We are not consumers - <AUTHOR> http://mnmlist.com/unconsumers/ <comment><USER2> > that we can grow our own food, make and trade and share everything we need

Grow our own food? I don't want to be a farmer. It's hard. Division of labor is awesome.

As for sharing, how do you rationally decide who to give something to? The idea of "whoever needs X should have it" _sounds_ nice, but the tricky part is figuring out who needs X. Prices have information about that, and we need information to make a rational decision. Also prices have information about when you shouldn't use X (because it's too hard to make) and should substitute Y instead.

And as for trade, it's basically the same thing as buying except if you take away money you have to find someone who wants your stuff, and has stuff you want, instead of only one or the other, so it's harder to trade.

<comment><USER3> You miss the point. I am a person, then a customer if I buy from you, a client if subscribe to your service. This is not an argument about economics, but instead the framing of who we are in the economic system.

<comment><USER4> How is this not an argument about economics? The author makes specific arguments for growing one's own food, and returning to a barter economy. He makes a slight jab at the notion of not merely being consumers, but also creators, but it seems like the crux of his argument is that we should be disconnecting ourselves from corporations in their current form.

Note: I think this idea overall is pretty dumb. A rejection of corporations in favor of cottage industries and barter economies? I'm pretty sure there is free love and tie-dye shirts in his future.

<comment><USER5> Personally, I'd settle for a rejection of the notion of "wealth" as the key indicator of success to something like, "long term sustained production capacity", where production capacity includes knowledge production and long term is on the scale of multiple human lifetimes.

<comment><USER6> George Gilder wrote some weird stuff later, but his "Wealth and Poverty" presented some really good ideas. One of the best was his distinction between "wealth" and "riches". "Riches" are resources used for pleasure and consumption; "wealth" is anything used to increase or improve future production. As he pointed out many things can be either depending on how it is used, but the distinction is very useful when thinking about the future and how to use your current resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you value your time, then it really pays to investigate the ways in which you spend money, and the system that is in place to encourage that spending and even make it seem normal.

There are questions you can ask, for instance, if you are an employee of someone else:

How much do I get paid per hour?

How much money do I need to sustain my lifestyle?

How many hours per week do I need to work to sustain my lifestyle?

What if it's only 25 hours?

Are there full-time professional jobs out there which only require 25 hours of work per week?

Why not?

Is it because we're supposed to spend the money earned in the other 15 hours on stuff we don't need?

When did I make the decision to work 15 more hours to buy stuff I don't really need, and could I be enjoying my life more by having those 15 hours instead of the stuff?

<comment><USER8> _Are there full-time professional jobs out there which only require 25 hours of work per week? Why not?_

Because by definition, 25 hours/week is part time.

Incidentally, if you wish to work little, you can do so. 80% of the poor don't work at all, and nevertheless live a lifestyle which a few decades ago would have been called "middle class". I don't see much reason you can't do the same, unless of course you actually want some of the stuff that extra 15 hours/week can buy.

If you do skilled labor, you can almost certainly consult less than 40 hours/week (on average, over a year).

<comment><USER9> Do you have data to support the statement that 80% of poor people don't work? How do you define poor? How do you define middle class? I have a hard time believing someone poor enough to receive food stamps for example is living a life anything like what my parents were living when they were my age (30 years ago).

<comment><USER8> Poor is defined by the US poverty line.

The actual number of poor people who don't work (and aren't looking for work) is 78% as of 2008. <http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2008.pdf>

Lifestyles of the poor, in terms of consumer goods and services. [http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2004/01/Understandi...](http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2004/01/Understanding- Poverty-in-America)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the info. The BLS paper is useful, but I have to question anything from Heritage. To grossly paraphrase Groucho Marx, "I don't want to be a member of a club that counts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as members."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Consumer" is a role. Roles are not exclusive. A role makes sense in a particular context, e.g. where there is a producer of a particular thing and a consumer.

I am absolutely a Consumer. And I am a Producer, or a Creator, which provides my income for my consumer lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER11> What's so wrong with buying? What was so great about the tribal lifestyle? Trading and bartering are just raw forms of buying: You work, grow potatoes, then trade those potatoes for something you need. Why is that better than working, earning money, and trading that money for something you need?

I'd be more inclined to indulge the author's suggestion that we stop being consumers if he actually provided some supporting arguments.

<comment><USER12> Exactly. Would people a thousand years ago still have bartered if they had a stable currency to use instead? I doubt it. They bartered because a currency the king offered might be gone next week if he died in the latest city siege.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A good point and a valid concern. I didnt read this as a return to barter nor tribalism but instead a comment of the reduced subject.

Late Modernist and Postmodernist debates on subjectivity tend to see the Enlightenment idea of a coherent subject as being completely fragmented to the point of collapse.

It is a double-edged issue. The 'death' of the subject means on the one hand we are free to imagine and invent new relationships. But on the other hand because our notions of freedom derive from notions of subjectivity there is danger of losing freedom.

Consumerist culture exploits this exact split - as consumers, we are told how free and unique we are as an advertising ploy and then end up all wearing the same thing... We are also easily manipulated by mass media distracted by nonissues while serious threats to freedom remain relatively ignored.

If we 'buy' too much into this identity, what is left are relationships in which subjectivity is inverted. Subjectivity in this case lies more in the corporation than in the human subject. (As reflected in that bizarre Supreme Court decision of the last year.)

We do need to fight this. And it is not a right nor a left issue. Both sides decry the erosion of freedom but see different causes.

What is generally lacking in us today is what Kant referred to as 'Speculative Reason' or more colloquially the ability to think - creatively, imaginatively,actively and constructively.

Consumers dont do that - nor do constituents nor employees, etc.

"Hackers and Painters" do. Makers do.

That is a key - we (as consumers) forget that we can make, create. And if we as humans have any purpose, that is it. In fact we are only knowable in what we create (Vico "verum factum")

I had a long rambling talk in the dogrun last night with an intelligent and non-technical lawyer who reads Popular Mechanics for fun.

So I babbled on for awhile about makezine, OReilly press, Linux, Arduino stuff he did not know about. And it made me think of how exciting this field can be at times - not because of the technical advance but of the remarkable creativity.

So I dont think the point is for 'tiedyes' and subsistence farming but to become very conscious of the breakdown of subjectivity and the potential danger in the greatly reduces roles that are left in its fragmentation.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've always preferred the term "citizen", myself.

<comment><USER15> James Kunstler said it best:

"Please, please, stop referring to yourselves as 'Consumers.' OK? Consumers are different than citizens. Consumers do not have obligations, rights, responsibilities and duties to their fellow human beings."

[http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_howard_kunstler_diss...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html)

<comment><USER16> Kunstler's demeanor rubs me the wrong way a lot of the time, but he makes very good points. That TED talk changed the way I look at a lot of things in life after I saw it years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Use of "consumer" as the default for a human being in our society is emblematic of everything that is wrong with it. Consumption is a natural part of normal life; it is not who we are. Every time I hear that word -- which is whenever I listen to media, approximately -- I think of pigs at the trough.

</comment><comment><USER18> Lacks depth: in order to be innovative we need focus, in order to have focus we need to be specialized, in order to be specialized we need to not focus on growing food when we program (or do brain surgery or rocket science). These support structures are necessary for competitive innovation (though I completely feel your pain).

So if you want to make this argument, you need to figure out a way that it doesn't matter if the US competes globally anymore. That's the only way this works. Otherwise you just make us non competitive in the global market. When everyone else stops growing we can too, but unfortunately until then it's going to be pretty hard to convince people to stop consuming.

<comment><USER19> I think he was trying to get us to focus on not being called consumers first. Personally, I agree, it's an assumption that puts too much power in corporate hands. I agree with you as well, though, that it would require quite a large change for us to stop being consumers.

<comment><USER4> I think he has conflated two words: "consumer" and "buyer" - he doesn't seem too concerned with consumption as he is with buying things.

We are all consumers - I eat 3 square meals a day, I burn some amount of fuel to keep myself warm, and I breathe an awfully large amount of air. The author here doesn't seem too concerned with whether this consumption is excessive, though.

Whether or not we start producing more of what we consume, or we go back to a barter economy (which, if you'd pardon the bluntness, is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard recently) doesn't change our level of consumption, so his real problem is with buying crap.

So let's not confuse the two terms.

<comment><USER20> But we are also producers; most of us have to be in order to acquire money with which to purchase goods to consume. His point, initially at least, was that choosing to label ourselves as consumers leads to a discussion framed in terms of that behavior, at the expense of really evaluating all our options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm poor so I don't buy a lot of things, books from charity shops, refurbished computers, so I feel like big corporations are after me because I'm a bad consumer. Am I a bad person?

<comment><USER13> At times it seems like an undeniable conclusion. Notsure exactly why but your pithy post reminded me of the Ginsberg poem "America"

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The things you own, end up owning you (Tyler Durden)

</comment><comment><USER23> You are a Citizen, not a consumer.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is naive. Creation is just the new form of consumerism!

Think about how much money changes hands today based on work of millions of creators all trying to be the latest YouTube star. To cope with the meaningless and alienation of modern life, they're buying attention instead of commodities, using what they create as currency. In that sense, it is a barter economy, except the middle man takes his cut by selling ads on top of the content. And, oh yeah, don't forget about all the actual consumption you have to do in order to be a creator: a nice computer, a video camera, some video editing software, fast internet connection, etc. I guess that doesn't count as consumption if you're a "creator".

It's weird how profitable all this "anti-consumption" is! Is this really liberation? It's certainly marketed that way by the people who profit most from it. What if it's really just exploitation marketed as liberation?</comment>


We're done working with clients - <AUTHOR> http://www.fullstopinteractive.com/ <comment><USER2> Who exactly is buying all these t shirts? I never see shirts like these when I'm walking down the street.

<comment><USER3> That was my thought exactly. But I can imagine there is room for a "ThinkGeek for designers." Their second site is already a move beyond T-shirts into patches, hats, and other things. I guess they will find out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And here I was thinking they were tired of dealing with clients.

<comment><USER5> "and we're not ruling out the occasional consulting gig under the right circumstances"

They're not accepting new projects, except for when they are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our goal for the rest of the year is to cover our costs by working exclusively on United Pixelworkers and Cotton Bureau. If we haven't quite bridged the gap, we might take on brief, time-blocked consulting work after the holidays. This would be a big, big change from how we've operated for the past four years. All the previous work we did was flat-fee, project. We'd work with a client from strategy to launch. The consulting we were referring to in this would be a 20 or 30 hour, one week engagement and it might not result in us writing a single line of code or opening Photoshop/Illustrator.

We have a couple options for staying in business if United Pixelworkers and Cotton Bureau don't grow fast enough to sustain us. We'd prefer not to need to explore those options, but I hope you can understand why we need to leave that door open. We'd be very sad if we had to stop doing what we enjoy because we ran out of money, and a lot of other people would be too.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure you can see the issue with the Upworthy-style title, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am amazed there is real money in printed t-shirts, but there clearly is.

<comment><USER7> Speaking as a former screen printer, the material costs are very low, except for very elaborate prints: clear or glitter inks, adhesive and foil, partially embroidered shirts, water-based inks with or without burning out the underlying dye in the shirt itself, and certain gradient effects like the Zune logo that required a very steady hand and some experience to produce. The last was my favorite; the complex prints were mostly to the demands of Vegas casinos.

With the caveat that my career was interesting but fairly brief, I believe that I may offer a cost analysis of what exactly the profit potential is here. The shirts and inks themselves cost a pittance, less than five dollars each as a rule. Production equipment can be moderately expensive and requires a moderate amount of warehouse space, but the highest operating cost is almost certainly going to be the Art department. Complex prints take lots of expensive man-hours and back-and-forth with clients to produce, and even simple ones need someone with a bit of domain knowledge to produce. Most designs will be spot colors rather than CMYK, because CMYK tends to look like your grandma's Christmas sweatshirt rather than e.g. a photo.

So, if you can outsource half your art department, and avoid complex designs, and avoid the need for a lot of expensive machinery, you're pretty much where these guys are at. Your big competition is likely to be Chinese, and so the real mass market (Target, Wal Mart, etc) is more or less out of reach, so if you can focus more on smaller runs of boutique prints then you can join the handful of other companies competing in this space, and make -- as other poster suggested -- a decent profit, an enjoyable product, and a career, but not likely a staggering amount of wealth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "We've re-built that thing from the ground up almost half-a-dozen times over the past few years."

Surely that's not a good thing. Surely.

<comment><USER9> What do you mean? I don't grasp your intention. Rebuilding from scratch is not always bad. While Joel (on Software) said that it's the worst idea ever, there surely are situations where it makes sense. E.g. if your codebase is so rotten (from too many quick fixes on the initial MVP) that it's quicker to just rinse and repeat.

<comment><USER8> If situations where it makes sense to do a full rebuild come up 6 times in the space of a few years, to me that indicates a deeper problem.

<comment><USER10> As they were previously running client jobs, I can see an attractive side to building up the team experience on new tech using their in-house project rather than on client projects.

Put otherwise, in their previous line of business, it matters to be current with regards to state-of-the-art application development. Where's the harm in experimenting with your 'on the side' app?

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. Pixelworkers was always a playground for us. Cotton Bureau was explicitly started with the intention of it becoming a business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I they can ensure consistency over time in t-shirt quality and size I might become a customer for life.

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you mean? We don't manufacture the shirts we use (yet), but I suppose we're open to it if the demand is there. Do you know anyone that's doing it well?

<comment><USER11> Hi. Sorry for the typo in my previous post. It should have started with "If...".

What I mean is, sometimes you buy a great quality shirt from a store but the next year at the same store, when they have new a new line of shirts, the quality of the textile is rubbish. This is what I mean with consistent quality which is especially important since I order of the net and I can't check the quality of the textile before buying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cotton Bureau shirts are really high quality, was surprised by that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We use exclusively American Apparel right now, but there are obvious reasons why we don't want to do that forever. We're planning to add additional (high-quality only) shirt styles and manufacturers.</comment></comment>


The Apple bias is real - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/23/9381325/apple-bias-iphone-reviews-day <comment><USER2> Said a biased anti Apple article. If a media blitz by a huge company ever created a market, then where's the Zune or Windows Phone? What makes Apple successful is that they make stuff people want to buy. Not on the opinions of some techno journalist. What stunt will Apple pull next, act to maintain high profit margins?

</comment><comment><USER3> The vegemite bias is real! except for the people who share a differing viewpoint to my own!

<comment><USER3> guess people really like vegemite. or hate it.</comment></comment>


Analog's answer to FPGA opens field to masses (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1167814 <comment><AUTHOR> Fast forward 6 years and it looks like they are available from a company called Anadigm ( [http://www.anadigm.com/fpaa.asp](http://www.anadigm.com/fpaa.asp) ).

This sounds like it could be a great fit for Software Defined Radio.

<comment><USER3> Dev kit is $200. Chip is listed at Arrow for ~$10, but out of stock.

I wonder if you could do some interesting analog audio stuff, like building low part count multi-speaker crossover networks, etc. Then again, for $10 apiece, it probably still makes way more sense to just put a cortex or something on there and do it all digitally.

<comment> _-__--- You could market it to the analog-or-nothing crowd in the audio community. Decreasing production time of "boutique" analog clone effects pedals could make you some cash.

<comment><USER3> That would be neat— a reconfigurable effect pedal that you could download and install new patches for.

The _real_ trick would be providing the option to route the signals out of this thing and through vacuum tube stages, so you're not stuck trying to build a decent overdrive or compressor with silicon-only components.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Rough estimates suggest there are around 3,000 analog engineers in the world_

That's the real order of magnitude of the number of analog engineers?

<comment><USER5> Very few people use analog signal processing techniques these days.

It used to be common up until about 10-15 years ago, but then DSP's came along.

Now, you take a signal, buffer it by the minimuum amount necessary to get it into the DSP, and call it a day.

The best case is, you don't touch the signal at all, because any caps, filters, op amps can all distort the original signal.

You can do it all digitally, and it's much easier to modify on the fly if your technique isn't working well.

Boards and boards full of touchy analog electronics have been replaced by a single DSP.

And not many people are looking back.

<comment><USER6> Signal conditioning is still an important part of EE design. Not all signals are TTL level and unipolar.

For example, this appnote[0] uses a Delta-Sigma converter to digitize a load cell, with the ability to "detect one sheet of copier paper dropped on a stack of 20 reams". In order to do this, it relies on an intrumentation amplifier and custom correlated-double sampling to get a measurement accurate to 200,000 counts.

And even if your input signal can be directly input to your ADC, you'll still need an analog anti-aliasing filter.

Signal conditioning is an important part of signal processing that has to happen in the analog domain.

[0] [http://cds.linear.com/docs/en/application- note/an96fa.pdf](http://cds.linear.com/docs/en/application-note/an96fa.pdf)

<comment><USER5> I agree that we haven't yet eliminated _all_ analog conditioning.

Your example however, doesn't really bolster your point.

Delta-Sigma modulation is a _digital_ signal processing technique.

That particular chip is also using a _digital_ FIR filters to reduce noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You don't get that much analog per chip yet. See

[http://www.anadigm.com/_doc/DS231000-U001.pdf](http://www.anadigm.com/_doc/DS231000-U001.pdf)

Basically, it's four op amps, plus programmable circuitry for all the accessory stuff needed to build most of the things you can do with four op amps. This is neat, but four op amps isn't much analog computation. Here's the block diagram of a classic, very successful analog control system: the F-16's original stability control system: [http://thelexicans.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/yf16fcs.png](http://thelexicans.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/yf16fcs.png)

So this isn't for analog computation, it's for front-ending digital systems where you need to do some filtering at a faster speed than a DSP approach can handle.

The Cypress PSoC line seems to be a whole ARM processor with a little analog stuff added.

</comment><comment><USER8> Too bad the market is still tough for low-volume FPAA's (vs. FPGA's). A product I was working on last year desperately needed FPAA's in low volumes (think 1k-2k MOQ), and was shelved largely because the lack of market availability.

The design was changed to reflect the lack of availability of a low-volume FPAA at a reasonable price point, but this drove the feature set down and the price up until the product was shelved. Until they make them as easily available and as low-cost and many comparable FPGAs, it's going to be hard to design niche-market products around them.

<comment><USER9> What's the difference between a FPAA and the programmable analog blocks on products like Cypress' PSOC? Those chips are pretty common.

<comment><USER8> In our experience, the primary issues was the available number of analog I/Os, we were doing large-scale matrix-like switching between analog sources. That is to say, the PSoCs contained a small number of analog I/Os that could be routed relative to a "dedicated" FPAA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article is from 2008. Is there any particular reason its here?

<comment><USER11> This. I was about to bring up the Anadigm source and then saw the date. Not sure why this is news since there are products in the market and demand scale has not surfaced to help ramp up the supply availability and product variations that could make it a healthy market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recently bought some FPAAs from Anadigm, specifically the 3.3V version: AN231E04-E2-QFNSP

Interestingly they use a switched-capacitor design, which means you can only input signals lower than the clock frequency used for switching the caps.

I had a look for continuous-time FPAAs but couldn't find any.

My goal is simply to make a guitar FX pedal with them, as they can alter gain, perform filtering such band-pass etc.

Potentially I could see it having lower latency than DSP, if anyone knows more about that, I'd be very curious.

<comment><USER13> If you are interested, I did some research on extremely fast, lower power, and low noise filtering using FPGAs or CPLDs.

<comment><USER12> Sure, that sounds cool! (I've got a cheap FPGA dev board that's got an ADC/DAC on, that I wouldn't mind putting to good use)

<comment><USER13> Most of the research work was targeting a specific development paltform, so I don't have good instructions for doing it generally. Here is the paper we based our research off of: [http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~johns/ece1371/papers/1993_lewis...](http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~johns/ece1371/papers/1993_lewis.pdf)

Here is my presentation poster which should explain the motivation and theory a little more clearly than the paper: [https://www.ece.ucsb.edu/academics/undergrad/capstone/event-...](https://www.ece.ucsb.edu/academics/undergrad/capstone/event-2012/presentations/flexSD- poster.pdf)

I graduated before we got it releasable, and haven't had much time with my job to finish up the project. I don't have more time to add to this explanation, but if you want more info or implementation help, feel free to email me: alecdibble at gmail dot com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if you could use it to build a synthesizer. That would be amazing - <USER2> modular analog synthesizer on a chip.

<comment><USER15> I believe I read a while that they demonstrated it in a synthesizer application at a music expo, and I've heard rumors that they are already used in some commercial analog synthesizers.

<comment><USER16> Audio-synthesis has been using these kinds of technologies for decades. Its not unusual for synth/audio-processor manufacturers to make their own custom ASIC's, FPGA's, even small-quantity chipfab runs, to provide their IP to the customer. Synthesis is very promiscuous in this regard; you can make sound with a surprising number of things in the universe.

<comment><USER15> I well aware of the prevalence of the technologies you list in the synthesizer industry, but custom ASICs or FPGAs are quite obviously not the same thing as FPAA.

<comment><USER16> If there's a way, the synth nerds will use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Two of the sub-comments here mention them, but anyone interested in this sort of chip should check out Cypress's PSoC line.</comment>


Show HN: Capture current frame as jpeg via bookmarklet - <AUTHOR> https://codepen.io/dosy/pen/JrQgMY?editors=1100 <comment><AUTHOR> caveats: no external images, no custom fonts, no other iframes ( but this can be a positive as it removes ads ). Try it on google search result page, github, bloomberg, etc. It produces a 'text only' image of the page. big pages take a while ( 10 - 15 seconds ). some sites ( youtube, flickr ) just give a mostly blank page.</comment>


Are hackers too young and too busy bettering their lives? - <AUTHOR> http://kineticac.posterous.com/too-young-and-too-busy-with-bettering-your-li

<comment><USER4> It's a noble exhortation, but I think it's somewhat anathema to the highly specialised - and increasingly so - world in which we live, whether we think it's good or bad from a qualitative and moral perspective.

It's getting more and more that doing something in particular passably - <USER2> alone well - requires thousands if not tens of thousands of hours of practice, and complete immersion and thirst for information within that knowledge domain.

Healthy or not, it's how the world works. If you spend that much time learning to be a good hacker and developing both the passion and understanding to create interesting software products, just about anything else you do "once in a while" is something in which you're going to be no more than a mere dabbler. Of course, there are exceptions; I know several Renaissance Men that seem to be impeccably good at numerous things that constitute universes of very non- trivial complexity in themselves, and have always been omni-curious, well- read, and just generally knowledgeable about, well, just about anything. But they are the exception, and even in their case, areas of sweeping general knowledge don't have the same economic or practical utility as narrow corridors of highly specific knowledge.

It's just a trade-off of the epoch in which we live. There are only so many hours in the day, and that's just how it goes.

Personally, I have always been a person with broad interests in a variety of unrelated areas that I frequently nurse. But, I have no illusions about excelling and being truly proficient at more than one of those domains - <USER3> two someday, if I'm lucky - in a way that's useful and can make a meaningful impact on the world. I'd be the last to protest diversification for the sake of health and sanity, but it's important to realise that it's just that.

If you spent the last ten years intensely immersed in programming for most fruitful hours of your waking life, but also "occasionally" like to screw around with automobile mechanics, then it's a basically immutable fact that you're going to be an eminently better programmer than an auto mechanic. And while it may be fun and valuable to exercise your mind in both areas, the auto mechanic side of you isn't going to get the same kind of satisfaction that comes from the efficacy and power of competence and deep, erudite knowledge. It's being able to accomplish something concrete, nontrivial and lasting that gives programmers that high, which is why so few (outside academia) write toy code just for the fun of it that nobody's ever going to use.

The point is, I think that most intelligent people want to apply their skills and capabilities in ways that have a measurable displacement in the real world. That takes so much time, effort and devotion that it leaves tragically little time for other things. And I think that's why well-meaning people end up in the "tunnel vision" of their "narrow" professional self-concept; it's a cross we bear for being really good at what we do, or striving to be.

With regard to Relay for Life, I'm going to end with a quote from Dmitry Orlov's essay, "Thriving in the Age of Collapse," which is otherwise on the wholly different topic of his very pessimistic views of energy consumption sustainability. (<http://nosedive.org/backup/orlov.htm>)

I think it sums up my view of the usefulness of participating in such things, though:

"Am I being overly optimistic about the promise of a reformed American suburbia? Some people are ready to declare suburbia to be at an end. But then I know that Americans are very much driven to hyperbole, always willing to put an end to something certifiably unstoppable (war, AIDS, cancer, poverty, global warming), usually by making a small charitable donation, by wearing a colorful plastic bracelet, or by going for a walk, a run, or a bicycle ride. Below the charming, childlike confidence and optimism of such ventures lurks a culturally ingrained inability to grasp something basic: not all problems are solvable.

And thus I discern an element of wishful thinking in the idea that suburbia is going to conveniently disappear, and that everyone who lives there will simply go and live someplace else. A cabin in the woods, perhaps? Or a picturesque desert island? How about a space colony? Nor do I find it plausible that half the U.S. population will lay down and die shortly after they discover that some of their cars no longer run or that their kitchen appliances no longer work. And so I find it safe to think that most of the existing infestations of Suburbia americans are ineradicable, but that the evolutionary pressure of a chronic energy shortage will force them to evolve into something much less energy-intensive. Whether, in each case, that something will turn out to be absolutely horrible, or quite pleasant, will depend on many things."

<comment><USER5> To me, the article isn't saying to abandon the road to mastery, but merely to take some detours once in a while. Dedicating a lot of time and energy to something is definitely fulfilling and has a compounding effect, but as many astute programmers have noticed, there is an echo-chamber effect if all the information you get is from programmers and the programming world. Worse, you could continue to hold incredibly inaccurate beliefs about other people like the professional photographer in the article, and make judgment calls based on that false information.

Of course you need something to bring to table in modern times, to be a productive member of society. However, that doesn't mean to specialize to the extent that you lose all context. Dig deep, sure, but come up for air sometime and take a look around. You'll be surprised at what you may discover.

<comment><USER4> To the extent that it is possible to strike that balance, you'll get no argument from me. :-)

I think the reason every reasonable person doesn't just do this without needing to read an article to remind him of the value of doing so is that it's really _hard_ to do in these modern times.

Before I graduated from high school and started working in tandem with college (which rapidly escalated into a full-time career development path and compelled me to drop out, eventually), I used to hold a lot of people in deep contempt for being so ignorant and narrowminded at a time of historically unprecedented access to a never before seen breadth of information; between the Internet, book sellers, public libraries, universities, etc. there's just nothing you can't learn about if you want to these days.

What I had no concept of is that after you come home from a 10-hour day at an intense job, even a technical white-collar job that seems physically undemanding from a superficial perspective, all you want to do is just veg out; even then, there are too many other bullshit errands to do. It's not just strictly a matter of time being available logically; it takes energy, mental and spiritual, to come home at 7 PM and then compose symphonies until bed time.

Some people are more insistent than others at doing what they want to in spite of what they have to, but it's not reasonable to expect most people to do that even if the availability is technically there. We may have it easy compared to our ancestors from many economic and physical points of view, but that doesn't mean we aren't plagued with some of the problems existentially perennial to the economic man.

EDIT: Also, I am not sure that the "echo chamber" that characterises Valley web startup culture is any more sealed or myopic than the echo chambers of other comparably specialised combinations of professional endeavour. Ever seen what financial instruments traders breathe, eat, snort, etc. 24/7? People who participate in insurance industry MLM schemes? People "tracked" for "blue- collar" skilled trades? People who love and excel at working on cars or motorcycles? Realtors, mortgage brokers? I'm talking about the folks that are on top of their game in those respective sectors - the "hackers" - not the most bromidically average, uninspired 9-to-5ers. It's very similar.

<comment><USER6> Yes but you are working with the assumption that you must be "on top of [your] game". i.e. that you must "win". Alan Kay said that perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Let me give you an example: Suppose you decided to drop out for a year at the risk of sliding back from the top of your game. Suppose you went to a third world country and worked for a charity. Suppose you came back with a different perspective namely: Most of the stuff we do in the west is completely superflous. Its about making life even more convenient and sumptuous for those who already have far too much. That in fact every minute of your amatuer and inefficient time was worth hours of what you were doing professionally because the work you did as an amateur was so much more important. In summary: The persepctive you get is that the game you were trying to be at the top of is a game not worth playing, that really it was doing you and the world no good and that on your deathbed being able to say: "I was the best at X for a while, knew everything there was to know about it" - doesn't amount to much. Note: I haven't done this. I am just saying that I think it is possible based on some experiences I had while travelling (and neglecting my game). Bill Gates seems to have had a similar insight but true to form he went and did something about it.

<comment><USER4> _The persepctive you get is that the game you were trying to be at the top of is a game not worth playing, that really it was doing you and the world no good and that on your deathbed being able to say: "I was the best at X for a while, knew everything there was to know about it" - doesn't amount to much._

Certainly can't argue with that. I'm just trying to provide a useful account of why people who play the game play it with the total commitment that they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apropos:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

-Robert A. Heinlein

</comment><comment><USER8> From the opposite side of the spectrum consider these facts…

1\. Studies have shown it becomes harder for your brain to learn as you age. So there is some logic to burying yourself in your chosen profession when you are young and learning as much as you possibly can.

2\. Thanks to the beauty of compound interest the money you make in your 20s and 30s is worth several times more than the money you'll make in the entire rest of your life. So it make sense to get as good as you can at what you do, make a decent amount of money and sock it away when you're young

3\. When you're young your body is generally in the best shape it will ever be. I personally think everyone should have the experience of partying all night or picking up potential mates at a bar. That's really only possible when you're young (or at least it gets harder the older you get).

4\. You're more useful to society if you take the skills you do well and find a way to contribute with them. What's better, a programmer spending his day hammering nails badly or a programmer who donates a day's wages and hires 3 guys who have worked construction and know what they're doing?

I'm not against public service. But if you focus on yourself until you're say…40…you'll still have a good 50 to 60 years to go out and do as much public service as you want. There's nothing wrong with using your youth to establish yourself in the world and then turning your attention to bettering the world once you're settled in.

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, being highly specialized can be a bad thing. Look at all of the skilled laborers that went straight from highschool to working on the assembly line making $70k. Now that all of that work has been undercut by outsourcing to Mexico or China, what options do they have? (other than dropping their profession and learning a new one)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My overall response is sort of meh. I say do what you love. If you're driven to do something you might as well do it rather than always second guessing yourself, or imagining what might have been.

On the other hand, there is a sort of frenzied mania that exists in the valley that I think is very limiting if you buy into too much. For the cool stuff that happens here there exists the same sort of herd mentality that geeks often decry in places where they don't fit in, the only difference being the fads here are more to our sensibilities.

FWIW I spent my teens and early twenties being a total slacker, and I don't regret it one bit. I went to public school and I got to know people from all walks of life. I did not move to the valley until I was 30. It's all been valuable experience, and not a detriment to mastering web development, because a regular 9-5 job on a good team was plenty of time to master the craft and still live life like a normal 20-something. The great thing about the Web is that all the best info about it is _on the web itself_ , so physical location does not directly put you at a disadvantage.

As far as I'm concerned being young is about possibilities. Opportunities come up and you should take advantage of them. You shouldn't get bogged down with too much planning for the future, because the world we live in now is not the world of the future. Maybe that means hammering it out at a startup when you're 18. Maybe it means going into the Peace Corps. Maybe it means trying your hand at cat burglary. Whatever you do just don't let you or anyone else stick you in a box.

</comment><comment><USER11> Having worked with a startup in the valley this summer as a rising college freshman, I've come to realize this in the past 2 months. Maybe the scope of my dreams is a little too narrow. Thanks for this, it was a good reminder to diversify.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yeah, I'm not one to speak but the valley is living in a bubble, most likely as LA or Washington DC or NYC is. That has upsides and downsides, the downsides probably being really out of touch with what people outside of a 2 hour drive radius want from their technology.

I spend time around being very geeky people who are in very different domains than I am. It's entertaining the knowledge I'm assumed to have of people and companies and technologies , as though web and mobile technologies are the only game in town here.

</comment><comment><USER13> "(This is in reference to The Allegory of the Cave by Plato)"

I think that it is pretty weak of him to mention it this way. I get the impression that he says "look at me, I'm so clever".

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's intentional. But, I think it would've been more rhetorically graceful to just have alluded to the cave allegory without then saying, "Look, I just referred to the cave allegory!"

<comment><AUTHOR> well, didn't want to get into explaining what the heck the cave reference was all about, hoping people who were confused about all of that could get some more insight to the basic ideas.</comment></comment></comment>


Quantum Machine Learning: An Overview - <AUTHOR> https://www.kdnuggets.com/2018/01/quantum-machine-learning-overview.html?utm_content=buffercca0b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> On the other hand, see "Quantum Machine Learning Algorithms: Read the Fine Print" by Scott Aaronson:

[https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/qml.pdf](https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/qml.pdf)

<comment><USER3> True. It's too early to say whether or not quantum computers will practically outperform classical computers on machine learning tasks or any task at all.

Like Shor's factoring and Grover's algorithm, machine learning problems like solving systems of linear equations have been mathematically proven to have a quantum speedup. The problem is engineering quantum computers well enough that they can outperform classical computers on these tasks. We are currently working on that and it will take a couple of decades at least.

Hope is not lost. There are also a couple of theories that hybrid classical/quantum computers of the next decade or so will perform some tasks like quantum chemistry and approximate optimization (which can be used in machine learning) better than classical computers. Only time will tell.

<comment><USER4> > solving systems of linear equations have been mathematically proven to have > a quantum speedup

I'm not an expert, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding from Aaronson's paper is that this is not really true in general.

Unlike Shor's algorithm, which can be used to actually find the factors of some integer, HHL (the quantum algorithm that "solves" systems of linear equations) is best compared to quantum Fourier transform. That is: it can only be used to prepare a state |x> that contains the solution you want. But that's still a quantum state -- if you naively try to measure it, you'll get garbage. That doesn't mean HHL or quantum Fourier transform are useless (indeed, quantum Fourier transform is used by Shor's algorithm), it just means that they're not drop-in replacements for their classical counterparts (like Shor's algorithm is for classical factoring).

<comment><USER3> That's right. HHL doesn't find x for Ax = b. It finds the result of a scalar measurement on x. Like you said, a garbage result is generated if the state is measured naively.

It's rare for quantum algorithms to be drop-in replacements for classical problems. Take Grover's algorithm. Using it to search a classical database kills the speedup due to the number of calls to memory. Therefore, it will probably be used to attack NP-complete problems instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > They take every path in the corn maze simultaneously

I stopped reading here. Can anyone who read beyond this tell me if the article is worth reading?

<comment><USER6> If you have enough knowledge of quantum computation to be annoyed by that sentence, you will not get anything out of the rest of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Quantum computing DOES NOT WORK by taking every path simultaneously. This is an incredibly misleading analogy.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wish I could have all the time I've spent reading articles like this back...</comment>


document.f.q.focus(); The Billion Dollar Line of JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/blog/billion-dollar-javascript/

<comment><USER2> The author confuses correlation and causation. Google has been setting the cursor to the textfield since they were in beta and long before AdWords. I've done the same.

It's funny the author neglected to consider that Google could have eliminated the I'm Feeling Lucky Button (try it) if they really wanted to give users a chance to make the "mistake."

Actually, it's just a side-effect of making life easy for users.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally agree with you vlad. I've always attributed the cursor focus as being just good user interaction and not some ploy for more ad clicks.

<comment><USER2> Yeah! However, it is one of those great moments where one goes out of their way to make life simple for their customers, and then notices a pattern they couldn't have possibly deduced had they not implemented their idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are actually a number of legitimate reasons for typing URLs into Google instead of the address bar. For example, public computers in foreign countries are often configured to redirect .com requests to the national TLD. So it's much faster to type amazon.com into Google than it is to figure out how to make Amazon.com stop resolving to Amazon.cn or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER4> "At an average cost of $5 per click this adds up to maybe $500 per day in revenue for Google just for this one search. Multiply across 365 days and taking a very conservative guess that this happens across 10,000 different domains gives over $1.8 billion in yearly revenue for Google."

clearly!

</comment><comment><USER5> Google's revenues are largely dependent on the behaviors of inexperienced users, especially ones who can't tell the difference between text ads and actual content? No way!

<comment><USER6> When I want to immediately engage in a financial transaction, I always click on the Google ads because I know there I will find someone selling me something rather than useful pure information

<comment><USER5> Google's results for things often result in places to buy that thing rather than information about it, so I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not.

<comment><USER6> I was being serious, sometimes I do find the Google ads useful. I probably should have phrased it in a way that sounded less sarcastic. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Genius.</comment>


Ask HN: How will the OSS vs cloud battle end? - <AUTHOR> More and more cloud providers like AWS and GCP seem to a threat to open source projects.  AWS has managed Elasticsearch, Kafka, etc. GCP has managed Airflow, CockroachDB, etc.
How sustainable is it to have both (1) niche companies around a specific open source tool like a database and (2) cloud providers that maintain their own versions.  I worry the future looks bleak  for these niche companies, and subsequently for a lot of OSS.
Even now, what incentives do companies have to work with these niche companies vs just using AWS/GCP/Azure?  Is it better service? cheaper?  Is it easier to not be tied into a cloud provider?
Note: I'm focusing more on tooling like databases and such, not OSS projects like Linux or programming languages, which seem like a different ballgame.
[edit: previously mentioned the projects getting "wiped out", which is not true.  I'm more concerned with unerstanding the actual competitive advantage these smaller companies have and how sustainable it is. ] <comment><USER2> Is it the open source project Elasticsearch that you're worried about or the company?

For a long time I've been shocked about the large amount of venture money that goes to companies that are involved with trendy open source projects that just don't have a moat.

For instance I've heavily used Elasticsearch as have many other without ever paying money to Elasticsearch the company. Similarly, companies like Pivotal, Cloudera, Hortonworks, Continuum Analytics, etc. just seem to be a scam. So long as they are trendy some companies will think that they have to pay them money, until they realize that they don't.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say both the company and the project. They seem to go hand-in-hand.

Their business model is to allow free access to a limited version of their product -- which admittedly is good enough for many to use in production.

And if these companies stop getting revenue for the premium product, then I worry it's goodbye to substantial progress on open source version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> None of the projects you list have been "wiped out."

<comment><AUTHOR> True - not wiped out. Just a bit lost as to what is the advantage of using one of the smaller companies' premium products vs AWS/GCP managed versions, and how sustainable that advantage is. I'll update the question.</comment></comment>


Telegram adds the option to delete chats on other people's devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/25/18280593/telegram-chat-delete-purge-messages-app-privacy-update <comment><USER2> They are utterly confused about "privacy". Allowing someone ELSE deleting MY messages on MY device is bordering on insanity.

I have a small theory about why they chose to do that. Telegram is the de facto messenger for cryptocurrencies. There are a LOT of scams being perpetrated on Telegram. This new feature facilitates plausible deniability for scammers, with the intent of making lawsuits against Telegram less likely.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The title is misleading because Telegram already allows me to delete my messages on other people's devices.

The changes are:

* No more deadlines. Instead of 48 hours, you can now delete messages from the other person's device at any time.

* You can now delete the other person's messages from their device!

See the founder's message: [https://t.me/durov/102](https://t.me/durov/102)</comment>


I have Crohn's, an incurable digestive disease, and built Crohnology - <AUTHOR> http://blog.crohnology.com/im-going-to-be-demoing-at-medicine-20-at-stan <comment><USER3> This is great! As a sufferer of bowel problems for many years, I developed PoopLog for Android to track my bowel habits using the Bristol Stool Scale [1]. Software like ours really do help everyday people, and the daily emails I receive from my users make everything worth it. Good luck!

For the curious, my next update is a rather large one including many more logging options, charts, and trends.

[1] [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bristol_Stool...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bristol_Stool_Scale)

edit.. link to my app: <http://market.android.com/details?id=com.kefsco.pooplog2>

<comment><USER4> I just want you to know that PoopLog is one of the finest apps I've encountered on Android. Seriously, it has a great look n feel! You really can polish a turd!

<comment><USER5> @Trevor - NB that gilded turd may not always be a bad thing..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From someone working at a tiny venture-backed biopharma startup focused on developing treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD = UC + Crohn's), amazing to see something like this. Exciting. Even cooler to see it hit HN!

I've always looked at IBD and thought something that looked almost like PatientsLikeMe but had a specific focus geared towards IBD (and features that the other lacked) would be amazing. But I knew despite being "close to the problem," I could never build a product that IBD patients would want. I may be close to the research, the treatments, the literature, our lab, and clinicians (and have family with the disease), and even some patients, it wouldn't be enough. It took YOU, Sean. Successful entrepreneurs (and pundits) always talk about "scratching your own itch," and "feeling your customers pain." But just speaking to potential customers won't cut it. You can never understand war from reading books or talking to vets - you have to have seen battle to truly understand. That's easy if you're developing some apps, many meet a need someone has had. But an app like this?

For a product like this to be realized, quite possibly even an experienced clinician would have a perspective and solution that would theoretically be feasible and valuable, but not click with users. No one, for better and worse, in this case, is closer to the problem than you are, more motivated to fill that need, or better positioned to see through the multifaceted but singular perspective as a Crohn's patient.

Best of luck in building and growing Crohnology.

<comment><USER7> God bless you. As a sufferer, some end to this madness would be really huge:)

<comment><USER8> I and several family members have had success with <http://www.gaps.me/> which is a variation of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis 4 years ago, and over that time I have basically stumbled across other people who have either colitis or crohns (they're similar diseases), so it's nice to see that Chronology is for sufferer's of either disease.

What I was going to say was - it's difficult to find other sufferers because people tend to shy away from talking about it - it's only when you mention the disease first that others seem to be willing to admit that they also have it. Comments I've received in the past have been "I can't believe you're so open about it" etc

I'll talk to anyone about it, because you never know when someone elses point of view will give you some new piece of information you didn't have (ala Alan Kay's "point of view is worth 80 iq points" quote)

<comment><AUTHOR> Malbs, as you allude to, it can be a hard leap to start openly telling people you have Crohn's or Colitis. It's not easy to lash your personal identity to the disease. Believe it or not, I've gone through a personal struggle with this myself. For Crohnology to work, it was required for me to wear the badge really clearly, so to speak. What I think is that telling people unabashedly that you have the condition is probably almost like coming out (just a guess). It's incredibly empowering and allows you to leave lots of personal shame and suffering behind, and join a whole new community of like people. It's really uplifting.

<comment><USER10> Why is this? Sufferers of other diseases have no such problems, what is it about Crohns' disease that makes people shy to talk about it?

I looked at the wikipedia page and I can't tie the disease to anything that you as a sufferer should be ashamed of.

<comment><USER11> One of the primary symptoms (in the people I know that have it, I don't know all that much about it) is that it causes heavy cramps that require immediate (as in, _right now_ ) sprints to the bathroom. I can imagine that it's not all that comfortable talking to people about issues that require quite explicit references to, eh, let's call it 'primary body functions'.

<comment><USER12> It is much more than that. On a good day the only thing you have to worry about is the sprinting. Then there is the very loud gurgling noise…almost like your hungry but 100x louder and disruptive. Try sitting in a meeting when that kicks up. Then there is the 10-12x trips to the bathroom and the issues with rawness that comes with it. Don't forget about the constant, and I mean constant, pressure associated with having to go. It becomes very hard to translate the pressure vs the real thing. This is one reason "they" recommend carrying a backup set of clothes just in case. These are just some of the side issues the real issues are the pain and cramping. During a flare you basically shed the inner lining of your intestine. Painful, irritating and interesting to pass. Your intestines are inflamed and you feel bloated in a weird way. You feel full and eating is the last thing you want to do. Your diet shifts to low residue foods which equates to nothing fibrous and could pass through a straw. You get very tired as it is physically and emotionally draining. You don't eat because it hurts, you don't sleep because you are getting up 2-3x a night to go … or try to go. I could go on and on. In the end it's unlike any other disease. It has a huge impact on a very core function required to sustain life. It is difficult to describe and convey to a healthy person. There is no cure other than removal of the colon and the medications to get you by are very expensive($850+ a month) and come with their own set of issues

<comment><USER13> For other's information: jpmc must be describing Ulcerative Colitis here, not Crohn's disease. So little is known about the underlying cause of UC and Crohn's that it's not clear that they are two distinct diseases; there appear to be cases that border between the two, although there is definitely a bi- modal clustering of symptoms. But, to my understanding, the characteristic of UC that most clearly distinguishes it from Crohn's is that UC is confined to the colon (large intestines), while Crohn's may effect the entire digestive tract. So, removal of the colon is a life-altering but effective cure for UC. On the other hand, removing the colon may be medically necessary for a patient suffering from Crohn's, but it's certainly no cure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sort of related: I was incorrectly diagnosed with Chrones disease about a year ago, but I was reading online and something just didn't seem right (not a 1:1 match of symptoms etc) but there was always a 'gut feel' (forgive me) is wasn't Chrones.

I bleeted and bleeted and bleeted until they also ran a SeHCAT test, and found out my body was not re-absorbing bile salts like it should be ... the bile was making it into my large intestine and causing it to cramp, which was the pain I was experiencing ... I now take 6 pills in the evening (Cholestagel) and I am almost cured. I think everyone that is suspected of having IBD/IBS/Chrones should get the SeHCAT test done just in case ... turns out my sisters diagnoses of IBS was also bile salt malabsorption .. mis-diagnosed (the same as me) on the other side of the planet.

<comment><USER15> That sounds like the kind of thing you should be posting on Crohnology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a Crohn's sufferer, It's rare that I come to HN and see something so closely targeted to me! One thing that makes me a bit nervous, though, is the social nature of the site. I tend to be pretty private about my illness, and only my closest friends know I have it. Have you considered the privacy implications of the site? I'd be worried that information about me and my condition might leak onto the internet, and the homepage doesn't really mention it.

I applaud the effort, though. Crohn's is a terrible disease and it's great to see people taking proactive steps towards treating it.

</comment><comment><USER17> I never heard of this disease until Mike McCready, guitarist for Pearl Jam, came public with his long battle with the disease. He talked about how he had to leave the stage, sometimes in mid song, because of complications arising due to Crohn's. Really raised the profile of the disease (at least amongst PJ fans!)

Here's the link to his interview:

[http://www.everydayhealth.com/crohns-disease/pearl-jams- mike...](http://www.everydayhealth.com/crohns-disease/pearl-jams-mike- mccready-on-the-road-with-crohns/mike-mccreadys-life-with- crohns.aspx#continue)

Apologies for the site it's hosted on, tons of ads and the interview is broken up into 10 pages.

<comment><USER18> As always, the trick is to pretend you want to print it: [http://www.everydayhealth.com/printview.aspx?puid=EB6220D4-B...](http://www.everydayhealth.com/printview.aspx?puid=EB6220D4-B40A-463C-B7AD-B2131BBFD9E2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would really like to know how many of the commenters who have or know someone who has Crohn's have cut dairy out of their diet.

My brother and a friend of mine both have Crohn's and have been doing _much_ better ever since I suggested they stop consuming any dairy products. In fact, one of them has gone Vegan and hasn't had a flare up since.

When I meet other people with Crohn's I am always amazed to hear how their doctors instruct them to not bother making significant dietary changes. Based on my research and experience with those who have various bowel-related diseases, and despite what many doctors say, I have little doubt dairy and to some extent animal protein in general is the cause of Crohn's and other bowel complications.

<comment><AUTHOR> herbivore, I don't consume any liquid dairy (as a part of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet). And it certainly helps. I could possibly imagine that my health could improve even more if I avoided all dairy, but there are so many things out of my diet as is. The main things I have eliminated from my diet are grains and refined sugars. I eat none of those. These two restrictions eliminate about 80% of most grocery stores, on their own. But this diet really helps. It's similar to the Paleo Diet, if you've heard of that.

<comment><USER20> I know a U.C. sufferer who is doing much better after making ... no dietary changes at all. Please don't take this the wrong way, but intermittent chronic diseases (such as auto-immune disorders like Crohn's and U.C.) might as well be designed to take advantage of the broadly recognized weaknesses of the human mind:

        - the perception of pattern where none exists
        - a preference for causal narratives involving benevolent and malevolent agents
        - a preference for simple certainty over complex uncertainty
        - broadly, a sense that you are in control

I am not saying anything about the two of you as individuals or as patients, or about the content of your posts here. But the standard of evidence and reasoning that I have encountered elsewhere trying to get a grasp on U.C. is ... not high. There are many "qualified" people (lifelong UC sufferer with an MS in nursing, etc.) who stopped eating gluten when they were 14, saw their symptoms shortly thereafter, and now push checklists asserting that every fellow patient should stop eating gluten.

        Step 1: observe one data point
        Step 2: publish conclusion based on data point as definitive fact

Ambiguity and uncertainty are unpleasant and, when the stakes are high, scary. But false certainty in the face of high stakes appeals to me not at all.

<comment><USER21> I have been diagnosed with an auto-immune issue that has a single obvious symptom and a bunch of long term, harder to track ones.

Several months ago, I was on a very low carb diet to lose some weight (which worked!) and my obvious symptom went away after 10 days on this diet. Wow! Now it's time to experiment to see what's up.

Here's what I've found - if I eat something 'bad', in 2 days time, my symptom comes back. In 3 days it peaks, and it tails off over the next 4 days. This makes it really tricky to isolate the specific food that is causing my primary symptom.

So far, I've found the outer edges of my problem foods, but I need to find the inner edges - is it sugar, or potatoes, or rice, or wheat, or beans, or beer, or all of the above? This part is harder to test specifically, as there are other things going on in my life at the same time, and I like eating out, which can sabotage any in-progress test.

Overall though, this is a much better place to be than taking the $2000 per month biologic injections that I've been prescribed for the rest of my life - and it helps that the ultra-low carb solution provides better symptom relief too!

<comment><USER20> That's awesome -- and not an example of the thinking I find problematic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It is so nice to see someone using technology to create something genuinely productive. You have a somewhat small target audience, but they have (as you rightly point out) very few alternatives when it comes to finding information about the disease and options for trying to aid in controlling it.

Congratulations on the launch, I'll be passing the link to a few people I know who battle Crohn's. Great work.

</comment><comment><USER21> In 1985 I was diagnosed with 'crohn's disease' and spent most of that summer in and out of hospital - I watched Live Aid on a hospital TV!

After a bunch of stuff failed, they eventually opened me up and whipped out 2 feet of intestine that turned out to be malformed - so probably no crohn's disease at all.

This does cause a number of interesting day-to-day issues even now!

It seems that there are a bunch of other problems that can occur with intestine problems. I currently have been diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondilitis that I am able to control with my diet (which may indicate that it's something else)

The connection between intestinal disorders and auto-immune issues seems to be growing stronger. Maybe something to watch out for.

</comment><comment><USER23> My wife, sister, dad and aunt have Crohn's. This will be great for them. My wife when she was first diagnosed at 19 was desperate to find information online about the disease. In fact, we were setup on a blind date and these posts are what I first found during my requisite Google :)

My aunt is dying of complications related to the disease while my dad, wife and sister have it under control.

I'll be sending it to all of them.

<comment><USER24> I've never heard of a situation like yours where so many family members are affected. If I may ask, is the aunt you refer to your Dad's sister or your Mom's?

As for me, diagnosed with Crohn's in 1987 (when I was seventeen). Symptoms currently under control, thankfully!

<comment><USER25> Crohn's is a bit odd genetically. While having a parent with Crohn's increases your chances by 2-3x's, having a sibling with Crohn's increases your chances 20-30x's. So, it's not surprising that your wife and her sister as well as your dad and his sister have it. There's a strong correlation in siblings. There are so many genes associated with Crohn's, though, it's hard to pin it down.

I was diagnosed with Crohn's seven years ago at the age of 28 and both of my siblings have started to develop similar symptoms over the past couple of years.

<comment><USER23> Actually it's my sister that has Crohn's. My wife's brother doesn't have it and neither do I.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Awesome site. My wife has Crohn's and I've been thinking how nice it would be to have a site like this. We'll try it out. Also the link in the title is busted, but just going to the domain works.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many thanks! I'm happy to have, help, and learn from her. Which link are you referring to?

<comment><USER26> [http://blog.crohnology.com/im-going-to-be-demoing-at- medicin...](http://blog.crohnology.com/im-going-to-be-demoing-at- medicine-20-at-stan)

<comment><AUTHOR> hm, working from San Francisco. I'll keep my eye on it though. Thanks for letting me know.

<comment><USER27> not working for me either (Also SF). From here, blog.crohnology.com CNAMEs to sfibd.posterous.com, but that doesn't work for reason's unknown to me (IP returned is 184.108.40.206)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Similar concept to PatientsLikeMe: <http://www.patientslikeme.com/>

</comment><comment><USER29> Curious, the platform the site is constructed upon could be repurposed to work for other disease communities as well? There's hundreds of other conditions (a few of which I have) which seem like they'd fit just fine within this layout.

Perhaps there are widgets here that are specific to crohns, though a plugin- oriented architecture could allow other disease specific sites to have their own widgets. Certainly "meet people near you with XYZ" and "Current treatents/diet" widgets are of general use.

</comment><comment><USER30> Congratulations. I hope this is wildly successful. I have a different condition which significantly impacts the gut (cystic fibrosis). On the one hand, I got a lot of good info from people I met online and from one online community in particular which helped me figure out how to get myself well. On the other hand, the online CF community has been rather unwelcoming of me. I wish you continued good reviews and warm welcomes wherever you go.

</comment><comment><USER31> Hiromi Shinya, the inventor of colonoscopy, has had success with Crohn's patients throughout his career:

[http://www.amazon.com/Enzyme-Factor-Hiromi-Shinya- MD/dp/0982...](http://www.amazon.com/Enzyme-Factor-Hiromi-Shinya- MD/dp/0982290039/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315957313&sr=8-1)

His advice consists mainly of radical dietary changes and drinking Kangen water. FWIW.

</comment><comment><USER32> I admire and applaud your endeavor and hope that we see more disease-specific communities sprout in the near future.

I attended the Consumer Genetics Conference last year (<http://www.consumergeneticsshow.com/CGC2010.html>) and heard Rolf Benirschke speak. His short speech was inspiring and further encouraged me to pursue my startup.

Ping me offline archuleta(at)seqcentral and I'd be happy to further discuss how I can help and who I might be able to get you in touch with.

(FWIW: I recently became an advisor for a cystic fibrosis non-profit with a similar e-community to the one you are pursuing.)

</comment><comment><USER33> I just signed up and am really looking forward to checking it out. Thanks for creating the site!

I was diagnosed with Crohn's in 1998 when I was a junior in college. I had surgery about 8 years ago and my life has been great ever since. I went from pretty serious flare-ups every 3-4 months, to one relatively minor flare-up since the surgery. I find that stress is a pretty large trigger so I try to be aware of when I need to take a step back and relax. Since the surgery, I've been able to eat pretty much whatever I want, but have been recently experimenting with a Paleo diet for both Crohn's and general health benefits.

</comment><comment><USER34> Did the parasitic worms work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe. I tracked my symptoms for a year, starting when taking the worms. My symptoms got really rough after taking the worms, but I don't have a lot of baseline data for how rough my symptoms were prior to taking them. I gave a presentation on this experiment at the Quantified Self Conference 2011 in Mountain View. A blog post is certainly due.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> While I don't know anyone with Crohn's, it's great to see resources becoming available to patients made by people who understand what they are going through.

To slightly "thread-jack" - a former co-worker of mine recently launched ihadcancer.com and made it with her personal experience with cancer as her motivator. I hope sites like yours and hers can help plenty of people out there deal with their situation and find support and advice from others.

<comment><USER36> Honestly, I'd be careful saying something like that. Given that it's a disease involving the intestines, most people don't want to hear about it, and thus most people with the disease don't typically talk about it unless asked - <USER2> so a lot of people who have it don't mention it at all. It wasn't until I was diagnosed with the disease that I ever found out the people that I know who had it (and, in turn, my mother found out her friends who had it, or their sons, etc.).

Likewise, I don't generally tell people - it's not usually relevant to discussions, and no one really wants to hear about it. Chances are you know people who have it, but they've just never said so.

<comment><USER35> I can completely understand that - I guess I should have said that I am unaware of anyone with Crohn's; just as I am unaware of other conditions people might have. You are right that it would be foolish to assume you know someone based on their exterior alone and it's probably better to be sensitive to that possibility at all times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> <http://www.crohnsforum.com> has been around since like 2006 and is pretty dominant in this vertical.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is great. My uncle had horrible chrons disease and is managaing it well with his diet (no grains/legumes and plenty of probiotics from Kefir)

Really great.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have a younger brother with Crohn's, and just wanted to say major props on you for building something so useful. It's easy to get caught up in the typical glam/tabloid-esque nature of the industry that's largely here on HN, so going against the grain like this really deserves respect points IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> I _really_ appreciate that. It wasn't easy choosing this path for sure, for exactly the reasons you mention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Thanks for building this, and good luck with the launch! My wife just got diagnosed with UC and the other web resources on line (mainly forums) have been good but obviously lack any kind of consistency and ability to quickly scan treatments, etc like your site can.

</comment><comment><USER41> I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis earlier this year and was building something similar to this a few months ago. It was focused on the sharing the optimal medication treatments.

But I ended up joining another startup and no longer have time.

I'm happy to see someone doing something similar.

</comment><comment><USER42> How is it I've heard of all kinds of largely non-existent (today) diseases like Cholera, Typhus, Typhoid, Scrofula, Gout, etc, but as soon as I got on the internet, everyone seems to have Crohn's, which I had never heard of pre- internet?

<comment><USER43> People don't talk about it. I have two friends with it, and I knew both of them for years before they told me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Zerohp is right. They don't. It is estimated there are 1.4 million people with Crohn's & Colitis in the United States. But because most people who have it don't talk about it, people go on suffering in silence.

One reason people don't talk about it is because it's not "dinner table conversation".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Congratulations on the launch Sean! I hope more folks from the HN and Startup communities will think about getting involved in healthcare. It's 20% of the economy right now, and there's so much opportunity for innovation.

</comment><comment><USER27> Looks like a great site. I'm very fortunate that my Crohn's is doing well enough that I'm not particularly looking for more information, but I'm very happy to help others.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much. I think there are two sides of the spectrum: patients that are in dire need of help and information, and patients that are 'veteran' and have a lot more information to give. I think these two sides of the spectrum actually work really well in concert. Experienced patients helping new and sick ones. I think both of these groups get a lot out of that interaction. It's really empowering to help others, especially when they really need it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Oh, wow. Didn't really expect to see something like this here. I have crohn's, so I'm very much interested in such projects. I'll definitely be giving it a try.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is awesome. My wife has Ulcerative Colitis.

I was thinking about building a similar site, and now I might not have to, so thanks! I'll tell my wife about it!

</comment><comment><USER47> I was in this guy's UI design class when he was working on this project. Really glad to see him step onto the big stage =]

</comment><comment><USER48> Congrats, sir. That is awesome. I also have Crohn's, and am still developing feverishly as well. More power to ya.

</comment><comment><USER49> This sounds like an amazing project. My grandfather had Crohn's. I wish he was still alive today to see this.

</comment><comment><USER50> Wow - what a great use of talent! Turning lemOns onto lemonade is very cliche, but it applies here.

</comment><comment><USER51> Thank you for building this.</comment>


Xinu – A small, elegant operating system - <AUTHOR> https://xinu.cs.purdue.edu/ <comment><USER2> I browsed the source code a bit. Some interesting finds:

* The code is pretty simple and clean, clearly for educational purpose.

* There's no memory protection. All processes share the same memory space, along with the kernel.

* No virtual memory, nor page table.

* No notion of ring protection. The kernel and the processes run in the same ring.

* Max number of processes is 8. The process table is a fixed size array, of 8 entries.

* Context switch can be preemptive, driven by the clock interrupt.

* Process scheduling is round-robin, first in first run.

* Process priority is supported. Each priority has its own ready queue. All processes of the highest priority are run first in round-robin fashion, before running the next priority level.

* "Program" is just a function. All "programs" in the system have their starting functions hardcoded in the shell's cmdtab[], like cat, ping, etc. Executing ping is just creating a process with the address of the ping function.

* Loading a program from disk to run doesn't seem to be supported.

* The local file system is based on RAM block device. Accessing data on actual disk doesn't seem to be supported.

<comment><USER3> Adding a memory paging system to Xinu is one of the projects for the Graduate level OS course based on this book.

<comment><USER4> Might you or anyone else have a link to a graduate level course that covers adding these features to Xinu?

<comment><USER3> It was Purdue's CS503 course when I took it a number of years ago. I don't think there are any materials to be found online though. As I recall the professor outlined how x86 paging worked in one of the lectures and then we were given a link to the Intel manuals and told good luck. To keep things simple there were no disks in the system so the memory was paged over the network and they had a special lab setup to support the whole thing.

There is also an Operating systems course at Marquette University based around Xinu. That one is for undergrads though and based on a version targeted for an embedded MIPS processor so I don't think it covered paging but I never took that one so I'm not sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Was curious about one thing. On the Xinu website, under "Xinu in industry" in the 2000s, it says that the pinball game for Star Wars: The Phantom Menance uses Xinu. So I looked up that pinball game.

On the wikipedia page for the game [1], it says that it uses Pinball 2000 hardware. And on the wikipedia page for Pinball 2000 [2], it uses Xina (Xina is not Apple) and not Xinu. Is there another variant of the OS?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_I_(pinball)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_I_\(pinball\))

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_2000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_2000)

<comment><USER6> Pinball 2000 engineer here.

The "Pinball 2000 hardware" setup was an ATX motherboard running a MediaGX CPU (x86 clone, it lives on as AMD Geode). It also had a custom PCI card for storage and sound DSP, and a secondary board connected by parallel port for driving lamps and solenoids.

XINA was an application layer on top of XINU that handled the executive tasks of running a pinball machine, and also abstracted the various hardware features. We used Allegro as the graphics SDK.

The name XINA was inspired by XINU, and was an acronym for "XINA Is Not APPLE". APPLE was the previous pinball programming system, no connection to the computer company.

<comment><USER7> I'm curious, does the source code for XINA still exist?

<comment><USER6> It does, but it's owned by whomever owns the Williams IP. I believe these days it's Scientific Games.

SG isn't making pinball machines but apparently has licensed the code to an outside group to maybe remake old games or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The professor who made Xinu, Douglas Comer, also contributed heavily to TCP. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Comer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Comer)

<comment><USER9> Non-mobile: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Comer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Comer)

<comment><USER10> It's weird that Wikipedia redirects mobiles from the non mobile version to the mobile version, but doesn't redirect the other way around.

<comment><USER11> That's likely because I've seen a lot of people working on Wikipedia either via code or via content, prefer the mobile version even on desktop. It's a pleasant reading experience.

<comment><USER12> That's curious to read because I find the non-mobile version a significantly more pleasant reading experience. I don't even like the mobile version on my phone because I constantly get lost in page when I expand sections (maybe that's just down to my dyslexia?)

<comment><USER13> Hiw many years has it been, and Wikipedia Mobile still has the bug where pressing Back loses your downwards scrolling, since all sections contract momentarily (moving your page position upwards).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Crap this article jogged my memory - I now remember Xinu from when I was a teenager!

It's a fantastic bit of code for anyone interested in how operating systems are designed and built.

Glad to see it's still being kept alive!!

<comment><USER15> Same here. I learned the rudiments of operating systems by studying Xinu in college. That was pre-Internet, so text books like Xinu's were hugely helpful.

<comment><USER16> Milenkovic's book on KMOS was rather underrated and overlooked, I found. It covered a couple of things that Comer and Tanenbaum did not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I took classes with Doug Comer in college and I also maintained part of the Xinu lab while I was at Purdue. Great to see the impact it has had on OS education outside of Purdue!

<comment><USER18> Can you talk about the machines in the lab. I'm in WL and have seen in Greyhouse and in Lawson people battling with XINU enough that I've gone over to see what they're doing.

I'm curious about the machines used to run the code in, their boot processe, or anything you can talk about.

<comment><USER19> What would you like to know? I did help set up a few things there. There's a special netboot-like version of Xinu deployed on the backend systems which are just Beagle/Galileo/whatever's been upgraded, and they deploy whatever Xinu image you've supplied. Students typically compile locally and submit the xbin (compiled kernel image) to a backend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The name seems to have the same derivation as the name of the XNU kernel underlying Apple's operating systems:

> XNU is an abbreviation of X is Not Unix or XNU is Not Unix.

Wikipedia says the first release of XNU was in '96 (perhaps in NeXTSTEP 4.0?), though, far later.

<comment><USER12> The recursive acronym " _something_ is not _something_else_ " is a pretty common naming convention in software. Much like how there are a hundred different software projects out there called "Yet Another _something_ ". So I'm not at all surprised we occasionally get collisions. Still makes for a fun coincidence though.

<comment><USER21> >The recursive acronym "something is not something_else" is a pretty common naming convention in software

Right. Goes back far, too:

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym#Notable_exam...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym#Notable_examples)

I particularly like EINE and ZWEI:

From the linked article:

>the two MIT Lisp Machine editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not Emacs", German for one) and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially", German for two)

<comment><USER22> There is nowadays also DREI which officially stands for "Drei replaces EINE's inheritor" or alternatively for lots of other things (see the source for list), particularly "Drei reimplements Emacs intelligently".

<comment><USER21> Wow, that's cool too. I'm going to create the next one, VIER, for "Vier Is EINE's Replacement".

[https://translate.google.com/#de/en/Vier](https://translate.google.com/#de/en/Vier)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Curious to know if anyone has used this for anything serious, and what the main decision factors were for choosing Xinu?

<comment><USER6> In 1999 my team at Williams Electronics chose XINU as the O/S for the Pinball 2000 project:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rHbsCyde1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rHbsCyde1g)

At the time, embedded X86 boards were not really a thing yet so we needed something simple that could run with a COTS PC motherboard.

The major factor was that the licensing for other operating systems was too costly or too restrictive. Anything GPL-based was ruled out by our lawyers. Turning Linux into an RTOS would have forced us to release source code and that wasn't a fight with Legal that anyone had time for.

XINU turned out to be just what we needed. The process limit wasn't a huge problem since we were used to running threads on a single process. Adding networking later turned out to be very easy.

<comment><USER16> Did you look at MINIX?

<comment><USER6> I don't recall. The lead O/S engineer was from Purdue so perhaps he went to XINU right away out of familiarity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There are a few classes in Purdue's CS undergrad program (at least as recently as a couple years ago) which leaned a lot on XINU to teach OS fundamentals. Specifically in the 400-level Operating Systems course, we had one lab toward the end which reached into Linux for some basic stuff, but otherwise it was pretty much all XINU; playing with memory allocation, writing a new process scheduler, stuff like that. Purdue maintains a lab of XINU computers, which I believe are just Linksys routers of some kind, which students can log in to from anywhere to complete lab assignments, including a scheduling hypervisor which ensures that we weren't stepping on each others toes given there were only ~30 machines.

<comment><USER19> Not Linksys routers! They're typically Beaglebone/Galileo cards or something newer now. They actually run a special netboot-like version of Xinu that deploys your compiled xbin. (So it's like Xinu running Xinu...) There also was no such hypervisor, mostly TAs that responded to email complaints and took systems offline when hogged on accident.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Once upon a time, a colleague and myself attempted to rewrite Xinu in Rust to show Dr. Comer how cool it was. Rust did not work. It was not cool. Dr. Comer simply smiled a gentle "I told you so," as he had good reasons for sticking to C.

<comment><USER25> What didn't work?

<comment><USER19> We had tremendous difficulty convincing Dr. Comer that using an experimental/nightly toolchain to compile an experimental compiler variant to use experimental libraries in an experimental language was worth it.

It took us quite some time to get everything up in a way that would work on most Purdue systems and our own personal ones and from there even translating the limited codebase we were using unsafe code blocks for nearly everything (and ASM blocks) and some internal code for multicore/ACPI-related things/Galileo boards we haven't made publicly available yet, AFAIK.

At the end of the day, Xinu was small enough and very concisely written and maintained for several decades that switching to a language like Rust wasn't warranted. Similar to sqlite, I suppose. You can email me at email@example.com if you'd like to know more details/talk to Dr. Comer about Xinu things.

<comment><USER25> Ah, okay. That all makes sense! I thought you meant that like, the language couldn't do it at all. All the stuff you've said is the current state of things, roughly, for sure. Thanks!

(I'd love to see OS classes use Rust someday, so I'm always trying to keep an eye out for things...)

<comment><USER19> No worries - while I personally enjoyed Rust it was clear that it was unsustainable for Dr. Comer. He means the best, I assure you. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rNJQhgs...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rNJQhgsfWtoJ:https://xinu.cs.purdue.edu/)

</comment><comment><USER27> [https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=xinu&&view=detail&mid=7...](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=xinu&&view=detail&mid=7F4FEDD48FE6881FD8807F4FEDD48FE6881FD880&&FORM=VRDGAR) 1st in the video list while investigating. ha ha

</comment><comment><USER28> Wow, development started in 1980! That's commitment.

<comment><USER29> In this particular case, I'd say it's academic research.

<comment><USER30> Not mutually exclusive ;)</comment></comment></comment>