This Is Your Brain on Nature - <AUTHOR> http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/call-to-wild-text <comment><USER2> This is great. Particularly appreciate the "forest kindergarten". As I grew up, I felt so much of my schooling missed out on applying the knowledge we learned in the class room, and of course, the scope of what we learned in class felt at times arbitrary and irrelevant.

My parents would takeus camping from a very young age every summer. We learned how to fish, set up tents, and all the tools associated with those tasks. We learned to respect the meat we'd catch, not be afraid of the water, be innovative with the tools around us when we forgot something, and of course -- be adventurous.

I'm a large fan of the urban environment and I think raising children in cities has clear social benefits. We must also respect, and embrace the nature in and around our cities to foster that other side of the spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER3> Articles like this frustrate me because they almost always conflate a bunch of very different things (e.g. being near trees, being away from loud noises, being in an environment that has no deliberate function, increased exposure to sunlight) under the umbrella of "nature", which turns out to be a largely inconsistent and culture-bound concept. There are clear hints of researchers actually wanting to understand the underlying processes or play with other manifestations of whatever "nature" might be giving us, but they're treated like footnotes to the narrative of "Hooray, we knew all along that nature is great, but now science proves it!".

And then there's this:

> "Imagine a therapy that had no known side effects, was readily available, > and could improve your cognitive functioning at zero cost," the researchers > wrote in their paper. It exists, they continued, and it's called > "interacting with nature."

I can't adequately explain how deeply I loathe this kind of claim (free, no side effects, huge benefits; similar claims are often made about exercise, optimism, or just about anything else that an author thinks is wholesome and virtuous). Anything that has effects has side effects. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

<comment><USER4> I can't tell if this comment is meant to be trolling or not, however, I can speak to my own anecdotal experiences that exercise has had such a net- positive in my life as whole, that even if you would consider sore muscles and the occasional light injuries along the way as "side effects", the benefits have far out-weighed them.

Also I find nature so full of different sensory experiences, for example the smell of wild jasmine next to a stream, or the sound of running springs at the same time the feeling of a cool breeze under a hot sunny day. Sure it's enough to get boring after some period of time, but it's such a delightful reset from the hectic city life I surround myself with daily that I always look forward to revisiting "nature" when I can.

I think it's also telling that California (well most of the western United States, to be honest) made so much of the land public parks. The federal government even goes as far as to make areas safe for everyone of all ages and fitness levels. How amazing is it that someone in a wheelchair can also experience Half-dome in Yosemite?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hah! I know that smiling naked skinny-dipping couple. They certainly epitomize the natural high of being out in nature.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not too surprised to read this. I get a little antsy if I haven't been on a hike in a while. It's more than just exercise. Urban walks, including ones with a lot of greenery like in Golden Gate Park, stave it off, but don't completely take care of it [1]. Even a place like Muir Woods, which does have beautiful trees and a creek but is so heavily travelled that people are supposed to stay on a roped off path, doesn't quite do it. Fortunately (recent tweets from a high profile investor notwithstanding), SF has a lot of this available within a 90 minute radius.

Some researchers did find that natural walks have a stronger effect on blood pressure and stress than "urban" walks (the link was here on HN, but unfortunately I don't remember it right now). However, they took a walk down el camino real in suburban sprawl as their "urban" experience. I have really enjoyed taking very very long walks in places like Paris or New York, highly urban areas, and depending on where you go, it's actually pretty fantastic. So my guess, again this is just based on my own experience, is that highly urbanized areas aren't necessarily lacking in whatever that element is that brings a sense of calm and contentedness from long walks or hikes.

[1] I know, GGP has a reputation for having lots of addicted or mentally ill people camping in the bushes. This isn't undeserved, unfortunately, but SF's problems, while pretty bad, can still be overstated. It depends on where you go in the park.

</comment><comment><USER7> I started really getting into nature, hiking and camping this year. If you aren't careful, it can quickly become an addiction. Although it's probably the healthiest addiction you can have. Most of the time while I'm in my 9-5 box, I'm yearning for the mountains and planning my next adventure.

</comment><comment><USER8> There's a book called _The Spell of the Sensuous_ by David Abram, and a sequel called _Becoming Animal_ , that I think are relevant. They aren't based on neuroscience but philosophy (mostly Merleau-Ponty phenomenology, a little bit of McLuhan, plus an interesting critique of alphabetic writing) and some field anthropology. Basically he is defending the importance of embodied cognition within non-man-made environments.

From the first book:

> _Today we participate almost exclusively with other humans and with our own > human-made technologies. It is a precarious situation, given our age-old > reciprocity with the many-voiced landscape. We still need that which is > other than ourselves and our own creations. The simple premise of this book > is that we are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not > human._

I bet there's also a bunch of articles written from a Heideggerian perspective about being-in-the-world as a hiker. I'd expect the "three day effect" to work very well when you are hiking from place to place, engaged in that kind of simple and "primordial" activity.

There's a NASA report that I can't find that was about psychological requirements for long-term living on space stations and one thing they recommended was an explorable space with height differences creating a shifting horizon, so you get that nice free feeling of walking in a landscape.

Which reminds me that _The Spell of the Sensuous_ has an interesting discussion of Heidegger's use of the concept of a horizon, and how it relates to the experience of time...

Oh yeah and I've heard lots of people say, and I concur, that meditation retreats usually shift in character after around the third day, like it takes about three days for the mind to really get into the new situation, fully adjust to the rhythm. After that there's a different flow and meditation feels deeper.

BTW, I love hiking and meditation, but I'm a little wary of romanticism and religion. There's interesting critique of the concept "nature," for example Timothy Morton's _Ecology Without Nature_. Yet there's obviously lots of fascinating effects on mental health.

Then I'm also a little wary of "scientizing" or "psychiatrizing" both nature and meditation. It has to do with what Heidegger thought of as the technological mindset of treating the world as a big resource to use for various purposes.

I think there is some kind of truth in the way many hikers and meditators want to keep those things "sacred" in some way, regardless of what religious or romantic theoretical framework they use to justify that. If you try to use nature, or meditation, to alleviate the stress from your life, in an instrumental way full of expectations, I can easily see it gradually losing its efficacy, if it becomes yet another maintenance strategy and you lose the sense of noninstrumentality, free exploration, suspension of ordinary pursuits, etc.

<comment><USER3> > I think there is some kind of truth in the way many hikers and meditators > want to keep those things "sacred" in some way, regardless of what religious > or romantic theoretical framework they use to justify that. If you try to > use nature, or meditation, to alleviate the stress from your life, in an > instrumental way full of expectations, I can easily see it gradually losing > its efficacy, if it becomes yet another maintenance strategy and you lose > the sense of noninstrumentality, free exploration, suspension of ordinary > pursuits, etc.

There's a book by Chögyam Trungpa, _Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism_ , that has a lot to say on this theme. I have mixed feelings about the book overall, but it's quite relevant to this concept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fair warning - this page autoplays audio, at least on Safari in OS X 10.11 (El Capitan).

</comment><comment><USER10> _'_ […] _You once lived on Earth. You remember what it was like.'_

 _'I sort of remember. Still, it doesn't seem to be easy to explain. Earth is just there. It fits people and people fit it. People take Earth the way they find it. Mars is different. It's sort of raw and doesn't fit people. People got to make something out of it. They got to_ build _a world, and not take what they find. Mars isn't much yet, but we're building, and when we're finished, we're going to have just what we like. It's sort of a great feeling to know you're building a world. Earth would be kind of unexciting after that.'_

[…]

[Two humans who live on Mars, Rioz and Long, are out on a mission close to Saturn and are at the moment relaxing by floating free in spacesuits outside the ship.]

 _'You know, I've read Earth books—'_

 _'Grounder books, you mean.' Rioz yawned and found it difficult under the circumstances to use the expression with the proper amount of resentment._

 _'—and sometimes I read descriptions of people lying on grass,' continued Long. 'You know that green stuff like thin, long pieces of paper they have all over the ground down there, and they look up at the blue sky with clouds in it. Did you ever see any films of that?'_

 _'Sure. It didn't attract me. It looked cold.'_

 _'I suppose it isn't, though. After all, Earth is quite close to the Sun, and they say their atmosphere is thick enough to hold the heat. I must admit that personally I would hate to be caught under open sky with nothing on but clothes. Still, I imagine they like it.'_

 _'Grounders are nuts!'_

 _'They talk about the trees, big brown stalks, and the winds, air movements, you know.'_

 _'You mean drafts. They can keep that, too.'_

 _'It doesn't matter. The point is they describe it beatutifully, almost passionately. Many times I've wondered. "What's it really like? Will I ever feel it or is this something only Earth-men can possibly feel?" I've felt so often that I was missing something vital. Now I know what it must be like. It's this. Complete peace in the middle of a beauty-drenched universe.'_

 _Rioz said, 'They wouldn't like it. The Grounders, I mean. They're so used to their own lousy little world they wouldn't appreciate what it's like to float and look down on Saturn.' He flipped his body mass slightly and began swaying back and forth about his centre of mass, slowly, soothingly._

 _Long said, 'Yes, I think so too. They're slaves to their planet. Even if they come to Mars, it will only be their children that are free. There'll be starships someday; great, huge things that can carry thousands of people and maintain their self-contained equilibrium for decades, maybe centuries. Mankind will spread through the whole Galaxy. But people will have to live their lives out on shipboard until the new methods of inter-stellar travel are developed, so it will be Martians, not planet-bound Earthmen, who will colonize the Universe. That's inevitable. It's got to be. It's the Martian way.'_

— _The Martian Way_ , Isaac Asimov, 1952

</comment><comment><USER11> Naturally, this articles' photo of the mud-slaked Rubenesque woman was the image on my screen when my new co-worker dropped in on me… calling this piece NSFW feels a bit prudish but let my experience be your warning

<comment><USER12> It is NSFW.

Saw that picture and the one of the couple in the hot spring. Then I remembered, Nat Geo was recently taken over by Fox.

Ah, I thought. Explains everything.

<comment><USER13> As much as I mourn the Murdoch sale, National Geographic has long been famous for its occasional bare skin.

<comment><USER12> Yes... When it made a point.

The bare skin in these photos have little to do with the content of the article.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The American Dream Is Alive in China - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-social-mobility.html <comment><USER2> It's a mistake to say we're rich because our GDP or even GDP per capita is high. What matters is PPP - purchasing power parity with a basket of goods weighted towards the essentials of life: housing, transportation, food, water, child care and medical insurance. By that measure, I don't think the US is as rich as we think we are. but i would like to see things measured and quoted in that regard, it would be more relevant and accurate for comparing wealth.

Such an analysis would also be useful for comparing the rich and poor within a country. here in the US: someone earning 100k in the midwest is much wealthier than someone earning 150k in palo alto. Of course, if your basket of goods comparison is how many apple cell phones they can buy, it's not gonna be an accurate comparison

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been telling people this for over 15 years. Catches include: we economic migrants have reduced access to the market, less progressive regulatory stance, shifting and complicated bureaucratic visa/banking/tax processes to deal with, and even difficulties getting capital out again. One summary is: it's relatively easy to make big money in China, but hard to make a liveable salary - this affects Chinese people more than migrants. Macro economically, lots of cash was recently won on real estate (like in many developed economies recently, such as my native Sydney), and prior to that outright corruption, though both avenues are now closing and priority is being placed upon technology IP by the government (read: free government handouts for local competitors, foreign companies generally excluded).

</comment><comment><USER4> Most people judge based on their life-time experience. Being the average person is about 40, they typically judge based on the last 4 decades. China's history is full of violent revolutions. A big economic slump could snowball into political and social catastrophe. The gov't could grow complacent and/or out-of-touch and try to solve social unrest with ham-hands, making it worse. As the investment disclaimer says, "Past (near-term) results are not a guarantee of future results."

</comment><comment><USER5> Give China another 20 years and they will surely have overtaken the USA in world leadership.

Consider their new Silk Road initiative. 3rd world/developing countries and America's numerous enemies alike are lining up to ally themselves with China.

Meanwhile the USA shits on its closest allies.

<comment><USER6> People have been saying this for 40ish years, if not more, and it's never been close to happening and still isn't. China's relationships with developing nations tend to be predatory/parasitic, not an alliance.

<comment><USER7> At least those relationships don't involve carpet bombing rich and thriving places back in to the stone age.

<comment><USER8> Not yet. As the last country to go to war with China, we know full well that they won't hesitate bombing former allies should the circumstance calls for it.

<comment><USER7> Let's reserve judgement until China actually orchestrates a Fallujah scale bombing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This isn't a surprise. Back in the day, a kid fresh out of high school in the US could get a job that supported a house with a yard, a car, children, and a non-working spouse.

Factories were both directly paying good wages for non-high-skill positions and fueling a myriad of local businesses where those workers spent their money. Then globalization happened, and those factories went to China. Entire local and regional economies collapsed and a lot of them STILL haven't recovered.

Great opportunity for Chinese people, not so good for American people.

You might think from this that I hate the Chinese, or the poor, or something. That's not true. I just think we need to find a way for regular Chinese people to have hope and opportunity, that doesn't involve taking hope and opportunity away from regular American people.

Billionaire Ray Dalio said in a recent interview that 8 of 12 times there's been a rising power situation like the current one with China, it's turned into a shooting war.

My own opinion: If people's hope and opportunity are taken away, they start to get into the mood for a shooting war with the people they think took it. Bringing hope and opportunity back to regular Americans could prevent World War 3.

How do we do it?

<comment><USER10> >How do we do it?

space, humans have been stagnating since the 60s. the earth cannot support all of us anymore,it's breaking down

<comment><USER11> > the earth cannot support all of us anymore,it's breaking down

Of course this is overly dramatic and just wrong but you have a good point, in very very very long time frame this is viable option and provides big "goal" to achieve. Latest NASA promo video mentions Moon, Mars as next goals, I'm wondering if they are not setting narrative/preparing ground for more efforts targeted towards space.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeA7edXsU40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeA7edXsU40)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It would be great to compare the growth China kicked off in the 80s with the growth the USA kicked off after WWII. See if its the same trend, feel weird comparing growth of a country with another that had a 40 year head start.

</comment><comment><USER13> One thing important that many people ignored about China is its K-12 education system. It is _much_ better than the US in a number of ways, especially for the ordinary students, which accounts for the majority of the student body, myself included.

\- For starters, teachers in China are responsible. They care about the subjects they teach, and spend countless hours finding challenging problems for students as well as grading students' solutions with detailed feedbacks. Parents could just leave the education of their kids to school. They didn't have to worry about tutoring at all, because they knew that their kids would be sufficiently challenged in school. This is true equality, isn't it, as financially challenged families did not have to worry about not being able to afford tutoring. In contrast, teachers in Cupertino, a town known for good schools, asked parents to grade students' homework.

\- Second, they believe in their students. No no no, I'm not talking about this "every student is unique and therefore it's okay to not doing well in academically" crap. When I grew up, my teachers were tough, but they were tough by being honest, by telling me that I didn't do well in exams because I didn't try hard enough, because I didn't use the right techniques to study, or because I didn't focus on the right things. In other words, we truly believed that I could excel in school work. They didn't give up on me or other kids just because we did poorly in homework or in exams. They were truly happy if their students did well in school, and then they told the students that they could do even better by assigning more challenging problem sets. That is, they believed that their students could grow by keeping themselves in their discomfort zone. In contrast, Why did the US schools keep lowering their standards just to keep students happy?

The K-12 education systems in the US are great for two types of students: those who are really challenged academically, and those who know how to push themselves. For the former, they enjoyed the love from teachers or the policies like "no kids left behind". For the latter, they got excellent resources, such as taking advanced classes in universities, and participating in all kinds of competitions. It is the students in the middle, the majority of the students like me, who will lose, big time. The students in the middle will not be challenged enough, who will falsely believe that they are good at STEM and then get shocked or even defeated by not-really-so-hard courses like calculus or organic chemistry, those who could've had a wonderful career in STEM but bail out because they didn't get enough training in high school. How sad is that?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Chinese K-12 did everything right. I spent way too much time preparing for the national entrance exam. I spent way too much time mastering all kinds of problem-solving skills that are not needed in college. I didn't learn advanced subjects like calculus or stats until college. That said, my teachers truly prepared me, like they did millions of other ordinary students, for advanced STEM subjects. They injected passion and a sense of pride of studying STEMs. I wouldn't be able to do what I do today without my teachers' dedication and caring. That's what matters, isn't it?

<comment><USER14> Correct me if I'm wrong and/or out of date, but isn't rote learning still the heart and sole of their education system? That's great if you want to churn out factory workers but it's not going to cut it if you want to lead in technology and innovation.

<comment><USER13> True for liberal arts. The K-12 education in the U.S puts a lot of emphasis on critical writing and research in liberal arts. I see much less rote learning there. And China's education on liberal arts, especially history and economics, resort to a lot of rote learning.

I feel sorry to say this, but there is really not much rote learning of STEM subjects in Chinese K-12. How can you rote learn when you need deep and intuitive understanding of fundamentals to excel in your math exams? That's what my teachers tried hard to instill in us every day. On the contrary, there's a lot of rote learning in that of the US. The reason is simple: students resort to rote learning because it works, and it works only because the problem sets they deal with are so simple and mechanical. That's not the case in China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love the irony of this headline so much I want to make a poster of it and put it in my office.

I think my favorite critic of The American Dream™ is our old friend George Carlin: "The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it."

</comment><comment><USER16> That data visualization showing the morphing of China from being heavily poor to heavily middle-class made me go "Wow!" That's quite something to note.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not sure why picking the American seemed obvious in the choice at the begining? A poor country seems far more likely to see a large economic upturn.

</comment><comment><USER18> These flurry of NYTimes favorable articles on China, the last few days, is....fascinating. It's almost like those with vested interests knew a huge crash is about to come to China in 2019, and is trying to unload some investments.

However, the ever connected world is not blind, and can see the dramatic fall China has suffered in the last 2 years in terms of stock market, yuan weakness, capital outflow, human rights, massive debts, international relations, factories leaving, fake GDPs, and much more. $250B in tariff on Chinese imports in January 2019, followed up with potentially rest of the $600B in tariff on Chinese imports in 2019, will crash China.

<comment><USER19> FYI, China is investing in the long run (20 years+).

A couple of points that leads me to think China will dominate the world in the next decades (if it has not started already):

* With the Belt and Road initiative China is building deep relationships with half of the countries of the world.

* Their industry is not slowed down by regulation, so they iterate and learn quickly. For example, some people think they'll be the first to widely deploy self driving cars. Yes there will be a ton of accidents because their technology will suck at first, but they'll be able to improve faster than any company in the west. An other example is everything related to medicine (e.g. gene editing).

* Their culture values hard work. If it were not for the quotas MIT would be 70% asian.

<comment><USER18> Belt and Road: Malaysian government stopped a $20B project. Maldives just called it one-sided. India refuses to have anything to do with it. So do most of the EU members. Media around the world is calling it debt trap

Regulation: deadly vaccines. deadly milk powder. Their citizens then choose to buy foreign goods only

hard work: they are at their job 60 hours a week. but only working 20.

<comment><USER10> why are people downvoting this-the only illogical point is the hours worked thing-sure a poorly trained chinese person may only be productive for 20 hours but they can afford to put 6 people on a task that people in the west would pay a single person for apart from software manhours do scale and even in software the majority of the world gets by on "good enough"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> No it's not, the world speaks English, not Chinese

Doesn't mean the destination is America though.

Ps. Why would big Chinese companies translate their open source in English and have research hubs outside of China</comment>


3 Things Investors Won't Pay the Founder For - <AUTHOR> http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/2007/5/14/3-things-investors-wont-pay-the-founder-for/10153/view.aspx <comment><USER2> _'... The startup community is highly disconnected. ... Startups, investors, job seekers and service providers all need one another to survive and grow yet at the same time they are hindered by their own lack of connectivity ...'_

 _"3 Things Investors Won't Pay the Founder For"_ and there's one thing the startup should be wary of - the middle man.

It's in Wils companies interest, to debunk any _unnecessary_ costs for investors. It's simply a negotiation tactic to increase profit. Wil is not a fool and wants to makes sales on his terms or terms favourable to the highest paying customer. It also highlights how making the business (Wils business) attractive to investors by realising startups, developers as a whole have less experience (and power) negotiating with potential investors.

You have to realise and act upon this weakness to improve your position.

<comment><USER3> Just so we're on point here, I'm sure there are some instances where a founder was well paid or debt was paid. It's just a really bad idea to go into an investment thinking that's a typical situation. I've yet to meet an investor that thinks either of those situations are preferable. Also, what happens in the Valley works well in the Valley but rarely translates to the rest of the world (for better and worse!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> totally wrong on all three counts. I've seen ideas funded with just a half- baked demo. Any VC funded stratup with 1M+ in funding, the CEO is making 100K+, and in my current situation, the founder had his back debt paid up.

<comment><USER5> I appreciate that info, because (if you can't tell from my other comment) I would have no freaking clue whether Wil is correct or not.

Maybe Wil just means this as a warning, as in "don't count on anything." But I admit: his ideas were a little hard to believe.

<comment><USER6> Yes, "investors" here is a bit broad.

Reading posts like this make it seem really pointless to spend too much time seeking investment.

Just go out and build a solid business. Either:

A) It will work. You will have profits and/or investors will be beating down your door.

B) It won't - you've run out of money and no one wants to invest in you. Just give up!

Luckily there are angels and groups like YC who don't take the "don't fund founder salaries" approach.

For a small web 2.0 startup -- server costs are around $100-500 a month for even a modestly successful app.

What else are investors funding, if not founder salaries??

<comment><USER3> I didn't say investors wouldn't fund your salary. I said they won't fund a $200k salary. I said $50k is more like it. I hear guys ALL the time talking about how they want to find investors so they can keep their massive paychecks while letting someone else foot the bill to test their idea. It's just unrealistic.

<comment><USER5> $200k/yr may seem massive, but here in the bay area, it's not. $150k is about the base if you don't want to live at the very edge (so far out that it's a 1.5 hour commute to get to San Mateo, SF, San Jose, etc.).

I live in a 1800 sq ft townhouse on the peninsula worth $900,000, I'm on one income, and my head is just above water -- I can save money every paycheck, but not as much as you think. I make just shy of $200k.

I know you realize that the bay area is expensive -- I'm just not sure you realize how expensive it is.

That fact doesn't change what investors do -- maybe they don't want to invest in salaries. But forcing entrepreneurs into huge debt doesn't sound like a smart investment plan. No one's looking for a mansion; I just don't want to live in the ghetto because I had an idea.

<comment><USER3> Sabat - I'm actually looking for a place myself in the bay area, so I do know how expensive it is. If you can convince an investor to pay you $200k to vet your idea, all the power to you my friend. But I have to advise you that it's not something that an investor will typically do.

<comment><USER4> How much do you think the founders at places like Digg and Facebook are making? I can guarantee it is closer to $200K than it is $50K.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe those would be the exception to the rules. They are already very successful. We all know how many VC funded companies actually make it to the Digg/Facebook level...very very few. If VC's were giving the majority of the companies they funded $200k salaries those VC's wouldnt be in business very long.

<comment><USER4> the biggest expense is hiring. senior level people in the valley are not going to work for less than $100K unless they are getting 20% of the company, which they aren't. the reason why VCs invest $7M into series A rounds is BECAUSE they need to pay everyone high salaries.

note: I'm not saying this is what SHOULD happen, nor am I saying paying six figure salaries is a good strategy. It is just what happens. There are thousands of ersatz executive types in Silicon Valley who have made a career out of bouncing around between overpaid "VP" positions at startups that eventually run out of money and fade away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> haha - mpb - spoken like a true valley insider. 550,000 businesses are started every month in the U.S. alone. How many are VC-funded? I'm glad you've seen startups get funded with a half-baked demo and get $100k salaries from well- funded VC's. As it happens, the rest of the world doesn't work like that.

<comment><USER7> Wait .... 550K businesses a month = 6.6M businesses a year. There are 300M _people_ in the US (including children, and others not immediately suited for the entreprenurial life). If each business was started by only one person, that would mean that about 1 out of every 45 people started a business in any given year.

That seems high. May I ask the provenance of the 550K/mo number?

<comment><AUTHOR> "Over the period from 1996 to 2004, an average of 0.36 percent of the adult population created a new business each month, representing approximately 550,000 new businesses per month." from a Kauffman report

<http://www.kauffman.org/pdf/kauffman_entrep_index_0905.pdf>

<comment><USER7> Interesting .... thanks for the link. Though, in the context of that report, a 'new business' need consume only 15 or more hours per week to 'count'. Such low-intensity enterprises aren't really what the YC (or VC) crowd is interested in (whatever their other virtues), so I think there's a bit of an apples-and-oranges problem with the 550K/mo number, even assuming there are no deeper statistical problems with the report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have no doubt that what Wil's saying here is true. But it's a shame if it is.

Investors would do well to 1) pay the founders good salaries so they aren't building up debt while they work, and 2) help the founders out by paying at least part of the debt they'd built up.

The way things are, a lot of people will not want to take VC -- or any investment. I don't expect to get rich while actually working on my idea(s). But unless an investor helped me out by giving me less distraction (read: financial stress), I just can't see the point in taking his money unless it was out of absolute desperation. I think a lot of entrepreneurs would agree: investors are only hurting themselves -- there will simply be fewer things to invest in because hackers will find a way to self-fund into profitability. And you can believe that they'll pay themselves first.</comment>


Sonic and ultrasonic attacks damage hard drives and crash OSes - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/05/attackers-can-send-sounds-to-ddos-video-recorders-and-pcs/ <comment><AUTHOR> Paper:

[https://spqr.eecs.umich.edu/papers/bolton-blue-note- IEEESSP-...](https://spqr.eecs.umich.edu/papers/bolton-blue-note- IEEESSP-2018.pdf)

Related: An engineer demonstrated how yelling at HDD arrays can lead to perceptible drops in I/O throughput

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4)</comment>


Cables 1k times faster than current Internet wires - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/internet-speed-fast-cable-wires-terahertz-quantum-cascade-lasers-a9328691.html <comment><AUTHOR> 100 gigabit terahertz quantum cascade lasers via acoustic wave modulation.</comment>


Ubiquiti disabled my MFA without verifying my identity first - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/muddyb0y/status/1213110698483552256 <comment><USER2> The original tweet uses "2FA". I read "MFA" here as "Master of Fine Arts" rather than "Multi-Factor Authentication" and was confused.</comment>


StumbleUpon Rolling Out New Version On Sept. 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/stumbleupon-rolling-out-new-version-on-sept-1-2009-8

<comment> onreact-com I wish they would fix the many issues they have now before adding even more features.

The categorization system is still a nightmare and kills approx. 10 - 20% submissions (because nobody likes politics on the Discovery channel) that end up in the wrong shelf.</comment>


Build interactive diagrams with storm-react-diagrams - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sourcerer.io/build-interactive-diagrams-with-storm-react-diagrams-f172ae26af9d <comment><USER2> Reminds me of jsPlumb: [https://jsplumbtoolkit.com/demos.html](https://jsplumbtoolkit.com/demos.html)

This could be good for ETL tasks where you have to take data from one place, transform it and load it into another place.</comment>


Radioactivity in Antiques - <AUTHOR> https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactivity-antiques <comment><USER2> Even more widespread and arguably of greater risk is the widespread use of lead. I'd assumed that anything produced in the last twenty years or so would be lead-free and it turns out I'd assumed wrong. Garden hose fixtures often contain lead [1], and there are recalls of popular toys with red or yellow paint [2]. And this is just going through what's still in my browser history.

[1] [https://ideas.time.com/2012/08/02/is-your-garden-hose- toxic/](https://ideas.time.com/2012/08/02/is-your-garden-hose-toxic/) [2] [https://tamararubin.com/2018/09/reminder-june-2007-thomas- th...](https://tamararubin.com/2018/09/reminder-june-2007-thomas-the-tank- engine-wooden-toy-recall/)

<comment><USER3> Lead that is alloyed to other metals for ease of machining isn't going to get into anyone in meaningful quantity since it's alloyed into something strong and wear resistant. Even lead in potable water plumbing is a non-issue so long as you don't pull a Flint and let it dissolve. Paint is a far bigger issue since it wears much faster releasing much more lead. But as long as you weren't raised in house full of it you're probably fine.

Modern plastics of various varieties contain far more suspicious molecules IMO.

<comment><USER2> From the linked article: "One in three hoses tested had levels of lead that exceeded drinking water standards — one as high as 18 times the level."

<comment><USER3> The standard for lead in drinking water is set where it is so a kid can drink the tap water from day 1 and not suffer any ill effects. There are municipalities all over the country delivering water that meets these standards through some amount of lead or leaded fittings.

In light of that it seems disingenuous to complain that a hose (as opposed to the water coming out of the hose) has 18x that much lead. If the lead has no reasonably means by which it will get into someone then what's the big deal?

I'm not saying I want more lead but you gotta pick your battles when it comes to chemically. Anything is bad if you have enough exposure. If the amount of lead people are exposed to is not gonna have any effect in their lifetime then lets check that box and move on to the next chemical.

<comment><USER4> Any amount of lead is harmful, just because you don't notice the effects doesn't mean there are none.

<comment><USER3> How is something harmful if the effects are below a measurable threshold?

And before you say "well if you construct a study and have a control group, etc, etc", yes, ok, fine, you can measure really small changes that way. What happens when the harm is below the noise threshold of that too?

There's a million things in our world that are gonna give us cancer or whatever in 50yr. Having some lead painted antique trinket that sits on a shelf or leaded brass in your hose nozzle isn't going to harmfully affect anyone if it's practically your only voluntary exposure. It's like smoking one cigarette once. Sure it's not good for you but it's also not going to be what kills you.

<comment><USER5> > How is something harmful if the effects are below a measurable threshold?

AFAIU, the claim in the literature is that nobody has found a dosage _without_ a measurable effect, at least at population scale. Now, that may simply be because nobody has setup a study to test a dosage at the limits of what can be measured. But in any event the claim is based on numerous studies that postdate most quantitative lead level thresholds. Those regulatory thresholds haven't been updated because the consensus opinion now, in light of the believed mechanism of action in neurological tissue and epidemiological data, is that any ingestion can potentially have a lasting, detrimental impact, however slight; and the consensus goal, however aspirational, is to eliminate _all_ lead exposure during developmentally critical years.

Punching somebody in the head might not cause any meaningful, discernible damage, but nobody is suggesting it's benign, and nobody is going to invest any effort to determine the minimum impact force or number of impacts below which damage is indiscernible or nonexistent. You just aim to avoid all punches to the head, period. Any quantitative thresholds, such as number of known concussions, are simply designed to help allocate limited resources for aggressive interventions. The same is true for lead--preexisting federal and state blood lead levels are designed (or rather reconstrued, ex post) to be a trigger for intervention, not a threshold below which we presume the absence of damage. It's an important distinction.

Of course, it's understood that lead is not only pervasive in the natural environment, but in our industrial processes and especially in our built environment. That's why Federal law _deliberately_ declassified lead as hazardous waste--to make it cheaper and easier to remove and dispose of post haste. Contrast that with asbestos or other hazardous, sometimes more benign, substances.

I remember when everybody on HN complained about the EU banning leaded solder. I think most of the complaints missed the point--there is no safe level for lead in the environment considering its effect on neurological development. We can't objectively set a specific level that we can honestly, _knowingly_ live with as a society, so the policy is simply to slowly, methodically remove it as best we can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Vaseline/uranium glass is _cool_ looking. I have a few display pieces.

Another source of radioactive antiques are things made of jadeite.

safe bet that anything older then 40 years old, glass or glass-like, and florescent is probably doped with something unsafe -- but they still make wonderful trophies.

Sadly my military USSR watch with radium painted arms has faded away and no longer glows. The machined trefoil on the back lid of it is still pretty cool, though.

Also, the article mentions it briefly, but radiation is one of the things to worry about _least_ when using vintage ceramic goods. Those glazes are jam- packed with metals that are well known to be carcinogenic now-a-days.

<comment><USER7> It's still very radioactive and putting new silver-activated zinc sulphide phosphor on the dials (a risky proposition) will make it glow again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Women who painted the watches and other things with radium to make them glow in the dark became known as "radium girls."

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

They were told it was safe, so some even intentionally painted their teeth.

<comment><USER9> They were trained to twirl the paintbrush between their lips to bring it to a fine point before picking up more paint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I once had my home swept for radioactive materials (long story). After the inspectors finished a few hours of trying to distinguish a few Geiger counter clicks from the natural background, the lead tech pulled a small orange Fiestaware bowl out of his bag. "Did you know these are hot?" he asked, and put it up next to the wand. The Geiger counter just screamed, which was both alarming and reassuring given the context.

<comment><USER11> Older Fiesta dinnerware (especially in red) is quite famous for having Uranium in the glaze prior to World War 2, which was then confiscated for the war effort. I believe they then returned to using Uranium in the glaze after the war for a few years.

You can see one being checked with a geiger counter here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmDKbVUbsnk&t=394s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmDKbVUbsnk&t=394s)

[EDIT] This is covered in some detail on the wiki page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiesta_(dinnerware)#Radioactiv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiesta_\(dinnerware\)#Radioactive_glazes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Heard about Radithor, and old energy drink containing radium, on a podcast a while back: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor)

> Eben Byers, a wealthy American socialite, athlete, industrialist and Yale > College graduate, died from Radithor radium poisoning in 1932. Byers was > buried in a lead-lined coffin; when exhumed in 1965 for study, his remains > were still highly radioactive.

Apparently the bottles are still collectors' items.

</comment><comment><USER13> My parents were antique collectors. They were very proud of a glow-in-the-dark fireman's helmet circa 1940's that my dad bought. They told me it was radium paint and to keep away from it.

I will say it does it's job. That helmet was still glowing in the dark just fine

<comment><USER14> Did it glow continuously or only for a few minutes after exposure to light? A sibling comment has suggested that it wasn't actually radium paint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some photographic lenses have throrium[1] glass. Even though it is mildly radioactive, it's pretty safe to use.

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

<comment><USER16> Some viewfinder are made with thoriated glass too, which is much more problematic because they blast alpha rays straight to your eye while in use.

Lenses, as you pointed, are safe: [http://www.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:652338/FULLTEXT01...](http://www.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:652338/FULLTEXT01.pdf) I'd avoid dropping/breaking one indoor though.

<comment><USER15> Which cameras had thoriated glass for their viewfinders?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here is an interesting article I found a while ago on this subject by a vintage watch collector who took some measurements of his radium dial watches using a Geiger counter:

[https://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/luminous.php](https://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/luminous.php)

The dose rates that he measured varied considerably depending on the watch. One very radioactive one was about ~30 times the background dose rate with the glass off and in very close proximity. Probably not something you'd want to wear on your wrist every day...

<comment><USER18> I think it would still be pretty safe to wear every day

Whole body Ambient radiation dose is about 0.3 rem/year. You could assume your wrist is about 1% of this or 0.003 rem. 30x would be 0.09 rem.

The OSHA safety limit is 75 rem per year to the hands of workers, which is about 800x higher than the watch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Apparently David Hahn used the radium paint from old clocks to make a neutron gun for irradiating his DIY nuclear reactor.

If you haven't heard about that, it's a remarkable story about a precocious kid who could put Ferris Bueller to shame. He cons material supply companies, gets arrested for stealing smoke detectors, and single-handedly creates a superfund site. And in the end, he gets to fulfill his dream of working with nuclear energy by serving on a nuclear aircraft carrier.

Honestly, it reads like a movie script and makes me ashamed of how I squandered my youth:

[https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy- scou...](https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scout/)

Also, if you can find a PDF of "The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments" which that article occasionally quotes...wow. How did kids survive the '70s? Page 35, "making chlorine gas in the home lab"...

</comment><comment><USER20> Missing from this list are some historical and modern sources.

This EPA page has a better list [https://www.epa.gov/radiation/what-kinds- consumer-products-c...](https://www.epa.gov/radiation/what-kinds-consumer- products-contain-radioactive-materials)

Missing from both is radioactive electronics. In lamps, electron sources, spark gaps, it's common to use radioactive materials to make ionization easier. In a lamp for example this would make it start at lower voltage

[https://instructional- resources.physics.uiowa.edu/demos/7d30...](https://instructional- resources.physics.uiowa.edu/demos/7d3046-fluorescent-lights-radioactive- starter-ballasts)

[https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/elec...](https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/electrontubes.htm)

</comment><comment><USER21> There are also old smoke detectors that contain alpha-emitting americium.

[https://www.epa.gov/radtown/americium-ionization-smoke- detec...](https://www.epa.gov/radtown/americium-ionization-smoke-detectors)

<comment><USER22> Those are common and still sold everywhere (I have 6 of them around my house). As long as you don't chop up your smoke detector or try eating it, it's not a big risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The danger from radiation in these products is so low it shouldn't be a problem unless you ingest or inhale it.

</comment><comment><USER24> radon gas map [https://cdn.treehouseinternetgroup.com/cms_images/509/radon-...](https://cdn.treehouseinternetgroup.com/cms_images/509/radon- zones-epa-map.jpg)</comment>


Gitlab 11.11 released with Multi-Assignment for MRs and container enhancements - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/2019/05/22/gitlab-11-11-released/ <comment><USER2> Here's the overview of the three main improvements in this release:

1\. Windows Container Executor is added to the GitLab Runner for using Docker containers on Windows. Previously, using the shell executor to orchestrate Docker commands was the primary approach for Windows, but with this update, you are now able to use Docker containers on Windows directly, in much the same way as if they were on Linux hosts. This opens up the door for more advanced kinds of pipeline orchestration and management for our users of Microsoft platforms. [1]

Included with this update is improved support for PowerShell throughout GitLab CI/CD, as well as new helper images for various versions of Windows containers. Please note that your own Windows runners can be used with GitLab.com, but are not currently available as part of the shared public fleet.

2\. Multiple Assignees for Merge Requests - in GitLab 11.11, merge requests allow multiple assignees so all the people who are responsible for the change can be assigned to merge request. As with multiple assignees for issues, lists, filtering and notifications, and the API, all support multiple assignees for merge requests.

3\. Caching Dependency Proxy for Container Registry. Lots of teams are using containers as part of their build pipelines, and having a caching proxy for frequently used upstream images/packages is a good way to speed up your pipelines. By keeping a copy of needed layers locally using the new caching proxy, you can improve execution performance for commonly used images in your environment.

For this initial iteration, the container proxy is only available for self- managed instances using the Puma (experimental) web server. Note that it's available only to Premium and Ultimate tiers.

Docs:

[1] - [https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/executors/docker.html#using-w...](https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/executors/docker.html#using- windows-containers)

[2] - [https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/#mult...](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/#multiple- assignees-starter)

[3] - [https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/dependency_proxy/](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/dependency_proxy/)</comment>


iOS: Using Keychain to Get a Persistent, Cross-Install Device Identifier - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lqd.io/persistent-device-unique-identifier-ios-keychain/

<comment><USER2> This is cool. I have been through the pain of removing UDID from a large production application.

So on the surface this seems like a great idea. Has anyone read the decisions surrounding apple's desire for people to not use a UDID? I'm curious, if this is 100% within the OK zone, where one could depend on it?

<comment><USER3> I don't see any reason why Apple wouldn't allow you to rely on some id that only makes sense for your use case and can't be used in any malicious intent. Also see my reply to therealidiot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Assuming Apple did indeed remove the previous identifiers to curb tracking, this seems like trying to do something that Apple has tried to disallow...

Perhaps it's not quite as it seems, I don't even know.

<comment><USER5> I would say that this approach is 100% allowed by Apple, as it doesn't allow device tracking between different apps (specially if you skip the IFA step). That was the main concern of Apple, that lead to disallow developers from accessing UUDID, mainly because it allowed advertising services to cross usage data between different apps.

Using Keychain to store your UID just ensures you don't lose _your_ UID, not a system-wide UID.</comment></comment>


Show HN: our MVP landinggear.me for building landing pages - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
www.LandingGear.me is designed specifically for building single page landing pages.
Our first MVP got a good response with a few hundred people visiting and downloading templates.
So we've taken it to the next level of development, added more features and functions and added an option to pay.
We're now wanting to get a little more validation and feedback.
Would you mind please having a look and posting your feedback here?
thanks!
Anton Winter <comment><USER2> This is great! Will definitely be using this. Any plans to integrate email subscription functionality or at least offer a section to add in mail chimp code?

<comment><USER3> Would love to see that mail chimp option. Also I'd like to have more images. Why not use some images form unsplash, little visuals etc. I remember a hn post couple of weeks ago which had a list of stock photo with a license attached so that you could use them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is cool! Would serve me well when I put out an MVP. I was thinking launchrock, but this seems much more flexible.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the praise :) putting out MVP launch pages is what its great for. The vision we have is to have it being a single page website construction set, so not just launch pages, but for anything that lives in single page world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Clickable

[http://www.LandingGear.me](http://www.LandingGear.me)</comment>


The real fix for Obamacare's flaws: Medicare for all - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/27/obamacare-flaws-medicare-for-all

<comment><USER2> Medicare is largely delivered through private for-profit Medicare Advantage plans that are publicly subsidized. People should stop saying "Medicare for all" when they are trying to advocate for exclusive public single-payer without private for-profit insurers between the public funding and the individual insured, since Medicare _hasn 't worked that way for decades_.</comment>


India fastest app market in the world - <AUTHOR> http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/india-is-the-fastest-growing-mobile-app-market-yahoo/articleshow/47875388.cms

<comment><AUTHOR> More security issues?</comment>


FuelUX a lightweight client library  - <AUTHOR> http://erjjones.github.com/blog/FuelUX-a-library-that-extends-twitter-bootstrap/

<comment><USER2> Awesome writeup sir! Thanks for the helpful introductory post.</comment>


Anonymity in Account-Based Blockchains - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@exantech/about-anonymity-in-account-based-blockchains-22a1ce5b0c7b <comment><USER2> How much gas would a Zether tx cost?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no production implementation of Zether yet, but the paper estimated gas cost about 7188k for transfer.

Also, it worth to mention that "users would have no way to know if their transaction would be the first in an epoch, so they cannot estimate the right amount of gas to supply", i.e. first transaction in an epoch could use more gas than the next one.

<comment><USER2> At a gas price of 2 gwei, that's $3-4 per tx? And the network is not congested right now.

Any plans to make it less expensive?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's about $3 per tx with current Ethereum price.

90% of that gas is consumed for elliptic curve operations, so if some of the next network hardforks would make them cheaper (as it was already done for some instructions) then the whole cost of tx in Zether will be much less expensive.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is The Federation the Ultimate Communist State? - <AUTHOR> http://www.kyradesign.co.uk/kate/opinion/trek.html <comment><USER2> "Clearly, the Federation are the metaphoric U.S. of A."

Really? I thought the Federation was the metaphoric United Nations? For example, from [https://web.archive.org/web/20110718082040/http://woodygoula...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110718082040/http://woodygoulart.com/wg/trekology/star- trek/gene-roddenberry/) :

> "Roddenberry admits there are hidden covert messages in the show. There's an > anti-war message, with the United Federation of Planets as an ideal United > Nations.

"On several occasions, the fact that the Federation uses no money is mentioned. Either, in the 24th century, humankind, and in fact most of the galaxy, has regressed to a barter system"

Anthropologist David Graeber, in "Debt: The First 5000 Years", argues that "debt and credit historically appeared before money, which itself appeared before barter. This is the opposite of the narrative given in standard economics texts dating back to Adam Smith." (Quoting Wikipedia.)

While I have not the background to know if this is correct, I don't think Adam Smith had that background either. Graeber's view does help interpret the non- monetary social systems that appear in a company or other large organization. I think it's a good caution that a phrase like 'regressed to a barter system' may be too simplistic to be meaningful.

"a slightly worrying situation when Deanna is able to trace all of the descendants of a re-animated 20th century cryogenically preserved woman on the Enterprise computer. It seems as though starships are equipped with data files (including addresses and photos?!?) for every citizen on Earth. Worried? You should be"

It's worrisome that the 24th century equivalent of Facebook, and or Mormon geneologists, have data caches in every starship? Should the good citizens of Iceland be worried about the Íslendingabók?</comment>


Apple and Android get drafted, soldier-centric Army apps coming soon - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/17/apple-and-android-get-drafted-soldier-centric-army-apps-coming/ <comment><AUTHOR> Raytheon has been doing this for a while: [http://investor.raytheon.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=84193&p=iro...](http://investor.raytheon.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=84193&p=irol- newsArticle&id=1367096)

IIRC one app actually plots your allies on a gps map.</comment>


Introducing Traveling Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://phusion.github.io/traveling-ruby/ <comment><USER2> Sorry to seem negative, but what does this give that traditional package managers don't?

The pain of ruby versions / gem versions are often felt by developers who are working with various untested components.

For traditional end users a package manager hides all of this and by typing "pkgmgr install rubyapp" it will pull in stable and well tested versions of ruby plus any dependencies. Applications installed this way should just work without the user going anywhere near rubygems.

So the real value added here is for developers not having to create/manage packages? Surely this is offset by the huge number of issues that working outside of a package manager causes. No shared libraries/dependencies, no universal way to update everything, no ability to manage installations with tools such as puppet/chef, no global mirror network, no assurances of package integrity, ect.

<comment><USER3> Most folks using macs don't use a package manager.

<comment><USER4> Not sure what you meant with _most folks_, but I'm under the impression that most people on mac, who use the Terminal on a daily basis, use homebrew as their package manager.

edit: typo

<comment><USER5> Most people on mac don't use the Terminal.

I don't think the target audience (end users) are people who use the Terminal on a daily basis.

<comment><USER6> Actually, the target audience of Traveling Ruby _is_ primarily users who use the terminal often. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8718614](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8718614), where I explicitly mentioned Chef Solo and Heroku Toolbelt as two example use cases for Traveling Ruby.

You can still use Traveling Ruby as part of a toolkit for making an app that's targeted at non-terminal-using end users. For example, by making a GUI app that shells out to a CLI engine that's written in Ruby, powered by Traveling Ruby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is very interesting. How will this affect RubyMotion?

<comment><USER6> Traveling Ruby author here. This is not for phone apps. It is for Linux and OS X apps.

It is also not for graphical apps. Instead, it's primarily for command line apps. Potential examples of use cases that it's trying to cover:

\- Chef Solo

\- Heroku Toolbelt

Both of the above are written in Ruby, and both of them are command line apps targeting users who are familiar with the command line, but neither of them are necessarily used by Ruby programmers. Thus, users of the above two tools should not have to install Ruby first.

<comment><USER8> Great project! Also, why not target the regular chef-client too? Managing a ruby installation with gems may be unnecessary on servers too.

<comment><USER6> I only spelled out potential use cases. Opscode might also be able to use Traveling Ruby to package chef-client, but I've only had experience with chef- solo so I can't comment on chef-client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious if Docker is a build-time or run-time dependency on Linux. I tried to pick apart the Linux build script, but it's pretty complicated.

<comment><USER6> Built time only. Docker is only used by the Traveling Ruby authors (i.e. Phusion and contributors) for _building_ the binaries. You, as a Ruby developer who just wants to distribute your app, just uses the binaries that we have already built and uploaded somewhere. There is no need for _you_ to run Docker.

On Linux, Docker is used to provide a controlled, isolated build environment. In other words, it serves as a "holy build box" ([https://github.com/phusion/traveling-ruby#why-it-is- difficul...](https://github.com/phusion/traveling-ruby#why-it-is-difficult-to- supply-a-precompiled-ruby-interpreter-that-works-for-all-end-users)). There is no native Docker for OS X (i.e. a Docker which can run OS X binaries) so on OS X we try to get as close to an isolated, controlled build environment as we can by setting various environment variables ([https://github.com/phusion/traveling- ruby/blob/master/osx/in...](https://github.com/phusion/traveling- ruby/blob/master/osx/internal/reset_environment.sh)), but it's not perfect and I'm sure someone will have just the right amount of Homebrew libraries to interfere with it.

The build scripts are pretty simple. It needs more documentation, but here's the gist:

\- setup-docker-container - builds a Docker container which will function as an isolated build environment. Only need to do this once.

\- setup-runtime - builds a runtime which is used inside the Docker container. Builds mock chroots and stuff. Only need to do this once. The only reason why this exists is because of limitations in Docker.

\- build - builds Ruby binaries, given a runtime directory. It spawns a Docker container which performs the actual building. Inside the Docker container, it invokes the compiler, copies stuff around, etc.

Just follow the hello world tutorial and you'll see how it works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very awesome, I had some headaches with this kind of stuff in college.

</comment><comment><USER11> That's exactly why I don't like ruby. A ruby app usually does not integrate very well with other ruby apps on the system. Especially when company policy mandates that system ruby versions need to be used.

/rant

It's my experience that ruby applications usually require the $latest ruby version. Getting it to run properly with other ruby (diva) applications is just a pain. This is especially annoying if the applications are managed with a deployment tool like puppet. Applying $PATH quirks to get a nice and consistent layout on these machines is not really the solution. Now, your solution whilst certainly being neat just creates another intermediate layer. I'm not sure if this is the solution. How do people manage the os updates on docker images? How how do people handle application updates? What if I want to define that in a sane manner? With puppet I can define a nice and sane process that handles everything from installation to updates to the removal of an app. I have a clear history and I'm able to see what is going on on the machine. I also have a defined and clear process to update the machines.

I'm just guessing but I don't think that your solution is going to work for gitlab without applying a couple of patches to the source files. Routing SSH through port 22 of the host system is going to be a real pain. It also makes future updates a cheerful occurrence.

Nowadays I mostly do development in C, C++ and C# (OSX/Windows and some embedded stuff). Whenever I hear `ruby` or `gem` I start running :)

I also had similar problems with a Go application recently (can you guess which one?).

<comment><USER6> Traveling Ruby is not meant to be used by users to package up an existing app. It's meant to be used by app developers to package up their apps. You would never use Traveling Ruby to package up Gitlab; instead, Gitlab HQ might use Traveling Ruby to package up Gitlab.

I'm not sure who your rant is targeted at. Traveling Ruby is meant to solve exactly the problem that you're ranting about. Developers use Traveling Ruby to create a package that is self-contained, and no further dependencies, and doesn't conflict with any of the stuff that is already installed.

Think of a Traveling Ruby-packaged app as a single exe. Not physically (because the package consists of multiple files), but spiritually/conceptually (because as a user, you only run a single file, and the result doesn't conflict with anything else on the system). You can compare it spiritually to Go. Go produces single binaries with no dependencies, that you can just run.

You can still integrate this stuff with Puppet or Chef or whatever; Traveling Ruby doesn't stop you from doing that, not makes it harder for you.</comment></comment>


The Importance of Working with Great Co-Founders - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rocco.ai/the-importance-of-working-with-great-co-founders-81dda890a170 <comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone of thoughts/experiences/learnings around co-founders? Would love to quote you and share with the rest of the community!

</comment><comment><USER2> thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> no problem. hope it was an okay read :)</comment></comment>


Tell HN: If you're running this years April Fools project, you're expendable - <AUTHOR>

Nearly ready for the most hilarious day of the year?
Just remember if the CEO thinks that you're just the right person to run this years bigger-than-ever April Fools hoax, you'll also be first out the door when the downturn comes.
The CEO knows who is doing real work. <comment><USER2> Sounds like you have an axe to grind. Maybe it's best to address this issue directly rather than making passive-aggressive public posts in hopes that whoever you're upset with will read them, or random strangers will agree with you.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, you can tell more about the poster than about the demographic they would like to be referring to. "Does not follow" arguments are often like that. Still full of data, just not on the subject as much as on the speaker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> High profile April Fools hoaxes can serve as a massive boost to brand awareness and could be seen as a large scale marketing campaign.

That's my impression anyway, I've never worked anywhere that has done one.

</comment><comment><USER5> Judging by some of blizzard's april fool's they put some of their prime talent there. Depends on the company I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER6> or he might promote the guy to Chief Jesting Officer and put him in charge of company culture. He'd have my vote!</comment>


Apple Releases Dedicated iOS Podcasts App - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/podcasts/id525463029?mt=8 <comment><USER3> Apple's highly questionable and deeply unfortunate skeuomorphism kick continues unabated. Now we're treated to a radio dial which died out in 1995, and playing podcasts presents a reel-to-reel, which died out in god knows when.

It's completely bizarre. I guess podcasts are a form of talk radio, but tying them to some ancient radio technology that anyone under the age of 18 will have never touched is mental. They're even called podcasts: they arose because of the popularity of the iPod! Insane.

Apple really need to sort their designers out. I wish we could somehow have Microsoft's new Metro design aesthetics on Mac OS X and iOS, then I could have the best apps and OS design, and the best UI to use with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's as heavy-handed as you suggest. Most of the app's navigation is handled by tableviews and collection views. The dial that you reference is really a sideways scrollview (albeit with a material skin)--this controls a non-skeuomorphic list in an intuitive way that isn't confined to the limitations of a physical radio's interface.

I'll grant that the tape deck is outdated, but it's a largely hidden little visual treat that suggests a hidden mechanism underneath AND provides visual feedback on playback speed.

Skeuomorphism is bad when it restricts the UI to the properties of physical objects, but in this case Apple hasn't done that.

<comment><USER4> There's no way the Podcasts app could be using collection views, because it runs on iOS 5.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm using the term "collection view" in a generic way. Grid view-like interfaces appear elsewhere pre-iOS 6, like in iBooks for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use Downcast every day, not even as an advanced user, but just because I need to download podcasts on-the-go. This sucks in comparison.

* Catalog (aka Store) is very slow and clunky. Takes 5-10 seconds to flag episodes as "Downloaded" after I click on a podcast I have episodes for.

* Clicking download button takes 4-5 seconds to react. Progress of download is not shown in store, but only in Library.

* No connection between podcasts you downloaded and those in the store. So if you want to get more episodes, you need to search again. Why?

* No way to add podcasts by URL.

* Descriptions are cut-off after a line or so with [...], even if you press the "i" button.

* No position indicator. Oh wait, it's hidden behind the cover image and you need to tap to switch. And that's the default view every time.

* The position indicator has buttons at either end. They don't do anything. Or do they?? They're certainly really small.

* Some of the stuff hidden behind the cover image is a button. Some of it is just shiny bits of the reel-to-reel. Guess which is which from a foot away!

* Only fast speed is 2x which is too fast. Only slow speed is 1/2x which is too slow.

* The share buttons everywhere just link to the podcast in general, not the episode.

* Generally sluggish on an iPhone 4.

Honestly, this seems like the kind of stuff Apple is supposed to be better than.

<comment><USER6> If you add podcasts by URL, you are probably an advanced user.

<comment><USER5> I guess? It doesn't feel advanced, it's just that one podcast that I listen to is a podcast Apple doesn't list. So I can't switch to this. Like "oh, you want to listen to music that's not in the app store? That's an advanced feature."

And this is actually a lost feature relative to desktop iTunes: <http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/fanfaq.html>

"It's easy to subscribe to any podcast using iTunes, even ones that aren't available in the iTunes Store. "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I understand why Apple felt the need to create this app. The current method of managing and listening to podcasts is split between iTunes and the Music app, and holds on to old models of syncing between the computer and the iPhone / iPod. It's a mess, and that, of course, is why there are third-party apps that have been doing a better job for podcast enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, this is bad news for the makers of the third-party apps. My personal favorite is Pocket Casts. They put a lot of work into creating a great user experience for podcast listeners, which seems to have been replicated in some ways in Apple's "official" podcast app. (I'm not saying Apple copied them, just that some of their UX conventions also exist in the Podcasts app.)

As I say, Apple did need to fix the current way podcasts are handled in iOS. Overall, it's probably going to be a good thing for podcasters, as it will make it easier for the average consumer to subscribe and consume podcasts.

It just makes me feel bad for the app developers who have gone through so much work to create excellent products, only to see their role shoved out of the way as Apple integrates this new feature into iOS. It's an old story; Apple's been doing this sort of thing on the Mac for ages (remember Coverflow?), but it still gets to me a bit. I'll keep using and loving Pocket Casts, I just hope they and others can compete now that Apple's got their own Podcasts app.

<comment><USER8> I think there is plenty of room for multiple podcast apps to do well, even with Apple's version present. Podcasts really do make up an important part of many people's day (not unlike an audiobook, or NPR, H. Stern, Rush, etc.), and the way people want to consume and manage podcasts varies substantially and that opens up possibilities for multiple apps.

I don't even see it as that far-fetched to imagine this addition _helping_ 3rd party apps. Say Average Joe doesn't even know what a podcast is, but the Apple app is interesting enough that he tries it/them out and suddenly "podcast" is on his radar. He is now a new potential customer for a 3rd party app that has a feature he'd like but is missing from the Apple app.

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, it is possible that Apple simply removes competing 3rd party apps from the appstore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> About 80% of my walking around time is spent listening to podcasts, and I've been waiting for this for a long, long time. Namely:

\- A podcast app that's separate from Music. They're really two entirely different tasks, and I don't like losing place in a playlist just to listen to a podcast, and vice versa.

\- Buttons for skipping forward and ahead within a track.

\- Never losing place in a podcast when switching tracks. This was a huge problem with the popup playback controls, where it's far too easy to hit rewind instead of pause.

\- The ability to download and update podcast subscriptions directly from the device.

\- Syncing listened/unlistened and playback state between devices.

I think they've covered all of my issues with podcasts, and it's a beautifully designed app (I have a particular fondness for reel-to-reel decks). Well done, Apple.

<comment><USER11> You didn't like Downcast, or Instacast, or Pocket Cast?

I use Downcast and like it a lot. I wasn't a major podcast person before --- I'd grab the "podcast version" of the latest episodes of things I'd listen to on NPR --- but having a client keep up with all that stuff for me is a bit of a revelation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cool app in a lot of ways, but its conceptual hierarchy seems weird to me so far — the main section that you're presented with upon launch (the "Library") has a tab bar at the bottom split between "Podcasts", showing podcasts you've subscribed to and/or downloaded episodes from, and "Top Stations", showing popular podcasts on the iTunes Store. So far so good.

But then there's also a "Catalog" button at the top-left that "flips the app over" (a la iBooks) and shows you a general store-browsing interface. The corresponding button to get back—which, I'll note, is on the opposite side in that view!—is labeled "Library".

tl;dr: There are Store interfaces in both the Library and the Catalog, seeming to break the conceptual hierarchy, and thus annoying me.

</comment><comment><USER13> So,in the future, iOS will no longer have built in podcast support? iPhone users will now always have to download a separate app to get podcasts?

This is a huge set-back for the podcast medium. There is so much friction convincing potential blue water podcast listeners to subscribe to podcasts.

Haters are going to automatically say "podcasts are a niche, they have a small audience" so who cares? Well, before Apple put in built in support for smart phone apps in iOS with an app store on the home screen. The smartphone app audience was one of the smallest around. Now look at where we are.

<comment><USER14> Personally I hope they do more apps as app store downloads. I don't want a stock app and I want a different calculator app. They can come pre-installed, but I want to be able to delete them and redownload them as necessary.

Podcasts weren't particularly visible before. I may be remembering wrong (I've changed the tab order in my own app) but Podcasts were hidden under the "More..." tab.

<comment><USER13> Ok, if someone tweets to you "Check out this cool podcast" and provides a direct link, how many steps does it take for you to subscribe?

<comment><USER15> The podcast app is an improvement to the old way, requiring a person to go to their computer and load up iTunes, then to sync.

<comment><USER13> But a much better way would have just been to add a "subscribe" button to podcasts in the itunes store, even if they were still in the music app, (which was once called the "iPod" app). Just as magazines in Newstand are allowed to let users subscribe and download new issues in the background.

Being in the music app also allowed them to be searchable by spotlight, which even gave you a blue indicator of what episode was un-listened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I found the Music app painful to use for my podcasts. Not sure how much better this will make it. On the other hand I purchased Instacast and it is one of the most used apps on my phone.

<comment><USER17> Same here. I downloaded the Podcasts app, but it's so limited that I'll continue using Instacast. Same deal when Reading List came out; I'm still a happy Instapaper user. I think it will actually have advantageous effects for third party podcast apps: more people will get acquianted with podcasts and when they need something more powerful, they know where to look for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lately I have been having this thought that Apple ought to do the right thing and compensate app publishers when it chooses to, effectively, take them out with their own version of their apps. From an ethical standpoint I really don't like the idea of them watching, learning, observing and then damaging those who put lots of time and effort into understanding a problem and developing solutions for them. They've done this with e-books and other areas and now podcasts.

I am not saying that they should not publish their own versions of these apps. All I am suggesting is that the right thing for them to do is to financially recognize those who paved the road ahead of them.

To be clear, I am not and have not been affected by any of these Apple- released apps. I do fear the potential to come-up with something popular only to be taken out by the mother-ship.

<comment><USER19> This is a nice thought, but I don't think it's realistic. Most of Apple's value comes from refining the work of others. They didn't invent the computer, the music player, or the phone, they just made great versions of each of these things. I'd argue that Apple couldn't exist at all if they paid everyone who's work influenced them. They'd have to give away everything.

I'm being easy on Apple by talking about hardware items, I know. Apple's worst sins are when they rip off software. And it's frustrating how sometimes they'll buy it (Coverflow) and sometimes they won't (Watson). The way they go about it feels mean. But it just shows how competitive they are. Ruthless even. They'd rather play dirty and win than lose with honor. It's hard to stay mad at them though because they do it all with such good taste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I assume that Music will still support podcasts?

I'm miffed that videos were moved to an entirely different app; I'm subscribed to the TED talks video podcasts, but have to launch an entirely different application to listen to them (and yup, I listen to 99% of them as I'm walking around instead of watching them.)

<comment><AUTHOR> It won't. Podcasts are removed from Music in iOS 6.

<comment><USER21> Are you kidding me? Currently my car radio can control the music app and let me listen to podcasts. Why would they take that functionality away?

<comment><USER22> Your car radio can control any app that supports the remote control API, which podcasts does.

<comment><USER21> Interesting -- what other apps use the remote control API? I have never been able to control anything other than "Music" with either of my cars.

Aside from using the phone to make calls, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does the Unplayed Episodes list seem the wrong way round to anyone else? I generally want to start listening oldest first because newer things refer to older things.

</comment><comment><USER23> Breaking the podcast functionality out into its own app is interesting, but the 50MB limit for cellular downloads means that it's still completely useless for me.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, the average podcast I listen to is around an hour to 90 minutes, and that ends up being 45-70 MB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Relevant to the "Apple changes App Store search" story from the last couple of days: I am so far completely unable to find this app by searching for "podcasts", or even "podcasts apple".

A quick Google search, on the other hand, worked instantly.

<comment> k-mcgrady When new apps are released they are usually available via direct link before they start appearing in search results. The roll out is gradual on a per country basis. With my apps it can take 1-3 hours before they appear in search on all stores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hopefully, Apple will _finally_ let me pay for a subscription to my beloved HyperCritical PodCast. I already Pay $5/month to 5by5 - and was considering increasing that - but I would happily pay $2-$3/month for a subscription to Hypercritical. John Siracusa puts an insane amount of effort into preparation, and even when I vehemently disagree with him (he's opposed to patents) - <USER2> still find his perspectives and intellectual rigor intriguing.

</comment><comment><USER14> So happy there's an official way to do subscription. The app's a little underwealming though.

The fact they seem to have forgotten to stop the Subscription and Auto- Download cells from highlighting when you tap them is an indication of the lack of polish.

It's generally pretty laggy, especially trying to do things like scrub through a track and I've had it crash several times already just trying to select podcasts.

</comment><comment><USER26> I like the radio dial, seems like a nice way to browse the different categories.

But this Podcasts app is missing 1 crucial feature it looks like - no ability to let you know the podcasts you are subscribed to have new episodes. I'm hoping that is expanded upon in iOS 6. Otherwise you still have to rely on syncing with iTunes.

<comment><USER12> Have you switched the "Subscription" toggle on for any of the podcasts you have? (Note this also reveals an "Auto-Download" toggle.) From the Episodes view, tap on the podcast itself at the top.

I haven't had any podcasts update in the last few minutes, I don't think, so I haven't been able to test it.

<comment><USER27> It's really odd that doesn't transfer over. I also find the way to get to the per-podcast settings was very unintuitive, it took me a couple of tries to find it.

The thing I find _really_ odd is the recommended podcasts in the catalog.

So many of them don't have pictures, and many that do have pictures that aren't descriptive at all (just a person's face, no way to know it's a knitting podcast). And the picture is all you have to go by, there is no text unless you press the little info button.

I'd expect podcasts will start adding pictures now that they have another reason to, but I'm surprised Apple didn't filter out such podcasts from the top lists. It seemed very un-Apple-ly to go to a category and see up to 50% of the entries in some categories are just placeholder images. There is also no way to tell which don't have images and which are currently pulling the image over the network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It currently isn't showing up if you search for "podcasts" but does if you search for "podcasts apple" although it won't be obvious it's from Apple until after you tap the result.

<comment><USER29> Thanks I thought it was another app not supported in Canada once again. Not the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Come on Apple. Release a decent Audiobook app for iPad and I swear I won't speak ill about you again (I've submitted quite a few foul-mouthed bug reports and feature requests about iPad's Music.app in iOS 5, 6 and continue to do so every month).

That lousy, disgusting 'new' Music.app on iOS 5.0 (on iPad) was the reason I bought an iPhone. I just couldn't stand that app (I listen to audiobooks quite often).

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady I thought this was going to happen when it was left out of the iOS 6 beta but I didn't think we'd see it until the new iPhone/iOS launch. Glad they are putting it out now.

I'm curious to see what, if any, impact this has on podcast creators. If Apple pushes it the way they do iBooks and other Apple iOS apps it could be huge for them.

</comment><comment><USER31> Just gave it a shot, and I wasn't impressed in the least. These types of apps are where Apple really fails. It's like they don't use the same designers they do for any of their other products on these small apps.

The interface is lousy, and very similar to the Music app. Discovery doesn't seem very useful either.

This might be useful for a 'light-weight' user and listener of podcasts but this doesn't even come close to apps like Downcast in terms of features.

<comment> k-mcgrady I think Apple is probably targeting the light-weight users and trying to attract new users. Advanced podcasts features are something relatively few people care about. I listen to several podcasts daily and 99% of the time I just press play. I don't care about setting speed, bookmarks, or any of the other featured apps like Instacast (which I use) offer. It's great that these apps are still available on the store and good for the developers that Apple hasn't just killed their business with a free alternative.

<comment><USER31> I am actually happy that this app is not what I want because I hope that this is the same sentiment for others. This will allow apps like Downcast and Instacast to further survive.

My other gripe is the navigation is too stylized for my taste. I am not looking for my podcasting app to be an experience, just function as a tool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> YES! This means Apple will finally let us sync podcasts between computers wirelessly!

</comment><comment><USER33> FYI, requires iOS 5.1

</comment><comment><USER34> It's broken, probably an accident release.

<comment> k-mcgrady In what way is it broken?

Edit: I've noticed one bug so far with the search UI (search bar moves over the navigation bar after a search) but apart from that it's working fine.

<comment><USER34> Search doesn't work, UISearcBar X button is misaligned, when you focus out from search the cancel button goes inside uisearchbar

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Phooey. Requires iOS 5.1.. guess it's time to upgrade and see if my jailbreak will hold.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm glad. The Music app is pretty bad at podcasts.

<comment><USER37> I don't know, this one isn't that great and I prefer the music app after using this one casually this afternoon on the way home.

The download model doesn't seem as neat as the itunes separation. I keep current on my podcasts on my desktop, and I "catch up" on my iPhone. There's no way to trail behind a podcast (I use "sync 5 oldest unplayed").

Also, it didn't resume playing after receiving a phone call. Not a big deal, but it's another annoyance.

For the time being I put the Podcast app in a folder and switched back to the Music app. I personally find nothing wrong with the Music app and will continue to use it - whenever I upgrade to iOS 6 I'll probably take a look at 3rd party podcast apps.</comment></comment>


ShadesSCSS – Light Weight and Customisable Sass Boilerplate - <AUTHOR> https://ojanti.github.io/ShadesSCSS-Documentation/ <comment><AUTHOR> ShadesSCSS is a light weight Sass boilerplate for creating & customizing themes quickly. All you have to do is set basic values for configuration and compile to create a new theme. ShadesSCSS doesnt get in your way. It gives you just enough to get going and leaves you to go crazy with your designs</comment>


Ask HN: 200k of cloud credits expiring soon. What do I do? - <AUTHOR> I received 250k of Azure credits as part of participation in a startup accelerator. The company I founded is no longer running, and I don't have any real desire to use the credits to build something (there's also not enough time). The thing is that they expire very soon, in about two months. I'm interested in ideas about how to make the best use of the credits in the short time remaining. If someone needs some compute power for a good cause etc. Please help me save these credits from just vanishing. (I know I can't sell them, so please don't ask, or berate me as if I'm asking for bids.) <comment><USER2> [https://www.kaggle.com/c/deepfake-detection- challenge](https://www.kaggle.com/c/deepfake-detection-challenge)

Training data set is close to half a terabyte

$250K translates to about two months training time on 100 Azure GPUs which should yield a very competitive model

Grand Prize for winning is $1M

Best of luck ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> I crawled certain websites to build large datasets.

I have tried taking a open source web application and tried load testing and identify bottlenecks and how to overcome the bottleneck and repeat, now I understand scaling applications better.

these ideas may not consume all the credits, but this can help you have some skills which can be helpful for your next job till you become a startup founder again

<comment><USER4> What are examples of some datasets you built?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe something like seti@home or proteinfolding@home?

</comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps the Reproducible Builds project can use some of them?

[https://reproducible-builds.org/](https://reproducible-builds.org/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Mine some cryptocurrencies

<comment><USER8> against TOS</comment></comment>