Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/4bMEBEkRoKA <comment><USER2> This reads to me as an overreaction. Sure, it's important to be vigilant about the permissions you give apps, but it's also important to understand the underlying OS and permission layers.

TLDR: If you're concerned about your privacy, upgrade to Android 6.0

There's nothing wrong with Wikipedia letting you manage your Wikipedia account using the app. They're using the Account Manager API, which is the right way to approach account management on android. Prior to android 6.0, they need the GET_ACCOUNTS permission to use the account manager.

Wikipedia's FAQ explains: Note: The app does not store your Wikipedia login credentials on the device, and it does not access any non-Wikipedia accounts on your device, nor any other aspects of your identity. Note: This permission is only required in Android versions earlier than 6.0 (Marshmallow). For Android 6.0 and above, this permission is not required.

GET_ACCOUNTS is a dangerous permission. That's why google changed the behavior in android 6.0 by: 1\. Allowing users to decline specific permissions to apps, instead of the "accept all or none" approach in lollipop and bellow. 2\. Allowing apps to manage the account they own without requesting GET_ACCOUNTS.

The Android docs explain this as well: Note: Beginning with Android 6.0 (API level 23), if an app shares the signature of the authenticator that manages an account, it does not need "GET_ACCOUNTS" permission to read information about that account. On Android 5.1 and lower, all apps need "GET_ACCOUNTS" permission to read information about any account.

Bottom line is: if you're concerned about app permissions (as you should be) - you should be running Android 6. Wikipedia won't ask you for GET_ACCOUNTS, and you'll be able to manually control permissions other apps receive as well.

<comment><USER3> Also, since the code is open sourced ([https://github.com/wikimedia/apps- android-wikipedia](https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-android-wikipedia)), I guess they get the benefit of the doubt?

<comment><AUTHOR> OpenSSL was open sourced. That worked out real well.

It's not being open sourced that leads to secure, well-behaved software.

It's being well-behaved, secure software. Which, among other properties, means following the principles of least privilege and least capability. See the OpenBSD project for more on that philosophy.

<comment><USER4> This isn't C we're talking about. You don't magically expose random memory with Java code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tool choice _may_ improve security. See again OpenBSD, which has _specifically_ rewritten parts of the C library to avoid classes of bugs.

That said, Java has a markedly less-than-perfect record.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py Urgh, I am so over permissions.

I don't mind if my app _accesses_ geo as long as it doesn't exfiltrate. In a perfect world, only a small subset of an app's data should leave the device.

This ends up being pretty hard to do generically. If a geofence event triggers a network call, has geo information been exfiltrated?

As things are, I don't feel like I'm past having to trust the app author.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've suggested separately that Google should can the concept of supporting _apps_ and look at what _functions_ it wants to provide, and provide a Free Software framework for supporting that, with a guidance structure specifying what app authors and package maintainers must and must not do.

Pretty much Debian.

[https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/2eg1rG6k...](https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/2eg1rG6kmJp)

(Caution: harsh language.)

 _Edit:_ Updated link. Had the wrong Android rant referenced earlier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not just use the Wikipedia website?

<comment><USER6> Last time I used the app it didn't support 'Find in page' or pinching to zoom. The web site is great and just works for what I want to use it for. The only thing that's annoying is that when sections of the article are collapsed 'Find in page' doesn't work (which is obvious, but annoying).

<comment><USER7> Wikipedia's mobile site really is a usability disaster, with low-density tables and most of the content hidden by default. I've always had to scroll down and switch to Desktop to do any serious reading. It's as if the interface was designed for the first-gen iPhone, and subsequently abandoned.

At one point, pages had a "Permanently disable mobile site" link at the bottom, but they scrapped that back in 2012.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Direct link to app: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia)

<comment><USER9> Non Google link to the app: [https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=wikipedia&fd...](https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=wikipedia&fdid=org.wikipedia)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is not an overreaction at all. In fact, with the recent Wikipedia search engine debacal, the chances of these so called necessary permissions being unrelated, or coincidence, is nil and none. Jeez people keep up!</comment>


Hacker News equivalent for other fields - <AUTHOR> Is there a hacker-news-esque site for things like art, music or movie or other fields in general?<p>Reddit has a plenty of subs on these topics, but they seem quite noisey. <comment><USER3> While reddit has a quite bad reputation, there are quite a few subbreddits which are heavily moderated and quite serious:

For example, /r/askhistorians requires that all answers be long form and cite peer-reviewed articles (no wiki, first person comments or pop-historians allowed).

Some of the tech subreddits there are much better than StackOverflow - <USER2> example, I get better answers on /r/rust than on SO.

<comment><USER4> /r/netsec is usually topnotch, by the way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't forget about datatau [http://www.datatau.com/](http://www.datatau.com/)

Basically a Hacker News clone for data science.

<comment><USER6> The links on the site are usually the "most trending" ones, so it's good for that, but I wish it had as much discussion as HN. For some reason I much prefer HN to reddit for discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there a hacker-news-esque site for programmers? I look at the front page, see 90% articles about world events and trends.

Is there a filter already available for "articles with code" or is this a "spend an afternoon" project?

<comment><USER8> Try lobster.rs maybe?

<comment><USER9> I agree with this. Much more tech-focused. With a heavy rust/bsd bias though.

My email is in my profile if anyone needs an invite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://github.com/mikeanthonywild/hacker-news- for-x](https://github.com/mikeanthonywild/hacker-news-for-x)

[https://github.com/mattzeunert/Hacker-News- For-X](https://github.com/mattzeunert/Hacker-News-For-X)

</comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.designernews.co](https://www.designernews.co)

</comment><comment><USER12> [https://barnacl.es/](https://barnacl.es/) for 'News for bootstrappers, not VC hackers'

</comment><comment><USER13> KnowledgeTrybe ([https://knowledgetrybe.com](https://knowledgetrybe.com)) The focus is on Psychology, Creativity, History, and Learning. I'm still working on adding comments. Please let me know what you think about this. Would love to hear any feedback.

<comment><USER14> Interesting site, but I'd like to offer a suggestion.

In my opinion, a well-designed web site should pass the "someone linked me here and told me it was good but didn't say anything more about what it is" test. When I landed on your site, I felt it wasn't that easy to discover what it's about if I don't already know.

Even just adding a short sentence ("read about and discuss psychology, creativity, and more" or something) would go a long way, but having an "about" link I can find and follow might be good too.

FWIW, I think Hacker News also fails this test to some extent. It's possible to glean what the site is about from the Guidelines and FAQ links at the bottom of the page, but it doesn't really cater to that at all.

<comment><USER13> Thank you so much for your feedback. I will definitely work on that. This is the first time I'm sharing it outside of friends and family and it's great to get a fresh perspective. Please feel free to give more suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://www.pprune.org/](https://www.pprune.org/) Professional Pilots Rumour Network

[https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trending.php](https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trending.php) FlyerTalk

<comment><USER16> Not exactly like HN, but there's also StuckMic.com and pointSixtyFive.com for Air Traffic Control discussions.

Also gCaptain.com for Maritime News (occassionaly linked to by others here).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://inbound.org/](https://inbound.org/) for marketing.

</comment><comment><USER18> [https://frontendfront.com/](https://frontendfront.com/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Blogs, not quite hacker news style:

Seeking Alpha for equities

xconomy for pharma

econacademics for econometrics

Fermat's library for mathematical critique

</comment><comment><USER20> Panda ([http://usepanda.com](http://usepanda.com)) is pretty good for the fields of design, development, and entrepreneurship. It pulls from many different sites, including Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://write.narwhal.space/](http://write.narwhal.space/) for writing, you can request an invite on site (>login, >request one publicly) and I'll send you one

<comment><USER22> Do you know the admin there? I requested a login but still haven't gotten the confirmation email, and no one's on IRC.

<comment><USER21> Some emails don't work, I had the same problem therefore the admin (u/etc) added me via console. I contacted him via lobste.rs, if you have an account there msg him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> hackervid.io, like HN but for videos.

[https://hackervid.io/](https://hackervid.io/)

Source code: [https://github.com/netgusto/hackervid.io](https://github.com/netgusto/hackervid.io)

</comment><comment><USER24> Real world tech forums for computer architecture.

Comp arch Google groups for.. well, computer architecture.

</comment><comment><USER25> ... or politics. Hacker News moderators become infuriated when there's too much 'political talk' and parent posts get [flagged] since this is considered naughty.

Intelligent political discussions off the police radar are 50% of the reason why I check this site everyday. I just don't get that level of discourse at the comment-level anywhere else.

<comment><USER26> Political posts get flagged because they are explicitly against the purpose of the site. From the guidelines, for the benefit of the readers who haven't read them:

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

Given that political stories get flagged fairly consistently, I would guess that the majority of readers here agree with that guideline.

<comment><USER25> Flagging is a majority vote?

Seriously, what's the actual mechanism behind a flagging? I always assumed it was a privilege of one with a high rep point count.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Le Journal du hacker [https://www.journalduhacker.net](https://www.journalduhacker.net), basically a lobste.rs-like website for french-speaking FOSS community.

</comment><comment><USER28> fractalforums for fractals

</comment><comment><USER29> Investing - [https://forum.basic-capital.com/](https://forum.basic- capital.com/)</comment>


U.S. Currently Fighting 74 Different Wars … That It Will Publicly Admit - <AUTHOR> http://b4in.info/s4Ru

<comment><USER2> Bases and military relationships = wars? LOL!

That site is ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER3> link should be: [http://beforeitsnews.com/economy/2013/05/u-s-currently- fight...](http://beforeitsnews.com/economy/2013/05/u-s-currently- fighting-74-different-wars-that-it-will-publicly-admit-2519182.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the mistake with the link. my bad</comment></comment>


Can You Spot the Deceptive Facebook Post? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/04/technology/facebook-influence-campaigns-quiz.html <comment><USER2> They really need to explain why and how they define "influence campaign" to make it clear why this matters. Just because a person is real doesn't mean they're being honest, or accurate. And just because an account was a throw away account doesn't mean it's dishonest or inaccurate.

<comment><USER3> are you like a SJW for the Internet Research Agency?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >making it difficult to tell what was a genuine post and what was not. Let's compare some to see if you can tell the difference. Spoiler: It isn't easy.

Actually it's really easy. Just look at the number of likes/responses.

<comment><USER5> Actually, that's not the trick, you need to look at which post is trying to sow discord versus saying something semi-constructive.</comment></comment>


A New Biography of Churchill - <AUTHOR> https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/10/is-this-the-best-churchill-biography-yet/ <comment><USER2> While we can praise Churchill for many things, we should never gloss over the fact that he favored eugenics and was deeply racist [1]. For instance, he's quoted as saying "I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race... has come in and taken their place."

[1]: [https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/ae55v8/winston- church...](https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/ae55v8/winston-churchill- racist-warmonger-sterilize-mentally-ill)

<comment><USER3> A lot of the "liberal progressives" pre ww2 where in favour of sterilising certain elements of the population until that whole "hitler thing" happened.

In the USA it was the conservative republicans that opposed it.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure I'd describe the Carnegie Institution, or Rockefeller Foundation, who funded a lot of the eugenics research with the end in mind as notably liberal progressive. Nor could the Republicans Coolidge ("Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races") and Hoover, who were both heavily in favour, be described as progressive liberals. Roosevelt was in favour too, of course.

It was a movement independent of politics, and especially popular in pre-war USA on both sides of the political divide.

<comment><USER3> HG Wells and a lot of the left leaning British intellectuals did and Sweden only stopped sterilising in the 1970's

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Field Marshal Alanbrooke: "... And the wonderful thing is that 3/4 of the population of the world imagine that Churchill is one of the Strategists of History, a second Marlborough, and the other 1/4 have no idea what a public menace he is and has been throughout this war! It is far better that the world should never know, and never suspect the feet of clay of this otherwise superhuman being. Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again ... Never have I admired and despised a man simultaneously to the same extent. Never have such opposite extremes been combined in the same human being."

</comment><comment><USER6> I really enjoyed _The Last Lion_ a biography of Churchill by William Manchester. I look forward to comparing that book with this.

<comment><USER7> Seconded, the three volume set is a very worthwhile read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For anyone looking into getting a fuller picture, I'd recommend reading Churchill's Secret War ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill%27s_Secret_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill%27s_Secret_War)). Where this differs from some of the other works's on Churchill's life is that it tracks the accounts of those affected by the Bengal famine of 1943 (how it is related to Churchill is covered in the book) written in native languages—which are, by far, inaccessible to English authors.

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18096513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18096513)

</comment><comment><USER10> Winston Churchill was half American; his mother was from Brooklyn [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Randolph_Churchill#Early_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Randolph_Churchill#Early_life)

</comment><comment><USER11> The Spectator also have a great podcast with the author about this book: [https://audioboom.com/posts/7040039-churchill-andrew- roberts...](https://audioboom.com/posts/7040039-churchill-andrew-roberts-in- conversation-with-robert-tombs)

</comment><comment><USER12> Also this new biography was favourably reviewed in the Economist: [https://www.economist.com/books-and- arts/2018/10/06/andrew-r...](https://www.economist.com/books-and- arts/2018/10/06/andrew-roberts-paints-the-fullest-ever-picture-of-churchill) (probably behind a paywall)

<comment><USER13> > His biography demonstrates its subject's greatness but manages to make him > lovable, too

So, nothing about the racist, imperialist side? Yet another hagiography?

<comment><USER4> Even Roy Jenkins (former old Labour cabinet minister) superb biography of Churchill concludes he was the greatest Prime Minister of the 20th century. He draws that conclusion even after pointing out Churchill's many flaws and mistakes. What human isn't flawed? Roosevelt, de Gaulle, Ghandi, all had flaws and racism too.

<comment><USER14> Absolutely. The greater the man, the greater the flaws. Yet we still need heroes from history to look up to, and we can't judge solely by modern standards.

By analogy consider the contemporaneous movie _The Wizard of Oz_ (1939). It's enjoyable and arguably morally-improving to watch. We are the better for it. Yet a great deal of immorality existed behind the scenes:

[https://www.ranker.com/list/wizard-of-oz-behind-the- scenes-s...](https://www.ranker.com/list/wizard-of-oz-behind-the-scenes- stories/erin-mccann)

<comment><USER15> Sometimes "great heroes" do bad things even by their time standards. It makes no one service to pretend it is not so and automatically assume everything bad was normal at the time. It was not and their bad decisions had opposition.

We dont need lies about history, even when that lie is by omitting ugly stuff about people we want to see as heroes. Such framing leads to dangerous worldview and dangerous implications about current times too. It makes us less capable to deal with actual real world complexity. Even heroes should be questioned and mythical heroes are exactly that - myths.

We need truth about historical personalities, not hero worship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Churchill & The secret service is a better biography than most of the actual biography books. It explains the creation of a modern secret service used to gather intelligence on foreign and local targets including competing political parties.

This played a major role on Churchill's intuition and ascend, and failed miserably when he diverted resources to fight local political parties thus not predicting the start date of two world wars.

After the wars had started, he did divert resources to handle things succesfully.

TLDR: Churchill was his secret services. Succesful when not adapted to his own personal biases

[https://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Secret-Service-David- Staffo...](https://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Secret-Service-David- Stafford/dp/1909609137)</comment>


Climbing Out of a Slump - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trailmeme.com/2010/11/climbing-out-of-a-slump/ <comment><USER2> Much like him, I absolutely despise the "happiness is a choice" crowd - it is incredibly difficult to convey to a person that doesn't suffer with this, how crippling it is to be able to recognize something logically and yet succumb to your feelings anyway. It sucks.

I appreciate the author's sharing of his techniques, I wish more people would as eventually we might find insights into the condition that we don't already have.

The only part I'm not sure about, is whether or not it is an advantage as the author proclaims - more often than not, the highly successful (creative) people I know always focus on the positive and are relentlessly pushing forward. I, for one, wish I had a little more of that.

<comment><USER3> This needs to be reiterated. Even though he mentioned it multiple times, and you addressed it, it can't be overstated: there are people whose emotional turmoil is not cured by any amount of cognitive help.

These people are disproportionately more creative than the average person, and are lauded "mad geniuses". As a result, others (and I'm not accusing the author for this) jump on the bandwagon, mentioning their mood swings as a way to emphasize their bouts of creativity. I've even heard the occasional self- diagnosed bipolar declare it worth the suffering.

This does a disservice to those who spend decades on medication, 20% of whom eventually end their own life. Many of us who like to call ourselves creative might have our days or weeks of mild depression or mania, but our ability to have a simple perspective change return us to normalcy distinguishes us from them.

<comment><USER4> True. That's why I took care to separate out the clinical cases as carefully as I could. The reverse is also true: people who can be helped by cognitive reframings may not find medication useful. In fact, it can make things worse. A significant proportion of patients on depression and bipolar meds get worse, not better.

I have no problem admitting that I _have_ been on medication a couple of times, for brief periods. It was a long time ago, and so ineffective/counterproductive for me that it was the kick in the pants I needed to decide to take control of my life at a more cognitive level. It convinced me that meds are vastly overprescribed for what might be called "existential" illnesses. That experience did inform my post.

But there is an aspect of this stuff that is perhaps even bigger than the mild/severe distinction and the pop-psych/clinical psych distinction.

This is the fact that professional or amateur, anybody who thinks they actually understand more than 10% of this sort of thing is a liar. I wouldn't trust any professional who refused to admit that we just don't understand 90% of what's going on, at either a cognitive or biochemical level. There is as much bs spouted by the supposed "professionals" about serotonin as there is by amateurs like me opining about how to climb out of slumps.

Not that I think my stuff is bs, but my kind of writing belongs in a category with more than its fair share of bs :)

Venkat

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Never make decisions when you are depressed" <\--- this is gold. Learned it the hard way.

<comment><USER6> ditto.... I also do the "trick yourself into doing things" technique.

Good to hear that other people go through the exact same thought process.

I don't know how you manage working from home though... going to the office in a morning works wonders for me. I tend to regress over the weekend; I'm at my peak on Wednesday and Thursday.

<comment><USER4> The short answer is: you get used to it, but it is not ideal or a particularly healthy work lifestyle. It has many of the same problems as solitary confinement within a prison.

Since the pattern is increasing all around, more social support structures are emerging around work-from-home lifestyles, but frankly, the current state is very primitive.

<comment><USER7> There was a coworking space about half a block away from my current location, but it closed down. Unfortunately I didn't find out it closed until _after_ I moved here (partly to be close to it) :/. Perceived cost of living keeps me from moving to a different metro area with better services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish I could upvote this more than once. It really picked up my day.

I always find a cognitive approach far more effective than trying to internalize some inspirational BS.

Thanks!

<comment><USER9> Really, same- I wish I could upvote this more than once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This was a great read. I've been in an academic slump of late, but I've just begun getting out (a bit late this semester, perhaps) and I can say he's absolutely right about doing smaller things that matter less, moving eventually into larger things.

I just got back from my first real exercise (five laps of the football-field track) in months, and now I'm feeling great. Hopefully things stay up :)

</comment><comment><USER11> +1 for exercising, especially squats. Apparently, squats and deadlifts release a burst of testosterone. I can vouch from personal experience that squats drive out the blues like nothing else, and can certainly believe in the burst- of-testosterone theory; nothing like a rocket boost of manliness to drive away depression! :-)

<comment><USER12> Yes, but does it work for women, too?

<comment><USER11> Yes : Int J Sports Med. 1991 Apr;12(2):228-35.

"Endogenous anabolic hormonal and growth factor responses to heavy resistance exercise in males and females."

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1860749>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Venkat writes some of the most consistently interesting and intelligent blog posts I've found, and this was no exception. Thanks for sharing it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting read.

I think one of the biggest challenges is identifying you're in a slump in the first place.

My tactic is to always maintain a list of things that I wish I did more of, and as soon as I figure out I'm in a slump, I pick something on the list. This especially works well with things I _used to_ do more.

<comment><USER8> I just tacked a list to my wall of varying levels of things to do to pick things up a little. Just that process feels good.

Can't help but think, too, that simply making a conscious effort to incorporate one/some of those things into every day would be a great preventative measure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> He points out that one of the keys is not to indulge too much in something, e.g., eating fried food, because you get used to it. Couldn't agree more. You need a baseline. When the slumps hit, then you pull out your med-pack.

</comment><comment><USER16> I go through this every so often (actually last week was the most recent one), and I definitely agree that sleeping and spending your unproductive time learning new things is useful. The only problem is while you're in the process of getting out of the slump, people who are depending on you start to get angry, which only pushes you further into the slump. The only consolation is it's much easier to profusely apologize once you're back in good spirits.

</comment><comment><USER17> Venkat has an understanding of human behavior and psychology I find quite surprising in a developer. Definitely worth reading his blog, especially:

The Gervais Principle (psychology of workplace dynamics) [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks.

FWIW I am not a developer. I am a pointy-haired boss. My long-forgotten background is in aerospace engineering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not bipolar (I think). I do get, amongst others effects, a depression if my allergies get "fed". (Really weird, I didn't think allergies worked like that.)

I recently realized the connection, which made me really happy -- now it is controllable. Well, I'll be happy when I get out of the slump...

This article told me why I've been reading a lot of bad sf (instead of good) and manga. :-)

<comment><USER12> The artist Tricky also had allergies that triggered depressions. And only learned of this relation after a long time.

<comment><USER18> Thanks. Googling is informative on this. (Saw Tricky play with PJ Harvey 1995, by the way. :-)</comment></comment></comment>


How Jordan Treats Syrians at the Airport - <AUTHOR> http://syriajordan.pen.io

<comment><USER2> This story is interesting, but I was having a hard time following the backstory. He was in Jordan temporarily, but hasn't been in Syria in 3 years? If so where was he? Just trying to understand context.

There's a lot of stories of people being treated without rights in airports (even rich white European males get the treatment sometimes). It's honestly really scary.

<comment><USER3> I assume the writer was in Beirut as the flight was Beirut -> Amman.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jordan is drowning in refugees and acutely running out of water.

They have over 100,000 Syrian refugees, 750,000 Iraqi refugees and 1.9 million Palestinian refugees. That's a lot for small country of six million people.

It's easy to criticize Jordanians, but they have their hands full and are risking the stability of their country. If other countries would start taking more refugees from Syria and Iraq (like the coalition that toppled Saddam) that would be nice.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, but OP was going to Sweden. It should have been easy enough to verify with the embassy if they wanted to.</comment></comment>


Alphabet is still figuring out how to be a conglomerate - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.com/alphabet-learns-that-change-isnt-as-easy-as-abc-e24df2673639#.8ype9626i <comment><USER2> _"...operating at a level of stealth unusual even for the normally secretive firm."_

I chuckled at that. When I worked there I participated in no less than a dozen "super secret" projects. Stealth was the standard operating mode. In engineering I attributed it to the somewhat interesting way in which recognition and promotions were handed out, which was to say if someone else got word of your idea/project and executed on it more quickly they could declare victory and take the glory. So keeping things secret until success was assured was the "smart" play. And it didn't hurt than when things went south you didn't have to take the blame since nobody knew you were working on it. A win-win situation as they say.

Levy makes it sound like a big deal they were being super secret but really? I suspect it was keeping things that might, or might not, happen in the future from becoming part of the questions at a TGIF meeting.

What the re-organization has done has put a spotlight on how much Alphabet is a one trick pony. It's a good trick, and a strong pony, but it doesn't translate into other markets. And several other organizations have been training their ponies hard and are taking away that specialness.

The current road Alphabet is on doesn't seem to me to end in a happy place, so I continue to watch them to see if they will find a way to turn off it.

<comment><USER3> I think one of the underestimated functions of this kind of secrecy is to make participants feels important and better about themselves.

"This is super-secret, therefore important. I was picked to work on important stuff, so I must be important".

This goes for everyone in the chain including managers "I am managing a team working on a super-secret project, I can't tell you about". That sounds a lot better than "I am managing a team which makes Uber but for dogs".

I suspect this is partly also why governments like to classify everything, even stuff that doesn't need to be -- it provides a level of importance and adds ceremony to everything. Which, in turns makes everyone involved feel important.

<comment><USER4> Also, to avoid making them feel _worse_ about themselves when what they're working on doesn't work out, or when their coworkers are skeptics.

My experience was a bit different than ChuckMcM's; I was at Google a couple years later, and my perception was that it was a lot more open internally than any other company I've seen. But when projects were secret or semi-secret, it usually seemed like it was so that the team members could take risks without fear of criticism or ridicule. It's been my observation that for each famous product Google has released, there is some famous person inside Google who tried to kill it. Secrecy is a form of corporate anti-inflammatory, where it's a way of overcoming the natural immune response against any idea that is new and different.

<comment><USER2> I really like the corporate any-inflammatory idea. I think that really captures it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like the author wanted to write _something_ , _anything_ about Alphabet since today is the one year anniversary but there isn't much substance in here.

I would agree with some of the assertions that yes Google is still Google and Alphabet seems almost non-present but I don't know if they have finished their integration / breaking apart of groups or really much of anything. I still think Android and some of the other parts of Google should _probably_ be split out but I have no idea if that's the best choice for them or not.

I would love some more information on the whole formation of Alphabet. This, unfortunately, is not that article.

<comment><USER6> They cannot split out Android or Youtube from Google for regulatory reasons (but not only), specially in Europe. The thing is, both Android and Youtube rely on its ads business and users need to accept the privacy policy of sharing their search history accros all platforms so that google can optimize ads for them. Splitting Android, Youtube and Google Search into different companies would make it very hard for Google to share user data between the 3. Also, it makes sense to keep them together given that they are still highly integrated, Android has great Youtube integration and Google Search integrates Youtube videos directly in results and of course Google Search is at the center of Android (Google Now etc). It would be more troubles than necessary to split them all.

<comment><USER5> As far as regulations / laws go it would not surprise me if that makes it impossible but as far as technically? I don't buy it. I'm not sure what their current infrastructure looks like but it was conveyed to me that each group basically "consumes" the others through various types of APIs.

It would be interesting if they explored it at least. In my opinion anyway.

<comment><USER6> Their may be some APIs involved but they also use the backend directly when convenient for example Google Search may fetch directly from the google cloud to fetch youtube videos as that's faster than doing http requests. Also, I think they have one gigantic repository where all the code is shared, splitting this repo would be more trouble than necessary.

<comment><USER5> Fair points

<comment><USER7> Since they merged their services a few years back, I've noticed that lots of (my and others I know) requests for login appear to go through youtube. This is presumably because it had the largest number of logged-in users historically.

So yeah, that would be difficult to split out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's a whole lot of words to say almost nothing, and to confuse unrelated things (like market cap and revenue, as in: "Wall Street seems to appreciate the Alphabet structure. In the last year, the stock price has risen over a hundred points and reached a record high this year, at a market cap of almost $550 billion. These revenues virtually all come from the Google division, of course.")

[EDIT: The article has been edited to make the particular paragraph quoted above less nonsensical.]

<comment><USER9> You're taking that out of the context of the article. The author clearly knows the difference.

> Alphabet is a weird company. Only one part of it makes significant profits: > Google, whose revenues are humongous. [...]

>Wall Street seems to appreciate the Alphabet structure. In the last year, the stock price has risen over a hundred points and reached a record high this year, at a market cap of almost $550 billion. Its revenues virtually all come from the Google division, of course.

<comment><USER8> That quote is not complete nonsense, but it wasn't the text at the time I read it (which I cut and pasted in my post, you can compare.)

Its been rewritten to be somewhat less nonsensical (though the last sentence of that paragraph is now both redundant with other parts of the article and a non-sequitur in the paragraph it is included in.)

<comment><USER10> I'm confused. The text you included and the text nostromo included differ only in that one says "Its revenues" and the other says "These revenues". Is there more to this that I'm missing?

<comment><USER8> "These revenues come from..." when the only antecedent for "these" is the market cap figure makes no sense, while "Its revenues come from..." where the antecedent for "its" is clearly "Alphabet" makes sense, though (again) it is redundant with other parts of the article and a non-sequitur in that paragraph.

<comment><USER10> Thanks, that clears it up. I'm apparently not nearly as sensitive to attribution of items when reading about financials, since I rarely deal with that realm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting that the first supporting paragraph on the "turmoil" this is causing is Tony Fadell & Bill Maris leaving.

IMO Those are red herrings:

1) Fadell was extremely unpopular at the time of his departure after several missteps and lack of product releases. He was going to be shown the door regardless.

2) Bill Maris explanation is straight forward - he's super rich, just started a family, is sick of being on airplanes and phone calls 24/7 and literally CRUSHED IT as a VC on the weight of his Uber investment alone.

<comment><USER12> There's a lot of others though.

\- Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences, is having similar CEO problems as NEST. Word has it Verily has a whole lot of nothing to show for all the money they've blown so far.

\- Chris Urmson just left the Self-Driving Car program. From my understanding, of whatever the Self-Driving Car program allegedly managed to do (debatable), Urmson was pretty key in them doing it.

\- Google Fiber just backed out of plans to dig fiber for a whole bunch of cities they said they would, and are now looking at some cheaper wireless broadcast option.

Also, I am almost certain that Tony Fadell was actually "fired". Being fired is always phrased as "resigning" when you're that rich. But yeah, NEST has been a paperweight since Google bought it. The only thing they've done is rebranded Dropcam. And apparently ruined the Dropcam team while doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Summary: google is still google. It still have tons of heads and all the profit remained there (android, youtube, etc). Alphabet is just a place for the litigation-prone products, such as Nest and self driving cars.

<comment><USER14> Yes, it's still Google. Who actually calls it Alphabet in everyday speech?

<comment><USER15> Everyone in finance seems to call it that but thats pretty much the only ones.

<comment><USER8> Well, sure, because the entity most people care about is the Alphabet unit called "Google", except for finance people, who mostly care about the thing you can invest in, which is Alphabet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Self-driving cars are a great concept and will make money, but reality is starting to set in at Alphabet. Their destiny is not to disrupt the auto industry. Their destiny is to be an auto parts supplier in Novi, MI. Google is going to be selling a set of components to auto manufacturers for about $1000-$3000 to make a car self-driving. Self-driving will be an option the customer orders at the dealership, along with other infotainment options.

This is kind of a letdown for Google's people. Less going to TED and SXSW, more going to the Automotive Parts Suppliers Conference at the Marriott in Troy, Michigan. This may explain some of the turnover.

<comment><USER17> And basically assistive driving systems for the next decade or so with any sort of "disruptive" self-driving most likely further out. And this is something that all the major auto manufacturers are working on to greater or lesser degrees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't understand why there's so much hay being made over Alphabet's reliance on Google to fund its other ventures. Wasn't that the whole fucking point, to provide a way to separate the moonshots from Google, to ensure Google's profitability gets reported accurately, and not hit by the losses from the other projects?

Furthermore, aren't these project _designed_ and expected to not be profitable in the medium term, with the hope/prayer of _huge_ , life altering payoffs for humanity "eventually"?

<comment><USER19> Yes, the extent to which Alphabet is pursuing this is rare among other large companies. I love this R&D-heavy model. And so do many GOOG shareholders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Lol'd at "(Alphabet better be careful — if things get even better, no one will work there anymore)"

</comment><comment><USER21> Well, I am not sure how much change was expected in 1 year. Was it that all other projects start posting Google level revenues or profits?

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not really sure what the intent is here. Alphabet is a holding company and you rarely hear anything about them. Outside of the annual shareholders meeting, is anyone really writing about what Berkshire Hathaway is doing in Omaha day to day? No, they write about their businesses. There's really not much to add to the conversation regarding the holding company itself, since it's really a top level entity meant to compartmentalize business units, often for risk purposes.

</comment><comment><USER23> I thought Fadell leaving was universally viewed as a positive...

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if breaking up a monolithic company like Google has similarities to breaking up a monolithic legacy Java EE app :P

</comment><comment><USER25> They spelled "Verily" wrong in the 3rd paragraph (they wrote "Verity"). That's where I stopped reading.</comment>


Null Object: Something for Nothing (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://www.researchgate.net/publication/242408118_Null_Object_Something_for_Nothing

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised* there's no mention of Objective-C's behavior when passing messages to nil. Nothing blows up; the message either returns 0 or an empty struct, depending on its return type. In actual practice this can sometimes result in weird behavior, but overall I always thought it was a very humane feature of the language.

*Well, ok, not /that/ surprised, given the year of publication, but Objective-C did at least exist at the time.

<comment><USER3> That seems like a bad idea. It potentially moves the failure further away from the cause. It's nearly always better to fail fast and deal with the problem, than propagate. Obviously it'd be even better to not have null at all, or have a null that doesn't claim to honour a contract that it can't fulfil (Option/Maybe type basically).

For C# programmers I attempted to help fix the problem[1] (it papers over the cracks):

[1] [https://github.com/louthy/language- ext](https://github.com/louthy/language-ext)

<comment><USER4> In Objective-C, you generally don't treat messaging-to-nil as a failure but a common occurrence. It's a different approach to API design, really.

I write much more Obj-C than Java, and I'm always kind of surprised going back to Java that null is such a big boogaboo all over the place. Considering how much influence Obj-C had on Java, it's a shame Sun didn't adopt "benevolent nil".

<comment><USER5> It seems a little odd to write code intending for it to do nothing. If that isn't a recipe for obfuscation...

<comment><USER6> It fits the tenets of OOP though, you ask an object to perform an operation, the "null" object just ignores the request.

<comment><USER5> I'm probably full of crap about this.

If you wrote "a = b/c" it would be silly to complain that this operation 'does nothing' whenever b == c happens to be true, so by analogy, it's not too farfetched to think it's useless to write code that does nothing when given a null object.

On the other hand, multiplication and division are standardized and familiar operations. Object semantics differ for each kind of object, and it may not make sense to allow null objects for everything, and if you need one, you can always implement it later.

So it really depends on what you think the tenets of OOP are, and that's not a cut-and-dry question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the obvious right answer is to not have null in the language, and use an option type instead. There might be a better solution, but I haven't come across one yet.

Of course, it's too late for Java now. They have an Optional<T> type, but removing null from the language would break backwards compatibility. Of course, that means that a method that returns Optional<T> might return an Optional<T>, or null, so now you have 2 things to check instead of one :).

<comment><USER8> It's not a full solution, but java has support for nonnullable annotations so under certain situations the compiler will guarantee that you don't need to check for null. Backwards compatibility's a PITA.

[http://types.cs.washington.edu/checker- framework/current/che...](http://types.cs.washington.edu/checker- framework/current/checker-framework-manual.html#nullness-checker)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I've looked into that, but you have to use their special compiler to build. I can't find a way to use it in a Maven build that doesn't require the user to install the checker framework locally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> OOP Java-style: nothing comes easy, everything is a pattern.</comment>


MG Siegler Drove More Traffic to Branch.com Than Ten Major Publications Combined - <AUTHOR> http://jm90403.com/2012/03/14/mg-siegler-drives-more-traffic-than-ten-major-publications-combined/

<comment><USER2> That's because major publications are actively trying to _prevent_ leaking traffic to the sites they write about, Siegler doesn't have to worry about that anymore.</comment>


Aaron Swartz to receive the James Madison Freedom of Information Award - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/13/late-internet-activist-aaron-swartz-to-receive-the-james-madison-freedom-of-information-award-on-friday/?fromcat=all <comment><USER2> Is it me, or is there something offensive about this being awarded posthumously? It reminds me of how people are vilified while living, but celebrated as soon as they pass.

Where was the government's honor for and protection of his efforts while he was living? Imagine how encouraging it might have been to him to have his efforts supported and meaningful change take place as a result. It's great that some legislation is being introduced to address some of this, but why so late and why the rogue DOJ in the first place? All of this happened because of the IDEAS expressed by this man. This should be scary to all Americans.

And, speaking of that, these are relatively minor intrusions into our freedoms compared to the wholly un-American Patriot Act. When will that be addressed? Kind of makes these legislative changes look like lipstick on a pig.

It is more than a little hypocritical that the same congress that abides the abhorrent assault on liberties that is the Patriot Act, is handing out "Freedom of Information" awards to anyone, let alone posthumously to a man who was unjustly prosecuted by the DOJ. The latter being arguably the primary beneficiary of the abuses enabled by that act.

<comment><USER3> Is Spain we have a saying , literal translation: May god save you from the day of the praises. And the governments, all around the world, love to give awards, street names and monuments but always after you die, even if in life they did nothing to help or protect you. They try to get points once you are not a problem or a nuisance for them.

<comment><USER2> Good saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Based on his love of Chomsky, I'm pretty sure Swartz hated the Madisonian vision of America.

<comment><USER5> incredibly insightful comment, deserves to be at the top

examples in support: "In public discussion, Madison spoke of the rights of minorities in general, but it is quite clear that he had a particular minority in mind "the minority of the opulent.""

[http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/ConsentPOP_Chom.ht...](http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/ConsentPOP_Chom.html)

"Chomsky: James Madison's position at the Constitutional Convention was that state power should be used "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority."" [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with- noa...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-noam-chomsky- the-united-states-has-essentially-a-one-party-system-a-583454.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Posthumous accolades are nice, but you know what is nicer? Justice. Push to fix the injustice system that made him kill himself.

</comment><comment><USER7> Too bad there is not an 'Anti' version of this award that could be sent to the appropriate offices of the State and National Offices Attorney General and the White House---all of whom have earned the negative recognition.

<comment><USER8> The Joseph V Stalin Award for Outstanding Work Advancing Authoritarianism. Has a certain ring to it, don't you think?

<comment><USER9> You probably meant that as a joke, but such an award exists. It is called Lenin Award. Let us see some people who got that award.

1\. Indira Gandhi - The only PM of India. She got elected by malpractice and when the Court ruled against her she declared emergency in the country suspending democracy and putting all her opponents in jail.

Now that is just one name I am familiar with because I am from India but you can research on other recipients and draw the conclusion.

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

<comment><USER10> Not all recipients of the rewards were autocratic leaders. Faiz (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faiz_Ahmed_Faiz>) was a poet, Nelson Madela received the award and Aruna asaf ali (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aruna_Asaf_Ali>) was an Indian freedom fighter.

I doubt any conclusion can be drawn just because the name of the prize is associated with an autocratic leader.

<comment><USER9> I never claimed the award was for autocratic leaders exclusively, but if an autocratic leader had a chance of winning "Peace Prize" it was probably this award alone.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Google I'm feeling lucky button, how to click it? - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys, i was wondering how to use i'm feeling lucky button on new google homepage where results are shown while you are typing ? :) :) <comment><USER2> There's an option in the search settings to turn off instant results: <https://www.google.com/preferences>

Other than that, there isn't any way to use I'm feeling lucky anymore. Not much point, as with instant results it's one click to get the first result anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> once you're on the results page you can click i'm feeling lucky next to the terms in the suggestions dropdown</comment>


Www.crunchbase.com returns 403 - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchbase.com

<comment><USER2> Works for me, but someone else mentioned the same issue a few hours ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> Still getting a 403 :(

</comment><comment><USER4> No issues here.</comment>


Ask HN: Applying to YC with a product competing a YC company - <AUTHOR>

We have just passed out of college, and have built a B2B product which is in direct competition to a YC company. Our product has got really good traction in two months, with at least 8-10 big companies using it in private beta.<p>We want to be a part of YC and thinking of applying for W15 batch. Would it be a good idea? Is there a policy that prevents YC to accept companies in the same domain? <comment><USER2> YC has the exact opposite of that policy. They'll fund competitive companies. Numerous examples exist.

I would be prepared for the question "What do you understand about this that $COMPANY does not?", but you should expect them to ask that about the industry leader first, rather than about a startup with a market share measured in basis points, which describes the overwhelming majority of startups (YC funded or otherwise).

I would also be prepared to have people, perhaps including the YC folks and perhaps not, tell you "You're not actually in competition with them."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for clearing this out. This is also mentioned in one of their FAQs.

The companies who are our private beta customers have been using the other company's product (and a few others in the market) for long, and they were dissatisfied. We sat down with at least 15-20 of them and figured out what was the reason. We think we have "What do you understand about this that $COMPANY does not?" figured out. And the product has been very well received.

Actually, we ourselves think we are not in competition with them, because although we are trying to solve the same problem, our approach is starkly different from theirs. So, we're prepared for that as well. :)

<comment><USER3> You compete with someone if you are substitutable (customers choose one of you, not both), not because you do it a different way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should definitely apply. In my batch there was a company in the same space as mine, we don't compete directly but it's pretty close and certainly could down the road. They were very good about it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Peter Thiel on monopoly and competition is inspiring. Just in case you missed this</comment>


Ask HN: should I care about losing karma points? - <AUTHOR>

So apparently my ideas are very unpopular and I always get down votes. Does this matter or should I keep speaking my mind? <comment><USER2> Here are two comments you wrote that were downvoted, where you subsequently complained about being downvoted:

 _Thanks for what? Sounds like your opinion is made up. Still trying to figure out if this is a question. I like Ruby about as much as PHP; I think it 's more about what you build on the language or what framework you use._

This is an empty comment that includes a (mild) personal attack.

 _Dude, I 'm not your teacher. I come here to learn. Sorry, didn't mean to be rude. Just working right now. Maybe I'll post an example later._

This is just an empty comment.

In both cases, you'd have been better off saying nothing at all.

You were heavily downvoted recently for being supportive of Obama; I sympathize, but also wouldn't have written those comments because they're pointlessly asking for downvotes and anger. But your political comments don't seem to be a problem (you didn't complain after they got downvoted).

<comment><AUTHOR> I see my error in these instances. Good critique.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> X4's first line on Karma affecting your mood and life is dead on. Divorcing your self-esteem from these social indicators is important, but difficult as the whole point of them is social coercion.

Which in a round about way brings us back to why you should care (but only a little)- karma exists to push people into conforming with the rules of society on the site. If you are being punished too badly in the karma ranks you are not conforming. (Karma also has a lot of noise - a little punishment is to be expected.) This will presumably be punished with a hell ban after some instance of severe enough non-conformity, and with that you'll be straight out of the community.

I'd look at what you are doing, and if the things you are being punished for are things that matter to you (and thus perhaps you should give up on this place), or are stylistic, or some form of social grace. In the latter cases you could conform with little sacrifice and that would give you a better platform to interact with others on the site, while at the same time removing those ugly drops in karma:)

<comment><AUTHOR> Also a very sobering addition. Conformity has always been very hard for me and has caused me problems throughout my life. I've been kicked out of schools and thrown in jail for non conformity. Knowing this I have to constantly battle this emotion inside me. I want to be part of this community because I love tech and development. I need to find my place here and I think this comment helps me. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Downvoting is an attempt to feel "in control" by distracted individuals who disagrees with your opinion.

Make them irrelevant by expressing your free thoughts.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the assumption I have been operating on but it has made me mentally sick fighting battles that don't mean anything. I need to adjust the way I am contributing to and analyzing hacker news.

<comment><USER4> No. Adjust the way you feel about actions of others. Git rid of "wanting approval" and keep posting your genuine thoughts.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will try to find balance. I definitely want to get rid of the "wanting approval" aspect. I also want to continue to post my genuine thoughts but I a want to use more of a filter in what thoughts I post and post them to the appropriate channels. I am somewhat new to all of this and I am trying to find my balance. Thank you for your support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There you go, a little bit of karma for you ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha thanks. This isn't a karma grab though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't care about virtual Karma. Really don't! It's addictive, can destroy your mood and affect your life. The same applies for "likes". See it as a kind of addiction, a sickness, something that is manipulative and ill-fated.

I don't say anything about your comments, your style, or your person! I'll let others do help you with that, because I'm not qualified for that.

Life is about making the life of other people better. Your life only becomes better this way. Well, you might think about Oil barons, Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, PRISM etc., but the reality is that whatever they do makes someone's life better and people pay for it and in return their own life becomes better too.

One has to accept that even a million likes or karma points have a low potential of changing your life to the better. Many reading this will think that having million karma points will make you popular and that this has only upsides, but they aren't right.

If you "create" something instead of becoming popular for what you think, hate, like, adore etc. then you really make a difference in your life and especially in the life of other people.

We're speaking about a developer/manager career, no a political career, keep that in mind. (As a politician for example you're allowed to be a hypocrite as long as you can defend yourself with arguments.)

And if you notice that the time you invest in formulating arguments isn't respected, you're practically argueing in the wrong channel, with the wrong people or about the wrong topic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, very sobering. I am struggling with this recently. I have been trying to make people like me online and its been a losing battle. I believe you are correct about your suggestions. I am going to abandon my quest for recognition and do things help people instead. That is such a better use of time, yet it never occurred to me as plainly as you put it. Thank you

<comment><USER7> You can't make people like you, but you can be a likeable person, the way that you do that is to serve people. Help them better themselves and in the process you better yourself. You learn valuable skills like patients and empathy both go a long way and people see them in your actions. When people know you are a genuinely good person not acting in self interests they are more likely to genuinely like you both on and off line. The original poster is right, the quest for karma or any other recognition is a self serving quest, the fruits of which are always tasteless and unrewarding because they are a quest for acceptance hidden behind a trinket. Once you receive the trinket the acceptance for that act is gone and you are left in the same state you where before that. It's akin to a drug and it can become addictive, because it is not permanent, the high of momentary acceptance fades and you are back on the treadmill. Now if you contrast this with genuinely improving someone's life then every time you see the person you have helped in a better state you see the trophies of your accomplishments and is far more rewarding.

<comment><USER6> _Just in case it 's not clear enough, @kls doesn't mean attributing one's life to someone else or someone specific, it can easily be mistaken for that. There would be enough people who'd love to profit from such naivety in that matter._

<comment><USER7> Absolutely I am not suggesting being a door mat to people who would look to exploit you, or putting all your self worth into something external, helping to improve others is an internal quest, to perfect oneself. That being said, being kind to others and generous to others and the ones that reciprocate are people you want to help because they are the type of people that view the world as water lifts all boats and do not have the mentality of someone has to loose for them to win.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


There's no space for today's young Einsteins - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/12/einstein-gravitational-waves-physics <comment><USER2> There most certainly is still space for amazing discoveries to be made by the next generation of brilliant young minds. The problem is that research is fragmented and while the problems are more complex than ever the access to the information that would let brilliant people unlock the universes secrets remains behind paywalls and in non-structured formats.

Reproducible research via a true Commons where all research is shared is about to be upon us.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nobody is trying to hire young einsteins today.</comment>


An Introduction to LLVM LibFuzzer - <AUTHOR> https://www.moritz.systems/blog/an-introduction-to-llvm-libfuzzer/ <comment><USER2> This is really cool. I'll be trying it out on my projects tomorrow!

Edit: already found some bugs!</comment>


Ocropus - Google Code - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/ocropus/ <comment><USER2> I tried these out for converting image-only PDFs, but the installation was getting ever more complex and unstable. I made a time-is-money decision and purchased Vividata - *nix based command line utility - which is a shame as I would've liked to have got these working. Almost all the other products were Windows based - urrgh! If anyone has a different experience, I'd be pleased to hear from them...

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if there's a market for an OCR web service?

</comment><comment><USER4> Does it work? Last time I tried a Google OCR it didn't work at all (forgot the name, something with t).

<comment><USER5> You're probably thinking of Tesseract.

I've actually been doing some work with various OCR tools the past few days. Tesseract and Ocropus didn't work very well for me, but I don't think mine is the intended use. I have a need to identify images that contain text (which could be on top of a complex background) and most OCR applications are better suited for reading scanned documents. So far GOCR has produced the best results for me.

I found an article a couple weeks ago comparing a few OCR applications for scanning documents that someone might find interesting: <http://www.linux.com/feature/138511>

OCR quality is heavily dependent on font type, font size and contrast, but for many typed documents Ocropus and Tesseract do a pretty decent job.

<comment><USER4> In that article, tesseract seems to work the best. Maybe I should give it another try.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why can't all text inputs act like code editors? - <AUTHOR> Am I the only one that tries to move lines, wrap parenthesis or use multiple cursors in web apps/forms out of habit? I feel like the world is missing out. From a UI:UX perspective would you appreciate if an app offered a setting to enable editor mode on all inputs? <comment><USER2> Sure, if there were a magic wand we could wave then it'd be great. Instead someone has to spend years implementing these features. Implementing a good editor is surprisingly hard work; it could easily take a team of developers multiple years to write a new one. To make it an excellent editor would take years longer.

Instead we have addons like Edit with Emacs ([https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/edit-with-ema...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/edit-with-emacs1/)). At once point there was an addon that swapped Firefox's normal editor for a GTK widget that wrapped all of emacs, but it was a bit janky and I haven't used it in a decade or more. I'm not even sure it would still work.</comment>


Blood biomarker predicts death from serious infection - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-23/blood-biomarker-predicts-death-from-infection/6872948 <comment><USER2> This kind of finding is one of the benefits of centralized medicine, storing medical records in standardized electronic formats. It gives a rich base for finding out relationships. Those relationships still need to be investigated for biological mechanisms, but when you start with a biomarker to important medical outcome you are able to start the next phase of research with the important "so what" question already answered.

Also, I am encouraged that my practice of intermittent fasting might directly fight against the chronic low level inflammation that this article draws attention to.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24886300](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24886300) From this abstract "our results suggest that IF induces adaptive responses in the brain and periphery that can suppress inflammation and preserve cognitive function in an animal model of systemic bacterial infection."

One more reason to keep up IF</comment>


Kim Jong Un looking at things. Really. - <AUTHOR> http://kimjongunlookingatthings.posterous.com/

<comment><USER2> Hacker News worthy?

<comment><USER3> Nope. Flag it and move on.</comment></comment>


Man threatens to shoot Iphone; escorted to Genius Bar - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2009/10/02/man-threates-to-shoot-iphone-at-genius-bar/

<comment><USER2> Assuming the story is complete, I hope they're lenient on him. From where I'm seated, it doesn't look like he threatened anything besides his own property. Since he was cooperative when confronted, the mall owners would do well to overlook his lapse in judgement on their property.

<comment><USER3> Depending on the situation, the mall owners may have no actual recourse anyway. I know in my state, a "no guns allowed" restriction isn't enforceable for an entire mall unless every business in the mall posts a "guns not allowed" sign.

But, he could always be charged with stuff like disturbing the peace.</comment></comment>


How do I write so much, you ask? Well, glad you asked - <AUTHOR> http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=195

<comment><USER3> #11 FTA:

> Try to think of every visitor as an honored guest. If you think of "web > traffic," 15 visitors is disappointing. If you think of 15 people deciding > to spend time with you they could spend anywhere, and they're choosing to > spend it with you – they're choosing to spend their life energy reading your > thoughts – that's very cool and humbling, and suddenly chugging along with > 15 readers feels pretty good.

That really resonates well with me. Blogging feels--at least to me--like an isolated platform. It's me writing, and people may or may not read. But the idea that the author presents here is almost like sitting in a room with friends and telling them a story. It's a nice image.

<comment><USER4> It really is a nice way to think about things. Once, an early Microsoft employee reviewed one of my games on his blog, saying he'd been playing it for hours and enjoying it. Surrounding the review were posts about taking his Ferrari racing on track days.

I got a huge kick out of the fact that he chose to spend those hours with my game, given the entertainment it was competing against... though to be honest, given the choice I'd take the Ferrari!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, is this one of the crappy ones or one of the good ones ;) ?

Agreed whole heartedly though, if you are a 'producer' there will be tons of stuff that is not fantastic but that might be useful to somebody.

The funny thing is that it is unpredictable, what will be appreciated and what not. Sometimes I fire off a 10 minute blog post and it gets retweeted for days or even weeks after, and sometimes I work for hours and hours on something and nobody cares.

I see the 'lower grade stuff' as taking a break from the other stuff whilst still keeping busy. Sooner or later you find yourself engaged with more interesting things again, if you 'broke the routine' just because you're not doing anything worthwhile you'd find your source of inspiration dried up pretty quickly.

So keep busy, by all means, and fail often, looking forward to the gems. Like this one: <http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=95>

<comment><AUTHOR> > So, is this one of the crappy ones or one of the good ones ;) ?

I don't think it'll ever go into a museum, but I'm hoping there's some value in there for people :)

> The funny thing is that it is unpredictable, what will be appreciated and > what not. Sometimes I fire off a 10 minute blog post and it gets retweeted > for days or even weeks after, and sometimes I work for hours and hours on > something and nobody cares.

Isn't that the strangest thing? Yeah. Consistency of output leads to results.

> I see the 'lower grade stuff' as taking a break from the other stuff whilst > still keeping busy. Sooner or later you find yourself engaged with more > interesting things again, if you 'broke the routine' just because you're not > doing anything worthwhile you'd find your source of inspiration dried up > pretty quickly.

Great observation, this. I re-read it a couple times to get it down. Yes, even if the magnificent work isn't flowing, you keep going for inspiration.

> So keep busy, by all means, and fail often, looking forward to the gems. > Like this one: <http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=95>

Ah, cheers for the kind words. Didn't realize you read my site Jacques, gosh that pleases the hell out of me. By the way, I was so impressed by <http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+start-up+from+hell> \- I won't say I enjoyed it, per se, I was cringing through a lot of it. But wow, what a story and learned a lot from it. Regular reader of your site as well, cheers for the kind words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an attorney, I'm always concerned that my writing will not be my best work and people will think that I suck. Or that something I write will come back and bite me in the ass when I run for office or get vetted for some high powered job. However, fear or perfectionism can be paralyzing. Even as an attorney, you have to produce a lot of crap to produce good stuff. Judge Posner comes to mind. He blogs, writes about everything under the sun, and is brutally honest about his opinions regardless of the cost. Some of it is probably not the best and some of his opinions are off the wall. He also happens to be the most cited American appellate judge. Ben Casnocha touched on this here: [http://ben.casnocha.com/2010/05/career-lessons-from-elena- ka...](http://ben.casnocha.com/2010/05/career-lessons-from-elena-kagan-vs- richard-posner.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Contrast this with <http://freestylemind.com/how-much-do-you-value-your-time> , where Oscar contends that the internet is filled with mediocre content already, so traffic-wise you are better off to write less often but spend more time on each post than attempt to be prolific.

</comment><comment><USER8> A few things, as someone with a daily blogging schedule myself:

1: Fixing permalinks on WP requires messing with MOD_REWRITE. It's not hard, it just requires some .htaccess stuff.

2: Really, you're absolutely right. It's a matter of getting on the horse and forcing yourself to do it every day. I've given myself SOME time off this year, but I've largely blogged 95% of the time this year. It's pretty important that you write and don't stop.

3: The getting judged on your best work thing is important. You can't blog assuming that every post you do is going to be a big hit with the right readers. But some will hit very hard. I've had a few that have connected VERY well – a thing I posted on Ikea's switch to Verdana, a post on BP's photoshopping, and general political stuff that's kind of the bread and butter of my blog right now – but the important thing is that I keep writing and I can improve the quality of my work as I keep going.

4: I'm a fan of having some basic ideas in mind but not relying too heavily on notes. I'll do a lot of basic research on a topic, grabbing worth-reading pieces from HN, certain bloggers of choice, hearting them in Pulse, e-mailing them to myself or throwing them on Instapaper, but I think it's better to let the sparks come to you on the fly. Sometimes, my best post of the day will be something I spent less than ten minutes on, because I was able to put an interesting twist on it.

5: Sometimes you get lucky. My blog's been linked by Andrew Sullivan a couple of times. The Atlantic Wire links to me semi-regularly. Slate linked to me once. I get the occasional follow or retweet from someone I look up to. And it's even led to some freelance work. But the more important part is that you're not doing it for those occasional notices (though they're nice). You're doing interesting things because you want to do them and you can give them an interesting, unique focus. And that focus builds you an audience.

Look, there's a reason why a blogger like Instapundit has an audience. His blog is anemically designed by today's standards. He might as well be using Twitter/Tumblr (rather than using Twitterfeed to link back to his page). But he's owned his style of blogging. Same with Daring Fireball. The key to blogging is finding a niche, or a unique way of saying things, and making it yours.

Once you have that focus, the daily blogging comes easy.

</comment><comment><USER9> >> "You'll get judged by your best work."

well till you get an audience, then they are going to watch your back and you cannot the do something always, good or bad rule. you will have to be cautious.

also there are cases where your best work gets ignored given the bad reputation of the bad work. As long as there is humans infer this will be there, it is extremely hard not to be influenced by previous work.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Branches of science", eh?

I kind of think the moral of the story here is: "Wanna write a lot? Write crap! That's why I'm so awesome!"

It's true, of course, to an extent. "Writing crap" is absolutely essential in any creative endeavor. Otherwise that crap gets impacted, and the good ideas can't get out.

However, the editing and refinement process is at least as important, I think. If all you do is _just_ write a lot, most of it being bad, it might just all stay bad. You have to be _trying_ not to write crap, knowing that's what you'll often end up doing, and be ok with that.

It's the same in software development. Over-reliance on design can lead to analysis paralysis. Software is best when there's code first, and analysis afterwards.

It's probably worthwhile to have a dev branch and release branch in blogs, for the same reason as it makes sense for code. Friends and regulars can see the just-released content, but the mainstream page doesn't show anything that hasn't been vetted and carefully edited.

</comment><comment><USER11> Some people, such as the author, choose to write every day. Others, like PG for example, post much less frequently (thus keeping the SNR much higher). For most people, I think the sweet spot lies somewhere in between.

Whenever I strive to do something every day, it ends up feeling forced or contrived, and inevitably the quality drops. (I might be atypical in that regard?)

Furthermore, I think there _is_ such a thing as wearing down your audience. It's like you're lowering your own value. Sure, you might still produce really good piece on a weekly basis, but they live in the same house as all your other, potentially mediocre posts.

That said, I strongly agree that we should all try to write every day. I started blogging earlier this year, and only at that point did I realize how difficult it is. So, taking my first point into account – my suggestion is that you _do_ write every day, but not necessarily share everything you write. A journal is good for this, or even write it on your computer without publishing it. Whatever works. By doing so, I think you still develop your voice and style, without obligating yourself to add to your blog every day. This approach has helped me avoid burnout. Plus, there's something I really enjoy about writing things just for myself.

<comment><USER12> My feeling is that you should produce a lot, but that doesn't mean you need to _publish_ everything you produce. Writing every day is a good way to keep thoughts flowing (most writing self-improvement books recommend doing so). Publishing every day can be a good way to oversaturate your audience with drivel.

<comment><USER13> Yeah that's the thing really, writing every day helps your writing, publishing every day doesn't necessarily get you a better or more engaged readership. Most of us follow many peoples writing online, if everyone is writing everyday lots of it is going to be missed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wish more people would bold various parts of the article and break it up into sections like this - makes skimming much easier. I have been doing this on my blog for sometime and it's really the best thing for my readers. You can write the longest post ever but as long as it's well broken up and important parts highlighted/bolded you'll still get people commenting etc

<comment><USER15> I do this occasionally but never did it in earnest for reasons I hadn't really thought much about until I read "A list of N things": <http://paulgraham.com/nthings.html> .

 _You can write the longest post ever but as long as it's well broken up and important parts highlighted/bolded you'll still get people commenting etc_

I would tend to say that if some parts are important and others aren't, remove the unimportant parts until there aren't any left, then publish what remains. This is another practice I use, although sometimes with more success than others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps I misunderstand the industry, but isn't this how many photographers tend to operate? Sure, they're trained in technique, have a particular aesthetic, etc, but if you take 1000 pictures at an event and boil it down to the 20 "best" ones, you're going to be doing better than finding 20 out of 50?

</comment><comment><USER17> Average does not necessarily mean crap.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is an excellent blog, at least to me. I've stopped blogging for over 6 months, for one reason or the other. This will make me start again. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER19> As somebody who doesn't blog (and never did), I wonder if there is a difference whether you want people to follow your news feed or whether you market your articles on social news sites like this one. If it is news feeds, I'd say one of the things that make people stop reading a blog is too many unrelated articles with little original content. If it is social news sites a ton of mediocre, boring articles doesn't hurt.

</comment><comment><USER20> The equal-odds rule is simply wrong. A few examples: Andrew Wiles, Charles Darwin, John Forbes Nash. These people produced a small amount of work, but they shook the earth. Some people are geniuses, and some are not. It appears rather that some geniuses are prolific while others are not. Examples of some prolific ones: Einstein, Serge Lang.

Edit: A commenter pointed out that Charles Darwin goes in the second list.

<comment><USER21> I think it is difficult to actually assess the veracity of the equal-odds hypothesis. You don't know how much Darwin or Einstein threw away, or how much of their stuff was irrelevant and forgotten.

I was just reading this: <http://matt.might.net/articles/ways-to-fail-a-phd/> which notes that Einstein's phd thesis is both obscure and forgotten, and inaccurate compared to his later greatness.

I should add however, that the equal-odds thing is the way that i learned to be a better photographer. Shoot as much as you can, figure out what you did to take the good ones (I guess it's like the monte carlo method for artistic improvement).

<comment><USER20> I agree - there is a vagueness issue with the rule, and it is not obviously falsifiable. But as stated, the rule does not discuss unpublished works - <USER2> is a statement about published work, and the statement is that each scientist is throwing the dice when they publish, and there is nothing the scientist can do to increase his chances.

<comment><USER21> yes, fair point, the domain is published works. The observation about Einstein still stands though yeh? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sadly, you are only as good as your last piece of work - not your best piece of work.

</comment><comment><USER23> The lesson here: if you have a tendency toward perfectionism, like me, _fight it_. Produce things, a lot of things. Let your abilities develop by actually producing. Don't try to make One Great Thing. You're probably wrong about which thing is your One Great Thing anyway.

I was just reading the new introduction that Ray Bradbury wrote for _The Martian Chronicles_. It came together from a bunch of "asides" that he wrote just for fun -- he wasn't taking them very seriously. Then an editor saw them and suggested that they formed a whole story.

<comment><USER24> A repost here but an important one:

> Back around the age of 19, I had started sending my short stories out for > publication. My goal was to publish something (anything, anywhere) before I > died. I collected only massive piles of rejection notes for years. I cannot > explain exactly why I had the confidence to be sending off my short stories > at the age of 19 to, say, The New Yorker, or why it did not destroy me when > I was inevitably rejected. I sort of figured I'd be rejected. But I also > thought: "Hey – somebody has to write all those stories: why not me?" I > didn't love being rejected, but my expectations were low and my patience was > high. (Again – the goal was to get published before death. And I was young > and healthy.) It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so > hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, > for fear of criticism. Wasn't that the point of the creation – to > communicate something to the world? So PUT IT OUT THERE. Send your work off > to editors and agents as much as possible, show it to your neighbors, > plaster it on the walls of the bus stops – just don't sit on your work and > suffocate it. At least try. And when the powers-that-be send you back your > manuscript (and they will), take a deep breath and try again. I often hear > people say, "I'm not good enough yet to be published." That's quite > possible. Probable, even. All I'm saying is: Let someone else decide that. > Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a > year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back > letters telling you that you aren't good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don't > pre-reject yourself. That's their job, not yours. Your job is only to write > your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest.

Elizabeth Gilbert, NY Times Best Selling author of "Eat, Pray, Love"

<http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/writing.htm>

<comment><USER5> So, did you get published?

<comment><USER25> I believe that was a quote, in case you missed it. See the bottom of the GP's post.

<comment><USER5> Ah ok, I thought a repost from her own stuff with a follow up link. I get it now. Sorry... (I should get more sleep).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Geeky way of saying a million monkeys at a typewriter.

This is Michael Jordan's philosophy: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc>

Ira Glass believes that some people start out producing work that isn't as good or match their good taste. It's after a lot of work, trial and error, and mistakes that the disparity between your good taste and your good work match up.

Be patient, keep trying, be confidant. I should have joined a football team.</comment>