Risk of Discovery (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/disc.html <comment><USER3> On a similar note, Nassim Taleb says:

"Something central, very central, is missing in historical accounts of scientific and technological discovery. The discourse and controversies focus on the role of luck as opposed to teleological programs (from telos, "aim"), that is, ones that rely on pre-set direction from formal science.

The luck versus knowledge story is as follows. Ironically, we have vastly more evidence for results linked to luck than to those coming from the teleological, outside physics—even after discounting for the sensationalism. In some opaque and nonlinear fields, like medicine or engineering, the teleological exceptions are in the minority, such as a small number of designer drugs. This makes us live in the contradiction that we largely got here to where we are thanks to undirected chance, but we build research programs going forward based on direction and narratives. And, what is worse, we are fully conscious of the inconsistency."

What's interesting, according to Taleb, is that science has been hiding this fact, that progress mainly comes from trial & error & risk-taking, as opposed to well-defined theories and narratives.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2012/11/02/for- innovat...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2012/11/02/for-innovation- knowledge-is-a-poor-substitute-for-experimentation)

<comment><USER4> Chance favored the prepared mind and laboratory. Directed effort won't get you everything, but it _will_ help position you to take maximum advantage of serendipity should it come wandering along.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The example of Newton and the relation between the seemingly disparate fields of physics, alchemy and theology is explored in detail in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle.

There, Newton does not actually make that distinction (is always working on one and the same set of problems) and is also successful in all, though not recognized as such.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have enjoyed many of PG's essays, but I am somewhat upset by this one. I'm not too keen on his throwing theology into the same pot as alchemy, labeling it an "obvious waste of time", and implying that only crazy people would have anything to do with it.

For one, theology is not a science and doesn't claim to be a science (at least not in the sense that physics is and alchemy claimed to be). Secondly, Newton's theology was actually a driving force behind the science he did - like many scholars of his time, he was deeply religious and did science with the explicit intent of exploring God's creation. And thirdly, discarding all theologians as "crazy" seems gratuitously anti-religious.

PG's point about the "risk of discovery" is valid, but his example is unfortunately chosen and worded.

<comment><USER7> Evidently you're right; it's _not_ obvious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is why we need to make sure scientists who don't find anything interesting are still funded. They came out of a pool of scientists who started looking for something, and some of them worked on hypotheses that turned out to be correct.

Too often science is portrayed as a series of eureka moments. What gets missed is years spent in the lab trying yet another iteration.

<comment><USER9> Totally agree. A lot of big discoveries only got made because it was possible to look at previous attempts and learn from them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Or how Steve Jobs put it:

"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever."

Text: [https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/](https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/)

Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc)

</comment><comment><USER11> If you are randomly placed above the median on a pareto or exponential distribution of rewards,and everyone below the 40th percentile selects out, you are going to be phenomenally successful just from survivor bias. Just survive long enough to be lucky.

William Blake said it well with, "if only the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."

<comment><USER12> > William Blake said it well with, "if only the fool would persist in his > folly he would become wise."

Thanks for the quote ;-)

</comment></comment><comment> T3OU-736 The usual motivational stuff of "if [PersonX] did it, to can you" so prevalent in the business world also relies on the very same thing - hiding the role luck plays in success. Sometimes this is accidental, and sometimes, as in the case of motivational "seminars", intentional. (Yeah, I have a bone to pick with that entire industry).

The slightly more formal name for this phenomenon is this: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias), of which [https://xkcd.com/1827/](https://xkcd.com/1827/) is a decent illustration.

Pair it up with the law of large numbers, and, for fun, confirmation bias, and it takes a concerted effort to make sure that our minds aren't leading is astray when we try to evaluate risks, or even reason about what risks there are.

<comment><USER12> > The usual motivational stuff of "if [PersonX] did it, to can you" so > prevalent in the business world also relies on the very same thing - <USER2> > the role luck plays in success

Indeed. Although I think it is important to strive for some kind of balance. In my understanding the more extraordinary the result the greater the degree of luck involved. All the motivational talk and general review of the success of others is useful in terms of stirring us to positive action. On the balance of probabilities were are more likely to enjoy some degree of success by following in the footsteps of others. We may not be as successful as they were. E.g. if one studies, reads and follows the investment approach adopted by Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger, given time, one might expect some degree of success but it is unlikely to match theirs.

<comment><USER9> "All the motivational talk and general review of the success of others is useful in terms of stirring us to positive action. "

Very true. I just wish they would leave out the guarantees that you will 100% succeed if you follow their advice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hence Feyerabend's _Against Method_.

</comment><comment><USER14> The reason I disliked Arnold Schwarzenegger's biography, _Total Recall_ , was that it white-washed his path in life.

It's clear now that he's been a successful businessman, with great achievements in bodybuilding and physical culture that will have him remembered for a long time after he's dead, as well as a number of what a regular Joe would consider big breaks: his acting career, and his political career. People might not know he's a sharp businessman, but he's made his millions _before_ acting _somehow_. The book, however, portrays him as a juggernaut of success. "I did that, then I did that, and that, and that..."

After reading Vladimir Pozner's _Parting with Illusions_ – an insightful autobiography of vivid images of his time – this just didn't seem right. Pozner had a lot of success in the field of journalism, he's been on TV, he owns a number of businesses – but in the book, he also speaks about his failures and his worries – something noticeably absent from Schwarzenegger's.

(Apparently, Schwarzenegger writes about his affair in one of the chapters of the book. I never read past about the middle of it: couldn't stomach it.)

(EDITed to add: I recognize that both men are writing _auto_ biographies – the "auto" part I find difficult to believe in Schwarzenegger's case – which means they're going to be somewhat biased to their own side of the story, especially with something that's happened a while ago and is no longer so full on detail. I realize, too, that Pozner's book was biased in such way, regardless of how much effort he'd put into averting it.

I do posit, however, is that Pozner's account is far less biased than Schwarzenegger's, in no small part because of the heart-felt, genuine nature of the former's stories.)

There was this blog post by Dan Abramov, of overreacted.io, called "Things I Don't Know as of 2018" [[https://overreacted.io/things-i-dont-know-as- of-2018/](https://overreacted.io/things-i-dont-know-as-of-2018/)]. It lists Dan's known unknowns, and encourages others to do the same publicly, in an effort to shed the idea that a developer must know _everything_ in their field to be considered capable.

I think this is what we need more of: to know that people arounds us, amateurs and experts alike, are fallible, before the pedestal is violently broken down the line. It doesn't necessarily mean that their expertise is, as well, but as human beings, we're all failing in some areas where others wouldn't be able to guess. Scientists, artists, businessmen, craftsmen of other calibers...

From personal experience, it's one of the big things that keep artists anxious about their craft: that they aren't good enough because they're not as good as their aspiration figure. They don't know that the person they revere got to where they are partly because they struggled until they got their big break.

We may not have control over external circumstances, but we _do_ have control over what we choose to do with our own self. Practice is what brings skill about.</comment>


Find and hear your IP with morse code - <AUTHOR> http://morsemyip.com/

<comment><USER2> this is just awesome, there must be an use case where something like this actually makes some sense.</comment>


HTML minifier revisited - <AUTHOR> http://perfectionkills.com/html-minifier-revisited/

<comment><USER3> > it's still unacceptable for minification to take more than 1-2 minutes. This > is something we could try fixing in the future.

Wow. Yes. I would even say taking more than a _single second_ is pretty unacceptable. There's a bad algorithm in there somewhere...

<comment><USER4> The 7.7s to process a 400KB page (Wikipedia) is particularly surprising. Assuming a processor that executes ~2 billion instructions a second, that's roughly 37,000 instructions executed for each byte of input, or a throughput of ~52KB/s. I wonder where all the time is being spent, as from my understanding minifiers just parse the input document and then write it out in some smaller canonical form.

Also, _please_ , whenever you publish benchmarks, always include the specifications of the system they were performed on! 52KB/s may be horribly slow on a 3GHz i7 but pretty good for a 100MHz Pentium.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, updated.

These were done on 2.3GHz Core i7 & OS X 10.9.4.

Note that "max" settings were used, meaning that, for example, both JS and CSS had to be minified (and that's delegated to UglifyJS2 and clean-css packages correspondingly).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The workarounds to handle client-side templating seem dirty. Is it really true that e.g. Handlebars requires you to send illegal HTML to the browser? That seems like such a bad idea.

<comment><USER6> I've been using <script type="text/html"> to hold bits of HTML I want to quilt together client-side.

I build all my templates in HTML, and then store all the different content to populate the templates in script tags. I can then use JavaScript to swap it out, and even hide/reveal unused templates.

It's 100% valid though, handlebars are not valid HTML, at least not until processed and rendered.

<comment><USER7> The <template> tag is meant for that - not only are the contents inert, but they're also exempt from HTML5's special processing rules, so you can eg. put them in tables without having them foster parented.

The big issue right now is IE support, but most browsers are coming along with it:

[http://caniuse.com/template](http://caniuse.com/template)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it hard to imagine a scenario where this technology pays off. Any examples of real live systems that gained from this?

<comment><USER7> Google minifies HTML on basically all its properties. It's probably about a 50% savings in bytes, which translates to (on my Comcast connection) about 250ms in network latency saved. Multiply out by rough estimates on queries/day and it saves a human lifetime every 2 days.

Repeated experiments - by Google, Amazon, and many smaller websites - <USER2> shown that lower latency directly translates to higher conversion rates, so I wouldn't be surprised if this results in billions of dollars of extra commerce, and even a small website would get noticeably higher revenue if they did this. Google also ranks faster websites higher, and so you get an SEO benefit as well.

<comment><USER9> How did you calculate that 250ms latency number?

<comment><USER7> Chrome DevTools timeline inspector. Loaded www.google.com/search?q=foo on Network tab, clicked into details, selected Timing tab, and took only the Receiving time, skipping the Waiting portion.

It's a little inaccurate because Google Search uses chunked encoding, and so it sends the header immediately, even before the search has finished, then blocks as the search request comes back. Plus there are usually inline images at the end of the response, but I chose my query to avoid them. It should still be pretty close to the general ballpark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to see a before/after comparison after gzipping the results.

<comment><USER11> Compression kills TLS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd love your feedback on a similar Rack middleware for Rails: [https://gist.github.com/frankie-loves- jesus/d7eec0ebab0525e9...](https://gist.github.com/frankie-loves- jesus/d7eec0ebab0525e94256)

To me it's mainly for cosmetic purposes -- partly because Google does it and I want to be like Google -- and because I want to give a little "fuck you" to my competitors who will inevitably try to read my source.

<comment><USER13> Smart competitors will just run it through Tidy :)

<comment><USER12> Sure, but at least I got to say fuck you :)

<comment><USER14> Yours (at line 19) will fall foul of the "Conservative whitespace collapse" described in the original link.

<comment><USER12> Indeed, but with proper CSS, this shouldn't be an issue right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Kangax: Just one notice, it chokes on comments like this:

/ __*

* _ _

* | (_)

* __| |_ ___

* / _` | |/ _ \

* | (_| | | __/

* \\__,_|_|\\___|

*

*/

No biggie, but had to manually remove them from my code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm, really? Works for me on [http://kangax.github.io/html- minifier/](http://kangax.github.io/html-minifier/)

<comment><USER15> Found the culprit, but it's unlikely to happen:

1.- The characters "> <" need to be present (they are inside the X in Clearfix:

2.- Only breaks when pasting inline CSS with no enclosing <style>: [https://gist.githubusercontent.com/sogen/e2ec898e586a9cb9e33...](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/sogen/e2ec898e586a9cb9e335/raw/edc3d9da87218c82bb7bd7957d778b94a3ffb299/gistfile1.txt)

removing the " > < " makes it work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, filed as [https://github.com/kangax/html- minifier/issues/220](https://github.com/kangax/html-minifier/issues/220)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I prefer a HTML minifier that parses and builds in internal AST (like Google closures compiler for JS) over a regex-based minifier.

HTML-minifier seems like a good solution, thanks, will try it out.

</comment><comment><USER17> I really would like to see a comparison of the minified + gzipped vs just gzipped vs just collapsing all multiple blank spaces into a single ones + gzipped</comment>


Terrastore Project Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/terrastore/wiki/Project_Ideas

<comment><AUTHOR> Terrastore is a new born project, and one of its main objectives is to build an healthy open source community and ecosystem.

So feel free to comment on those project ideas, as well as propose new ones!</comment>


Navy Medics Get Prepared for Combat with Tour of Duty in Chicago - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/navy-medics-get-prepared-for-combatwith-tour-of-duty-in-chicago-1521028800 <comment><USER3> A relative served in the U.S. Army as a doctor many decades ago and said some of the training involved shooting goats with a small caliber gun, removing the bullets, and stitching them up. His specialty was not surgery - I assume this was training for basic field medicine and emergencies.

I've read somewhere that Navy Corpsmen have a training exercise in which a pig is anesthetized and then burned or shot and the job of the corpsman is to keep it alive as long as possible.

ETA: This was happening in 2012 but PETA objected (1); I am not sure if it's still part of the program.

1\. [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/pigs- military-...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/pigs-military- medic-training-san-diego-county.html)

<comment><USER4> Part fact, part fiction. Some of that did happen but many stories dont add up. For instance the common tale of removing bullets from animals: Why? That isn't part of a medics job. One would never attempt to remove a bullet in the field. Such actions would do far more harm than good. Even in hospital it is often much better to leave the bullet in, at least until the patient is stable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anecdotally, one of the reasons that trauma surgeons from chicago and baltimore have a really pristine reputation is that they get a lot of practice.

I remember hearing about programs like this perhaps 15 years ago, so I'm not surprised they're ongoing.

<comment><USER6> America in general. A surgeon in the Netherlands can wait DECADES for a kid with gunshot wounds. Its just textbook stuff but if you want to see it in action the US is a good place to learn.

<comment><USER7> > America in general

"America in stereotype" is more accurate.

Your Netherlands comment is also hyperbole. Here's an article about a kid who was shot and killed on an Amsterdam playground a few weeks ago. Two other people were wounded by what in America would be called an "active shooter." But that only happens in America, right?

[https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/910572/Amsterdam- shooti...](https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/910572/Amsterdam-shooting- Netherlands-gun-attack-Dutch-police-Grote-Wittenburgstraat)

<comment><USER8> Anecdote aside, it's established beyond a doubt that the US has much, much higher rates of gun violence than European countries, across every dimension: wounds, deaths, assault, self-harm, accidents... You name it, there's a statistic documenting it.

For example, according to healthdata.org, in 2016, physical violence by firearm was the cause of 210.5 DALYs per 100,000. In the Netherlands it was 10.8.

A DALY is a standardized metric defined by the WHO as "lost years of life" to measure the burden of a disease or other affliction.

So in 2016 physical violence by firearm caused 20 times more harm per capita to the US population than to the Dutch population. I'm willing to bet that for self-harm and accidental firearm wounds the gap is even larger, given the idiotic habit Americans have of keeping guns and ammunition stored in their homes.

Source: [https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd- compare/](https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare/)

<comment><USER7> I'm not disputing that America has far more gun deaths than most (all?) other nations, but to generalize that the violence in Chicago is endemic to the rest of the nation is pure fantasy.

There are tens of thousands of towns, villages, and cities that see little to no gun violence each year. But they don't get written up in the Daily Fail.

<comment><USER9> It's more common than people like to acknowledge.

The violent crime rate in Chicago is lower than ~30 other US cities. It sits about even with Tulsa.

The thing that makes Chicago stand out is that its population transforms the rate into a larger raw number.

<comment><USER10> It's really crazy when you look at just how many murders / deaths we have compared to anyone else.

I decided to check the right-wing conspiracy theory that if you dropped the top four Democratic controlled cities from the US numbers, we'd be in the range of other 1st world democracies. No idea which cities those are supposed to be, but I assume Chicago and NY and LA and St Louis.

Spoiler alert, we're not. Even throwing out all gunshot murders from IL, CA, NY, LA, MO (New Orleans), while keeping the population, still doesn't get us below 2x rate of CAN. You have to toss TX, NJ, MT, OK, to get in the ballpark.

<comment><USER11> Eh? Canada has a lower rate of gun deaths than ANY US state; 1.97 vs 2.78 in Hawaii, the lowest. Canada's rate is still high for a developed country, incidentally.

Edit: sorry, missed you were talking about murders; I was using data for all deaths.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The fact that the naval training base is in Chicago probably has something to do with it too.

<comment><USER13> I believe for combat trauma surgery (the navy supplies all doctors and medics for the usmc), they typically send MDs to Johns Hopkins or UCLA surgery residency programs.

The surgeon who operated on Gabrielle giffords was a us Navy fleet marine force surgeon.

<comment><USER14> This article is referring to Navy Corpsman. They are medics, closer to an EMT than a surgeon. After boot camp at Naval Station Great Lakes, they go to "A" School (basically, their specialty school) in San Antonio.

It is my understanding that this training at a hospital trauma center would be after their school in San Antonio, before they were attached to a Marine unit and deployed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Chicago and Baltimore are the most desired spots for all trauma surgery interns. Note that I went to McGill in Montreal, Canada.

<comment><USER16> Detroit used to be, probably still is up there, but maybe not as bad as it once was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm always afraid of the (incredibly little) chance of getting shot here in Germany, because I'm sure the doctors wouldn't have a lot of experience

<comment><USER18> No matter where you live, it's always good to be versed in first aid, cpr, and some basic self-defense. Our civilized world can turn itself upside in a hurry, via natural disasters or man-made causes.

<comment><USER19> Genuinely curious, when was the last time that our civilized world turned itself upside down in a hurry?

<comment><USER20> Right now the best examples are Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

<comment><USER21> Haiti

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [http://archive.is/MtjAr](http://archive.is/MtjAr)

</comment><comment><USER23> There's an old narrative, so familiar we hardly notice it, that American cities are dangerous and crime-ridden. It's something that many WSJ readers and others grew up hearing, and which is a popular setting in entertainment - a setting for genre we all know, like the Victorian period pieces - <USER2> entertainment is the only exposure many have to cities outside of commercial and entertainment districts. That narrative is obsolete; generally, crime is very low, gangs are a thing of the past, and so are drug wars. I've spent time in cities, outside the commercial and entertainment (and wealthy loft) districts, and you'd be surprised what you find - regular people going about regular days, boringly normal. Lots of infrastructure that needs attention too.

I'm concerned that articles like this one further the old, dramatic narrative, and there's a cost: It depicts these places as almost different countries, stereotyped settings for genre entertainment like a Hollywood backlot, not as real communities; and it writes off the residents as a criminal class that need to be suppressed by police (and fuels a lot of racism), not as people with talent, hard work and dreams who need transit, education, jobs, freedom, opportunity, and all the same things we need sitting at our desks reading about it.

(There are dangerous, crime-ridden areas in the U.S.; some are in cities and some are not. On the other hand, I guess Wall Street is in a city, and what's the per capita crime rate there? They should send JAG for training!)

EDIT: Some minor edits

</comment><comment><USER24> Arguably a more deadly place than the war-zones they would be deploying to

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/09/08/homici...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/09/08/homicides- in-chicago-eclipse-u-s-death-toll-in-afghanistan-and-iraq- infographic/#6e888d477d75)

<comment><USER25> So at it's peak we had ~160k Americans in Iraq. At Afghanistan peak, we had ~100k.

Chicago has ~11 times as many Americans. I'll take my chances with Chicago.

It's actually shows how remarkably low we were on the casualty rate in the wars we had. Far cry from the civil war (~25% casualty rate).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Variants of this have been happening for a while. Here's 2008 article: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/intense-training-for- military-s...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/intense-training-for-military- surgeons/)

</comment><comment><USER27> The trauma surgeon who treated the North Korean soldier that escaped through Panmunjom was trained in San Diego, and that makes him one of the most experienced trauma surgeons in the country. There's much less practice available in countries with gun control.

</comment><comment><USER28> I went through paramedic school in Los Angeles in the early 90s and worked along side US Army medics who were sent there to learn how to deal with trauma cases.

Ah, good times at UCLA Medical Centre and MLK.

</comment><comment><USER29> > "The experience here can't be replicated elsewhere, unless you have a major > land invasion,"

Parkland, Columbine, Newtown, . . .

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

</comment><comment><USER30> We should not overlook the fact that in the 1970s, trauma surgeons practiced in the Bronx. Nothing ever really changes in the human condition, but new generations forget the old lessons.</comment>


Researcher at center of epic fraud remains an enigma to those who exposed him - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/researcher-center-epic-fraud-remains-enigma-those-who-exposed-him <comment><USER2> Fraud is a problem, but I worry much more about research done sloppily but in good faith. Spotting errors can be very difficult, so it's best to avoid them altogether if possible. And given how difficult getting retractions was in this case, that's another reason to stop problems early on.

I haven't written too many peer reviews, but I was somewhat harsh in one I wrote because the paper was so bad. Multiple major problems, but I think it ultimately could be redeemed after a lot of work. The editor seems to have rejected the paper, and they sent me the other reviews for a reason unknown to me. I was surprised that none of the other reviewers noticed an error I found to be particularly obvious. Though one of the reviewers did notice a few problems I missed, so perhaps what's obvious to me is not necessarily obvious to others.

<comment><USER3> You reminded me of a really great post from the Data Genetics blog about estimating the amount of unseen errors in a document based on the errors actually found by independent reviewers. [0] It's such a simple idea but seems incredibly powerful.

[0] [http://datagenetics.com/blog/december12015/index.html](http://datagenetics.com/blog/december12015/index.html)

<comment><USER2> Nice post. I've seen techniques like that used before, and I recommend their use.

One problem I see is that what counts as an "error" is ambiguous. I might call something one error, but others classify it as two errors. A more clear definition might be needed, but to first approximation the naive approach should be fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem here is that the journals do not provide proper review. Perhaps it's a presumption of honesty/integeity, but they need to start asking if the experiment was plausible. If it would have been expensive, who funded it, etc...

It's sad that science has come to this.

<comment><USER5> The problem is that there are too many scientists chasing too few dollars- something's gotta give, and on the extreme side of things you end up getting fraud / faked data. This could be mitigated by open science practices and reforms to the review process to some extent, but these only address a symptom and not the root cause.

The primary solutions I can see (not necessarily mutually exclusive) are to a) reduce the costs of research equipment and staff substantially so that competition for funding becomes less relevant, b) provide a larger pot of state-sponsored scientific funding (industrial science tends to favor refining research more than performing tentative research so corporate funding would be an ill-advised solution), or c) to discourage young budding potential grad students from even going into the grad school track in the first place.

As an individual, option c) is something that I personally feel like I can make a difference with. Professors in undergrad can be really terrible about conveying the exact career options you can have in science without necessarily going for the PhD. Invisible support positions like HPC system administrators, research software engineers, and even to some extent hospital lab workers don't require hefty commitments to grad school but still allow one to live within the world of scientific discourse and contribute to the advancement of various fields as an enabler (perhaps less so for hospital workers). Unfortunately, the invisibility of these professions is a major problem, which is why there are organizations like UKRSE [0] that strive to generate more recognition for at least Research Software Engineering (curiously Google in the States seems to have been quick to recognize scientific programmers as distinct professionals relative to PhDs and other programmers, while academia in the US has not done so nearly as much). Also, for some support positions in IT there are non-science options that are much more lucrative.

[0] [https://rse.ac.uk/](https://rse.ac.uk/)

<comment><USER6> Since the whole scientific research machine needs a large number of PhD students and postdocs to perform research cheaply I don't see fixing c) until we solve the funding issue, since the reliance on cheap student/postdoc labor is partly a symptom of lack of funding.

Another point is that professors are very biased in that they successfully completed grad school, probably a postdoc if they are relatively new and then got a tenure track job. They then suggest that you follow a similar track, strong confirmation bias since you see their success and not the "failure" of the 90% who couldn't/didn't find jobs in academia.

<comment><USER7> I routinely advise students to carefully consider whether or not grad school is for them.

The simple fact that each professor advises >10 grad students in their career is generally sufficient to open an undergraduate's eyes to reality.

Do it for love, not for money, and do it only with the recognition of the fiscal/life sacrifice that a Ph.D entails.

<comment><USER8> As do I - it's helpful to point out to students that at steady state, the replacement rate for a tenured professor is _one_. If the field is doubling in size over their lifetime...it's two.

But I'm also in a field where "alternative" careers don't carry quite the same stigma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is the other side of plagiarism. In third world countries, promotions depend on publications, so they just copy others papers. This is easy to catch with software with enough access to all journals.

In experimental fields, one just pulls data out of thin air or one just discards observations that are contrary to the hypothesis being tested. This attitude is so rampant in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and disciplines that use statistics.

I'm quite sympathetic to some guy in some random university in Pakistan, India or China. His plagiarization involves submitting his publication to some fourth rate publication.

The real abusers are in the first world, their primary tool is experiments and data.

<comment><USER10> That random guy in Pakistan, India, or China would absolutely submit his [1] publication to NEJM or Nature if he could get it accepted there.

[1] I say "his" because it seems like men are highly overrepresented in submitting falsified data. Obviously there are probably more men in science to start with, but consider that 30/30 of the most retracted scientists are men. [https://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch- leaderboard...](https://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-leaderboard/)

<comment><USER11> 30 is not even statistically significant... Plus, my belief at least, this is the tip of the iceberg for some fields. (So don't worry there will be more.)

<comment><USER12> 30 vs. 0 is statistically significant for something that's theoretically a coin flip. It even beats a stringent five-sigma threshold.

<comment><USER10> Definitely!

If I were being pedantic [I guess I am :-) ], I'd probably say the best prior would be p =(n male scientists/number all scientists)

Overall I bet men are slightly more than 1/2, but even if it's an 80/20 split the p value for this would be many sigma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Bernie Madoff off of clinical trials?

People in my immediate circle suffer from ailments mentioned in this article. Do these researchers have any conscience at all? Did they understand they're playing with people's lives?

I put them in the same category as the pharmacist who watered down the chemo drugs. There really should be criminal prosecutions and jail time for these crimes.

<comment><USER14> I think what was most scary about this article is that if Sato had just been slightly more "realistic" in his fake data - such as having fewer fake patients and slightly less dramatic results - he would have got away with it.

As such it's not really comparable to Madoff. Madoff would have been caught eventually whatever happened because what he was doing was fundamentally unsustainable. But this fraud was fairly close to being undiscovered. It was only caught because of the persistence of some researchers (for whom it wasn't even their job) and the unbelievable data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> We don't need publish or perish. We need replicate or perish.

<comment><USER16> This. If study is not replicated, it might as well not exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_and_Grichka_Bogdanoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_and_Grichka_Bogdanoff)

tl;dr: two brothers fake their way to a PhD and became TV celebrities and book authors in France. A lot of people have no idea about this and still respect them.

<comment><USER18> > A lot of people have no idea about this and still respect them.

That's sad indeed. They also write vulgarization books that sell well but are very bad and confused. I feel bad for the people who buy their books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was involved in a project with a researcher in Japan, it was impossible to replicate their work.

Numerous people (academics in the field) have suggested that the work was falsified.

I somehow can't quite bring myself the believe it. I can't understand what the motivation would be, or that any reasonable person would fake scientific data. And continue to do so, over a period years.

The STAP cell debacle is somewhat similar. What's the endgame? Surely it becomes clear in the end that the work can not be replicated?

Can anyone shed some light on the motivation for these frauds? Is there something in particular about the Japanese ecosystem that makes them more common?

<comment><USER20> > Can anyone shed some light on the motivation for these frauds?

Money and prestige while it lasts?

> Is there something in particular about the Japanese ecosystem that makes > them more common?

Well, the article states the following:

> Michiie Sakamoto, who is leading another investigation at Keio University, > into Iwamoto's studies in animals, says it has to do with respect. "In > Japan, we don't usually doubt a professor," he says. "We basically believe > people. We think we don't need strict rules to watch them carefully." As a > result, researchers faking their results may be exposed only after they have > racked up many publications.

<comment><USER19> The motivation exists elsewhere. The statement "In Japan, we don't usually doubt a professor" is also true elsewhere. I don't usually read any paper with the assumption that data was fabricated (maybe selected, possibly presented in a way to tell the strongest story, but not out-right fake).

So, I still can't quite put my finger on what is different about the Japanese ecosystem. Perhaps the checks and balances within departments are not as strong?

Outside Japan, a manager or department head seems to have a stronger supervisory role in my limited experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> at what point does an author have so many retractions that their work is taken prima facia as untrustworthy?

IMO that answer should basically be two (maybe even one). And if a paper is not willing to issue a retraction on those grounds (which I would understand), they should at least flag the paper with a "retracted author" notice.

truth is a pendulum. we are living in the extreme end of one swing: a gilded age where "truth isn't truth". It's interesting to see how much synchronization of the pendulum there is in very different aspects of society (such as medicine and politics).

</comment><comment><USER22> The behavior of JAMA Editor-in-Chief Howard Bauchner is appalling and frightening. If he's so unwilling to deal with fraud in his publishing, what is he letting people get away with in his position as Vice Chairman of Pediatrics at Boston University. He seems far too keen to sweep things under the rug.

<comment><USER23> How is it responsible, medically, to sit on a report of scientific fraud without action for two years, selling and profiting off bad data.

<comment><USER24> Are you being sardonic or is that a genuine question? It's difficult to tell here since most comments are generally serious and not flippant.

<comment><USER25> Reads to me like an expression of disbelief.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ugly Fonts Help You Learn and Memorize - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/216784/science_ugly_fonts_aid_content_memorization.html

<comment><USER2> I knew there was a reason linux helped me in school in the 90s!</comment>


Higher-order Venn diagrams - <AUTHOR> http://quentinsf.com/software/venn/

<comment><USER2> Very neat, from a theoretical perspective. Doing the work on the printer with postscript was a neat hack that I'm not sure I'd have thought of.

Unfortunately, the reason one would use a Venn diagram in the first place is to provide an accessible, "at-a-glance" insight regarding set overlap. The 12-set diagram linked at the bottom of the article fails at this task miserably.

</comment><comment><USER3> In my opinion these are not higher-order Venn diagrams, but just Venn diagrams with a higher number of sets than 3.

What I image a higher-order Venn diagrams are about is Venn diagrams whose elements are lower-order Venn diagrams as elements instead of sets (just as higher-order homotopies or higher-order categories).</comment>


Discover the best Dubstep Music you probably have never heard of - <AUTHOR> http://turnchannel.com/tracks/dubstep/recently_added

<comment><USER2> None of the players work with Android.</comment>


Ask HN: Monthly Subscription Plan vs Annual Subscription Plan? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
We currently have an annual subscription plan for our pro accounts at Muziboo - http://www.muziboo.com/pro ..
I was wondering if having a monthly subscription plan (ex. $4.99/month, cancel anytime v/s $49.95/year) increases conversions. Has anyone conducted such an experiment or seen a study?
Also, would this depend on whether this is a B2B or B2C app?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I think it depends more on the complexity (conceptually) of the product and the cost. A user might be more inclined to commit for a shorter trial period and test the usefulness of the premium features - for consumers, 'cost of a latte' seems to be a much easier decision to make than $50. There are also other parameters you can tweak, the first one that comes to mind is the utility of the free offering, especially for a community site - more users means more network effects, more community participation and more opportunities for conversion. Right now your free offering seems to be drastically more limited than the pro account and that might be something you could play with.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd recommend testing your hypothesis. A pure split test (A/B) doesn't quite seem right, because it'll be more difficult to compare w/o doing some sort of multivariate regression.

I'd suggest this: peel off a small segment (10%, 20%) randomly out of your user base. Give them the option for monthly / annually. Compare the revenue from that group to the revenue from your control group. Even if you do anger a few of your customers, or the monthly plan costs you a lot of sales / revenue, you've only done it with a small section of your audience.

The only downside to this is that you might find some customers prefer the monthly plan, even if you only want to offer the annual (after testing, you find that annual is more profitable to you).

Each site is different. Each customer base is different. This seems to me like a situation where you should collect data, rather than look for high level advice.

</comment><comment><USER4> It is best to have the 2 options available. Monthly a bit more ex. so that users can use and terminate anytime they want. The yearly option for your hardcore fans, of course, it should be a bit cheaper. So far this work really well for me.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do an A/B test!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Paras,

Since there is a little more than just changing a couple of elements on the page (code for renewals, support costs etc), I want to get an opinion before I dive in. I am sure I am not the first one trying to get an answer to this problem :)

<comment><USER6> I would completely echo the original comment - set up your renewal codes and whatever else to do a split test (a/b or multi-variate) - that is the surest way to get the most correct answer for YOUR audience/market.

What works for someone else MIGHT work for you, but then again, it might not - and that is a big risk to take. When it comes to pricing and pricing frequency, you can do nothing better than to trust your own customers - they'll respond differently to you than someone else's customers to them.

Split test it!

<comment><USER2> One problem with that is you're not dealing with UI preferences but people's money. Users might respond negatively when they find out pricing options available to some were not available to them and they, for instance, ended up with a subscription plan that's not entirely to their liking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also .. one more point is that I don't want to necessarily have only monthly/yearly plans. I think its best to have both with some discount if you pay yearly. Again this is just something I have seen on most sites and not experimented with personally</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Blackboard Chalk Isn't Really Chalk - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/blackboard-chalk-isn-t-really-chalk-at-all-1701961875?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmodo%2Ffull+%28Gizmodo%29

<comment><USER2> ...it's gypsum, and while no one is really sure why gypsum replaced chalk, it may have to do with a) gypsum being more widely available and b) gypsum can be shaped easily by first powdering it then by adding water and shaping.</comment>


A chinese villager who sells more software daily than you do - <AUTHOR> http://maxkle.in/a-chinese-villager-who-sells-more-software-daily-than-you-do/ <comment><USER2> No pictures, no links and no supporting information at all in the article. How do we know this isn't an excellent fiction piece?

All that aside, using those services to farm for project ideas is pretty cool.

<comment><USER3> Maxklein is so Meta, I'm not sure if the story is true, but there's almost always something to learn from those posts, like: If you are looking for ideas to build something, hack all the creative process/brainsstorming etc... and do port your brainstorming to freelancer boards for ideas, it's ok to do what you enjoy doing, no matter how rich you are or the financial reward. I agree to both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this story is actually about Max Klein. The TechCrunch pickup, the villager are all story avatars. Another HN commenter found out that he writes video encoding software, along with a franchise of profitable information iPhone apps. It is a pretty powerful idea - build what people are looking for - but not as a software soldier-of-fortune but as an owner.

</comment><comment><USER5> _Every month, he makes more than $5000_

 _At the moment he's making more than $5000 a day_

Which is it?

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure exactly what you're taking issue with, but both statements can be equally true at the same time, and I can't read either of them in a way in which one contradicts the other.

<comment><USER7> Give me a break. Is he making closer to $150k a month, or $5k a month? Both statements cannot be "equally true" coming from a human pen.

<comment><USER6> They very well can be equally true. $5,000 a day is 'more than' $5k a month, no matter how you read it. While I agree that it's a potentially confusing statement, I just don't see anything factually incorrect about it.

For what it's worth, my interpretation is that 'on average' or perhaps 'since he started', he's made generally over $5,000 in a month, but lately he's doing far better than that.

Perhaps I'm the one reading too much into it here, but I strongly disagree that it is in any way misleading or semantically problematic.

<comment><USER7> No person says "more than $5,000" to imply that the value may be any amount greater than $5,000, with equal probability. Saying "more than $5,000 a month" if you actually mean "$150,000 a month" may as well be the dictionary definition of misleading, and totally defeats the purpose of giving a number at all.

The obvious explanation is that one or the other statement is a typo, and it would be nice to know which, since it's a big difference. It's possible that one means "since he started", or whatever, but again, it would be nice if the author said so.

<comment><USER6> I suppose if you disregard the rest of my statement, then you are justified in your comments, but again, based on my reading, it makes sense note the 'lately' in the second part of the statement? To me, that's a qualifier that during the current timeline, he's doing exceptionally, or abnormally well.

Without contacting the author, the subject of the story, or someone in the know, we just have to keep peeing in each other's corn flakes, without knowing the true answer. Regardless, I just don't see justification for taking such issue with the statement.

 _Edit: I was missing a 'you' in the first sentence._

<comment><USER7> Well, if you got that interpretation out of the sentences in the article, you're a more adventurous reader than me.

<comment><USER6> I suppose. I don't think so, but if the votes matter at all, I suppose the majority agrees with you, though I'm more than a little surprised by them, since I believe I am factually correct.

So it goes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> that just sounds like bullshit to me:

       He did this, and rather than making software for
       clients, he created his own software products, which he
       put on the internet. He said that 3 days after he copied
       a simple idea from the rentacoder list on his website,
       he was making 2 sales a day. $20 per day, which "

you don't just release something and then magically start making 2 sales a day...you still have to market. And I doubt many people would buy from someone who wrote in broken english.

isn't it odd, how somehow you ALWAYS manage to find all these interesting people...in all these odd places.

Why don't you go outside and snap a few pictures of China for us. That would at least prove that you are actually in China and not just pulling everyone's chain.

<comment><USER9> Well, why don't you just click on my flickr link? It's right there on my blog - a little flickr icon. I regularly post photos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "He said he tried selling Firefox for a while, but sales were very low due to the free competition."

:)</comment>


Should Voters Have to Pass a Test Before Pulling the Lever? - <AUTHOR> http://bigthink.com/praxis/should-voters-have-to-pass-a-competency-test-before-pulling-the-lever

<comment><USER2> >A quick look at this analogy exposes its central flaw. Bad driving is objectively identifiable: if you drive over the speed limit, change lanes without looking or run a red light, you are breaking the law and can fairly be labeled a poor driver. But bad voting is harder to pinpoint—much harder. Partisans on either side can claim with equal justification that it's crazy to vote for candidate X rather than candidate Y. You can argue with your friend's decision to support a candidate based on his environmental record when, in your view, his terrible stance on corporate taxes disqualifies. him from office. So it seems that voting mistakes are truly in the eye of the beholder.

What if it is a test about knowledge ? Economists, politicians, even physicist don't agree with each others, but they are knowledgeable about their fields. They know what are the existing theories, and they know what can be considered a fact.

The problem with this is it create an oligarchy (which may not be a bad thing), and it place the power of deciding who acceed to the oligarchy to its members.

It can be good. The actual best system of government (IMO) is a tyrany/oligarchy where people in power work for the greater good, but it is difficult to achieve and unstable (what if the successor don't have great intention ?)

The other way is to have a direct democracy, but many people in the population don't have time to think about new laws, and to gain knowledge on specifics subjects, so they delegate to representatives.

If the check and balances work in this new indirect democratic system, and the majority of people are educated enough to choose their representative wisely, we have a working system.

We shouldn't put tests to access to voting, we should make sure most voters would be able to pass them, by having a good educating system.</comment>


Startup Founders: Don't Defer Long-Term Travel Till Retirement - <AUTHOR> http://globetrooper.com/notes/travel-retirement/

<comment><USER2> Until maybe 10 years ago, there was exactly one profession where you could travel full time and still do your job at full efficiency: Writer.

Now there are exactly two.

It amazes me that so few software developers take advantage of this fact. You can fit your entire working world into a four pound laptop and connect to the internet through the _sky_. People will pay you the same money to write your code from the beach as they will to write it from a cube in the suburbs.

The future is pretty cool.

<comment><USER3> > It amazes me that so few software developers take advantage of this fact.

Actually software developers would take advantage of this fact, if there were more jobs for remote workers. Look into HN "who is hiring" monthly threads: most companies want on-site workers, most workers want remote jobs.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. Workers think they can be just as effective working remotely, but employers feel otherwise, and I have come to agree with them. The only time I could see working remotely go well is if you were doing something simple and lone, such as developing a website as a contractor.

<comment><AUTHOR> It took us about 6 months to really find our groove and work efficiently on the road. Now after more than a year, we settle into new places pretty quickly. It takes a day or two to get fully productive, which is pretty negligible out of 3-6 months. Plus we lose another couple of days to arranging flights, visas, etc.

There's also a productivity uptick from working in foreign cities. With no friends or family around, you'd be surprised how much extra time you have. Some of that time is spent meeting locals and joining expeditions, but otherwise, weekends are free from external disruptions (unlike at home).

It's certainly not for everyone because some people find it difficult to self- motivate and others just don't like to travel. And if there's one real downside, it's that we spend less time with other tech founders. We try to meet-up with them where possible, and in Montreal we met many more than at home, but in lesser developed places, it's not so easy.

All of that said, living in countries like India, Bolivia, Peru and Thailand (which we've previously done) is highly thought-provoking. I don't mean in the clichéd charitable sense, but day-to-day seeing how we all live. It tends to get the creative juices flowing.

Watching how people do business in India, for example, provides a lot of lessons for business in developed countries. The fundamentals are the same, but often the drivers are different (lower margins, higher volume, lower income, cheaper labour, government regulation, corruption, etc.) Both positive and negative drivers provide useful lessons.

I remember suggesting to one guy that his idea wasn't very scalable because it relied on lots of manual labour. He said, "what do you mean, of course labour is scalable." Of course in India, labour is pretty scalable. I was very surprised to see the value you'd get for $1.

This actually brings another positive of working on the road. In places like India, we saved a lot of time because we never have to cook, clean, wash clothes, drive, etc. It makes sense to outsource these services because the price drops way below the value we ascribe to our time.

We have recently promised to slow down a little; maybe 6+ months in each city where visas allow.

<comment><USER4> I wasn't even thinking about the impacts of constantly moving around on individual productivity; rather, I have usually worked in a team, and things work better when you can speak face-to-face.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Absolutely agree with this. I left on a round the world trip in April with my wife. We've been through Australia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, and now Austria. I spend half of my time traveling / meeting people and the other half building my mobile app business. The trip is costing us about $5000/mo (using airbnb and being fairly liberal with spending on food and attractions, we have 0 expenses in the states since we packed everything into storage), but I've managed to triple revenues this year to ~ 25K/mo, so if we wanted to we could do this indefinitely.

I know many people who are working 80 hrs/week on their startup while letting life pass them by (including a few in YC), but I wouldn't trade places with them. These days it is entirely possible to build a company and live your dreams at the same time.

<comment><USER6> I'd love to know your story and background. Do you have a lot of experience in the mobile space? iOS or Android? Do you have employees? Contractors?

What sort of apps do you build?

<comment><USER5> both iOS and android. I use some contractors but do most of the programming myself. My apps are listed in my profile, mostly sports related.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Quitting my 9-to-5 to travel around SE Asia was the best move I ever made. Not only have I had countless irreplaceable experiences but my code has improved more in the last six months than in the previous five years combined.

<comment><USER6> why has your code improved?

<comment><USER8> New experiences probably have some effect on your ability to think abstractly. I've heard similar anecdotes of people improving various skills due to traveling.

<comment><USER4> Alternatively, being forced to get away from the console may have helped get him past coder's block in his development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This really depends on your definition of 'travel'. Do you just want to go places? See ruins? Meet people? Eat? It all depends on how you define what travel is. I personally prefer to think of travel as cultural immersion. Jumping into an unfamiliar situation and going gonzo. Live as they live; learn the customs, language, modes of interaction, how to cook the food, how to relax, and so forth. You don't have to travel in the traditional sense to do this, there are many cultures available and accessible within your own country. I'll list a few for you, the military, remote communities, big cities, artistic enclaves, and the list keeps going. Join one. Experience it, learn the good and bad and finally move on, or don't. Rinse and repeat.

Experiencing what humanity has to offer give valuable insights. It really don't matter where or who, you can learn something new and if you think about how you can harness that information you can use it to found a successful business or just keep it to yourself for your own satisfaction.

If you want to build a startup, what better way to do that than to find an untapped market in connection one or more groups of people. Travel is as much an investment in yourself as formal and self education.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm doing this right now actually. I've been in Europe for two weeks and I'm in Prague for the next two months.

It does take a somewhat adventuresome spirit. Often it's difficult to get any kind of long term accomidation beforehand. You're often going to places where you don't speak the language. It can seem very daunting. However, I've found that in most places things seem to go reasonably well. I've managed to find few month accomidation in countries where I don't speak the language at all.

As far as cost, it can be surprisingly cheap. The most expensive part by far are the initial and return flights. Beyond that, the US Dollar gets a long way in places and I've found that doing this also helps you accumlate less junk (you don't really want to be carrying all that stuff around with you). Thankfully, reliable broadband internet is becoming pervasive and with that there are more and more places that you can reasonably work out of.

If you haven't done it then get off your ass and do it! You won't regret it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Finding accommodation is one of the toughest parts, but I think it teaches you how to be resourceful. When in a country with a different language and non- latin script (e.g. Russia, China, Japan), you really have to hustle and work with locals to find good deals. It's tough, but it toughens you up too.

We especially found it easy in Argentina and Thailand, where there are big medium-term accommodation markets.

It was much harder in India, despite many English speakers, because in some states they have funky regulation where you have to pay 10 months rent as a deposit, even if you're only staying for 3 months.

As for broadband, after India, the US had by far the worst and least pervasive WiFi of anywhere we've lived. New York was a shocker. We were running around looking for Starbucks just to use Google maps.

In Chiang Mai (Thailand), everywhere has at least 6Mbps free Wifi. When I say everywhere, I even mean little open-air cafes that sell pad thai for $1. Right now there's a pub around the corner from us that has a consistent 20Mbps. It's always free and the food/drinks are super cheap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I left my job to do freelance web development full time in February this year. In June I started traveling. I can do it for $50-75 a day, including food, transportation, and lodging. Hostels, cooking my own food, and public transit. This is in the US too, it's even cheaper in southeast Asia and other parts of the world.

</comment><comment><USER12> Travel (even if short term) increases cultural awareness and creativity - there is a payoff too.

</comment><comment><USER13> People don't defer travel because it's "too expensive". It's not. They do it because they can't when they're young. Most people are not established enough to set their own rules, and like it or not, the career game is age-graded and being in a 25-year-old's position at 30 makes it that much harder to be taken seriously in the future.

The OP is already established enough to be able to travel and work. One of the things that comes out of a private equity stint is a fat Rolodex. That's a top-1% situation.

Most people aren't in a position to travel until age 30-35, when they have kids. This makes it hard to travel, except in the summer. And because of extreme government irresponsibility (not cracking down on airlines and hotels that jack up their rates when school's out) it's far more expensive than it should be.

<comment><USER14> Here's a fast track for you to "get established" and come out at "top-1%" with a "fat rolodex": launch those "fair airlines and hotels" that are _not_ more expensive than you presume to know "they should be". No government needed.

<comment><USER13> Hotels are generally fairly priced during the off-season.

Airlines: often they have long-term leases on airports (i.e. government favoritism) that give them a gatekeeper privilege. Hence the ridiculous fares .

If you really think that an average person can bring together the means to "launch" an airline, then my advice to you is to stop spending so much time on Hacker News now that the school year has begun. The first rule of freshman- year survival: cut distractions.

<comment><USER14> True, an "average person" cannot launch an airline, but then, an average person cannot launch much of anything. Is this the extent of your aspirations? Richard Branson could pull it off. As for the freshman thing, thanks for the laughs, trollman. Now please continue with your frustrations about how hotels and airlines destroy your quality of life (rather than, say, contribute to its improvement at any price that works for both parties; otherwise, no one's loss). And if you're deluded that by handcuffing them, "the government" (any govt. really) would be acting only in your own best interest, wait until they stoke you, too.

<comment><USER13> Okay, okay, s/average person/person of average means .

Yes, I am a fan of government action against private malfeasance. The private health insurance industry, in the form that exists in the U.S., shouldn't exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For any young HNers out there, let me say that travel is a skill like any other, and you shouldn't put off building it.

Growing up American, my image of travel was staying in hotels in Europe and looking at things we were told were important when we were in school. That's expensive and very isolating. This may be great for well-heeled, older couples looking for a minimally-exposed, relaxing jaunt abroad, but it's not what you want. It seems like every travel brochure I ever saw in the U.S. featured a photo of a healthy looking, silver-haired couple laughing and enjoying views from afar.

Instead, traveling on the cheap, staying in hostels, and getting directly involved in adventures is fun, mind-expanding, and most of all, _not_ lonely.

I stayed for a week in a very friendly guest house in rural, northern Thailand for $6 per night. The hosts would cook meals for around $2, or you could tromp around and play every expat's favorite game: Who Has The Cheapest Lunch.

Like I said, though, travel is a skill. Just like that crappy code you wrote, your first trip will probably suck. But you'll look back on it fondly, after you've absorbed all the lessons it contained, and forgotten a few of the worst parts. More importantly, you'll level-up and your next trip will be better.

<comment><USER16> Travel is something _some_ people enjoy. Like playing football. Sure it's a skill, but it's one that not everyone will be good at, or enjoy.

Just to provide a counterpoint... If you don't enjoy, or want to travel, don't. Find something you do enjoy and do that instead.

<comment><USER15> I disagree. Travel is much, much bigger than football. If you don't enjoy travel, then you haven't found the sort of travel that you enjoy.

<comment><USER16> OK football was a bad choice. A better one would be learning about history. Some people enjoy learning history. Some don't.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: pressureNET Visualization: atmosphere data from our open source app - <AUTHOR> http://pndv.cumulonimbus.ca/?gohn

<comment><AUTHOR> The page opens on part of Hurricane Sandy. You can browse around by changing the dates (data is available from November 2011 until December 2012, I'll be updating it soon) and moving the map. A graph of our data will load below. This data is crowdsourced from people running pressureNET, my free and open source Android app that taps into the barometer inside some phones. If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer! Our blog is at <http://cumulonimbus.ca> and pressureNET is at [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbu...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork)</comment>


Katie Curic and Bryant Gumble don't know what the Internet is - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nTPX4JW_Ts&feature=player_embedded

<comment><USER2> This is 17 years old. 17 years ago a lot of people didn't know about the Internet. The title is also misleading because it's in the present tense. Can you change it to: "In 1994, ... didn't know what the Internet was"

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, funny tho</comment></comment>


How to pair socks from a pile efficiently? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14415881/how-to-pair-socks-from-a-pile-efficiently?rq=1

<comment><USER2> Attach a pair of socks with a safety pin before putting them in the laundry.

<comment><USER3> okay, now solve the problem where my socks don't wear evenly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Buy two types of socks: over-the-calf navy for work, white for exercise.</comment>


The baby has started talking - Gecko SMS 1.3.0 - Gecko SMS Blog - <AUTHOR> http://blog.geckosmsapp.com/the-baby-has-started-talking-gecko-sms-130 <comment><AUTHOR> So this is an Android messaging replacement we are working on, basically to promote/spread the word about our main product, the landmark database.

We figured that in order to get the app to spread, we need to not only have our own thing (landmarks), but be better than the other messaging Apps so users have a reason to try it out. So in the latest version we added "say sender's name"-feature, which we have found pretty useful, and I will be working on other improvements.

I would love any feedback on the app, the blog, anything!

Earlier HN discussion about the first version of our app: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2640511>

<comment><USER2> When I go to your blog post, it says "Oh noes! Something went wrong."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for letting me know! How about now?

When I load it now, I get the blog text but not the images, and a weird theme.

The blog is running on posterous, and it did show up fine for some time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Update: posterous.com seems to have some problems:

\--- We're experiencing some database issues at the moment. We'll be back up shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience! \--- <https://twitter.com/#!/posterous/status/137494809559580672>

Another update, 33 minutes later: The site seems to be working fine now. No new tweets by posterous on the subject, but I have my fingers crossed it will stay up now -- it is not too often I get the blog to the front page of Hacker News.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Researchers are still chasing the nature, and the number, of basic tastes - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21641133-researchers-are-still-chasing-nature-and-number-basic-tastes

<comment><USER3> Taste is an incredibly difficult thing to measure and understand; my startup[1] builds machine learning based tools for flavor profiling and quality control in the craft beverage industry - I'm speaking from experience!

Before you can even approach understanding what a specific product tastes like, and what individuals and populations like or dislike about the product, you need to:

1\. Develop a consistent system for collecting flavor profiles - <USER2> eliminating exogenous factors such as unattributed variables, halo and masking effect, environmental effects, and cognitive effects.

2\. Collect thousands of reviews. Either from an IID sample of the population (sure...), or include the collection of demographic and personal identifiers within the data.

3\. Understand the effects of age, race, sex, socio-economic status, and past tasting experiences.

4\. Build basic flavor models, test that your system isn't leaving out important information that causes unseen variance within the product reviews, and continue collecting data.

After all of that, the real fun begins! At this point, we can determine most of the chemistry of a product, its risk of flaws taints and contaminations, its production process, and its optimal target demographic just from a few full-sensory reviews.

But we don't rely on standard sensory science to do it - that's stuck trying to figure out how Craft Foods can add less of a cheaper sugar substitute before people notice.

[1] www.gastrograph.com</comment>


Ask HN: Gateway to P2P - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
I'm thinking about creating an internet-facing website that does the following: -You put what you want to find in the search box and give the site an email address -Website gives page telling user to get a cuppa and check their email soon. -Server goes to find it, download it and zip it server side -Server emails user with a HTTP download link/stream on the server
This is primarily for me, I prefer to get Linux distributions and royalty free music from P2P but my ISP traffic shapes, so HTTP downloads and streams are better for me. The question I have, is whether I would be held liable should someone do something nefarious? Is this a gray area or is it something they would come down on me hard and fast for, for providing a simple service? <comment><USER2> If it got popular the *AA would try to nuke it from orbit. They'll attack any link in the chain that looks like it makes money from piracy or looks like it makes piracy easier.

BTW, there are a dozen sites doing this already.</comment>


Dell's bold plan to reinvent itself: A USB-sized PC - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/dell-bold-plan-reinvent-itself-usb-sized-pc-204655460.html

<comment><USER2> One can buy Android devices (like the MK802) which cost $50 and are similarly sized with similar functionality. Doesn't seem like a big stretch to build an image for one which just connects to a remote desktop.

<comment><USER3> Dell wants to become a "cloud" company. Get a free computer, pay for the virtual instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pano Logic [1] tried something like this for the Enterprise virtual desktop market and failed [2]. Maybe some of them ended up at Dell and want to take a shot at the consumer market.

1 - <http://www.panologic.com>

2 - [http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/vdi-startup- pano-l...](http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/vdi-startup-pano-logic- closes-shop-keeps-it-secret-customers-206275)

</comment><comment><USER5> So, what does the world start to look like when fully functional PCs are so cheap that instead of buying a PC and getting free software it becomes the other way around?

<comment><USER6> I tough about your statement for a minute, and I didn't like what I imagined for a single second.

<comment><USER7> I'm not so sure. The Apple induced resurgence of paying for software due to lower pricing has resulted in what I feel is a phenomenal leap forward in emphasis on usability and design. Some might argue this is the most important thing we should be optimizing around: how do we get the most usable software for the least money?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would this work like Remote Desktop or VNC or something? If the USB stick has built-in wireless and bluetooth, it would be a really neat toy to play with. That said, I doubt many people have a solid enough home network for something like this to feel as responsive as a Chromebook. Not only would the USB stick need to function as a very solid Wireless N adapter, but you'd need a DOCSIS3 modem, a high end N router, and most likely a 50Mbps connection or faster. That's $200+ of hardware and a $70-120/mo connection.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is what I have wanted.

I really, really want cheap disposable computers which I can plug into a keyboard and large screen, and save files on something like tarsnap.

Give me that and I'll be buying them by the handful.

<comment><USER10> why buy more than one? can you please elaborate on the use case a bit more?

<comment><USER6> I can give you a simple example: I live in the capital of my country during the week, and on weekends I always go to my grandparents house. Mobility is a big issue for me, and since I don't have a car, I can't go moving around my laptop on a public bus. That's it. Instead of having to buy another PC for "my other home", I could simply plug one of these and BAM, problem solved.

<comment><USER11> I guess, but "one of these" will fit in your pocket.

Why exactly can't you take your laptop on a public bus?

<comment><USER12> Not to be rude, but he may be living in a country where it isn't exactly safe to be carrying around something like that without having it stolen.

<comment><USER6> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting but sounds like vaporware considering there is almost no technical specs given and a "too good to be true" price point. None the less, I hope Dell builds some cool products in the near future.

<comment><USER14> Pricing it at $50 makes perfect sense if they intend to charge a monthly fee for access to the "Dell Cloud OS" service. It's a worthless little stick without a subscription.

<comment><USER15> $50 loss leader pricing plus a ~$19 per month (first ~3 months free!) OS service could be a very good way of monetising cheap hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I very much doubt this is Dell's primary hope for righting the ship. It might be an skunkworks / "interpreneurship" effort inside of Dell --- but I'm sure it's not the only thing behind Dell's thinking about why it might be better to take the company private.

<comment><USER17> A company with $4.5 billion of operating income isn't exactly capsized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The bold plan here is probably way more about the service of doing hosted PCs than this particular piece of hardware which is IMO a niche product at best. It's probably a safe bet people will continue to do more of their computing on SmartPhones, tablets, and other non-PC devices but many will still need access to a PC for different things. They may not really want to buy a PC they only use 10-20% of the time. Paying for access to one available in the cloud on any of your devices is a great solution. Not a new idea of course but if they make it a mainstream service it's something that could be successful in the post-PC world.

</comment><comment><USER19> "[gives users access to] Windows, Mac OS, Google's Chrome OS, Dell's custom cloud solutions, Citrix cloud software, and even Google's Chrome OS."

They seem really excited about Google's Chrome OS.

<comment><USER20> I wonder if it supports Google's Chrome OS?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I like this idea, if it's done right. The device could run Android or Chrome OS, and use something like XenApp to provide virtual applications. Most consumers need only a web browser 95% of the time, so Chrome OS is perfect, for the other 5% they can use virtual applications. Citrix already has a client called "Citrix Receiver" for Android and Chrome OS that allows Windows apps to "run" on the platforms: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So4UPP3K93g>

</comment><comment><USER22> How would peripherals work? You plug it into a TV and it boots, but how do you interact with it? How can Dell guarantee a good user experience with all those different operating systems they have to support? Aside from a thumbdrive form factor, what would this thing offer that a netbook or a tablet PC could not?

<comment><USER23> The impression I got was that the machine has USB ports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> So, a competition to the Raspberry pi?

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd love something with the following specs:

* sub-$50

* USB powered

* USB stick sized

* Plugs in to a monitor via USB

* Auto-suspends when removed.

* Auto-wake upon insertion

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are able to live with less than 50 mA, you can power the thing off an HDMI connector.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't see myself using it. Anyone willing to buy these? Any particular user group which might be interested.

<comment><USER27> A 50 dollar computer that you can take anywhere you want? Are you kidding? How about every big company's customer service center? $50 stations for every employee? They'd be silly not to use it.

Just a random idea there. I'm sure there's hundreds.

<comment><USER28> huh?

still need a monitor and peripherals, this is just a USB stick.

what makes people's brains shut off whenever such PR is posted?

<comment><USER27> While my brain has most certainly been switched off for quite a while (prepping for a 3 week holiday!) I can assure you that $50 is cheaper than what they currently have, computer-wise. It's also less maintenance heavy.

You forgot to mention that you also need to pay the people sitting at said computer, buy their desks, hire their office space, pay their managers, their manager's managers and your own brand new sports-car.

Those are also things that are totally unrelated to the cut in costs you gained by swapping the computer for a fifty dollar stick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Thin clients ride again. How much will Dell charge to run your instances?

<comment><USER30> Yes this is what I don't understand, are they expecting to charge a subscription fee or how will they maintain revenue from a one time $50 computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why build a "USB"-based device. Just make an Android/iOS app.

<comment><USER32> Because Dell is not a software company? They might as well get into designing clothes.

EDIT: Obviously a hyperbole. But that seems pretty damn arbitrary.

<comment><USER31> It looks like they want to be one regardless. Their USB computer with hosted VMs will need tons of custom software support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> An interconnect protocol-sized PC?</comment>


Mozilla Chromeless 0.2 - <AUTHOR> http://mozillalabs.com/chromeless/2011/04/29/chromeless-0-2/ <comment><USER2> Seeing so much awesome stuff out of the Mozilla team yet again makes me thankful for such an active browser ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I the only one who thought this was some attack on Chrome? Whenever I hear talk about browser chrome I always think that Google's name choice was a little confusing. Probably best in the end, though, since it's a catchy name.

<comment><USER4> Google seems to be making a habit of that... Closure and Noop are two other examples that come to mind.

<comment><USER5> Dont' forget "Go"

<comment><USER6> Actually, do forget it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't tell if this is an alternative to something like QtWebKit. There doesn't seem to be any emphases on native code integration.

<comment><USER8> > There doesn't seem to be any emphases on native code integration.

Mozilla's actively opposed to any form of JS/native code integration, undoubtedly because that would dilute the effective proprietary control over the Web platform that it shares with a small group of fellow browser vendors. (And maybe because it would wound the personal vanity of its senior developers.) It's already briefing friendly journalists against Google NaCl [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/25/mozilla_on_jaegermon...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/25/mozilla_on_jaegermonkey_javascript_engine_extension/) [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/18/google_releases_firs...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/18/google_releases_first_native_client_sdk/) , using comically disingenuous arguments: oh, it's just _too bad_ that NaCl hasn't been blessed by the web standards process that we ourselves control! Opera is behaving similarly: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/01/opera_on_google_nati...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/01/opera_on_google_native_client/) .

Of course, it's another thing to extend this attitude to the desktop, where developers have plenty of alternatives to drinking the JS kool-aid. But presumably Mozilla is hoping that the accelerated-Javascript/"contemporary HTML" juggernaut will be powerful enough to sweep a good number of desktop developers along anyhow. Next Big Language and all that, after all.

<comment><USER9> How is Mozilla's control over the W3C HTML standards process proprietary in any way? Mozilla is only one of a number of vendors on the W3C, and is certainly not the most powerful of those vendors.

<comment><USER8> I didn't suggest that Mozilla has sole control over the HTML (etc.) standards. It's one of the five browser vendors who collectively have _de facto_ control over the Web platform, and it's one of the four non-MS browser vendors who collectively have _de facto_ control over "open Web standards". Thus, for instance, the reason that Google Native Client is not set fair to become an "open Web standard" is because three of the four non-MS vendors oppose it for reasons of self-interest. Similarly, it's going to have trouble getting real- world adoption because MS opposes it too, for basically the same reasons. You'll note how the desires or interests of other actors, like the non- browser-vendor W3C members or Web users and developers at large, play no role in the calculation.

<comment><USER10> > The reason that Google Native Client is not set fair to become an "open Web > standard" is because three of the four non-MS vendors oppose it for reasons > of self-interest.

As a user, I don't want to see NaCl's compile-once-per-each-architecture model become part of the web. It's true browsers oppose it out of self interest, but NaCl has its own problems that haven't been solved.

PNaCl is a good start and much more in the vein of an open web that isn't tied to a particular platform. And whatever benefits an Open Web, Mozilla will inevitably support, as it sustains their business model. NaCl doesn't do anything for browser makers, but it also doesn't help me as a user.

<comment><USER8> So what remaining problems with NaCl's compile-once-per-each-architecture model do you believe can't be solved by the combination of multi-architecture compilers (llvm, gcc ...) on the developer/server end and PNaCl on the client? Obviously the implementation is incomplete and immature, but Mozilla and Opera aren't even pretending that their opposition to NaCl is based on the immaturity of the implementation.

> And whatever benefits an Open Web, Mozilla will inevitably support, as it > sustains their business model.

Mozilla inevitably supports and benefits from an Open Web only to the extent that you accept Mozilla's rather Newspeak definition of the Open Web as "a Web whose client API and runtime is under the shared control of a small group of browser vendors". If you have a less Orwellian kind of openness in mind, then it's clearly not true: Mozilla benefits from its shared control over the Web platform in largely the same way that MS benefits from its control over the Windows platform, and just like MS it has a strong self-interest in not seeing its platform "commoditised". As if that weren't perfectly clear already, then Chromeless underlines it. I assume you accept that Mozilla has a self-interest in seeing Chromeless succeed? The reason that Chromeless has a chance of hitting the big-time on the desktop is almost solely because Javascript and friends are popular on the Web client, and the ultimate reason for _that_ is because JS and friends are bolted in and difficult to avoid on the web client.

<comment><USER11> Well, for a start there's the problem that LLVM itself is architecture- dependent, last I checked. It's not as arhictecture-dependent as assembly but the last time I looked you couldn't generate the same LLVM on x86 and x86-64, say. Has that changed?

It looks like PNaCl aims to "solve" this problem by using 32-bit-targeted LLVM... including 32-bit pointer alignment. It's not immediately obvious how portable this would be to some hardware, and more importantly I'm not aware of any plans to support anything other than x86 and ARM initially (well, and x86-64 using its ability to run 32-bit code as far as I can tell). Am I just missing something on this front?

If I'm not missing anything, then this project's main impact if it caught on would be to restrict the set of hardware on which you can access web content, which is NOT a good thing.

<comment><USER12> > Well, for a start there's the problem that LLVM itself is architecture- > dependent, last I checked. It's not as arhictecture-dependent as assembly > but the last time I looked you couldn't generate the same LLVM on x86 and > x86-64, say. Has that changed?

LLVM bytecode is 100% architecture and platform independent, unless you call into platform-specific bits or into blobs of machine code.

<comment><USER11> OK, so in that case what <http://llvm.org/docs/FAQ.html#platformindependent> is telling me is that it's not possible to produce said LLVM bytecode from C or C++ code in general, right?

And if I read <http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html> correctly, some bitcode is "not supported by all targets". How is that reconciled with "100% platform and architecture independent"?

<comment><USER12> Hmm, you're quite right. A better way of putting this would be: a large subset of LLVM IR is platform independent, but not all. My mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like the decision to stop development of Mozilla Prism was not a bad one. "appify" looks very interesting.

<comment><USER14> Why was Prism stopped? Does anyone know?

<comment><USER13> You can read the announcement here: [https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2011/02/prism-is-now- chromeless...](https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2011/02/prism-is-now-chromeless/)

Basically: Both can solve the same problem, but Chromeless is more powerful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How is this different from xulrunner? In reading the description it sounds like a way to make a webapp behave like a desktop app but it's a little unclear.

<comment><USER9> Chromeless requires you to write your apps in HTML5/Javascript, whereas XULRunner requires you to write your apps in XUL/Javascript. Given that HTML5 is a much more widely known standard than XUL, I'm glad that Mozilla is pushing forward with Chromeless and relegating XULRunner.

Ideally, Chromeless would allow you to take your webapp and (with minor modifications) turn it into a desktop app or vice versa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like the idea of being able to do some parts of a desktop application with HTML but would really prefer not to have to use Javascript. Does anyone know of anything similar to this but that can be manipulated with another language.

<comment><USER17> Microsoft's WPF [0] will probably get you the best results on Windows. It's intended to be an easy transition for web programmers to native GUI programming, so it uses an XML-based markup language called XAML for layout.

If you want real HTML, you'll need to work out how to interact with your page from your non-JavaScript code. Two easy ways to do that: plugins and compilers.

IronPython allows you to embed Python in HTML [1] just like you would JavaScript. (A small Silverlight applet does the real work.) I haven't used this myself, so I can't vouch for how well it works in practice.

You can also write code in a language that compiles to JavaScript. [2] CoffeeScript is a popular choice, but there are quite a few others, including several compilers each for Python and Ruby. Some caveats:

* This can have performance implications if the compiler produces poorly-optimized JavaScript or compiles on the fly in the browser.

* Many of these compilers are toys, so make sure whatever you pick has seen real-world use.

* You still need to deal with JavaScript when you debug.

[0]: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970268.aspx>

[1]: <http://ironpython.net/browser/>

[2]: [https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of- lang...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages- that-compile-to-JS)

<comment><USER16> Yeah I was kinda thinking of HTML applications that are not intended to be used in the browser.

<comment><USER17> You could use any of the tools I mentioned outside the browser, the latter two (plugins and JavaScript-targeting compilers) with something like Chromeless or Adobe Air. The whole idea of those is to remove browser chrome but leave the engine, keeping development mostly the same. Anything you can do to script without JavaScript in the browser will work just as well in these non-browser environments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This looks promising. Are there supports for native file system access, databases (SQLite?), and network access?

<comment><USER19> file system access, yeah! It should feel like node.js (on purpose): [http://mozilla.github.com/chromeless/#guide/filesystem- acces...](http://mozilla.github.com/chromeless/#guide/filesystem-access)

databases, IndexedDB should "just work", and thinking exposing SQLlite is worthwhile.

only the most basic network libraries at the moment.

<comment><USER20> Would it be possible to use Chromeless to tell the operating system to have a specific file opened by its default native application? So you could have a collection of links in a Chromeless app, that represent files on the user's computer, and the user could click a link for say an Excel file, and Excel would launch and show the file? Ideally this is what the new FileSystemApi needs, so that a web-based "dropbox" becomes possible. At the moment, any kind of web-based file manager must result in downloads to get most files opened, and re-uploads, whenever the user changes the file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Their documentation system seems to be pretty cool. Does anyone know if this is spun off as a separate project somewhere? It looks pretty and seems to tie API functions straight to the equivalent github page - sounds like it would be pretty useful in lots of places.

<comment><USER19> it's homegrown. I spun off the docstract project which pulls docs outta .js and outputs them in json. From their you can render the docs however you want. Docstract itself is permissive open source you can use, here:

<https://github.com/lloyd/docstract>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wow, it's pretty much the same as Titanium Desktop.

(yes - I remember XULRunner and Adobe AIR - but the first didn't have any usable documentation, and the later is just Flash with webkit web view + AS<->JS bridge)

</comment><comment><USER23> Where's the tutorial? Github pages for tutorial not doing anything. I'm very interested as this seems to allow more features than a Chrome Packaged Application desktop app.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd still like Prism to live on...it allows the _user_ to turn any website into an application.

<comment><USER25> This feature is already beginning in Firefox 4 with App Tabs and will continue grow into the Prism-like platform without the need for a separate product. You should just be able to tell Firefox, "make this site an app" and not have to download Prism to get that.

<comment><USER24> I want it to run in a separate process and minimize to the system tray though...:(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Nice. Looks like an update on Microsoft's HTA (HTML Applications).

</comment><comment><USER27> any sample applications to showcase?

<comment><USER19> totally. check out webian: <https://github.com/webianproject/shell>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So is this like PhoneGap for desktops? it was about time

<comment><USER29> Actually, check out Adobe Air (for ajax developers). Basically it's webkit as a desktop app and pretty mature.

I've used it in the past, but I think Mozilla has a big opportunity here as Adobe has pretty much abandoned the web desktop aspect of AIR to focus on flash/flex for mobile.

Also, Adobe removes some of the best parts of webkit like web workers and I recently found a giant performance bug in their javascript engine that only exists in AIR.

<comment><USER30> Does Air still require a shared runtime component to be installed beforehand? We all know how well that worked with Java.

<comment><USER29> You can now build MSIs for Windows and DMGs for Macs with AIR that will bootstrap the runtime. That said, I haven't used that option.

Up until Craig's lawyers killed my app, I was using the flash installer that was seamless. Same sort of installation process can be seen on TweetDeck which uses AIR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The recent Amazon outage, in which actual data was lost, would seem to make a case for NOT using this.

<comment><USER32> This has nothing to do with "the cloud", hosted content or anything - Chromless is an application launcher allowing applications to launch utilizing the Firefox engine - think of it as an Adobe AIR type product.

<comment><USER31> OK, fair enough. And where are those applications hosted? If it's local to the machine, then great. If it's it's out in "the cloud", then the reliability for applications, which may have been purchased, is iffy at best.</comment></comment></comment>