Why 'Mom' and 'Dad' Sound So Similar in So Many Languages - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/words-mom-dad-similar-languages/409810/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> In India where there are dozens of languages, this plays out interestingly... Granted, in few indian languages 'M' sound is not there.. but it uses even more basic sound 'aa'(as in used by babies earlier than 'm' sound) e.g. Aai in Marathi etc - or a similar Baa in Gujrati..

<comment><USER3> There's a joke in a Marathi children's book, which goes roughly as follows:

A: Know why we call our mothers "Aai"?

B: No, why?

A: The reason is because "aaaaa" is the sound you make when hurt or in trouble, and it's your first instinct to call to your mother for help in such cases.

B: Nonsense. Do English-speakers^ say "maaaaaaaa" when hurt?

I think Indic languages have almost every permutation of "a" and "m" for "mother" \-- we have "Aai", "amma", "maaa", "mamma", ...

^Might have been Hindi speakers, I forget now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think its not just a matter of naming the closest person with the easiest sound, and the second closest person with the second easiest one. You know how parents say they can tell by the cries of their baby what the baby needs? After the birth of our kid I found there is actually some truth to it. When he was hungry, he smacked his lips (like when sucking) and it made a mamamama sound, or myammyammyam or maybe even nomnomnom (overlaying the crying). When he had pain, it sounded more like auääää (excuse the umlaut) or auayyyy, due to the way he suddenly opened his mouth. I can imagine this is the source of expletives like Ouch or Aua in many languages. Now that he is a bit older (~10 months) he has more control over the sounds he makes, and is experimenting with speech, but the mamama and auäää seems to stick. Funnily, he seems to say "daddy" to me, although thats not the word in this region of the world (that would be papa) and I don't know where he got it from. Also, its too early to tell if he is consciously using it for me or just experimenting with interesting sounds. I guess parents tend to overinterpret the first utterances of their kids a lot :-)

<comment><USER5> > You know how parents say they can tell by the cries of their baby what the > baby needs? After the birth of our kid I found there is actually some truth > to it.

In fact there are five or more "words" that newborns have that can tell you what they need. A friend showed me a video from Oprah discussing it. Below is the first link I found describing them. Her newborn nearly always calmed down immediately when she responded to him based on what she heard. I was surprised I'd never heard of these before and that they don't appear to be well-known among new parents.

[http://www.whattoexpect.com/blogs/motherhoodinthemountains/n...](http://www.whattoexpect.com/blogs/motherhoodinthemountains/newborn- cries-the-five-cries-you-need-to-know)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The author, John McWhorter, is a great guy to listen to. His TED talk[1] is interesting, his TED-Ed lessons[2] are even more interesting, and his "Story of Human Language"[3] course is so enormously interesting and fun, I listen to it as entertainment when bored.

[1] [https://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_la...](https://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ted+ed+john+mcw...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ted+ed+john+mcwhorter)

[3] [http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/story-of-human- langua...](http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/story-of-human- language.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> And then in Finnish it's äiti.

<comment><USER8> Basque, which is one of the oldest, European languages with no direct relationship to any other modern language, uses "ama" for saying mom, and "aita" for saying dad (both putting the stress on the second "a").

<comment><USER9> Kannada language has something simialr - amma(mom) and appa(dad).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I guess I'll be the geek who brings Tolkien into this, but for the curious: even the Elvish word for mom is basically a phonetic equivalent to "mommy." (I'll leave it to someone more enterprising to give us the Klingon word.)

<comment><USER11> It's SoS in Klingon.

I wonder what this tells us about Klingon physiology? After reading the article, the words for 'mother' and 'father' actually seem like interesting pieces of information to learn about any newly discovered race of aliens.

<comment><USER12> And whether they even have the concepts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> japanese falls completely outside this generalization. edit: on further investigation mama and baba are used very informally but it appears these are loanwords.

<comment><USER14> Traditionally, they were "o-toh" for dad and "o-kah" for mom. You might add "-chan" or "-san" or remove the "o-" prefix, depending on your taste.

Personally, a phrase like "every language" immediately flags a BS sign to me.

<comment><USER15> Kids use okasan/otosan only when they are talking about third party mom/dad. They use haha (which make even more sense, according to article) or chichi when speaking about their own mom and dad.

<comment><USER13> haha and chichi are more formal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a nice article, but isn't this something every parent realizes after their first kid? 'Aaaah' sounds come first, then maybe an 'oh' and then the lips come in to make 'mamama' or 'bababab' and then it takes a longer time for complex words involving the tongue or non-aspirated sounds to come in (like 'teh' or 'keh').

</comment><comment><USER17> Everyone with a brain the size a walnut already knows this: [http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1581](http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1581)

</comment><comment><USER18> I am in Australia, and we say 'Mum' not 'Mom'. Does anyone know why?

I have always found Mom weird.

<comment><USER19> Just one of many pronunciation drifts that occurred between the UK and its American colonies at some point between 1620 and 1788. Largely it seems the Americans kept the old pronunciations while the mother country changed theirs, which is why the English of Shakespeare's time sounds a bit American.

<comment><USER20> This claim is generally made less about Standard American or General American and more about regional Appalachian dialects. Even this is a myth. [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002699.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002699.html) [http://lrc.ohio.edu/lrcmedia/Streaming/lingCALL/ling270/myth...](http://lrc.ohio.edu/lrcmedia/Streaming/lingCALL/ling270/myth9.pdf)

English and American dialects both originated in (Shakespearean) Early Modern English, but both have changed over time, as languages do.

<comment><USER19> To my ears an Appalachian accent doesn't sound that different to a regular American accent, it's just an exaggerated version of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In Korean "mam-ma" means food.

<comment><USER22> Very similar in Turkish! Minor difference: "mama".

Mother is "ana" (traditional) or "anne" (contemporary).

<comment><USER23> You'd be surprised how similar Turkish and Korean actually is. Both coming from Altaic language group the grammatical structure is very similar. It blew my mind when I first learned about that. Take a look at this...

      yap-mak == ka-da
      yap-ma == ka-jima
      yap-ma-yin == ka-jima-yo

They even have the same kinship rules as us (Abi, Abla, etc.). The more I'm digging in Korean culture the more similarities I'm finding during my short stay here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Mater Pater

</comment><comment><USER25> Imho it's an obvious thing. Strange that it takes so song article</comment>


How Apple is paving the way to a 'cloud dictatorship' in China - <AUTHOR> https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/02/17/apple-paving-way-cloud-dictatorship-china/ <comment><USER2> So is literally every tech company working in China.

> The Chinese state relies upon private enterprise to implement social credit > and extend its tentacular reach. Top-tier concerns like Alibaba's Alipay, > Tencent, Baidu, the mobility-on-demand service Didi Chuxing, and the > massively popular dating site Baihe either contribute significant elements > of the system's architecture or incorporate its rulings into their services.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/china...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/chinas- dangerous-dream-of-urban-control/553097/)

I'm not at all arguing Apple is _right_ to do this (in a moral sense. Certainly it's right in a purely financial sense); just that it's one small part of a much broader issue.

(EDIT: removed gratuitous complaint about clickbait headline; you guys have convinced me I was wrong. As long as I'm here, though, I really do recommend reading the Atlantic link above; it does a good job showing the context in which this is happening)

<comment><USER3> Most people missed it, but Apple has already started started giving in to authorities, in China, the U.S., and probably elsewhere, too. I think that's newsworthy on its own given their "strong privacy stance".

[https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/08/apple-fbi-unlock- texas-s...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/08/apple-fbi-unlock-texas- shooter-phone/)

And I believe their recent moves to weaken iOS security are related to this.

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/oops-apple-has-seriously- weaken...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/oops-apple-has-seriously-weakened- ios-10-backups-against-password-hackers/)

The China thing is related to this "move towards helping authorities", too. They're all connected. I don't know what or who convinced Tim Cook to give in and stop defending his customers' privacy against governments (at least compared to what was originally promised), but it's pretty clear that's what's happening here. I think we should expect more such moves from Apple in the future.

[https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud-i...](https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud- in-china/)

As for "but everyone's doing it" \- come on, haven't we moved on from accepting such weak excuses? I thought Apple was a _leader_ in the industry, paving the way for _positive progress_. Apple's mantra is "we challenge the status quo" and "we think different". Not "I guess we'll do whatever everyone else is doing."

If they keep this up, the answer to Simon Sinek's "WHY does Apple exist?" may soon become "We exist only to make money and nothing else", rather than inspire anyone.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVnN4S52F3k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVnN4S52F3k)

<comment><USER4> That first link does not even demonstrate what the article title claims. Apple offered assistance in the same way it always has, providing iCloud access logs, IP's, etc. They did not help the FBI unlock the phone.

The other errors they have had lately on the other hand do seem malicious, but I suspect either serious fuckups on engineer side, or people being paid/blackmailed by intelligence agencies to introduce backdoors.

<comment><USER5> More items have been leaving the secure envelope of the phone.

FaceTime is mediated by a central service, iMessage is moving to cloud services, iCloud backup is focused on, while iTunes sync is deemphasized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's a double standard because the US and China have different standards. Apple has defended the rights of its users when it can. If Apple received a U.S. Supreme Court order to hand over user data, Apple would follow that order, even if Apple disagreed or felt it was unethical. Same for China. Apple's alternative is to leave China, a la Google. One can argue that leaving is the ethical choice. One can not argue effectively against a "double standard".

As for me, I'm happy that Apple will at least transparently defend user rights to the greatest of their ability in China, which would not be the case with Xiaomi or another local company that would fall over backwards to please the government.

<comment><USER7> The double standard is what they publicly state they believe in. You're talking about whether they have to comply or not with a US-based hypothetical. But they clearly published on their website what they believed in with regards to the US requests. Can you link the same for the Chinese policy?

> I'm happy that Apple will at least transparently defend user rights to the > greatest of their ability in China

Why do you believe it is transparent? Can you link to something showing they "transparently defend user rights to the greatest of their ability in China"? Otherwise in the absence of being able to provide this transparent proof, will you admit it is not transparent?

<comment><USER5> Civil authority trumps beliefs and opinion.

<comment><USER7> Of course it does. I am unsure what that has to do with making your opinion clear, especially if you've shown yourself to be willing to make that opinion clear in other circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a good article, but the author goofs here:

> "Apple says the handover is due to new regulations that cloud servers must > be operated by local corporation. But this is unconvincing. China's > Cybersecurity Law, which was implemented on June 1 2017, does demand that > user information and data collected in mainland China be stored within the > border. But it does not require that the data center be operated by a local > corporation."

It's common knowledge that the more authoritarian the country, the bigger the disconnect between the law and the truth-on-the-ground. I think it's very likely that a party organ spoke to Apple and made it plain that "hand it over, or you're out". Which still has plenty of troubling implications, but criticism focused on Apple going beyond the letter of the law is disingenuous: the letter of the law is nothing in China.

</comment><comment><USER9> China requires Chinese user data to be stored on servers physically located in China, and foreign entities are required to take on local partners for operations within China. I don't think either of those stipulations will come as a galloping shock to anyone here, and taken together they fully explain the reason for this change.

The question I'm then moved to ask is this: who cares, so long as the data is e2e encrypted?

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that we don't know what is encrypted, how, and who holds the keys: [https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud-i...](https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud- in-china/)

<comment><USER10> I would be surprised/mortified if Apple didn't hold the keys.

Otherwise iCloud Keychain which houses credentials for non-Apple sites would be exposed. I can't imagine the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon etc just sitting back and allowing Apple to compromise their sites in the name of Chinese expansion.

It would surely amount to the biggest security compromise in history if this was the case.

<comment><USER11> Apple doesn't hold the keys, they've outsourced responsibility to Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data Industrial Development Co., Ltd.

<comment><USER10> That doesn't mean they have transferred the keys.

You can manage and operate a data centre without needing the keys to the HSM.

<comment><USER11> The whole reason they did this in the first place was to not have control over the data, they definitely don't have the keys. The Chinese police/government contact Guizhou, not Apple, when they want anything.

<comment><USER9> This comes back to my initial question: if data is encrypted by _my_ key before it ever leaves my device, as Apple has repeatedly claimed, why should it matter to me?

China can have all the encrypted blobs of my data they want. I have to assume that unencrypted information has always been available to the CCP on request, even more readily than it is to US law enforcement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So does this entity get my data if I text, email, imessage, etc., a Chinese national? Hmm...between google monetizing my every data point to the encroachment of foreign governments on my data there really isn't a phone that is well designed, fast, useful, but also safe and secure with my data.

<comment><USER13> Similarly, do they get access to my data if I travel to China and connect to Apple servers from there? Does that trigger a 'replicate to China' job because I'm now a user in China?

<comment><AUTHOR> I could be wrong, but I checked this a while ago and think it's based on your account billing address.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really don't know how much of affect on privacy that this will have in practice. If iMessage is end to end encrypted and is FaceTime, will the Chinese government be able to see anything that they can't already see?

What's actually stored on iCloud by iOS that's sensitive besides those two things that people couldn't store in other places? App backups?

I'm assuming that the Chinese government already has access to everything that goes over any cellular network in China.

</comment><comment><USER15> The cruelest part of this whole farce- Apple might not get very far in China even with government sanction.

WSJ: "Why the iPhone Is Losing Out to Chinese Devices in Asia"

Google link: [https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why%20the%20iPho...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why%20the%20iPhone%20Is%20Losing%20Out%20to%20Chinese%20Devices%20in%20Asia)

<comment><USER16> $18B in Q1 revenue and 10% growth in China is nothing to sneeze at...

[1][https://qz.com/1195908/apple-q1-2018-record-breaking- earning...](https://qz.com/1195908/apple-q1-2018-record-breaking-earnings-the- iphone-x-and-its-massive-cash-pile-stole-the-show-but-for-surprising-reasons- aapl/)

<comment><USER17> That's a particularly strong result given the Chinese smartphone market contracted by 4% in 2017 and has been weak for years.

For China's whole smartphone market, 2015 saw 2% growth, 2016 was 11% growth, 2017 was negative 4%. It's likely their market has reached saturation. 2017 should have seen a big jump in sales due to a replacement cycle, given the near zero growth in 2015. Most of the domestic Chinese brands will die off soon, leaving three or so dominant players to go up against Samsung and Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if the Chinese government was harvesting organs from homosexuals instead of spiritual practitioners, would Tim Cook be as quick to chase the money?[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China)

<comment><USER17> China actively tortures thousands of homosexuals in an effort to cure them:

[https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/14/china-end-conversion- the...](https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/14/china-end-conversion-therapy- medical-settings)

[https://www.economist.com/news/china/21731405-quack- treatmen...](https://www.economist.com/news/china/21731405-quack-treatments- are-available-even-public-hospitals-many-people-china-believe-gays-can-be)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The article gives a good reason to use open source technologies rather than proprietary "clouds" that do whatever they want with your data. Of course, Chinese government can try to ban Jabber/OTR but they won't be able to read the encrypted messages.

</comment><comment><USER20> That is why I long for iOS Time Capsule. The cloud is increasing a single point of area for government intervention. Especially for certain places in the world.

<comment><USER21> Isn't that what syncing/backing up your device to iTunes over WiFi is?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> My take. This is a big win for Guizhou, one of China's poorest provinces. It is also a big win for Southwest China in general, which is developing rapidly as Chengdu and Kunming gain direct flights to Europe and Australia, and integrate road, rail and pipeline links to Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and beyond.

Politically, as a nation China certainly has the right to self-governance and storing user data inside the country is not an unreasonable request.

The Hong Kong Free Press is probably well meaning - we'd all like more freedom and less government rules - but also may be more holistically perceived as a group with an axe to grind as Hong Kong is being forced to adapt to Chinese rule, journalism is under pressure the world over and Hong Kong's GDP was recently surpassed by Shenzhen, which three decades ago was a fishing village.

Things are changing. This is just a phase.

<comment><USER23> All of this cloud data will eventually be funneled into your social credit score ("Sesame Credit"). This is already happening. Chinese individuals are being ostracized from personal and professional relations because of their score.

China invented whuffie, but in the most dystopian and fascist way possible.

\-- Edit with citations as requested. (I'm not asserting that this social pressure is universal or even common yet.)

[0] [https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social- credit/](https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/) She explained how to boost my score. "They will check what kind of friends you have," she said. "If your friends are all high-score people, it's good for you. If you have some bad-credit people as friends, it's not nice."

[1] [https://theconversation.com/chinas-social-credit-system- puts...](https://theconversation.com/chinas-social-credit-system-puts-its- people-under-pressure-to-be-model-citizens-89963) "Since last December, the National Development and Reform Commission and Central Bank of China began to approve pilot plans to integrate big data with the Social Credit System. As one of China's first pilot provinces, Guizhou province was selected to showcase a government-led experiment of a big data-empowered Social Credit System."

Australia, for example now lowers your credit score if you pay bills late. But it doesn't (yet?) penalize you for who you associate with.

<comment><USER24> >Chinese individuals are being ostracized from personal and professional relations because of their score.

Citation needed. I live in China, and not a single person I know takes the Zhima Credit score even remotely seriously. It's treated like a joke, or at worst like one's astrological sign. Many older people I've met don't even know about it. Chinese people aren't stupid, they're not going to let some easily gamed virtual points influence their decisions.

<comment><USER22> Ditto (live in China, never heard of it being applied). Anyway, in the US you would have opaque bank and private industry credit agencies which are basically performing the same function. I believe the government priorities (political security, social stability, reduced corruption) are potentially a better starting point than private sector priorities (profit), even if (as is inevitable) they screw up the infosec side and people's data is easily accessible on the black market through thousands of government employees.

<comment><USER23> I've added citations to my parent comment. It's being rolled out further in Guizhou. I think it's a novel way to combat corruption, but the potential for overall social control is chilling. "Sorry, Mobike does not rent to dissidents."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder would China ban Apple if they refused to do this?

Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government?

<comment><USER11> > I wonder would China ban Apple if they refused to do this?

Yes.

> Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government?

China is Apple's second or first largest market, depending on the quarter.

<comment><USER26> > Yes.

I am not sure how you can know that. I am actually sure Apple would have lost some market but not much and there could have been stuff they could do to let it happen rather than now just giving up everything to any authoritarian government.

Maybe Apple could have gained some respect and then market share if they would have stood firm. With this new management, Apple has become just focused on business (income) not what they were known to be passionate about.

<comment><USER27> We know that because China has banned western tech companies in the past when they don't play ball.

[https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why-f...](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why- facebook-banned-china.asp)

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

Also twitter and Snapchat.

<comment><USER28> As I understand it, Google actually had been cooperating with China's censorship requests, but didn't like it, and Google made the decision themselves[1] to relocate offices [ED: web search was moved but Google maintains offices in mainland China] to Hong Kong rather than continue self- censorship.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/23/google- ch...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/23/google-china- censorship-hong-kong)

<comment><USER11> Google didn't "relocate" to Hong Kong, their offices in Wudaokou kept running, they just shutdown their Mainland-based webserver.

<comment><USER27> And redirected it to Hong Kong, which was then blocked, because they weren't playing ball anymore.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but google still has other business in china (android, selling ads to Chinese customers). They sacrificed their web search business, but not everything else.

<comment><USER29> I'm pretty sure nothing Google-related works in China. Youtube/search/gmail etc. are all blocked.

They have Android phones but no Google services on them. They do sell ads there but to companies targeting Chinese people outside of China.

<comment><USER11> They just recently opened a new office in Shenzhen, so something is going on, but I mostly agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > "If you understand and agree, Apple and GCBD have the right to access your > data stored on its servers. This includes permission sharing, exchange, and > disclosure of all user data (including content) according to the application > of the law."

> In other words, once the agreement is signed, GCBD — a company solely owned > by the state — would get a key that can access all iCloud user data in > China, legally.

What user data will this decrypt? Are iMessage and FaceTime still safe?

</comment><comment><USER31> What about US users who message with somebody in China? We just get caught up too? Yeah I realize we are all already screwed as far as privacy goes but giving personal messages to the Chinese government is another matter.

Could happen unknowingly when you send an iMessage to, say, a gmail address, which unlike a phone number offers no clue where the user is.

<comment><USER32> Well, at least with a GMail address you are safe, because there are no GMail servers in Mainland China, because Google doesn't operate in Mainland China. But your point stands for other, more cooperative, mail services.

<comment><USER31> You're thinking of gmail the service. We were talking about iCloud though.

Gmail addresses can be used as Apple IDs, which means the iMessage messages travel inside Apple's iCloud services.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> China is overt with it's threats of blocking businesses if denied data. One can imagine the covert agreements between Apple and Western governments being the perfect storm - Apple positions itself as privacy focused -> customers are more willing to store sensitive information with Apple -> Apple provides access to government agencies without notifying users under covert agreements

</comment><comment><USER34> Apple has been so perfectly gentle with the Chinese government that their phones were allowed to show up in this year's CNY broadcasts.

</comment><comment><USER35> Well at least china has a internet industry- unlike Europe, more then lip service to liberalism, doesn't seem to pay too well.

<comment><USER36> Bizarre assertion that Europe doesn't have an internet industry. There's this mobile phone company you may have heard of called "Nokia".

<comment><USER37> Not the best example of european "tech industry". Nokia failed horribly and pretty much went bankrupt and got bought up by MSFT.

Also, I wouldn't call nokia as part of the "internet industry".

Compared to the US and China, europe has performed rather poorly. Europe has hundreds of millions of more people than the US and yet lags far behind the US.

Where is europe's facebook, google, microsoft, amazon, netflix, etc? At least china has their baidu, alibaba, tencent, etc.

The most prominent tech company in europe is SAP and they are more of a software/database/etc company than an internet company.

Europe has to get its act together and get in the game.

<comment><USER10> 1) Nokia is more than just their phone division. Might want to do a bit of research. That said their phone division is killing it right now.

2) Spotify, Soundcloud, Skype, Shazam, Deliveroo, King, Rovio etc. And there are hundreds of second tier internet sites looking at this list from 2013:

[http://tech.eu/features/186/ignorance-is- remiss/](http://tech.eu/features/186/ignorance-is-remiss/)

<comment><USER17> Soundcloud went bankrupt in real terms. Spotify is actively attempting to go bankrupt, given the extreme rate of red ink burn and their failure to produce a sustainable business (they're going to end up getting acquired, the licensing business will never produce profit margins).

Skype was sold off to two different US technology giants.

ARM was swallowed up by Japan.

King was eaten by a US company. As was Mojang.

These are all smaller success stories however. They're equivalent to fourth tier US successes, far below the second tier US companies like Adobe, Cisco, Texas Instruments, Airbnb, Priceline.com, Uber, etc.

The parent comment was correct. Europe nearly entirely missed the Internet/Web software business, the mobile software business, the cloud business, and now they're being left far behind in artificial intelligence (save for a few bright spots, such as in Britain, none of which has yielded commercial outcomes of large consequence).

Germany is almost single handedly keeping Europe competitive in the robotics field. And the largest tech company in Europe for the last decade, has been SAP.

Look at this list and compare it to companies like King and Soundcloud:

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Intel, Cisco, Adobe, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Oracle, Activision Blizzard, Salesforce, Priceline, nVidia, Dell, IBM, VMWare, Texas Instruments, Micron, Analog Devices, Applied Materials, HP Inc, HP Enterprise, Intuit, Uber, Airbnb, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, eBay, PayPal, Stripe, Square, Workday, Western Digital, Electronic Arts, Palantir, AMD, Autodesk, Lam Research, ServiceNow, WeWork, Lyft, Dropbox, Splunk, Marvell Technology, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Microchip Technology Inc, NetApp, Juniper, Seagate, Symantec, VeriSign, Slack, Grubhub

And that's ignoring dozens of other companies in the US tech sector with market caps between $2 billion and $20 billion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's because the apple-vs-fbi standoff is a calculated move by a collaboration between the US federal government and US companies to restore public faith in US products and services following Snowden's revelations (including photos) that alerted non-US organizations that any hardware or services they receive from the US may well be backdoored or co-opted for US military or economic advantage.

It's a false dichotomy. The government is helping Apple PR, following their fuck up that spilled the beans that they're all spying together.

Big companies operate at the mercy of the government, in the US and China both. "state owned" is irrelevant when all the phones are tapped, as they are in the United States now.</comment>


Rat: Compose shell commands to build interactive terminal applications - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ericfreese/rat <comment><USER2> I'm trying the example from the Readme, but running:

      $ rat --mode files --cmd 'ls -al'

..doesn't actually seem to be reading my .ratrc file. The command behaves the same whether I have a .ratrc or not. Is anybody else able to hit enter to preview a file? I'm on a Mac.

<comment><USER3> Also on a Mac. File preview works when .ratrc is present, otherwise just a file list and selector. Are you sure it's at ~/.config/rat/.ratrc ?

<comment><USER4> If it is in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME, why name the _file_ with a leading dot? To me, that's a bit confusing.

<comment><USER2> I fixed it last night: [https://github.com/ericfreese/rat/commit/73e4b90465](https://github.com/ericfreese/rat/commit/73e4b90465)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting framework. I like the fairly declarative style. The approach to writing terminal applications which interact with shell utilities seems a lot like certain Emacs applications, such as dired.

<comment><USER6> I am intrigued by your comparison. Does Emacs also provide a declarative UI framework, or do you have to work with controls yourself (like gtk or qt)?

<comment><USER5> Emacs Lisp is not a declarative language, of course, but this kind of declarative logic - regular expressions which parse shell command output and apply hidden text properties or keybindings - is common in Emacs. dired does it, as does magit, and all modes based on comint, as well as just normal M-x compile.

<comment><USER7> For (neo)vim there's (denite) unite, which based on Helm.

<comment><USER5> Helm/unite/denite are not the same thing as what I am talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think I'm in love. Wrote a tiny k8s UI to do frequent tasks in 10 minutes, including learning curve.

</comment><comment><USER9> And here I thought this would be about a rat issuing shell commands.

[http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/67715421b1524d9eba22ebc217d99967/f...](http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/67715421b1524d9eba22ebc217d99967/female- berkshire-rat-rattus-norvegicus-on-computer-keyboard-bd3n3p.jpg)</comment>


Geek Researcher Spends Three Years Living With Hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/11/coleman/ <comment><USER2> My game-inventing club has an ethnographer from the local University attending our meetings. We welcome here; teach her our gentle ways and show her how to achieve the good life: by inventing fun things!

</comment><comment><USER3> Anthropology is ridiculously useful for sales and marketing.

I owe a guy named Michiel van Meeteren a beer or three for his 'Indie Fever' (<http://www.madebysofa.com/indiefever/>), a ethnography of indie Mac developers - which came out right when I was crafting a pitch to indie Mac developers at the start of the iOS software boom back in 2008.

That book is terribly dated now - the success of iOS completely mutated the culture. But it was accurate at that time, and helped me avoid some terrible errors - errors I totally would have made, had I just followed my instincts.

If you're selling or planning to sell anything to the hacker community she researched, you should jump on her book, stat.

<comment><USER4> >That book is terribly dated now

>If you're selling or planning to sell anything to that community you should jump on her book, stat.

???

 _Edit_ : I misunderstood the last line, he's talking about the book in the OP article.

<comment><USER5> Different books. Different authors, even.

<comment><USER4> OH! Thanks, edited original post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I the only one who's slightly offended by being portrayed like a rogue tribe of bushmen that researchers "go and live with" to study?

Hackers, aka. software developers, are just people with a specific job.

<comment><USER7> We also have a culture, and anthropologists don't only study distant tribes. I'm in Turkey and have a few anthropologist friends here studying everything from the statistics department to television stations to poor Turks displaced by gentrification. An ethnography on a single evangelical church has been published. If it's a group of people, an anthropologist is either studying or considering studying it.

<comment><USER8> mmm. This recalls me the situation when a young monkey is taken into lab to the elder one and asks what is the monkey job. The elder one puffs: "Its anthropological research!". "What is it?" - asks the young one. "You see, I push this button and measure how fast these large white monkeys will give me a banana".

<comment><USER9> Ah there it is, my daily dose of "programmer snarkily trivializes a complex field". I was wondering what took so long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Regarding her quest for good hacker films, try Jason Scott's BBS documentary or to a lesser extent his text adventure documentary.

If she's looking for a big name formulaic Hollywood blockbuster, don't bother, because there's no original comic book for them to make a sequel or remake of. Maybe in a generation (or two) Hollywood could turn xkcd or penny arcade into a movie remake?

</comment><comment><USER11> Works of this ilk has been done in the past. Look at the original "Hackers" book or "Soul of a New Machine". And the jokes that she finds very funny are mostly bad puns to the folks that have been in the "culture" for decades.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is all very meta.

I'm not sure how I feel about being anthropologized.

<comment><USER4> I think it's neat. Nerds/Geeks/Hackers/etc are generally a solitary lot and even in groups the group is very inward focused so it's nice to have an outside opinion.

 _edit_ :

I especially like

>There's a whole chapter on joking, humor and cleverness among hackers. And that, to me, was one of the fascinating areas. And I feel that I've just scratched the surface with that chapter — to how deep and complex their oral histories are and their folklore is.

Because I've always been fascinated with Internet History and much of it is recounted through what is basically oral tradition simply because a lot of the old era hasn't been saved.

 _edit 2:_

>They come from the meme world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here is a tldr of the interview: <http://tldr.io/tldrs/50b61713bb2203997700013f>

</comment><comment><USER14> Her 'findings' are not really related to hackers. In fact, every observation she makes could equally apply to physics geeks of the 50s.

<comment><USER15> So you've read the book?

<comment><USER14> I was referring to the interview

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Biella is, among other things, a really sweet person, and I look forward to reading her book. I was confused when I saw the title of this submission because it sounds like something that just happened, not something that happened several years ago.

</comment><comment><USER17> I recall meeting Biella a number of years ago in that area of the world. She seemed very nice and committed to her research.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm suprised to see this story landed on Hacker News :P

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know of any other good Geek/Nerd/Internet Ethnology/History books? I find myself very interested in the subject lately.

<comment><USER19> I highly recommend "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by Steven Levy

<comment><USER20> Second that.

I would also recommend "Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age" and "Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For three years jedi knights tolerated questions about the Force and everything from a young she-padawan. Until they realised she can't spell "42".

Dudes, seriously, does anyone of you want to be treated like monkey tribe? Even if it is anonymous?

<comment><USER21> The article is kinda ridiculous, but why are you bringing gender into this discussion? It is irrelevant.

<comment><USER8> I am also bringing the Force. It is also irrelevant.</comment></comment></comment>


Oral History of John McCarthy - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuU82i3hi8c <comment><USER2> Text at [http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/201...](http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2012/10/102658149-05-01-acc.pdf) .

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Fascinating that this video has < 1k views on Youtube</comment>


Ask HN: How to best handle a review - <AUTHOR> I'm coming up to 2 years in my current position and a review is looming.
I feel I personally have added a lot of value to the company but I have a difficult time articulating it.
Do you have a particular method, or any tips & tricks that might have to best handle your performance reviews? <comment><USER2> It depends on your role and what you've worked on. For my former role, it was really easy to quantify what the projects I worked on did, because they were purely internal, I was a lead on them, and they were almost entirely geared toward saving labor hours. It was easy for me to say "Minimum, this saved the company $60k".

One of the things I've never seen many technical people do is track cost/benefit metrics. Learn to spot how you're impacting the company financially, and, even better, if you want to start pitching projects and ideas to the people above you, learn how to do RoI and IRR calculations (they're honestly really simple math). That's neither here nor there, though.

Keep a record (written in a notebook, on Google Keep, whatever works best for you) of what you've accomplished since your last review. If you don't have anything groundbreaking, that's ok - show that you contributed to a solid product or stable business.</comment>


How did this become the #1 free iphone game in Japan? - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id371708620?mt=8

<comment><USER2> I know in games like Starcraft players are obsessed with their Actions Per Minute (APM); the more you click the higher your APM and the better you do in the game.

Yes, you can see a whole host of problems with this logic.

None the less, my impression is that it looks like this game hooks into that sentiment and tests your ability to react quickly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Please warn about redirects like this! I could just throw up an affiliate link and say hey, look Doodle Jump is now X-Rated!!

</comment><comment><USER4> A lot of japanese downloads.</comment>


How Foursquare Is Forcing Social Networks to Check In or Check Out - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/03/location-apps-social-media/ <comment><USER2> Hey. Nobody forces to check-in. We are free to not check-in, not having a Facebook or Google account and all that stuff.</comment>


Ask HN: What does Y Combinator mean? - <AUTHOR>

How did it get its name? <comment><USER2> Its a fixed point combinator in lambda calculus. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed- point_combinator#Y_combin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed- point_combinator#Y_combinator)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator_%28company%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator_%28company%29)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.</comment></comment>


Framework for Rapid Development with Low Technical Debt - <AUTHOR> Hey HackerNews,
Releasing something cool and thought I would come here to get feedback.
After developing several products from scratch, there has always been the question of how I am able to bring a product from inception to production ready from a week to month time period and keep technical debt relatively low.
The answer is I developed a Toolkit and Framework years ago that is focused on rapid development while following good software architecture and now I am officially making it open source! Here are the two links:
Toolkit:
https://github.com/ProdigyView-Toolkit/prodigyview
MVC Framework:
https://github.com/Helium-MVC/Helium
I also think about Inversion of Control in a more targeted way: https://medium.com/helium-mvc/a-new-approach-to-inversion-of-control-with-prodigyview-e15a34cff0d
And follow certain principles on product development: https://medium.com/helium-mvc/programming-principles-for-early-stage-startups-1215ad14bcb8
Any other developers in the forum, I'd be happy to get your feedback and thoughts if you have any. <comment><USER2> Without having looked throughly at the links, here's what immediately came to mind:

      - using any framework without an active community is tech debt
      - some may even say using PHP for a project today is tech debt

<comment><USER3> If you're going to made broad assumptions, then using any framework is technical debt.

Also, if a developer told me that using PHP for a project causes technical debt, I would fire him.</comment></comment>


About the Invites for S2019 - <AUTHOR> have anyone received any invites or other information regarding S2019? <comment><USER2> I got nothing but I see the sorry in the interviews page. Do you see anything there?

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, we got the rejection email

</comment><comment><USER4> Still waiting</comment>


The Invisible Interface - <AUTHOR> http://spaceandtim.es/posts/the-invisible-interface <comment><USER2> Though I liked this post, it confuses invisible interfaces with keyboard interfaces, and this is a mistake that many people seem to make.

Vim is actually a perfect example for what I'm talking about. In my experience, it's a very polarizing tool, because people either know how to use it (and love it) or don't (and hate it).

This is because vim's interface is both keyboard-based and invisible. It's powerful because it's keyboard-based, but it's difficult to learn because it's invisible, and therefore requires a great deal of memorization.

Something I wish more UI folks would try to tackle is a visible keyboard interface. Use the screen to provide feedback to the user that shows what keys are being pressed, and what potential key combinations can stem from that.

In a basic example, let's say a program implements the usual Ctrl + X/C/V for cut/copy/paste. If the user holds down Ctrl, the UI should detect that and show the user that X, C, and V are all potential key combinations, and it should explain what each of those do.

The reason why the GUI became massively popular is because the interface is discoverable, and doesn't require the user to pore over a manual. The reason why power users hate the GUI is because it doesn't use the keyboard. I see no good reason why we can't make keyboard-based GUIs that make everyone happy.

In fact, the best part about a keyboard-based GUI is that once it helps you learn how to use it, you could simply disable the graphical component to reclaim that screen real estate.

<comment><USER3> Windows explorer has "visible keyboard shortcuts". Press Alt and a bunch of little tooltips display beside each button on the ribbon, showing the letter to press. Some are even chained shortcuts.

Screenshot: [http://i.imgur.com/gNDZ5YK.png](http://i.imgur.com/gNDZ5YK.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another under-appreciated interface that I find useful and actually enjoyable is mouse gestures. A simple example of this is swiping left or right with a Mac trackpad to navigate history in a browser. Older Opera browsers also had a rich mouse gesture interface with which you could right-click-drag your mouse in various patterns (L, backwards L, straight down, etc...) to perform various actions.

Similar to keyboard shortcuts that keep your hands on the keyboard in textual interfaces, mouse gestures ensure your hand doesn't leave the mouse in programs where the mouse is the dominant mode of interaction, like in CAD design.

One of my favorite features of SolidWorks (when I still did mechanical design) was their mouse gestures. From their docs [1], "You can use mouse gestures by right-dragging in the graphics area to invoke a preassigned tool or macro from a drawing, part, assembly, or sketch." That means I could draw a box, swipe, extrude, swipe, draw some lines, swipe, draw a circle, swipe, cut, and be done. Because it was customizable, I could perform most of my most common actions without navigating menus or my mouse ever leaving the drawing area.

[1] [http://help.solidworks.com/2012/English/SolidWorks/sldworks/...](http://help.solidworks.com/2012/English/SolidWorks/sldworks/t_using_mouse_gestures.htm)

Edit: That link also has a picture of the mouse gesture interface for those interested.

</comment><comment><USER5> I appreciate the point the writer is trying to make, although I wouldn't exactly consider Vim the bastion of usability. It's incredibly expressive though and once you learn a few rules you can wield a whole lot of power. I'd like to see more of this kinda setup in other programs.</comment>


Heroku schedules maintenance peak-hours in US again. Really. - <AUTHOR> https://status.heroku.com/incidents/644

<comment><USER2> They just sent out a postmortem email that states that the variance in traffic over the course of the day is only 10% and therefore there is no such thing as "peak". And then in the next sentence said that they scheduled the maintenance at a non-peak time when the most engineering resources would be on hand to deal with any issues.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is scaring us -- we rely on Heroku every day have large marketing pushes scheduled weeks in advance. This maintenance will forcefully interrupt any running attached processes, so it really is shocking they are planning this during midday.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Considering the widespread outages they caused this week with a 10am PDT maintenance, and the widespread complaint re: their timing, I'm going to chalk this one up to unvarnished arrogance.</comment>


Show HN: Cadet, a jRuby wrapper for Neo4j (including batch insert mode support) - <AUTHOR>

http://github.com/karabijavad/cadet
also, checkout
https://github.com/karabijavad/congress-graph for an example of its usage.
congress-graph utilizes cadet's ability to do neo4j batch insert mode to insert tons of data re: legislators, committees, etc into a graph database in a matter of minutes.
cadet also has its own DSL which allows for easy creation of nodes via the following statement:
    Person_by_name("Javad").lives_in_to City_by_name("Chicago")
feel free to ask me any questions.
thanks! <comment><USER2> That looks pretty cool.

Does installing the gem install the latest stable 2.* version?

<comment><AUTHOR> hey mark, this gem uses neo4j 2.0.3 atm

usually all i have to do is update the jar files located in the following directory: [https://github.com/karabijavad/cadet/tree/master/lib/neo4j](https://github.com/karabijavad/cadet/tree/master/lib/neo4j)

and if the interfaces havent changed, it should work fine.

thanks!</comment></comment>


Why pinch2zoom should be disabled on mobile web - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/541i45/how_to_disable_pinch2zoom_on_webpages_on_ios_10/ <comment><USER2> From stackoverflow:

> I hope you're not creating a website for a UK based organisation - if you > are, disabling pinch-to-zoom (effectively an accessibility feature) would > put you in breach of several laws for actively discriminating against people > with visual impairments ... There is never a good reason to disable this > functionality ... Ever! – Mike Insch Jul 9 '13 at 20:18</comment>


Ask HN: How to talk to my manager about a coworker? - <AUTHOR> I'm a consultant in a team of 8 that is half internal developers and half consultants. We're all fairly junior but one particular person has been empirically and consistently holding us back, or even sabotaging the project.
I'm talking about half-assed code, exaggerating or lying about completed work and overall technical debt.
The rest of the developers, (started with contractors, now even some internal) have noticed the source of delays, uncompleted tasks etc and we have always managed to work hard enough to fix what needs to be fixed in order to ship.
I don't think that our manager is clueless. However, this developer seem to do barely enough and are socially nice enough so that the manager didn't single them out. Instead the entire team gets a verbal talk about some delay or broken thing that reached production.
The structure is done in a way so that almost every feature has intertwined code from almost everyone and when a part of it fails it reflects bad on all of us.
I'm wondering what is the best way to approach this with the manager? How to have a discussion without throwing someone under the bus or looking like an attempt at deflecting blame?
(throw away for obvious reasons) <comment><USER2> Unfortunately sounds like a manager problem, not (just) a coworker problem.

If your manager has been unwilling to intervene up until this point, and is only addressing the issue by addressing the entire group instead of the culript... Talking to your manager is just going to put you in a worse off position. In my opinion, you'd be sticking your neck out for little gain.

No matter how eloquently you say it, no matter how structured and logical your arguments are... You're going to come across as both throwing someone under the bus while simultaneously deflecting blame.

If I were you, I'd be more concerned about your manager than your coworker. But thats just me.

<comment><AUTHOR> So how do you suggest addressing this? Continue to cover and try to get them to do less harm?

<comment><USER2> It's really hard to say as these situations are hugely complex and there's only so much info I have to go on (and this is all in my experience anyways... your mileage may vary, and I'm often wrong).

Putting myself in your shoes I see two options:

1) Simply do not address it. Do your work, day in and day out. Do a damn good job of your work. Help out when able to, but don't stretch yourself thin to try and rescue a project and don't try to cover up for someone else (and thus taking responsibility in the end).

When your manager addresses the group you BOTH know they are addressing your sole coworker -- so these group talks really don't matter and don't reflect on you (given what you've said about your manager being resonable is true). Maybe your manager just can't handle confrontation and thinks these group talks are adequate to get the message to the lone coworker. If this is the case, honestly just ignore the group chats and do a good job at the things within your job description.

2) Instead of approaching it head-on as a "you need to manage better" or a "you need to get rid of this person" problem, have you considered approaching your manager and/or CEO for a management or mentorship position yourself? If thats something your interested in, of course.

I whole-heartedly think that you SHOULD be able to approach your manager with a situation like this. That's what they're supposed to be there for. But, in my experience anyways, it never works out. You're either labled a snitch, a suck-up, or reprimended for "overstepping your bounds".

In corporate life, I find it best to be VERY mindful of where my job duties end. If your job duties don't include managing other staff members, I would advise doing everything in your power to avoid "managing your manager", even if justified. Unless it is outright sabotage, ignore it and do your duties to the best of your ability. Smart managers will recognize you for it. Or, you find out that you'd rather be working somewhere else.

<comment><USER2> Just to add...

If everyone in the office and even outside clients are not only noticing the slowdown but also able to point at the root cause (your coworker), you really don't need to stick your own neck out there to let them know something they are aware of. It's already known. Let the situation come to fruition at it's own pace.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Case of Business of putting customer first - g-garron http://daslee.me/customer-capitalism

<comment><AUTHOR> It is amazing how hard this concept is for businesses to grasp. If you build your service and brand around trust with your customers, you will earn long- term value that far exceeds short term gain of focusing on money first. Unfortunately most companies don't have the patience or luxury to stay true to this approach, or have investors who push them away from this approach. We are really fortunate at Riot Games that we had great investors (Benchmark, FirstMark, Tencent) that let us stay true to our culture and approach.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, it sounds so obvious and self-evident. But when you have competing interests, it can be hard in practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Putting customers first is closer to the Stakeholder capitalism model, in which you take into account all parties involved in the long term success of a company.

</comment><comment><USER4> Companies that don't do this usually have found other ways to create shareholder value... usually in DC.</comment>


Regardless of religion: How do you interpret the Bible? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-interpret-the-Bible/answer/Marcos-Hung?__filter__=&__nsrc__=2&__sncid__=3270219328&__snid3__=5385085712&force_prompt_topic_bio=1&share=1 <comment><USER2> Please ignore, this is one of many questions asked by the poster on quora.com in order to promote his book.</comment>


How I Hacked a Mind-Body TMS with Meditation - <AUTHOR> http://biohackyourself.com/how-i-hacked-a-mind-body-tms-with-meditation/ <comment><USER2> I have recently begun suffering from RSI-like symptoms. Wearing a wrist brace seems to help, but I cannot afford to cease all typing right now. I'm going to give this a shot, since I've been trying to develop a meditation habit for a while now anyway. It certainly can't hurt, and I'm open to the explanation that pain is (at least partially) psychosomatic.

<comment><USER3> Sorry to read about the RSI. Since you're on a hacking forum, I'm going to suggest you learn some basic pain science. It may help you understand your situation. A few pointers:

Tissue "damage" usually resolves within 6 weeks.

Pain and "damage" are not equivalent. Hence pain may occur without damage, and damage without pain.

Pain and "suffering" are not equivalent. Hence pain may occur without suffering. A handy illustration: certain folks actively seek out certain painful stimuli.

There is no such thing as a "pain nerve" or even a "pain signal". Pain or suffering emerge from your (conscious) interpretation of stimuli.

Your pain is absolutely not psychosomatic. It's real. However, consider this: every single experience you ever have, including pain and suffering, _only_ exists in your brain. Your RSI is as real as my keyboard right now.

Good luck :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The useful gist of this report, if any, is as follows:

> Even though I couldn't accept the notion that my mind's state might be > causing my symptoms, I could accept the idea that by changing the state of > my mind I might be able to reduce that pain... [this] shifted my mental > model of my condition from _my hands are internally damaged_ to _my nervous > system and /or circulatory system is functioning in such a way that pain > arises in my hands_... if my mind was going to improve the > circulation/nervous activity in my hands, then it first had to be intimately > familiar with what was actually going on there.

> When I had developed sufficient sensitivity, I started to feel like I had > the capacity to actually willfully cause the positive energy of the > compassion and love to flow directly into my hands. I repurposed all of the > suffering, stress and angst that had built up over the course of the > condition. I used that energy to generate an intense fervor of unconditional > love and a will to get better and projected that down through my arms and > into my hands.

> In addition to these intensive meditation sessions, I also started a > throughout-the-day practice of being sensitized to my hands. I started to > notice that I was very clearly displacing mental and emotional stress down > into my hands, just as some of us, when stressed, sit in hunched over > postures and collect tension in the upper back and traps.

I have some very mixed feelings about seeing this described as 'hacking'. In my view, there is definitely 'hacking' of a sort going on here, but it is a _narrative_ hacking: we watch the author change the nature of the story he is telling himself in order to compartmentalize his own inner turmoil so that it can be dealt with safely. I am not sure that this is the sort of hacking the author thinks he is discussing. It is not entirely clear what he thinks (in retrospect) was going on. One sees that he never treats his imaginings of psychic phenomena as real, per se, and that he comes to the obvious conclusions (he is directing tension into his own hands in response to emotional stress), but he doesn't entirely admit this, either — eliding, for instance, the core TMS concept of psychogenic muscular tension in favour of 'circulatory system effects' in his description — and he maintains ambiguous language, reporting that "with my new-found sensitivity, I was simply able to stop the flow of stress, just as you can stop scratching an itch after you notice that you are doing so."

<comment><USER5> I don't agree with your conclusion. It seems obvious from reading his story that he does in fact admit that it is his emotions that are causing the pain. The 'nervous system and/or circulatory system' is just the mechanism that he thinks is actually causing the pain in his hands. From my understanding of psychogenic pain, I think it's possible that it is located entirely inside the brain, although we don't really know for sure.

Also, I think "hacking" is a valid term to use here. He is making changes to his thought patterns which then result in reduced pain sensation.

<comment><USER3> _Every_ experience you ever have is _only_ located in your brain. Pain is no exception, because there are no exceptions.

While some pain can be purely psychogenic, that is very, very rare. There is usually some peripheral contributing factor.

<comment><USER5> Yes, of course, all sensations are actually located in the brain. That goes without saying.

However, as I understand it, with fibromyalgia there is no actual peripheral contributing factor, it is some combination of remembered pain / interpretation of touch as pain / emotional pain. Having said that, I haven't really done a great deal of research on it, and I'm not sure if science really has much of an idea of what is actually going on anyway.

<comment><USER3> > Yes, of course, all sensations are actually located in the brain. That goes > without saying.

Ehm... not only is it necessary to say that sensation emerges from the brain, it actually bears repeating quite a lot :) The separation of mind and body is a highly resilient illusion. If you're in pain then that illusion is fiercely potent. If someone sticks you with a needle and asks "where is the pain", you won't say "in my brain".

> I'm not sure if science really has much of an idea of what is actually going > on anyway.

The problem with unexplained pain phenomena such as "fibromyalgia" may in part be a measurement error: we simply don't currently have the technology necessary to determine peripheral contributing factors. Imagine life before MRI, before X-ray _. We have increasingly tantalising glimpses into the contributing factors behind pain phenomena such as phantom limb pain, and complex regional pain syndrome. But we haven 't pieced the puzzle together quite yet.

There are some known mechanisms whereby innocuous stimuli can result in the subjective experience of pain. For further reading, have a look into "central sensitisation" and "dorsal horn wind-up".

_ To anticipate, I'm well aware that findings on imaging can correlate poorly with subjective experiences such as pain. This is simply an analogy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I built a startup while traveling to 20 countries - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/digital-nomad-stories/how-i-built-a-startup-while-traveling-to-20-countries-f0ec3a92bc3c

<comment><USER2> It really depends on where you go.

Many places in the world don't have stable or fast Internet. If you are a 1-person startup, you might be able to get away with it. But, if you have partners back in the US, Skype calls might not work very well in a coffee shop with a saturated 1MB connection.

I tried exactly this a few years back while traveling through Asia and I ended up just getting an apartment and working from there (and traveling every couple of weeks when I wanted to get out).

Coffee shop/public Internet also isn't very secure.</comment>


Stop using react - <AUTHOR> https://vadosware.io/post/stop-using-react/ <comment><USER2> Would like to hear some views on this article.

<comment><USER3> It's a good article but nothing new. There are a million blog posts just like this by people frustrated with React.

If you want to change people's behavior, you have to address them at an instinctive, emotional level, not a logical level. React attracted people because it was new and shiny, and it had the prestigious "Facebook" label on it.

Most front-end developers don't have any ownership stake in the projects they are hired to work on, so they couldn't give two hoots about the legal ramifications of React. All they're thinking is, "I'm as amazing as Facebook now."</comment></comment>


F***ing Laptops - <AUTHOR> https://drewdevault.com/rants/2020/02/18/Fucking-laptops.html <comment> m-p-3 I dunno, the XPS line is doing fine with my needs.</comment>


Facebook Has Deleted 5 to 10M Links to Competing Social Network - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/is-facebook-afraid-of-social-network-rival-tsu/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr Tsu is a spammy site with potential malware. It also failed to pay out to some of its users. It seems generally shady, and Facebook was right to block it.

Most of that info I got from the article, but I also Googled a bit.

Tsu had problems with spam on its own site, and it was also likely spamming Facebook, which its founder admits in the article.

There's also some evidence that Tsu.co or its advertisers were distributing malware[1].

1\. [https://plus.google.com/+UgoCei/posts/2qXF7tFMCHK](https://plus.google.com/+UgoCei/posts/2qXF7tFMCHK)

<comment><USER3> I was surprised the ZDNet left out the MLM implications of the model until the disclosure:

> _Disclosure: I joined Tsu as a user to take a look at the site before I > wrote about the platform in 2014 and I still use the platform regularly._

That's a damn fair use of a disclosure.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original Story I saw which got no play on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10519875](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10519875)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "This is very intriguing. I think a platform with a business model that effectively remunerates users is what it will take to kill facebook." [https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=10519891&goto=item%3Fi...](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=10519891&goto=item%3Fid%3D10519875)

</comment><comment><USER4> I was more surprised by the fact that ZDNet still exists than I was by the content of the article.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. I can't think of the last time they were relevant.</comment></comment>


Zynga must face U.S. lawsuit alleging fraud tied to IPO - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/26/us-zynga-lawsuit-idUSKBN0MM1XP20150326 <comment><USER2> Very curious if this had any correlation with the clawback of pre-IPO shares. Essentially when Zynga wrecked the last social contract between founders and workers by taking back pay in the form of shares, they may have been doing it to restrict the effect of those workers knowledge of falling profits on the IPO price.

Mark Pincus has done more to hurt the environment of silicon valley than any figure in my recent memory.

<comment><USER3> Wow, I'd actually forgotten about that clawback, but damn, that was brutal.

Agreed. From an admittedly outsider perspective, the leadership of Zynga just seems to have exhibited a darkness at every turn.

<comment><USER4> lie down with dogs, get up with fleas

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If they did actually do this, its a death sentence for Zynga. With their already declining prospects and net loss every quarter, this will drain their account and remove any route of public funding. This leaves private funding, and there might be an investor out there willing to go with a private round on Zynga, but I'd hate to see the terms on the round.

</comment><comment><USER6> They should really be including Pincus as a defendant. There is enough public knowledge of his shady actions surrounding the IPO that he should personally be held accountable, as opposed to the company he pumped and dumped.

<comment><USER7> They might be waiting for discovery, who knows what that will unearth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of their whales died, and they didn't disclose it to the SEC.

<comment><USER9> which whale?

<comment><USER10> Mrs. Elizabeth LeBeau of Mobile Alabama. The 7-11 where she bought her game cards may also have to close now.

<comment><USER11> A cursory google search didn't turn up anything about this... anywhere I can read more?

<comment><USER12> I think it's a joke about the mobile games industry being dependent on "whales" (players that spend an absurd amount of money on IAP) and Zynga's business model being so horrible that one whale dying makes them go out of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mark Pincus really should be held accountable for his shady dealings. He is a general blight on the tech industry.

</comment><comment><USER14> Games like Farmville seem like the equivalent of a one-hit-wonder. Not an Oracle but a Rico Suave. People who invest in a fad should know it will fade.</comment>


Show HN: Android Virtualization on ARM (Our MVP) - <AUTHOR>

This is our MVP (built in ~2 years): http://vimeo.com/21889466
We run virtualized instances of Android/Linux operating systems on multicore ARM processors. What you see in the demo is in similar caliber of what VMWare has today.
I am the founder, 29, we are a small team. I would welcome any feedback, suggestions, improvements ... perhaps suggestions on who to approach. There may be people or companies which we didn't think of.
I will be in Mountain View from 10th April onwards and happy to meet anyone interested in the technology. (also looking for housing in the MV area). <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://vimeo.com/21889466>

</comment><comment><USER2> Does the Motorola Atrix use your technology or has Moto rolled out their own tech?

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems this phone uses a web application that connects to a remote machine that provides the desktop applications. This is one of the ways of doing it; they bring the remote environment to your phone.

In our case however, the OS itself (i.e. linux kernel) runs on the baremetal hypervisor directly resident on the device.

<comment><USER2> Ah nice! I wasnt aware that Atrix was remote access. Well I wish you much success - anything that allows more OS flexibility is a win in my book!</comment></comment></comment>


IDEO: The Book and the Future of Literature - <AUTHOR> http://me.samiq.net/the-book-and-the-future-of-our-literature <comment><USER2> I have much respect for the company, but I hate to say that I did not want a single one of their concepts. Every screen change, the only thing I could think was, "ok, now how do I go back to that previous screen?" every new screen showed a completely new confusing interface with non-intuitive interactions. And some screens were just plain poor usability. Example, the book browsing screen where you swipe left and right to browse book covers one at a time. Repeat...one....at....a....time. How about showing me a grid or list so it'll be easier for me to decide which of my 50+ books I'd like to read?

</comment><comment><USER3> first posting of video on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713056> \- vimeo direct link: <http://vimeo.com/15142335></comment>


Steve Jobs' Itinerary for Apple's 2011 Top 100 Meeting - <AUTHOR> http://news.rapgenius.com/Steve-jobs-itinerary-for-apples-2011-top-100-meeting-annotated <comment><USER2> What's really interesting to me about this agenda is - for years I've always bought into the general apple narrative that they don't _really_ pay that close attention to what their competitors do, and that they just build what they feel is the best thing to build, period.

This agenda just makes them seem a bit more "human" (rather than just Jony Ive's magical workshop of super-designer elves) - at the end of the day, they are still another company that fears their competitors and closely watches them, and plans accordingly during these off-site strategy meetings.

<comment> k-mcgrady I think that they probably take that approach to a point. For example when introducing brand new products. But when growth is slowing or no longer existent you have to look at your competitors and see what they've done differently. The "narrative that they don't _really_ pay that close attention to what their competitors do" is more of a testament that they don't operate like Samsung (watch their competitor and copy everything about their product).

<comment><USER2> Right - that makes sense.

I think in my mind I took that too far - that they truly say, forget what these guys are doing, we know better, and customers will eventually come around, PERIOD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I still don't understand these rapgenius non-lyrical annotations that get posted here. Why not just write a blog post with your commentary? Having to click a bunch of times to context-switch between the real content and your thoughts is just an annoyance.

<comment><USER4> I (somewhat) agree that if there is only a single person's feedback, then RapGenius (perhaps) isn't the ideal model for everyone (though I personally like it a lot) - but, when you want to group source _everyones_ feedback/annotations, it's awesome.

I read a lot of stuff on Rap Genius, and I find their annotation system to be one of the best - I was in a packed MRT in singapore, and was able to easily, with very little mental friction, read through the agenda and annotations, single handedly - thumb clicking the annotations and back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> More on the concept of the Top 100 retreat --

[http://www.edibleapple.com/2012/01/25/inside-apples- top-100-...](http://www.edibleapple.com/2012/01/25/inside-apples- top-100-retreat/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I would have thought a 'Holy War' with Google would also include trying to steal their best employees. Their illegal pact seems counter-intuitive in this light.

<comment><USER7> The no poach pact ended around the time of this document.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What's a 'tent pole'? Ironically, the RP doc didn't annotate that.

<comment><USER5> It's a term of art that, in movies, means the big blockbuster that is going to put the balance sheet in the black, in the process allowing a lot of other smaller and more risky pictures to be made. It has taken on an analogous meaning in other domains.

When referring to an OS update, I assume it means the compelling feature(s) that will get people excited about upgrading.

It's actually interesting that you flagged this, because of course Jobs was involved in movies thru being the major investor behind Pixar, and he admired Disney. It seems to illustrate him thinking about parallels between the two mass markets of computers and movies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Didn't see maps on the agenda.

<comment><USER10> Probably the reason they screwed it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> These two lines jumped out at me:

"Google and Microsoft are further along on the technology, but haven't quite figured it out yet - tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem"

"make Apple ecosystem even more sticky"

</comment><comment><USER12> Is using "itinerary" as a synonym for agenda/outline Apple jargon?

</comment><comment><USER13> What's interesting to me is that there was only one point that was still "confidential"..I wonder if that means all the cats were out of the bag and it's really up to the new management to innovate?

Or maybe the top 100 doesn't know about the best of the best.

<comment><USER14> That Item was regarding Verizon iPhone, not some mystery product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Do we know if there are really 100 attendees to this meeting ? If that's indeed the case, is it unusual to have that many people within a company capable of influencing things ? Any other examples in the corporate world ?

<comment><AUTHOR> You should read about Jeff Skilling's leadership 'survival of the fittest' outings at Enron.

I can't find any clear examples on the net, but you should watch The Smartest Guys in The Room.

Pretty sure there were lots of people that went with him on crazy corporate holidays.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure this is a mere corporate holiday, it sounds like; in addition to company stuff (reviews/headcount) real long term strategic decisions get made/debated in these top 100 gatherings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "create low cost iPhone model based on iPod touch to replace 3GS"

Oh, I wish.

</comment><comment><USER17> How is this news? Does any company note have a "focal" or "prism" meeting like this?

<comment><USER18> It's news because the contents of any of these meetings rarely surface to the public where we can discuss them.

<comment><USER17> ok, fair point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My favorite is the "average age" line. Why would that question be asked? One would guess, because he wanted to manage it. Another example of how Jobs had little respect for the law as it relates to employment practices.

</comment><comment><USER20> They did not mention anything about MacBook Pro and MacBook Air (not even an update) :/ when they were mentioning about iPad 3

</comment><comment><USER21> This is quite remarkable:

> we further lock customers into our ecosystem

Can't say we don't know it already, but seeing it explicitly mentioned as a strategy...

</comment><comment><USER22> Well this is one of the more shameless examples of blog spam I've seen in a while.

<comment><USER23> this isn't a blog post</comment></comment>


Recorded Future Express: free intelligence on IP/domain/hash/CVEs on any webpage - <AUTHOR> https://go.recordedfuture.com/express <comment><AUTHOR> Prioritizes IOCs by risk. Shows top risk factor. Can be used over a browser based SIEM or web app.</comment>


Learn how to recognizes faces, license plates in images - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1186001332/1226169979?token=edfe2e40

<comment><USER2> Please read the Show HN rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).</comment>


Iran is in the throes of an unprecedented sexual revolution (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/29/erotic-republic/ <comment><USER2> I know at least two Iranian women who came to Canada on education Visa's in the last decade and have refused to go back, even to visit their families. I worked with one of them from when she first arrived. Initially she wore a head-scarf and was extremely nervous working with and even just talking to men. She gradually became more relaxed and one day the scarf went in the bin. The other considered her relatives "dead to her" from the moment I met her. Not surprisingly, she was not from Tehran.

Studying abroad is an important thing for Iranian students, but this presents some huge problems for a theocracy where sexual discrimination is so firmly entrenched. For every student that leaves and never returns, there are probably several who go home and try to change things for the better.

The fact that Iran allows students, especially female students, to study abroad suggests that things are not as dire there as one would expect from consuming U.S. media. The U.S.'s policy of confrontation with Iran's leaders is, strangely enough, probably one of the few things keeping them afloat. Fear of foreign powers is a powerful tool, as anyone in the U.S. should now know. The best course of action over the next few years may be to reduce the level of confrontation with Iran's leaders and let the Iranian people, who are increasingly at odds with their country's policies, take care of their leaders on their own.

</comment><comment><USER3> > When someone mentions Iran, what images leap into your mind? Ayatollahs, > religious fanaticism, veiled women?

No, that's Saudi Arabia you're thinking of. You know, the "good" theocracy that's one of our biggest business partners. Despite the foreign politics a few years ago, Iran is reportedly rather moderate in practice.

<comment><USER4> Isn't Iran still backing numerous terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, while proclaiming it their goal to essentially kill everyone in Israel?

What's so moderate about having an extremely oppressive theocracy as the foundation of your political leadership? One need only look at the revolts of a few years ago and how Iran dealt with that, to see exactly how non-moderate they are in practice.

And before you jump to saying: but America does X, and Saudi does X - yes, and such things do not alter or justify the terrible things that Iran does.

<comment><USER3> Islam is a bit more complex than "Iran supports Hezbollah, so they support terrorists". Look into the Sunni vs Shia split some time and then look at which organizations and countries identify with which side of that split.

Saudi Arabia is far worse than Iran. While Iran's strict theocracy is slowly falling out of favour with its population, Saudi Arabia is quite effective at perpetuating its theocracy thanks to its wealth and international relationships.

It's not just that Saudi Arabia does some bad stuff. It does the same bad stuff as Iran -- and worse -- yet we (and in this case I mean us, Germany, in particular) sell weapons and military equipment to the Saudis and buy their oil while sanctioning Iran.

I'm an atheist, so I'm strictly opposed to any form of religious influence on politics (be it Muslim, Christian or Jewish). But you have to acknowledge that Iran is taking a turn towards the better while Saudi Arabia sits comfortably in a Bronze Age form of government and legal system (with full access to the Post-Space Age technology we are selling them).

<comment><USER4> No, if you support a terrorist organization, then you support terrorists.

I said nothing about Islam. Supporting terrorists has nothing to do with Islam. Iran supporting Hezbollah has to do with Iran supporting terrorists.

I _never_ said Saudi or Iran were worse. That has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. This isn't an argument over what the worst country on earth is.

My point was: Iran is an oppressive theocracy that directly finances terrorism. They are, very blatantly. And if Saudi is worse, that does not mean Iran isn't still an oppressive theocracy.

<comment><USER3> I'm not really disagreeing then, I'm just failing to see your point.

Iran is an oppressive theocracy. Saudi Arabia is an oppressive theocracy. Both of them support people/groups we would call terrorists. The only regard in which Iran is somehow worse than Saudi Arabia is that they have a more outspoken hate of Israel while the Saudis are clever enough to avoid speaking too badly about a country in their region that is a close ally to the countries they're so good at doing business with.

One country being worse than another doesn't make the other country any better. I'm not saying Iran is moderate. It's just a heck of a lot more moderate ( _in practice_ ) than Saudi Arabia, a country that televises PSAs that women shouldn't drive and that you better don't skip on any of your prayers throughout the day because God will literally kill you if you do that.

<comment><USER4> Here is my point, the parent I initially replied to said this:

"Despite the foreign politics a few years ago, Iran is reportedly rather moderate in practice."

I disagreed. There is nothing moderate about Iran's oppressive theocracy or their support of terrorism. Iran is at the extreme far end of the scale when it comes to not being moderate, among countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember seeing plenty of pictures of Iran in ~1960 that looked like the us in the 60's. So, plenty of people living in Iran recall a much more liberal time period.

ex: [http://izismile.com/2014/02/26/a_look_at_life_in_iran_during...](http://izismile.com/2014/02/26/a_look_at_life_in_iran_during_the_31_pics.html)

I suspect the current regime is in many ways a backlash in the first place.

<comment><USER6> Iran is only a very "young" country (by which I mean lots of young people) while at the same time the ruling class seem to be mainly the older people. So I wouldn't be surprised if there is a very big disconnect between the rulings of the state and the desires of the general populace.

For Dutch people the VPRO documentary "Onze Man In Teheran"[0] (Our Man In Teheran) might be interesting. It's a documentary about a Dutch reporter that married to an Iranian woman and emigrated to Iran.

\---

[0] [http://www.vpro.nl/programmas/onze-man-in-teheran/onze- man.h...](http://www.vpro.nl/programmas/onze-man-in-teheran/onze-man.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a big difference between Tehran and the rest of the country though. I wonder how much of what is said in the article is true in a city like Esfahan, for example. In fact, there's even a big difference between the North and the South of Tehran itself.

<comment><USER8> Definitely! I don't think these cultural freedoms will have reached Qom, for example...

I'd recommend anyone to visit Iran and explore the country. It's not all ayatollahs, you know...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it's called the empowerment of women. If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce, if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to which nature and some doctrine - religious doctrine condemns them, and then if you'll throw in a handful of seeds perhaps and some credit, the floor of everything in that village, not just poverty, but education, health, and optimism will increase. It doesn't matter; try it in Bangladesh, try it in Bolivia, it works - works all the time. Name me one religion that stands for that, or ever has. Wherever you look in the world and you try to remove the shackles of ignorance and disease stupidity from women, it is invariably the clericy that stands in the way." — Christopher Hitchens

</comment><comment><USER10> _When someone mentions Iran, what images leap into your mind? Ayatollahs, religious fanaticism, veiled women?_

Having been friends for a time with an Iranian, the thing I think of is politeness: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taarof](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taarof)

The second thing I think of is that Farsi is a genderless language: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_genderless...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_genderless_languages#Persian)

I knew this person well and I learned that Persian culture, unlike American culture, has concepts for sucking up to female authority figures as well as male. The expressions I learned were pretty sexually explicit and I don't know if I remember them well. But I was very struck by the fact that the culture had egalitarian qualities my own culture lacks. For me, it was a growth experience and provided much needed mental models for my own life.

No culture is a monolith. The modern government in Iran is being transposed over a culture that is thousands of years old. It is a rich culture and has many fine qualities.

</comment><comment><USER11> Coincidentally, I recently meet a group of 5 Iranian women (all here on student visas) while at happy hour in Miami. When I asked if there was any comparable night life in Iran, I was informed that in Iran nightclubs where men and women to commingle are non-existent and more generally women may not consume alcohol. There is a _thriving_ underground scene of house parties where young men and women interact (and drink socially), but these too are illegal gatherings that are often broken up and lead to multiple arrests.

>Declining birth rates, for example, signal a wider acceptance of contraceptives and other forms of family planning

I would theorize the declining birth rates is not a signal of a wider sexual revolution, including, the adoption of contraceptives, rather a signal that State suppression of socializing of the sexes is succeeding. This would probably also account for the increase in average age of getting married.

<comment><USER12> Errr... a high birth rate is usually due to women having _multiple_ children. i.e. they are married.

Also, people marrying late is not usually due to 'suppression of socializing of the sexes'... in western countries the opposite effect has been seen. If I were to follow the logic of your argument then we should expect western countries where teenagers mingle freely to have people marrying early... that is clearly not the case.

<comment><USER11> > If I were to follow the logic of your argument then we should expect western > countries where teenagers mingle freely to have people marrying early... > that is clearly not the case.

That is not a logical extension of my position.

Logic:

if the government does not allow commingling of the sexes, then people will get married at an older age (if p, then q)

You are extending that to:

The US government does not prohibit commingling of sexes, therefore we should expect people getting married earlier (not P, therefore not q)

That is a logical fallacy.

I think we can both agree the US average age of marriage is increasing, and certainly it can be for different reasons. To follow my argument is very easy, there can be other explanations for decreased birthrates and increased average age of marriage, than a sexual revolution, especially if the government is prohibiting men and women from socializing (something I don't think other western countries ever did)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Prosititution is technically semi-legal in Iran. There is a temporary marriage / dowry arrangement where you can be "married" for as little as 15 minutes. I think it is also okay to have an actual wife in addition to the temporary wife. I have no idea how much this loophole is used in practice.

<comment><USER14> Almost never. The part about temporary marriage most westerners seem to oblivious about is after the end of marriage (for any reason: death, divorce or end of the term of temporary marriage), the woman cannot get married for 4 months and 10 days. It makes "legal" prostitution impractical, as the cost for a "15 minute" sexual encounter should be high enough to cover 4+ months of unemployment.

That and the fact that it's the most socially unacceptable thing around here.

There is only one situation where temporary marriage is acceptable, maybe even expected. Because of the economic realities of the recent decades, young people may stay engaged for more than a year before they can afford to get married. So, many people "temporarily marry" their fiancé/fiancée upon engagement in order to be able to hang out without offending social and religious values.

(Even with temporary marriage, it's still taboo for engaged people to move in together or have sex, but this is different from family to family and from town to town.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was surprised when I visited Iran years back how different it was on the street to what you might imagine from TV news. I'd just come from Pakistan where all the women are covered up or mostly kept at home and in comparison Iran felt a bit like France, modern and with women wandering about fairly normally, maybe with some head scarfs. The Iranian people I think are pretty normal and modern. It it the dictatorial government that is all 'death to apostates' and hardline Islamic and quite different in outlook to the populace.

</comment><comment><USER16> In the 60s, many Western hippies went through Iran on their Hippie Trail (Silk Road) tours. Many minds were bent. See _Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India_ by Rory MacLean (2008, Penguin).

</comment><comment><USER17> That website is broken, I had to use links to read it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not that surprising given that for most of the time, back when it was Persia, the culture of the region was considered practically synonymous with hedonistic pleasure and luxury.

</comment><comment><USER19> And how does this relate to US foreign policy? Or any foreign policy? Or how about HackerNews?

I'd like to comment though on the awfulness of the sign up pop up (popsign?) and the clunky website. It's awful.</comment>


Infiltrating the network using a malicious ZigBee lightbulb - <AUTHOR> https://research.checkpoint.com/2020/dont-be-silly-its-only-a-lightbulb/ <comment><USER2> Although the exploit required some user intervention (e.g: searching for the fake lightbulb), it is still impressive and the write-up is very well written. Thanks for sharing!

What's more impressive though is the disclosure timeline, unless I'm missing something Signify / Philips acknowledged + confirmed the issue on the same day they were disclosed, and then fixed them 20 days later. The only thing I'm not impressed with is the time that it took from their fix to be released as a software update (49 days).

I know that compared to other vendors, this timeline is really great, but I'm still impressed it takes that much of a time to release a fix they implemented and tested as part of a software update</comment>


Xkcd - A Bunch of Rocks - <AUTHOR> http://www.xkcd.com/505/ <comment><USER2> This crowd should be familar with rule 34: <http://xkcd.com/305/>

<comment><USER3> <http://wetriffs.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That guy should pay more attention when I'm coding!

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope this isn't the start of a new trend…

</comment><comment><USER6> Wolfram's rule 34?

<comment><USER7> Wolfram's Rules are, as I understand it, a sequential enumeration of cellular automata. Rule 110 was found to be universal -- i.e. it could be used to implement a Turing-equivalent machine as the narrator of the comic does. "Rule 34" is a 4chan meme.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110>

<http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_rule_34>

<comment><USER8> How do I program rule 110 in Python? It shouldn't be too hard, right?

<comment><USER9> See <http://code.activestate.com/recipes/343386/></comment></comment></comment></comment>