotiate better time frames to deliver their bits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am also curious about this.</comment>