Can Urban Design Alleviate the Need for Cops? - <AUTHOR> http://www.planetizen.com/node/43248

<comment><USER2> This just links to a stub. The full article is here: [http://www.examiner.com/x-36206-LA-County-Social-Policy- Exam...](http://www.examiner.com/x-36206-LA-County-Social-Policy- Examiner~y2010m2d24-Public-safety-means-more-than-just-cops)</comment>


Build API First - <AUTHOR> http://parveenkaler.com/posts/build-api-first/

<comment><USER2> Looks like a good article but your Markdown/syntax is a bit messed up, making it hard to read without reformatting it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed it. It looks like a difference between the rdiscount and maruku Markdown parsers. Github Pages must be using the opposite of whatever is the default I'm using for Jekyll.</comment></comment>


Lithium in drinking water and crimes, suicides related to drug addictions (1990) - <AUTHOR> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/21455358 <comment><USER2> When I was homeless and having bad mood swings as a side effect of medical stuff, I asked my son to look up info and see if there was a lithium and salt connection (because my condition involves salt misprocessing). He said yes, there was.

We then looked for dietary sources of lithium. I began consuming beef or pork with salted potato dishes to prevent the wild mood swings. It worked.

/Anecdata

<comment><USER3> The periodic table strongly hints at a lithium salt connection.

But what made you suspect lithium deficiency?

Pork, beef, and salted potatoes sounds like a standard American diet. It's the core of the McDonald's menu :-)

<comment><USER4> At forty I'm starting to learn chemistry because my 12 year old daughter has an interest in it. If you have a layman's explanation for why the periodic table strongly hints at a lithium salt connection I would love to show that to her. Thanks.

If you have any other insights that one could derive from the periodic table that would be much appreciated as well. Thank you!

<comment><USER5> Sodium chloride is normal salt, and potassium chloride is another salt.

In general, chlorine is missing one electron from its full configuration, while the first column has a lonely electron in its outermost S-orbital — so they're pretty happy to do a dance and make a molecule.

(Which is why HCl is _also_ a thing.)

<comment><USER4> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Meat, seafood, eggs, milk, nuts, legumes and high water content plant foods (fruits and vegetables) are a generally good dietary sources of Lithium. Fats, grain-based and sugary foods are poor sources. If you're not lucky enough to live in an area with a high Lithium water supply, a low calorie density paleo- type or plant-based diet is probably the best way to ensure an optimal Lithium intake.

(Tomatoes are a particularly good source IIRC).

<comment><USER7> > [..] plant-based diet is probably the best way to ensure an optimal Lithium > intake.

It looks like a plant-based diet is probably the best way to ensure optimal intake of most micronutrients. Plants and legumes contain a whole lot of micronutrients per calorie, especially compared to calorie-rich 'junk' food.

<comment><USER8> Or a meat and animal fat based diet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And Omega-3 makes you less violent

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25793501](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25793501)

7-Up originally contained Lithium

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Up)

Fish contains both Lithium and Omega-3

</comment><comment><USER10> You can buy trace mineral drops, which contain a fair amount of lithium, as well as magnesium and other trace minerals. The most common ones are based on de-salted mineral deposits from the great salt lake.

No idea if this is the best supplement for lithium (but would be interested to know).

I have been using these for years, primarily because I feel the evidence is strong for the benefits of a small amount of lithium. As a welcome side effect, the magnesium has completely alleviated leg jitters while sleeping (this is a well known effect of magnesium).

<comment><USER11> Wow, not sure if leg jitters refers to restless leg syndrome, but your comment made me just realise that once I started taking magnesium citrate my restless leg syndrome has completely subsided. I started taking magnesium to help with insomnia which I can't say it has helped much but I definitely no longer have fidgety feet and legs all night.

<comment><USER12> Magnesium definitely helps. Restless leg runs in my family. Another thing to try: a glass of shweppes tonic water (the kind with quinine in it). That works for me when RL is so bad I can't sleep. My poor wife has bruises on her legs sometimes from me kicking her in my sleep :( when I'm awake it feels like leg cramps. When I'm asleep, I apparently kick like crazy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This reminds me of the conspiracy theory which claims that the government is putting chemicals in the water supply to keep people docile and controllable.

<comment><USER14> depending on what country you live in, the government is putting fluoride in the water supply to keep your teeth healthy.

<comment><USER15> Heh, I've always thought that was funny: fluoridation is okay, but lithiumization isn't. What's the difference? Atomic number?

<comment><USER14> yeah I was surprised to discover that a lot of European countries don't seem to add fluoride for that reason [1]

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As did getting rid of lead in gas and as a material water pipes have been made of.

As did gaming consoles.

As did cable tv.

<comment><USER17> None of those are used as medication for a psychiatric condition, though.

<comment><USER18> But the dose used as a medication is 1000x higher than what you would get from drinking water.

<comment><USER19> Over what period of time?

<comment><USER18> Per day if you're drinking a couple literally of water. Basically it would take like 2,000 liters of water to equal a single daily dose of lithium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> (1990)

Anyone know of newer research on this topic?

<comment><USER21> [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british- journal-...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of- psychiatry/article/lithium-levels-in-drinking-water-and-risk-of- suicide/7C18AC894A0141D3D89B27282AF35DB2)

<comment><USER22> The below comments are misinformed, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I thought that stephen (freakenomics) Levitt has shown (innhis own research) that this result was insufficient to explain the 1990s crime drop - his theory that he says fit the data was the Supreme court decision allowing abortion (Roe v wade) - in other words the teenage criminals of 1990 simply did not get born

<comment><USER24> The data involving lithium has generally involved localized effects. You're talking about the general trends.

And freakonomics didn't by any means solve the question of the general trends. Here's a decent vox article that explores 16 competing theories that each have plausibility. Some of which have already been mentioned in the comments here (such as the end of leaded gasoline)

[https://www.vox.com/2015/2/13/8032231/crime- drop](https://www.vox.com/2015/2/13/8032231/crime-drop)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Gwern has a useful page about this:

[https://www.gwern.net/Lithium](https://www.gwern.net/Lithium)

</comment><comment><USER26> Excess lithium causes other problems:

"A recently discovered environmental health problem of potential public health relevance is the presence of elevated concentrations of lithium in drinking water []. Lithium has been suggested to be essential for humans [], however, the evidence is weak. On the other hand, lithium exposure has been associated with impaired thyroid function in women [], including pregnant women [], in northern Argentina, where the lithium concentrations in drinking water range 5–1660μg/L. Lithium readily crosses the placenta [] and an inverse association between maternal blood lithium concentrations during pregnancy and birth length has also been observed []. Lithium has long been used in the treatment of bipolar disease[]. The side effects of lithium therapy include impaired calcium homeostasis, often as hyperparathyroidism []. Whether lithium in drinking water can have similar effects in the general population is not known. The calcium homeostasis is strictly regulated because of calcium's important role in bone formation, intracellular signaling and muscle contraction." (citations [] omitted)

\- [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26828622](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26828622) / [http://www.sverigesnatur.org/app/uploads/2017/10/li-and- ca-h...](http://www.sverigesnatur.org/app/uploads/2017/10/li-and-ca- homeostasis-harari-et-al-2016.pdf) (quote from the intro in this pdf)

Lithium, Sodium and Potassium are in Group 1:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table#/media/File:Sim...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table#/media/File:Simple_Periodic_Table_Chart- en.svg)

Calcium and Magnesium are in Group 2.

Adequate salts are vary important to health. I'd rather have adequate Na, K, Ca, and Mg than supplemental Li.

tl/dr: I drink salted orange juice (K), eat salted potatoes (K), add salt to my dairy products (Ca and K), and salt my green vegetables (Mg).

Drugging people with Lithium is an intervention done on the basis of "we don't know why it sometimes works, but it seems to sometimes help, so we might as well try it, and if the patient complains their opinion doesn't actually matter."

</comment><comment><USER27> Can anyone tell me how can I mineralize my water supply with lithium? Maybe Lithium rocks that my drinking water should pass through?

</comment><comment><USER28> Its almost as if lithium dulls reality. This is highly worrying.

</comment><comment><USER29> Correlation does not imply causation.

<comment><USER30> Right, but lithium is perhaps one of the more well-studied psychiatric medications, and the drug with the best evidence for its effects at mood stabilization.

The question, then is different. We know that lithium has certain theraputic effects at 0.6-1.2 mmol/L blood concentrations. In this range, it is a powerful and effective mood stabilizer. What, then, are the effects of lithium at lower concentrations?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Pretty obvious. I mean, they give lithium to crazy people to calm them down.

Also, I hear that fluoride in the drinking water does a similar trick. Makes you think.

</comment><comment><USER32> This seems dumb. I'm sure poisoning the water supply would also reduce the crime-rate.

<comment><USER33> I'm sure the implication is "anti anxiety" (I think lithium is that class?) drugs in water supply reduce crime, rather than anything else

<comment><USER34> It's a mood stabilizer. At therapeutic doses it makes the entire world seem grey, and is generally used to help people with enormous uncontrollable emotional swings. AFAIK no studies have been ever done on "microsdosing" it

<comment><USER33> thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is Reddit still toxic even after all their "changes"? - <AUTHOR> (Using throwaway here as I anticipate some potential flak...)
On Reddit:
- I've tried to help blossoming entrepreneurs by giving them advice from lessons learned myself, just to get downvoted to oblivion.
- I've contributed toward gaming communities, all to be downvoted & "flamed", because I was busy at work when the question I asked was answered by the game developers (just a couple hrs prior to my post on R).
- I've submitted topics highly relevant to other subs, all to have them shut down by a power-hungry moderator who repeats themself like a robot over-and-over again, saying I did not read the FAQ and sub rules, when I did so numerous times and the post's title & content comply.
Is there any hope left for Reddit? It seems either you agree to hate on everything you see or you are booted.
It is sad that many of our youth are on here absorbing and/or spreading this toxicity! We cannot build a better world if we are occupied with spreading hate or other unproductive and potentially harmful actions. <comment><USER2> Most of the issues I've had with Reddit have been down to moderators, rather than the admin staff themselves.

I won't name the subreddit, because it essentially names the moderator involved, but I answered a question regarding website performance on a popular developer subreddit. Someone responded back by saying that I was clearly a terrible developer because I said that squeezing performance out of a personal site wasn't essential. I told that person, quite bluntly, not to be a dick, and I got permabanned with the message "no, you're a dick".

I protested to one of the mods, not necessarily for my ban to be rescinded, but for that mod to stop being a dick to people. His comment history showed a pattern of that behaviour, and (most likely) a pattern of bans. The other mod unbanned me, and I left it at that.

Weirdly, the only subreddits I've ever had problems are the larger ones. I post regularly on /r/Games and /r/bjj, and both are moderated brilliantly.

<comment><USER3> Reddit has a problem with the power-mods who mod a lot of subreddits and think they own Reddit. Lot's of behind the scenes chatter and conspiring to stay in power and take-over up-and-coming subreddits. This has been a problem for years and Reddit doesn't care because where else will they find people as motivated as the current power-mods? It's basically all they have in life I feel like.

<comment><USER2> It's a weird dynamic, and it's one that I would love to see researched, because being a moderator is a thankless job that doesn't really offer the use any real power - but evidence suggests that people will go to great lengths to abuse that power.

It gets especially weird in some of the football subreddits. Some moderators try to push the narrative that having a popular football subreddit, or controlling the subreddit for a particular football team (e.g. /r/reddevils) gives them the ability to pretend to be "in-the-know", and to speculate on transfers, pretend they know decisions going on at the club, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find the more they make changes to the website the less useful it is because the mean people that would have usually staid in their typical subreddits squeeze out into the mainstream stuff and make it an overall worse site. Today was the breaking point for me. I'm actively looking for other sources of entertainment/news/etc. Trying to figure out how to use this website because it has been very trustworthy for the past several years.

To me reddit is dead as of today.

<comment><AUTHOR> 100% there with you. Looking for an alternative as well. I like "The Information" (no referral link here) but it's tech-focused. I would love something like Reddit but not censored or toxic.

<comment><USER5> I'm enjoying [https://tildes.net](https://tildes.net) \- created by ex-reddit employee (I think the one who created automoderator). If it's still invite only I have some invites just let me know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would have to say yes, based on my recent personal experience. I have encountered moderators with their own weird axe to grind disrupting the entire subreddit. Many or most contributors make simple comments, not very much more complicated than "me too", or repeat myths, urban legends or common knowledge, but pretending to expertise.

<comment><AUTHOR> That happened to be the same experience I had with "my" "moderator".

Behavior like this should not be carpeted over with PR "here's how we're going to fix things" announcements, like the one they advertised today and/or yesterday. At the very least, Reddit moderators need some extent to the control they have and repercussions for crossing lines when done so. It's really too bad, because the platform could be so much more. Instead, it's either cute animal photos or some of the worst toxicity you can find online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe it's a problem in certain tech-oriented subs? I generally stay away from those and hang out other places more geared around art, local interests, travel, etc. and the communities there generally seem quite fun and friendly.</comment>


JavaScript library for getting and setting CSS stylesheet rules - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Box9/jss

<comment><USER2> Okay, you can enhance the API that already exists for this I suppose but I'm not sure how you could write a library for that purpose.</comment>


Programmers take the easy way out and not implement proper password security - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/study-shows-programmers-will-take-the-easy-way-out-and-not-implement-proper-password-security/ <comment><USER2> They found all of their developers on Freelancer.com. I've used this platform a few times and the majority of developers here are not very good and cheap.

It's no wonder the majority had no idea about password security.

Good developers are hard to come by. Many companies don't realize this and just want to hire the cheapest they can find.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also consider the amounts paid. Programmer time does costs, so not only did they get bad programmers, good programmers don't work that cheap.

But they were not paying the time that even bad-medium programmer would need to do testing/research to improve their programs.

Just for my own personal stuff I will spend weeks getting in right, profile the code, checking behavior for a range of unlikely inputs, and do web search to see how others did the same type of program and if they have better ideas than me.

For a 100-200 Euro payment I don't see how you could make money if you did all that. You get what you pay for.

PS. Plain text and Base64! I did not know they were that bad, I learnt not to do that years ago as a teenager running a BBS on a C64.

</comment><comment><USER4> Considering their methodology of selecting for the lowest performing engineers and specifically NOT asking half of them to secure the passwords, I'm encouraged that their numbers were as good as they were.

</comment><comment><USER5> The headline could have stopped at "Programmers take the easy way out"</comment>


Market timing and some thoughts on self-driving car - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@zhanwei/market-timing-and-some-thoughts-on-self-driving-car-1df29ca71f6f?source=linkShare-7be35eb94696-1529331784 <comment><USER2> Still don't buy self driving cars is winner take all.

It's not a near-zero marginal cost business.</comment>


Silex: ExpressJS for PHP - <AUTHOR> http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/silex_is_like_expressjs_for_php/

<comment><USER2> Since I follow most of the mailing lists for Symfony 2, I have come across Silex a little while ago. However, something new I took from this article was the appserver-in-php project <https://github.com/indeyets/appserver-in-php>

The blurb on the git project has "The main idea is, that your app, if built for this protocol, will be able to preload resources, preconnect to databases and response to requests really fast.", which seems like it's taking a persistent approach to running PHP apps. How does this deal with the memory leaks etc?

Can anybody knowledgeable weigh in on this with a little detail about what it is, how stable it is, who's using it, how it stacks up to using PHP-FPM in a spawner pool w/ nginx etc... ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author of the original post. We use AiP quite a bit in production.

Indeed, memory leaks are a potential issue with persistent PHP. Garbage collection in 5.3 helps a bit, but in general AiP exposes such issues more readily than regular mod_php setups. This doesn't mean memory leaks in your code wouldn't be an issue anyway, it just means you'll notice them a lot more quickly.

AiP workers die when PHP's memory_limit is exceeeded, and AiP will then restart them.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for your reply. I will have a play with it if I find some free time. It's not the memory leaks in _my_ code I'm so worried about, it's the ones in other people's code :-) e.g. Doctrine used to leak like a sieve and no amount of free()s and unset()s cleared the ORM objects up under some circumstances. Long-running Symfony tasks were a great way to illustrate that. It seems like a sensible approach to auto-restart the processes once memory_limit is exceeded.

<comment><AUTHOR> During one minute of siege to the "hello world" example from my blog post, the memory usage of my PHP processes didn't change.

      13958 bergie    20   0  125m  10m 2136 S    1  0.6   0:00.28 php
      13959 bergie    20   0  125m  10m 2136 S    1  0.6   0:00.31 php

<comment><USER2> While I'm relieved to see that, I wouldn't expect anything less from a trivial example such as this. I wonder if the same would be true if you hit a database, hydrated a one-to-many related series of objects from multiple tables using an ORM, modified some of them and save them etc.

However, I don't mean to harp on about the memory leaks; It's just that it seems to have been an assumed wisdom in my long association with PHP that you're going to need to restart PHP processes eventually. Perhaps the GC in 5.3 alleviates some of these concerns (including detection of circular references), as does the maturing of the code base and the commonly used libraries over the years.

The fact that you are using AiP happily in production already means that there is both a niche and a successful way to implement this so I'm glad to see new approaches like this emerging.

<comment><USER3> Hi. I am the author or AiP.

There were a lot of leaks, when I tried this idea originally, back in php 5.2 days. See [http://blog.milkfarmsoft.com/2007/06/php-as-appserver-vs- mem...](http://blog.milkfarmsoft.com/2007/06/php-as-appserver-vs-memory- leaks/) for example.

But 5.3 solved all of the issues. The only leaks happening these days come from "unofficial" extensions, which introduce errors on C-level. PHP code _never_ results in memory leaks these days, as far as I know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any reason your tests used HTTP/1.0? It is likely that most of the time is spent in connection establishment and you may not have tested the server.

</comment><comment><USER5> how is this anything like express?

See klein (<https://github.com/chriso/klein.php>) for a real PHP express port..

<comment><AUTHOR> All of them are inspired by Sinatra. But does Klein do templating, like Silex and ExpressJS both can?</comment></comment>


Show HN: What's New? Music - an enterprise coder's first ever website - <AUTHOR> http://whatsnewmusic.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Full details of how someone who knew almost nothing about web development managed to piece this thing together: <http://lifebeyondfife.com/98-what%27s-new-music.html>

This side project though nothing revolutionary has been a bit of an obsession and labour of love for most of this year. I would just like to thank the HN community because, whether or not I read any of your blog posts, links or comments, coming here and getting motivation and mental stimulation has really dragged me up and kept me going. Cheers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just realised, the comments section is broken for that link: <http://lifebeyondfife.com/98-whats-new-music.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Neat! This is one my oft-mentioned longtime broken use cases when talking to friends about where technology is failing me. With all the "genius" services that recommend new music to me I still find it infuriating that there's software that knows how often I listen to the last Neko Case record, but _won't dependably tell me when a new one comes out!_

Also, don't be discouraged by comments w/ links to other services. That's not an indication this is a solved problem, it's validation that it's a problem worth solving... I think that's much more valuable than taking the only bite at an apple that may or may not be worth eating.

<comment><AUTHOR> I always take critism constructively, regardless of how it's presented. Comments like this help from getting me down though, thanks.

<comment><USER4> I second this - I built one of the competing services (shameless plug: <http://beathound.com>), and it seems like every day I find a new one (or a new one gets announced - like yours!).

I gave this a shot, and it's pretty cool - but it seems like some of the javascript is a bit superfluous, and I was confused by the interface. On this page: <http://d.pr/i/e0hN> \- why are there no thumbnails? I was expecting that box to have a picture inside it (and I was expecting clicking it to take me somewhere).

On the New Music! page, I expected clicking on the album boxes (not just the thumbnails) to load up the albums for me to take a look at. It took me a second to figure out I needed to click on the thumbnails - and having to wait for something to load (Ajax, I'm guessing?) was a bit strange. I was expecting that click to be near instantaneous.

I'm sure the slow bits are just because you're getting hammered today - <USER2> service, and good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I currently use <http://www.albumreminder.com/> for this. It imports your artists from last.fm or itunes, and provides you with an RSS feed and/or email notifications of new artist releases.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish I'd known about this a year ago ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those interested in a non-signup-for-something solution, I've been tracking album releases for a long time with [http://www.metacritic.com/browse/albums/release-date/new- rel...](http://www.metacritic.com/browse/albums/release-date/new- releases/date) (I believe there is an RSS feed, but I don't use it).

There is also the New Releases tab on Last.fm if you already use that.

<comment><USER4> This page seems really light on data - do you know how they decide which artists/albums get listed?

<comment><USER6> I'm sure it's correlated to artists/albums that get featured in major review publications, since Metacritic is about aggregating the results of those reviews.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tried but it didn't seem to work. I'm using Chrome, and I typed in Atmosphere. It took me to another page asking me to enter the artist name again. After 3 tries it finally showed an empty box for "Atmosphere", with a very slow resizing animation. Nothing ever loaded inside the box for "Atmosphere" (by the size of the box I'm assuming it would show an album cover?), and no data ever displayed.

<comment><AUTHOR> The first tab is for your username, the second is where you add the artists you want to follow (that's where you add Atmosphere), the third is where the recent releases are shown.

A UI fail though, is my fail. Possibly more work required.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Had a hard time finding artists with "common word" names, such as "copyright" for instance. And when it did find the accurate artist, the songs where much older than what I would have expected. Though the idea is great, because I'm tired of checking each artist manually or on SoundCloud to know what's coming. Again, great idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I knew I had some issues with data (artists and albums) so that's going to be a future development area if this takes off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So anyone can add bands to anyone else's list? And remove them? What's to stop me adding my band to everyone's list?

Also it can only find 3 albums for Slayer, none of which were released this millennium...

Other than that this is a great idea and nice looking website.

<comment><AUTHOR> The FAQ addresses some of these points. If you keep your username sufficiently unique and secret then no-one can edit your list. I wanted a really low barrier to entry for trying out the site i.e. no email addresses or login via a social media service.

The service shows you albums from the last 5 years but that could also include re-releases (which might explain the Slayer weirdness).

Thanks for trying it out and the compliments.

<comment><USER9> It's certainly worth a try, but don't you think finding an unguessable username is more of an entry barrier than the usual username/password combo?

You are right, it links to what looks like 2009 re-releases for those 3 albums, but it still doesn't have their 2009 actual release...

That's ok, keep up the good work, will be even better when you integrate last.fm!

<comment><AUTHOR> An image upload site I know of used the same approach to 'login' and I quite liked it - I suppose the ideal configuration would be to give the user a choice. I had to nail down on feature creep at some point or I was never going to ship anything.

I'll look into the missing album though, edge cases like that are handy to know about for data quality.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Printing a Gun the Same as Buying a Gun? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/20/is-printing-a-gun-the-same-as-buying-a-gun/ <comment><USER2> This is not 'printing a gun', this is printing two passive parts that you could just as well have whittled from wood or cast or put together in a hundred different ways. The 'load bearing parts' of a gun are the barrel, the breech and the trigger mechanism. For the sake of the argument let's pretend that the title is right and that you can 'print a gun'.

You could always make a gun, all you needed was a lathe, some tooling, a hacksaw a file, some steel stock and a bunch of patience.

Printing a gun is just another way to get to the goal, possibly an easier one but one with its own unique challenges.

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

The differentiating factor for a gun from printed ABS is not that you've made it at home, but that it is very hard to detect the gun itself (you'd have a hard time not using metal at all, especially for the parts mentioned above and then there is the ammo).

You can bet that if you get caught with one trying to board an airplane that there will be very serious repercussions, you won't be able to say you left it in your carry-on luggage by accident. Well, you can say that but good luck to get anybody to believe you.

So, printing a gun is not the same as buying a gun, it is the same as making a fire-arm at home through conventional means.

On another note, the design of a working firearm, especially from unproven materials, is not something you muck around with unless you know your materials science. A gun that explodes when fired could have some pretty nasty effects on you and bystanders.

<comment><USER3> The article focuses on a particular gun, the AR15. After much wrangling, settled law dictates that the "lower receiver" _is_ the gun; all the other parts are incidental. Sure, the lower receiver alone is little more than a big paperweight, but it's the unchanging core to which all other variable components are attached to form something functional. And no, you can't just "whittle it from wood" etc., it's a pretty serious chunk of milled steel (there exists a "plastic" version, but that ain't generic plastic).

Yes, some jurisdictions aside you can make one AR15 lower receiver on your own without any paperwork, fees, checks, or permission. Understanding is that nobody going thru that much effort is going to waste it by doing something stupid (if there's criminal intent there are many far easier ways to acquire one).

The issue here is: where's the line on making one? You can make one yourself legally, but if you hire someone else to knowingly make it they'll need an expensive big-hassle manufacturer's license. The key is "knowingly", as up until recently it was pretty obvious to the machinist what he was being asked to do. Now, with "printing", you just upload the pattern for what is otherwise just another odd-shaped chunk of metal, a computer & machine crank one out, and the result gets sent back to you with a minimum of comprehension by any humans involved - are _you_ "making" it? or is the printing house "making" it and, in effect, selling it to you? The legal line has been blurred.

<comment><USER2> Anybody that wishes to pretend that the legal line has been blurred will find themselves sooner or later in an excellent position to try to prove that to a very unrelenting judge.

If the legal fiction is that the lower receiver of that gun is the gun, then legally that didn't change so the method of manufacturing it is not relevant.

Hiring someone to produce it while obfuscating the intent is not gray, it puts you in the docket. The printing house is acting on your explicit instruction, and if they don't review the orders (hard to do, after all, you can't know each and every prohibited item) then you are still on the hook.

Trained machinist or 3D printer operator the change is only in the material of the produced item.

As for not being able to whittle that part from wood, there are many kinds of wood that are _much_ stronger than the ABS wire that a 3D printer uses.

And if it can't be made out of those kinds of wood then it certainly can't be made out of plastic printed ABS (if you expect the gun to function).

<comment><USER4> While I agree it would be unwise to test this legal question in court, I think it is fair to say this is a murky legal question. The BATFE, the federal law enforcement agency responsible for enforcing US laws regarding firearms manufacture, have a history of arbitrary rulemaking in defiance of simple logic (for instance, in one famous rulemaking BATFE ruled that a shoe string would meet the legal definition of 'machine gun' if used to repeatedly fire a gun with a single pull of the trigger [1]).

Given this environment of legal uncertainty, it's not at all clear that BATFE would not pursue the 3D printer operator who produced the receiver. In this case, charges against the 3D printer operator would likely be unlawful manufacture of a firearm, possibly in addition to charges related to interstate transfer of a firearm. Given the creativity of some US attorneys, perhaps a conspiracy case would be made alleging the buyer of the printed part 'conspired' with the printer operator.

I would also suggest a lower receiver could probably be made from materials weaker than you might imagine. The lower receiver does not bear any gas pressures from the firing of the cartridge, though the holes for the roll pins which hold the hammer and trigger in place would probably start to 'egg' after a round or two. In any case, the legal question has nothing to do with how reliable the resulting firearm is; only whether it meets certain vague and broadly-interpreted legal definitions.

[1] [http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/01/25/shoestring- machi...](http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/01/25/shoestring-machine-gun/)

<comment><USER5> Why wouldn't a 3D print operator have people/entity sign a legal document stating that placed order would not violate any federal laws and anything which resulted in violating federal law regulation would boomerang back to the entity placing the order?

<comment><USER6> You can't become innocent of a crime by someone signing a contract with you saying you're innocent of the crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a concept called the 80% receiver, which is a freely-transferable hunk of metal that's almost but not quite a receiver. You can order a receiver flat for an AK-type rifle, a parts kit, and assemble a complete rifle for cheaper than you'd buy one. You need a means to heat treat the metal, and probably a drill press. That's not a much greater barrier to entry than the 3d printer for the lower receiver on an AR.

So really, this doesn't _change anything._ This brings preexisting truths more prominently to the public discussion.

<comment><USER8> an AK? who wants that PoS?

You can get an AR-15 lower blank for $100 or less.

You can buy the tooling to allow you to use a drill press to make the receiver M-16 ready for not much more.

<http://www.cncguns.com/tooling.html>

No heat-treating necessary (it's just aluminum). Yes, you'll need a drill press.

<comment><USER7> I'm an FAL guy. AKs are just cheaper to build than almost anything else. The AR/AK debate is a very silly holy war. Come join on on /r/guns.

<comment><USER8> This must explain why ARs, not AKs or FALs took the stand at Camp Perry the past several years.

<comment><USER7> The AR platform's direct impingement operating principle has a far greater accuracy potential than the AK or FAL's gas piston (or a piston AR, for that matter). DI is probably the best operating principle for building a supremely accurate semi-automatic rifle. That's why the M110 system is an AR, not just an updated M14.

However, for the next generation of infantry rifles, you're seeing nothing but gas piston systems. Modern piston accuracy is "good enough" for the engagement distances that modern infantry units encounter. Modern DI rifles are "reliable enough" for the field conditions that trained, equipped first-world militaries operate under.

However, I'm not a trained, equipped first-world military. I'm some random dude who'd rather spend more time shooting and less time cleaning. A gas piston rifle is much more tolerant of bad hygiene and maintenance than a DI rifle, and my FAL is still more accurate than I am from field positions.

An AK isn't - I shoot better than even the nice Bulgarian AK-74s or converted Saigas. Most FALs are 3-4 MOA guns, and I'm about a 2-3 MOA shooter, depending on the day. But without an extremely steady rest like you see at Camp Perry, my FAL is more than accurate enough for my shooting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is growing the same as buying? I wonder if the precedent of Gonzales v Raich would apply to printing firearms (if it were ever feasible).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich>

 _...a decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes._

<comment><USER10> There will certainly be people to make that argument. But people already make guns, and it's not illegal (at least under federal law; some states probably do criminalize it). _Selling_ a gun you've made is a problem, but making one for personal use? NBD.

<comment><USER11> IANAL, but mere possession of an automatic weapon is prohibited, is it not?

I thought the idea behind the receiver for the AR15 is that with a slightly different receiver that the AR15 becomes an automatic weapon (aka. an M16)? Or are we talking about the semi-auto (AR15) receiver?

<comment><USER12> The receiver doesn't make any difference at all whether it's full auto. Or rather, the legally designated lower receiver _contains_ the firing mechanism (which can be full or semi auto), but the receiver itself is just a piece of steel and you can change out the actual mechanism.

<comment><USER13> Not entirely accurate. The ATF actually specifically requires that semi-auto weapons are _not_ readily convertible to fully automatic by way of a simple parts swap.

A standard, semi-automatic AR-15 will _not_ accept a full-auto M16 trigger group; the M16 trigger group requires an extra hole to be milled in the receiver which isn't present on semi-auto receivers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Legally, I'd think this would be the same as if a gunsmith were to make a lower receiver for himself. If that activity would be regulated in a given jurisdiction, is there any reason printing the receiver wouldn't be?

This article doesn't really get into the question of printing then subsequently transferring a receiver to another person. Were that to occur, I assume that the person who printed it would be regulated in exactly the same manner as any other gun manufacturer.

<comment><USER15> I'm pretty sure the gov't would look at printing the receiver as precisely the same as milling one on a CNC machine.

Transferring it is going to be treated the same as any other firearm transfer in the U.S. as well.

<comment><USER13> >Transferring it is going to be treated the same as any other firearm transfer in the U.S. as well.

i.e., expect the BATFE to get rather upset with you if you manufacture a receiver intending to transfer it to someone else without being a licensed firearms manufacturer.

Manufacturing a firearm for personal use is generally good to go as long as you stay within the bounds of NFA, etc regulations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article is wrong. A license isn't required to own an AR-15 except in a few states like California.

<comment><USER15> The article says "license to buy" not "license to own." I know that in Minnesota you need a Permit to Purchase from your local PD or a Permit to Carry from your local Sheriff in order to purchase an AR-15 (or a handgun).

<comment><USER4> The majority of US states have no such requirement. In VA I can purchase a gun from another VA resident with no paperwork; I can purchase from a dealer by filling out a one page form with name, DOB, address, and place of birth.

<comment><USER15> You can do that for long rifles in MN as well (although I think you forgot the NICS check required for all gun purchases regardless of state). It's just hand guns and "black" rifles that require the permit. VA obviously has a more enlightened view than MN (IMO).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "The fact that we are now able to manufacture usable weapon parts is an important step..."

It's not clear to me if a rifle part printed from plastic at home is usable.

I wonder how the manufacturing of these thing are regulated normally: Can you have a professional place make 2-3 of these for you without telling them what it is?

<comment><USER15> The law is pretty clear cut in the U.S. about gun manufacturing. If you want to build the lower receiver of an AR-15, go ahead, but if you plan on selling it you need either a Type 7 or Type 10 Federal Firearms License. The rest of the AR-15 is just parts. If a "professional" makes them for you, whether or not he knows what they are, he better have a license or he could be committing a felony.

<comment><USER18> But in the hypothetical future where 3D printers are ubiquitous, if you sell a script to build the lower receiver, then does that count as selling one?

Reminds me of the case where Phil Zimmerman noticed that exporting crypto was a form of arms export, but exporting books was protected by the First Amendment. So he published the source code to PGP and shipped it.

<comment><USER4> IANAL but I know my way around US federal firearms law. I am not aware of any law or rulemaking which would classify, for example, CAD files describing a lower receiver as an item subject to firearms regulations. There exist books sold openly and without restriction detailing how one can make improvised firearms, some of which if constructed would be illegal for possession by American civilians. I'm sure this information has by now made it to the Internet as well. Up to this point, such materials are treated as speech and thus strongly protected by the First Amendment. I see no reason why 3D printer instruction files would be treated any differently, under current law.

It's not hard to imagine a Congresscritter raising a fuss over concerns of "children printing machine guns" or some such nonsense, and thereby introducing legislation to regulate such materials, including executable scripts for 3D printing machines. It's even possible to imagine such legislation passing the House and Senate. Our current president would likely sign any such legislation he was given. However, it is very difficult to imagine the legislation surviving a Supreme Court challenge on First Amendment grounds.

Then again, I said the same thing about the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, and SCOTUS upheld that 5-4, so what do I know.

<comment><USER19> > However, it is very difficult to imagine the legislation surviving a Supreme > Court challenge on First Amendment grounds.

Next month is the TEN YEAR anniversary of the USA PATRIOT act, the legislation that abolished the fourth amendment. Checks and balances only work when they, well, balance.

Unfortunately that isn't the case any longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Mirror at the Washington Post since original seems to be down: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/is- printin...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/is-printing-a- gun-the-same-as-buying-a-gun/2011/09/20/gIQAPoqeiK_story.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> Nevermind the dozen easier ways to get a gun without a background check... When will people realize bad people that want a gun, figure out how to get one. All the ridiculous waiting periods and background checks just hassle law abiding citizens.

</comment><comment><USER22> [http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Pistol-Workshop-Defense- Resist...](http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Pistol-Workshop-Defense- Resistance/dp/0873648234/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316576203&sr=1-7)

[http://www.amazon.com/Bazooka-How-Build-Your- Own/dp/08736473...](http://www.amazon.com/Bazooka-How-Build-Your- Own/dp/0873647386/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316576286&sr=1-1)

Guns really are not that complicated. I wish I had the time and the cojones to actually try to make one of these.

<comment><USER19> All the balls in the world doesn't make jail fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This seems like over-analysis to me. Why is said villain going to be printing a gun? To rob money, right? And what is he going to do with this stolen money? Buy a car? Why doesn't he just print _that_ instead?

I think when the day arrives that we can just print out whatever we can get a blueprint to the world will be so drastically changed that our current biggest concerns won't even be relevant anymore.

</comment><comment><USER24> We haven't even figured out if downloading a movie is 'stealing' yet, and now we have to figure out if printing gun parts is illegal too?

</comment><comment><USER25> Actual Laws aside, I get goosebumps thinking that this isn't completely sci- fi. Just because you can't print the whole weapon now doesn't mean you can't do it in 15 years or so. I can't wait till home depot is selling you "models" of nuts and bolts rather than actual nuts and bolts!

<comment><USER26> It is actually quite possible to print the entire gun, if you wanted to use a metal Selective Laser Sintering machine. They are just cost prohibitive ($500,000+).

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> You can buy AK-47 receiver "flats", and press them into the correct shape to build a receiver.

[http://armsofamerica.com/ak47762flatwithrailstrunnionholes19...](http://armsofamerica.com/ak47762flatwithrailstrunnionholes1995.aspx)

You do not need a license or a permit, just access to machine tools. Oh, and $22 for the flat.

<comment><USER28> There's lots of parts you can buy that get you in a world of hurt if you make them. Say, trigger kits to turn a AR-15 in to select fire...</comment></comment>


Apple vs. Microsoft: Which user interface do you prefer? - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apple-vs-microsoft-which-user-interface-do-you-prefer/3887?pg=2

<comment><USER3> I don't know how much they've actually used iPhoto. Page [4] has a good example of this (or, specifically, this [picture]) - why are they going into the _menu_ for rotating, when there's a big-ass "rotate" button right on the right-hand side? And if you're on new-enough hardware to have real multitouch (the past what, 4 years?), they've already seen the gestural approach because it's been pushed at them from every angle multiple times - rotate 2 fingers = rotate picture. And that works from the editing perspective, the single- picture, and the bunch-o-pictures list. _Zero_ clicks!, since they seem so focused on clicks as a measure of UI design.

also, I'm not sure what their point is in these paragraphs on page 5, but it reads like a poorly-executed ad-hominem:

> _One enormous difference between Microsoft and Apple is the amount of public > communication each company puts out. In the last five years, Microsoft > engineers and executives have written the equivalent of several big books > about the process of designing and building the user interface for Windows > and Office.

The Windows 8 blog, with its epic posts from Steven Sinofsky and the Windows team, is just the latest in a long line of similar efforts. Jensen Harris, who led the development of the original ribbon in Office 2007, wrote an eight-part series of blog posts titled "Why the UI?"

I am certain that Apple's designers do just as much thinking, research, prototyping, and testing as their counterparts in Redmond. But they don't talk about that work. Instead, the results are described in press releases and promotional web pages with terms like "easier than ever" and "incredibly easy."_

[4]: [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apple-vs-microsoft-which- user...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apple-vs-microsoft-which-user- interface-do-you-prefer/3887?pg=4) [picture]: [http://www.zdnet.com/photos/windows-live-photo-gallery- versu...](http://www.zdnet.com/photos/windows-live-photo-gallery-versus- iphoto/6289917?seq=11&tag=content;siu-container)

<comment><USER4> > why are they going into the menu for rotating

Some quotes from the article regarding that (2 separate quotes; there was text between them):

"To make changes to the photo, you have to use commands located in two places."

"In iPhoto the same option is not so easy to find. If you click the Edit button and look on the Quick Fixes tab, you'll find a Rotate button. But clicking it rotates the selected photo (or photos) counterclockwise only. If you guess that Rotate options are on the Edit menu, you'd be wrong. Instead, you have to look on the Photos menu, which is where the Rotate Clockwise option appears.

In Windows Live Photo Gallery, just about every task and command is available from the ribbon. The design allows you to pick a tab and then scan its contents to see commands that apply to the task you're trying to accomplish. In iPhoto, you have to learn where each command lives.

A good example is the option to use the current photo as your desktop background. In Windows Live Photo Gallery you'll find a Set As Desktop button at the left of the Create tab, or you can right-click on a photo and choose Set Desktop Background. In iPhoto, that option isn't available on a right- click menu. Confusingly, it's not available from the menu that pops up when you click the Share button at the bottom of the window; you have to use the pull-down Share menu instead."

> And if you're on new-enough hardware to have real multitouch (the past what, > 4 years?), they've already seen the gestural approach because it's been > pushed at them from every angle multiple times - rotate 2 fingers = rotate > picture. And that works from the editing perspective, the single-picture, > and the bunch-o-pictures list. Zero clicks!, since they seem so focused on > clicks as a measure of UI design.

Using the multitouch gestures is not quite that obvious. I've used mac for a little over a year and I've never used any other gestures than the two-finger scrolling. Besides, clicking on a single button is just simpler than rotating your fingers (assuming you want to rotate the image 90 degrees).

<comment><USER5> What's wrong with just pressing the rotate button more than once? When I see a picture that has is rotated wrong, i just think "rotate". Thinking about left? right? needs more brainpower, and finding the small icon also. I'm faster just hitting the button until I'm satisfied with the rotation. It's EXIF rotate anyway, it doesn't change the picture quality.

<comment><USER4> Some people just prefer to use the button that says it does what they want to do rather than thinking about how to do it with multiple operations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This guy really doesn't have enough UX/human factors experience to be saying anything about these UIs. His opinion appears to be based on a few commands, and a generalized opinion with little quantitative support.

"In Windows Live Photo Gallery, with the program window at least 1200 pixels wide"

That's quite a wide screen to expect someone to have in order to see all the available commands. I feel like this limit is even larger in more involved programs such as Word, Excel, etc where I've frequently run into the issue of having to click the "more" button, only not to find the command I'm looking for.

Also, counting clicks is a very weak UI rule to follow. Navigation time is key. The "clutter" description of the windows toolbar comes from the varying sizes of buttons that don't follow any regular order for the eye to follow, resulting in greater confusion and potentially slower responses.

<comment><USER7> 1280x(anywhere from 720 to 800) is probably the most common resolution for a modern widescreen laptop, and it's very common for Windows users to run with their windows either maximized or manually dragged to take up the entire screen. The ribbon appears to be designed for this, with the option to present a less optimal interface for smaller screens by a combination of resizing interface elements and eliminating uncommonly used ones.

Try resizing the Ribbon all the way from super-wide (if you've got dual monitors, it's particularly interesting) to really narrow. It's quite fun to watch, especially in Office products with zillions of interface controls - <USER2> giant buttons and large scrollable boxes full of options become groups of smaller buttons with text, then even smaller buttons without text, then collapse into a single menu, before disappearing altogether into the 'more' button.

<comment><USER8> Conveniently enough, this article has a helpful graph of the most common screen resolutions on Windows:

[https://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/26/improvements-...](https://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/26/improvements- in-windows-explorer.aspx)

<comment><USER7> Interesting - the most common resolution is even wider than I thought. Thanks for pointing that out - I'd read the article not long ago but had forgotten about that particular point :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Headlines like this really irritate me. It should read "Apple vs Microsoft: Here's what I prefer" rather than making it out that the article is about public opinion (ie "you").

There were some valid comparisons for why he evidently prefers the new MS UI (in the iphoto vs picture gallery comparison, anyway), but the whole way through all I could think was "don't tell me what I prefer".

<comment><USER10> Yeah, it gets a bit old. While we're at provocative flamebait titles, how about:

\- Vi vs. Emacs. \- Ruby vs. Python. \- GNU vs. BSD. \- Republican vs. Democrat.

There are some insightful differences that can be pointed out by comparing between the two, but that doesn't seem to be where this sort of 'story' is leading.

<comment><USER11> I miss the TRS-80 vs. Apple ][ days...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >In Windows Live Photo Gallery, just about every task and command is available from the ribbon. The design allows you to pick a tab and then scan its contents to see commands that apply to the task you're trying to accomplish. In iPhoto, you have to learn where each command lives.

Little known feature: in Mac OS X just open the Help menu and type in any menu item you want to access. The menu will just point you to where that menu item is[1]. I always use it as a quick access when trying to accomplish any task that requires menu bar access; pressing Cmd+Shift+/, type in whatever I want, select the first item and press enter, hooray for global keyboard actions!

[1]: <http://i.imgur.com/8QzXw.png>

</comment><comment><USER13> > With the View tab visible in Windows Live Photo Gallery, it takes two clicks > to sort your photos by tag in reverse order. In iPhoto, it takes six > clicks—after you sort by keyword (three clicks), you have to reopen the View > menu, click Sort Photos again, and then click Descending (three more > clicks). In fact, most options on the ribbon are one or two clicks away, > whereas most options using iPhoto's pull-down menus involve a minimum of two > and often three or more clicks.

What? You don't have to click on sub-meus to open them up. You just move the mouse over them and they open.

The example he gives would actually be:

      * Click on "View" menu.
      * Move mouse pointer down to "sort photos", then right into the submenu.
      * Click on "Descending".

Is "click on submenus to open them" a Windows thing that he's doing by habit? I haven't used a Windows machine in years.

also holy crap that "ribbon" thing is a big noisy bar of colors and illegible text, sheesh. No visual hierarchy whatsoever.

<comment><USER14> Don't forget that the ribbon expands and collapses its individual blocks dynamically based on how big the window currently is, thus switching around the look and position of menu items (at least in Office, it does that). That can make re-finding 'menu' items painful.

In general, I applaud the idea of unifying the menu bar and the tool bar into a 'ribbon'. That said, many programs do not need much menu interaction at all. In that case, the ribbon just looks noisy (explorer 8).

<comment><USER7> I wonder if the resizing behaviour was based on data about the amount of time Windows users run programs in any state other than maximized - if they have the program window maximized (or manually dragged to fill the monitor) 99.9% of the time, then they'll almost always see the Ribbon in the same state. Of course, this could lead to user confusion when they move to a new computer with a different resolution (whether upgrading, switching between desktop and laptop, or using a friend's/library/work/etc) and the Ribbon they're used to has been replaced by something completely different...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm a Linux user who hasn't used Windows for years and who hasn't used OS X at all. But I must say iPhoto looks more sane and intuitive compared to Windows Live Photo Gallery. (that's one lengthy name!).

Can't imagine how netbook users running Windows deal with that ribbon thing which I think covers almost half the screen.

<comment><USER16> Some time ago I discovered ribbons can be collapsed (Ctrl+F1, or the icon on the far right). I hated them but when they are collapsed everything is looking clean and they just work like a drop-down-menu with icons.

Ribbons are a big mess but now I don't have to look at them all the time, clearing my mind and my screen.

<comment><USER17> Double-clicking also works as explained in the article: "Double-click any tab heading to collapse the ribbon so that it looks indistinguishable from a traditional menu bar."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for posting this. I'm working on a new product design and am constantly struggling with the question of how many controls to keep visible at all times and how many to hide behind clicks. There is a difficult tradeoff between functionality and keeping the UI simple.

I've been erring on the side of hiding (and if possible eliminating) less used controls. And this comparison pushes me more in that direction.

I find it quite funny that the author "concludes" that iPhoto looks more cluttered than the Microsoft design, especially with the last screenshots on the last page[1]! In iPhoto, you can clearly see the image you are editing, whereas in Photo Gallery, the hovering menu is hiding part of the image. Ironically, he spent the rest of the article criticising iPhoto's dropdown menu controls in favour of Microsoft's convenient ribbon layout.

[1] [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apple-vs-microsoft-which- user...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apple-vs-microsoft-which-user- interface-do-you-prefer/3887?pg=5&tag=content;siu-container)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm baffled he finds it natural to set the desktop wallpaper from the "Create" menu on Windows while he is also confused it's not in the "Share" button on the Mac... It confuses me more it _is_ in the "Share" menu.

Obviously, setting your desktop background is all about creative sharing.

</comment><comment><USER19> Some of the comments are priceless (as you would expect in a Mac vs PC piece), but this one really takes the cake...

"if you want to examine an OS' UI that has barely changed in 10 years, you only have to look at OSX."

</comment><comment><USER20> Articles like this make me happy I run ad blocking software. The last thing I'd want to do is give a monetary reward to amateur-hour reporting link-bait like this.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why does the link go to page 2 of the article?

</comment><comment><USER22> Microsoft just treats each application as an OS,like sub-OSes integrated in one big OS, then it is call Windows.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hmm.. What is this but not a troll

</comment><comment><USER19> is this a trick question?</comment>


Oxygen absorbing material may allow us to breathe underwater - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmag.com/crystalline-material-absorb-oxygen-denmark/34064/ <comment><USER2> This analysis says that it's impossible:

[https://np.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/4av9xw/t...](https://np.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/4av9xw/triton_allows_you_to_breathe_underwater_100k_in/d13so58)

It's been submitted many, many times:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=breathe%20underwater%20cry&sor...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=breathe%20underwater%20cry&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)</comment>


Farmers Plant Beehive Guard Posts to Repel Elephants - <AUTHOR> http://99percentinvisible.org/article/invisible-fences-farmers-plant-beehive-guard-posts-repel-elephants/ <comment><USER2> I kept beehives years ago and also tried Kenyan Top-Bar style beehives. The bees in those were the most productive and most gentle. Love to see those again and at this very moment I am itching to get at least 2 beehives and start beekeeping again.

<comment><USER3> Did you find these easier to manage than other types of hives?

It looks like it might be harder to get access to the honeycomb.

Also, is it easy to get queens for all those hives?

<comment><USER2> It was actually harder to manage them from the perspective of modern beekeeper. Manipulating bars-combs was sometimes really hard since bees built comb their way because you left them on their own with either just a strip of wax or wooden stick as a guide for them instead of the whole frame with foundation.

Once you sorted that out though the combs were perfect and easy to manage. Sometimes you get lucky and they "listen" you from the beginning though.

Honeycomb is something else. You have to make sure that you kind of separate brood and honey and that again takes management. I just left them to their own and just took a comb or two of honey at the end each year. The last few combs were always 100% honey. I also let them swarm multiple times per year (had smaller Kenyan hive - 15 bars ) so I had practically no issues with Varroa in these.

I populated them with my own swarms or packages. Or are you asking about rearing queens?

<comment><USER3> I know very little about bee keeping, but I was just curious how you get the initial queen for all those hives. Maybe it's not as hard as I think...

<comment><USER2> Initially if you want to keep a beehive you have to get queen+bees. You can start either with a few frames of brood and bees and a new queen, package or the best option with a natural swarm.

I personally recommend natural swarm for a first hive. You get to start clean and from scratch. Bees from natural swarm are eager to start building their new home and are usually much quicker to establish a colony than bees from frames with brood or package.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


When REST Gets Messy - <AUTHOR> https://zapier.com/engineering/when-rest-gets-messy/

<comment><USER2> I don't think this is messy, this is exactly how REST is intended to work, and is beautiful. I think the most common misconception that REST is simply a way to do CRUD over HTTP, when in fact they are completely orthogonal. You can do CRUD over REST, sure, but REST is also capable of much more. That's the realization the author came to with his `/request` and `/audit` resources, and is the zen of REST. Understanding that will put HTTP to work for you, instead of fighting against it.

The reason Level 3 HATEOAS REST is hard in Backbone and most other frameworks -- both frontend and backend -- is because they have yet to obtain the same enlightenment.

<comment><USER3> In my opinion, thinking like this how our industry goes down blind corners. To me this is how we wasted 10 years trying to XML-ify everything.

Specifically, your arguments rest on the vague and indefinable quality of "enlightenment." I think that this use of "enlightenment" means something along the lines of "I got something to work within a thought framework that appeals to me." But if he had started with a different framework (like RPC), he could have gotten that to work too, and perhaps would be feeling the "RPC enlightenment" because all of these problems can be solved within RPC too.

No one is arguing that HTTP-based APIs can only do CRUD. You can tunnel basically anything over HTTP, because ultimately the payload is just bytes. But the question is what using HTTP (and/or REST) has actually _bought_ you, compared to competing approaches.

Graydon Hoare (one of the original authors of Rust) wrote an essay about this a while ago that I really love. Unfortunately he took it off the net, but it's still available on the wayback machine: [http://web.archive.org/web/20040308200432/http://www.venge.n...](http://web.archive.org/web/20040308200432/http://www.venge.net/graydon/markup- abuse.html)

The essay is written in a very whimsical and wandering style, but the point is dead on:

        If you want to store or transmit a message, you can do
        cryptography, steganography, normalized database tables,
        huffman codes, elliptic curves, web pages, morse code,
        semaphores, java bytecode, bit-mapped images, wavelet
        coefficients, s-expressions, basically anything you can
        possibly dream up which codes for some bits. In all cases,
        if you're coding bits and you are using a lossless system,
        the *only* thing which matters is how *convenient* the encoding
        is. There's nothing which makes one encoding "do it better"
        than any other, aside from various external measurements of
        convenience such as size, speed of encoding, speed of
        decoding, hand-editability, self-consistency, commonality,
        etc.

HTTP/REST and XML inhabit slightly different design spaces, so for HTTP/REST some of the external measurements might be a bit different. But if you are trying to argue that REST is better than competing technologies, the question is: what objective benefits does it offer, compared to those other technologies?

Clearly there are benefits to REST/HTTP (being able to use a web browser as an ad-hoc UI in many cases is one), but the idea of "enlightenment" should not be a substitute for an actual compare/contrast of approaches.

So yes, of course the author _could_ find a solution to his problems that still used HTTP. The question is: once he does this, is he better off than if he had chosen a competing technology? (imagining a world where you aren't effectively forced to use HTTP to make it through firewalls).

<comment><USER4> I think the parent poster should probably have emphasized the importance of HATEOAS more and the power hypertext/linking gives you. I won't spend any time on it in this comment since there are plenty of resources on the web for that, but that's really been the important thing about REST for me. It really is a wonderful thing that clients cannot even attempt invalid state transitions, and I don't think I've seen it done in any other even moderately popular RPC/IPC framework. In other frameworks/architectures for RPC/IPC all operations are just "available" all the time, but if you were to actually attempt to invoke them you'd get "operation not supported" (or the like).

Strangely, very few people (at least that I've spoken to) who are fans of REST seem to have even picked up on the HATEOAS principles. I'm guessing that their fandom is more predicated on a hatred of SOAP/XML and love of the simplicity of JSON -- which is kind of strange since HATEOAS also works beautifully for Content-type=XML over HTTP.

EDIT: An attempt to formalize the Richardson Maturity Model (L3) for REST+JSON/HTTP can be found at: [http://stateless.co/hal_specification.html](http://stateless.co/hal_specification.html) (I'm not affiliated with it in any way, just thought it was interesting.)

<comment><USER5> Do you know of any publicly available API that is truly RESTful (has embrace HATEOAS)?

<comment><USER6> RunKeeper's HealthGraph returns discoverable URIs from /users:

[http://developer.runkeeper.com/healthgraph/users](http://developer.runkeeper.com/healthgraph/users)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> i've been meaning to write something similar about the whole REST craze. REST breaks down pretty rapidly once you get out of the key-value-store paradigm (read: anything involving child objects).

REST lacks the ability to relay full state-change semantics without hackery. As the article pointed out, it forces you to be extra chatty over http, which is far from free over the congested, global network that is the interwebs.

For example, what if a single PUT request creates multiple sub-objects? How does my server reply with multiple location headers? Do i have to first re-get the created object's child locations and re-request each individually?

How about just sending the full object state back as the response to my PUT request? Well, according to REST, the body of the response just needs to be a description of the error or success status. Basically, REST sucks for reducing round trips if you're going to follow it pedantically. The theory is sound, but it needs to be updated to dictate how the server can send back more detailed info in response to POST/PUT/PATCH requests.

/rant

<comment><USER8> > For example, what if a single PUT request creates multiple sub-objects?

If a PUT, POST, or PATCH does that, then it does that. So what?

> How does my server reply with multiple location headers?

It doesn't respond with multiple location _headers_. With PUT or POST, with an 201 Created status response with the Location: header containing the URI of the parent object (the resource directly created by the PUT/POST), and an entity body, in some appropriate format, containing the URIs of all the created objects. (If there is a representation of the main resource which would do this that is acceptable to the client, this would seem to be an ideal way of communicating that.)

With PATCH, much the same, but with 200 OK.

> Do i have to first re-get the created object's child locations and re- > request each individually?

There's no reason for a REST API to require that.

> How about just sending the full object state back as the response to my PUT > request?

I see no reason why sending a full resource representation in a 201 status response, provided that the client has indicated that they are willing to accept the relevant media type, is problematic, especially if it does what the HTTP/1.1 spec says the 201 response entity should do. (The one thing that common resource representations might not do that they should is provide their own location and the direct locations of any embedded subentities that are separate addressable, but there is no reason why a resource representation _couldn 't_ do that, and I'd argue that in REST it would be desirable that resource representations _do_ do that.)

> Well, according to REST, the body of the response just needs to be a > description of the error or success status.

As, stated, that's accurate, but you seem to be acting as if that was "needs to be just" rather than "just needs to be" (e.g., misunderstanding it as a _maximum allowed_ content, rather than a _minimum required_ content.)

> Basically, REST sucks for reducing round trips if you're going to follow it > pedantically.

Except that none of the problems you've pointed to in that regard have anything to do with REST.

<comment> T-R > I'd argue that in REST it would be desirable that resource representations > do do that (provide [...] the direct locations of any embedded subentities > that are separate addressable).

You could actually go a step further - if you're using "Hypertext as the engine of application state" (HATEOAS), URIs for the locations of direct subentities _need_ to be there, if the client is expected to be able to make those state transitions, for the API to be "fully RESTful". (Though, I'd personally agree with the article that features like discoverability and content negotiation are secondary to those you get from idempotence/properly using HTTP methods, and feel they should be considered bonus features, rather than strict requirements)

<comment><USER8> > You could actually go a step further - if you're using "Hypertext as the > engine of application state" (HATEOAS), URIs for the locations of direct > subentities need to be there, if the client is expected to be able to make > those state transitions, for the API to be "fully RESTful".

Sure, I'd agree with that.

> Though, I'd personally agree with the article that features like > discoverability and content negotiation are secondary to those you get from > idempotence/properly using HTTP methods, and feel they should be considered > bonus features, rather than strict requirements)

I think properly using HTTP is sufficient for calling something an HTTP API, but HATEOAS is necessary for calling it (accurately, at least) a REST API.

There's too much "REST is a popular idea, so lets call out API REST even we think is good for our use case, even if its not REST".

All APIs don't need to be REST APIs, but APIs that call themselves REST APIs should actually _be_ REST APIs, and not just HTTP APIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thinking about this:

By merging children into the parent resource, he traded a reduction of requests with the loss of separation of concerns.

How about adding a layer instead whose only concern is the reduction of the number of requests for the client. It would collect and merge the info from parent and children resources and return it in merged form to the client ?

<comment> T-R I really do wish HTTP had a mechanism for responding to a single request with multiple combined response bodies as if requests were made for each individually (from the perspective of, e.g., a caching proxy) - the loss of separation of concerns from merging children into the parent isn't just a usability issue, it also means you lose your cache granularity - the cache for the parent object is now stale whenever a child is modified, and a request for a child after getting the parent won't hit the cache at the request level.

There's keep-alive, but that still means that if you want to get a parent and its children, you have to wait for the parent request round-trip.

To add - this is a major issue we've been working through at Slant.co - we've combined child objects into the requests for the parent objects (sometimes even two levels down), but it's significantly complicated caching efforts - we're in the process of building some namespacing into our server-side request cache, so we can transparently make cached Question and Option pages stale whenever, e.g., the title of a Pro/Con gets changed. If HTTP allowed multiple responses, we could treat everything transparently server-side as individual requests, and get much higher hit-rates for proxy and client-side caches.

<comment><USER8> > I really do wish HTTP had a mechanism for responding to a single request > with multiple combined response bodies as if requests were made for each > individually

That seems to be a pretty significant feature of SPDY and the in-progress HTTP/2.0 work.

<comment> T-R I wasn't aware of that, that's good to hear. I'm under the impression, though, that since SPDY encrypts _everything_ , that you can't get caching at intermediate nodes unless you explicitly MITM yourself, which would reduce the utility of that feature. Then again, I'm not sure how much caching happens outside of places where you'd MITM yourself now anyway, so I guess in practice, that might not be a huge step back.

<comment><USER8> > I wasn't aware of that, that's good to hear. I'm under the impression, > though, that since SPDY encrypts everything, that you can't get caching at > intermediate nodes unless you explicitly MITM yourself, which would reduce > the utility of that feature.

Last I heard, it was quite a matter of debate in the IETF workgroup on HTTP2 the extent to which SPDY's "TLS is mandatory" approach would be adopted for HTTP/2.0 (IIRC, Microsoft at one point staked out a "we will enable HTTP/2.0 without TLS in our browser so the standard better allow it" position, and numerous parties making strong arguments that there were definite use cases -- especially internal networks -- where users would want the other advantages of HTTP/2.0 and where TLS would be a burden rather than a benefit.)

And if you are worried about caching internal to your own organization, you could, in the worst case, use a (TLS-required) HTTP/2.0 user facing server with HTTP/1.1 (non-TLS) internal servers, eliminating the need to MITM your own TLS traffic. Obviously, that doesn't help external cacheability, but you probably aren't going to usually want to send external content insecurely from an app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why can't I subscribe to a feed for this blog? I was going to blame NewsBlur, but upon viewing source I don't see _link rel_ s for anything but the favicons and stylesheet. I thought for a moment that I might just give them my email address, but then they pulled a bizarre "Looks like you have cookies disabled" out of some orifice. A: I don't. B: why would you need cookies to post a form?

<comment><USER11> Zapier co-founder here, thanks for pointing this out!

We do have a feed ([https://zapier.com/engineering/feeds/latest/](https://zapier.com/engineering/feeds/latest/)) but we I think we need to add a meta tag for NewsBlur/readers to pick up on it. We'll do this!

We use CSRF protection across all POSTs/PUTs, so cookies are generally required. I'll look into removing this for certain forms (like blog subscribe, fairly safe me thinks!).

Thanks again!

<comment><USER10> Thanks for being responsive! Now that you point it out I realize I could have just clicked on the shuttlecock icon, whoops.

I'm not certain what could have caused the cookie problem, since I've just gotten that same error message on a different device, neither of which actually have cookies turned off. (For instance, my HN cookies seem to be working fine...)

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I'm not sure either. I'll look into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> REST, as Fielding described it, is good for decoupled systems that can (and need to) evolve independently, like web browsers consuming HTML and JavaScript.

If you can relax the decoupling or independent evolution constraints, RPC over HTTP is usually easier to understand and implement. This is where most HTTP APIs fall. (…and that's OK)

</comment><comment><USER13> Here's some other thinking about the cost of APIs (discussed earlier on HN) [http://writings.quilt.org/2014/05/12/distributed-systems- and...](http://writings.quilt.org/2014/05/12/distributed-systems-and-the-end- of-the-api/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I found using HTTP (a mere transport layer) status codes as part of an API very unnatural and wrong. It feels like bending TCP/UDP packets structure to implement FTP to me. And shoehorning your API into any kind of "blessed guidlines" just to earn you a badge? That's just a waste of time.

<comment><USER15> They're not using HTTP as a mere transport layer, since they're using different HTTP methods and URLs to indicate different semantics. If they were passing payloads through a single endpoint and method, like XML-RPC and SOAP do, that would be using using HTTP as a mere transport layer.

<comment><USER14> Seems I phrased my previous comment too vague, sorry for that. I'm aware of what REST stands for. My question is what advantages utilizing "obscure" HTTP verbs and headers with spreading "endpoints" all over ones application provides compared to RPC over HTTP? Surely, using RPC with a single endpoint is much simpler and thus more maintainable/modifiable?

<comment><USER15> Which obscure HTTP verbs? I didn't see any in the article.

You should read Fielding's thesis, but the short version is: when you're using a single endpoint, you're not really simplifying the communication -after all, your application still needs to do different things-, you're just replacing parts of the standard HTTP methods and server-sent URLs (which the client doesn't need to know beforehand) with custom/proprietary method names which the client needs to be coded against specifically.

Of course, this depends on whether you're actually following REST or not. If you're hardcoding endpoints all over your client applications, your architecture is not really RESTful.

Still, even if you do hardcode them, you still gain some advantages: for example, you can add a layer of caching by just sticking Varnish in the middle, which is not possible with RPC without custom code. That's the advantage of following the Uniform Interface constraint.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is there a share to all button for Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp and other? - <AUTHOR> I am so fed up by recording across multiple apps to convey the same message out. Is there anyone who is doing a share to all button for stories? It will make life so easy! <comment><USER2> I think you're looking for WUPHF.com... [0]

[0] [http://theoffice.wikia.com/wiki/WUPHF.com_(Website)](http://theoffice.wikia.com/wiki/WUPHF.com_\(Website\))

</comment><comment><USER3> Try [https://buffer.com](https://buffer.com)

They've made rounds on HN for various reasons, some good and some not so good but their core business is to help content creators share on social media.</comment>


An eruption from the Sun that happened today - <AUTHOR> http://youtu.be/Hyi4hjG6kDM

<comment><USER2> Very cool. Its amazing what we don't know about the star sitting just 8 light minutes away from us.

For jnorthrop generally these events are effectively deflected by the Earth's magnetosphere, however we don't know what we don't know. Its hard to estimate whether or not any one of the extinction events this planet has experienced over the past was caused by solar activity.

I would hope it would add impetutus to efforts to surviving large changes in the Earth's envioronment by creating completely controlled environments (ideally across several planetary bodies) but I have low expectations that it will.

One of the science stories I've been following for a while has been the growing body of evidence that a magnetic pole reversal [1] is becoming more likely. (Note there was a hoax around it changing instantly in 2012 which has been pretty thoroughly debunked). One thing that is pretty well understood is that during reversals the magnetosphere is greatly reduced [2] which suggests that the simulataneous occurence of a CME and a reversal of the poles resulting in a reduced magnetosphere would be something to write home about.

[1] [http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magnet...](http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magneticfield.html)

[2] [http://www.off- ladhyx.polytechnique.fr/people/willis/papers/...](http://www.off- ladhyx.polytechnique.fr/people/willis/papers/Nature425.pdf)

<comment><USER3> And you would have to write, unless there is significantly more tolerance in our digital network!

With large solar flares there have been reports of telegraph wires having such large currents induced that the telegraph paper caught on fire from the sparks generated! [1]

Just imagine what these currents would do to modern sensitive electronics... And I suspect that there hasn't been that much thorough testing in consumer- level hardware, although power and communication companies are very aware of the problems and have changed the designs of some systems to handle these events better (as in "let's not melt the power grid quite as bad...")

[1] [http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2008/06...](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/)

<comment><USER4> _"The northern lights were unusual enough but then worldwide telegraph systems started going out. Telegraph operators were being shocked unconscious and the flying sparks from the telegraph machines were setting the papers and their machines on fire. When the telegraph operators disconnected their machines from the batteries, there were still sparks flying. This is because the power of solar flares induced electricity into the lines that carried the telegraph signals from one telegraph station to the next. This became known as the Carrington Event."_

[http://factoidz.com/could-another-carrington-event- destroy-o...](http://factoidz.com/could-another-carrington-event-destroy-our- economy/)

[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/space-storm- insurance....](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/space-storm- insurance.html)

<comment><USER5> Kinda puts me off sitting here with my headphones on...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Damn, I read "One of the coolest eruptions from Sun you'll ever see. This happened today."

I was like finally, closures in java!

<comment><USER7> The Sun you mean is now a white dwarf inside a black hole. If you want to know when you might find closure, you need to ask an Oracle ;-)

<comment><USER8> I wish points were visible so I could see how many upvotes this got. Didn't point visibility get put to a vote by pg not long ago -- last I saw the "yes" votes were way ahead. (?)

<comment><USER6> Not sure which 'this' you're referring to, but my joke is now at 38 points. Does it really matter? They're just points. And don't worry, i'm still not able to downvote people :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Was that a real-time video (i.e., shot and played at 1x speed)? If so, the matter appears to be traveling at roughly the speed of light. Greater, perhaps, indicating the video was sped up. [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=diameter+of+the+Sun+%2F...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=diameter+of+the+Sun+%2F+speed+of+light)

 _Edit…_ If you look closely (in HD), there are timestamps, suggesting this is being played at ~3600x, or one second of playtime representing an hour in reality.

<comment><USER10> I would have rather seen this video occurring much more slowly. It would have been more .. intense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The blog post with more explanation: [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/07/th...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/07/the- sun-lets-loose-a-huge-explosion/)

<comment><USER12> From that article it says "A good flare can release up to 10% of the Sun's total energy" but they mean power, not energy, right? Because 10% of the sun's total energy released in that time frame would wipe us out, right?

<comment><USER13> Power isn't correct either, because power for how long.

I can't figure out what they mean.

<comment><USER12> Power is outside of the realm of time. P = E/t, so that's why I assumed power. For example, say the sun produces 384 yottawatts, that would be 384 yottajoules per second. Say the flare goes on for 6000 seconds and uses an average of 38 yottawatts, or 228,000 yottajoules over that time period (fun fact, yotta is where SI stops. Strange.)

<comment><USER14> There's been a movement for a while to add _hella_ as the next SI prefix, for 10^27. It's already been adopted by Google and Wolfram Alpha, among others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Forgive my ignorant question, but what if that eruption was aimed at us? Was that a mass ejection of something? If so, could that something have ruined the electronics in orbiting satellites or stripped our atmosphere?

Maybe I'm over-reacting but that appears to be an absolutely massive explosion.

<comment><USER16> This was a 'coronal mass ejection'. Inevitably, you're right - particles will no doubt make their way towards us.

These incoming particles will probably cause an increase in Northern/Southern Lights (Aurora Borealis/Australis). The earth has a 'Van Allen Radiation Belt' surrounding it - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_Belt> \- which takes magnetically charged particles, often fired from the sun, and blasts them back down to earth. Upon impact with the planet's atmosphere, beautiful Auroras can be created.

However, satellites can't orbit anywhere nearby the Van Allen Belt, as obviously these radiating particles can damage sensitive instruments. I'd guess by the size of this mass ejection, a geomagnetic storm will be created. Wikipedia has a good list of the various negative effects of these things: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm#Geomagnetic_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm#Geomagnetic_storm_effects)

Of course, it depends on the direction the eruption was aiming as a primary factor. This wonderful image - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magnetosphere_rendition.jp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magnetosphere_rendition.jpg) \- shows a perfect example of the Van Allen Belt. If you tip your head 90 degrees to the left, it kind of looks like an angel around earth - the 'halo area' is the main Van Allen Belt loop causing Auroras by firing the particles towards each polar cap.

(Disclaimer: I have an interest in astronomy, but nothing to put to my name except for a B-grade Astronomy GCSE - it's likely much of that explanation is scientifically inaccurate, but, I tried my best! :)

<comment><USER17> _If you tip your head 90 degrees to the left, it kind of looks like an angel around earth - the 'halo area' is the main Van Allen Belt loop causing Auroras by firing the particles towards each polar cap._

That reminds me of the passage in the Bible claiming four angels standing at corners of the earth. Not to get into a theistic thread or anything, but who needs religion when science is that stunning? Beautiful imagery!

<comment><USER18> Yeah, but it's going to take science a while just to _find_ the corners on the earth. ;)

<comment><USER19> It takes a liberal arts major about a second to find the metaphor. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For nice current images of the Sun, the Proba 2 satellite [1] continuously watches it and dumps some nice imagery/movies. It's ESA sponsored, and both it's sensors (SWAP producing the visuals) are interpreted by the Belgian Royal Observatory. Iirc the Belgians and the Canadians are the only ones keeping a close eye on the sun, counting sun spots and such. Makes for a nice desktop bg also!

[1] <http://proba2.oma.be/index.html/>

<comment><USER21> If you want exquisite solar desktop images, the place to go is:

<http://www.solarphysics.kva.se/gallery/images/2010/>

These are from the Swedish Vacuum telescope on La Palma (Canary Islands). This instrument currently offers the highest-resolution solar images anywhere.

The images shown on that page show many convection cells, called the solar supergranulation. Each cell is about the size of Earth.

What you say about who's keeping an eye on the Sun is not the case. In addition to the Swedish telescope above, the Japanese have an excellent high- resolution imager (in orbit) called Hinode, and there are multiple US space imager including SDO and Stereo, plus many terrestrial telescopes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wish there was a way on HN to easily find out submissions that have videos in them. Often times, especially when I'm eating at my desk, I'd rather watch interesting videos than read articles, and such a feature would be of great help on HN.

Maybe there's a way that you guys know of (besides reading cues from the title)?

<comment><USER23> The standard convention is to put [video] in the title - a convention which is sadly being ignored here, along with the inexplicable use of a URL-shortener. It should be possible to locate all submissions so marked as videos with HNSearch (it's down at the moment, for some reason, so I can't verify this).

EDIT: HNSearch is back up, searching for "[video]" or "video" in stories seems to show only links to videos on the first page when sorted by relevance, 8 out of 10 results when sorted by points, and 9 out of 10 when sorted by date.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The shockwave is expected to reach earth around 1 pm EST tomorrow (5pm GMT), auroras are likely to follow after that and they should be visible quite far south.

<http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/2011/06/08>

</comment><comment><USER25> You'd have to line up 100 Earth's end-to-end to fit inside the Sun. This was reportedly about the size of the Sun itself, so it would engulf 100 Earths. It would probably destroy more since even planets on the periphery would have all life destroyed.

<comment><USER13> It's big, but it's also dilute. It would not destroy any planets even if they were right inside it.

<comment><USER26> This statement, taken literally, is absurd. What are you trying to say?

<comment><USER25> ...that he's absurd. I'm pretty sure exposing our troposphere to 6000K would hurt a little.

<comment><USER13> It would do nothing. We expose the atmosphere to 6000K every day in forges and nothing bad happens.

The reason of course is the temperature doesn't matter - total energy does. And even though it's very hot, and very large, there is very very very little matter there, so the total energy is quite minimal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Might be interesting to watch this over the next few days - <http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast>

</comment><comment><USER28> Is this sped up?

<comment><USER29> Yes. I couldn't see it at first, because of the advertising overlay, but there is a time readout in the lower-left of the video.

It looks like it's sped up about 60x.

<comment><USER30> Is anyone able to slow this down? I realize they wanted an explosion effect but it goes too fast for me.

<comment><USER31>
      youtube-dl -o sun Hyi4hjG6kDM # [1]
      mplayer -speed 0.25 sun

[1] <http://rg3.github.com/youtube-dl/>. It's available in the Arch Linux and Ubuntu repositories, as well.

<comment><USER32> get_flash_videos[1] covers more sites and has a plugin infrastructure, though I haven't personally written a plugin.

[1] <http://github.com/monsieurvideo/get-flash-videos>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I thought the title meant that an executive from (the now nonexistent) Sun Microsystems lost his cool.

</comment><comment><USER34> First reaction: that's it?? Second reaction: wait, this was big enough to engulf the Earth. Cool!

<comment><USER35> Although not the flare from today, here is an image that has the earth shown against one of these eruptions for scale: [http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/515512main_prominence_Ear...](http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/515512main_prominence_Earthscale-033010-orig_full.jpg)

<comment><USER34> Honestly, when we start talking about these huge distances and the vastness of space, the scale of things just seems to lose all meaning. Maybe it's because most of us are engineers and these sorts of numbers only exist in our heads in abstract terms, but I find that I really have to look around me and ground myself in relative terms before I can fully grasp how mind-bogglingly huge that is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Until about the middle of February it looked as if we were going to maybe catch a break on global warming as the Sun's output was down significantly and the possibility that a Maunder type solar minimum was occurring was increasing.

About 2/15/11 solar output started getting back to more normal levels.

<http://www.wm7d.net/hamradio/solar/index.shtml>

Too bad, we could use a break.

</comment><comment><USER37> the sun divided by 0

</comment><comment><USER38> what simulator do they use?

</comment><comment><USER39> so that's why skype crashed this morning... :P

</comment><comment><USER40> Call me paranoid, but that just made my stomach drop.

<comment><USER24> Why so? You most likely have lived through larger solar eruptions without knowing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Hot

</comment><comment><USER42> Didn't hear a thing.</comment>