The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-urgent-quest-for-slower-better-news <comment><USER3> I stopped reading the news about a year ago. I felt like my emotions were being manipulated by a sharply-honed system built precisely to invoke outrage and draw you in to read more and more of it.

I've been able to direct my focus and energy to much more productive tasks since I disconnected. Of course I entirely missed that whole Supreme Court thing until after it was over, and I have no idea what people around me are talking about when they discuss some iteration of the most recent outrage. To some extent it's like they're living in a different culture than I am. I still feel that it was a good decision, and I continue to ignore the news.

I might come back if enough journalism sources can take the New Yorker's suggestion to heart.

<comment><USER4> It needs to be pointed out that this is an option that originates from privilege. Ignoring the news means ignoring politics. Ignoring politics is tacit support of the status quo. The status quo does not put everyone on equal footing. Disadvantaged people would therefore suffer more from disengaging with the news than people of privilege.

<comment> old-gregg I disagree. News != politics. In fact, if I replace the "status quo" in your statement with "reality", the meaning will change significantly. I don't need a journalist to tell me that the healthcare situation (to pick an example) is absurd, or that taxation (fed+state) in some states is already at European levels, yet without any healthcare or education benefits. It's easy to be aware of these facts, you just have to be alive.

But I also don't need journalists to be brain-washing people by suggesting different ways of sharing the costs (insurance? single payer? have rich people pay for me?). The real solution is, of course, to lower the cost to the levels comparable to EU countries, but the costs are rarely discussed in the mass media, only cost sharing is brought up. Why? Because it's an unpopular solution among people who set the agenda. Fixing health care (i.e. halving its cost _at the very least_) means dropping US GDP by a whopping 9% [1].

So it's not about slow vs fast news. It's about controlling the public discourse. The old system of setting the national agenda [2] is obviously not working well if a populist with a Twitter account can override the MSM narrative and get himself elected.

[1] [https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and- systems/sta...](https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and- systems/statistics-trends-and- reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical.html)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent)

<comment><USER4> I don't know what you are intending to mean with your first point. Yes, you can change a word in my comment to a word with a different meaning and it will change the meaning of what I said. That doesn't mean what I said isn't true.

Healthcare is really too big and broad of an issue to really highlight what I am saying here. There is no way not to at least be aware of it if not interact with it and it has been one of the biggest political issues in this country for decades. However you can take a look at certain pieces of that to see my point.

For example, a tiny minority of people reading this have any reason to know the price of a month's supply of insulin is over $450 or that 1 in 4 people with diabetes are rationing themselves insulin in order to afford the drug. But more and more news stories are highlighting this issue which is leading to political pressure to address it. Just today there was a congressional hearing on the subject. I have no idea if something will be done to reduce the costs of insulin, but I know the price wouldn't go down if people just ignored every news story about it.

<comment> old-gregg

       > I don't know what you are intending to mean with your first point.
       > Yes, you can change a word in my comment to a word with a different
       > meaning and it will change the meaning of what I said.
       > That doesn't mean what I said isn't true.

By using the inflammatory vocabulary, you've re-framed the issue as a class conflict, pushing the proposed solution (ignoring the news) out of scope. This is a classic move straight from Animal Farm. I simply suggested to re-read your comment using less polarizing language. This re-focuses us back on the original proposal, and suddenly we may realize that not listening to sponsored "suggestions" proposed by the media may have us voting for (using my example) a working healthcare system, which would be great for all people, disadvantaged or not.

<comment><USER4> I really don't know what to say to you if you think "status quo" is inflammatory vocabulary. And I never said anything about suggestions from the media. You are mixing fact based news with opinion based news. You can be informed by ignoring opinion based news, but you still need fact based news to have an educated opinion on an issue.

<comment><USER5> The problem is not jargom, it is tone. If we criticize the ideas instead of the people we can reach an understanding. But by using "you" it becomes more personal and more inflammatory.

<comment><USER4> I didn't criticize the person or use "you" in my initial comment so I don't know what you are talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've had several discussions about this and, as inhumane as it might sound...I'm not sure what value news has in its current form. I don't feel like I'm learning more about other humans, I'm just being spoon-fed a carefully crafted narrative.

If the purpose of news is to disseminate useful information then it has failed. It's now about opinion, entertainment, advertising and maximising engagement (usually by getting people pissed off because misery loves company).

There was a recent story in the UK about a young man from the North West who plotted to murder an MP, who also happened to be a paedophile and a white supremacist (according to reports). Most of the news is a dramatic retelling of how a young kid could get to that point so soon. Our national broadcaster, the BBC, gave him the gift of notoriety and I can't imagine what that has done to his ego except to say he was right.

That isn't news, it's fetishising a burgeoning problem in our politics and titillating readers.

Upskirting celebrities getting out of cars and getting sly bikini shots from a telescopic lens somehow has more priority over proper investigative journalism that can have a positive, legal outcome.

In a more simplistic way, we revel in the pain of other people.

</comment><comment><USER7> Amen, faster and more frequent news is certainly broken. However, I worry that we are fighting against human nature.

The use of smartphones has demonstrated, I believe, that people will blindly chase their dopamine hits coming from a variety of formats because it is ingrained in human nature. The dopamine reward pathway gives a good feeling and people are naturally inclined to follow the path of least resistance to more hits. If an organization or app tries to fight this, then people will simply use it less. People will naturally gravitate towards (thus pushing the market towards) easy methods of getting a little dopamine rush.

The consumption of fast and frequent journalism is just a symptom of human nature and I have my doubts that there will be a unilateral disarmament by apps and companies to use such tools.

I personally try to recognize this and cut myself short when i keep scrolling, keep refreshing on my phone, etc. However, I am not that good at stopping myself and I am aware of when I do it and work on it. What about people who are unaware of their habits? Looking down at your phone and refreshing likely has become second nature for billions of people.

How can industries fight against this human nature? (I did not cite any sources I know, if I'm dead wrong on any points please let me know!)

<comment><USER8> _The use of smartphones has demonstrated, I believe, that people will blindly chase their dopamine hits coming from a variety of formats because it is ingrained in human nature. The dopamine reward pathway gives a good feeling and people are naturally inclined to follow the path of least resistance to more hits. If an organization or app tries to fight this, then people will simply use it less._

The way this has been resolved in the past, is that the "trash" news is relegated to the riffraff, and more reliable sources of news are used by the wealthy. The problem, is that even the mainstream news was of the trashy click-bait variety, even in the past going back many decades, if not hundreds of years. Even the news sources that are supposed to be higher end will succumb to the greater speed and greatly accelerated news cycle.

 _How can industries fight against this human nature?_

Industries need to have faith in basic human nature. They need to let everything go viral and stop picking winners and losers. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, after all. We need to have faith that the truth will eventually win out. In 2019, when there has been suppression of speech, that has merely given ammunition to the toxic voices. This also takes the form of bad actors pretending to be on the side of the angels, acting in bad faith by using emotional tactics which act to hide the truth.

Contrarian voices need to be protected. This is precisely what Freedom of Speech is for. Lots of those are going to be toxic, but some of them are going to turn out to be valuable. In the past, Freedom of Speech meant that bad messages could be discredited on their merits. The problem in 2019, is that people are trying to do end-runs around Freedom of Speech not through argument, but through reputation smearing and de-platforming. Basically, short circuiting Freedom of Speech by hacking the right to hear. Do this for a good message, and it only de-legitimizes the good message and gives ammunition to the bad ones.

<comment><USER9> > Sunlight is the best disinfectant, after all.

So, I had never heard this phrase until maybe a year or so ago. Now it seems like (on this site particularly) someone parrots this exact sentence in any thread at all related to news and/or social media.

Where is this coming from? Especially since it is... _Emphatically_ untrue. It's just another one of those turns of phrase that asks you to believe it purely because it's so pithy.

People have studied this. A lot. It's just not true.

<comment><USER8> _Especially since it is... Emphatically untrue._

Citation?

As far as I can see, people like the KKK and other White Supremacists have been and still are thoroughly discredited. The only countervailing force to that in 2019 is outrage driven media, produced by other extremist counterparts. If one's business is based on outrage, then you want an enemy to play off of, to generate a vicious circle of outrage and reaction and counter- reaction.

Do most people actually think of the "Ok" hand sign as a Nazi signal? Absent the media spamming this idea, I highly doubt this would ever have been considered anything more than a stupid joke by the mainstream. The reason it spreads, is precisely because it acts perfectly as viral outrage clickbait.

Also, the counterparts on the Far Left also seem to demonstrate the truth of this, through their use of smearing tactics and de-platforming. If anything, they seem to fear the disinfecting qualities of sunlight, the most!

<comment><USER10> >Citation?

'Sunlight' from the press doesn't necessarily do anything in a court of law, which is the actual thing that is supposed to disinfect society.

A bomb-shell story which drags a corporation or white collar criminal through the mud won't necessarily lead to successful prosecution.

And using sunlight to simply damage a reputation has been used as well. It depends if you believe it's sunlight or not, so we just go back to old-hat media problems.

<comment><USER8> _And using sunlight to simply damage a reputation has been used as well. It depends if you believe it 's sunlight or not, so we just go back to old-hat media problems._

So let there be a "Free Marketplace of Ideas." This is again, precisely why we need Free Speech! It's when our society lets someone be the arbiter of what's allowed to be said and heard, that we run into problems.

<comment><USER10> Well, we can't uninvent the technology of the day, so that's likely to end up like unregulated social media, but we know there are issues with disinformation easily reaching a large number of people (again, old-hat propaganda, just we don't have to throw pamphlets out of planes now).

This isn't an easy problem to solve and I certainly don't have the answers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Actually, what we need first is:

1) A common and agreed upon standard definition of news.

Facts alone are not news. News also has importance and relevance. It's not news simply because a (major) "news" outlet publishes it.

I ate eggs for breakfast. That's truth / fact. It's not news.

2) A common and agreed upon standard definition of journalism / journalist.

Again, working for a "news" outlet does not make you a journalist. Journalism is a verb. It's a series of actions. It's not a (self-anointed) title.

3) Transparency and full disclosure about what is news (objective) and what is op-ed (subjective).

True story: I've seen a friend who has formal higher edu training in journalism (major'ed or minor'ed, I don't recall) take a (political) position on FB and then back up his "facts" with an op-ed piece. This isn't uncommon.

Edit: Typos

<comment><USER12> I'll take a stab:

1) News is an account (story) of an event. The degree with which it is "true" is the degree with which it holds the events to account, and the degree with which the news organization/publisher holds itself accountable for that account/story. Good news is accountable and provides accounts of events. "Truth" is the wrong focus; "fact" is far too malleable (hence the status-quo legitimacy of "alternative facts"); accountability is the goal.

2) A journalist is someone who writes accounts/stories for a news organization/publisher and, in turn, is held accountable (either professionally or legally) for their story. Anyone can be a journalist, but few are willing to hold themselves to the standards of accountability good journalism demands.

3) The division between news and op-ed is marked by the degree and nature of accountability. News organizations are accountable for the news. News organizations call for op-eds and those op-eds have a different standard of accountability. That's why we call them op-eds. If a news organization will not hold itself accountable for a story then it is an op-ed.

We are far too focused on "truth" "fact" and "objective vs subjective". Instead we should focus on what the _use_ of journalism and the news is. The use is _accountability_. And the special nature of news and journalism, what differentiates it from fiction and bullshit, is that it is also held to standards of accountability.

<comment><USER11> 1) Being an account of X isn't a high enough bar. 100% of what I see on "the news" is an account of something. The problem is, the line between TMZ and Fox or CNN is less defined.

2) " but few are willing to hold themselves to the standards of accountability good journalism demands."

Well yeah. But it's because the dentition of journalism has become "anything done by self-proclaimed journalists." It's entirely self-serving. There is no higher standard. Mainly because the pot is afraid of calling the kettle black.

3) We might call them op-eds but plenty of "news" orgs are all too comfortable presenting their op-eds as news and/or journalism.

<comment><USER12> You have wedded your opinion of US news organizations to your definition of the news. Those two can and should be kept seperate.

1) Being an account is all the news is. It's a story. The division between TMZ and Fox and CNN is defined. They are all news organizations. They differ in the nature of their accountability and the degree with which they hold themselves accountable for their stories. They show this in their willingness to retract, correct, or stand by stories. And they have a history that we can judge. You already show that in your opinion of them.

2) Anyone can be a journalist. Just as anyone can be a scientist or a programmer. But to do those things, to be considered a professional in those things, is to hold yourself to a certain set of standards, that is, to hold yourself accountable. I have read excellent and insightful journalism in a newspaper just as I have read it on a local blog. In both cases they have acted with professionalism. I have also seen the inverse, in which case I don't consider them credible journalists or their news to be credible.

3) That's a completely credible criticism of many news organizations. That however, does not target my definition of news, that targets the use of op-eds by news organizations to evade accountability. In which case, they are bad news organizations and you would be justified in considering them as such.

However to insist on 100% "truthfulness" or "objectivity" leads to a metaphysical paralysis where news or journalism is impossible. Show me an 100% true and objective news story? You can't (or you could show your fact from your parent comment, but, as you admit, that is not news). Because it has never been like that, nor need it. Instead we can be pragmatic and demand that the news be useful. what the news is is its use. That use is accountability. Because neither I nor you can be everywhere at once. To overcome that, we rely on news, on accounts of events. But, in turn, we can also, as you have, insist that we have good news and criticise those that are not useful (a Fox News, for instance, that insists on only holding one party accountable).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slow news still exists, and always has. Weeklies and monthlies are low pass filters.

In my teens I was an avid news reader and then I heard the aphorism "as worthless as yesterday's news" and I realized: if it won't be useful tomorrow I most likely don't need to know it today (obviously there are a few exceptions, like road closures). And I started to read news sources that reported with higher latency (CSM used to send its small, 7-page newspaper though the _mail_ ) and discovered I really never missed anything important.

</comment><comment><USER14> The article and the comments express the desire for news to be an effective tool to inform and educate the public. While appealing, this idea has never worked in the past, and there's no evidence that it can work in the near future.

The reason is not that the media or the journalists do something wrong. Rather, the vast majority of the public is simply not interested in being educated or informed.

You can send the best art / math / business professor to a school, but if the students are not interested in that field and have no need for a good grade, there will be very little learning done.

The public is quite capable to take any information they are offered, and convert it to an argument in favor of their political or social beliefs; it is also very capable, when given a choice, to select the lowest quality information.

It's unclear to me how anything can be done to counteract those tendencies. And as long as these tendencies stay in place, it seems rather futile to discuss "better news".

<comment><USER15> This sort of cynic pessimism is getting out of hand...

By most any measure, today's western democracies are the best place, and time in history, to be alive: life expectancy, crime, food availability, mobility.

This is also true of education and "being informed", although those are harder to measure. But literacy rates, high school and advanced degree proliferation, books being published, and of course internet access should be decent proxies.

That's not even including the vast improvements people who aren't white, able- bodied men have seen. Just ask around among women over 70 and you will find plenty who wanted to go to medical school and were stymied for whatever reason. My mother was told that, yes, she can matriculate. "But as long as I am professor, no woman will pass [some required class]"

<comment><USER16> None of what you wrote addressed the point of the comment you were responding to, which is that it's hard get people to be informed about the news if they just don't care. I'm not arguing that what you said is inherently wrong, it just doesn't have anything to do with the question at hand.

The OP wrote that, "You can send the best art / math / business professor to a school, but if the students are not interested in that field and have no need for a good grade, there will be very little learning done." Let's take that and combine it with the women going to medical school that you referenced.

OP is suggesting that the women going to medical school might put all of their effort into the classes that directly pertain to their field. But if they need an elective class (let's say, some kind of art class, for instance), then they might go into that and put forth the lowest effort possible to achieve a passing grade if it doesn't interest them. OP's suggesting, and rightly so I believe, that the general populous does the same thing with politics. Those that care about it invest more time in reading about it, while those that don't care about it won't invest more time in reading about it and will typically choose the lowest-effort, easiest-to-digest sources of news.

Going back to OP's original question, how to we counteract those tendencies?

<comment><USER15> The best proxy for "interest in politics", specifically, would seem to be voter turnout: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections#Turnout_statistics)

That data shows only modest changes since 1940, and no discernible decline in the last decade or so. If anything, turnout was lower in the 80s and 90s, slightly higher in the 60s.

<comment><USER16> I feel like I understand what you're getting at with that data as it pertains to "interest in politics" at a general level, but I'm not sure how you intend to use that data in this specific conversation. OP and I are wondering how we get the general populous to invest quality time in educating themselves about the news/politics, subjects many people don't care about. How does the data you provided correlate with that conversation?

<comment><USER15> I don't know how much more data I should offer, while your and OP's position is basically "everything was better in the past".

The New York Times has seen subscriptions quadruple from 1988 to today. (two charts needed for this timespan: [https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/oimg.png](https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/oimg.png) and [https://secondmeasure.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/NYT- Cha...](https://secondmeasure.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/NYT- Chart-1f.png))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Somewhat surprised that there is no mention of The Correspondent yet. The Dutch version has been quite successful for quite a few years now, and they're launching an international version later this year[0][1].

(Having said that, the authors of De Correspondent sometimes come across as oblivious to how their world views are shaped by living in the cultural bubble that is the Randstad[2]. There is a certain arrogance to the writing style that just makes it feel like the kind of thing that people living in Amsterdam would write, and it sometimes rubs me the wrong way. I guess that makes it the Dutch equivalent to the New Yorker.)

[0] [https://thecorrespondent.com/](https://thecorrespondent.com/)

[1] [https://decorrespondent.nl/](https://decorrespondent.nl/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randstad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randstad)

<comment><USER18> I subscribed to the Correspondent based on the proposition of in depth quality journalism until it decayed into long form leftist outcry and nothing else. I wonder if this type of decay is inevitable.

<comment><USER17> As long as one remains oblivious to their own biases the rest of the world will appear to be wrong all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think that there is an often overlooked product that solves this problem very well by it's very nature: Weekly newspapers.

Especially when you read them as paperback they take out all the haste. You can't "refresh" them. The style tends to be less lurid, because it is pointless to write an hot article with Tuesday's information if you print on Sunday. Topics are way more broad in my experience but still capture the Zeitgeist of current topics in whatever culture you live in (it has to be a good newspaper, of course). There is of course a certain desire to read everything, since you paid for it, but it's finite: It is not a permanent rat race to read all the news, when you're done, you're done.

Even if you don't use whatever paper you get to it's fullest, you will still realize: You do not actually become an "informed voter" by knowing the exact updated body count of some colorful tragedy on the other side of the world. Reading one well researched multi-perspective article with depth will do just fine!

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't think this is a problem of the media but rather of the consumer. In the pre-Twitter time people used to be concerned about those consuming only tabloids or trash TV news. At best, possibly even none at all.

In fact the offer of "slow news" is so much larger than "fast news". The New Yorker is actually an example of very slow news ;-) Also on TV/Web streaming there is a lot of slow news like BBC News for instance. The truth is most people find this too boring, they are just not interested in Politics. Maybe new formats like VICE are improving this.

Maybe this problem didn't even got worse but it just became more visible in the age of Google News where you suddenly see that you can read the same article on 200 different news pages - sometimes just copy&pasting from Reuters.

And yes, news is always biased. That's why one should read different sources with different biases... That's a very time consuming task if you are only consuming slow news.

</comment><comment><USER21> I noticed some time ago that I do not learn more about a topic the more frequently I check on it (i.e., multiple times a day).

So, I make it a point to only visit websites that update daily (e.g., [https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper](https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper)) or weekly ([https://asia.nikkei.com/Print- Edition](https://asia.nikkei.com/Print-Edition)). I also started to read news in the morning for 15-30 mins from a paper subscription (Financial Times).

I hope this kind of news consumption catches back on.

</comment><comment><USER22> I subscribed to Delayed Gratification quarterly for this purpose.

[https://www.slow-journalism.com/](https://www.slow-journalism.com/)

<comment><USER23> This is the first I've heard of Delayed Gratification. That's a hefty subscription price -- is that their main source of revenue?

<comment><USER24> Is it that hefty? I'm seeing a price of 55 GBP for the US.

<comment><USER23> Works out to almost $20 per issue for a quarterly. So it's a lot more per issue than _Time_. Not saying it's not worth it. ( _Time_ is for dentists' offices and bird cages.) My comment about cost isn't a gripe, just an observation about their business model. It takes real belief in your product to charge that much for writing, when we're so used to getting it for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I see a number of comments celebrating the choice to live in a bubble uninformed and blissfully unaware of local and global events. Admittedly, a number of news sources are quite bad at actually reporting the news. But there still are quite a number of news organizations and news reporters that take their roles seriously. You can find them, that is if you are actually interested in being informed.

I'm sure there's some virtue signalling going on here, similar to the "I don't watch TV" from years ago. It just strikes me as odd that people will gloat about their ignorance, on HN of all places.

<comment><USER26> I find comments like this unhelpful. You have made a point, without any real counterpoint. If you wanted to be helpful, instead of doing your own little "You can find them, that is if you are actually interested in being informed" virtue signal posturing, why not post the name of a single such source which you find valuable?

I would sincerely be interested in knowing the sources of some great news, so please share. Until then all your comment amounts to is an insult, without any substance.

<comment><USER27> The Economist does a good job of informing and analyzing the news. That and the Sunday newspaper will give you enough info to stay informed. There is still plenty of fluff but at least you get to choose what you consume.

Just keep in mind that most news is useless and meant to entertain and hold your attention but give you little to no benefit. Also, note that it has a big impact on your mental health and not for the better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Unfortunately this is one of those things where if 99 media companies agree and one doesn't, all the attention will go to the one that claims to have the latest "scoop". The story will be completely undeveloped, half the stuff they say will eventually be proven wrong but they will get _all_ the views. And therefore, gradually, the other 99 would follow suit to stay in business.

As long as money/advertising is so lucrative when so much trash is funneled so quickly, this will be a problem. We pretty much have to find a way for companies to gain as much money some other way, e.g. "I'm a billionaire, I will give half a billion dollars to the station that wins a quality journalism award".

If you're an individual and not a media company, waiting awhile for the full developed story is definitely better.

Heck, waiting awhile and unplugging works for lots of things. For instance, if you can convince yourself to ignore a hot new TV show for a year (so that it's "new to you" a year from now), it'll probably be cheaper; and, you can benefit from average ratings and other info to tell you if the show/season turned out to be not worth watching at all.

</comment><comment><USER29> That's what the Economist is for.

<comment><USER30> The Economist is good, but I find it still a little too frequent for me, especially considering it costs about £5 a week. This for me is a little too much for something I probably won't get through every week. I tend to just buy it when I go on holiday when I know I have the time to get through it.

I'd prefer a digest version once a month, the same size as the weekly version, with "more important" news and the same cost.

<comment><USER31> Le Monde Diplomatique is a monthly newspaper that focuses on international reporting. I find their reporting very good, although they are outspoken about their leftist position (just as the Economist is outspoken liberal).

[https://mondediplo.com/about](https://mondediplo.com/about)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Personally, I found it helpful to view information consumption like this:

All information has a time horizon over which it is likely to be valuable. For some outrage news stories, it's just a few hours, while for more thoughtful political analyses, it's a year or two.

Even if you read voraciously, if you're consuming information with a short time horizon of value, you're going to be facing a constant downward momentum of useful knowledge, as the information you know becomes outdated or irrelevant.

Focus as much as you can on reading content that will be valuable for the foreseeable future, and you can avoid that downward momentum of information 'expiring'.

</comment><comment><USER33> I stopped using Twitter to help slow down my news consumption.

Then I found I was reading the same thing each day on the front page of NYTimes, Guardian, my local papers (Toronto)

Now I check every few days, but I adore the sub sections on NYTimes. Wether it be food, technology, science, opinion. All fun to read and "slower"

</comment><comment><USER34> Skip the news entirely. What value does it add to your life?

I'm happy reading blogs and periodicals with my RSS reader (feeder.co), which I check in the morning over coffee. I choose what's in my feed, not some algorithm, advertiser, or news editor vying for clicks.

<comment><USER35> Do you know if feeder.co supports mathjax/similar in rendering?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I found I liked watching news after I got a police-scanner and could listen to things as they happened. Police/Fire/Ambulance scratched the itch of "what is going on right now" better then the news of 'What happened yesterday' that the media offered.

It also had the added benefit of being LOCAL, when my local news mostly covered tidbits of national interest.

I'd still tune-in to local radio to get the followup or fuller-details of an event.

</comment><comment><USER37> The sweet spot - like in most phenomena - seems to be in the middle: for trend correction we need informed people, not people addicted to trivia, neither people that only care about their own belly button. From a stream of 'news' to History essays, there is a place somewhere in the middle for monthly/quarterly 'digested news'. Even weekly news (like the Economist) seems to be too much.

</comment><comment><USER38> I try and avoid the news whenever possible. Nothing good can come from it. I do however subscribe to a newspaper/magazine called 'Private Eye' that comes out fortnightly. Let's me catch up on the important news :)

<comment><USER39> I would like a "fortnightly" version of HN, reddit, etc:

Show me the popular stories from two weeks ago, after things have settled down.

I really only want the conclusions vs the real time updates.

It'd also help mitigate my compulsion to participate.

<comment><USER40> Check out hackernewsletter.com. The only downside is that you will be too late to add your own comments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I've stopped follwing the news cycle 4 years ago. I realized it wasn't a proper source of information. News needs to be published fast, so there is no time to do a proper source check. It it short, so there is no room for other views. It needs to be simple, easily understood, so it uses the dominant world view as a frame. News needs to get attention/clicks, so it is focussed on negative events, creating a skewed view of the world.

I only read analysis, long reads, investigative articles and news sites that do not focus on news, but on (global) developments. A good example is [https://thecorrespondent.com](https://thecorrespondent.com) (english version not active yet), I'm a member of the dutch version and I really enjoy reading investigative pieces about our tax system, healthcare, forgotten dutch histories and so on.

All in all I can say that when I stopped following the news cycle, the mental clutter really reduced and it made me feel better.

</comment><comment><USER42> Just want to quickly namedrop [https://thecorrespondent.com/](https://thecorrespondent.com/) who are setting out to do exactly this (and have been doing it for some years already in the Netherlands). If you're interested in slower, less emotionally charged news, consider signing up.

</comment><comment><USER43> A big source of the author's complaints actually is that there is a lot of news that comes out that opposes his worldview.

To me that area is more the problem. Most of what's counted as news comes from one somewhat extreme worldview or another. Usually it depends on the organization. Certain publications consistently come from the left and others consistently from the right and maybe there is a third category which is coming from a different direction. And actually left/right are not exact, but it seems as though people are polarized into two or maybe three camps, with often completely different worldviews in each of them.

It's actually like people are living in completely different universes. Each group is convinced that theirs is the true universe and the other is almost entirely false.

More in-depth articles could theoretically help by creating more opportunities for supplying factual detail and nuance. However, almost all of the in depth articles I see are clearly coming from one of the extreme worldviews.

I guess tests might be, can what you are reporting be verified in anyway, and would someone with a different worldview be able to gain information from it? Does it seem impartial.

To some degree it's an almost impossible task because even basic perception is tinted by worldview. But news can try to stick to uncontroversial facts and avoid assuming that other worldviews have no validity.

The other aspect is that the monetary incentives push them towards feeding a particular worldview rather than taking a chance of contradicting it with something too nuanced.

My guess right now is that there may be a way to improve the availability of truly primary sources of information by taking advantage if the internet. That can eliminate the bias that many news outlets would take on interpreting events.

Politics seems to be the most difficult case but also the most important.

Maybe it would help for people to realize that they are occupying parallel universes.

</comment><comment><USER44> I have a theory that news occurs with a far lower frequency than people think, far lower than even when people try to account for their knowledge of the 24 hr. news cycle. In my theory, most of what counts for news, is either a story update (737 Max stories), or not news (say Trump "news").

My hypothetical news organization would strive to identify the unifying element of a given news item, and then keep one article about them. The article would include the following elements: a summary, a timeline, a fact set, and a commentary or critique. All subsections would be allowed to evolve, but the "story" would be one thing.

I've considered trying to self fund this somehow, but I've never convinced myself that it would really get traction.

<comment><USER45> Have you seen Wikipedia's current events portal? [1] It's pretty much what you describe there, sans critique (level 1, factual reporting).

In trying to escape the aggregators and filter bubbles, I have blocked all news sources on my phone (including HN!) save for Wikipedia. Since the stories are only high-priority and slowly evolving, I spend a lot less time on reading news, and am happier for it.

[1]: (For convenience) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events)

<comment><USER44> Wasn't aware of it, will try it - thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I like the idea of "slow news." I imagine my ideal state would be a combination of slow news and rapid fire updates. You get depth on the things that deserve depth, as well as a shallow horizontal understanding of the most current happenings across the board.

From the reader side, the challenge would come in making the time for the slow news part when the rapid fire updates never stop, and in resisting the urge to equate seeing the rapid fire updates with actually being informed on the issues (i.e. "I don't need to read this in-depth look at the border situation; I've already seen a bunch of small updates on that"). From the publisher side, monetization is the ever-present issue

</comment><comment><USER47> These links discuss "news diets" as a counter to the problem of news as low- quality information and/or information pollution:

[http://www.raptitude.com/2016/12/five-things-you-notice- when...](http://www.raptitude.com/2016/12/five-things-you-notice-when..).

[http://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/news- diet/](http://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/news-diet/)

And here's a similar recent discussion on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19084099](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19084099)

<comment><USER48> Your dobelli link is 404 :( anyway, this whole problem isn't new but it's very hard to solve. How to stay informed but not bloated? I don't know... here they compare mainstream news to fast food so I guess that's one way to look at it: [https://thecontext.net/opinion/2017/04/4/the-post-truth- and-...](https://thecontext.net/opinion/2017/04/4/the-post-truth-and-the- context.html)

<comment><USER49> [https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2010-dobelli.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2010-dobelli.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The Lindy effect is a concept that Taleb talks a lot about. Basically the best estimate of how long anything perishable will remain useful is how long its been around already. ie the stuff that will remain useful in 10-50 years are the ideas/texts/plays/ideas that have been around a long time already. Recent news is likely worthless in an equally short time.

So best to learn from centuries or millennia old books, rather than looking at twitter feed - or breaking news.

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

</comment><comment><USER51> I would really like a big news service. These focuses might be a little morbid, but like major catastrophes (e.g. Idai), a single pre election explaining the stances, a post election on the results. Right now articles are being written on one person saying something about an event of interest. You can read 10 paragraphs a day on the Mueller report when nothing has really progressed on that front. I would love something that just lets me know when big stuff actually happens (e.g. wake me up when the report is out).

</comment><comment><USER52> We are experience trust scarcity in online media because trust hasn't been part of social media's business model. By extension it stopped being part of the news publication's business model (everyone is forced to compete for clicks). That and because on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

Ironically we are increasingly willing to get into stranger's cars and allow strangers stay at our homes because a few corporations like Uber and Airbnb were able to quantify, materialize and monetize trust. So it's not that much of a stretch to imagine an internet where trust plays a role in the way we distribute, consume and exchange information online. Hacker News is a case in point.

Ready for the shill?

We're building Relevant to make it easy to set up communities similar to HN, each with its own trust/reputation metric (based on personalized pagerank algorithm). So instead of using clicks / votes, all users and content get a trust/reputation score. The result is that rankings don't represent popularity, but relevance, resulting in better feeds and making communities easier to moderate. These trust metrics are much more resistant to sybil/sock- puppet attacks and can be used to build healthier business models, from prediction markets to advertising.

[https://relevant.community/relevant/top](https://relevant.community/relevant/top)

<comment><USER53> I think the issue is too much trust. Too many people believe that because a Network, Publication, Author, or Anchor published quality work in the past, therefore, they can be trusted to reliably deliver news in the future. People's sources, access, knowledge, agenda, and effort vary wildly and each story needs to be judged on its own merit.

<comment><USER52> Right, so maybe scarcity of trustworthiness, or trust metrics/signals is more accurate. Plenty of popularity/click metrics, but how often do we really want to know what the masses think about complex nuanced topics?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is a harsh truth everywhere. News are being killed, as the reality, information and the data associated with it, all have been broken, categorized and used to manipulate people so that they can not conceive another reality and views. Many people is just looking through the lenses that paints better their own egocentric conception of the world or just the cases they need to rationalize what is happening on this confusing times. News regulation has been labeled as "useless" or "censorship" too soon. The problem is the same with other industries that have some mind-shaping power, people should have some freedom to "control" the industry and the way the information flows through their processes and from/to the society in general. This is not a trivial problem and the fact that people is vulnerable to be manipulated and their biases harnessed in some non-obvious way makes it more difficult. Also we have the problem that we haven't been educated into metacognition, structured and critical thinking. Education systems should prepared people for information overload and into processes to derive the truth even when they face an adverse and hostile environment.

</comment><comment><USER55> Much of internet news seems to follow the TV news model: lurid "breaking stories" interrupts and soundbites designed to capture your interest and trick you into watching advertising and vapid commentary. The important information is usually summarized quite adequately in a couple of headlines or sentences the next day, and it's usually easy to dig up more information if you really care.

</comment><comment><USER27> News has been turned into an entertainment-sport where they make sure that there are always two opposing sides. It's manipulated by a few into giving you enough information to be outraged and inflamed but not informed. You can be on the right or the left it does not matter. What matters for the news business is that you get fed enough information so that you continue to watch and they make a profit.

The heads of the news channels are ex-entertainment heads who make sure that people continue to watch by feeding people more outrage.

The best thing people can do is stop reading and watching the news on a daily basis. Most of the news that is reported is useless since there is no substance to it and will disappear without any impact relatively fast. I believe that if it's important you'll hear about it eventually.

"Slower better news" will never happen since it's not in the interest of the news business to create it. We have to be the ones that need to stop consuming it and figure out how to stay informed without being manipulated.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've been thinking about this for a while, even pitched the following:

Good news. News that makes the world better (aka journalism). Distilled deductive logical reasoning, observations and theories. Not gossip, gawking, envy, or mindless time sinks.

For me this pragmatically works out to a combination of hackernews, hackaday, massdevice, arstechnica, atlasobscura, and podcasts/pbs/npr.

</comment><comment> j-c-hewitt I don't think it's that urgent because most people do not need to read most news. For people with particular responsibilities, it can be helpful to be up- to-date on the narrow field of news related to your responsibilities. For most people, there may only be a 5-10 relevant news events per year. The fact that you can access news from everywhere in the world instantaneously and at low monetary cost does not make it inherently useful, and if anything, it's likely to mislead you profoundly about your level of knowledge about the world and the stories that you are reading.

Stories about plane crashes and mass earthquake deaths and things like that are mostly about titillation and encouraging a morbid fascination with death. It also discourages people from focusing on the things that they can control in their life. The press doesn't like to admit it, but a lot of the 'hard news' is just /r/watchpeopledie in a necktie.

</comment><comment><USER57> I subscribe to a paper that comes out each Friday, called weekendavisen. Until May last year it didn't have news on the web, they do have an electronic paper now but I've never visited.

It's high quality news in lengthy articles, in fact I'm not even in its demographic because it has a lot of culture stuff as well and I don't really care about that.

I really like the fact that it's relevant though. Because it only comes out on Fridays, only the stuff that actually mattered during the week makes it in there.

If something big happens I'll turn to internet public service, but otherwise I mostly ignore news outside of my weekly paper. I highly recommend it if you want to stay informed but cut the bullshit and have a similar option.

</comment><comment><USER58> The FT works well for me.

I subscribe to both the FT and the Economist precisely because slow news is what they do.

The FT tends to studiously avoid clickbait, avoid reporting every detail of 'this politician said that' and goes straight for the hard analysis of what it means.

</comment><comment><USER59> Doesn't slower, better news conflict with how news is primarily funded today i.e. advertising? Tabloid news has existed much longer than I've been alive, and their style (attention-grabbing, exaggerated titles) matches the kinds of ads they display. A newspaper on a slower circulation cycle would need to attract advertisers that market on similar cycle if the newspaper is dependent on ad revenue (e.g. month-long offers).

A subscription-only / patron-only news service makes sense for the typical customer of a Bloomberg terminal, but what about everyone else? Do they just pay for headlines or three-sentence summaries?

You might say that most people don't need that frequency of news, and for most topics I would agree. However, there are topics like sports that create news on such a frequent basis, and topics like politics where one could argue that being accurately informed in a timely manner is a responsibility and a necessity for a well-functioning democracy.

Tl;dr I don't think you can separate the news from the manner in which it is funded, and the issues in quality and business-viability that we've heard a lot about is evidence for it.

</comment><comment><USER60> I simply buy a weekly newspaper and read it. I'm always 1-1.5 weeks behind so I never feel as "emotional" or follow things that closely. I want a general feel for some of the things happening in the world and that is it

</comment><comment><USER61> I stopped checking 'general' news long ago.

Recently I searched for some 'valuable' news source - kinda meritum from the news - but nothing like that exists ...

... so I started my own 'news' for UNIX/BSD/Linux related stuff - <USER2> News - [https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/valuable- news-2019...](https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/valuable- news-2019-04-08/)

Because various UNIX/BSD/Linux related news sites also make a lot of SPAM and no-so-much-news ...

<comment><USER62> Regular reader of Valuable News here. Thank you very much for your work and efforts!

<comment><USER61> Welcome :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Argh, it pains me that even professionals cannot get the word "peruse" right...

"I skim e-mail newsletters in my in-box, scroll through my Twitter feed, and peruse the news apps on my phone; later, in the office, I tap through my notifications and monitor more than a dozen news-related apps, including Facebook and Twitter, while juggling other tasks. I usually feel as though I'm managing to stay abreast of the day's biggest news stories, but my reading tends to be fragmentary—I'm only skimming a story or absorbing a partial update."

</comment><comment><USER64> There are so many interesting, rich, deep topics to study that I just don't have much interest in news anymore. It's so bite-sized, barely informative, and usually of no practical or emotional value. A great deal of our desire to "be informed" would be better served avoiding the news altogether, finding substantial things to focus on.

</comment><comment><USER65> I have started reading the news differently in recent months. If the story seems to incite outrage, I paint all actors in the story as acting in good faith. This is obviously not true, but it helps break the cycle of feeling like the world is going off the rails, and I think it is a good method for figuring out what's actually going on.

</comment><comment><USER66> Maybe slightly off topic but the word "quest" implies (to me at least) something long term and ongoing, and yet "urgent" seems to contradict this. If anything, "urgent quest" seems like an oxymoron.

I guess in this day and age of instant gratification, even our quests need to be urgent.

</comment><comment><USER67> It struck me today: are URLs the only kind of "viral" anybody considers to be good? I'm not talking about dormant viruses or symbiotes or whatever, but viruses in general seem to generally have been a problem for humans throughout history (or at least since their discovery).

</comment><comment><USER68> As in most things today, this will only improve if there is more money to be made by the improvement.

</comment><comment><USER69> This was one of my goals in building [https://statesreport.com](https://statesreport.com). It won't necessarily be the first site to break news, but the goal is to provide better news based on NLP + ML classification.

</comment><comment><USER70> Hint: read American news from non-American sources, like BBC or better, German/French sources if you can handle the translation.

Better yet: from Canada, i.e. the CBC.

Then you see it from the outside, where narrators have less skin in the game, and it's all less click-baity.

</comment><comment><USER71> Just read the news less often. Nobody really needs to know the news on a day to day basis unless your personal safety is at risk. Just read a monthly magazine like the Atlantic and learn the overall themes of what's happening.

</comment><comment><USER72> I want the best version, vetted and comprehensive, of all the news in the previous week. If it's breaking news, I want to have a single point reference of the current best information.

This requires editors, that's it.

</comment><comment><USER73> I think I'm going to try an experiment and switch my browsing/hn/news time to listening to music instead.

I feel like I need to do _something_ in that downtime. Maybe music will calm the soul.

See you guys in a few weeks!

</comment><comment> a-saleh I read weekly-magazines mostly and listen to podcasts. Locally, mostly Respekt, a czech magazine, often cooperating with the Economist. It is decent. I like it.

</comment><comment><USER74> "History is news that stays news."—Stewart Brand

</comment><comment><USER75> I hear this same statement come up in conversation a lot more recently. A lot of us agree that the news seems broken, though every time I have this conversation we can never find a good solution to the problem.

I had tried making a simple app to fix the problem. Simple NLP to group articles from different outlets. But I even find myself going back to the news feed and not using my own project.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/keda- news/id1272869301?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/keda- news/id1272869301?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER76> I remember when Jon Stewart said years ago that the 24-hour news cycle is really designed for 9/11; for anything less than a catastrophic event like that, they have to manufacture problems.

I think the worst offenders of this are Fox News, but it's not like CNN or MSNBC are blameless. Spending days talking about the latest typo on in the president's tweet ends up with a bizarre view of reality; even if you're not watching Alex Jones or Sean Hannity, there's this bizarre, us-against-them, almost-conspiratorial vibe to a lot of what's in the news.

BTW, I'm hardly better; I used to check Donald Trump's Twitter daily as well, for almost two years.

<comment><USER8> _I think the worst offenders of this are Fox News, but it 's not like CNN or MSNBC are blameless._

I remember being disgusted at Fox News, especially during the WMD debacle. I was right there with Jon Stewart when he criticized it as "Faux News." Certainly, "it's not like CNN or MSNBC are blameless." In recent years, they've become every bit as bad.

 _there 's this bizarre, us-against-them, almost-conspiratorial vibe to a lot of what's in the news_

Start counting the subtle references to these. It's pretty much everywhere across mainstream news sources.

<comment><USER76> I still don't think CNN or MSNBC are as bad as Fox News yet. Sean Hannity is basically Alex Jones-lite, and Tucker Carlson is pretty much completely disingenuous (and if you want to talk about us-versus-them, I recommend counting the number of times he says "elites" during his show). Plus, Fox and Friends is pretty much just an elaborate propaganda program for the president at this point.

Even if you agree with Trump's policies (I don't), I cannot see how anyone could not see the blatent and purposeful right-wing propaganda of Fox.

<comment><USER77> Try watching Tim Pool on youtube (timcast/subverse)... he's centrist/liberal leaning but absolutely calls out a lot of the crap on all sides of the coin.

<comment><USER8> Google Caught Censoring Conservatives In New Leak

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CEyqDlKfLw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CEyqDlKfLw)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I feel that journalists haven't shown enough self criticism on serious issues with how they operate like click-bait-ism, hyperbole-laden head line writing and the Gell-Mann amnesia. On the face of such and other issues I see them mostly on an defensive stance than that of any serious self introspection. It is rare to see even acceptance of these and other problems from them, let alone thought of any solutions.

They need to get off their ivory towers, and be transparent about their own vulnerabilities.

</comment><comment><USER79> I'd prefer slower, better everything. Right now it seems that 'next quarter' is long-term for most purposes.

</comment><comment><USER80> Half of my browser window was ads and cookie warnings and x-articles-left warnings. I just closed the window right away.

</comment><comment><USER81> News that ain't fast is Yesterday's Paper

We need better sources w/ the usual HQ Hacker News Scouts

</comment><comment><USER82> This will be on the front page for 8-24 hours, then it will get replaced by something newer

</comment><comment><USER83> Every day I visit Google News and Hacker News. I get a lot more joy out of the latter.

</comment><comment><USER84> This cannot happen, because of the defining characteristic of "news".

</comment><comment><USER85> A basic issue I find is the commentary. Give me facts and data, not commentary.

</comment><comment><USER86> Are those fonts a special journalist joke? They are 100% unreadable, I just don't understand why a reputable newspaper/journal would use such font selection.

<comment><USER87> Looks fine for me[0] The title has a weird font, but still legible

[0][https://i.imgur.com/0CkHdIP_d.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/0CkHdIP_d.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Scientific papers are the only news worth reading

</comment><comment><USER89> yes,A few years ago, I planned to implement a new consulting model that lagged information.

</comment><comment><USER90> What news? When was the last time any major outlet reported a news story that originated from the heart and not the overbloated ego? Not to mention, when was the last time someone reported a news story without using terms like "left" or "right" or "socialist".

As someone who does not give a single ounce of care for the political circus that people are enslaved by, do you realise how dumb it all looks from sidelines?

Yeah, pretty dumb.

</comment><comment><USER91> Article spinner.

</comment><comment><USER92> New Yorker should thoroughly retract the discredited "very fine people" hoax before suggesting that we need "better news". Apologizing to Trump and to their readers would be a responsible thing to do as well.

[https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&ei=jo-uXIS- Npj9-gT...](https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&ei=jo-uXIS- Npj9-gTi_LzoDQ&q=new+yorker+trump+%22fine+people%22&oq=new+yorker+trump+%22fine+people%22)

</comment><comment><USER93> Reading the print version of a newspaper isn't going to help, because they're just as guilty as anyone of putting up repetitions and very minor updates of the same few stories instead of actual, y'know, _new_ things that have happened. Just look at what's on the NYT front page _right now_.

* "The Border Is Broken. And There's No Plan To Fix it." Yawn. This has been in heavy rotation for _weeks_. Also, poor grammar.

* "Black Hole Image Revealed for First Time Ever" Super cool, but after the first thirty stories I saw about this I'd like to hear about some other scientific advance.

* "William Barr Testimony Highlights: Attorney General Says He Thinks 'Spying Did Occur' on Trump Campaign Video" Also on heavy rotation for days now.

* "Israel Election Live Updates: As Gantz Concedes, Netanyahu Set for Victory" OK, one out of four so far.

You get the idea. Google News is even worse.

* Trump urges inquiry into 'attempted coup' against him

* Israel Election: Netanyahu Appears Headed For Win In Close Race

* IRS commissioner "working on letter" in response to request for Trump tax returns

* Police investigating death of 20-year-old college student who collapsed at Hilton Head Island off-campus party

* The E.U. Seems Ready to Put Brexit on Ice. But for How Long?

* How Stephen Miller tightened his grip over Trump's immigration and border policy

Those are almost all retreads, again excepting the Israel election. Some are damn near duplicates of _each other_. It's as though even the most "modern" news sources are still stuck on one new headline per day. Every morning when I check in, there's 90% overlap with the previous day.

We're not being overwhelmed with news; we're being overwhelmed with olds. My own urgent quest is not for news that's slower or better according to some arbitrary notion of quality. I'll judge that for myself. All I ask is for news that's _news_.

<comment><USER94> > "The Border Is Broken. And There's No Plan To Fix it." Yawn. This has been > in heavy rotation for weeks. Also, poor grammar.

That's a long form article about a variety of issues with the immigration system, from immigration courts to how migrants are detained. It's very informative. I read a lot on the subject and I found more than a few facts in here that I wasn't aware of.

> "William Barr Testimony Highlights: Attorney General Says He Thinks 'Spying > Did Occur' on Trump Campaign Video" Also on heavy rotation for days now.

How has that been reported "for days now"? That quote is literally from his testimony earlier today.

> "Black Hole Image Revealed for First Time Ever" Super cool, but after the > first thirty stories I saw about this I'd like to hear about some other > scientific advance.

But it's not like the NYT has 30 stories about this, the fact that we have a lot of different news sources isn't a bad thing. Though you do have a point about a lack of scientific reporting

<comment><USER93> > That quote is literally from his testimony earlier today.

So if he repeats the same claim every day, NYT should displace something else to report on every instance?

No.

<comment><USER94> William Barr has never made that claim. And he went on to say, right after that quote, that the Justice Department is conducting an investigation into this. That's very big news! Trump tweeting about how Obama spied on him is very different than the Justice Department dedicating resources to investigating the FBI, Obama, and Hillary Clinton.

<comment><USER93> Let's say for the sake of argument that it qualifies as news. Does it change the overall argument that "news" outlets try to claim far too much of our attention for topics they've already saturated, in the process _failing_ to bring new events to our attention? Or are we just sealioning here?

<comment><USER94> I think it depends. If you use NYT or WaPo or WSJ as your primary news source I don't believe you'll see duplicates (if you only pick one of those 3, obviously each of those papers will publish their own version of the same story), excluding editorials. To a lesser extent this is true with the CNN news site, if you exclude their opinion pieces and "Analysis" articles (which tend to just link to their actual news article and add the potential political ramifications. Not true journalism, but not really an editorial either). Though the same can not be said of the actual CNN TV channel, which I find nearly unwatchable because they rehash essentially the same information over and over. I can't comment much about other sources.

As for failing to bring new events to our attention, I totally agree. The 4 outlets I mentioned above don't give enough attention to international news, stuff that really is important. Even in domains that are heavily covered bits get left behind. Like a Trump-appointed federal judge for the Federal Court of Appeals who had never been a judge of any kind before (The BAR recommends at least 12 years of judge experience for that position, the nominee didn't even have their law degree for 12 years) and was an active member of a SPLC- recognized hate group (who was confirmed by the Senate, btw). I don't have a single news article about that one, which is an absolute shame.

I'm just not entirely sure what stories should be cut. Maybe it will come down to just having a better aggregation system and UI to discover and keep track of these stories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://quillette.com/](https://quillette.com/)

<comment> 52-6F-62 Quillette has proven to be of consistent poor quality, IMO. (and further, I've found it dishonest)

Please note that it's founding and leadership team includes alumni of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rebel_Media](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rebel_Media).

That latter outfit is not known for it's...veracity.

<comment><USER8> _Quillette has proven to be of consistent poor quality, IMO. (and further, I 've found it dishonest)_

I've found them willing to take unpopular positions for the sake of truth. What have they done which is dishonest?

[https://quillette.com/2019/04/08/what-explains-the- resistanc...](https://quillette.com/2019/04/08/what-explains-the-resistance- to-evolutionary-psychology/)</comment></comment></comment>


Lyft plans $650M debt offering, convertible to cash and/or stock - <AUTHOR> http:///www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/05/12/2031776/0/en/Lyft-Announces-Private-Offering-of-650-million-of-Convertible-Senior-Notes-and-Capped-Call-to-Increase-Effective-Conversion-Premium-to-150.html <comment><AUTHOR> What are the economics behind this? What happens next?</comment>


The Accumulibrary (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/07/the_accumulibrary_modern_libraries_should_be_as_big_and_chaotic_as_amazon.html <comment><USER2> I'm going to plug my project 100 Million Books here, because it seems to align with some of the ideals in the article/book.

Some specific ideas that align (these are all direct quotes from the article):

* The Accumulibrary is both dumb and smart: "Dumb" because it's based on the willy-nilly heaping together of resources—so-called "chaotic storage"; "smart" because it's built around the capabilities of an omniscient database that monitors locations and items within its otherwise mobile confines and renders them at once intelligible and accessible.

* It weds the frugal interiors of the big-box store with the randomly organized megawarehouse in the service of a flexible, expansive, democratized concept of the research library.

* The Accumulibrary rejects taxonomy as a founding principle. It shuns all local and universal schemes of organization and is indifferent as regards the virtues of spatial economy, temporal sequence, and alphabetic order

* Thanks to its modular low-cost construction techniques and standardized shelving systems, space is abundant and additional capacity always potentially available. In the Accumulibrary, the freedom to accumulate ever more things is in lockstep with the freedom to add on ever more space.

* Unlike modern libraries, the Accumulibrary doesn't segment or segregate media types. It fails to differentiate documents from things, books from periodicals from pamphlets, devices from objects, the new from the used from the old, the rare from the common. The sole laws that it holds sacred are the law of number and the law of stuff.

[http://www.100millionbooks.org](http://www.100millionbooks.org)</comment>


QNX Lecture [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://web.archive.org/web/20151123064622/www.se.rit.edu/~swen-563/slides/C9_-_L1_-_QNX_Lecture.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> From: [https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=185194&cid=15285467](https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=185194&cid=15285467)

Within the size of L1 cache, your speed is determined by how quickly your cache will fill. Within L2, it's how effecient your algorithm is (do you invalidate too many cache lines?) -- smaller sections of kernel code are a win here, as much as good algorithms are a win here. Outside of L2 (anything over 512k on my Athlon64), throughput of common operations is limited by how fast the RAM is -- not IPC throughput. Most microkernel overhead is a constant value -- if your Linux kernel us O(n) or O(1), then it's possible to tune the microkernel to be O(n+k) or O(1+k) for the equivalent operations. The faster your hardware, the smaller this value of k since it's a constant value. L4Linux was 4-5% slower than "pure" Linux in 1997 (See L4Linux site for the PDF of the paper [http://l4linux.org/](http://l4linux.org/)).</comment>


Conspiracy Theory:The real story behind PlentyofFish - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2008/12/conspiracy-theory-the-real-story-behind-plenty-of-fish.html <comment><USER2> "A scan of Twitter reveals a lot more people talking about actually using Match.com than Plentyoffish"

There's the biggest flaw in his theory. If you've scanned the people who have profiles on POF (or any other free dating service), you might draw the conclusion that the people using such services are not part of the tech elite. Yes, Twitter has a large user base but it is not mainstream.

Here's why it gets so many clicks: A lot of the ads on POF are for alternate online dating sites, so there's a 100% match between the people visiting the service and the people who might click on ads. By definition, if you're visiting POF, you're not in a relationship and thus POF isn't satisfying your need to be in a relationship. So what are you going to do? Search for a better dating site. And, coincidentally, POF has already done that work for you by surrounding every inch of unused space with dating site ads. It's both a dating site and a dating site search engine.

It's that simple in my opinion. But I do love a good conspiracy theory!

<comment><USER3> Yep. POF is the world's most elaborate _banner ad_ for other dating sites. It probably gets a bloated CPM for having targeted traffic, and I wouldn't be surprised if it could support a high click-throgh rates on CPA ads for the other dating sites -- because it's fairly useless for dating, itself.

I'm not sure if the author was being serious or satirical, but it's kind of a shame that the article was so dopey, because there's probably a real story here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is so hilarious that it feels wrong to nitpick it. But in the interests of science, this survey technique:

 _A scan of Twitter reveals a lot more people talking about actually using Match.com than Plentyoffish..._

... is like a freshman-class exercise in Spot The Sample Bias. Twitter users are hardly a representative sample of the _online_ population, let alone the population at large.

<comment><USER5> Twitter users alone is a small sample, but I think there are other anecdotal samples that support (but can't prove) the author's hypothesis. I can't remember anyone talking about PlentyOfFish, and this includes people who have tried multiple dating sites. Compete, Alexa, Google Trends and other traffic estimators also show Match having higher traffic. The only statistics showing PlentyOfFish as bigger than Match are the comScore numbers quoted by Mashable.

It's also important to remember that Markus Frind was accused of overstating the PlentyOfFish traffic levels to generate buzz years ago when the site first became popular. Although the post went off into a satirical conspiracy, there could still be something fishy going on.

<comment><USER4> Well, it could certainly be that Frind's stats are off -- accidentally, or on purpose, or for the same reason that many scientists' stats are off. (They make an initial mistake, and the positive feedback from that mistake creates a big disincentive to reexamine the data too closely.)

If so, it's a joke on the web stats industry, which seems to be... well, a joke. If people had any confidence in the accuracy of these traffic estimators, there wouldn't be room for a wacky conspiracy theory, right? Does anybody really know how many people visit a site, besides (perhaps) its owner? I suppose Google might give me more definitive data if I paid enough and signed an NDA in blood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> PlentyofFish's revenue numbers aside, one really has to be amazed at their sheer traffic numbers. If the market share stats are to be believed, Match.com and eHarmony are getting trampled on despite their outsize national advertising budgets, deep-pocketed investors and clearly more polished products.

I'd really be interested to know how PoF is pulling so much traffic.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm embarrassed to say but my own logical reasoning leads me to the conclusion that I might actually want to date one of those super intelligent PhD bots.

Google, do you hear me? Or are you just a creature of Microsoft meant to stop the DoJ from breaking them up?

</comment><comment><USER8> Wait is this an actual analysis or a joke? I'm not familiar with the blog.

<comment><USER9> Clearly reads like a joke to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a joke... You know, like... haha... funny. That kind of a thing.

<comment><USER8> Right.

But why's half the thread treating it like an actual analysis?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because people have no sense of humor? Beats the hell out of me, and I wrote it. They're debating it on the comments of the post itself, too. I thought it was pretty obviously tongue-in-cheek, but maybe I should have suggested that Markus was secretly an alien or something.

<comment><USER8> I was equally perplexed. I thought it was hilarious and then I went to the comments and thought Isiah Thomas was running the Knicks again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've worked in the online dating industry for long time, and yes, POF is making lots of money, though I don't know _exactly_ how much. Adsense is only one part of how they are monetizing their site.

The idea that it's all click bots is just silly.

</comment><comment><USER11> As with any good conspiracy theory, there are chunks of truth in there. There are many people doing this type of activity on smaller scale.

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting analysis, though it became a hit outrageous at the end. With the degree of fakeness he is proposing, how is it possible that the degradation of content quality went unnoticed? And A.viary?

I'm not one to hate on awesome and successful startupa, we should also consider this. POF doesn't have the members it says. POF had growth, decent size. Publicise startup story and millions in income, millions in members. Press written, and your numbers jump.

Just like the situation with a video on YouTube. It wasn't the video that made it have high view counts. It was the video being publicised as having a huge view counts because of an exploit - and people went on the page, and the view count increased.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is completely nuts.

</comment><comment><USER14> In my experience when the outcome of something is a lot of money, some people do whatever to make it happen.

I wouldnt bet anything against Google or PoF not messing this

</comment><comment><USER15> Is today April 1st?</comment>


Facebook claimed phone number was only for 2FA. Now it's searchable - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/1101402001907372032 <comment><USER2> Synchrony branded credit cards do the same thing, they use your SSN to obtain phone numbers from one of the Transunion skip trace databases. So even though I've only ever given Synchrony my dummy number, when I try to change my password I get a selection of phone numbers that they want to send a verification code to, and those numbers only exist in that Transunion database.

You can't correct or remove anything from the Transunion database, because it's not used for credit decisions there is no way to force them to do it.

So instead I've made it a game to try and see how many phone numbers I can get added to the database. My goal is to request a free copy of my file one day and have it arrive on a pallet.

Maybe if I fill out a credit card application and list Kevin Bacon's address as a former residence then they'll add him to my list of known associates...

<comment><USER3> When you figure out how to game the system charge others to do it.

People would pay to create fuzz in their records.

<comment><USER2> I think they key is that data brokers are greedy and accept all inputs with little validation. Their data quality teams are more focused on algorithmicly removing "obvious" duplicates due to small transpositional errors and such. They are usually not geared towards stoping people from intentionally entering incorrect but valid data. Even in cases where they might hold back data because they are uncertain about, they don't delete it, as soon as there are enough "signals" that it might be correct they pass it through.

So knowing that data brokers are greedy the trick isn't to get governments to force them to delete and protect information, the trick is to give them so much bad information that the good data becomes indistinguishable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some mobile apps have two account creation options: Facebook login or phone number.

I recently chose phone number (because screw FB) but then noticed that the SMS verification is performed by Facebook anyways.

What the hell are App developers thinking? If I choose _not_ to use my FB login in your app it's because I don't want FB snooping on me.

But then you turn around and use Facebook to validate my phone number without proper consent?

<comment><USER5> I totally agree with you.

From a developer side: Google, Facebook, etc have well developed and much safer password and login authentication and the liability technically falls on them for any screw ups. Although I have a very secure hashing system for my online game login I still plan to make logging in with your Google and, maybe, Facebook account. It also adds convenience.

I'm imagining the dev found some tool to do sms verification that Facebook makes simple (or maybe that's all they know how to use considering you didn't mention any google login...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For some unfathomable reason Google no longer allows Google Voice clients to forward their calls to Project Fi numbers. So my new layer of abstraction is a $3/mo Call Centric number routed to a $12 SIP deskset.

Call Centric lets you whitelist so step one is to upload your contacts to them and then drop any calls not in your list. Goodbye telemarketers. Second step is to leave the phone unplugged altogether unless you need to use it since anyone you know has your mobile number anyway. :-)

If you really need it, you can add the Call Centric number to your cellphone via a SIP client but in my experience that's a bit of a battery sucker and call quality can be poor with noticeable voice delay.

<comment><USER7> "No longer..."?

No, it never was possible. The two systems use the same underlying infrastructure but for different purposes, which leads to a frustrating interplay of technical constraints and security/privacy controls.

<comment><USER6> I distinctly remember being able to do it at one time. Then a friend complained he could never reach me and I discovered my cell number was dropped from forwarding and couldn't be added back. I may have managed to sneak it in by porting in a forwarded number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does the ACLU care about this kind of stuff?

<comment><USER9> [https://fixitalready.eff.org/facebook/#/](https://fixitalready.eff.org/facebook/#/)

[https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-implores-nine- compani...](https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-implores-nine-companies- fix-it-already)

EFF does!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It has always done this... the very reason I do not add my phone number.

</comment><comment><USER11> Never provided a phone number for this reason

</comment><comment><USER12> could this be a GDPR violation of any sort in the EU?

<comment><USER13> I should think so. They don't have consent; vital interest, public task, legal obligation and contract do not apply; they must be relying on legitimate interest. I can't imagine this would pass an unbiased balancing test.</comment></comment>


Association of low to moderate alcohol drinking with better cognitive function - <AUTHOR> https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2767693 <comment><USER2> Not sure about this exact study, but studies like this usually ignore confounding factors that cause people to abstain. The headline leads people to think that they should drink a bit to achieve the result, but that's usually never the case.

For example there were a bunch of studies about how sleeping 10 hours per night has lower mortality rate than sleeping 12+ hours (oh no - are you sleeping too much?!?), but upon further review they realized that people who are really sick or alcoholics are more likely to sleep 12+ hours per night.

In this case, wouldn't be surprised if there are reasons people fit into the zero drink category (health issues) that are associated with cognitive decline.

<comment><USER3> Many studies like this don't exclude abstaining alcoholics that _used_ to be heavy drinkers, so you'll get strange results like "people drinking no alcohol are more likely to get liver cancer than moderate drinkers".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's quite the dangerous trade-off. Doubt that it's worth it:

"Countless scientific studies have espoused the idea that a glass of red wine a day can be good for the heart, but a new, sweeping global study published in The Lancet on Friday rejects the notion that any drinking can be healthy.

No amount of alcohol is safe, according to The Global Burden of Diseases study, which analyzed levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries from 1990 to 2016."

[Source: [https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641618937/no-amount-of- alcoho...](https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641618937/no-amount-of-alcohol-is- good-for-your-health-global-study-claims)]

<comment><USER5> Probably the "healthy" part of red wine is resveratrol, but in this case you can just have resveratrol in red grape (whole or its juice) or even in supplements.

<comment><USER6> Grapes (and especially grape juice!) are probably not much better. They wouldn't have the carcinogenic alcohol, but they have enormous amounts of sugar, which causes its own large set of health problems.

<comment><USER7> Fructose from fruits is not considered bad unless you have a source

<comment><USER5> I think that the precise reason is that when it comes from fruits fructose is always accompanied by fibers, even in juices.

Purified fructose is probably not very good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Correlation is not causation. For example, having a healthy social life may promote both alcohol consumption and cognitive function.

<comment><USER6> You can't have causation without correlation.

Not saying that's that case here, but people like to casually throw around "correlation is not causation" as if pointing out the logical fallacy is itself a sufficient rebuttal.

<comment><USER8> I didn't really mean it as a "rebuttal", as the paper is careful about not claiming any causal link.

I meant it as a warning to the reader to be careful about drawing conclusions like that. To establish causation you'd need a study where alcohol consumption of the subjects is controlled by the experimenters. That would eliminate the effect of confounding factors that influence both alcohol consumption and cognitive function.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Or the study is studying something else: self control i.e. those who can take alcohol without becoming addicted.

Additionally, if we're to take the view that stressed mammals seek out mind altering substances, then this can be said to be a study of well-being.

<comment><USER10> when you grow older alcohol switches from being pleasant to being perceived as a poisoning. Two beers and I feel ill, like something is wrong with me and I cannot drink more.

<comment><USER11> I'm sure there is truth in that. I also find that life responsibilities may also account for some of that. At 21 I could have a few drinks at night and then just be sluggish the next day. Now between kids and career those downkey recovery days are a lot harder to absorb!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My pet theory is alcohol helps us build and maintain relationships. And whilst even a little alcohol harms us, the physiological benefits of having a strong social group out weigh that harm.

<comment><USER13> Are you sure you're building anything foundational if you need to be drinking for it to occur?

<comment><USER14> Yep, try it some time. Believe it or not, reducing inhibitions helps build close friendships by making is easier for people to get to know one another. Who could've guessed?!?

<comment><USER13> It's simply unbelievable!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've read other studies that suggest as you go higher up the IQ ladder, people are more likely to partake in drug/alcohol use. I'd be willing to bet they've stumbled upon the same phenomenon here but they've got the causation backwards.

</comment><comment><USER16> There's also a large study showing that binge drinking in early pregnancy is beneficial for the child's IQ. But the only statistically significant result was if it was done in the first 2 gestational weeks which turns out to mean "before fertilization".

However, there are so many confounding variables it's not funny. One interesting thing they controlled for was the mother's binge drinking habits because binge drinking mothers tend to have higher IQ than non-binge-drinking mothers.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm just waiting to read "This research was funded in part by the Molson Coors Brewing Company".

Ask HN: Should I start drinking regularly?

<comment><USER17> It was funded by the Friends of a Mediterranean Diet Society ;)

Make a proper dinner every day, with actual ingredients, eat it in peace, with a glass of wine. It'll do you good, and leave separating the effect of the wine from the effect of the other mediterranean staples to the pedants.

[https://www.amazon.com/fnord/dp/0091925320](https://www.amazon.com/fnord/dp/0091925320) for example.

<comment><USER4> The scientific research I read doesn't agree with that:

"Countless scientific studies have espoused the idea that a glass of red wine a day can be good for the heart, but a new, sweeping global study published in The Lancet on Friday rejects the notion that any drinking can be healthy.

No amount of alcohol is safe, according to The Global Burden of Diseases study, which analyzed levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries from 1990 to 2016.

While the study's authors say that moderate drinking may safeguard people against heart disease, they found that the potential to develop cancer and other diseases offsets these potential benefits, as do other risks of harm. The report urges governments to revise health guidelines to suggest lower levels of consumption."

[Source: [https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641618937/no-amount-of- alcoho...](https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641618937/no-amount-of-alcohol-is- good-for-your-health-global-study-claims)]

<comment><USER17> I've seen such studies too, and I'm sure that with sufficient discipline, you could manage something like a mediterranean diet (rich in pasta dishes, fruit, vegetables, low but not zero on meat) but without wine, without pancetta, without mozzarella, etc. But I don't think that's what mostly happens. The friends I've had over the years who started focusing on avoidance either failed (by giving up the attempt) or eventually ate mostly prefab food. Without alcohol, to be sure.

Anecdote alert: I'm sure abstaining from alcohol hasn't hurt the acquaintance I saw this weekend, but she doesn't look healthy. She's focused on abstention, and IMNSHO a focus on abstention is not the path to a well-rounded diet.

Neither is a beer can and a bag of peanuts, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The crucial numbers:

> Low to moderate drinking (<8 drinks per week for women and <15 drinks per > week for men)

'Drink' doesn't appear to be a standard amount of alcohol; the numbers are from self-reporting, so I suppose it could be a half of shandy, a stein of doppelbock, or anything in between.

<comment><USER19> There is a standard drink (differs by country, I believe UK even has labels showing the amount of standard drinks contained) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink)

This study is from US, so:

"For example, in the United States, a standard drink contains about 14 grams of alcohol"

Not sure if that's what subjects reported, though. But I guess MDs, PHds and reviewers would have taken it into account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does JAMA network handle the journal translations or are they done by the authors?

</comment><comment><USER21> Obligatory chart:

Ballmer Peak [https://xkcd.com/323/](https://xkcd.com/323/)

Since alcohol is a suppressants, I think in low doses it calms down some parts of the brain that are normally hyperactive, and lets other parts take over.

I personally code better after a beer/cocktail late at night.... maybe two, but not more. It seems that alcohol helps my brain to concentrate at night only. For some reason never during the day. It kinda ruins my productive day if I have any during the day (during lunch/brunch, for example).

<comment><USER22> I have that very same effect. I'd like to explore if it's only placebo, but unfortunately you can't really self-study because you already know if you're intoxicating yourself or not...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I start freelancing? - <AUTHOR>

I'm graduating soon and want to spend a few months doing some freelance/contract development. I'm interested in web dev especially.
How do I get started?
How do I find my first contract? <comment><USER2> I'm just getting started freelancing, so take this with a grain of salt.

How about subcontracting for an existing agency? You could do development work for a design shop, or overflow work for a development shop. Once you convince them, they'll be the ones finding clients. On the flip side, you'll just be a cog in the machine -- just coding to spec, rather than participating in and contributing to the client's success, which seems to be the agreed-upon recipe for freelance success around here.

The one thing I'm sure of: don't work for free or rock-bottom rates. If you're trying to pad out your portfolio with the goal of attracting future clients, you might as well just make a project for yourself. I made a couple sites for free for people who had hobbies, as opposed to businesses. They never got around to filling in the site content, so they didn't make for very compelling marketing. Or put another way, the "exposure" was worth very little.

<comment><USER3> I've been freelancing successfuly for about 5 years on oDesk.

At some point, I tried to find agencies outside oDesk but failed to find any good ones.

Can you please give me hints where I can find these agencies online?

(Note: I'm not from US)

<comment><USER2> Hmm, since I'm new to freelancing I don't know if I have a good answer. Maybe try searching "$US_CITY Web Development" \-- most agencies seem to focus their SEO efforts on searches in their city, so that seems to be a good way to surface lots of agency contacts. For you, it doesn't really matter which city since you'd be remote, so I guess I'd start with the biggest ones since they'll have the biggest budgets. From there you could just point to your oDesk profile as proof of your skills & reliability.

I think the biggest objection for remote freelance work is going to be the concern that you'll just disappear mid-project, so being able to show a long track record seems like a big point in your favor. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Given where you are in your career, you're inevitably a high-risk person to hire for contract work. That means that at least one of the following will be true:

* you'll be ignored by good clients that can afford to avoid that risk

* you'll be score low pay to compensate for the risk

* you'll be hired for "good" pay by bad clients because they don't know what they're in for.

* Nobody will hire you and you'll watch the months go by without making money or developing a portfolio.

None of these are especially great for you!

For now, you'll learn more and make more if you look for a job for a bit first. If circumstances or preference make that impossible, you have two options:

* reach out for opportunity through your networks - friends, family, local events

* list and/or bid your services through markets like elance, odesk, or Craigslist

</comment><comment><USER5> You could try out some of the online freelance websites. My friend has had some good success web dev finding work on elance.

</comment><comment><USER6> What kind of work are you interested in? "Web dev" is a HUGE and broad industry.

Also, how can someone get in contact with you, if they may have an opportunity?</comment>


Stop managing your releases before you start managing your releases - <AUTHOR> https://madewithlove.be/stop-managing-your-releases-before-you-start-managing-your-releases/ <comment><USER2> Nice write up!</comment>


Secure APIs Deployed to Kubernetes with OAuth2 Using JWT Tokens Leased by Vault - <AUTHOR> https://banzaicloud.com/blog/oauth2-vault/ <comment><USER2> don't people use JWT because they don't want to have some external dependency like a database. i'm not sure what using JWT + storing authentication state in a database gives you. couldn't it just be easier to store the authentication state in the database and give the user a 128 bit random token pointing to the state. if you are worried about someone compromising the DB you can also key the lookup by cryptographic hash instead of the storing the plaintext token.

<comment><AUTHOR> We use JWT because the user data is already stored upront (w/out needing to check a database) and it's a well defined storage mechanism. With Vault we check only the token ID not the full token, so it's not a heavyweight select. On the other hand we have 3d party (used internally) systems using the same mechanism (e.g. Drone).

<comment><USER3> But then you have to handle expiration and revocation synchronously. Is the extra network + cpu to unmarshall a token that much of a savings over 1 redis call on the server for the user details?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Helm chart with role binding and service account support to deploy Vault is open sourced as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> We do something very similar, tho we don't use JWT, just a token, and store the userID in the KV store.

How do you handle cleaning up the vault KV store? We have a separate process that runs around cleaning up old tokens, but am open to a better way.

<comment> ah- Vault does the expiration/cleaning up for you.

<comment><USER4> You are mistaken: "Even will a ttl set, the secrets engine never removes data on its own. The ttl key is merely advisory." \- [https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/secrets/kv/index.html](https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/secrets/kv/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting, but you could just rely on short expiry with refresh as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice! I'm looking at doing something similar</comment>