20 questions game that works astonishingly well - <AUTHOR> http://en.akinator.com/ <comment><USER2> This is a standard machine learning homework assignment for decision trees. If you're interested in how these things work, that's where to look.

(Oh, and this is more parlor trick than clever programming. "Crowdsourcing" works with this parlor trick well.)

</comment><comment><USER3> 4chan played with this a while ago, so you can find many manga/anime/game characters, including some really obscure ones (try it!). It has everybody from Tsukihime and Touhou...

<comment><USER4> If 4chan has had their way with it, I'm surprised it doesn't just answer "Rick Astley" to everything.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am amazed at the amount of data that had to be collected for this to correctly guess 5 for 5 of my characters. some of them were kind of obscure too. I wonder if they didn't crowd-source it some how.

edit: with the first incorrect guess of seven, i get it. they are crowd- sourcing the data every time it loses. brilliant.

<comment><USER5> A thought, can we use wikipedia info to boost up the accuracy of 20q? For that we can have a huge near accurate data at the beginning. Considering the paper on CIKM 2008 "Learning to Link with Wikipedia", I think that it is practical.

<comment><USER4> Or freebase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I smugly thought to myself "there's no way it would be able to figure out Hercule Poirot, it's not even worth trying."

I'll be damned, it got it.

<comment><USER7> I beat it with Shankara, 8th c. Indian religious writer.

<comment><USER8> Beat it with Nynaeve al'Meara. It guessed Rand al'Thor. (rather impressively. magic user, partial brother, fights with a sword) .. and matrim cauthon (no magic, brothers/sisters, no sword, no beard)

these always impress me. (even if I do understand some of the math behind it)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unusable for me because of the excessive amount of advertising on the site. Is it really that much better than 20q.net?

<comment><USER10> The people from 20q.net manufactured a great physical device for playing the game. Sold for about $15 at Walmart, makes an exceptional gift for hard to shop for people. On eBay for $12 shipped... [http://cgi.ebay.com/20-Q-Game-I- can-read-your-mind_W0QQitemZ...](http://cgi.ebay.com/20-Q-Game-I-can-read- your-mind_W0QQitemZ370113631968QQcmdZViewItem)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I fooled it with Hugo Simpson, then screwed it up when I clicked on some other Hugo during the "teach me" phase. Oh well.

</comment><comment><USER12> I tried "Cory Booker," mayor of Newark (recently on The Colbert Report). It asked me the same questions several times but worded differently, and in the end it guessed Obama (though not surprising since Booker isn't as famous).

<http://www.20q.net> always amazed me.

</comment><comment><USER13> After the 20th question, it guessed Bertrand Russel when I was thinking of Thomas Paine who was in the list after I told it the guess was incorrect.

</comment><comment><USER14> I thought of Dagny Taggart, it guessed Howard Roark.

<comment><USER15> I thought of John Galt and it guessed Howard Roark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am stunned. The questions were mostly way off and got only marginally closer in the last 4-5, then came the correct answer: Pancho Villa.

</comment><comment><USER17> I tried searching for Paul Graham. I got Linus Torvalds, then Sergey Brin, then Drew Curtis, then Will Wright. Not bad company.

</comment><comment><USER12> It would be better if it didn't always respond "Too many users" -- AFTER having me fill out the "who i am" form.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah it is annoying but once you have put in your stats, you can just keep pressing the start game button you get a spot within in a minute which admittedly is an aeon in net-time though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Didn't seem that great. It didn't guess any of my choices (Bede, Vita Sackville-West, and Diocletian).

</comment><comment><USER19> I beat it with The good in the good the bad and the ugly. He answered Leon.

It is timing out all the time, unberable.

</comment><comment><USER20> For me it guessed Hamlet, Bin Laden, Leonardo, Che Guevara and Woz, but couldn't think of Buddha.

<comment><AUTHOR> wow@woz. for me it got: mother theresa, richard branson, bowie, tarantino but stumbled on dylan for tom waits. it will guess your cousin too.

<comment><USER20> It guessed Randal Munroe! A warning to chronic procrastinators such as me, this is addictive!

<comment> a-priori Before it started saying it's too busy, I stumped it twice: once with B'Elanna Torres and once with Kaylee (Firefly)

<comment><USER21> I stumped it with Kaylee, too, and decided to add the question "Is your character an engineer?" Which it already had in the database. Then it asked me to evaluate the engineerness of 20 characters... and of the ones I recognized, most would be hard to differentiate from Kaylee by other questions.

That is pretty freaking slick, I've got to say. I don't even remember 20q.net having that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cool-RR It's very cool, but 20q (which is very similar) has been around for at least 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER22> I used Jose Raul Capablanca, the third world chess champion. It wasn't even close.

</comment><comment><USER23> It didn't know who Dirk Pitt was. Universal litmus test for intelligence fails ;)

</comment><comment><USER24> My thought: aladin / The answer returned: harry potter

</comment><comment><USER25> Entourage is underrepresented :)

</comment><comment><USER26> It couldn't think of Ron Paul.

Fail! ;)

<comment><USER14> I thought of Ron Paul, and I could tell by the questions that it already knew by the 5th or 6th question. It can guess Ron Paul. You answered a question incorrectly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> stumped it with tony the tiger. it guessed lassie.</comment>


Amputee scales 103 floors with mind-controlled 'bionic leg' - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/04/health/illinois-bionic-leg/index.html

<comment><USER2> Video showing the leg in action: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5foYR--3EiA>

</comment><comment><USER3> To clarify, this bionic leg is not directly mind controlled[1]. Instead, the leg uses EMG electrodes on the tigh that record muscle activation signals, i.e. motoneuron discharges in the tigh muscles[2]; these neurons are presumably activated by spinal cord networks responsible for locomotion. These are activated by brainstem networks (a part of the brain we share with the most primitive vertebrates), which of course at some level are controlled by the cerebral cortex. Just to say that there are quite a few layers between conscious thoughts and the electrodes.

Still very impressive! And I think this is much more promising technology than direct brain recordings actually.

[1] Like e.g. José Millán's wheelchair where signals are extracted directly from the brain: [http://www.technologyreview.com/news/420756/wheelchair- makes...](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/420756/wheelchair-makes-the- most-of-brain-control/)

[2] [http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/zac- vawter-w...](http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/zac-vawter-will- use-bionic-leg-controlled-by-his-thoughts-to-climb-chicago-skyscraper/story- fneuz9ev-1226507899359)

</comment><comment><USER4> The first question I asked while viewing the title was: in what time? Cause the fact of climbing 103 floors is almost useless without a second part telling us "in xxx hours".

The article says in 53 minutes! That was amazing speed! Two floors a minute!!

</comment><comment><USER5> So let's say I lose a limb at some point in the future. How does one go about applying for these "research" positions? It seems like it would be an interesting hack to get into a mind-controlled robot limb experimental program instead of the traditional prosthetic limb.

</comment><comment><USER6> Am i the only one who was expecting to see him on the outside of the building climbing up its face?

<comment><USER7> I was definitely hoping for that. I mean really, which is more useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Given the current political climate, there's no way I can make a comment like this without it sounding political, but here it goes...

It seems a shame to me that technology like this is not available to all amputees. I can only imagine the frustration I'd feel if I lost an arm or a leg and couldn't afford this, and had to settle for a "dumb" prosthesis instead. And I can only imagine this problem getting worse in the future, because this type of thing will never be able to reach the economies of scale to make it available to "ordinary" people on their own.

In my own country, to my knowledge, this isn't yet an issue, but as technology progresses and with budgets getting tighter it wouldn't surprise me if it becomes one in future.

<comment><USER9> Bionic prosthetic limbs like this is very hard to control, that's why it's newsworthy that a man can climb 103 stairs like this. To be able to use something like this requires lots of training and calibration, so it's not easy to mass produce them (yet).

<comment><USER8> And all that training and calibration requires highly-specialised workers to be able to help you. So it's more than just the cost of the device itself. Even if you could mass-produce them, I imagine they'd still need a lot of tailoring to the individual.

I actually saw someone using a motorised prosthesis for the first time recently, and it was very impressive to watch. I'm optimistic for the future, I just hope everyone who needs such technology can get access to it.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. I've done some lab work on reading muscle activity signals trough the skin, and the signals from the test subjects were very individual.

The mass produced prostethic limbs with control systems are mostly mechanical and slow, e.g. the users are using the remaning stump of their limb to push buttons on the inside of the casing.

To use neural networks or some other kind of machine learning to map the muscle signals to the wanted movement for the prosthesis would be a really interesting problem to work on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What was a fiction in i-robot (Will smiths arm) is becoming a reality.Gr8..</comment>


Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds? - <AUTHOR>

How do you read RSS feeds?<p>How many feeds are you subscribed to? How do you read them: Skim all posts? Read selectively? Read everything? Why do you read feeds the way you do? If you don't, why do you choose not to? <comment><USER2> I'm using Google Reader for mostly personal blogs but visit sites like HN directly since they tend to clutter my whole feed reader. I had subscribed to the HN feed for a long time but since the feed displays every blog post that hits the frontpage there were a lot of uninteresting entries.

I would re-subscribe to the HN feed if there were some option for a feed which only displays entries with X upvotes and/or X comments (and X could be specified in the options).

The general problem with subscribing to the feed is that I don't see which entries are popular and which not because stories tend to hit the frontpage rather fast on HN compared to other big sites.

For now, I just visit HN and click on a few stories on the frontpage (mostly these with many comments or upvotes).

<comment><USER3> It would be nice if the HN feed included the short description -- I find that titles are often too brief to evaluate whether or not it's worth clicking through. Additionally, a comment count would be welcomed.

Including a rating, or including a dynamic feed for a particular rating would be icing on the cake.

fwiw, i'm a happy google reader user -- 158 subscriptions. The only downside is that it's my go-to procrastination website. I read just about all RSS content, and click through about 10-20% of the time depending on the feed. If I find that I clear the unread on a feed more than once or twice, I'll usually unsubscribe (because obviously I don't have the time to keep up with it). Sometimes I use feeds as a glorified bookmark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use Google Reader to read about 200 feeds. But I've ruthlessly pruned anyone that

a) took too much absolute time (high volume, long posts - ie big news sites without targeted content)

b) too low signal to noise ratio (typically from someone that writes one popular posts that's a little outside their main topics) - Stuff White People like was on this - funny, not that funny, repetitive, too often. If it was once a week, I would have read it.

I read (see) probably 50 posts a day - anything more than that and I go back and prune some. I spend maybe 1-2 hours a day reading. It's my equivalent of watching TV. Here are the main categories:

Must reads - the Yegges, Grahams, Mosers, etc

High volume, quick reads - FAIL blog, Seth Godin

High volume, useful but not always great - SvN, CodingHorror, Joel

Low volume - product blogs, occasional bloggers

<comment><USER5> Could you give some URLs please ? I did not have much luck with Google for "The Yegges" and "Mosers".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use irssi (CLI Linux IRC client) for a ton of things -- it's basically my dashboard -- and have eventually hit upon the strategy of running an rbot (a Ruby infobot-alike by linuxbrit) and using its RSS plugin to monitor about 60 feeds in a private channel. It sits in a separate irssi window along with IRC, email, AIM, and stocks, and is nice because I can use irssi's controls (or rbot's) to do things like highlighting or ad-hoc scripting.

These I see all day, skim almost all (especially in the morning) and hit quite a few. Keeping it confined to my little dashboard area makes it accessible, while keeping it ignorable/attendable the same way I manage email et al.

I also use mobile Google Reader on my BlackBerry when bored.

<comment><USER7> Points for creativity!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Top to bottom, left to right.

Seriously, I'm subscribed to about 40 feeds, but I usually don't even start my feed browser because it's a time sink.

The S/N ratio with most blogs isn't very high, but I subscribe just to get that occasional important nugget of information/insight.

But I am coming to the realization that RSS is a bit of a distraction - if I start my RSS reader, I feel obliged to read everything just to get rid of the 'unread' icon. It doesn't really help me build great stuff.

</comment><comment><USER9> Strange, this thread is full of luddites who don't use RSS!

Anyway, I use Google Reader. I tend to read everything I subscribe to. If I don't read it, I unsubscribe to it after I've ignored it long enough. I have maybe 30-40 subscriptions, all to sites that post infrequently, so I rarely have more than a handful of articles unread.

I get a lot of interesting articles via Hacker News too, and also via Google- Reader recommendations (one of GReader's killer features imho).

</comment><comment><USER10> I consume feeds (ten in total) in two different ways: my iGoogle Homepage and the Opera Feeds reader.

For the iGoogle Homepage I have HN and /. feeds. These feeds are updated so frequently that I don't want to subscribe to them in my reader (and have the unread ones pile up). These I read selectively - only the titles that interest me.

The Opera Feed reader I use for blogs that get updated at most daily. For the most part, I read every entry, skipping only the ocassional esoteric post. I used to read these ones in Google Reader; but once I discovered Opera's reader is much faster, I haven't gone back. (It would be nice if their synch system did feeds too, though.) I like to use the reader for these because it helps me keep track of what I've read, keeps all my daily/weekly reading in one place, and for feeds that include their content since they load considerably faster without the overhead of their site (e.g. Dilbert Blog).

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the key for me is subscribing to more posts than I could ever possibly read, and giving myself permission to not have to read all of them.

Much like I used to read a newspaper, I've turned google reader into my information aggregator. It alerts me to daily podcasts, local/regional/national/global/financial news, interesting articles, etc... I read what's interesting, throw the rest away, star whatever I may want to revisit or leisurely read on the weekend, share whatever I want people to see on my blog, and 'mark all as read' when I start my weekend.

I skim whenever I'm waiting on a build or have a spare minute between meetings, but I separate out into categories things I'd like to read and things I may read if there's extra time. I spend about 2-3 hours a week in google reader, but much less time wading through comments and ads for a net gain.

<comment> captain-m Exactly. Another factor when you subscribe to a lot of feeds is overlap. I subscribe to all sites I find interesting so more often than not the articles I probably wouldn't want to miss show up on multiple sites. This way I can hit 'Mark all as read' without feeling like I've missed something.

From the trends page on google reader: "From your 114 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 9,483 items."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> By not having a RSS reader, I can lie to myself and say that I'm not that addicted to technology news/blogs. By not having sites bookmarked, it makes me put a little effort into visiting sites like MacRumors, techmeme, etc.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. I deleted all my RSS subscriptions a few months back and haven't looked back. I don't get how people can follow hundreds or even dozens of RSS subscriptions and still have time to work on their startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> NetNewsWire

Have embarked upon a quest to break it — up to ~1000 feeds, and although it stalls out my MBP during huge updates, it's held up very well. Tried Google Reader but at about ~200 feeds, it crapped out and the whole AJAXy UI became totally unmanageable (plus, frequent bouts where the server never returned) — Google Reader issues may have been rectified, but at time I experimented with it, it was unwieldy.

I need to do some housekeeping to NNW — presently, I sort by feed source, and just fly through/ignore about half the feeds (especially the ones with frequent updates). It seems the more frequent the update, the less the quality fare, though HN is an exception in this regard. Really need to set up folder buckets to bury those that I might want to read, given extra time.

I scan and can flip through titles and first few paragraphs rapidly (3 pane view).

It really is a more efficient reading experience that magnifies your news/blog coverage, but you need to refine, and dispense with the ones that don't add value or at least bury them.

There is a dichotomy in reading experience via RSS vs. the Web that I will write an article about at some future point and lay out all my thoughts — lots of good stuff out there that has no RSS or content that RSS is not sufficiently capturing the content (some titles only or less than a sentence in body, or web site styling that enhances the viewership experience).

OTOH, the big benefit of RSS is getting to read without the extraneous, tarted up graphic fare in a font size/style more suited to reading text on a monitor.

</comment><comment><USER15> There are ~300 feeds where I skim all the posts and ~20 that are a must read in a separate bucket on google reader. Feeds are so critical to what I do that I have to keep up with them even after a vacation. Which means ~1000 messages in the "inbox" from time to time. There are ~100 other feeds that I wish I had time to read, but unfortunately their volume is too high for me to keep up.

Really want to change that, so there's no fixed "inbox", but the posts that are critical should bubble up to top, and the rest should only be findable with specific topic searches.

</comment><comment><USER16> Bloglines, about 150 feeds.

I use about 10 categories: must read, local, off topic, certain topic, like say Python, Javascript, etc.

It was a big problem before I started leaving unread categories for a couple of days. Now it is great. Read couple of categories on daily basis, then the other, when I have time, or sometimes mark them all as read (I hate myself for that later).

OT: Since when Bloglines became so unpopular? Or is it just HN trend? Does Google Reader rule the blog readers world now?

</comment><comment><USER17> I just started using Google Reader about 3 weeks ago. I'm currently subscribed to approximately 30 feeds, and I tend to skim the headlines on the busier sites, and then read whatever might catch my eye. On the slower sites, or blogs from folks that I know, I tend to read the whole article, or give up after I decide that I'm just not interested. I have it configured to purge already read posts, so I just page down the busier blogs until I finish, or stumble upon something I like. I also tend to use the mark all read after the weekend or a day or two off, since I don't have the time to sift through too much detritus from not servicing my feeds. I think with news/social news sites like reddit & slashdot, which I had subscribed to, and subsequently unsubscribed to, have too much noise to lend themselves to reading in an RSS feed.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I ask because I currently have about 100 feeds in Google Reader; most of them update fairly infrequently. I try to only subscribe to feeds that have full text, since I dislike excerpts because I have to open a new tab. That said, I try to read all my feeds, but often fall behind (260 unread at the moment). I find catching up takes too long and I just have to press 'Mark All as Read.'

Perhaps I need to adjust my approach to feeds to maximize my information/time; I tend to cycle between subscribing to many feeds and then unsubscribing from many. My biggest trouble is with feeds that are high volume (1 post/day or more) yet have interesting content. These can be enormous timesinks if I'm not careful.

</comment><comment><USER18> Currently I use rojo, although I heard they are undergoing a transformation (new name, etc.). I think theres a lot of room for improvement in the RSS reader space, but they currently offer the best type of reader from what i've seen out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's different with rojo v. Google Reader? How is it better?

<comment><USER18> They both share a lot of similar features (user ratings, tags/labels, discovering new feeds, etc.), but overall I enjoy the design/layout of rojo better. In addition to that, as far as actually discovering new things online, rojo provides a better platform for that (imo). I can see whats popular, whats popular with people in my network, etc. I've used google reader quite a bit and its really good, but I enjoy the rojo experience more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm embarrassed to say that not once, but several times, I've collect loads of feeds and then rarely made good on reading them all.

The stuff I was interested in would change over time, so I was left with feeds I wasn't so interested in anymore. I tried different feedreaders. And I would always feel overwhelmed when I saw 4,283 unread messages.

So I'm back trying it again with a "must read" folder in Google Reader and only putting feeds in that I definitely want to read.

But when I do subscribe and am committed to reading, I try to make an effort to at least open every post and start reading it.

<comment><USER19> Why is this so emotional for you? Writers barely know if you're reading, so it doesn't seem worth any stress or "overwhelming" feelings for you to work so hard on selecting feeds or catching up on them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I use Apple Mail. It shows individual feeds as if they were a mailbox, all grouped under and RSS container. Unfortunately, this keeps me addicted to HN throughout the day rather than just once or twice a day.

</comment><comment><USER21> rss2email -- rocks for blogs where you don't want to miss a single post (friends and other high S/N feeds)

In general thought, most news actually isn't news. It's just data and we need to model what we actually care about, and then monitor for that.

E.g. I don't really care that there's a war in Darfur, I care that the world has more armed conflicts now than last year. So write a script to keep track of them (scrape wikipedia) and when the number goes up, email yourself to write a check to UNHCR.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm subscribed to only about 15 feeds through Google Reader, which I refine every season according to signal/noise ratio. I'm also a big fan of Google Alerts, which I've found is a good way to find great articles that you wouldn't find in the echo chamber of most blogs, particularly those about programming.

Otherwise, I check HN and a couple other news sites. Most of the good stuff tends to rise to the top, and Google Alerts catches the good articles that don't get on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER23> I use Opera's built-in feed reader. I like it. I have about 20 feeds subscribed, and I obsessively at least skim every article until it tells me there are zero unread.

Quite a pain on Monday (I don't read feeds on weekends) to come into work and have 50 new articles on Business of Software and Hacker News :P. Just one of those burdens I bear, I guess. I used to actually click through and read each and every HackerNews article, so I've improved somewhat from there. Little baby steps.

</comment><comment><USER24> At home, I use my web browser (OmniWeb) to put menus of feed items into my toolbar. This is good because I tend to be in my browser when viewing other news sites.

Yet at work, I use my E-mail (Thunderbird), perhaps because the RSS feeds tend to be blogs, newsgroups or other similar E-mail-like items.

In other words, my reader depends on the style of the content: is it E-mail- like, or web-like.

</comment><comment><USER25> I use Google Reader, currently subscribed to 68 feeds and get around 250-300 posts per day. I read everything in expanded mode, though most of the time I'll just skim a headline and move on.

I have my feeds logically grouped into prioritized groups so that if I start to get a backlog of 500+ posts I will read my favorite blog from a given category then mark all as read to reduce the counts.

</comment><comment><USER26> i don't use feeds. I like visiting actual sites. In firefox, i have a bookmarks folder called "daily read" and i open its contents in tabs.

</comment><comment><USER27> I use Bloglines because their mobile versions (simple mobile version and iPhone version) are superior to Google Readers. I have 114 feeds divided up into folders by interest area. Some folders like "Development", "Design" and "Competitors" are higher priority reads. I have a few top-level feeds that aren't in folders that are the highest priority.

</comment><comment><USER28> I use NewsFire, subscribed to about 50-60 feeds. I skim through them (hit space) and if anything catches my eye I read them. If I'm not in the mood to read it, I flag it for later reading.

Every month or so I go through my feeds and only keep the ones that consistently have posts that catch my attention.

</comment><comment><USER29> /Applications/Mail.app

I highly recommend it to anyone on OS X Leopard. Mail doesn't count unread RSS entries as unread mail, so RSS feeds become more of a "you could potentially look at this when you have nothing to do, and these are the entries you didn't read". It's good.

</comment><comment><USER30> Reading 20 feeds with newsbeuter (<http://synflood.at/newsbeuter.html>)

Fast, simple, console-friendly, familiar keybindings and gets the job done without any distractions.

What more could you possibly wish for?

</comment><comment><USER31> I use Opera's feed reader at present, but mainly because I read some cookie- protected feeds and an in-browser one seems like the best solution. I keep a pretty tight leash on the feeds I subscribe to (twelve or so at the moment), and delete any I ignore for several days.

</comment><comment><USER32> I track around 30 feeds (news / high frequency) on Firefox Live Bookmarks on a daily basis.

I also track around 800 feeds (opinion / lower frequency) on Netvibes on a weekly / biweekly basis.

</comment><comment><USER33> I use Planet ( <http://www.planetplanet.org/> ), and only update it once a day, because Y HN is distracting enough!

</comment><comment><USER34> Bloglines.

129.

Read the most important ones, then eventually catch up on the other ones.

I'd go mad if I didn't read them selectively like this.

</comment><comment><USER35> I use safari's built in RSS reader or Google Reader. I usually read the whole feed unless it is quite large and then I skim them or read the first 10.

</comment><comment><USER36> Sage a Firefox plugin, and sometimes Google Reader.

</comment><comment><USER37> Google Reader for all feeds except slashdot, digg, reddit and HN which I visit directly in my browser.

</comment><comment><USER38> Generally? I don't. Until I can get such information via feeds, presented nicely and in an aggregatable way, I will just visit individual sites.

</comment><comment> cypress-hill left to right</comment>


The Human Amygdala and the Induction and Experience of Fear - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982210015083

<comment><AUTHOR> > Ironically, [the patient] scared one of the [people dressed as] monsters > [and tried to scare her in a famous haunted house for research purposes] > when she poked it in the head because she was "curious" as to what it would > feel like.

This article and the other few I'll link in this comment are about a condition of human amygdalae (a brain part), symptoms of which includes lack of fear.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalae)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalae#Fear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalae#Fear)

* [http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com.tr/2013/02/extreme-f...](http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com.tr/2013/02/extreme-fear-experienced-without.html)

This is among the weirdest human conditions I've seen in my life, thus I had to submit it here. I ended up finding about the subject while reading another submission about schizophrenia[1], which is an awesome read.

The original title of the research is "The Human Amygdala and the Induction and Experience of Fear", I chose to use this simpler and more provoking title as it highlights the interesting point: the lack of fear.

NoScript users: you'll see near-nothing on the page, (temporarily) enable JS in order to see the text. The website supplies a PDF download of the text, but it is written with a bold sans-serif font all through, so it is hard on eyes.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7662957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7662957), [http://theamericanscholar.org/what-killed-my- sister/?key=559...](http://theamericanscholar.org/what-killed-my- sister/?key=55917458)

edit: formatting

<comment><AUTHOR> Why would you downvote this comment?

<comment><USER2> Please see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7619287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7619287). Your comment was a good case of this. I gave it a corrective upvote and the problem went away.

(In general, please don't comment about comments being downvoted, even when it's annoying and/or mystifying. As the guidelines say, it's off-topic, never helps, and makes for boring reading.)

<comment><USER3> I understand this guideline, but i disagree. I think would be great if some downvoters could explain themselves. As in this case. Indeed, who would downvote this comment?

And it is hard to notice one or two downvotes, so is up to the user to ask/announce this. Downvote productive and thoughtfull comments, specially when the comment is taking a position against the parent, is very nocive to the quality of the debate. And there is no guarantee that would be a "corrective upvote" as in an invisible hand of justice.

So I have this idea that complain about injust downvotes may be off-topic (as thousands of other kinds of comments), but should help the quality of the comments if it was more encouraged, the same for "being boring".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has any similar research been done on those with panic disorder. Do they have an over-active amygdala, for example?</comment>


China is building a big data platform for "precrime" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/china-is-building-a-big-data-plaform-for-precrime/ <comment><AUTHOR> Despite the sensationalist headline, there are some interesting points made in the story. Also of interest are the linked Defense One story:

[http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/03/thanks- america-...](http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/03/thanks-america- china-aims-tech-dissent/126491/)

and Bloomberg's story from last week:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-03/china- trie...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-03/china-tries-its- hand-at-pre-crime)

I decided on posting the Ars Technica story rather than the the Defense One story after some consideration; the latter might be slightly better, but AT does an ok job of summing up many of the points of interest.</comment>


Warts of Scala - <AUTHOR> http://www.lihaoyi.com/post/WartsoftheScalaProgrammingLanguage.html <comment><USER2> Hmm I would disagree that you its a problem that Scala requires explicit partial method application.

</comment><comment><USER3> > For example, the Ammonite script-runner (which is a medium-sized command- > line tool) spends up to half a second just classloading

That's not just because of the JVM; idomadic Scala generates volumes of byte code, due to anon functions and traits.

<comment><USER4> I understand that traits are something like typeclasses or interfaces: are single-method traits kept around as traits, or is the function itself passed around in the optimized output?

I'm actually suddenly curious about how other functional language compilers look compared to GHC.

<comment><USER3> Abstract classes can be efficiently encoded, since the JVM understands that. The Scala collections collapse common sets of traits into abstract classes.

Traits are copied, always I think. Only traits with all final methods could even possibly be not duplicated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very interesting article. In my experience writing Scala for the past year or so this article does indeed hit on many warts. But, there are many more warts not mentioned. The biggest two are the tooling (sbt for example) and the nearly incomprehensible standard library.

</comment><comment><USER6> > ... methods should be called with as many sets of parentheses as they are > defined with (excluding implicits), and any method call missing parens > should be eta-expanded into the appropriate function value.

> Notably, removing the "optional parens" thing would not stop you from > defining "property" functions that are called without parens; it would just > mean you need to define such functions without parens, as is already > possible.

> In other languages with first-class functions, like Python, this 'works > fine' [quotes mine]

I'm not sure how this behaviour could be seen as 'more consistent'. If methods that _have_ parens but are called with them stripped are eta-expanded but you can still define no-paren methods, you'd still have confusing behaviour where a no-paren method isn't eta-expanded as expected (because it's a property and so 'special').

Rather than more consistent, this behaviour is just 'more like Python'[0], which has this inconsistency too[1]. Essentially the suggestion in the article would mean:

        @ def x() = 1
        @ val y = x
        resXX: () => Int = $...

        @ def a = 1
        @ val b = a
        resYY: Int = 1

It's also worth noting that IntelliJ IDEA (and possibly Eclipse) warn you if you define a no-argument method with Unit return type (since `def action()`s should have parens and `def pure` values needn't).

IDEA will warn you (and offer to correct) if you call a method with too few parens (`def x()` called as `x` will display a very visible warning), so maybe there's some room to believe that this is a 'problem', but the solution involving automatic eta-expansion doesn't seem like a particularly sane one.

Also, calling `getFoo` without parameters is 'nice to have', but calling `name()` as `name` and `color()` as `color` on imported Java APIs both comes across as more natural in Scala (since Java has no properties, they can't be defined as properties upstream) and has allowed quite a few Java APIs to fit in naturally in Scala where they wouldn't have otherwise, in my experience.

[0]: All the eta-expansion things in this post are to 'be more like Python', which makes sense given Haoyi is also behind [https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/issues/2491](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/issues/2491) and [https://github.com/lihaoyi/Scalite](https://github.com/lihaoyi/Scalite) and (say) [https://github.com/lihaoyi/macropy](https://github.com/lihaoyi/macropy).

[1]: Properties in Python also have the underlying design of using descriptors, which are a whole other world of horror.

<comment><USER7> I don't see the problem with

        val b = a
        b: Int = 1

After all, if you wanted to turn it in a function, you can use `() => a` syntax which everyone is already familiar with.

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's necessarily wrong, I just think it's inconsistent (all methods are eta-expanded... except properties), just in a slightly different way.

Depending on what this did on conversion to Java-land, this could still be confusing for beginners:

`int foo() { return 1 }` in Java could either:

        @ def x = foo
        resXX: () => Int = $..
        // Why was this eta-expanded - it has no parameters?!?

        @ def y = foo
        resYY: Int = 1
        // This is 'normal'... but it wasn't defined as a property?

You could also argue that right now, if you want to turn any method (lacking generics) into a function, you can use the `someFn _` syntax, which in fairness perhaps not everyone is already familiar with.

Also, removing parens from an upstream method would change the downstream type, which seems more confusing to me from a 'statically typed language' perspective[0] than up-to-N-parens all having the same type - the rule right now is simple to explain as 'you can drop as many empty parens as you like and the call will stay the same (but IDEA will warn you)'.

[0]: In your scheme:

        @ def foo() = 1
        @ val x = foo
        resXX: () => Int = 1
        @ def foo = 1 // Upstream author changes their mind
        @ val x = foo
        resXX: Int = 1 // ???
        @ val x = () => foo // Have to go around changing to this.

... and vice versa (if an author _adds_ parens, all of your property calls start magically eta-expanding instead)

<comment><USER7> What you say is correct, but I think your mental model isn't the mental model many people work with.

One possible way of thinking of things is "methods" and "function values", where you need to eta-expand something to go from "method" to "function value". This is something people get used to when working in Scala for a while.

Another way of thinking of things is "things you can call" and "things you cannot call". In this case, it does not make sense to care about "method" or "function value": if it's callable, it should remain callable in the same way as I pass it around, until I call it. If you come from a Python, or JS, or other background, this is the mental model you will have.

I personally think the second mental model makes much more sense, and the first is a weird artifact of programming in Scala that you don't see much elsewhere (though I admit C# has a similar dichotomy)

I don't find the "people may forget to leave off parentheses" a convincing argument. People may forget to call `.flatten` on nested lists too; doesn't mean we should go flatten everyone's lists for them automatically. Furthermore, if _you_ as an individual wanted to flatten `() => T` into `T` automatically, you can easily do that within your own project with an implicit conversion:

        implicit def flatten[T](f: () => T): T = f()

The same way you could use an implicit to automatically `flatten` nested `List`s, or automatically call `.get` on `Option`s. Both of those are similar to automatically calling functions to avoid "confusion", and something I think most people in the community will agree would be a terrible thing to do

<comment><USER6> Hm, so I wrote Python for a decade before Scala (and I still write TypeScript & JS) and I'm deeply sympathetic to the 'passing around a callable' way of looking at things. That said, I find Scala's syntax _more consistent_.

I would regularly run into that 'wart' in Python, where changing something between a property and a method would completely change the downstream behaviour (property -> method makes downstream 'calls' eta-expand and method -> property makes downstream calls _error_ , or _call the eta-expanded function_ if the property happens to return a function, both of which are terrible IMO).

I guess more than caring either way about number-of-argument-lists, I just disagree (as does a sibling commenter) with automatic eta-expansion, because I think that 'people may forget to call `someFn _`' is unconvincing.

If you currently try to pass `someFn` bare, to something expecting a function, you get a very clear error (and in some cases you can actually do this and it's automatically handled, like in `.map(someFn)`).

On the other hand, I would find it deeply objectionable if the compiler started magically switching the type of an expression of mine based on the upstream's number of parens. If they change `def foo()` to `def foo` I don't expect the type of my `val x = foo` to change from `() => Int` to `Int` or vice versa.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A site to collect funny code snippets. - <AUTHOR> http://watcode.frmr.me

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a site that I developed to share amusing, shocking, or interesting snippets of code. We have sites to share funny quotes, text messages, but I have yet to see one for funny snippets of code! There's not much on the actual site right now, but if you like the idea - submit something!

Mostly, I wanted an excuse to play with Node.js, Bootstrap, and the Rainbow syntax highlighting engine. I am admittedly no expert at Node and Express, but I think that it came out alright, all things considered. Notably, with the help of Twitter bootstrap I managed to avoid completely butchering the visual elements of that page. (Go me!)

I've open-sourced the code for this site here: <https://github.com/farmdawgnation/watcode>

If you have any particular thoughts on the code - then let me know on GitHub. I still have a lot to learn in the Node world, but I think this project still serves as a pretty powerful example of what Node can do, for anyone who is curious. For people who learn by picking apart something that already works, it might be a good starting point for learning Node/Express. :)

Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER2> Great idea! Are you drawing your inspiration from <http://thedailywtf.com/>?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not, actually. The inspiration for this gem is actually Gary Bernhardt's WAT Lighenting talk.

<https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat></comment></comment>


Sylicon Valley's Criticism of Donald Trump - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/business/21716020-tech-firms-are-last-departing-their-see-no-evil-stance-society-and-politics?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/schumpetersiliconvalleyscriticismofdonaldtrump <comment><USER2> Can we get a spelling correction for the word silicon on the title?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm very sorry for the spelling mistake. I don't seem to have the necessary permission level to change the title.</comment></comment>


Going rogue inside a big company (a la Best Buy) - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1572-going-rogue-inside-a-big-company-a-la-best-buy <comment><USER2> _sigh_ must every post end with a trite patronizing question posed to the reader?

>> "Create something in a few weeks that normally takes a few months. Do something in a way that works better than the status quo (or shows the promise of working better), Then you won't need to convince anyone with words — the results will speak for themselves."

This might work, but it can also actually work against you. If you go against the status-quo, people can actually doubt you have done things properly, assume you're not a 'team player', etc etc. If you start telling the truth about how long things might take, you'll get laughed at. If you go away and complete it, and show it working, people will assume you cut corners, didn't do it properly etc

Some big companies just work really slowly, and fighting that often doesn't seem worthwhile.

<comment><USER3> Also it's very easy to step on someone else's little garden of job security. Or power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Essentially what he is saying is that it is better to take initiative and do what you think needs to be done rather than try to get approval first.

There is a parallel here to startups -- no risk no reward. By taking on a project without approval you are basically putting your job on the line. If your manager approved the project, he would be on the line. Unless he really believes in the idea, it's unlikely he will do that. Better to wait and see how you do and then pile on once success seems more assured. You will find the same thing with investors -- noone wants to give you money until you are already successful.

</comment><comment><USER5> Where's the incentive for me to work my butt off and risk getting fired all for my Big Dumb Corporation?

<comment><USER6> Perhaps to turn your department into the good example, and eventually let you be able to say that you work at "Not So Dumb Corporation?"

<comment><USER7> Honestly, I'm not sure it's worth your time and effort to try to engineer a turnaround of "Big Dumb Company" from the lower runks of the inside.

The chance of success (meaning a full transformation to "Not So Dumb Corp") is so unlikely and life is way too short for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Best Buy seems to be a bit of an enigma.

On the one hand you have what is described in this 37signals article. Smashing The Clock (mentioned in the article) was written over two years ago. This is the first I'm hearing of Blue Shirt Nation.

Then we have reality. Like many others I abhor shopping at Best Buy. Every employee is required to parrot a greeting at you when you get near. They have a large collection of music, none of which will be what you are looking for unless you have an affinity for top 40 trash. Their "high end" audio gear is overpriced Bose garbage. Cashiers try to sell you warranties for $10 electronic items, offer you magazine subscriptions and online services.

I also happen to know several people who have worked at Best Buy that absolutely hated it. There are entire websites dedicated to hating Best Buy that are frequented by former Best Buy employees.</comment>


Ask HN: Wife Wants to Learn HTML and CSS. Looking for Tutorials - <AUTHOR> My wife would like to learn some HTML and CSS in order to be able to develop the design of her web shop autonomously. Do you have any internet tutorial to suggest that she can follow? At the moment she has basic knowledge of CSS that she got by managing a Wordpress website. Thanks for your help! <comment><USER2> [https://themeisle.com/blog/css-in-wordpress/](https://themeisle.com/blog/css- in-wordpress/)

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Learn/CSS](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS)

[https://www.w3schools.com/css/](https://www.w3schools.com/css/)

[https://30-seconds.github.io/30-seconds-of- css/](https://30-seconds.github.io/30-seconds-of-css/)

[https://tympanus.net/codrops/css_reference/](https://tympanus.net/codrops/css_reference/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Or she could hire a local professional.</comment>


Imageflow, a 17x faster ImageMagic alternative and more secure - <AUTHOR> http://www.imageflow.io/ <comment><USER2> Why would you need a web exposed UI?

I guess you could have a local only port to use on a server backend like a reverse proxy but you definitely don't want this public web facing.

imagemagick is used because it is binary library used on the backend

now if this was a dropin library and command line compatible, adoption would be 100%

<comment><USER3> > Why would you need a web exposed UI?

s/UI/API/

That bothers me too, but I can imagine it serves as a nice & complete example of how to use the library.

> now if this was a dropin library and command line compatible, adoption would > be 100%

Sometimes fixing a library means you have to break the API... In case the API sucks and encourages insecure usage patterns. (See LibreSSL.)

Yes it's useful for older projects, but useless and counterproductive for any new code. Perhaps you could write a compatibility layer on top of the new API?

<comment><USER4> Imageflow has two parts - libimageflow, and imageflow-server. Both the library and server offer a JSON API, so it can evolve without breaking changes.

Most users leverage the Dynamic Imaging aspect - you store a single source file in blob storage, then dynamically generate variants as needed. This is like Scene7 or Cloudinary, but open-source, and at 1/1,000th of the cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's clear we can improve our messaging about ways to integrate Imageflow. The command-line tool aspect is under-emphasized, and the libimageflow aspect seems to be confusing as well. What other things are unclear initially (or are still confusing)?</comment>


The Personal Newsletter Fad Needs to End - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/the-personal-newsletter-fad-needs-to-end-b6abb45685c <comment><USER2> _> Unpaid intern for MailChimp_

Is that better or worse than unpaid intern for Medium? One advantage of email is that the writer owns the channel to readers. An email list can be moved to another mail service. A blog audience is subject to the whims of the blogging service and it can be costly to migrate content between blog publishers. Email is a robust standard that enables migration between service providers.</comment>


Why Can't the Left Win? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/why-cant-the-left-win/522102/?utm_source=feed&single_page=true <comment><USER2> I think the left is going to have a hard time winning because of mindsets like this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14277253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14277253)

 _What most of society doesn 't seem to understand is that returning veterans are quite anxious about getting out and this makes them very vulnerable. They are like the Trump voters willing to throw their lot in with whomever tells them "it will be okay", regardless of how unscrupulous and incompetent those promise-makers are._

I know it's unpopular to treat Trump voters as rational, capable adults with different beliefs, but it's a necessary precursor to winning their vote. And anyone who isn't doing this is actively harming the left's chances at victory.

</comment><comment><USER3> >Reflecting on what he called "the woke identity," Freddie DeBoer observed a tendency among some leftists to forcefully reject the work of persuasion.... "A fundamental, structural impediment to liberal political victory is that their preferred kind of moral engagement necessarily limits the number of adherents they can win...."

The American conflation of 'liberal' with 'leftist' is infuriating.

Republicans have twisted the discourse surrounding these concepts so artfully that even many liberals earnestly believe that they're the same thing — that support for legalised cannabis or simply higher taxes makes them 'far left', that vague lip service given to the most milquetoast variety of feminism is 'radical', that subsidised university tuition is 'socialism', &c. Conversely, it's not uncommon to hear (in the context of recent university protests for example) communists and anarchists being referred to as 'liberals'.

It's politically ignorant nonsense and i think it's illustrative of the way that conservatives in the US control the parameters of any given issue. And i feel like that should be one of the biggest factors in any discussion of the prospects for 'the left'.

<comment><USER4> Forced income redistribution is leftist. Someone promoting taxing people to pay for other people's tuition is indeed promoting a leftist policy.

<comment><USER3> By that definition there isn't a main-stream political party in the entire Western world that _isn 't_ leftist, because they all support 'forced income redistribution' to some degree. In the United States it's Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all three of which are enshrined in both parties' official platforms.

<comment><USER4> Yes they all support some degree of leftist policy. Some support more leftism than others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the left is winning. A biological man recently won a woman's weightlifting contest. That would have been unthinkable 10 years ago.

For 50 years the left has been saying they're losing, while every decade has a larger share of economic activity made illegal, and a larger percentage of GDP spent on social welfare.

And it doesn't matter if it's Democrats in power or Republicans. The new Republican healthcare bill for example makes US healthcare more centrally managed and redistributive than it was 10 years ago. And despite the GOP passing a healthcare bill that the GOP of 10 years ago would have denounced as socialism, these are the kinds of headlines appearing in the media:

"Yes, House Republicans, the heartless health-care vote will define you"

..from the Washington Post.

The ideological tenets of socialism are being steadily more entrenched as mainstream values.

All someone has to do is look at the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto to see how many ideas that were once radically left have become normalized:

[https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-m...](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist- manifesto/ch02.htm)

</comment><comment><USER5> > ... from the left, right, and center ...

If we're talking about baseball, sure. But about politics? The terminology is worse than useless. I mean, projecting some N-dimensional space on one dimension? So for example, my values map on left, right and center, for various issues.</comment>


Ask HN: Why was React Native created? - <AUTHOR>

Was React Native created for making it easy for JS devs to develop for iOS? or for iOS devs to build apps more easily? Is it a path to a future cross platform native apps?
I'm both an iOS and web developer.
I fully understand what React (for the web) is trying to solve: UI's are hard and treating them as state machine makes it easier to keep the UI consist ant. The web version is also easily debuggable in the same tools you debug your regular JS code.
React Native is odd. It's not written in Swift/Obj-C and is not debuggable using the same tools we use XCode (and debugging is a big part of what we do to optimize mobile apps).
What are your thoughts? <comment><USER2> I think it's a mixture of both. Getting web devs to dip their toes into mobile development and vice-versa. I really don't see a reason for someone not to pick-up something that will give the best(not-exactly) of both worlds..

Think of the potential if a single language can be used to build apps in multiple platforms - web, mobile, desktop(node-webkit).. I think the language that currently satisfies this is JS and React-native is yet another extension to it.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not a replacement for Swift/Obj-C, it's a replacement for PhoneGap.

Android support is due Soon(TM). It just launched with was ready.

[https://github.com/facebook/react- native/pull/271](https://github.com/facebook/react-native/pull/271)

</comment><comment><USER4> 39% of React Native is Objective C. (Or Java, eventually, for Android). Beyond simple things (or for better performance) you'll still need and want native views/modules in Swift/Objective C.

</comment><comment><USER5> I recommend their intro videos.</comment>


The Koch Brothers' Dirty War on Solar Power - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-koch-brothers-dirty-war-on-solar-power-20160211 <comment><USER2> It's the same in Spain. Despite the sunny climate even exist a law to keep people out of solar installations.</comment>


Ask HN: Favorite Javascript Graphing Solution. - <AUTHOR>

I have been browsing around for a good (preferably opensource) javascript graphing library, wondering if anyone has any feedback for the common ones, or one they would recommend. The more graph types the better, especially pie graphs, and if its not interactive, please explain why you think it's better then the google graphs api. <comment><USER2> I've used JSCharts quite a bit and it works as one would expect. Pretty on the eye as well.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://code.google.com/p/flot/>

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

Both good choices. I've used flot before and it's great, though there are some things that are hard to do. Highcharts I haven't used yet, but it promises more features and customizability, so I think I'm switching.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I should also point out this find of mine. <http://www.splashnology.com/blog/javascripts/290.html> It mentions most of the ones pointed out here, but also has several more, very impressive ones. Worth a skim.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Flot doesnt have pie graphs, but other then that it does seem quite good, I had seen it before, but pie graphs are important. Highcharts is new to me, and looks excellent.

<comment><USER4> "The only thing worse than a pie chart is two pie charts." Edward Tufte

You shouldn't use pie charts EVER, even if your client or customer requests them. Instead you should educate them why it's a terrible idea to ever use them and instead point them to the kind of chart they should be using, a bar chart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://g.raphaeljs.com/></comment>


Our bond with dogs may go back more than 27,000 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150521133626.htm

<comment><USER2> I posted a link to a video about a month ago [0], where arctic wolves approached some workers in remote northern Canada.

I'd always held the belief that man had probably initiated the contact that led to the domestication of wolves but after viewing the video, I can imagine a similar scene, playing out many thousands of years ago, where wolves were the first to initiate contact.

It's a cool video in my opinion (no comments or votes so it must just be me), I'd give anything to experience something like that (I don't think I'd let a wolf get as close as the cameraman though).

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9411228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9411228)

<comment><USER3> Amazing video - but agreed about not letting the wolves get that close. Everything I've been taught about wild animals, suggests that one of these days, something very bad is going to happen to one of the workers who gets that close to a wild wolf.

Absolutely no way would I let one get that close, or get that comfortable about being around humans.

<comment><USER4> Well if they are anything like dogs, and given their posture they looked rather safe. However if you spook them (in any way), things could go wrong fast. I've seen quite a few dogs that look more like flip-flops then dogs. Hell these wolves behaved better then a lot of dogs I've seen!

(However still don't recommend it though ;)

<comment><USER3> The danger is in treating a wild animal like a domestic animal. Domestic animals have gone through thousands of generations of selection bias - if they attack a human, they are euthanized. Even today, a lot of dog handlers I know have the rule of two - a dog gets one chance, but if they bite a human (without being commanded to, of course) a second time, euthanized.

Wild Animals have gone through a little of that (any animal that attacks a human is hunted down and killed), but nowhere near as much as domestic animals. But the thing is, Wolves look a lot _like_ dogs, so we expect them to potentially have the same behavior patterns - which is just not the case.

One other thing - the guy coming out (I presume he was Inuit, but his accent actually sounded spanish), was acting totally alpha, and the wolves responded well to that. The guy with the camera was practically inviting the wolves to see if they could dominate him. That scene could have ended up really, really horribly.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: My open source audio distortion plugin. (VST, VST3, AU) - <AUTHOR> https://www.creativeintent.co/products/temper <comment><USER2> It doesn't link directly to the GitHub, although nevertheless I have a comment, which is can be provide as a Csound plugin and LADSPA plugin? Then, can be use in Linux too. Probably a lot of the codes could be shared between the different version anyways

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea there's a link to the github with a brief blurb about open source on that page. I'm not planning on supporting Csound or LADSPA at this time, but I'm definitely open to pull requests!</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Windows is overwriting Grub boot loader again - <AUTHOR> For a while, Windows played nice with dual boot. With the latest update it overwrites the boot loader and reboots go straight to Windows.
What are they hoping for over here: that people with a dual boot setup might think "oh Windows 10 this is such a nice OS i dont think i will go back to linux boot ever again" .
Jesus H Christ.
Can someone from Microsoft comment on the thought process here? <comment><USER2> Can someone outline the gross steps for recovering from this?

<comment><AUTHOR> This sorted it for me.

[https://superuser.com/questions/1113290/windows-10-replacing...](https://superuser.com/questions/1113290/windows-10-replacing- grub)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best Wunderlist replacement? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys,
as many others I am not really impressed with Microsoft's Wunderlist replacement called To-Do. So my question is, is there any similiar, simple and safe alternative? It seems to me most of the competitors tend to overcomplicate things (e.g Omnifocus) which is something I am not looking for. The closest thing to Wunderlist I was able to find is probably TickTick, but I would love to hear other tips.
Thanks <comment><USER2> Todoist.com is a great alternative. You can make it as complex and as simple as you want. - Each action item has a comment / notes section. You can assign labels, priorities and due dates to action items. And you can move them to project folders. Projects (or project folders) can be nested. The nested project folder structure is on the left hand side. In the paid version you can assign todos to others. Then there are filters (a standard set of filters and user defined filters) that allow you to filter your todos according to labels, assignees, due dates etc

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Todoist really seems like a best pick so far

<comment><USER2> I've used them all. "Remember the milk", toodledo, omnifocus, wunderlist and many many more. None is perfect. Todoist is the one I keep coming back to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I find [https://todo.microsoft.com/](https://todo.microsoft.com/) to be an excellent alternative.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well not having a Mac desktop app available is a deal breaker for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried Asana?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes but it is too robust and I feel it is more suited for teams not individuals :)</comment></comment>


First Japan-Built Airliner in 50 Years Takes on Boeing and Airbus - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/first-japan-built-airliner-in-50-years-takes-on-boeing-airbus <comment><USER2> > Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.'s new airliner is testing the skies just as > rivals are moving to sell off their manufacturing operations for jets with > up to 160 seats. Boeing Co. is set to buy 80 percent of the Embraer SA's > commercial operations in a joint venture, while Bombardier Inc. last year > sold control of its C Series airliner project to Airbus SE and is exploring > "strategic options" for its regional-jet operations.

This is completly misleading on the Bombardier's part, they're not looking to sell off anything. Boeing got bitter after losing to them a deal with Delta Airlines so they asked and got a ridiculous tariff in place on the canadian plane for sales in the USA. Instead of accepting the loss of that market / selling off, Bombardier doubled down on that path and they made the "Avions C-Series" joint venture with Airbus (ownership 50.01 % Airbus, 30.99 % Bombardier Inc., 19 % Québec gov), where Airbus got half+ ownership for a symbolic euro and Bombardier got access to the Alabama plant so their sales to US customers would not be affected by tariffs (also, access to Airbus network for maintenance, training, ...).

The plane is now sold as the Airbus A220, which coupled with the A320 Neo is a no small part of the threat that made Boeing take so many shortcuts on the 737 Max so it could have the training advantage.

A newcomer is always great for competition, and a revival of Japan's ability in that area is great, but claiming they come in a field that their competitors is leaving is simply untrue, the A220 is more alive and dangerous as competition than Bombardier could have ever dreamt to be "alone"; and Airbus is now free to concentrate on other areas and let Bombardier does what it does best, instead of having to field their own plane at that range.

The only losing party was Boeing, which from where I stand is Karma (not saying Bombardier was not getting subsidies, but saying any of Boeing/Airbus/Embraer/Bombardier/... complaining about subsidies to the others is ridiculous, especially the two big ones who have their hands in military contracts)

<comment><USER3> Boeing really shot themselves in the foot there, although as I understand it they asked for an 80% tariff and the US government instead imposed a 300% one. A reminder of the dangers of protectionism, perhaps, although admittedly the original 80% tariff might still have been enough to force Bombardier into the Airbus partnership.

<comment><USER4> Extreme protectionism can be dangerous for sure. But the Bombardier example and protectionism in aerospace isn't a negative example of protectionism. It actually shows that protectionism works. The US benefited by having bombardier planes being built in the US. More jobs, more work for american workers and more taxes for the government. It's a win-win situation. You could argue that Boeing lost out, but they really didn't either.

Bombardier, Airbus, Boeing and the entire aerospace industry in every country exists primarily due to protectionism. Without canadian government support and market protection, bombardier could not exist. Without EU protection, Airbus cannot exist. Boeing or other aerospace companies would have underbid bombardier and airbus out of existence because they produced their own planes.

It's why China and Japan also use significant protectionism to protect their aerospace industry. They, like the US and EU, all "encourage" their own national carriers to buy from national manufacturers.

As others have noted, aerospace industry is inherently dual function just like satellite/GPS industry. They, by their innate nature, serve both the civilian and military industries.

I know we are told "protectionism" is bad from a young age, but the modern industrial world ( starting with the US ) was created by protection. Almost every industry in every industrial nation owes it's rise to protectionism. If you have the time, you should read up on the history of US protectionism in the 1800s, which set the example that every major economy from china to germany to japan to south korea followed to become major economic players.

Without protectionism, we don't have Airbus, Bombardier, etc. Without protectionism, we also don't have Samsung, Toyota, Sony, Volkswagen, etc. Without protectionism, every industry in the US would have been bought up or controlled by the wealthier british industrialists.

The first act of Congress was an act of protectionism - a tariff.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_1789](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_1789)

<comment><USER2> > Extreme protectionism can be dangerous for sure. But the Bombardier example > and protectionism in aerospace isn't a negative example of protectionism. It > actually shows that protectionism works. The US benefited by having > bombardier planes being built in the US. More jobs, more work for american > workers and more taxes for the government. It's a win-win situation. You > could argue that Boeing lost out, but they really didn't either.

No they didn't. No new plant, no new hires, no more planes built at that plant than before. They will displace planned production at that plant to make room for the specific planes requesting by US customers, and the plane originally meant to be built there will be made in another non US plant.

The ONLY thing that changes for the US is negative in that Boeing's competitors are now stronger and allied together against Boeing.

<comment><USER4> Lets say you are right. If protectionism was so bad for the US and so good for our competitors, then our competitors would be begging us to increase our protectionism. But they are doing the exact opposite.

If protectionism was so good for the competitor, Boeing and the US government wouldn't be attacking the EU and their subsidies and protectionism of Airbus.

If protectionism is so bad for Boeing, why have the Boeing execs lobbied the US government for more protectionism? If protectionism is so bad, why has bombardier lobbied canada and quebec for protectionism for decades? If protectionism is so bad, why has airbus lobbied for protectionism from the EU even before they became operational? Airbus was born with protectionism and subsidies that is the envy of the world.

I'm not entirely for or against protectionism, but the blanket ideology that protectionism is bad is historically incorrect. Ask Boeing, ask Airbus, ask Bombardier.

If Airbus starts demanding more tariffs, subsidies and protectionism for Boeing in the US, then I'll start to believe what you say. If Boeing demands that EU give Airbus even more subsidies and greater market protection it the EU, then I'll start to believe what you say.

<comment><USER5> >If protectionism was so bad for the US and so good for our competitors, then our competitors would be begging us to increase our protectionism. But they are doing the exact opposite.

Most people view trade in general as a mutually beneficial endeavor.

<comment><USER4> I too agree that trade can be a mutually beneficial endeavor. But it's not an either-or nor an absolute. Trade can be good, trade can be bad. Protectionism can be good, protectionism can be bad. History has shown that a certain amount of trade and a certain amount of protectionism is the formula for success and trade.

As I pointed out before, some of the top trading nations are the US, China, Japan, Germany and South Korea. All of them have significant amount of protectionist policies. All of them also have significant amount of trade.

It's a false dichotomoy to claim you can have trade or you can have protectionism. You can have both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Aerospace is strategic industry where civilian and military procurements support each other, so this is much more than just business or competition.

Japan has made baby steps to have more sovereignty in it's foreign policy and it just makes sense that they are slowly increasing the relative independency of their strategic industries as well.

<comment><USER7> It's surprising. That's what the article is getting at, and that's the thing implicit in most of the comments. Not necessarily _why_ they did it? But that they would do it at all.

Just seems a bit Quixotic. _Especially_ for a country with much larger issues to worry about. If your country is dying, you'd think you would be rolling out high tech, or innovative solutions to that problem first.

<comment><USER8> What do you mean by dying. Are you referring to low birth rates or other factors?

<comment><USER7> Yeah. The fact that they are going to be at about 85 million in 2050, down from 125 today, is pretty alarming.

Well, I guess "alarm" isn't the right word, since everyone knows that it's happening already. But you would think there would be more concern about it?

<comment><USER8> I honestly think more countries should be encouraged to go this route. Do we really need more people on this planet? Shoudn't being more sustainable involve having fewer children, less consumption and having more productive work and more people in the automation industry?

<comment><USER9> The only way such a move would have the desired effect is if those countries also took up Japan's extremely restrictive migration policies. That is unlikely to happen in most lower-nativity (i.e. 'western' or 'westernised') countries.

<comment><USER10> > That is unlikely to happen in most lower-nativity (i.e. 'western' or > 'westernised') countries.

That is already happening in most western nations.

Sweden shut down its immigration flood as one prominent example. It was a policy mistake that will not benefit their nation at all and they aggressively reversed course. Denmark has mostly followed Sweden in restricting its briefly loose immigration policies, because the results have been very poor.

Australia has implemented an extremely strict immigration system that locks almost everyone out unless you meet their merit requirements.

Canada has had a strict merit system in place for a long time. They have no plans to change that, because they know the damage it would do to their very nice welfare state.

Norway and Finland never relaxed their immigration policies in the first place.

Merkel's immigration flood exploded in her face with massive backlash politically. Germany was forced to turn back against that approach as it was politically untenable.

France has seen _zero_ economic benefit from its loose immigration policies over the last two decades. When I say zero, I mean their immigrants have high unemployment and low education levels, the economy has not expanded at all, productivity is not expanding, GDP per capita has not expanded, and median wages have not expanded. They thought it would bolster their economy, it did the exact opposite, it's now a massive drag on each person in France that has to support the high immigrant unemployment rate.

Next will be the US, which will entirely turn against allowing mass low skill immigration. The US has dramatically expanded its welfare state over the last 30 and 50 years. The US now spends as much on its welfare state per capita as Canada. You can't combine increasingly shifting to a very expensive welfare state system with unfettered low skill immigration that can't pay its own way (and in fact does the opposite, it drowns the system). Bernie Sanders, to use one prominent example, understands how this combination has to work economically. It's why Finland only has 5 million people and isn't in a big hurry to get to 10 million (they could open the gates tomorrow and allow in millions of people; it's clear why they don't do it). You can have sustainable immigration in an expensive welfare state only if it pays for itself. All the best nations - highest standards of living - on earth follow this model for obvious reasons.

<comment><USER9> > Sweden shut down its immigration flood as one prominent example

Sweden had the third-highest migration count ever in 2018, with ~137.000 people migrating to the country. The second-highest was 2017 (~144.000), the highest 2016 (~163.000). Source: SCB ( _Statistiska Centralbyrån_ -> 'Central Bureau for Statistics') report [1]. No borders were closed, not for real. In 2018 Migrationsverket ('Migration authority', responsible for handling migration) expected over half a million people (~5% of the current population) to come to Sweden in the coming 5 years.

Half of the women giving birth in Sweden are now wholly or partly of foreign descent, 35% partly or wholly of non-western descent, this also according to a recent SCB report.

[1] [https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/sverige-i- siffror/mannisk...](https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/sverige-i- siffror/manniskorna-i-sverige/invandring-till-sverige/)

<comment><USER11> Depends a bit on what you're looking at. Here's a graph of the approved residencies for asylum seekers : [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQwHObtLmiVV...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQwHObtLmiVV7VeMU2JRb-u51SeHlFmIMvS8eF- di7W397pXJMYW-R2nfkPkfBq_mG2keCkkejRhMJ6/pubchart?oid=1303258054&format=interactive)

It shows a clear decline in recent years, though overall immigration may not be affected.

<comment><USER9> Do note that I was talking about 'migration', not about 'asylum seekers'. Also, when discussing migration (of any sort) to Sweden it is best to keep to verified sources - SCB being a prime example of such - as the discussion around this subject is so polarised that anything less than pristine data is suspect. Random spreadsheets don't count as verified data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm all in favour of more competition, and of course I get that designs are led by engineering/efficiency concerns, but it still makes me a little sad that the days of visually distinctive aircraft designs are long gone. Old- style machines like Concorde and 747 and all their predecessors can be recognized from a great distance; I'd be hard-pressed to tell this apart from an E190 even if I taxied right past it on the tarmac.

<comment><USER13> This is about to get interesting again when hybrid/electric planes enable a complete rethink of how planes work and are designed. The first commercial electric planes are currently under development. Both Airbus and Boeing have some plans for about a decade from now on this front. Most of that (but not all) will be hybrid electric.

Current economics are based on the notion that fuel is expensive and therefore you try to fly huge planes with lots of people because it delivers better fuel economy. This completely dominates everything in the aviation industry currently from design, logistics, to operations. The economies are such that you only fly routes where you can fill all the seats and still pay for the fuel. With electric your energy cost is a much less significant. Your main cost shift to infrastructure, cost, maintenance, etc. of the plane. If electric cars are an indication, you can expect some reduced cost there as well.

So, suddenly, flying short hops with small air planes becomes cheap and feasible. So, why fly short hops with a few huge planes that cost tens of millions and burn tons of fuel when you can fly the same route with many smaller planes that you charge using solar/wind/etc. for a fraction of the cost? Changes the game completely. E.g. London-Amsterdam could be dozens/hundreds of 6-12 seater electrical planes instead of a handful of airbuses flying back and forth. Also, London City suddenly becomes more attractive because small electric planes are not so noisy.

Basically on board staff becomes the limiting factor, not fuel cost. Now add autonomous flying to the mix and you solve that as well.

<comment><USER14> > E.g. London-Amsterdam could be dozens/hundreds of 6-12 seater electrical > planes

As long as they don't all need 2 pilots. I'd _really_ like to see self-driving planes, must be easier than self-driving cars surely? (And, yes, I would fly in one)

<comment><USER15> Flying a plane is easy. Autopilots have been a thing for a long time. Landing a plane is a bit tricky but doable. The value of human pilots though is in the case of malfunctions. That's the main problem. A failing safe-driving car has always the option of stopping on the side, calling home and lighting the warning lights.

A plane has to find a way of landing safely first. I am not versed enough in aeronautics to even begin to understand how hard it is to reach human-level in mayday situations.

<comment><USER16> Under normal circumstances a plane can totally land itself at an airport equipped with ILS IIIC. If you're landing in a corn field because your engine stopped spinning (generally a bad day) the situation is a bit different. This is why I think fully autonomous planes carrying humans won't happen for a really long time. The stakes when shit goes sideways is really high and it takes skill and a bit of luck to recover from that. Computers don't yet have that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article says "Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd., also known as Comac, has a new regional jet in service," and then shows a picture of the Comac C919. To be clear, the regional jet that Comac has in service is the ARJ21, and the C919 is Comac's upcoming competitor to the 737 Max and A320 Neo.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if Boeing is going to sue Mitsubishi like they sued Bombardier.

<comment><USER19> Here's the bit I used to tease my Boeing employed friend about:

Mitsubishi Heavy built the wings for the 787. Boeing, in a rare moment of stupidity, outsourced the manufacturing of the wings (the internal policy has historically been "The wings are the plane" so outsource anything BUT the wings and we are cool).

So about the time the first 787 prototype rolls off the lines, Mitsubishi announces their Regional Jet.

He was calm about this every time I brought him an article about them making progress. It's a Bombardier class plane, it doesn't _really_ compete with Boeing. And they need a lot of commuter jets in SE Asia so they'll sell a lot of them, sure, but it's gonna be a while before they build a plane three times as big.

And as it turns out, it took them a very long time just to build their first plane. Now, I don't believe the Japanese "school of business" is fond of people bungling a project and having no idea how to avoid all the problems the next time, so we could get surprised by a much faster turnaround on the next one. But they're still _way_ behind schedule.

<comment><USER18> > Here's the bit I used to tease my Boeing employed friend about:

Is it really "Boeing" anymore or more MD?

One hypothesis around the 787 problems I heard was that post-acquisition, all the MD people ended up in important positions (reverse take-over a la Apple and NeXT)

So when the Dreamliner program came a long it was developed under MD's more business-y thinking (outsource risk) instead of Boeing's engineering thinking (learn in-house). Then they had to put together a ten thousand piece jigsaw from hundreds of suppliers with varying tolerances.

<comment><USER20> > MD's more business-y thinking (outsource risk)

MD was/is a defense contractor first and foremost and the most important thing about defense aerospace is spreading the grift over as many congressional districts as possible. This makes total sense when your clients are 100% political. It makes zero sense otherwise.

Notice SpaceX can build big rockets on the cheap and keep a schedule? Yeah because they do everything in one place unlike NaSA and it's contractors that have to spread everything all over.

<comment><USER21> > Notice SpaceX can [..] keep a schedule?

They cannot. Your statement is actually kinda funny, since "elon time" is its own meme and ULA uses "Schedule Certainty" as one of the main talking points to distinguish themselves from SpaceX (see [0] as an example of the ULA CEO doing exactly that on the SpaceX subreddit)

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/aqbnza/spacex_prote...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/aqbnza/spacex_protests_nasa_launch_contract_award/egfclfm/?context=3)

<comment><USER20> > They cannot.

You mean compared to NaSA and it's aerospace contractors? Cause that's what matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting I think to note that a co-owner of the division of Mitsubishi making this plane is Mitsui Corporation. Mitsui Co. Is a general trading company which includes a large airplane leasing division. This project is a cool example of the connection and group centric behavior of Japanese corporations.

<comment><USER23> Mitsubishi and mitsui are among the big four zaibatsu (zaibatsu) of Japan. Can't agree it's cool consiering their history in modern Japan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The move by Trans States Holdings and Skywest Inc to order this aircraft, specifically the MRJ90 variant, is interesting. Currently, in the US, the three major carriers United, Delta, and American are in contract negotiations with their pilots. A hot button topic during these negotiations is always scope. Scope sections basically define what flying must be done in house and what flying and how much flying can be outsourced. As it is currently, I'm not aware that any of the 3 major carriers, who contract this type of regional flying with TSA, SKW, etc. have permissive enough scope clauses to contract out flying to these companies on this aircraft. If I remember correctly even the updated ERJ175 took some negotiating to get the unions on board as it was outside of the weight limits set by some carriers' scope clauses. The standard cutoff as of today for regional flying is 76 seats, this is why the CRJ-900 and ERJ175 have exactly 76 seats and the ERJ190 is flown by American Airlines proper rather than a contractor. Given many airline pilots feel their career has been hampered by two decades of regional jet fee for departure arrangements I see little hope for scope being relieved for regional airlines to fly bigger and bigger aircraft.

Of course, the move to secure order places may simply be a strategic move to trade those spots on the order book for more flying should one of the legacy airlines choose to order the MRJ for themselves. It's interesting how the chess pieces move and fun to watch!

TLDR; Don't expect to see this aircraft flying under the colors of any of the legacy airlines in the US until you see them ordered by the legacy airlines themselves.

<comment><USER25> The MRJ90 is only slightly bigger than the E175-E2 (92 pax in a 1-class configuration vs. 88 pax in the E175), so it wouldn't be crazy for the regional airlines to get some equipped in a lower-density configuration with 76 seats.

<comment><USER24> The E175-E2 is actually the aircraft I was speaking about being over the weight limits under current scope clauses [1]

Without the scope issue being solved these aircraft are dead in the water when it comes to the US. Obviously the US market isn't the only market but it is certainly the largest and without it a manufacturer cannot expect to be a real threat to Boeing or Airbus.

[https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air- transport/2018-1...](https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air- transport/2018-10-30/embraer-removes-100-unit-skywest-order-e2-backlog)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Such a difficult game to get into, convincing legacy airlines who have entrenched and certified workforces and expensive engineering supply chains, the business case of adding another manufacturers equipment is almost insurmountable. Even making a great aircraft isn't enough let alone accounting for what airbus and boeing can respond with if you pose a threat.

</comment><comment><USER27> Well, if cars are any indication, maybe it'll be more reliable than the American built planes.

<comment><USER28> Mercifully, though, modern airliners aren't made by 1970s-era General Motors.

<comment><USER29> No, that's for small aircraft and their postwar era engine designs. To give you an idea of how slow development is in small aircraft engines, AVGas (Gasoline for airplanes) is still leaded.

<comment><USER16> That's more because of how old the fleet is. Modern engines with fuel injection, electronic ignition, turbos, and (optional) constant speed props don't really care as long as their ECU has a map for it.

<comment><USER30> New planes also get 50-year old design engines due nobody wanting to pony up $ for certification of new ones...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So mitsubishi finally will deliver the plane or not? I can't find this information in the news, and the delivery of this very plane has been delayed several times.

</comment><comment><USER31> I noticed that they referred to trams state airlines as trams world later in the same paragraph ... I miss TWAs almost art deco travel posters.

</comment><comment><USER32> The MRJ is too heavy to be flown by any US airline per contracts with the pilots. I don't see how we will ever see this plane in the US.

<comment><USER33> To elaborate… the pilots' union doesn't want the airlines shifting jobs to lower paying affiliate airlines, so their contracts restrict the sorts of planes which can be used with the affiliates.

Covered in wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_clause](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_clause)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Someone please for the love of god make a minimalist news website without cookies and all the other annoying distractions! :|

<comment><USER35> But would you be willing to pay for it?

Part of the reason news websites have to resort to all of the advertising and trackers is because everyone expects to get their news for free now.

<comment><USER36> Which would be a great defense, except that they typically keep all that stuff even when you do subscribe.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you want a more affordable solution for user testing your website?  - <AUTHOR>

So I think it's pretty unreasonable that sites like usertesting.com charge $39 / user test. It is pretty expensive particularly if you want to order multiple testers.
I wanted to develop a more simple and affordable method for getting your site tested so I created BetaPunch.com
My pricing is currently set at $10 / user test which I have been told by many of my peers is too low for the quality of feedback my customers are receiving. Here's some proof of customer satisfaction: http://i.imgur.com/ZvjlM.png
But my target demographic is early stage startups and I know money is tight so I wanted to give them something that was affordable.
I created a coupon code for anybody who wants to give it a shot. If you enter the coupon: ' hackernews ' when you sign up your startup and order at least 1 test you will get an additional user test for free.
Let me know what you think. <comment><USER2> Who does the reviews and how long do they average?

<comment><AUTHOR> Reviews range between 8 - 15 minutes long depending on the complexity of the websites / apps.

I have an email list of close to 1000 people that were interested in being a "early adopter" so I draw testers from that list.

I got some more feedback in regards to pricing and I have raised my price to $15 / test with higher discounts when multiple testers are purchased.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have used these guys multiple times and have always been pleased with the feedback. Can't beat it for the low prices.

</comment><comment><USER4> clickable <http://www.betapunch.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> Go get 'em!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>