Capital One attacker may have breached other major corporations - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/07/capital-one-data-theft-impacts-106m-people/ <comment><USER2> From the snippets of text I've seen in various articles, it just sounds like she was bored? I imagine she had worked for a number of years and saved up a decent amount of money and decided to leave her job, had nothing to do all day and just posted at a Starbucks working on personal projects, which ended up including hacking into large corporations...?

Reminds me of my first manager, who was mid/late 30s and could've retired very comfortably long ago, and his primary motivation for working was because boredom, for him, would've been (in his words) a dangerous thing.

<comment><USER3> Is it paranoid to consider if this was a government actor? Boredom is plenty to keep someone from retiring, but digging into private customer data I'd think would take a pretty serious motivation. If I had the resources and wanted to wreck some havoc on the US economy data security (ie lack thereof) would certainly seem like a weak point worth prodding.

<comment><USER4> I don't think a government actor would put them on the same public github that is linked to their resume.. The only way I can see can see her being so smart and yet so dumb is if she didn't think much of what she was doing.

<comment><USER5> Probably had moments of insight and lapses of insight at different times.

It's a roller-coaster that a lot of people can't understand. Oh, and Capital One.

<comment><USER6> Possibly just slowly lost it because of what they see is a terrible industry with terrible practices. The suicide vest comments suggests she knew what she was doing.

Does she just want fame, or did she want to show them?

Maybe not though.

<comment><USER5> Or knew what she did, but there was no going back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know how she gained the IAM role? Many comments mention her exploiting a misconfigured WAF to gain the role needed to access the S3 bucket, but that is not enough detail to understand the attack.

<comment><USER6> FBI Report suggests something, probably an instance, was left opened to the world. Misconfigured firewall is what they said.

It's unclear why the resource couldn't widthstand attack, maybe it had known vulerable software, a weak password, I'm not sure it's been published, but something happened.

Whatever it is was able to assume the *-WAF-Role which had an amazing amount of access.

Given the name of the role and the stupid amount of access, I'd wager it was some shitty security product, but who knows. Maybe we'll find out.

<comment><USER8> modsec

<comment><USER9> What's wrong with modsec?

<comment><USER8> Nothing. The problem here was not the waf, but the credential/role being compromised.

<comment><USER6> Apparently it was both. The WAF was used to SSRF the metadata service which would have exposed the role.

Why a WAF role needed so much access to data is something that's hard to explain, and would suggest a major fuckup by the teams involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Basked on the slack comments and her behavior described in other stories ... it seems like she was struggling with life and ultimately chose some self destructive behavior.

The lack of security seems like she all but wanted to get caught, or actually did.

<comment><USER11> I read she literally posted stolen data to github. Might as well have called up the FBI herself

<comment><USER10> Some other evidence was on GitLab too...

Lots of crumbs left all over social media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Krebs claims "there is evidence to suggest we may hear similar disclosures from other companies soon".

[https://twitter.com/briankrebs/status/1156204409203908609](https://twitter.com/briankrebs/status/1156204409203908609)

<comment><USER12> From the article, there are a few other company names listed in the screenshot (caveat: these are just based on filenames, it's not 100% clear that these are the exact companies, they just seem to match):

42lines.net, apperian.com, globalgarner.com, astem.net, ford, identiphy (not clear which), codecademy.com, safesocial.media, starofservice.us, unicreditgroup.eu

There are other files in the dump, but it's not clear which companies they are.

<comment><USER13> Well hopefully this turns into a helpful public service in the end since she didn't _try_ to sell them or use them for fraud. So most will probably just get fixed, again I hope.

But she was basically asking to go to jail and this could have easily gotten her some good money if she reported it responsibly. Either as an infosec worker or through vuln rewards programs.

<comment><USER5> Hopefully she has foiled a malware attack or two in her past. Otherwise it's not looking good for her future.

She doesn't sound like the most... neurotypical, and US courts really hate that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's interesting that we're still in a place in 2019, where one motivated attacker, can compromise the security of major corporations, and access sensitive systems and data, and that those corporations don't realise/react to the breach until notified by external parties.

For security to improve, there needs to be a "mess up tolerance" of more than one (i.e. if a single mistake/vulnerability causes a major loss, you're in trouble)

Mistakes happen, vulnerabilities happen, security required defense in depth to be effective.

<comment><USER15> As someone responsible for Cloud security for the last several years at a couple of companies, I can tell you exactly how this happens.

You, the sec-ops engineer, propose your pie-in the sky, compartmentalized fortress. There is no one security domain, but many, with barriers in between them, so that having one part of your org compromised leaves the rest intact.

Then, you talk to your peers, and have many discussions of the form, "yes, that's secure, but it's really annoying to work with, and my engineers won't be able to monkey-patch the production environment to test stuff". you say, that's the point, the CTO says, you can't slow down dev.

So, you come up with something that's as secure as you can make it within the limited ability you have to impose inconvenience. Then it comes to implementing the thing.

You don't have time to implement everything yourself, so you delegate. Some people now have credentials to the production systems, and to ease their own debugging, or deployment, spin up little helper bastion instances, so they don't have to use 2FA each time to use SSH or don't have to deal with limited- time SSH cert authorities, or whatever. They roll out your fairly secure design, and forget about the little bastion they've left hanging around, open to 0.0.0.0 with the default SSH private key every dev checks into git. So, any former employee can get into the bastion.

Now, that's what happens when someone designs something secure from the outset.

When you start out with everything being in the default VPC, initially brought up by hand, with a subnet setting which default-assigns public IP addresses, you're basically boned, but that's where most companies which roll service in the cloud start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> did anyone notice the landlord got arrested too? when you see it...

[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/seattle-woman- arrested...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/seattle-woman-arrested-in- breach-of-capital-one-systems-millions-of-credit-applications/)

okay I'm dying laughing here, so much win and fail at the same time.

<comment><USER17> > While federal agents were sweeping the three-bedroom house where Thompson > lives they discovered 20 firearms — both assault-style rifles and handguns — > as well as firearm accessories, including bumpstocks, scopes, grips and > ammunition, in another bedroom, according to a separate complaint filed > against the homeowner, 66-year-old Park Quan.

> Quan, who was convicted of being a felon in possession of explosives in 1983 > and being a felon in possession of an unregistered machine gun in 1991, was > arrested and charged Monday with being a felon in possession of a firearm, > federal court records show.

> In the 1983 criminal case, Quan and two co-conspirators were linked to a > failed contract killing using a truck bomb made of dynamite, according to > court records and news reports. The bomb, which the would-be victim found > attached to the underside of his pickup in Ocean Shores, Grays Harbor > County, had malfunctioned, The Seattle Times reported at the time.

There are no words...

<comment><USER18> If you are already a felon for owning a gun, why the hell would you own a bumpstock? Just go full giggle at that point.

<comment><USER19> > Just go full giggle at that point.

Well it's not as if you can just break into any old gun store or rural home and find a select-fire weapon.

<comment><USER20> Just put a lightning link into your AR style rifle, and voilà, you have a full auto gun.

<comment><USER21> Pretty sure a lightning link is more "elect-fire", not select-fire. Not to mention much more dangerous than the relatively well documented and simple (highly illegal without an SOT) procedure that can be easily found to do a proper conversion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The thing that sticks out most to me is that from what's been disclosed, she didn't need any insider AWS knowledge or access to achieve these attacks.

<comment><USER23> I'm sure it didn't hurt to have the in-depth knowledge of AWS from working on their team.

<comment><USER7> Many articles are suggesting that she was able to do this due to her insider knowledge, this is untrue and shifts the blame off of C1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> She posted a lot of her technique on Twitter. If there were other breaches, they might have been copy cat attacks.

<comment><USER25> Those arent exactly novel techniques.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> so this attack is different because the culprit got caught? or am I missing something

why isn't this just the usual "we got breached" "Collection #3 available on Empire.onion" "sign up for another $125"

</comment><comment><USER26> if one individual can attain access to all of that data that "easily", it makes me flabbergasted at the type of data we and other countries are "acquiring" in our new age cyber warfare...

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder how Capital One could have been GDPR compliment. Surely they weren't going into these S3 files and deleting customer data when asked to.

</comment><comment><USER28> Tangentially related, half of those comments are yikes-tier.

<comment><USER29> Oof, I regret you posting this comment because I had to go look. Rampant litigation of gender pronouns, if me saying that saves someone else some time and brain melt.

<comment><USER16> Why are so many people in that forum contradicting themselves? Like they say something criticizing the prior person's opinion on gender and then say something completely intolerant. Is this a running gag? I never seen people misunderstand a topic so... halfway? Its usually more like "okay I'm learning" or "I completely reject this line of reasoning", but these comments are like something else

<comment><USER29> As with so many internet comment sections, sometimes, rather than trying to understand, it's best for your own mental health if you close the window, throw your computer in the trash, and go for a walk.

<comment><USER30> The people on the internet are not the people outside is how I always think of it. Too bad the internet denizens so frequently shape and mold the conversation.

<comment><USER29> Definitely an important thing to remember. I wonder what percentage of people out there are effectively "read-only" with regard to the public internet, never signing up for accounts (other than personal stuff like email) or leaving comments on news stories.

<comment><USER30> I think the majority tend to be lurkers for the most part. I believe the Pareto principle (80% of effects come from 20% of causes) maps pretty well to internet cultures based on statistics curated from some of the forums and aggregators around. Can't provide a source for that though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intercooler.js – Simple AJAX Using HTML Attributes - <AUTHOR> http://intercoolerjs.org/ <comment><USER2> i work on intercooler, you can AMA

as usual, a lot of negative comments from HN on the approach (which is admittedly against the grain) but I've used it for a relatively large and successful web app (rails back end) and it has worked out well compared to the SPA architectures I've had to deal with

i think the philosophical roots in REST/HATEOAS are worth considering, if you are open minded:

[http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/01/18/rescuing- rest.html](http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/01/18/rescuing-rest.html)

[http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/05/08/hatoeas-is-for- humans.ht...](http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/05/08/hatoeas-is-for-humans.html)

<comment><USER3> Have you tried something like prmd [0]? And if so, what are your thoughts on it?

I used it at my previous job, but didn't find it gave me that many benefits, although there wasn't anything particularly wrong with it either. It just seems like a challenging problem to properly solve with any organization.

I was initially really interested in GraphQL and Relay, but when I tried em out I found em lacking for our small engineering team. I feel kinda similar with all these other alternative tools. I think if you have any API stability problems, you need to tackle it at an organizational level. The API team needs to communicate openly with the web frontend and mobile app team (which might include a cross-section of highly-mixed-specialty people) to make sure all changes are fully backwards compatible. I don't think the tools do a great job at helping you tackle complex issues.

[0] [https://github.com/interagent/prmd](https://github.com/interagent/prmd)

<comment><USER2> I have used swagger a bit for JSON API development, but didn't find it added much over just keeping it simple and reacting to client needs.

I typically split my externally facing JSON API out from the main application (which uses HTML/intercooler) because the use cases are typically so different: the JSON API needs to be general and abstract whereas the web application UI has a lot of fiddly little specific data needs that are better implemented on the back end, where you have full access to the domain model and a proper query language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sometime ago I had an idea that SPAs exist mostly because animated transitions between pages make managers happy, not to serve any actual user need. If that's true, maybe we could add support for animated transitions between server-side rendered pages, and make SPAs mostly go away.

Then I realized we could do that easily with a JS library! We could give some divs a "sticky-id" attribute, so they stay as part of the DOM tree when the page reloads, only their contents get replaced with the contents of divs from the new page having the same "sticky-id". That way there's no flash to white, and CSS transitions on sticky elements get a chance to fire. The whole thing could be handled by a generic onclick handler on each link. And the links would support opening in new tab as well, the JS would only fire when they are clicked in the same tab. I think that would be the most conservative way to have an SPA-like experience with a minimum of JS. Unfortunately I was too lazy to implement it :-/

EDIT: It's interesting that most replies to this comment seem to talk about whole page transitions, like fading out the whole page. But as I envisioned it, the key part of the idea is that we can get _element-by-element_ transitions without writing custom JS, just by adding "sticky-id" attribute to some elements and letting their CSS transitions do the work.

<comment><USER5> [https://github.com/turbolinks/turbolinks](https://github.com/turbolinks/turbolinks) is pretty close?

<comment><USER4> Neat! Though the point of my idea is having animated transitions between pages, by replacing contents of sticky elements and letting their CSS transitions work as usual. As far as I can tell, turbolinks doesn't do that.

<comment><USER6> Kinda like this? [https://github.com/miguel- perez/smoothState.js](https://github.com/miguel-perez/smoothState.js)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, well... that still requires you to write custom JS. The thing I'm imagining would be based only on markup - which sticky ids exist in both pages. But the idea is really similar, thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I tried this library before but Vue does pretty much the same thing and is way more powerful. Additionally, starting out with Vue makes transitioning to a SPA much easier when needed.

I also encountered some bugs when mixing the 2 during a transition phase that broke my requests. If I had to start over again I would only use Vue starting with the drop in JS library (no webpack/preprocessing)

<comment><USER8> It may be worth mentioning that Vue is an entire framework with a crapload of features and caveats and whatnot and thus not exactly an equivalent of an especially flexible PJAX library which is the best definition I can come up with when defining Intercooler

<comment><USER9> Vue is not a framework, at least not in it's simplest form - drop in UI library.

I agree that Vue does much more than Intercooler and in theory, it could be seen as an overkill. But in reality, a developer will probably use it in conjunction with jQuery and then he might be better off replacing these two with Vue.js

<comment><USER8> The thing is literally called

      The Progressive
      JavaScript Framework

I mean, regardless of anecdotal specific usage, vue _is_ a framework. And a nice one too! Just entirely too much for something that can be fulfilled by a simple pjax tool

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems useful when you've written a traditional server-side rendered app and you just want to "sprinkle" some AJAX onto it.

Back when I used PHP 5-6 years ago, I would use an "AJAX" helper built into the CakePHP MVC framework which would generate JavaScript for really basic AJAX requests. It was great for rapid prototyping and even production for admin panels and such. It's cool to see a similar, client-sided, framework- agnostic library like this with similar functionality.

</comment><comment><USER11> Previous thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12885980](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12885980)

<comment><USER12> > This has been reposted so many times by the author and by others that I > can't help but finally ask.

Which hilariously begins with the statement:

>> This has been reposted so many times by the author and by others that I can't help but finally ask. What's the point?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is it me or this library gets posted on here every other month?

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm missing something. What's the _problem_ they are solving? It looks like they are offering a more limited way to make AJAX calls. _Why?_

To add -- it depends on jQuery? Yeah, I'm gonna have to pass. What this thing does is so small that I can't fathom why they would need to import all of jQuery just to provide a new way to do AJAX requests.

I'll just keep using React, it probably already solves whatever problem is trying to be solved here.

<comment><USER7> It's supposed to be used before you reach for a full blown SPA framework when you just need sprinklings of AJAX.

<comment><USER14> > when you just need sprinklings of AJAX

Then it is even more antithetical to import jQuery. I might as well use an SPA framework instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great, another 60KB library (not including dependencies!) that can replaced with a few lines of plain Javascript without any dependencies.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's 10KB gzipped (30KB non-gzipped) + jQuery. And that is pretty much everything you need.

<comment><USER16> Even 10KB is way too much for a simple

       r.text()).then(t => this.innerText = t); return false;">Click me!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've made a similar declarative ajax

[http://muayyad-alsadi.github.io/ajax-ops/](http://muayyad- alsadi.github.io/ajax-ops/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Well done, simple and clean.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is it just me or "Live Demo" actually doesn't send any AJAX requests?

<comment><USER18> They are mocking the requests for the demos via mockjax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is fine if you build a website or a small app. But I wouldn't recommend this approach for a more serious/big app. You will end up with unmaintainable soup.

<comment><USER21> My experience building a large flask app with jinja2 templating (large in that the app is ultimately a mix of ERP/manufacturing management/customer+supplier portal). The intercooler approach combined with flask blueprints and template folders is extremely maintainable. It is easy to comprehend all aspects of what is going on at any time. Can get a decent developer up to speed to be productive with it, within days. The vast majority of businesses would never need a heavier framework than this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> [http://barbajs.org](http://barbajs.org) is superior in every way.

<comment><USER2> lol intercooler does a ton more than barbajs does with almost no javascript, they aren't even comparable

as w/ pjax or turbolinks, barbajs is a fine library, but it isn't trying to create HTML++ and there isn't much REST-ful theory behind it

i'm sure it's good for a lot of stuff though</comment></comment>


Charles Krauthammer note to readers: "My fight is over" - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-note-to-readers/2018/06/08/3512010c-6b24-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.975273cbd589 <comment><USER2> Commenters: if you won't resist the temptation to rehash stale political controversy out of respect for a human person, then please resist because it's dreadfully tedious and obviously against the guidelines.

> _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless you have > something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic > tangents._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm far less progressive than most HN commenters. For me, his columns were well-written and well-reasoned. I disagreed with half of them.

What I liked most is that he made me think.

<comment><USER4> Sadly many folks have forgotten that the point of opinion writing is exactly to make us think, whether we disagree with their conclusions or not.

<comment><USER5> That has never been the point of an opinion piece. The point of an opinion piece is to lie, cajole, trick, etc people into accepting your opinion or viewpoint. That's why newspapers separate news from opinion. The point of the opinion piece is opposite of getting people to think. The point of it is to stop people from thinking. It's to get people on your side.

<comment><USER6> There are surely some people these days who approach things like this, and they come from both political polarities. But as DanielBMarkham points out nearby, it hasn't always been this way.

And even today, there are plenty of people who, I think, strive for finding truth (e.g., Scott Alexander, Megan McArdle)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My most remembered opinion piece by him was 'Raise the gas tax. A lot' Quite the opposite to most conservative energy policies. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles- krauthammer-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer- raise-the-gas-tax-a- lot/2015/01/08/5b4b407c-976f-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> After hearing the news, I found out he's actually been in a wheelchair since college, when he broke his neck in a swimming pool, and he doesn't have much use of his arms. His story is pretty courageous from that stand point.

<comment><USER9> > he broke his neck in a swimming pool

This seems to be an understated danger. Whenever I hear about a young person confined to a wheelchair, it seems as likely as not that their mistake was diving headfirst into unexpectedly shallow water.

<comment><USER8> My old college neighbor did the same thing, drunk at a 3rd friends wedding. He's in a wheelchair now. One more thing a parent has to stress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> His work will be missed.

I regularly scan opinion columns from people all over the political spectrum. I enjoy reading well-reasoned essays whether I agree with them or not.

Krauthammer always provided well-reasoned essays. Whatever the issue, if the public got too far out ahead of it, either for or against, Charles was quick with a "Harumpphh" and a clever one-liner to point out that we should be more circumspect.

I stopped watching cable TV news years ago. Charles Krauthammer is one of a few commentators that I missed watching on a regular basis. He was a grumpy old uncle who had been around the block a time or two and was going to set me clear on how to think about some issue. Most of the time I just ignored him, but it was fun having him around anyway. The world will be a poorer place without his work.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hmm... it is unfortunate. I always remember him for pushing super hard for the invasion of Iraq and thus partially responsible for the deaths of 100,000s at least and also more than $T of funds used for that war:

"Time is running short. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. He is working on nuclear weapons. And he has every incentive to pass them on to terrorists who will use them against us."

From: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2002/04/19/w...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2002/04/19/we- cant-blow-it- again/79cca890-0bea-4e2d-ba8b-3787989d87cf/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.79f457320126)

<comment><USER12> Democrats and Republicans alike pushed for it based on the intelligence available at the time [0]. To call him partially responsible for 100,000s of deaths is very unfair and not very classy considering he's dying soon.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War)

<comment><USER13> I hear this argument a lot, and I just can't agree with it. The biggest miss was about chemical weapons, which even if true, would have been an entirely inadequate justification for the war that followed. The nuclear argument was never well supported and clearly looks fabricated in hindsight. To talk about bad intelligence is to accept that invading a country to preemptively to remove a dictator is a moral action, which is repeatedly demonstrated to be the exact opposite when viewed as a whole.

The results of the Iraq war were foreseeable by those that pushed for it. I can't accept that we should just politely not mention it because someone is dying of cancer. This is a war and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. It's a big deal.

<comment><USER14> > invading a country to preemptively to remove a dictator is a moral action

That is widely believed. For example, that's exactly what Obama and Hillary did in Libya.

<comment><USER13> And the current disastrous result is just as predictable and evil as Iraq. Maybe more-so because we have such a recent example of why it is such a bad idea.

<comment><USER14> Quite true. And yet there was immense pressure to do it, often from people who were vocal opponents of the Iraq war (notably the French government).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> OT: Is asking for money to opt out of tracking and personalized ads actually GDPR-compliant?

<comment><USER16> That's being debated in the privacy community as "consent-or-pay." The short answer is that we don't actually know. There are arguments on each side, and I tend to think (a) the plain reading of the law suggests no and (b) for a number of reasons, regulators will probably decide to rule that it's okay, but the reasoning that gets me there is pretty complicated.

<comment><USER17> "Consent or pay" _sounds_ so hilariously wrongheaded on its face. I'm imagining someone using that approach in literally any other aspect of their lives and seeing how well it flies.

<comment><USER16> Well, in most other aspects of our lives, incentivized consent is allowed (and in fact it one of the foundations of contract theory). The GDPR has effectively disallowed it, which is one of the provisions here that actually reduces consumer autonomy rather than increasing it. The GDPR is going to make the internet a more expensive place, whether you think it's a good thing overall or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Recent turmoils in the US and the World in general, has me wonder about a different aspect of this. For those who don't like the current state of affairs in the world (Trump, Brexit, "populist" movements everywhere), it is awful to leave from this world not knowing what will happen to your family and friends. The scene from "The Matrix, not like this..." is what comes to my mind.</comment>


Yahoo Announces Open Search Platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/25/yahoo-announces-open-search-platform/ <comment><USER2> It looks to me like "open search results" platform. While cool, I think deeper access would be far more beneficial to both third parties and Y!. But it's certainly a step in the right direction.

<comment><USER3> Yeah. The real name should be something like Yahoo Opt-In Search Result Decorator Platform.

It's harder to loop third parties into actual search processing and ranking -- for one thing, they would have an incentive to rank their own results the highest. Yahoo has an incentive to keep results globally relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the article: a set of APIs that allow third parties to modify search results on Yahoo by adding images, structured data and additional deep links.

This will require some really strong safeguards against spammers and pranksters. For example, if Yahoo only require an image reference then won't take long before users get goatse.

<comment><USER3> Mostly, you have to opt in. There are a few ones turned on by default.

Someone would have to provide a genuinely useful service and then turn prankster. Could happen, but unlikely.

<comment><USER4> A friend works at an unnamed newswire and he's shocked by the lack of safeguards.

It would be possible for Yahoo to trust a reputable newpaper which trusts a reputable newswire which trusts a third party affiliate which inadvertantly gets goatse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is a really smart move. This could make Yahoo search something more enjoyable to use than Google. I personally like the added 'widgets; of Ask search but their results aren't as good. I think Yahoo is much closer in quality to Google so something like this could really help them.</comment>


NASA's sounds are now on SoundCloud - <AUTHOR> http://earthsky.org/space/nasas-sounds-are-now-on-soundcloud?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

<comment><USER2> Sadly it seems to only be short clips (<30 seconds), and not longer recordings (from launch, etc). Cool nonetheless.</comment>


Show HN: Soccer Buzz – Football News Aggregator - <AUTHOR> https://soccerbuzz.me <comment><USER2> Reddit.com/r/soccer is also great.

Not sure if I am a fan of the aggregatation, but will try it out.

Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Dixons Carphone CEO Sebastian James on the Connected Home - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2015/03/11/dixons-carphone-ceo-sebastian-james-on-the-connected-home/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=WSJ_corp_intel

<comment><AUTHOR> Money quote:

"Mr. James wants to not just sell so-called connected devices, or those that can hook up to the Internet, but also install, service and monitor them.

"'Our influence on people's lives is about to get much more profound,' he predicted, speaking at an industry event in London on Wednesday. 'We at Dixons Carphone are trying to deliver something new. Not equipment but instead your home working. Of course, it includes equipment, but it's installed, it's monitored, it's repaired, it's kept working at all times.'"

Home-automation, or IoT, will be placing technology into one of the most personal spaces of people's lives, their home. But it isn't going to take-off until its customer experience moves beyond that which only the DIY or Makers can enjoy. This sort of accreted services of IoT is what people need, at least at first, in order to build the confidence needed for this to happen.

Any architect over 70 will tell you this is like the 3rd time home-automation has tried to get air under its wings. For many reasons, but mainly a mix of fractionalization and poor UX, it never grew to the point where it could become affordable. I remember back in the early-2000's the SmartWeb Fridges and stoves that never made it because of cost and other issues. Now mix-in security issues along with the perennial fractionalization and poor UX, and this "future" could end-up like GoogleGlass.

It's going to be fascinating to see how all of this works out.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you get good content and avoid informational junk? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> How about you specify which subjects you are interested in?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm usually interest in too much stuff. I found this yesterday which is a nice source.

[https://www.slowernews.com/](https://www.slowernews.com/)

<comment><USER2> Terrific, thanks for the link!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best GitHub commit status checks? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious to hear what status check integrations people are using on GitHub pull requests? <comment><AUTHOR> To start things off, these are the ones I use daily:

\- CircleCI for CI build status

\- Coveralls for unit test coverage

\- Assertible for integration tests status

For example: [http://i.imgur.com/ZrKUK3t.png](http://i.imgur.com/ZrKUK3t.png)

Any new ones I should check out?</comment>


MBA - good or bad for a tech start-up? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/db6576f89fd9 <comment><USER3> I really think that MBAs ruin good companies, especially when they hold all the top executive positions and the engineers are relegated to the lower ranks. You get big and all those people smell the money, as push those who built it below them. It's a really struggle to keep them in check. You can look to Wall St. for a very clear example to see what happens when they run everything.

That being said, many engineers tend to alienate customers and make bad business decisions. I know quite a few, and the idea of them interacting with our clients scares the crap out of me.

The key is balance, I think. Here's a tell: if your CTO can't code and only has a educational background in business, be worried.

<comment><USER4> There are so many generalizations here I wouldn't know where to start. I know plenty of folks that don't have MBAs that "smell the money" and "ruin good companies."

Also, might help to understand that MBAs come in all shapes and sizes. It's like saying you have an EE degree. Is that computer architecture? digital or analog communications? solid state?

Not all engineers are the same, so why do you seem to put all MBAs in the same bucket?

<comment><USER3> Of course it's a generalization. I wrote a three paragraph post, not a thesis. You want to argue the point or be argumentative-internet-guy because you found a way to deconstruct the intricacies of my three-paragraph post?

My point is, is that companies with top-heavy business-grad management tend to be crappier companies as opposed to companies with a balance between business and technology. Don't try to change my argument into, _"Hey! My cousin Larry has an MBA and he's a great guy!"_

<comment><USER4> "top-heavy business-grad management tend to be crappier companies as opposed to companies with a balance between business and technology"

I'm challenging the basis of your analysis, which uses a flawed example (look at Wall Street!) and seemingly anecdotal evidence to come to your conclusion.

I'm clearly not changing your argument. I'm challenging your analysis.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it's anecdotal evidence. Yes, it's a generalization. It's clear I was stating opinion. That's why I used pre-qualifying words like _"I think"_ and _"I know some"_. It's based on experience, not data. Congratulations for pointing out the obvious. So stop trying to deconstruct everything I said like it's some sort of thesis on the tech industry.

Sure, not every round peg fits into a square hole, and you can always find exceptions. But there's still a general consensus that can be built through common experience, and I think the truth of that is shown in all the votes my original comment is getting. Agree with it or don't, but please don't internet-argument-guy because someone on the Internet shared an opinion.

<comment><USER4> There's no truth in internet voting. I suppose that means you believe all the polls on MSNBC or something like that.

I also find it funny that you want to voice such a negative opinion of a group of people and not expect it to be picked apart from the obvious flaws in logic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's amusing how quickly the HN sentiment can completely contradict itself.

Anytime there's an MBA article posted, the overwhelming number of comments are about how terrible MBA managers are and how many organizations suffer from their money-grubbing ways.

Then you get stories like the Ecomom debacle where the comments basically repeated the "Founders need to understand business and financials." platitude about 200 times.

Many commenters don't seem to realize that a huge number of MBAs (especially from good schools) have technical backgrounds and are doing the MBA to gain better organizational and financial knowledge. Granted it's less common in software, but most companies in the sciences and physical engineering domains have tons of engineer-MBAs.

As for startups, would an EE/MBA not be a huge asset for a newly formed company? Even forget the EE for a second, would a former sales guy with an MBA not be valuable? A good MBA teaches accounting, finance, marketing / advertising, market-research, supply chain / logistics, as well as the more recognized organizational structure, management, and conflict resolution pieces. Obviously, after only two years, students won't be experts in those fields, but they'll be much better off from anyone trying to learn accounting on wikipedia.

<comment><USER6> That depends originally MBA's where for high flyers in blue chip companies who did their MBA after a number of years experience.

Now you seen people getting an MBA with no or little real word experience not sure this sort of MBA is much use to a start up - though I am sure the big 4 consultancy can rent then out at a huge day rate to tell you the time using your watch.

And having worked on the campus at CIT the Business school was not regarded by at least a proportion of the students as being quiet as good as a proper MSC /PHD

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The real value of an MBA is the signalling it provides future employers - <USER2> you are sufficiently smart, diligent & focused to get into a B school, and prepared to do long & arduous hours for the company in order to get ahead.

The content is beneficial but inconsequential - not much more than a broad survey of intro/mid level undergrad stuff - and certainly nothing that a mildly dedicated auto-didactic couldn't learn with a local library card.

The tech world is one in which there are many ways to signal competence, and I'd argue that an MBA is a highly inefficient way of doing that. And even if you do find a tech company that does value MBAs, do you really want to work for one that values inefficient mechanisms or academic pedigree highly over say, competent contribution to open source?

That said, I don't regret doing an MBA - it was the seed that lead me to where I am now - doing a PhD in Philosophy

</comment><comment><USER8> There's the issue of path: this guy is intrinsically interesting because he got significant experience in the real world and _then_ went for a MBA. These individuals are likely to have significantly benefited from it, vs. a direct path from undergraduate to an MBA program and then "hello, real world."

I'll bet he also has a good idea if the ROI is going to be worth all the costs.

<comment><USER9> Any MBA program worth it's salt doesn't let people in unless they have work experience.

<comment><USER10> That said, you may want to check out the average age at entry in the top-10 MBA programs. I was surprised how low it was.

<comment><USER11> For those wondering, average age is usually around 26-28, iirc. 4 years of experience is the average, with about 50% of the student body having 3'ish years of experience in a finance or consulting firm.

<comment><USER12> Yes, and you can bet that most of the 26-28 year olds have been on the track to an MBA since their undergrad, pausing only to gain just enough experience to make it into a top B-school.

<comment><USER8> And it's questionable if that satisfies my "significant experience" criteria.

They _will_ have a grounding in the real world; whether they have enough of one will of course depend on the individual.

For that matter, if they grew up helping run the family business(es) as I sort of did, they could potentially go straight to B school with little to no harm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wouldn't phrase it as a question of Good vs. Bad, but rather Necessary vs. Unnecessary.

For me, it's a return-on-investment question, whether the 2 years and $100k+ in tuition would advance my ambitions more than 2 years of building and $100k that could go towards self-funding.

<comment><USER14> > $100k that could go towards self-funding

This is not really accurate. The 100K for the MBA will likely come from financial aid which can be paid over time, maybe 6-10 years. Thus it is generally not paid with cash on hand.

At the same time there is no $100k financial aid to start a company. Sometimes you can find family money or smaller personal loans, but 100K for a biz is much harder to come by and not the same as 100K of Gov backed financial aid.

This is apples and oranges here...

That being said, your main point re ROI stands..

<comment><USER15> The $100k of personal debt you take on to obtain an MBA is worse than startup funding: aside from the fact that most startup funding is based on equity and is never repaid, that "government backed financial aid" isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy; you are more or less going to have to pay it back no matter what.

<comment><USER16> That is true the terms are worse. If you can get seed funding go for it. The other thing an MBA gives you though is a pretty soft landing pad if your startup fails.

<comment><USER15> Disagree! Lots of people have MBAs. It's not an effective differentiator. A smart, ambitious engineer can do most of the jobs an MBA normally qualifies for, so MBAs have that source of competition too. Meanwhile: your landing includes $100k of non-disposable debt.

A couple years ago, I worked for a UMich MBA in a product marketing role. I remember hearing about how MBA's weren't worth getting unless you got one from a top school. But that was years ago. In 2013, even if you can pick one up from Wharton, you're still probably going to end up worse-off unless you manage to parlay the degree into a role in finance.

Don't get an MBA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It depends on which type of MBA they are.

-"I got an MBA at night school so I could be a more effective manager" vs.

-"I got an MBA as a ticket to the upper middle class"

Obviously you may want to hire the former, but not the latter.

I once got accepted to an MBA program but declined to attend because I realized I was the latter of the two types and it would be a waste of money if I didn't use it for social climbing purposes. So I decided to focus on my career and skills rather than my educational pedigree.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you are wondering if you should pursue an MBA:

"In the consumer Internet world, [an MBA] is a major disadvantage because of the opportunity cost of 2 years during the prime of your career." –Keith Rabois

Shameless plug: [redacted]

<comment><USER19> I would agree with this completely. I was in an MBA program from the ages of 23-25. A year later, the company I was working for started to run out of money. I had a lot of time on my hands throughout the day, so I started going through programming tutorials thinking it might be good mental exercise.

I started really getting into it, and now I've spent a ton of time over the intervening year learning and practicing. I think back and wonder where I might be now if I had started at 23 instead of going back to school.

It's not that what I learned wasn't worthwhile; it's that it took an amount of time and money disproportionate to its value.

On top of that, while I only (ha) paid about $58k for mine, having that amount of debt really hinders one's flexibility.

<comment><USER4> At 23, how much work experience did you have? Going into an MBA without adequate work (and life) experience is indeed a waste.

<comment><USER19> That might be true for certain classes or certain programs, but it didn't matter a bit for 90% of what I did.

Life experience doesn't help you project free cash flow, consider the complexities of pricing strategy, understand accounting rules, or really, do anything else we did over the course of those two years.

Maybe it helps with management classes, but the only management class I took was a complete throwaway.

Edit- Got hung up on the life experience bit and didn't address work experience, but in many cases, much of the same applies. There was nothing conceptually difficult about any of the classes I took. At times, my work experience was relevant, but the only benefit was needing less time than some of my classmates to internalize some of the ideas.

Now, I realize that I can't just jump in to a position where someone with 10 years of experience in X + an MBA would be, but that was never my expectation. My expectation was to get good foundational knowledge in a variety of areas. And I got that, just not to the extent I expected. I was just disappointed in how easy a lot of it was.

<comment><USER4> What's important about the experience is being able to put the information you're receiving in context and understanding how great the opportunity is to build long-lasting relationships with a group of people that will have a high percentage of successful members.

Getting an MBA is not just about the mechanical absorption of how to do a free cash flow or doing a paper on organizational behavior.

Frankly, more insight and knowledge was gained from classmates than from the textbooks and case studies we had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you realize an MBA has little to no value in a real world tech startup, then it's probably neutral. If you think it has value ( = derive false confidence from it), then it hurts you.

With rare exceptions, I wouldn't hire any recent MBA who references their degree more than once in an interview.

</comment><comment><USER21> good - (BSc Toronto, MBA Ivey) Having more exposure to tools, and an important network at your level makes an engineer with ideas far more valuable as a business leader in a smaller company or start-up. It doesn't help much in larger companies, or when everyone has an MBA.

</comment><comment><USER22> The only good thing i've seen obtained from an MBA is connections. If you don't go to a school that can provide a wealth of that (really just the ivy- league MBA programs from what i've seen) then its a waste of your time and money.

Get real-world experience, it counts for more. Especially when i'm the one doing the hiring.

<comment><USER23> I think you might be underestimating the knowledge/skills gained from an MBA. A lot of non-MBA folk don't move up very fast in organizations (in business roles I suppose), one reason I think is because they don't completely understand how to manage people, I suppose you could learn it on the job, but it would be a lot easier and more structured if done through an MBA program. Now that doesn't mean everyone should go get one, but I do think it helps to a certain degree. I'm not just talking about it from a startup perspective, but just a company/managing people perspective. A lot of the bigger tech companies Microsoft/Google/Amazon etc do tend to hire a lot of MBA's each year though.</comment></comment>


London: the new Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/london-the-new-silicon-valley-8890601.html

<comment><USER2> This type of question is most relevant to people considering which ecosystem in which to base their company, or part of it.

Having spent 2007-2012 doing a startup in London and the past year doing a startup in Silicon Valley, I've experienced both sides. I also had Silicon Valley investors in the first startup and spent time here every year since 2007.

London is catching up in some areas and you have to break the question down to make it useful. I'd look at the following areas that make Silicon Valley what it is:

Funding

\- Not much difference in availability of investors but you'll get roughly double the amount of capital at double the valuation at each stage in Silicon Valley.

\- Reason for similar availability is that there is at least an order of magnitude more investors at seed/early stages in Silicon Valley but a similar proportion more startups.

\- At seed/early stage, Silicon Valley investors have higher expectations for growth and London investors have higher expectations for business model validation.

\- Silicon Valley was much further ahead 5 years ago due to fewer investors in London and fewer startups in Silicon Valley.

\- In London the tax incentives for seed investing and VC firms started by successful entrepreneurs (Atomico, Notion, ProFounders etc.) are changing this.

\- In Silicon Valley, YC and its copycats are creating more high quality startups.

\- At later stages, investors are still almost all American but they are comfortable investing across the pond by then.

Talent

\- Proportionally more top people in Silicon Valley than in London across all functions.

\- You'll pay 50-70% of the salary for people of an equivalent level in Silicon Valley and the cost of living is similar to London.

\- Hiring is an order of magnitude less competitive in London than in Silicon Valley.

Acquirers

\- Silicon Valley is dramatically better. London has no talent acquisition market and because all the active large acquirers are in Silicon Valley, they prefer local deals. This feeds all the way down to early-stage valuations which need to be so low in order to tie up with the poor exit market in London.

Ambition and role models

\- One of the biggest differences. Mentality of being best in the world is far more ubiquitous in Silicon Valley than London.

\- This has serious implications for you as a founder as your ambition levels are heavily influenced by the people you surround yourself with.

Accessibility of a large market

\- Most billion dollar addressable markets you can target are mainly composed of the US market.

\- For cultural reasons on the consumer side and relationship-building reasons in B2B, it's much easier to win the large markets when starting in Silicon Valley.

Overall London is catching up and one $10B+ success story will accelerate closing of the gap, but there are some structural reasons that mean there's always likely to be gap.

I wrote a guest post discussing the growth of London a couple of years ago, and things have continued in the same direction since: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/27/the-european-startup- ecosys...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/27/the-european-startup-ecosystem- arrived-but-paul-carr-wasnt-paying-attention/)</comment>


So You're Not Desirable - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/opinion/sunday/so-youre-not-desirable.html <comment><USER2> The article makes a good case for "when they get to know you, some of them will fall for you."

When I was still young and at least somewhat cute, I remarked to a friend how depressing it was that women always go for rich and arrogant men. My friend's reply absolutely changed my perspective on this: by choosing socially well- accepted and successful men they actually place a lot more emphasis on the inner values than males do. In a very real sense, women love you for who you are (=rich and successful) as opposed to what you look like (=a characteristic you can't do much about).

Contrast that with male perception, if you think a girl is attractive, everything she says suddenly sounds meaningful and important. Of course the article is correct, once you actually get to know people, this changes. But for getting the foot in the door so to speak, attractiveness and an aura of importance respectively are probably still the most important vectors.

I just want to mention for completeness' sake, and only because it would be taboo to express this in a magazine article: if you're really unhappy with the dating rat race, and it's genuinely not realistic for you to improve your chances by optimizing these superficials, it _is_ possible to just opt out of everything. I know it's controversial and for some reason it upsets a lot of people when I tell them that I just stopped. Contrary to popular belief, this mating thing is not something which you _absolutely must accomplish_. I've crossed to this other side, and it's really really peaceful here. ;)

<comment><USER3> Being rich is an inner value? I have the impression that how much being rich has to do with your own will is still not decided. If anything, social mobility has been shown to be very overrated in recent years. And then one can ask, how much did that one person striking millions have to do with ingenuity, and how much was it just being at the right place and time (lucking out)?

One could say that, 'in a very real sense, men love you for who you are (how is how you look not part of "who you are"?) and not for auxiliary things that have nothing to do with you as a person, such as money'. It's all just semantic quibbling, anyway.

<comment><USER2> _> Being rich is an inner value?_

Being successful is, and being rich is one of the markers for success. I had problems with this view as well until it was explained to me from a woman's perspective. The operating assumption being, as I said earlier, that men and women use different heuristics to do preliminary mate filtering. By and large, you get through the filter by being beautiful as a woman, and by projecting success as a man. The argument goes that beauty has absolutely nothing to do with inner values, while success does (false positives not withstanding).

Then again, there might be a huge cultural component to this. I come from Germany, which has the most unapologetically darwinistic dating scene I ever experienced. German girls are by and large no-nonsense, goal-oriented, and not prone to poetic whimsy.

 _> One could say that, 'in a very real sense, men love you for who you are (how is how you look not part of "who you are"?)_

Hey, the darker part of my epiphany story is actually up to that conversation I had believed finding a mate was about finding a partner that matches your inner essence, finding someone who recognizes the "real you". So I had dismissed both success and beauty as meaningless, because they tell you nothing about that essence. Again, I was very young at that point and had a lot of misconceptions.

<comment><USER4> There's no 'moral' right or wrong either way - both are biological indicators.

Women often look for men who can provide for their children, and who are capable of producing sexually successful offspring. In violent climates, physically strong men are valued more than financially strong men as that's what's required to protect offspring.

Men often look for women who are fertile and healthy.

In both cases, market value is simply a partner who's capable of carrying on one's genes.

<comment><USER5> Man when I realized that people were really (subconsiously) seeking some biological imperative based on child survival from superficial materialistic characteristics instead of a best friend type to spend their life with in a mate it really messed up my head about the dating game. But you got to do what you got to do.

<comment><USER2> You're not the only one. When I was young I thought the whole thing was primarily about soulmates and less about the actual mating...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember during my first year at college looking through a friend's high school yearbook remarking on some of the girls I thought were cute but he didn't. He made comments that didn't have to do with their physical appearance - like "she was mean" or "she was rude". When he looked through my yearbook the same thing happened, we just switched sides. I thought it was interesting how knowing the person actually changed the assessment of how physically attractive someone was. Not overwhelmingly so but definitely enough to notice.

<comment><USER7> now that you mentioned it.. I remember a psychology course I took in college just a while ago mentioned that, female's evaluation of attractiveness is greatly affected by knowing the person's financial state/personality/social status etc. While male's evaluation of attractiveness is less affected by other factors. Not sure how true this theory is..

<comment><USER8> It is true, and it's caused for evolutionary reasons.

When people have sex, the woman is in a much more dangerous place than a man.

Having a baby for a woman is very costly. She needs someone to protect her while it happens and to help raise the child.

The cost for a man is very low. He only needs a couple minutes to do his part in making a baby, then he can leave at any time.

So with that in mind, lets say the scenario is like this:

If a man impregnates a woman and he stays, the chance the baby survives to reproduction is 90%.

If a man impregnates a woman and he leaves, the chance the baby survives to reproduction is 10%.

So with those statistics, the man is actually in a very advantageous position.

As long as he impregnates 10 or more women in his lifetime, he is ahead than if he had stayed with the same woman for all his life.

Of course, the more healthy the woman, the more likely the baby is to survive even if he leaves. Beauty = healthy in evolutionary terms. If the woman is pretty, maybe she can even get another guy to raise his kids for him! So men seek beauty primarily.

So for a man it is genetically superior to impregnate multiple women (which generally means not staying too close to any of them).

A female on the other hand, can only have children a few times in her life. And she only gets a few shots at it.

If the man leaves, her shot is very likely to end up in failure.

So the woman needs to be very picky about who she has children with. She needs to judge his character, to see if he will stay with her and raise the child. And defend her, fight off aggression, etc..

So to a woman, character is more important than beauty, because that's what determines if her genes survive or not.

Erotic fiction is a billion dollar industry and the vast majority of buyers are women. Manly man stories = porn for women.

<comment><USER9> "Having a baby for a woman is very costly. She needs someone to protect her while it happens and to help raise the child."

UK has a generous protection for single mother and it completely messed up traditional marriage institution.

<comment><USER10> And thank god it did. I'd rather live in a world with more single mothers and fewer dysfunctional/abusive/generally suboptimal relationships.

<comment><USER9> I should have said "changed" instead of "messed up", but sometimes it does feel like one big sociological experiment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure how this is helpful. I've known I'm personally more attracted to personality than looks. That's not the problem.

The problem is it's hard (at least for me) to get the opportunity to be around members of the opposite sex long enough for them to see my "uniqueness"

Personal examples. My last job of 5 years had 100 people on my floor only 2 of which were women. My friends are generally all geeks who have no women friends to include in our activities.

I'm not whining. Only pointing out that telling me it's okay because my uniqueness will win over my consensus desirability is not helpful because no one gets the chance to learn my uniqueness

<comment><USER12> Firstly, this is a problem I'm not sure is very common - I'm guessing most people _do_ hang out around members of the opposite sex, at work, with friends, etc.

Second, for your specific situation - you say you have a problem. But it's a very solvable one. Find places to hang out with members of the opposite sex. This can be anything from going to specific classes that have women in them and that you also enjoy (e.g. drawing? Pottery? I don't know, depends what you like).

You can also actively try to befriend people who hang out with women.

<comment><USER13> I used to think the same, then I tried to actually get into environments with a more balanced gender ratio, and I realized that actually I was not faring any better than before. Apparently I have low desirability and have few unique appeals/provoke low unique reactions.

At the end, it's inevitable: even if just by mere chance, someone _has_ to be in the lower 5% of people who get the least successful interactions with the other gender.

(Anyhow, his problem seems very common to me, but obviously my POW is skewed, since I got to know most of my friends in one of these place with unbalanced gender ratio in the first place)

<comment><USER12> Someone has to be in the lower 5%, it's true. But it doesn't have to be you or the parent.

It's absolutely true that the skills to make yourself seem more desirable are "learnable" skills. They also happen to correlate pretty highly with plenty of other important skills, like making better friendships in general, succeeding more in business, succeeding more in other spheres of life, etc.

That's because most of the things you need to improve to be more desirable is: a) make yourself actually more desirable, usually by doing interesting things/etc., and b) make yourself a better marketer, who knows how to actually _show_ that you're more desirable, in a way that doesn't turn people off.

I really recommend you and anyone else who has trouble "attracting" the opposite sex, read any of the Pick Up Artist material that's out there. Don't fall too in love with the "world of PUA", and don't take it too seriously, but do read it and practice it. It will _really_ improve your life, and not just in dating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel that this could have been stated much more simply:

1) There are personal attributes which are easily observable (mostly physical, also charismatic and possibly social status). This is basically what we can know about a person from appearance alone.

2) There are personal attributes which are less easily observable, and these include temperament, interests, response to various situations, behaviour outside of group situations. To know these things requires much greater time interacting with a person, possibly in smaller groups or one-on-one.

People's tastes in #1 are mostly uniform. Someone rated highly for #1 by one person is likely to be rated highly by any other person. The same is emphatically not true of #2, where ratings vary wildly.

As exposure to #2 increases, it increases in importance over #1. Let's say that #2 constitutes 80% of your overall "rating" of a person, and you really like them so they're a 9 despite scoring only a 5 on the initial assessment. Their total score is 8.2. Someone who scores a 10 for #1 but a 4 for #2 scores 6.2. These numbers might be off and they might vary between people but I think it's a pretty simple idea.

Most people are taking this as a suggestion about their own attractiveness, but the flip-side argument is possibly even more important - the person you're most likely to be really attracted to isn't necessarily the person who scores most highly on #1, and if you're using #1 as a filter then you're ruling good people out.

</comment><comment><USER15> >In a related study of approximately 350 heterosexual individuals, we collected these same measures in networks of opposite-sex friends, acquaintances and partners. Among these well-acquainted individuals, consensus on measures of mate value was nearly zero. These are the people who know what authors you like, what you wore for Halloween six years ago and what obscure movie you will quote the next time you all get together. But they cannot agree on your mate value. Over the years, it has evaporated before their eyes.

I'm curious if this is the cause of the so-called "friend zone". A guy and a girl meet and become friends. After getting to know each other, the guy still thinks the girl has mate value, whereas the girl doesn't think the guy has mate value.

<comment><USER16> What's wrong with the friend zone? See: [http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2615](http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2615)

(This is a snarky way of saying that friendship is its own reward.)

<comment><USER17> Nothing inherently wrong with it, in the same way there's nothing inherently wrong with a relationship based entirely on casual sex with no attendant intimacy or commitment.

In both cases, though, in practice, you're likely to find one side is getting exactly what they want out of the relationship, where the other is holding out for more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _if you do not have a high mate value, take heart. All you need is for others to have the patience to get to know you_

Or increase your mate value. In traits like conscientiousness or intelligence 40-60% of variance is genetic. There is no reason to think that somehow charisma is a weird outlier with which you're stuck. She thinks anyone can act much more charismatically [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMu_md_5PQ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMu_md_5PQ4) Feels a little newagey but otherwise completely reasonable.

It's the same with meeting people. You probably live in a large city with millions of them. Even with strict selection there are at least a few thousands of potential mates. Why wait until you end up in a small group with one of them?

It also means that you have as many attempts as you want. Blowing out with one person will not haunt you through that social group forever.

This is one of those articles that is supposed to make people feel good about themselves, and maybe it does, but at the cost of bringing counter-productive advice.

</comment><comment><USER19> I spent my teens and 20s working hard on my uniqueness out of a feeling that I was different. I forced myself to like anything that was out of the ordinary (this manifested itself in attaching myself to any concepts, interests, and preferences that were non-American). I allowed my search to be different to overtake me, making me a bit of a vagabond, more interested in exploration than in work (discovery-oriented rather than goal-oriented).

Liking interesting things can act as a repellent because it becomes so much harder to find others who have worked a lot on their interestingness or who can appreciate your differences, knowledge and tastes.

Now in my 30s, I've let it go (due to a realization that I don't need to try so hard) and it feels as if a lot of it just disappeared. Like a great meal, I loved it while I was eating it but afterwards there's just an empty plate and the memory of the meal.

<comment><USER20> Hey, could I chat with you be email? My address is on my HN profile.

<comment><USER21> You have to put your email address in the about section, the email field is for "Please put a valid address in the email field, or we won't be able to send you a new password if you forget yours. Your address is only visible to you and us. Crawlers and other users can't see it."

<comment><USER20> updated

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I usually disagree with papers like these but this one is a little more accurate to real life.

The concept of "value" in dating is absurd. Everyone judges value differently. Being attracted to another person has so many variables it can't bit factored in.

Are there some "universal traits" that make people physically attractive? Yes, but that doesn't mean the dating world is a hierarchy with the beautiful people at the top.

And having a super beautiful girlfriend isn't always great. I know models who are insanely insecure about their bodies and are just a pain to be around because they are constantly worried about how they look.

I think I generally date cute girls, but I once dated a that was definitely physically more attractive than most of the rest. She would get tons of attention when we went out. Guys would constantly check her out or give me "Great job man!" looks and comments. I knew she was constantly getting invited to social events, parties and probably dates as well.

This amount of attention can really be unhealthy to a relationship. If she is constantly being tempted by tons of guys and opportunities every day, then its just a matter of time when she starts to think, "You know he is nice, but that other guy was really cute."

And thats really how it ended. She just stopped returning my texts and phone calls one day, so I am pretty sure she just moved on to something else. It wasn't too bad for me, she had a lot of flaws even though she was gorgeous.

</comment><comment><USER23> There is a blog post on OKCupid that discusses the same concepts:

> _the more men as a group disagree about a woman 's look, the more they end > up liking her_

[http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-mathematics-of- beauty/](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-mathematics-of-beauty/)

If everyone agree you're ugly, that's bad. But if some people lilke you a lot and some people dislike you a lot, that's much better than if everyone agree you're "okay", or "cute".

However, the OP has a rather floating concept of uniqueness that they seem to conflate with intimacy or friendship; of course once you become friends with someone they're unique to you, but that doesn't mean much about their "uniqueness" as a property of their being.

</comment><comment><USER24> >>All you need is for others to have the patience to get to know you, and a more level playing field should follow.

And a different career than engineering, so you can find more time and possibility of meeting possible mates at work.

<comment><USER25> Online social networks, clubs, special interest group meetups, churches, gym, community classes are other places.

Mixing work and dating is often a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER26> I thought it worked out great for GitHub...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I find it hard to grasp the concept of charisma. Its definition seems to be vague and highly subjective. It was mentioned in this article like it was something very specific. My pet peeve I guess.

</comment><comment><USER28> > One recent study of a representative sample of adolescents found that only 6 > percent reported that they and their partners formed a romantic relationship > soon after meeting.

> It seems most likely that it is the consensually desirable people who pull > off the rare feat of quickly leveraging an initial positive impression into > romance, while a vast majority of us get to know our romantic partners > slowly, gradually, over time.

I think anyone can learn how to do this.

<comment><USER29> And the trick is called "lowering standards". While attractive people surely have everything easier, I suspect the difference the study found is due to men seeking different things from "short" and long relationships.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> What this article seems to be saying is that uniqueness has a multiplier effect on attractiveness. You can have a "base attractiveness" of 5 out of 10, but the more unique you are, the higher (and lower) you will appear to various people as they get to know you better.

</comment><comment><USER23> The existence of ugly people is proof that their ugly parents did mate.

<comment><USER31> Just like average people can have an exceptionally beautiful or intelligent child so can average people have ugly or dumb kids - any multigene trait will be like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The smartest blog I know to understand relationships. A must read:

[http://www.therationalmale.com](http://www.therationalmale.com)

</comment><comment><USER33> A 100+ comment thread about relationships without the use of the word "companionship" once. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER34> I thought this article was about not being desirable in the job market for some terrible fact or harsh truth. Instead I was greeted with a fluffy article. I'm question the value of this article on HN.

</comment><comment><USER35> anyone ever been in this situation? what was the outcome like?

</comment><comment><USER36> The most interesting aspect of the modern mating paradigm is the opportunity costs associated with mate-seeking behavior, and the impacts on successful societies.

Most primate societies are focused on mating and survival, without much surplus effort remaining for any other tasks. Humans, by virtue of technology and social engineering, have gained a rare ability to dedicate an incredible amount of time to creating heretofore unfathomable works of the imagination such as science, engineering, art, music and literature.

Though many believe this was natural progression, there still exist a few human societies that are effectively hunter gatherers, and expend little energy in advancing their societies technologically. The trillion dollar question is this: what role do mating paradigms play in determining societal structure?

My own hypothesis, and one shared by a surprising number of old scholars, is that mating paradigms are a fundamental determinant of societal structure.

There is a very strong correlation in history between societies that practised very strict mating policies and those that are considered successful. In fact, it seems increasingly likely that the purpose of strict religious practices was to tightly control the mating marketplace in order to prevent the devastating opportunity costs associated with a no holds barred mating market.

As such, I'm interested where the increasingly liberal sexual marketplace will lead societies. Men who spend too much of their time creating wonderful works of art, but fail to reproduce, will be unsuccessful in the long run. Many born in this day and age believe modern civilization has always existed, and will always continue. However, as many countries around the world demonstrate, advanced civilization is an extremely unstable equilibrium. A perturbation of even one pillar can have disastrous, irreversible consequences.

We live in interesting times.

<comment><USER29> I agree with the second half of your post, but hunter-gatherer was an unfortunate choice of words. Societies tend to "evolve" due to scarcity induced by population density, as the first steps of the technology tree simply aren't that enticing when nature still provides plenty. Arguably we see the same thing with fossil fuels today.

What I'm saying is that I'm not so sure reaching a higher population is hindered by a liberal approach to sex (pre-contraception).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Romance is funny. On one hand, people believe in some intrinsic uniqueness in people that make a few of them destined to be their "soul mate". This is purely a matter of being-who-you-are, which can't be measured as objectively good or bad, but is perfect for the few that are your destined "soul mates" (some people won't call it 'soul mate' or have such a mystical aura around it, but may believe in the same thing just as well).

On the other hand, people believe that people can be objectively measured and that they can be assigned a dating market 'value'. Then people have to assess their own value in order to be realistic about who they can date, lest they (gasp) overshoot and try to be with someone who is _out of their league_.

These two viewpoints are polar opposites. Yet it seems that people seem to either concern themselves with one or the other, at some point in time.

There is nothing like this league-stuff for friendships (perhaps except for in high school) or any other human relationships. Why? Perhaps it's because of the seemingly almost universally accepted concept of monogamy.

<comment><USER37> >There is nothing like this league-stuff for friendships

There is, and it's the same league: social status. It's just not as rigid because we typically have multiple friends, so the effect of one lower status friend is diluted. In general though, we try to maximise the average status of our friends (or at least try and match our own self-perceived status) just as with our mates.

<comment><USER3> OK then, people are terrible through-and-through. Good way to end my day on that note.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I seriously don't like this article...

Why should we try and scientificaly explain the only things that keeps us human? Then come out with a pattern and become robots?

Also in the other hand of the article, my attractivness is medium to low, and I don't attract women easily (my looks are ok, but I got that weird mindset that drives them away). I've had a relationship with a woman that was hot 9/10 very very smart studied in ivy league with scolarship and she was very attractive to the point that we had guys coming after her when we were going out... My life experiences proves that article jibberish ...

</comment><comment><USER39> I definitely know some unique folks, and that does really seem to work for them in romantic settings. Like those other qualities -- wealth, attractiveness, power -- only a few can be the "most" unique. Maybe it's cynical, but I guess that most people aren't that exceptional, and _that 's OK_.

<comment><USER40> I think you missed the meaning of what the author was calling uniqueness. From my reading of the article, I took it to mean that each person likes potential mates in a unique way, but that this only comes out after a little while.

For example, if you asked a group of men to rate women they did not know on a scale of 1-10, you would get largely the same answers from all of them about each particular female. However, since each of these men is "unique," if you asked them that same question after they had just all spent 3 months together (the men and women), the numbers will now be more muddled.

<comment><USER39> Hrm. I would guess that effect tends to result from people associating generally with other folks in the same social tier. Like, to side step wealth entirely, let's say you're someone who values physical fitness. You will generally hang out with other folks who value physical fitness. When asked to rate the people around you of the gender you're attracted to, you'll reply by finding the differentiating features, and going from there. But, since you've self-selected your social circle, they'll all tend to have values that you find important. (The undergraduate studies the author speaks of are limiting for the same reason.) So when you've selected people in whom you are relatively more interested, you'll magnify the importance of the unique things about them that you like, but those unique things aren't exactly what made the two of you compatible in the first place.

Put another way, I'd be surprised if this finding still held true if you took a a random hundred people from the general populace and put them in a dome. I predict you'd see "mate value" very clearly delineated in the pairings up that resulted.

I'm not arguing that uniqueness isn't a factor. Maybe I am just nitpicking here -- it's unclear whether the author intended to convey that uniqueness was one factor among many, or an overriding factor. If the former, then my posts here have probably not been useful, but if the latter, I doubt it.</comment></comment></comment>


Finland basic income trial left people 'happier but jobless' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47169549 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19114834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19114834).

</comment><comment><USER3> Awful title, suggesting UBI prevented people from finding jobs. Article clearly states that it didn't: people in treatment group are as likely to get job as those in control group.</comment>


Skin cancer: Half of people surviving advanced melanoma - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49853878 <comment><USER2> This is amazing news. Many of the articles about "a cure for cancer" that get posted here and elsewhere don't pan out, but this is the real deal. Obviously the goal isn't 50% survival - it's 100% - but we've come a long way.

I was diagnosed with melanoma in 2010. At the time, the standard of care for melanoma was remove it surgically... and then cross your fingers and hope it doesn't come back.

During the 3 month interval between when I was first diagnosed and when we learned that the cancer had spread, that changed. The first paper showing an overall survival benefit for melanoma patients (by dosing them with ipilimumab) was published in the NEJM in June 2010. Although ipilimumab (marketed as Yervoy) wasn't approved by the FDA until the next spring, I was able to get access to a very high dose of the drug through a clinical trial.

The trial was weird in a couple ways. First, I can get on clinicaltrials.gov, pull up the results of my study, and calculate that if I'd been put in the placebo arm of the trial, there's a 25% chance I wouldn't be here to write these words. That's a strange thing to know.

Second, the side effects were really unusual and unpleasant. I didn't have to endure the acute toxicity you get from chemotherapy, so that was a blessing. On the other hand, immunotherapies (like both of the drugs referenced in this study) mess with immune regulation mechanisms that apparently aren't supposed to be messed with. My personal experience ranged from the mundane to the miserable: fatigue, severe acne, absolutely excruciating eye infections, and other stuff I won't get into here. I'm still dealing with some of these issues almost a decade later, but the key point is that I'm here to deal with them!

Ipilimumab was the first step; James Allison recently won a Nobel prize for discovering the protein that it targets. Nivolumab (marketed as Opdivo) actually gives even better performance, so nivo is the standard and is sometimes supplemented with Yervoy (or so I understand; I'm not a physician.) I can only imagine what the side effects of the combination therapy are like. Remarkably, both drugs were developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb.

<comment><USER3> _if I 'd been put in the placebo arm of the trial, there's a 25% chance I wouldn't be here to write these words_

I think you fared much much better than most. Maybe it's because you received a very high dose of ipilimumab. The people in the article's trial (which I assume wasn't your trial) were less fortunate. Specifically:

       The results showed:

          26% were still alive on ipilimumab alone

So 74% of the people in that trial are no longer here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma in Feb 2017. At my fourth treatment (every three weeks) of pembrolizumab, my PET and CAT scans were clear. I continued treatment for 12 months, and still get scanned every four months. Still clear 3 weeks ago. My doctor says he now gets to use the c-word with cancer patients. Minimal side effects for me. I wish for my cohorts that more reliable treatments come soon.

<comment><USER5> Similar response with pembrolizumab for my son, diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma in 2015. Side effects really quite trivial for him - more akin to allergy/hay fever than what you see with other treatments. I understand pembro is even better than the drugs mentioned in the article, both in terms of side effects (less) and likelihood of actually working for a particular individual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its worth saying that some of the side effects of the newer immunotherapies are bizarre, idiosyncratic, and unpleasant, in a different way from chemotherapies. This is definitely good news, but patients undergoing treatment for melanoma are still extremely complex to manage.

<comment><USER7> Could you elaborate please?

<comment><USER8> As the article says, this immunotherapy essentially works by turning off some of the immune system's "don't attack your own body" safeties. This frees the immune system to attack the cancer (provided it can identify it).

One big advantage of immunotherapy is that the therapy causes a long-term (permanent? I'm not sure anyone knows; the drugs are less than a decade old) change to the immune system - the body continues to attack the cancer even after the drug treatment has ceased.

If you put these two things together, however, you might see why the side effects can be so bizarre. Your immune system might decide that the liver looked at it funny one day, but then decide that the GI tract is actually the real troublemaker a few days later. And since the immune system change persists post-treatment, so do the side effects.

These side effects can (usually) be controlled with corticosteroids (hydrocortisone/prednisone/etc.), which have an immunosuppressant effect. Of course, long-term corticosteroid use has its own severe side effects (plus severe dependency issues). And if you're suppressing the immune system, then you're suppressing the mechanism that the immunotherapy uses to fight the cancer in the first place. The treatment and the side effects are two sides of the same coin.

<comment><USER9> > this immunotherapy essentially works by turning off some of the immune > system's "don't attack your own body" safeties

That sounds like checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy. Others like CAR-T may have fewer side effects, since they're just augmenting your T cells with a manufactured supply that is primed to attack a specific target.

CAR-T is a lot more expensive for now but over time such "precision" immunotherapies may become mass produced and cheaper and we'll be able to make the immune system do what we want with fewer side effects.

<comment><USER8> > That sounds like checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy.

You are correct. That is because the article is about checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy (specifically yervoy/ipilimumab and opdivo/nivolumab).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We could greatly increase the survival for most cancers if we could detect them much earlier.

" If it is caught in the early stages then the chances of survival are good, but as the cancer becomes more aggressive and spreads throughout the body (known as metastatic cancer) then survival plummets"

Craig Venter:

[https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s](https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s)

<comment><USER11> The negative side effect is that if you catch cancer in earlier stages you also catch more cancers that would not reach later stages.

<comment><USER12> But the question is: is that a _real_ problem? Would it make preventive screening useless?

<comment><USER13> Yes, it is a real problem. Cancer treatment is generally not a walk in the park, and you'd be administering it to people who never would have otherwise need it. Imagine having portions of your body removed and/or receiving brutal treatment for no real purpose. Further, these tests have false positives and even in the best case that could cause undue stress and strain.

It's been a while since I've been in the field, but at least as of several years ago the oncologists I knew were starting to turn against heavy pushes for early screening for these and similar reasons.

<comment><USER10> Would you treat cancers that are caught 2-3 years earlier any differently?

Along with better early detection, aren't we trying to increase the tests' accuracy?

If we have 2-3 additional years to monitor and treat a cancer, we have more options.

<comment><USER14> My understanding is most people get cancer cells regularly. Possibly every day. The immune system clears them out naturally. The question is how old is a cancer before it becomes a threat worthy of analysis. Obviously one cell is probably not interesting. I think there's evidence even cancers that are large enough to be visible to the naked eye are not typically dangerous. If 99% are harmless, what is the point in early detection? It's an expensive test and expensive doctors visits to mitigate a 1% risk. It's interesting from a research perspective to be sure, but not as a standard of care.

<comment><USER10> It's weird how people are worried about finding cancer too early. Many people die early because they don't detect it early enough.

My feeling is that we'll be much better off it we detect at a very early stage then learn to monitor it properly.

it almost sounds superstitious that people are afraid to find out sooner.

<comment><USER15> It's not about superstition or fear, it's about resource allocation and common sense. Medical services are finite. Screening and continuous monitoring of every potential tumor in everyone would be crazy time consuming and incredibly wasteful. So let's not.

EDIT: Just to be clear, the idea of accurate early detection is of course a good one. But as of today it is just not viable.

<comment><USER16> You could use an AI to identify and monitor skin cancer from photos/videos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The findings of the study will be presented at the European Society for > Medical Oncology meeting in Barcelona, Spain, and published in The New > England Journal of Medicine.

Anyone have a link to a preprint? Can't find one anywhere. Hard to comment without seeing the actual source.

<comment><USER18> Maybe this one?

[https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1910836](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1910836)

<comment><USER17> That's it, thanks!

For people without university or other access: [https://sci- hub.tw/https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJ...](https://sci- hub.tw/https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1910836)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The title says half of people survive advanced melanoma, but the article says 52% of patients live for 5 years. Are these medically the same?

<comment><USER20> For reference, 6 years ago when I left medical school the average survival for metastatic melanoma patients was 6 months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> These drugs were originally developed by a company called Medarex, based on academic research. Bristol Myers bought Medarex in 2009 I think.

From what I understand, Bristol Myers almost didn't develop the drugs. Back then the idea of targeting the immune system to treat cancer wasn't a mainstream idea. It's a very good thing they moved forward with them!

</comment><comment><USER22> Yeah, my buddy survived it once, then it came back again as stage 4 and he beat it using immune based therapy. Now his adrenals and thyroid are dead. It's better than dying, but it's not free.

Edit: also, my buddy was the only guy in the study group who didn't drop out. He just happened to be a massive pill-head(opiates), and smoked a ton of pot, which probably helped get him through the side effects.

Immune therapies are worlds better than traditional chemo/rad, which often ended up giving you an entirely different kind of cancer years later, but they are not without side-effects.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm coming around to the view that treating cancer is mostly a resource allocation issue.

I'd be willing to bet if we made even more aggressive investments in finding treatments and cures, we'd be able to achieve both rapid incremental improvements and a handful of breakthroughs with the net results being a radical decline in suffering and deaths due to cancer (not to mention amazing discoveries in science for the sake of science).

It's a shame we don't do this.

</comment><comment><USER24> Fantastic! I've had a few skin-cancer spots removed from my arms. (Failed to use sunscreen in my younger years. Avoid this fate!)

I'm very glad to read this article.</comment>


Float or double? - <AUTHOR> http://www.ilikebigbits.com/blog/2017/6/1/float-or-double <comment><USER2> A good high-level overview for those new to the topic. Here's my advice:

If you have the time to do error analysis and performance optimization, then maybe use float; if not, use double. [http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~robert/teaching/master/material/p5-g...](http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~robert/teaching/master/material/p5-goldberg.pdf)

If you have to implement a numeric or geometric algorithm, even as simple as "find the intersection of two infinite, non-parallel lines in 2D", use a library; don't code it yourself. [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8585427/precision- issues...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8585427/precision-issues-with- segment-segment-intersection-code)

If you do code it yourself, study a reference that approaches things numerically, not merely symbolically; the usual symbolic approach taught in school is often not appropriate numerically. see e.g., [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_significance#Instabili...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_significance#Instability_of_the_quadratic_equation)

Once you understand why you should teach beginning coders rules like the above, even though they're huge over-simplifications, then use your own common sense instead of these rules.</comment>


Unity Games in WebGL: Owlchemy Labs' Conversion of Aaaaa to Asm.js - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/10/unity-games-in-webgl-owlchemy-labs-conversion-of-aaaaa-to-asm-js/

<comment><USER2> Cool. Thanks for posting. (Owlchemy here) Feel free to ask any questions about the process.

</comment><comment><USER3> So Atwood's Law again. I'm always impressed by the things who are getting done in javascript.

And as a fellow hardcore gamer, this lower the barrier to pc gaming a lot, and it's a great step!

<comment><USER4> > _So Atwood 's Law again._

Not really. There is a big difference between writing manually and transpiling into a dialect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been looking forward to the WebGL export feature the most in Unity 5.

For those who haven't seen it, there's a live demo here: [http://beta.unity3d.com/jonas/AngryBots/](http://beta.unity3d.com/jonas/AngryBots/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Been very impressed with the consistent quality of Owlchemy Labs' with each title they release. It was really cool when they got this game working for the Oculus Rift as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like they're making some great progress on the new web exporter! I'm using Unity for a project now, and while a web version of the game requiring a special plugin doesn't seem particularly compelling, one that could run directly in the browser definitely seems like a worthwhile build target. I'm really looking forward to the final release of Unity 5.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is there a WebGL game marketplace established yet, similar to the Apple App Store?

<comment><USER9> Although itch.io doesn't explicitly have a WebGL option, their platform is basically that, a marketplace for games on the web.

I find it really easy to upload and play games.</comment></comment>


With Nuclear, Germany and California Would Already Have 100% Clean Power - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11/had-they-bet-on-nuclear-not-renewables-germany-california-would-already-have-100-clean-power/#63f2ca1be0d4 <comment><USER2> Is the recycling of spent radioactive material a solved problem? I was under the impression that it had to be stored very carefully for very long periods of time. Unless I am wrong, why is nuclear power considered clean? Wouldn't something like wind or hydro be significantly cleaner for the long term?

<comment><USER3> I was going to make the same comment. Until there's no need to store waste for hundreds of thousands of years, you cannot call nuclear "clean"</comment></comment>