Terry Davis Uses This - <AUTHOR> http://terry.davis.usesthis.com/ <comment><USER2> I have a lot of respect for Terry and it's nice to see him included alongside other developers. He's not the most likeable guy, but I doubt he's happy about that either.

He writes software to be beautiful. He can take pride in his work because his intentions are absolutely pure. When I program, I take shortcuts to ship as quickly as possible, and then I throw some ads on the final product to make money. I am a sellout, but Terry is not, and I envy him for that.

I especially like his HolyC language. It is simple, elegant, and comfortably familiar:

[http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/HolyC.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/HolyC.html)

<comment><USER3> When we speak of TempleOS, and you mention "He can take pride in", I am reminded of this wonderful thread at mefi from 2012:

Terry:

"The flight simulator reduces how far you can see into the distance and how wide the display is. It's nothing to be proud of, except, it show the potential for absolute control over the other cores from within a game."

Commenter, in response:

"bro i think you can be proud of the flight simulator you wrote for the operating system you also wrote"

It made my day to see him on "usesthis".

<comment><USER4> That's always been my favorite response to him, as well. It made me tear up a bit reading it.

Here's the thread, for anyone interested: [http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for- Son...](http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Songs-from- God)

<comment><USER5> thanks for the link, that was a great read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since TempleOSV207 is shadowbanned here's his response in this thread:

> Yeah, I did. Now, I use Linux. Normally stuff like this launched me into an > existential crisis. "Oh, God, the stress! Why God!? My world has a MAJOR > thing to worry about -- misleading people maybe or something like that." I'm > not quite as much a coward. I think I had good reason. Cowardess is not a > virtue. God loved King David. Damn, I look awful. Oh well. I've become a > freak hermit-- don't know how to smile, anymore.

> You poor people don't know God. \-----

<comment><USER7> > You poor people don't know God.

This is a blaming statement and is misleading in and of itself. How can you possibly know what I know or what I don't know?

<comment><USER8> Don't worry about it. He is schizophrenic and believes God talks directly to him. If you had this problem, you probably wouldn't want to take medication for it. He thinks he has been chosen. It really isn't under his control.

<comment><USER9> I had an uncle with schizophrenia (and a father with much less severe symptoms). You are right that you wouldn't want to take medication for it. To the schizophrenic mind, the benefits of schizophrenia far outweigh the costs -- and besides, you can't really trust anybody else to be either competent enough to medicate you, or to have your best interests in mind when medicating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is my favorite Terry Davis quote (from his website):

\----10/02/13 02:34:50----

I used to drink when I was young. I would wake-up and think about my shameful behavior and be stoic, I guess. Recently, I've been fighting hard to break-out of my prison. Ten years? Insanity.

God is perfectly just. Sadly, it's not like I've suffered, exactly. When you get out of control and call people "niggers", that can't be good. God talks. I'm not exactly believed. Everybody is cruel and give no clue what they make of me.

God is perfectly just. The countless generations before me? It appears that I get my own little principality of which I sometimes seem supreme.

<comment><USER11> I always die a little inside reading this guy's stuff because it's so easy to see how brilliant he is, and how much schizophrenia is affecting his talent. The worst part is that even he wants to "break out of [his] prison," and it's heartbreaking to see when somebody can't.

I've been following Davis' work for around 5 years now. What he has been able to write, and the proficiency with which he writes it, has in my opinion surpassed all the programmers whose Ruby/Haskell/Clojure dreck always appears on the HN frontpage.

<comment><USER12> Do you know what he does for a living? Ticketmaster is mentioned here and there but always in the past, it seems.

He'd be an incredible system hacker, if managed appropriately... but it's the sort of bet only great souls could make.

<comment><USER11> Well, no. I'm not that close. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a job; one of his pages mentioned he only lives on disability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Odd coincidence that I was just watching a video on TempleOS today. I had heard about Terry Davis and TempleOS previously and his God-worshipping operating system - but had never seen it in action.

This video gives you a glimpse into what he is like and what he has achieved on his quest to build the operating system for God: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EViG0Q4lTeA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EViG0Q4lTeA)

Very, very bizarre yet mildly interesting. I was surprised to read he only ever runs it in VMWare - I thought perhaps he was just running it on a very specific set of hardware.

</comment><comment><USER14> > I am aware of a 70 core Knights Landing Intel CPU coming-out. That might be > nice.

It seems that no matter who the programmer is, some constants remain: we like big numbers.

<comment><USER15> Preferably power of 2. Get rid of 6 of them ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That reminded me of "LoseThos". It would have been an interesting coincidence if multiple people were asked by God to create a 64-bit OS, but it is the same guy; he renamed it into TempleOS.

<comment><USER17> It's the same guy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am at the same time in awe at the technical accomplishment and cringing at the religious twist. I've never seen the two concerns merged quite so tightly.

</comment><comment><USER19> Doesn't running TempleOS in VMWare completely _ruin_ the aesthetic??? Pretty surprised by that part.

When I heard about LoseThos I thought it was really bad ass. Like people who build their own house from scratch and live in it. The idea was to strip it down and get close to the metal.

But if you're running it in VMWare, you basically have an entire OS underneath, a bunch of opaque code... doesn't fit IMO :/

<comment><USER20> It's very difficult to write an OS that runs on the bare metal of an arbitrary computer. One advantage of virtualization is that hardware differences are normalized, and you only have to write a few drivers.

If I was to write an OS for fun I would probably target something with fixed hardware like the RPi.

<comment> a-priori It's not terribly hard -- no harder than a platform like Raspberry Pi -- if you're fine with sticking to a standardized subset of PC hardware.

That typically means using an older, slower standard for accessing the hardware. For example, you might use VESA BIOS Extensions for graphical video output, and be limited to a 1280x1024 framebuffer, rather than write device- specific drivers which would give you access to all its GPU acceleration capabilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm going to assume Terry either found some moments of calm or changed up his meds.

Either way, nice so see him in the public eye without all the vitriol.

<comment><USER22> same here- once or twice a year, for probably the last 12 or 15 years, I'll google him to see what he's up to (it'll always be LoseThos to me :) ). About 6 months ago the stuff I came across got me worried for his well being- having had a family member suffer terribly from schizophrenia it's hard for me to see that kind of behavior as just wacky, and I hate to see anybody suffering in that way. I think a lot of people who jump on him about the religion are probably unaware of the mental illness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Could not help but wonder about this, if history was re-ordered appropriately, operating systems hacking could have been a major organized religion associated with all the heft, influence, funds and muscle that they are associated with.

Many researchers believe that the religious episodes that prophets talk about, their visions and hearings that led them to their religion, may have been psychotic episodes. I find this hypothesis extremely believable.

I think for something to become an organized religion more deliberate and political measures are required. Also needed: powerful people with axes to grind, but the roots of theistic organized religion of our times could surely have been aural/visual hallucinations and schizophrenia of their prophets who could have been just as smart, interesting, and at the same time human as Terry Davis.

[http://www.salon.com/2013/08/02/i_thought_i_was_a_prophet/](http://www.salon.com/2013/08/02/i_thought_i_was_a_prophet/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Terry Davis is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER25> He really uses internet explorer?

<comment><USER26> So? What difference dose it make?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Yeah, I did. Now, I use Linux. Normally stuff like this launched me into an existential crisis. "Oh, God, the stress! Why God!? My world has a MAJOR thing to worry about -- misleading people maybe or something like that."

I'm not quite as much a coward. I think I had good reason. Cowardess is not a virtue. God loved King David.

Damn, I look awful. Oh well. I've become a freak hermit-- don't know how to smile, anymore.

<comment><USER28> You look like the rest of us Terry :D

Welcome :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> You poor people don't know God.

</comment><comment><USER29> As much as I feel sorry for this guy, can't look past his racist rants :(

<comment><USER5> please do, they are certainly caused by his schizophrenia. In much the same way a Tourettes sufferer cannot control their compulsion to say inappropriate things.

<comment><USER30> But you can edit your post before or even a while after sending it.

<comment><USER9> It is much harder to edit the thinking that led you to write it in the first place.

<comment><USER31> While I understand the thought process behind giving the mentally ill a free pass when it comes to saying things which seem inappropriate to the rest of us, I also understand that those of us that suffer from those illnesses also have valid political and social preferences and opinions.

I've met plenty of mentally ill individuals who were as kind as can be. I've also met individuals that are filled with a special kind of hatred.

The question I have : Are there any documents or papers that Terry has written that go against his insensitive and racist ramblings, and explain that his inappropriate use of certain terms that the rest of us would never touch? If there is no formal explanation of language, how can everyone be so sure that the hatred is indeed generated by an illness rather than a hateful person with an uncommon opinion?

I know, a formal letter from someone with a mental illness seems like a stretch to ask for, but Terry has been extraordinary in every other facet. He's a true hacker, OS author, and the creator of a language. He commonly posts opinions he has on new articles on his own site, and the posts are relatively lucid, as are technical aspects of his work. I don't think that an explanation of his language use is unworkable, however I do not have any firm grasp on how he interprets reality and can only judge the difficulty on that job in comparison to the difficulty of the work he has already shown he's quite capable at (his OS, for example).

I know everyone is going to jump down my throat about all of this, so let me summarize at least what i'm try to get across for anyone that might misunderstand.

1) schizophrenia and racism can exist individually. (however, Schizophrenia can also form racisms.)

2) an individual looking in really has no grasp on what is or is not formed by the condition rather than the individual

3) It's wrong to assume someone isn't something they practice, simply due to a personal flaw. (Example: I'd hate to be the world's biggest racist stuck in the body of a Tourette's patient, everyone would probably blame my rants which I worked so hard on on the disease)

(to those of you in this thread that mention Terry doesn't use racial language to describe race : please read more of his work, you're incorrect. Example : [http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/Rants/TAD/2014/02/Ra...](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/Rants/TAD/2014/02/Rant140217.html) )

<comment><USER9> I'm going to throw out your entire argument here and simply point out that Terry doesn't get a "free pass". Every account he's created here, and there have been a few, get insta-banned. Only people with showdead turned on can even see what he writes.

The original comment was about not being able to "see past" Terry's comments. Somehow this has devolved into an attempted debate about antisocial behavior. But, you have to take people as entire individuals, the good with the bad. Orson Scott Card is a talented writer, and a bigot. Tom Cruise is an amazing actor, and a prominent member of a worldwide cult. Terry is a respectable programmer, and mentally ill.

We all have different boundaries. If you really find it impossible to consider Terry's work because of his behavior, then so be it; it's not up to me to convince you otherwise. But, a lot of other people are quite capable of discussing his work, respectfully, without getting hung up on his illness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Terry Davis has a mental illness, this isn't the proper forum to call attention to it.

<comment><USER33> We can draw attention to interesting bits, like this page: [http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/TempleOS.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/TempleOS.html)

Reading the usesthis page, I was intrigued by the fact the author uses Windows. Actually he tweeted about switching to Linux a few days ago: [https://twitter.com/TempleOS/status/461423615582298112](https://twitter.com/TempleOS/status/461423615582298112)

I find also interesting that someone writing an OS is prevented running it natively by Secure-Boot.

<comment><USER34> He's reiterated that in a (dead) comment on this post:

> Yeah, I did. Now, I use Linux. Normally stuff like this launched me into an > existential crisis. "Oh, God, the stress! Why God!? My world has a MAJOR > thing to worry about -- misleading people maybe or something like that."

> I'm not quite as much a coward. I think I had good reason. Cowardess is not > a virtue. God loved King David.

>Damn, I look awful. Oh well. I've become a freak hermit-- don't know how to smile, anymore.</comment></comment></comment>


My Story, so far - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/U3cR4hVx <comment><USER2> Hello, its a wonder that my story matches yours in quite many ways. I too read a lot of books (less about programming, though), love reading, tweaking code and contributing (haven't contributed much though). I would love to get in touch just to talk about things that are not at all relevant. Just for fun!

Cheers, Gaurav Koley

<comment><AUTHOR> hi, my email address can be found in my profile.</comment></comment>


Entropy Loss and Output Predictability in the Libgcrypt PRNG [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://formal.iti.kit.edu/~klebanov/pubs/libgcrypt-cve-2016-6313.pdf <comment><USER2> Don't. Use. Userspace. Random. Number. Generators.

It is 2016. There is no business for any major tool to be shipping a dependency on a userspace random number generator like this.

[http://sockpuppet.org/blog/2014/02/25/safely-generate- random...](http://sockpuppet.org/blog/2014/02/25/safely-generate-random- numbers/)

It's not enough for us to stop fielding new software with broken userspace random (all userspace random is broken random). We need to go back through all the software, find all the userspace RNGs, and replace them with urandom reads

<comment><USER3> How to safely generate random numbers on Windows[1][2]:

      #include <windows.h>
      #define SystemFunction036 NTAPI SystemFunction036
      #include <ntsecapi.h>
      #undef SystemFunction036

      RtlGenRandom(buf, size);

This is more convenient than both rand_s[3] and CryptGenRandom[4]. The former can only generate one byte per call and the latter requires you to create a CSP (cryptographic service provider) before you can call it (which means you have to destroy the CSP when you're done using it). In the end these all call RtlGenRandom.

RtlGenRandom uses a CSPRNG specified in NIST 800-90[4]. It uses AES256 in CTR mode AFAIK.

[1] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa3...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa387694\(v=vs.85\).aspx)

[2] [https://boringssl.googlesource.com/boringssl/+/master/crypto...](https://boringssl.googlesource.com/boringssl/+/master/crypto/rand/windows.c#26)

[3] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/sxtz2fa8.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/sxtz2fa8.aspx)

[4] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa3...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa379942\(v=vs.85\).aspx)

<comment><USER4> For anyone not writing C/C++ but still needs a CSPRNG: [https://paragonie.com/blog/2016/05/how-generate-secure- rando...](https://paragonie.com/blog/2016/05/how-generate-secure-random- numbers-in-various-programming-languages)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The GPG folks don't currently recommend revoking keys based on this: [https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg- announce/2016q3/0003...](https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg- announce/2016q3/000395.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> > [...] the flaw makes a part of the PRNG output completely predictable. This > bug exists since 1998 in all GnuPG and Libgcrypt versions [...]

> Please note that this document makes no claims about the effect of the flaw > on the security of generated keys or other artifacts.

</comment><comment><USER7> Granted, Fortuna didn't exist in 1998 (it dates to 2003) — but why oh why don't gcrypt & the kernel use it now?

<comment><USER2> There's nothing especially magical about Fortuna. There are basically three problems to solve with a CSPRNG:

1\. Ensuring that it's adequately seeded before anyone can use it.

2\. Providing forward secrecy by periodically rekeying ("refreshing the entropy pool", but we should do away with that terminology).

3\. Carrying over state across reboots.

(There are four problems if you consider "being performant" a problem on the scale of fundamental design, but it's mostly not).

You wouldn't think CSPRNGs are this simple by reading either the literature on things like Fortuna and Yarrow or by reading the LKML and patch proposals for the LRNG. You'd think it was super tricky to collect "enough entropy" from enough "decorrelated sources", you'd think you'd have to deal with "depletion", you'd think about "high quality" versus "low quality" entropy, and the like. But these issues aren't just not important: they are mostly folkloric.

Generating a practically limitless stream of random bits isn't a hard cryptographic problem. It is an elementary problem. It's the problem that every stream encryption scheme solves. You can simply use stream encryption schemes, like stream ciphers or block ciphers and hashes in CTR mode, as CSPRNGs.

The problem we need to solve isn't upgrading the LRNG or getting everyone to use Schneier's favorite CSPRNG design (the section on this in Cryptography Engineering is one of the book's few warts). It's _getting everyone to use the kernel RNG to the exclusion of all else_. That's because those 3 problems I listed up there are easy to solve if you're using /dev/urandom (or the getrandom system call), but extremely tricky otherwise.

<comment><USER8> The biggest problem with "always use /dev/urandom" is that the kernel developers themselves--wrongly--think that this problem is more difficult than it is, and think that you shouldn't do just that.

This manifests in issues like scalability: some patches were merged to (slightly) improve scalable performance of /dev/urandom...and these were phrased as "Sure, we can do this, because idiots might want that and it costs us little--but we should emphasize this sort of thing isn't an actual supported feature!"

The people who maintain /dev/urandom aren't stupid, but for some reason they really don't seem to get (or agree with at least) your argument. I'd really like to understand why; I don't.

(I am technically a linux developer--I work on the kernel we use internally, and have actual patches to my name upstream--but am not a deep part of the external community.)

<comment><USER2> T'so is simply wrong. I don't know that it's worth going into any more detail than that. You can look to threads on HN where he's commented about the utility of weak and strong random to see that concerns simply aren't rooted in cryptographic reality. He is simply not a cryptographer.

Meanwhile, teams of people who are cryptographers of world renown, such as the Bernstein, Lange, and Schwabe team that designed and implemented Nacl, _just use urandom_.

This case is closed. Use the system call interface by all means if it's available to you! But don't use userspace RNGs, like OpenSSL and GPG do, and don't use /dev/random.

<comment><USER8> Right! I agree with you! I'm saying that because T'so is wrong, that the kernel RNG, while still better than other options, will not be as good as it should or could be.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Card sized website for the non tech-savvy - <AUTHOR> We create webtiles which are card sized website for non tech savvy. Our research shows that early stage entrepreneurs have very limited content to fill the screen real estate of a large website. If they are using webtiles they can be instantly online with one-liner content in plain spoken words, few pictures, video and their contact information. Everything else is auto generated (they will have to choose a template), few examples are given below
https://qual5.webtiles.co/
https://bhave.webtiles.co/
ttps://skilloasis.webtiles.co/
https://krishitantra.webtiles.co/
https://broid.webtiles.co/
A webtile is designed with speed in mind, it is quick to create and the information is delievered without any distraction to the consumer. Please do let me know your honest feedbacks <comment><USER2> The "Powered by" link in the bottom right of the cards are not working.

The videos don't autoplay.

How does this look in a mobile phone? Can you share an example?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback. We will certainly fix it.

Mobile phone view as requested

[https://pasteboard.co/Jjr0Jjz.jpg](https://pasteboard.co/Jjr0Jjz.jpg)

Webtile can be easily embedded in blogs and other articles like in the screenshot below

[https://pasteboard.co/JjqZ8GD.jpg](https://pasteboard.co/JjqZ8GD.jpg)

<comment><USER2> I expected the phone version to use the full screen. (It's probably a night mare because each phone has a different size, but they are pretty close to the card ratio.)

I missed the part about embedding. It is in [https://webtiles.co/](https://webtiles.co/) but it is not clear in your examples.

The "powered by" link is still not working.

<comment><USER3> Webtile can be easily embedded in blogs and other articles like in the screenshot below

[https://pasteboard.co/JjqZ8GD.jpg](https://pasteboard.co/JjqZ8GD.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> where can I get can mine done? Honestly..

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, Thank you for responding. We are invite only right now as we are now in private beta.We make[free for now] custom webtiles on request. If you could drop an email to john[at]webtiles.co, we can undertstand your business and our designer can make a template for you. We expect feedback and social media shout out in return.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ideal rich web app architecture / When to use Firebase? - <AUTHOR> I am seeing a lot of hype for backend-less webapps, and I have skimmed the firebase docs and it looks super interesting. However I am having trouble understanding exactly when and how it should be used. Here are two projects I am working on:
1) I am building a web app which allows users to design embeddable forms which they can then include in their own site via a javascript include. This javascript code is included in their site's source once, and then their forms can be modified freely after that date using our web app.
However, we will be serving these forms to hundreds of thousands of visitors to our users' sites daily. Is it okay to use firebase for this? Can we read from the database without the websocket overhead? Would it be better to mirror the firebase database to a hosted backend database and then serve the forms from there?
2) I am building a social media management tool similar to buffer.com. A backend is obviously needed in order to post the queued posts to social media at the requested times. However, if we could use firebase, then we could keep our backend entirely separate from our front-end, which sounds like it might make life easier in certain ways.
I'm having trouble understanding when firebase should be used, but I'm in love with the idea of directly binding variables and form fields to database values in order to make writing the front-end more enjoyable. It's confusing though; it seems like you can totally get rid of the M in MVC by doing this.
In case it's relevant, my front-ends will be built in React and any backends would be built in Python/Flask. Thank you for helping me learn.. I apologize for my ignorance! <comment><USER2> Hi. Is this a question or did you forget to submit a URL?

<comment><AUTHOR> Added the question... my bad. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Internet experiment goes wrong, takes down a bunch of Linux routers - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/internet-experiment-goes-wrong-takes-down-a-bunch-of-linux-routers/ <comment><USER2> So the gist is FRR crashes when it receives a message with a "valid standards- compliant unassigned BGP attribute". That sounds like a serious quality issue. Its the kind of scenario you usually have a couple of unit tests for.</comment>


Heyzap Arcade Allows Publishers To Easily Add A Gaming Portal To Websites - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/21/heyzap-arcade-allows-publishers-to-easily-add-an-interactive-gaming-portal/

<comment><USER2> Becoming a YouTube for flash games does not make sense to me. It is more like you are throwing names around.

I get that you are implying that you have a large library of games, but when I see YouTube I think movies but not a movie library. A large collection of one hit wonders fading away as the next new sensation starts up around the corner.

If you are going to stick with the name dropping, I would suggest changing it to "Heyzap is quickly becoming _the_ YouTube for Flash Games" to suggest more of a singular statement that you are the one doing this and not just another in the list of hopefuls.

<comment><AUTHOR> We haven't said Youtube of Flash gaming since January 2009. TC mentioned it in passing.

Its not something we compare ourselves too.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let me know if you have a suitable social/community/content site that you want to try the Heyzap Arcade on: immad (At) Heyzap.com.

Or if you have any other feedback.

<comment><USER3> Do you share revenue if/when the iframes have ads? Or where is the incentive other than engagement (that might be enough)

<comment><AUTHOR> We give rev-share on virtual goods. Bigger market than ads</comment></comment></comment>


Verbling: The instant way to practice and learn a language - <AUTHOR> http://verbling.com/

<comment><USER2> "Chat roulette for language learning" should be their five-word pitch.

Great idea. I've been learning French, Italian, and Spanish via lingq.com and what it's missing most is the ability to practise live with native speakers without having to schedule a call with a tutor.

It could prove a great way to practise a language, assuming they can work out a way to police it. What's to stop it filling with the type of crowd that frequents chat roulette, for example?

<comment><USER3> No, their five word pitch should not be "chat roulette for language learning". That would imply lots of cocks speaking different languages.

I hate when a company is the something for something else. Be unique. How about Video Chat For Language Learning. Why bring chat roulette into it? Break free and then Chatroulette can become the Verbly for wanting to speak your native language to another penis.

It just seems with all of the abuse that chatroulette gets it would be smart to try and separate yourself from them.

<comment><USER2> _Why bring chat roulette into it?_

Because it's been a phenomenally successful concept that millions already understand conceptually. And because it highlights their USP -- live, instant matching of language partners -- when their competitors who use vanilla video chat services require you to schedule online conferences.

'The something-of-something-else' pattern is incredibly useful as a means of introducing new services and ideas. (My favourite is from Ronald Shusett and Dan O'Bannon, who famously pitched the film 'Alien' as 'Jaws in space'.) Sure -- you might take on the negative elements of the service you're comparing yourselves with as well as the positive ones, but as long as you have answers for those questions (e.g. "Good question. Our community is self-policing, and we review and ban users who misbehave."), then I see little harm in it.

<comment><USER4> Chat roulette is not as successful as you think it is, and no - if you just say it to anyone on the streets, no one will understand what "chat roulette" is - it has a connotation of gambling or being very risky (ie the roulette thing billions of people understand conceptually, so your "analogy" will be hijacked)

Is it a platform for gambling in different languages? Is probably the response you'll get from "chat roulette for languages"

<comment><USER5> I'm going to disagree with you there. Occasionally I watch "old media" and for a while Chat Roulette dominated both traditional and comedy news shows as well as late night.

Many people on the street know exactly what it is: penises.

<comment><USER6> I hate to be 'that guy with a youtube link', but I think Trey Parker & Matt Stone nailed what Chat Roulette means to most people:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gNyDZmQyeY>

Probably best if Verbling doesn't associate themselves with that ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've thought about this idea many times, and one idea I have had that I haven't seen verbling talk about---perhaps it doesn't make sense yet with only English + Spanish---is to run on a credit system rather than matching you up with an 'opposite'.

So, if I want to learn spanish, rather than trying to find me a spanish- speaker wanting to learn english for a 50-50 conversation, it just matches me up with a spanish-speaker wanting to learn _anything_, and I burn credit talking to them. Later I can earn credit by speaking to a _anything_-speaker wanting to learn english.

If you think through that system lots of cool ideas come out, especially if you attach a monetary value to the credit---like people only earning credit and cashing it out (tutors), or people only spending it, and injecting cash into the system (impatient/rich people).

Anyway, Verbling guys, you may have already thought of this, but if not, I've been thinking about it for quite a while, hit me up if you want to chat more about it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unfortunately I'm learning Chinese, which is not yet supported. But as I am very interested in using verbling, I thought I would provide some feedback:

Firstly - Why do I have to register to use? It would be nice to specify your language and jump in. Then if I enjoy the experience, I can sign up with my e-mail address, etc.

Secondly - Having spent a bit of time around Asia, the market to learn English is absolutely huge! A lot of people are desperate to practise English with a native speaker. In Taiwan, sometimes had people (usually high school kids) coming up to me in the street wanting to practise. However it will require localised sites, written in Chinese, or Korean or Japanese to tap this market. Also, it will need a different marketing strategy to what you might use for English, or a European market. In China for example, a lot of people spend most of their time hanging around on BBS's like MOP. For obvious reasons using Google ad-words would be a no go ...

<comment><USER9> Jake/Verbling here. Thanks for this.

1\. The reason you have to register is because the people you talk to have the option of adding you to "My Verblings" and thereby increasing your reputation on the site.

2\. Thanks for your input on the Asian market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is another site where you can do this. They actually take you teach you the language. <http://www.livemocha.com/>

</comment><comment><USER11> This is great! I would love to see school districts be able to sign up entire classes and be matched with foreign classes. This feature would be a potential source of revenue. Free for anyone to use, but added features for paying schools: class matching system, teacher moderation, statistics, etc.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is another great resource: <http://www.fluentin3months.com/language- hacking-guide/>

You can subscribe to his blog for free is really interesting.

Check the complete site out.

</comment><comment><USER9> For a quick demo, Verbling was tried out on local TV in Texas [http://www.the33tv.com/about/station/newsteam/kdaf- verbling-...](http://www.the33tv.com/about/station/newsteam/kdaf-verbling- live-chat-language-learning-story,0,5528260.story)

</comment><comment><USER13> Is it just me, or do the two faces paired in each image on the homepage all look oddly similar?

If the software were to enforce this, I wonder if I would have a more enjoyable/didactic/narcissistic experience speaking with my Chinese mirror- image...

</comment><comment><USER14> "sign language" should be labelled as ASL if that's what you meant. There are hundreds of sign languages.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great idea, kinda sad it has no Portuguese.

<comment><USER16> Yes, I would try it if it supported Portuguese.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Heard about this a while back. Still waiting for them to support other languages.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a really cool idea that I can definitely see myself using. A few ideas that would make it even more awesome (for me):

More languages would be great.

Let me specify the level I currently know a language at. For example: I'm not a native speaker of ASL, but I can get through a conversation. I'd be a great partner for an ASL beginner but not for someone advanced.

<comment><USER9> Hi, I'm Jake, one of the Verbling founders. Thanks for this feedback! We are planning to launch more language combinations in the future, though Spanish- English is the only one currently active. As we scale, we can allow users to impose filters such as "I want to talk to advanced speakers only."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One thing that doesn't appear obvious to me is the level of proficiency required (if any) to get started. I suppose that could be an expectation to be set by the community, but is it feasible for someone to make Verbling their first stop on the way to learning a new language?

<comment><USER20> Yep, there's not really a good explanation of what beginner/intermediate/advanced means. Also it seems interactions are rated--- meaning what? Ability of speaker in said language? Interestingness of speaker? Whether they are normal?

<comment><USER9> Jake from Verbling here. Beginner/intermediate/advanced refer to the different levels of conversation topics available to users. You can click through all of them while you're in a conversation, so you're never "stuck" in any of the categories. Specifically, at the beginner level, you're exposed to mostly the present tense and beginner's vocab. At the advanced level, you'll see some conditional tense and more advanced vocabulary, for example re. politics, culture, technology.

Re. ratings: We simply ask you, "How was your conversation?" Based on whether you superlike/like/dislike, we can pair you up with that same native speaker more often, at the same rate, or never again.

Hope this helps!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sounds like Colingo: <http://colingo.me/>

</comment><comment><USER22> Do they let you filter your language partners by gender? Because otherwise my girlfriend will not use this, even though she is very excited about the idea in general.

She wants to work on her Hindi skills in exchange for English, but after spending a year in India she is certain she will be mercilessly hit on.

My guess is that women in general will be uncomfortable having 10-minute chats with random men.

</comment><comment><USER23> A "Teach for America" friend has recently been tasked with building a small Midwestern charter school's first Spanish program. One of the biggest challenges for her is finding ways to immerse students in the language with a lack of resources and a tight budget. This certainly seems like a quick, inexpensive and appealing way to get students engaged. I'll see if she can provide feedback.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just tried it out -- exactly what I was looking for. In less than a minute I was practicing Spanish with a nice fellow from Mexico. Superb idea.

<comment><USER9> I'm Jake Jolis, one of the Verbling founders. Happy you found a good place to practice Spanish!

Just for reference, biggest countries right now are USA, Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and U.K.

<comment><USER25> Jake, congratulations for the idea and the execution. Sometimes the simplest idea is the one that changes the world. By the way, is there any reason why I can't connect from Spain? It is stuck on the "connecting" screen :(

<comment><USER9> Aha, in the beginning as we grow our user base, we're scheduling sessions-- three times per day now. You'll see the session times announced in your local time to the left of the video screen.

Just log on during the next session, which is at 9 PM in Spain. Just to make sure, would you mind shooting me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com from the email account you signed up with? That way, I can take a look to make sure everything's the way it should be.

And thanks for the kind words!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's an interesting concept, but I'd think the video part would be more of a distraction, honestly. The best language-learning idea I've ever seen was a foreign-language MOO/MUD. I worked on one at the University of Bergen (Norway). You can find a paper on the German-version here: <https://bora.uib.no/handle/1956/1286>

<comment><USER27> I agree with the video part. Let's say there is a weird looking guy/girl in front of you and it can be very distracting. Only voice will be enough since it is about speaking.

<comment><USER28> I disagree. If I can see the lips of my interlocutor I have a small help understanding what he/she is saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So it's language exchange partners, but over the internet.

Pretty neat, but I'd definitely worry about audio quality. If you live in a multicultural city with a couple universities, the real-life version is easy enough to set up.

<comment><AUTHOR> And for the ones that don't have the financial ability to pay a top rated course?

I think this service enables self taught people with enough tools to march forward on their quest to learn a new language.

<comment><USER30> You don't need to pay for a top rated course to find someone who's trying to learn your language and vice versa, and meet up with them in person when you live in a multicultural city as the parent said, with universities where there are lots of young people eager to learn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Another language learning tool by the creator of Captcha:

www.duolingo.com

check out a description at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQl6jUjFjp4>

<comment><USER32> Yeah but it was announced a few months ago in this presentation a no real news from it (i've subscribed as soon as possible to the mailing list)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I know I'm not the only person to say this, but I kind of prefer the (original) implementation created by LiveMocha at <http://www.livemocha.com/>

</comment><comment><USER34> Someone should make a codecademy of langauages.

</comment><comment><USER35> I love how www.livemocha.com handles this.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is very cool. Especially for ASL.

</comment><comment><USER37> Where's my Swedish option? :(

<comment><USER38> This. Finding Spanish speakers for an American can't be that hard, but finding a Swedish speaker could prove much harder, they should prioritize languages like Swedish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Bummer...no French (yet)

This sounds stupidly superficial, but the page is configured (apparently) in such a way that sharing it on FB gets you a blank for title/descriptor/image...YEah, I know, superficial. But I wanted my friends to know about it and you know what they say about click-through rate for articles w/images...

<comment><USER40> Definitely not superficial. Sorry for the long delay, but this now fixed. Thanks for the pointer. Let us know if you have any additional feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> how about Indonesian?</comment>


Natural language processing in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://loadfive.com/knwlDemo/

<comment><USER2> I really like this!

Still, a simple sentence like "I was happy at noon" will not be understood at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool!

I notice that some time words (noon, afternoon, morning) don't work, nor does military-style time.

Links to things like localhost on some path work, but common www.whatever.com or whatever.com don't.

Adding a bunch of profanity in all caps didn't seem to trigger the emotion thingy at all.

Cheers!

EDIT:

Can you set the www subdomain to redirect to your main? Right now it just bombs out. :(</comment>


Twitter's Silence on State-Sponsored Attacks - <AUTHOR> https://threatpost.com/twitters-silence-deafening-on-state-sponsored-attacks/115937/ <comment><USER2> In the last twelve months I have stopped using Twitter. It used to be fun but it just became a mess of marketing and moral posturing and bullying. It wasn't a conscious decision, it just happened.

It's like the photos of the woman scorned - the guy with his car trashed and clothes thrown out, he's probably getting back together with her after an apology. The guy with his stuff neatly folded and packed on the front is gone for good because she moved on.

It's one thing to think of a Twitter boycott over some issue like this, but when it fails to meet the standard of providing value so you just move on, well that's a lot worse for Twitter.

<comment><USER3> I have restarted using Twitter recently; after not using it for years.

The content you see depends entirely on who you choose to follow. I only follow the people who regularly publish awesome content, initiate discussions, and have a positive outlook on things. Also some credible news sources, and add a few personal idols like Elon Musk.

I did see some people become toxic, start bullying and so on, I unfollow them, or make another decision, depending on the circumstances.

It feels like you make your own community on Twitter. You need to moderate it too.

<comment><USER4> This is good advice. I love Twitter, and find you need to be ruthless in unfollowing anyone who ruins the experience for you. Unlike Facebook, there usually aren't social / real-world consequences for unfollowing someone on Twitter.

For people who are noisy but you still want to follow, shuffle them off into a Twitter list you check occasionally. I love @SwiftOnSecurity, but she's too noisy/frequent for my main feed, so I don't follow her and only include her in my Infosec list (that also includes @troyhunt and @tqbf).

You'll probably enjoy Twitter a lot more if you use 3rd Party clients like Tweetbot (Mac / iPhone) and Fenix (Android). Zero ads and more flexibility with features like Mute Filters (eg muting specific hashtags as well as specific users). The official Twitter experience is terrible.

Don't feel obligated to follow friends. This is often the fastest way to ruin your Twitter experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >> "It's just scary to think somebody wants to know something about me and I have no clue whether it's the NSA, the German police or North Korea,"

Well, Twitter is alerting about 'attacks' by nation states. So it won't be the NSA or German police. They need not attack and/or steal anything to get such information. But if they did, Twitter would certainly not be informing the target. So of the three options above, it must have been NK.

<comment><USER6> > _Well, Twitter is alerting about 'attacks' by nation states_

May I talk about something that's been irking me?

I often read people talking about "nation states" when they are actually just talking about states.

As far as I know, Twitter will _still_ alert you if the state that's attacking is not a nation, like say Canada or the UK. Or for a more likely attacker, China describes itself as a multi-national state.

<comment><USER7> I believe the reason for "nation states" is to avoid confusion with US states. I am from Europe, for the record.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why is the article singling out twitter? One reason is, a minor market correction is adjusting the perception of the value of Twitter. This type of criticism happens when new tech companies are formed, when there's large amounts of money involved and the market corrects, criticism is magnified. [0]

[0] Guardian, Jana Kasperkevic, _" Stock rout demotes Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey from billionaire to millionaire"_ [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/20/twitter- sq...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/20/twitter-square-jack- dorsey-downgraded-billionaire-millionaire-tech-stocks)

</comment><comment><USER8> Not sure why Twitter is being picked on here, Google, the originator of this practice, is equally silent on the cause for these notifications.

<comment><USER9> It's become popular to pick on Twitter since they've previously made some shit decisions about how to handle free speech and user rights. My thought is that any company handling user data and accounts that state-level actors might want access to is at fault; the very least they can do for user privacy (and rights) is tell those users that someone is targeting them.

from the story:

> Twitter is not alone in starting to alert users targeted by state actors. > Facebook did so beginning its notification service in October, followed by > Twitter on Dec 14 and Yahoo eight days later.

and with regard to

> "However that [Twitter stays] quiet now does probably more harm," Kubieziel > said. "Some people suspect that Twitter might have received some gag order > and isn't allowed to say anything. However, even if it was only some bad > algorithm which misjudged the situation, it would be better to tell the > truth. I think it would help many of us to sleep better."

it seems most likely to me that, yeah, they've been told not to tell who it is that wants the info.

<comment><USER10> The real problem is that you don't know what to conclude if they are silent or not. In theory we don't have proof of either outcome but it is prudent to assume the worst.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure why this is a problem, considering that if one nation-level party is interested in you, probably multiple are? As long as the users in question know someone is poking around, they can take steps to reduce their online presence, or migrate to new online identities, at the very least.

The point I suppose I was trying to make is it sounds like a lot of finger pointing since people are afraid and don't know whose door to bang on.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The making of a open source timetracker without the need to sign up – in polymer - <AUTHOR> https://junt.io/open-source/making-of-yotilo-1/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here comes part #2:

[https://junt.io/open-source/making-of-yotilo-2/#nav](https://junt.io/open- source/making-of-yotilo-2/#nav)</comment>


Ask HN: How worried should I be about electromagnetic radiation in my home? - <AUTHOR> I just watched the somewhat concerning documentary "Take Back Your Power" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZTiT9ZSg3Q ) and was left with some questions.
I'm very sympathetic to the privacy concerns people have regarding "smart meters". They clearly can be abused to provide high-resolution data on energy usage in a household, which could allow estimation of number of people residing, when they're home or away, what appliances they're using, etc. with the same lack of accountability that all data collection in the United States is subject to.
The health concerns, though, I have no real skill at evaluating. People in the movie claim that some smart meters use the electrical wiring in the home as a large antenna, and thus create large amounts of radio frequency radiation when transmitting, leading to numerous health problems. There are also claims about the cancer risk of nearby cell towers and of EMF radiation in general.
Unlike information technology, the physical effects of radio waves are not my area of expertise. Are these concerns well-placed, or is this mere fear-mongering? Should I go buy an EMF meter and inspect my home? (I was looking at this: https://www.amazon.com/Meterk-Electromagnetic-Radiation-Detector-Dosimeter/dp/B0754VVW4W/ref=sr_1_3 ) <comment><USER2> I have a PhD in radiation biophysics. I'm not worried at all. Current research suggests that electromagnetic radiation from WiFi and other sources are nothing to be particularly concerned about, the measured effects on a cellular level are barely significant, if at all. Also, we don't see a rise in brain or testicular cancers since cellphones emerged.

I'd be more concerned about environmental hazards such as fine dust in larger cities.

<comment><USER3> Devil's advocate, how long have we been measuring cancer, cell phones for any conclusion? an instant? how young are the methods and data. How pervasive are things that we might measure wifi person vs non-wifi person objectively enough? Considering nothing counts for the wifi moment and all experiments and experiences flawed, how much data are you comfortable passing through your loved ones monthly? ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you talk on a cell phone all day and hold it a centimeter from your head maybe you deposit enough energy into your head to raise the temperature by a degree or two.

Being addicted to Facebook or mid-core games probably does more damage to your brain though. Driving or walking while distracted on your phone poses more danger to your body, and the bodies of others.

Nothing in the home has that combination of high power and proximity to the body so I wouldn't worry about it. The "high frequency" data recording might be a million or so times more than checking it once a month (if your utility can be bothered to even do that) but it still maybe 8 bits of data per second and shouldn't take much power to get back to the tower.

I think fear of smart meters is just the next fad now that anti-vaxxers are on the run.

</comment><comment><USER5> This isn't my area of expertise...

Should you be worried? I am not because I have a basic understanding of ionizing vs non ionizing radiation, and the inverse square law.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- ionizing_radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse- square_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law)</comment>


4chan Founder 'Moot' Raises $625K For Stealth Startup Canvas Networks - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/14/4chan-founder-moot-raises-625k-for-stealth-startup-canvas-networks/

<comment><USER2> People who've commented so far all don't understand 4chan. 4channers are not moot's followers any more than Boston residents are John Cotton's followers. Moot was simply the first who took the trouble to translate the software that runs 2chan (the most popular site in Japan) into English and put it up on a server. He inevitably became part of 4chan's vast culture, but so did the gentleman known as "cockmongler". You don't see him getting funding.

Maybe there is room for business in imageboard culture, but moot really is a sysadmin, whose previous attempts at being anything more (e.g. intrusive advertising) have all failed. There are many other nearly identical imageboards, with sizeable communities around them, and all it takes to switch is remembering a new URL.

I haven't been to 4chan in a long time, but I think most 4channers help moot's exposure in order to get lulz out of the investors and the public, just as the investors and the public are using moot to tame and monetize 4chan. Trolls trolling each other.

<comment><USER3> You confused Futaba Channel with 2ch which is orders of magnitude more popular and not an imageboard. 2ch is very popular in Japan, but it is only in the top 10-20 now behind mixi and ameblo (social networking) and youtube and nicovideo (video sites).

<comment><USER2> Thanks--it's been a while. IIRC, Futaba and 2ch are run by the same people, and moot copied both, though only the imageboard took off. Is that correct?

<comment><USER3> No one knows who runs Futaba. 2ch was owned by hiroyuki until he sold it a few years ago to some Singaporean company that no one knows about (probably because of all of the lawsuits that he faced and lost).

4chan does have text boards (like 2channel). dis.4chan.org runs on shiichan and is supposed to greatly resemble 2channel style, but it came later and as you say it is not that popular. There is also the tinychan imported text boards that are fairly recent and somewhat different.

<comment><USER2> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Holy shit, mootles is going legit. 4chan is absolutely enormous, but completely unmonetisable. The question investors must be asking is whether he can translate his obvious aptitude for community building into an arena that isn't absolute anarchy.

On a personal level, I'm tremendously pleased for moot. He's been running 4chan on credit cards and goodwill for longer than any sane person would bear. Closing /b/ might have made 4chan profitable or it might have killed the community stone dead. I don't know why moot didn't chase anon out of town and turn 4chan into a halfway legit community, but I think the world is all the better for it. I might be being silly, but I think anon will be a far more important figure in the history of the internet than any of us realise.

<comment><USER5> _I don't know why moot didn't chase anon out of town and turn 4chan into a halfway legit community_

Some month ago he had a talk at TED on the importance of anonimity on the internet.

[http://arstechnica.com/staff/palatine/2010/02/4chans-moot- ta...](http://arstechnica.com/staff/palatine/2010/02/4chans-moot-takes-pro- anonymity-to-ted-2010.ars)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't believe he still goes by christopher poole

<comment><USER7> Because people usually put fake names on SEC filings?

<comment><USER6> Well that's not his real name, and unless he changed it, as suggested above, then it sure looks like it.

Christopher Poole was only used because of the CP meme reference

<comment><USER7> Alternatively, you could be wrong and it is his real name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how 4chan factors into a VC's perception of moot.

<comment><USER9> It ought to show that he's got a great sense of how to build and run a community.

(I am an investor)

<comment><USER10> I would love to hear how you were introduced to this opportunity and what was exciting and what were your concerns as you considered it.

<comment><USER9> I suggested him as a speaker to TED. Later I introduced myself at the conference. Introduced him to some other folks and the ball started rolling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good luck to him: hope it goes well</comment>


Credit Suisse Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2017 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=B8FDD84D-A4CD-D983-12840F52F61BA0B4 <comment><AUTHOR> Very insightful long-term study of investment returns, from 1900 to the present, across 23 countries.

I highlight a few results below that I think might be of interest (particularly for people that are thinking about investing/retirement).

1\. _Annualised real total return_ (hence, ARTR) for the world from 1900 to 2016 (USD real terms) was 5.1% for equities, 1.8% for bonds.

For US equities, it was 6.4%.

(Note that this includes re-investment of dividends, so this is annualised real _total_ return. Annualised real _price_ return (capital gains without div reinvestment) was only 2.1%.)

(Note that the German DAX is a total return index, while most other commonly quoted indices are price return indices.)

2\. The 1980's and 1990's were a golden age for stocks. The ARTR on the world equity index was a staggering 10.6%, thus doubling your investment every 7 years (real terms).

3\. The years 2000 to 2016 were much worse for equities. The ARTR on the world equity index was just 1.9%, doubling your money only after 37 years.

ARTR were negative or zero in Italy, Portugal, Netherlands; 0.8% in Japan, 2.2% in Germany, 2.4% in the UK, and 2.7% in the USA. Better in countries with commodities: Australia 5.1%, New Zealand 6.4, South Africa 8.2%.

4\. Over 2000–16, bonds were the best asset class in 16 of the 21 countries, returning ARTR 7.1% in Germany and 5.1% in the USA.

5\. Vol (for 1900 to 2016) has been around 20% p.a. (world 17%, USA 20%, UK 20%, Germany 32% (bloody wars!)).

6\. Equity worst years were down 40%-60% in many countries 2008, 73% to 90% in the axis countries after WW II.

7\. Inflation 1900 to 2016 was 2.9% p.a. in the USA, 3.7% in the UK, 4.6% in Germany, 8.1% in Italy. So, over the period, US consumer prices rose by a factor of 28, UK by a factor of 70 (compounding!)

8\. Bonds over 1900 to 2016: world real returns 1.8%, vol 11%. Negative real returns for Austria, Italy, Japan, and Germany (even after taking out hyper inflation in 1922-1923).

9\. "smart beta"/factor investing (momentum, low vol, size = small caps, income = high yield, value vs growth): They've definitely outperformed in the past (1926 to 2016, USA), but it's unclear whether the "premium" persists now or in the future.

My personal conclusions:

1\. Diversify. The "common wisdom" to put everything into equity (growing out of the 80's and 90's) has something going for it, but as the last decade and a half showed, is not fool proof. (Note that it makes no sense to move into bonds now, with the current rates!)

2\. Assuming 6% or even 8% real returns (as some people seem to do) for retirement planning is optimistic. I think it's prudent to plan with 4% real return and a 3% withdrawal rate.

If you find further nuggets in the report, please share!</comment>


Ask HN: How is everyone feeling? - <AUTHOR> It does feel a bit weird to me sometimes to be reading about JavaScript or something on HN in the midst of all this but it's also been a way for me to cope.<p>Given that HNers are more likely to spend time on their own I'm wondering on how fellow HNers are coping with all the stress and anxiety. <comment><USER3> Not all that well, personally. I try to hunker down and concentrate, but it's hard to remind myself that my work matters.

It doesn't help that both my husband and I clearly have a light case of the virus. It's a mild fever and a cough, and it appears to be getting better. (Certainly we are taking no chances! And have been in the house for 8 days already.) But feeling crappy only adds to the difficulties.

And yet I know we're the lucky ones. We both have worked at home for decades, so the "lifestyle" is nothing new; we aren't in danger of losing our incomes; we have health insurance; and we have cash in the bank.

One thing that has helped is setting up regular Zoom meetings to get together with friends. No agenda, no "let's try to concentrate on work" chat, just... hanging out together.

As Spider Robinson wrote so eloquently: Shared joy increases, shared pain decreases.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed that the present atmosphere makes it hard to concentrate on any one thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm miserable, sometimes.

I haven't been sleeping well, because of the stress. I'm kept awake at night by the idea I'm already infected by a virus which could kill me in the next couple weeks...

I live in a house with two others, both of which still have to go to work, and I'm in an "at risk" group because I have bad lungs.

The worry that one of them may have accidentally brought the virus into the house stresses me out, and until this is over - until I'm not a danger - <USER2> can't visit with my family, who are all older than myself, and even more vulnerable.

All my friends have chosen to quarantine as well. The right action, but it still hurts. It's only been 12 days, and I already feel so alone. To think about this being the next 12-18 months is just incomprehensible.

I don't know how I'll handle it. I keep alternating between depression, anger, and feeling nothing at all.

I had really believed this was going to be the year I'd make things turn around for me. I'd been making a lot of steps in the right direction - self- improvement and all that...

I wasn't prepared for it to get worse. At least not on this scale.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been great, thanks for asking. It's a good way to spend time with family, clean up the house, learn new home based skills. I think all the zombie/war/survival games and movies have mentally prepared me well for this.

We had a blackout last night, and fish supplier messed up delivery over the weekend because of the broken supply chain. There's been trouble but that's fine. The kids were scared so they found comfort with the grandparents.

It might be a cultural thing though. It seems harder on the West, because we see movies like Contagion suggesting that society would break down and people would trample each other, riot, loot. Maybe the reason toilet paper sold out is because it's a way to cling to society. Anxiety is contagious.

I think there's been a healthy level of fear in Malaysia, with people keeping 1 meter apart in stores, everyone buying bread instead of eating out. It's been easier to shop for groceries and work. There are citizen calls for a full China-style lockdown. Some apartment complexes are doing "concerts", basically group karaoke blaring loud music, led by the person with the biggest speakers. We're experimenting with recipes, ways to replace lattes with instant coffee, and lots of friends I haven't seen for years are playing games online together.

I could get used to this; society feels too crowded and yet fragmented otherwise. But now it feels like we've come together as one big family. A related book is Tribe, by S. Junger, who suggests that people are happiest in difficult times, and all that is gone when society returns to normal.

</comment><comment><USER6> To be perfectly honest I am not coping very well. All of this constant bad news getting worse and worse is terrible, and normally I can mostly ignore news, but I can't right now, since they do impact my life directly, and often with very short warning.

I am Danish, and while our authoritise are less terrible than those in the US, that is not a high bar. We can't get the test kits needed, but our minister of health turned a huge offer down. We didn't close the borders until long after we had community spread, etc.

If there was something active I could do (ie not feel-good stuff like running GPU time for research) and somebody could explain to me exactly how we can get out of this in a couple of months, that would be helpful.

At this point I just don't see anything changing, except getting worse, for the next several months and, frankly, I don't see how the society can survive that.

</comment><comment><USER7> Pretty decent. I've been working from home with my fiance for about three weeks now. Starting the fourth week now. We live in a 50 sqm (540 sqft) apartment together.

We're trying to stay in contact with friends and family as much as possible. We text and call more to just chill.

We're also very much aware of our priviliged position. We're both in software engineering and our jobs are secure for the forseeable future. We got a pile of cash in the bank and are properly insured. Working from home is not a problem at all.

One nasty side effect of working from home and not getting out much is that the days start to blend. I can barely keep track of what day of the week it is. All the days of the week look the same.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not well, sadly. Trying to stay distracted but all that's happened to me feels like the perfect storm.

Signed a new contract in January and was supposed to start in April, moving countries. Now my flight is canceled and even if it weren't I'd be unable to enter the country since all visas have been voided. Moving company canceled on me (no money back also, claiming force majeure). Have to leave my apartment by the end of the month and have absolutely no idea what to do. My family is in another different country as well but it currently seems impossible to get me and my belongings there. Have little savings and after a month in a motel I'd be broke :(

<comment><USER9> i'm sorry, this is really awful :( can you contact your current apartment landlord and see what they can do, given the circumstances?

hang in there.

<comment><USER8> I have, but there is a new tenant moving in right after me so there's not much she can do. She offered to store my stuff in the garage for as long as needed thankfully.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reasonably okay. I get out 2-3 times a day with mask/glove for a few minutes to let my dog out, and catch some fresh air (all while practicing social distancing).

I try to follow a routine daily - get 10 minutes of meditation in, at least 25-30 minutes of workout in my tiny room. Learning to play guitar as well, now that I have some more time back.

Focusing on my work though...That's a whole different story - that's gone to shit.

</comment><comment><USER11> Varies wildly day to day. Personally I'm not too worried about job loss atm, but am fearful for my SO getting laid off and the potential stress/financial burden it could put on us.

Also doesn't help that I've been planning on pulling the trigger on an engagement ring but now can't risk it. Have just barely enough savings that if one of us did lose our jobs we'd be ok until we find something else, but not much more than that.

</comment><comment><USER12> To be honest, not so great.

I live alone, in a tiny apartment. Usually that's not a huge issue since I live not too far from a beautiful beach and mountains.

But being stuck inside (i live in France) I'm starting to relapse into depression. I have a lot of anxiety about being alone, about the possibility that I will be potentially let-go. About suicidal thoughts etc..

I was doing better, but last week set me back by a lot. I'm scared I will not survive this situation if it lasts for months.

<comment><USER13> Hang in there brother. I live in Spain and we are all scared. In my job there are people suffering from anxiety and stress because of this situation.

Try to establish a routine. Exercise and opening the blinds is helping me to cope with isolation.

Also, limit your news consumption. Newspapers and other mass-media lives on the fears of consumers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm doing absolutely fine, business-wise the industry I'm in doesn't seem too affected (I'm still getting clients reaching out to me) and the virus situation actually caused some very bad tax changes to be postponed.

My biggest problem at the moment is my flatmate. She's been very anxious about this whole thing and is guzzling the social-media misinformation, FUD and conspiracy theories 24/24.

<comment><USER9> the media storm has been the most disheartening thing to me. the media (all media: the news, social, tv, print) exist to serve your eyeballs to advertisers. the biggest, scariest headlines win, and it really seems like outlets are only too keen to exploit that right now. the signal to noise ratio right now is MINUSCULE, with "experts" and talking heads and human interest stories dominating.

please try to convince your flatmate (as I do everyone around me) that the media will gladly firehose useless panic mongering, as long as it keeps people around past the commercial break. it's difficult to disconnect, but our mental health depends on it. take in what you need to know for the day, and no more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Useless apparently. Im far better of learning in the university together with some friends. At home I cant get me to do anything. Its frustrating. The possibilities are outstanding, that even adds to the frustration. From a Mental Helth point of view im fine. My family is wounderful, everything is great, besides me being unproductive :)

</comment><comment><USER16> Pretty well. I am enjoying working from home and while I am very bored stuck at home, it is weirdly relaxing.

I am sure I will eventually get infected but I am not too worried. I am young and somewhat healthy, and I am never in contact with anyone old or particularly at risk.

The thing I am most afraid of is the impending economic depression.

</comment><comment><USER17> To be honest it is kinda depressing, to see the numbers, and realizing that there are lives, and family members who have lost their dear ones, and may be affected behind the dots in the statistic. Hoping and praying that people will have the necessary strength to wade this through.

</comment><comment><USER18> Stressed. Can't stop thinking about everything. My chest feels right and it's making my arm ache because of the worry. not sleeping good.

I need to laugh or mediate. I don't want to talk to the neighbours or friends for fear I'll burst out crying.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've been sick the last couple days, perhaps with Covid19, and my new baby girl has a doctor's appointment this week, so I'm not sure what to do about that. I really enjoy being at home with my kids though.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm petrified of what's going to happen to our freedom and the economic impact. My working life started in 2009, and it has been a tough decade. I'm not looking forward to the next 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER21> I miss my walks in the sun. Also had a short nasty cold like 3 weeks ago which came back yesterday. Might be _the_ coronavirus, might be something else. Gonna stay home unless it gets ambulance call worthy.

</comment><comment><USER22> Personally, I would like to see less if it bleeds it leads news. Some positive stories would be more helpful.

</comment><comment><USER23> i am depressed lately and there is nothing i can do about it</comment>


Offshore wind, Japan's answer to declining nuclear power - <AUTHOR> https://www.owjonline.com/news/view,offshore-wind-japans-answer-to-declining-nuclear-power_56873.htm <comment><USER2> And Japan is about to decommission the _other_ Fukushima plant (Daini with 4 reactors, not Daichi with 6, where the tsunami happend) because local residents don't want nuclear power anymore.</comment>


XINU OS – Xinu Is Not Unix - <AUTHOR> http://www.xinu.cs.purdue.edu/ <comment><USER2> More important than the acronym is the effort itself. XINU is a really interesting project and probably the second OS I was introduced to outside of the POSIXy neighbourhood. It differs from a lot of other projects in that its goals (to my understanding) were very different to the usual approach toward providing POSIX compliance or a platform intended to support layering POSIX on top of a base architecture.

I picked up an old copy of the textbook and never read it. Maybe this is the kick I needed to pick up the newer edition and actually check it out in earnest!

<comment><USER3> When I first learned C I also read Lions' Notes on v6 Unix, and kind of saw what was going on, but the XINU book really drove home how kernels worked. The XINU book on internetworking was similarly great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a document or video that gives an overview of the XINU architecture?

<comment><USER5> Seriously, as neither the website nor the Wikipedia article tell me crap about that. Guess we're expected to buy a book... (sighs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not to forget a Berkeley company from long ago called Mt Xinu. (Unix TM backwards).

They made one of the funniest *nix related calendars ever among other good things.

<comment><USER7> I still have a Mt. Xinu poster they put out in the mid 80s with a BSD X-Wing fighter attacking the AT&T System V Death Star.

A more elegant poster, from a more civilized time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The license is here: [https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/xlicense.html](https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/xlicense.html) (I had to google for it)

</comment><comment><USER9> I took the CS OS grad. course at Purdue last semester that taught OS principles using XINU. Overall, I think the OS is great. Used primarily for embedded systems (routers were the common example) it was simple, quite extensible and fun to learn.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is a FreeBSD-derived OS called Xinuos that is different than this and caused me much confusion ...

[http://www.xinuos.com](http://www.xinuos.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> Not to be confused with... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu)

</comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone know if XINU is used in Purdue's undergrad OS classes these days? I went there and it was not mentioned even once (took OS around '04). Most of what we did was in Nachos[1]

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

<comment><USER12> XINU is used for CS354, the undergrad CS OS course (and has been for at least the last 2 years). A different OS is used for the undergrad ECE OS course; I think it may be Nachos, but I'm not sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Currently procrastinating on a project using Xinu at Purdue. Some of the systems are dead basic, which makes it really great as a teaching tool.

</comment><comment><USER14> "network communication, local and remote file systems"

<comment><USER15> Network communication sans TCP it appears.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> See now this is my kind of acronym. Things like "gnu's not unix" are too arbitrary; you can replace the 'g' with anything and still get an acronym that works. XINU is nice, elegant, and unambiguous.

<comment><USER17> I don't see the difference..?

<comment><USER18> He is pointing out that leaving out "is" in "GNU is not Unix" is pretty lousy way to make an acronym (if that could be called acronym at all), as "is" is as much word as "not" or "Unix" are and omitting it is arbitrary. It isn't a preposition or something.

<comment><USER19> Removing one and two letter words from acronyms is commonplace.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, you mean prepositions, which "is" isn't. I don't really care, btw, just clarifying what parent (probably) tried to say.

<comment><USER19> > Yeah, you mean prepositions

No I don't. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Numerals_and_constitue...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Numerals_and_constituent_words) and also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiquette](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiquette)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> XINUL anyone?

<comment><USER21> Xinul Is Not (your) Uncle's Linux</comment></comment>


How would the unprotected human body react to the vacuum of outer space? - <AUTHOR> http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

<comment><USER2> 2001: A Space Odyssey (the movie) got this right almost half a century ago. Bowman briefly exposed himself to space trying to return to the ship for the showdown with Hal. The only movie mistake was something Clarke later claimed would never have happened had he been on set that day: Bowman is seen apparently taking a deep breath before opening the pod door.

Edit: Found the scene: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0Nb...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0NbkF9_T0Eg&t=490)

<comment><USER3> _The only movie mistake was something Clarke later claimed would never have happened had he been on set that day: Bowman is seen apparently taking a deep breath before opening the pod door._

Hah, I thought that was just a tick. You would take a breath before doing any hard physical effort and I'm pretty sure you'd try to do it even in the vacuum of space just because you're used to.

<comment><USER4> I always assumed he was hyperventilating to get as much oxygen as possible in his blood before the jump. He would have to let the air out of his lungs before jumping but I never felt like anything in the scene contradicted that.

<comment><USER5> Hyperventilating actually reduces the amount of CO2 in the body, a build up of CO2 is what creates the need to take a breath. (One of the few things I remember from scuba diving).

<comment><USER4> Thanks. That still kind of validates the impression I had that hyperventilating wasn't an irrational thing for him to be doing, but it's a very different thing.

The interesting thing is that Arthur C. Clarke was a very experienced scuba diver and still had a problem with the scene. Ah well.

It's one of my favorite action scenes in any science fiction film. The interesting thing is that the trick just relied on good photography, piano wire and dropping Keir Dullea. It's easy to imagine how a present-day director would mess that scene up with CGI effects, slow-motion, stuntmen, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What this article leads me to think is that, if we managed to create a thin elastic tight-fitting suit that compressed the body with the equivalent pressure of Earth's atmosphere, the issues with lung overpressure would be negated and we could, ignoring radiation and temperature issues, just be in space with scuba gear.

That would be awesome.

<comment><USER7> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_activity_suit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_activity_suit)

There are a lot of advantages to this idea, but it is not without tradeoffs. For example, for these sorts of suits to work properly they need to be in contact with _all_ of your body. Any gap, between your toes or your legs... and you will have problems. This can be overcome but you basically end up having to tailor each suit to a particular astronaut. The suits currently used on the ISS are not specially tailored, they basically just have "small/medium/large" (though they have a greater variety of sizes for gloves).

<comment><USER8> Cooling is actually a major issue with this idea. Working in space your going to encounter a huge temperature range so you want a fair amount of insulation, but dumping heat to the vacuume of space is much harder than cooling off on a hot day so current suits use an environmental control suystem to cool as needed.

<comment><USER9> > dumping heat to the vacuume of space is much harder than cooling off on a > hot day

Is it? A naive application of the Stefan–Boltzmann law yields a loss of about 1 kW through heat radiation alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> And how Hollywood thinks about this:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f0iDL3pAhE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f0iDL3pAhE)

(The scene where Cohagen gets exposed to the martian atmosphere and dies).

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure if that's better or worse than Event Horizon (exploding eyes anyone?)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEa0FN1bf8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEa0FN1bf8)

<comment><USER7> At least in both of those the victim stays alive for a while. In Red Planet^W^W _Mission to Mars_ somebody removes their helmet and instantly turns meat-popsicle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love the NASA study in the 1960's that addressed this, if only for the title:

"THE EFFECT ON THE CHIMPANZEE OF RAPID DECOMPRESSION TO A NEAR VACUUM."

        Eight chimpanzees, used in nine separate tests, were
        decompressed from 179 mm Hg (100% oxygen) to less than
        2mm Hg in 0.8 seconds and remained at this altitude from
        5 to 150 seconds.

[...]

        All subjects showed slight neutrophilia, increased
        transaminase, and facial edema which returned to normal
        within 72 hours after decompression. All subjects survived
        in good health and no lasting effects of rapid decompression
        to a near vacuum could be detected.

Implications for the hyperloop as well.

[1] - [http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=ht...](http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0479738)

</comment><comment><USER13> [http://www.geoffreylandis.com/vacuum.html](http://www.geoffreylandis.com/vacuum.html)

I like this article much better. Covers more topics with more detail.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well that ruined the end of "Total Recall"

<comment><USER15> The end of "Total Recall" ruined "Total Recall".

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sunburn wasn't my first thought, but I guess it makes sense. Love the down-to- earth tone of the article.

</comment><comment><USER17> "The subject later reported that he could feel and hear the air leaking out, and his last conscious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to boil"

Can someone explain the boiling water on his tongue?

<comment><USER18> > Can someone explain the boiling water on his tongue?

The main thing stopping the molecules of a liquid boiling away (flying off, out of the container) is the pressure exerted by the gas above or around them.

If you make the liquid molecules move faster (i.e. give them energy, i.e. heat them up), a greater proportion of them will be able to overcome this pressure. So heating increases evaporation and leads to boiling - which we're familiar with.

Alternatively, if you reduce the pressure of the gas pushing the liquid molecules together, you don't need to heat up the liquid as much to get the same evaporation/boiling effect.

Reduce the gas pressure enough and the liquid will boil at a very low temperature.

<comment><USER19> Ah, now I understand how pressure cookers work

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you're not supposed to hold your breath, what happens? It makes as much sense to me as not holding your breath under water (not using scuba gear, snorkel). Otherwise, good to know you can transfer to safety from a sabotaged space wreck with a psychotic robot, no special gear required.

<comment><USER21> I think the lungs aren't strong enough to act as a pressure vessel against the vacuum. Trying to hold it in is like expecting your sensitive tissues to behave the same as a scuba tank.

If you don't hold it in, the air will simply leave your lungs and you have about 12-15 seconds before the remaining oxygen in your blood leaves your body making you unconscious. The lungs, instead of trading CO2 for O2 is now working in reverse in the vacuum, exchanging O2 for... nothing. That amount of time should be enough for you to reattach your O2 hose and open the airlock etc.

I also recall reading somewhere that you may urinate, defecate and projectile vomit simultaneously after a while, however by that time, you may already be unconscious.

<comment><USER22> You are correct. You can simulate this by filling your lungs with air at 10 m under water and then rise quickly to the surface while holding your breath. It would be analog to filling your lungs with 2atm at sea level. Boom.

<comment><USER21> Ah, I'm gonna have to take your word for it ;)

The diving comparison comes up a lot with these space exposure questions. Even the article mentions Scuba diving. But diving is applicable in many ways not just in terms of physiology, but behavior and psychology as well.

I remember there was once also an experiment in an undersea lab where a group of people spent time to see what would happen on similar long duration space missions.

<comment><USER7> Diving comparisons can actually give us real-world examples of Hollywood style decompression too. In real life human bodies don't explode when decompressed in space, but if you depressurize a diving bell on the surface then all bets are off: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_acci...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident)

1atm->0atm won't do it, but apparently 9atm->1atm can.

<comment><USER23> Mythbusters did something similar. They tested what would happen to a diver if you cut the hose in one of those old-school diving suits that had a hose connecting them to the surface. It's not pretty: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEY3fN4N3D8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEY3fN4N3D8)

Pressure differentials are powerful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I always figured that you wouldn't explode, but simply 'disassemble'. It was my understanding that the human body is held together under of the pressure of the atmosphere. So, if you remove the atmosphere, what is holding the body together?

<comment><USER8> Mount Everest is 1/3 sea level pressure and while you can't breath up there your not at risk of poping. The reason for this is a combination of things, the skin is tough stuff, but also your insides also resist expansion. Down to the cellular level where osmotic forces can be stronger than a pure vacuume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Space Suit Testing - The instantaneous effects on a human when exposed to near-vacuum conditions

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY)

<comment><USER26> That's from the six-part series Moon Machines. It's a great look at the research and scientific work that went into the Apollo lunar program, and the focus is on the men and women behind the scenes, rather than the astronauts and other people at NASA. Well worth watching if the lunar program is a subject of interest.

[http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Machines-Robert- Seamans/dp/B0026I...](http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Machines-Robert- Seamans/dp/B0026IQTR2/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It would be interesting to hear what would happen if you had an emergency oxygen supply, like one of those miniature scuba tanks. How would that change the survival range?

<comment><USER22> Breathing pressurized air in vacuum is not such a good idea.

<comment><USER9> Pure oxygen at low pressure might actually work. I'm pretty sure the lungs can take 0.1 atm pressure differential, and it should be enough oxygen to stay conscious indefinitely.

<comment><USER28> The numbers I found were that people can blow about 1-2 PSI (obtained by random people on the internet blowing into their scuba gauges), which implies that you could probably handle at least 0.07-0.14 atmospheres of positive pressure in your lungs without exploding.

The peak of Mount Everest is about 1/3 atmosphere, and base camp is in about 1/2 atmosphere. This means the partial pressure of oxygen at those locations is about 0.07 and 0.1 atmospheres, respectively. People who have not acclimated to high altitudes (by spending 2 months at base camp) will pass out on the peak (and it still sucks pretty hard even if you're acclimated).

So, it seems like pure oxygen at 0.1 atmosphere should work, although I suspect it'd be hella uncomfortable even without the vacuum, since it'd probably feel like you were trying to blow up the worlds largest balloon while standing on Mount Everest.

But it does let us move on. So you're standing in a vacuum (on the Moon, maybe) sucking on 0.1 atmosphere of pure oxygen. How long can you survive for?

<comment><USER27> That's what's interesting to me - the emergency scenario where the oxygen situation is (uncomfortable but) survivable. How long would it take for the exposure to kill you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I find myself much more interested in space now than ever been (as an adult) and I can directly attribute that to the work Elon Musk has been doing. I wonder if he's shaping the next generation of entrapreneurs and startups.

</comment><comment><USER30> gives 404 error

</comment><comment><USER31> Badly.

<comment><USER32> Please read the article.

<comment><USER3> It's still badly. You get sunburned, lose consciousness due to lack of oxygen and die.

<comment><USER33> In case of problems, 10-14 seconds is a lot of time.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


American Corporate Software Can No Longer Be Trusted For Anything - <AUTHOR> http://falkvinge.net/2011/12/27/american-corporate-software-can-no-longer-be-trusted-for-anything/

<comment><USER2> _Today, software from two American companies — Microsoft and Apple — run most of the world's infrastructure, in terms of governments, authorities, social security, et cetera. It has come to be taken for so granted, you can barely buy a piece of hardware without code from at least one of these two American corporations._

Nonsense. Yes, Microsoft has it's tentacles in many corners, but Apple _is not even close_ to running most of the world's infrastructure. Regardless though, I can buy lots of hardware without Microsoft's or Apple's code running on top of it. What is this guy talking about?

<comment><USER3> Go to any consumer electronics store and try to buy a computer not running any code from one of these two companies.

Yes, if you're a sysadmin, getting naked iron is no problem. But you're gonna have code from these running on your network, as it stands today.

<comment><USER4> You said infrastructure. Not consumer gear.

How many sysadmins are running down to Best Buy to purchase their server farms? I doubt very many. A healthy percentage of companies have their infrastructure based on Linux.

<comment><USER2> Exactly. XBox's and iPhones are not the "world's infrastructure". The real _infrastructure_ of the world runs on big iron mainframes, SCADA systems and whatever Cisco puts on their hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I agree with his feelings on the dangers of SOPA, his claim that "you can barely buy a piece of hardware without code from at least one of these two American corporations.", referring to MS and Apple, seems just a bit far- fetched.

</comment><comment><USER5> Microsoft and US-based cloud companies are facing similar "perception issues" (as they phrase it) on the Patriot Act. Unless Congress and the Administration change their positions, this is going to be an increasing burden on American companies trying to compete internationally.

<comment><USER6> Domestically too, I know sales people who sell to US financial institutions who remind prospective clients that competitors store their data in US data centres; thus the institutions' data would be exposed under the Patriot act.

It's not just international businesses that have these concerns, any business that serves customers who want their data protected against unreasonable search and seizure have these issues as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Inflammatory headline, baseless assertions, and generally uninteresting. Flagged.</comment>


Twilio Customer Care - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/#!/search/twilio%20basket

<comment><USER2> (Disclaimer: Twilio sent me a basket)

I think Twilio this year has been a case study in how to handle a developer community: routinely running contests, putting together a kick-ass conference, having a developer evangelist at every freakin' tech event imaginable. And that's not even mentioning that their API is really slick. As a developer, I'm excited to see what they do in 2012 (and what I can build with it).</comment>