"Gasbuggy" tests nuclear fracking in the late 1960s - <AUTHOR> http://aoghs.org/technology/project-gasbuggy/

<comment><USER2> Is there a Chrome plugin that automatically converts feet, miles,pounds, gallons and quarts(??) into metric units on the currently open page? I really enjoy these articles but having to look up how much "3500 quarts" is in litres is super annoying.

<comment><USER3> Quart is a (quart)er of a gallon, i.e. one liter.

<comment><USER2> Which gallon? US or UK gallon?

(I can guess the answer - I am just pointing out that there are a few different types of gallons, just like there are a few types of miles)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remember reading that there was speculation that the Russians were mapping out oil and natural gas wells, using what I remember as seismic mapping, in the Afghanistan mountains when the United States unofficially used small nuclear warheads in the post-911 invasion. It has been mostly scrubbed from the net at this point.

<comment><USER5> >the United States unofficially used small nuclear warheads in the post-911 invasion

I find that unlikely. Do you have any source for this statement?

<comment><USER6> Seconded. They had more than enough conventional ordnance at their disposal to need to break out something as exotic and controversial as nuclear weapons.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Cs50plan- popular cs50 course gamified - <AUTHOR> http://cs50plan.cloudapp.net/ <comment><USER2> It's probably going to be difficult to get feedback from the Hacker News community for an application embedded in Facebook due to the side effects that Facebook activity has on a person's account.

This may indicate the drawbacks of taking a dependency on Facebook.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Will keep in mind next time</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why did Snap IPO? - <AUTHOR> Seems like they could've raised from the private markets if they'd wanted to. <comment><USER2> I think because they where "jealous" of what FB is! I don't think they can bring revenue or at least what they expect. At the end they would transform their product to be more Facebook-ish, like others already do. For me (mid 30s) snap is for teens and I don't think teens can spend a lot of $$ in order advertisers to continue spending money for the users.

</comment><comment><USER3> Investors, founders and employees wanted to have liquidity on their stock. Secondaries market is very limited.</comment>


Building and army of robots - <AUTHOR> http://warpspire.com/talks/armyofrobots/ Robots to test our code and deploy. Robots to open doors. Robots to play our music. Robots to record videos of presenters. Robots to serve us beer. <comment><USER2> [http://www.intheuk.eu/wp- content/uploads/2011/12/Building-18...](http://www.intheuk.eu/wp- content/uploads/2011/12/Building-1890.jpg)

&

<http://s3.hubimg.com/u/387550_f520.jpg>

(sorry, reflex)</comment>


Tesla leaving rivals in the dust - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-tesla-leaves-its-rivals-playing-catch-up-1444327842 <comment><USER2> In my opinion, Tesla has no true rivals... yet. It seems car makers have finally started to take note of the impact that Tesla is making. But Tesla being solely focused on electric vehicles and other auto makers focusing mainly on fossil fuel vehicles with electric being an afterthought, I think Tesla won't be displaced anytime soon.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "...the costs of compliance will make internal combustion powertrains uneconomic"</comment>


A school-based obesity prevention programme was ineffective - <AUTHOR> https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/content/signal-00581/a-school-based-obesity-prevention-programme-was-ineffective <comment><USER2> To be clear, the only conclusion here is this program was the wrong approach for the audience it targeted.

Diet, exercise and personal responsibility still do matter. This program was not able to get the target to embrace such things.

That said, there must have been some successes. Who were those? And why? Why was it effective? How can that be replicated and scaled to effect more?

Moi? I suspect too much was targeted at the kids and not enough at the parents. The parents do the shopping. They do the cooking. The kids, by definition, follow the lead of the parents. The kids adapt and conform to the nurture provided to them. Not to sound harsh but how often do to see a (pardon me) chubby kid and then see the parents are similar or worse?

Put another way, I'm willing to bet there was no change for the parents' weight / habits either; in turn no change for the "culture." And so it persists. This is what humans do. We conform to the norms around us.

<comment> GCU-Empiricist >Diet, exercise and personal responsibility still do matter.

As an aging former military member it seems like personal responsibility is becoming more and more a foreign concept. I'm saying this not to kvetch but to get peer perception on the thought.

<comment><USER3> I feel this view is massively overblown in media. Do I read stories about people blaming others for their problems, showing no personal responsibility? Absolutely, all the time, especially in mass media.

Day to day, people I know, people I overhear. people I talk to , show lots of personal responsibility. Sure they might skip the gym, or eat some cake. But they take responsibility for that, and themselves at large.

Frankly its easier to sell newspapers or get views by talking about someone we can look at and say "Wow, I know I skipped the gym today, but I'm not that bad", than to hear an altogether more boring story of the 99% that are basically the same as ourselves.

<comment><USER2> Ok. But the percentage of adults who are overweight or obese is somewhere around 70%. If we presume 10% is not preventable - that is they have a med condition - then what of the other 60%? Who is feeding those people? Who is forcing them to the sofa?

I understand it's not that simple (e.g., gut bacteria has been tied to weight control). None the less i know people who had what I would consider serious med issues (e.g., cancer) and made no change in lifestyle.

Yes, I'm generalizing. I apologize. But the obesity rate doesn't match well with self responsibility.

<comment><USER4> Maybe they just don't see the value in losing weight? People smoke and drink despite being well aware of the associated risks, what's so different about food?

<comment><USER2> That's my point. We've nornalized the abnormal. We've turned (potential) illness into a massive (pun intended) market for self help "gurus" (e.g., Oprah).

95% of the messages are: eat what you want, what matters is you still love yourself." Too few add that the extra weight is unhealthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the web page:

""" What did this study do?

[...]

* an additional 30 minutes of physical activity each day

* a family cooking workshop each term

* in collaboration with local Aston Villa Football Club, three sessions of coaching in physical activities and two on preparing healthy meals, with weekly activity and healthy eating "challenges"

* information sheets about staying active during the holidays, with signposting to local facilities

"""

So 1.5/4 points about diet, and the rest about exercise. Thus mostly focused on exercise. While diabetes is known to be preventable/reversible by primarily diet. Specifically by removing processed foods (that includes oils, refined starches and sugar) and animal(-derived) products (as they are high in saturated fats), while adding lots of whole plant foods. And not only for cooked meals, but for all meals and snacks.

Seems to me they've been trying to optimize the wrong parameters. Just my 2ct.

<comment><USER6> And the diet part is about healthy (at the time) meals.

Just learn to count calories, how much you need and avoid excesses. Bad food in small portions is better than huge amounts of healthy calories.

<comment><USER7> Research is not yet clear, but not every calorie is the same!

The combination of nutrients in food can have a large effect on the efficiency of nutrient extraction in your stomach and gut. For example, when you consume alchol and a meal afterwards your body will store more fat than if you'd just taken a (slightly larger) meal. This is because your body will prioritize burning the acetate and alchol over anything else (including carbs, fat and protein). Other foods or chemicals might have effects on the resource burning allocation of your body.

<comment><USER8> Even if you had definitive proof of this, I think OP's assertion still stands.

Concerning yourself with highly complex reactions that could happen between foods, when we aren't even sure how/if those reactions happen is effort spent unwisely, whereas calorie counting has a definitive effect and even if those combinations can hamper or help you, even by ignoring them, you still have the overall desired result.

I find that, as a model, calorie in - calorie out works well, even if at some future time we would discover it's not fully accurate.

<comment><USER9> >Concerning yourself with highly complex reactions that could happen between foods

This isn't necessitated at all. There's no mystery as to what overlaps between what the most successful food regimens prescribe today: cut sugar, cut refined foods, eat more vegetables and eat real food.

Counting calories is important when it comes to weight management, but optimal health does not stop and start just at BMI. You might be thinner on a calorie- restricted junk-food diet, but you won't be healthier. Your insulin would spike all the time, you'd be nutrient-deficient, etc.

<comment><USER10> What is real food? Plants, Fruits and Water? Everything else has to be processed somehow.

<comment><USER5> Yes.

> Plants, Fruits and Water

Also fungi. And fruits are plants so do not need a special mention.

Some would say meat can be "unprocessed", but its not part of the WFPB diet that I mentioned earlier and it known for it's health (obesity reversing) benefits. To the contrary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just some quick napkin math: In 2015 the US Defense spending was estimated around $598 billion. [1] In 2014 we spent $12.7 million on the school lunch program. [2] By reducing the defense budget a little under 5%, we could triple the school lunch program. Reduce it a little under 9%, and we can spend 5x more on school lunches. I'm not sure of the exact numbers behind an individual school lunch, but from what I know about personal cooking, you can probably spend 5x more and have menus put together for kids that are way healthier than the "Pizza Dippers" I remember. I'm also not sure if school lunches are sold at a profit, but here's what I found related to that [3]. Assuming they are, do they really need to be, especially if the federal government can subsidize it more?

What's really needed is a societal change with how food is treated. Someone else mentioned a tax on sugar and processed foods, which could help. But another big step would be trying to teach students about nutritious food and living a healthy lifestyle. Of course, it's difficult if the school is the only place they see this, but I don't think it would hurt to have more outlets for healthy living in a student's life.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States) [2] [https://www.cbo.gov/publication/50737](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/50737) [3] [http://markbittman.com/health-vs-profits-in-school- lunches/](http://markbittman.com/health-vs-profits-in-school-lunches/)

<comment><USER12> The problem isn't how food is treated, it's Americans unwillingness to use tax dollars to help poor people(even children). Foods got nothing to do with it, it's the same with their school supplies, technology, quality of education, etc.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, it's a cultural issue here. I sometimes phrase it as "nobody hates Americans as much as other Americans".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Breaking news! Schools can't fix suboptimal family life.

My mum is a special ed teacher in a poor, rural, redneck corner of New England. Many of the students on her caseload only get anything approaching decent food from the school lunch program. Their broken, mixed up, drunk and drugged out parents can't even keep their own shit together, let alone bear the responsibilities of raising a child. Not surprisingly, if tragically, the child suffers.

</comment><comment><USER15> For a country that is so weighed down by the health issues around obesity, it's quite weird taxes/incentives based on calorie per gram isn't anywhere in sight. The savings from not having to take care of so much sick people would be enormous.

It's clear from the situation that the free market choices are suboptimal. Who wants to suffer through most of their life and die early? Yet these choices are still made. If you can't educate, then tax fairly and force them to make the right choices.

<comment><USER16> > Who wants to suffer through most of their life and die early?

Apparently the fat people. Otherwise they would change their eating habits.

Why do we want to force people to live some way they don't want to live? It won't work, and it will just flush more tax dollars down the drain.

<comment><USER15> I'm pretty sure taxing by calorie density would make things better. There's no cost in doing that, it would just shift people to eat less calorie dense food like fruits, vegetables and leafy greens.

The main problem is that the current laws, taxes and infrastructure are heavily optimized to produce calorie dense foods. Another is that people like some of those foods on a regular basis in their diet, so they might complain.

I would say this would cost more in political points than in real money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Fat shaming is pretty effective. It worked on me and others in my peer group. I don't like being fat and I don't like being around people who are fat. It's unhealthy and unattractive and represents, to me, a lack of control and discipline. I look at someone who can't give up Sugar the same way as someone who can't give up cocaine, as a person who needs help. Possibly in the form of an intervention.

<comment><USER18> Cite a study

<comment><USER17> [https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/chi.2014.0062](https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/chi.2014.0062)

<comment><USER18> How do you get fat-shaming from "peer and parental encouragement"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reading this I was shocked, shocked I tell you to learn that cookery courses for adults and healthy eating "challenges" were ineffective. Actually if you take the numbers at face value then perhaps the intervention made the problem worse - there was a comment yesterday about how short-bursts of extra activity actually made people less active outside their regular exercise times.

So the premise of the study seems to indicate that the problem is largely one of education - I guess that's why they dropped this onto the school system. Instead of playing with a few guinea-pigs on a small scale maybe it's time think to think about the big picture:

1\. Get all the crap out of the food supply.

2\. Put an end, permanently with threat of severe sanctions, to all the fear- mogering in the media that frightens parents into keeping their kids indoors.

3\. Deal with small-scale, crime, bullying, availability of drugs, etc. etc. that keep kids inside in front of the games console or TV instead of getting outside.

4\. Create spaces were kids can go outside.

5\. Get away from schools being places where kids sit on their asses for 6+ hours a day. For example in today' physics lesson on electro-magnetism we are actually going to biuld a 50m maglev track. OK so this is a bit unrealistic but it would be a hell of a lot more fun and everybody would be a lot more active.

... etc. etc., rant, rant.

In other words, the solution to a complex problem which is poorly understood is probably a whole range of solutions to create an environment where obesity simply is not possible. But that would take a huge amount of money, a huge amount of political will, a lot of creative thinking and a general re-wiring of a large number of attitudes and expectations.

<comment><USER5> > 1\. Get all the crap out of the food supply.

Additional taxes may do, it helped for smoking. Slap the same tax on sugar, (processed) animal products, oils. And make a VAT exempt on whole plant foods. That combined with updated nutritional education will save millions.

<comment><USER20> Ooops - I had a different definition for 'crap'. Maybe we should instead use a scheme that lets people choose their own food, like a free market or something...

<comment><USER21> That doesn't sound like an effective way to combat the obesity crisis.

<comment><USER20> Its consistent with American values (personal freedom etc). So often the idealist jumps straight to "Lets _make_ people do it my way, uh, the right way! With restrictive intrusive laws! Or raids! Or some other totalitarian tool! Because that'll work!"

I understand its hard to see folks making choices that diverge from my personal sense of what's optimal. But it is a cost of living in a free society.

<comment><USER5> You're making up stawmans, nobody's talking about that. Just some extra taxation like with cigarettes.

We're discussing ideas on how to get a hold on the obesity crisis. I suggested some extra taxes. Yes some gov't regulation.

You suggested me to use the free market, but food is already on the free market. So I fail to understand what you are actually suggesting.

At the same time you say "get rid of the crap", while not defining how to do so (without gov't regulation accordin to your own preferences) and without defining what in your eyes crap then means...

Please make a real argument.

And why should any solution be "consistent with American values"; obesity in the US is VERY CONSISTENT with American values. Maybe to turn the tide on it we have to look in a diff direction.

<comment><USER20> To make it clear: what people eat and how they exercise is a very personal matter. Social engineering is intrusive and objectionable. When done with a shakedown its particularly intrusive.

I'm sensitive to this topic. Live in a University town. Periodically some idealistic students petition the City Council for some totalitarian ban as part of a social engineering agenda. The latest was, Permit only Organic Coffee to be sold in the city limits.

This clueless banning/taxing/penalizing folks for living as they please is inconsistent with American values. More typical of nanny states and other less savory government styles.

<comment><USER5> > This clueless banning/taxing/penalizing folks for living as they please is > inconsistent with American values. More typical of nanny states and other > less savory government styles.

Bollocks. Read your law books. Weed is only recently legal in some states. Ciggies are taxed heavily, so is petrol. Try walking butt naked in the streets.

My point: your values are arbitrary. And calling them American(TM) does not give them any credibility in my eyes. In fact what you are doing is similar to what you despise in others: setting some standard and calling it "universal" (ok US-niversal)

> To make it clear: what people eat and how they exercise is a very personal > matter.

Except:

When there is a public healthcare system that takes care of you fuck up.

When advertising is everywhere shoving "eat unhealthy crap" messages into our collective sub-conscience.

When some sentient being needs to suffer/die/have-children-taken-away-at- birth/is-forcefully-impregnated-(also-called-rape)...

What I'm saying is that I see cases around me of diet not being a strictly personal choice. I think if you try hard you can see it too. It's not so black-white as you make yourself believe.

<comment><USER20> Food is different. Very different. Blurring that with strawmen is easy but not helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Participation (permission to measure BMI) was around 60%. That seems like a pretty low rate, and it is not too hard to imagine that parents who know their child has a BMI problem might be more likely to not want it measured, for fear of stigmatizing them or their child. So, while I don't doubt that a program of this sort might not be the answer, I don't think their data is sufficient to prove it one way or the other, unfortunately. I would expect you need well over 90% compliance/permission to measure before you could say that. Disclosure: I am not a statistician (and I would love to hear from one about this issue).

</comment><comment><USER23> Unfortunately I doubt there are any good solutions to this. People become obese because their lives are too fucked up to care for themselves properly. If your parents are weak, you're at high risk of being obese. If too many bad things happen to you at once you're at risk of being obese. Kind of fucked up to think of society as fucked up hunger games where if you fuck up the bodies of you and your loved ones are mutilated by this condition but that just seems to be how life works

</comment><comment><USER9> Offer free cooking and nutrition coaching for low-income families. They're the ones with kids most likely to subsist on junk. Presumably if it proves to be effective, the gains will eventually extent to the hold-outs in the middle- class.

I would observe as much at the supermarket on the regular in an area I once lived in, heartbreaking to see.

<comment><USER10> They wouldn't go to such a coaching because of ignorancy. Most people are not low-income for no reason...

If they really wanted the internet is full of freely available information.

<comment><USER9> >Most people are not low-income for no reason...

Low-income workers are as such because they're "ignorant"? Uh..

Why this would work is that free delicious food isn't likely to be turned down. I think people are often creatures of habit and feel intimidated by cooking, along with (as you suggest) disinterest. You don't just teach the mechanics and call it a day, they can walk away with a cheap delicious food and see how easy it is to put together. Ultimately also easier on their wallets than a cart full of 2L soda bottles, frozen pizzas and chips.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Without addressing the underlying developmental trauma this kind of program is going to be very hard to do effectively.

</comment><comment><USER20> Ineffective?! It was positively corrosive. My growing Iowa farmboys were starved nearly senseless. We sent lunches thru elementary school (which they were stigmatized for bringing) but in middle school they had to use the provided meal service. Nearly passed out by 2PM, they struggled thru till they got home and we could put 1000 calories in them to tide them over until supper.

This program was phenomenally clueless and ill-conceived. Instead of patronizing inappropriate low-calorie choices (which drove students to hoarding dingdongs in their lockers), how about providing plentiful good food? That might have had a positive effect.

{edit: I thought they were talking about the federal school-lunch initiative, sorry}

<comment><USER25> Doesn't the federal school lunch program mostly just provide funding for low income students?

I think a requirement to eat the school provided meal would probably be local stupidity.

<comment><USER20> Rural community. Not a lot of resources or facilities. No place to put a lunch from home (no refrigeration/storage). Not stupid, practical.

The school lunch program feeds anybody who shows up. Nothing to do with income.

<comment><USER25> The federal school lunch program _is_ predicated on income. That's basically all it is, a system for providing funds to schools with low income students.

It comes with things like minimum standards for the meals, but I don't think it comes with a limit on how much food each student can be served.

<comment><USER20> Every school in Iowa has a lunch program, even the wealthiest. Its subsidized of course, but for everybody. True low income can get you a waiver, like many other government programs, but the lunch is available to all.

There is absolutely a limit on food.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ARGUS: a high def sensor for drone with 1.8 billion pixels - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p4BQ1XzwDg

<comment><AUTHOR> Some interesting facts from the video about the new Surveillance technology:

1\. It stores 1MM Terabytes of video each day.

2\. One drone can cover a small city

3\. Up to 64 viewing panels can be watched simultaneously and can zoom to see objects as small as 6in in diameter from over 17K feet in the air.

Whoa!</comment>


Apple Pro Apps Bundle for Educators - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/us-hed/shop/product/BMGE2Z/A/pro-apps-bundle-for-education <comment><USER2> It is highly unclear to me from visiting the page what "for Education" actually means here

<comment><USER3> Yeah no clue why these are all tied together.

Should have had Microsoft OneNote that's what I see most students + professors use.

<comment><USER4> They're tied together because they're Apple's suite of "pro" media apps.

If you want a student discount on OneNote, you should buy it from the microsoft education store [1], rather than the Apple one. OneNote is also a notetaking app rather than a media production app.

[1]: [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/education/products/onenote/d...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/education/products/onenote/default.aspx)</comment></comment></comment>


What's really driving the Toyota controversy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Don-Watkins-and-Yaron-Brook-Whats-really-driving-the-Toyota-controversy-89271207.html

<comment><USER2> Asides from the lobby groups, there's also that the issue is wear flaw (ie, gradual issue) but being presented as a sudden behaviour, and the mean age of those who have apparently been affected is 60+.

Toyota sell a lot of cars all over the world. Nowhere in the west has covered this to the state I saw while In the US, nor with the same vitriolic language - NBC news talking about how Toyota might be called in front of congress to explain the flaw. The only think I can think of to explain this is bitterness at the demise of the US auto industry in the 80s.

<comment><USER3> The mean age of new Prius buyers is 53, so 60+ is not astonishing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "This is not what Madison and Jefferson had in mind. Their vision was of a strictly limited government, which would perform one basic function, guard individual rights. Its role was to protect the individual's rights to life, liberty, and property from infringement by thugs and frauds, while otherwise leaving people free to produce and trade in a free market."

I don't recall having read anything by Madison or Jefferson that mentioned "free market trade". It certainly isn't spelled out in my constitution. Was such a concept even recognized as we understand it today at that point in history?

</comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr: A perspective on corporations, governance, politics and stakeholders from an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center.

<comment><USER6> _An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument toward the person" or "argument against the person"), is an argument which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise._

<http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately in this case the attack was accurate. The article starts with a correct but not novel explanation of dumb political games, then veers abruptly into libertarian cheerleading. The author mentions things like "too big to fail" but ignores the fact that companies got this way through deregulation in the first place. All in all, a disappointingly shallow argument.

<comment><USER8> The argument against 'too big to fail' presumes that such a thing doesn't exist. I.e., it isn't government's role to prop up corporations, regardless of the effect their failure _might_ have on the economy. In that view, deregulation, even if it encourages companies to become large, isn't a 'problem', so there isn't any inconsistency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sure, first someone took out a hit on Tiger Woods... apparently next in line was Toyota.

</comment><comment><USER10> much better skeptical article with numbers to back it up minus libertarian bs <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1186609></comment>


TELL HN: Release user friendly, encrypted communication and cloud tools now - <AUTHOR>

This should be obvious. There is now and will be an increased demand for user friendly software and services which protect us from NSA and co.
Personally I would like to replace:
- Gmail - Google Calendar - Google Docs - Dropbox
I've used Thunderbird+PGP, Trucrpyt+FTP etc. before but I'm likely not in the largest group of potential clients. Regardless, me and, many others would pay hard money for something that is convenient. <comment><USER2> I'd be interested to know how large the market for that actually is. It's clear within the HN world that some people are upset about the NSA and other organizations being able to easily access their data, but how large is the market for people who are willing to pay to not have that happen? I'm concerned that it's actually pretty small.

There's also a bit of a catch-22: if you start a company that provides secure email (for example) then I'm not going to pay you for it because I don't believe that you can provide me with secure email. The only way for that to happen is if I use GPG or similar myself and take total control.

So, I'd be concerned that the very people who might worry about this stuff are the very people who aren't going to pay you for the service.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I'd be interested to know how large the market for that actually is.

Sure, I don't know. But I bet its bigger than ever. For instance the very popular (rank 2), mainstream German online new page SPON has a DIY Tor router article on the front page today [http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fnetzwelt%2Fgadgets%2Fraspberry- pi-tor-router-onion-pi-anonymisiert-surfen-im-web-a-907567.html) (How about selling those in a way that they work out-of-the-box with a nice housing?)

If someone really wanted to find out, a little marketing study (questionnaire) might be quite revealing. E.g. "Would you pay $100 a year for /a encrypted eMail service/?"

Its true, that you can easily get into a catch-22 with the requirements of security (e.g. open source). But I'm sure the current state could be improved by someone clever. If it was trivial, there would be no startup opportunity.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to get in to the .NET or Java ecosystems? - <AUTHOR> Can anyone give an objective summary of tools,apis,libraries that you should be at least briefly familiar with to get hired in your random non-hyped corporation ?
I would say it's way easier to start with something like Ruby and its ecosystem than Java or .NET (or even JS these days).
Which one is easier of the two ? (of course not talking about the grammar and runtime but tools,libs,documentation,apis around it. By doing pet projects and slowly getting familiar with tools like Maven and Spring one cannot expect to be able to pass very specific questions related to them.) <comment><USER2> .Net is in my opinion easier. Syntax between Java and c# is also similar, but namespaces and packages on .Net are so much better.

Just start with the Visual Studio Community edition and use Nuget to import libraries.

Then pick the corresponding project ( asp.net mvc or Winforms or ...) and start building.

<comment><USER3> I agree about .NET having less friction than Java. I think it is largely a result of not having to make as many technical decisions regarding tooling selection. This means that secondary support such as blogs and StackOverflow tend to assume similar environments, i.e some flavor of Visual Studio. Similarly, tutorials are likely to work on what a new programmer has running without installing another IDE (or Vim or Emacs).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can anyone spare time to talk about my startup? - <AUTHOR>

For the last year I have been bootstrapping my own startup. I am planning on a public launch in 2 months, and I would like to pick someones brain over monetizing it. If you could spare a few minutes for an email exchange please let me know (joekaiser at live)<p>Although I am willing to listen to anyone, I am really interested in talking to someone with experience :) <comment><USER2> Hey man, here is my bio [https://about.me/FaisalAbid](https://about.me/FaisalAbid). If you feel I can provide any insight then give me a shout at email@example.com</comment>


Well, we shipped Twine - <AUTHOR> http://supermechanical.tumblr.com/post/32499782145/well-we-shipped-twine

<comment><USER2> Congrats! I've been waiting on mine for a while now, looking forward to getting it! Also looking forward to commodity pricing on them after a while, the problem with having one device is that I already see needs for 5 or 6...

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats. It seems awful pricey, though. I hope the intention is to bring it down to commodity cost.</comment>


Internet Archive ends "emergency library" early to appease publishers - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/internet-archive-ends-emergency-library-early-to-appease-publishers/ <comment><USER2> See also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23485182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23485182)

<comment><USER3> Comments mover thither. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's very hard to understand what the Internet Archive thought it was doing with the "emergency library" venture. Whatever you thought of the idea, it was very clear that the concept was on extremely shaky legal ground, and even more clear that publishers weren't going to just sit idly by and do nothing about it. The IA had to have expected a massive lawsuit, one that it most likely would lose, and one which would bankrupt them.

And on top of that, this "emergency library" move has roused the publishing industry into finally attacking the CDL model which they've apparently grudgingly tolerated for a decade.

Why risk their entire existence do this? What was so important about it that it outweighs all the other good work they do?

</comment><comment><USER5> > The online library argued that this move was necessary—and legally > justified—because the pandemic was denying the public access to millions of > books that are locked in closed libraries.

I wish that the Internet Archive had tried to work around this by reaching out to public libraries, and having those public libraries agree to "loan" their still-on-the-shelf books to the Internet Archive. That might not cover all the copies that were simultaneously checked out by people (I don't know the numbers involved), but it would have helped.</comment>


PROTON A pragmatic Python framework of 2018! - <AUTHOR> PROTON is a high-level Python framework that facilitates rapid server-side development with clean & pragmatic design. Thanks for checking it out!
PROTON aims at easing server-side development for all Python enthusiasts. Essentially, by running a shell command, developer will auto generate necessary Model, Controller and APIs! All of this with connectivity to Transactional Databases (PROTON supports Postgresql, MySQL & SQL Server),caching (Redis middleware), Auto generated OpenAPI specs & descriptive logging! One command, to get a production ready server-side stack!
https://github.com/PruthviKumarBK/PROTON <comment><USER2> With all of the exclamation points (!) that you used, it must be really, really good!</comment>


Dell's new Ubuntu-only Developer Edition laptop still includes a Windows key. - <AUTHOR> http://samuelmessing.me/2012/12/08/the-long-reach-of-microsoft/

<comment><USER2> How ironic. I got free stickers from <https://www.system76.com/community/stickers> and put one of their Ubuntu stickers on my windows key... Problem solved</comment>


LA Dodgers Accelerator - <AUTHOR> http://www.dodgersaccelerator.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really big for developing sports related startups. Most sports related startups are doing fantasy. I'd love to see what comes out of this accelerator.

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting concept & it's set up in a great location.</comment></comment>


Just Add Points? What UX Designers Can Learn (and not Learn) from Games - <AUTHOR> http://noteandpoint.com/2010/06/just-add-points/

<comment><USER2> While there is a great point in the presentation itself - the connection between our actions and rewards makes fun, it's something we can't see in the "real life", - there is an odd summary: "The core fun in games is learning under optimal conditions".

Okay, I can see why almost all fun from games is fun from learning (it seems like Ralph Koster haven't tried to eat anything tasteful, but OK, fun from games is fun from learning). But it's just =>, not <=>. Why every kind of learning (under "optimal conditions") is fun? What's new or great in learning (except for the thing you're learning - something not very real in case of games)? What's so useful in learning meaningless things, like moving Pacman, so the evolution would make us to get fun from it? And why would this strange connection last when we add learning to Microsof Excel?

</comment><comment><USER3> LinkedIn displays profile completeness on your dashboard by awarding percentage points to your profile for completing certain actions. Mine is at 90% because I've chosen not to upload my resume and have filled in certain fields manually. Most gamers will tell you that not having full completion of something is frustrating. Having points/achievements for an application can be fun and awarding, but it can also be annoying if used ineffectively. Speaking of, I'd love to see a desktop app/game for mac with growl+achievements.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there a video of this online anywhere? I'd love to see the talk after reading the slides/pdf.</comment>


In Its Latest Crusade, Google Takes on Patents - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/04/04/in-its-latest-crusade-google-takes-on-patents/

<comment><USER2> Actually, the event described isn't Google taking on the patent system. It is Google buying a bunch of patents.

And sadly, that action involves instead accepting the rent-seeking, protection-racketeering business as usual.

I was hoping that Google had decided to put its weight behind some effort to invalidate software patents in general. Something like this would certainly be in Google's interest but I suspect they chickened out when they understood the forces arrayed against them.

Edit: I'm happy to notice their blog post still pushes for patent reform. But this is them protecting themselves in the mean-time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ultimately, even though every company might be challenging the patent system, they will look forward to do so without any damage to them. It might look like Google is buying a bunch of patents, but if you actually look at it properly, its as if they are angrily buying it out and protesting in the background, not too loud which might put them in trouble!!!</comment></comment>


Amazon Coins - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1001166401 <comment><USER2> At first I thought Amazon was going to tackle digital currency or something.

Anyway, this is brilliant. Encourage users to buy a bunch of these coins to get a 10% discount. Then Amazon gets a free loan.</comment>


Mod Lang: What are the features of a modern programming language syntax? - <AUTHOR> http://rdallasgray.github.io

<comment><USER2> I think that the idea that programmers want to have anonymous functions is hitting on something. I play with Clojure on a semi-frequent basis and find myself often taking advantage of dropping in anonymous functions to my map, reduce, filter, and other functional Clojure built-ins very naturally.

I probably over-do it some - it feels like a bad "code smell" when I wind-up with lots of nested (fn [...] (stuff)) statements in deeper and deeper chunks. I usually pull them out just for my own clarity. Maybe I should make myself a rule to only use one or two anonymous functions.

Lots of fun though. Nothing like coming back to code from two days ago and going "what was I thinking?"</comment>


Is aviation security mostly for show? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/29/schneier.air.travel.security.theater/index.html

<comment><USER2> I am glad Schneier's article got on cnn.com. General public would benefit greatly from reading this. Unlike other pundits and "experts" he actually knows what he is talking about when it comes to security.

To paraphrase my comment to a related thread: both security theatre and terrorism is about managing _perceptions_. One is just a response to the other in the public and media domain.

Therefore, the government will respond using theatircs and flare. They will do whatever it takes to _seem_ like they is doing something. Lots of rules, directives with cryptic long numbers separated by dashes, TSA employees with uniforms resembling those of real police officers, etc, etc... This is quite different than actually making anything or anybody any more safe.

Another point worth mentioning is that TSA has yet to show at least one foiled or stopped terrorist attempt in all these years since its existence.

</comment><comment><USER3> "A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage."

Hear hear.

</comment><comment><USER4> Many of the points in this excellent article made me think of the movie "The Siege."</comment>


Peek hiring Engineers in NY/Bay Area - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekypeek.com/?p=368

<comment><AUTHOR> A previous post gives a better sense of the kind of person they are looking for.

<http://www.geekypeek.com/?p=356></comment>


Lessons learned from wikipedia's fundraising banner design  - <AUTHOR> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Banner_testing

<comment><USER2> If you are surprised why the "Personal Appeal" banner is consistently doing so well – well, it looks like this: [http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTe...](http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&template=2010_testing50) and the alternatives look like this: [http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTe...](http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NoticeTemplate/view&template=2010_en_testing36)

<comment><USER3> I'm amused by the fact that I'm drawn into the picture of Jimmy Wales. It just looks so inspirational; for what reason, I'm not really sure.

<comment><USER4> the reason? photoshop

<comment><USER5> (and a decent photographer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know at least a dozen or so of those click-throughs are me trying to hit the little "X" dismiss button in the upper-right corner. Yes I know Wikipedia needs funding, no I can't offer any right now. If I've closed it a half dozen times please don't show it to me for at least a couple page views.

<comment><USER7> If you're registered Wikipedia user, there's a little option[1] in user preferences that suppress display of fundraising banner.

[1]: <http://cl.ly/1J08203O2C0l0R0x2v3V>

<comment><USER8> and if, like the vast majority of wikipedia traffic you're not, there's not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One more interesting coverage about this design is on quora: [http://www.quora.com/Wikipedia/Is-having-Jimmy-Wales- picture...](http://www.quora.com/Wikipedia/Is-having-Jimmy-Wales-picture- shown-across-the-top-of-every-page-helping-or-hindering-Wikipedia-raise-money) The one with Jimmy on it has 10 times more "conversion" than others. Impressive!

I also like how the fundraising committee involves the community to design the banners. It feels like a genetic algorithm trained/evolved based on human clicks.

<comment><USER9> Any sufficiently advanced A/B testing setup is indistinguishable from Strong AI -- it just has people embedded in the loop.

<comment><USER10> Strong AI is overrated: evolution beats intelligent design every time.

<comment><USER11> It doesn't.

[EDIT: There isn't much more to say. The claim that (esp. natural) evolutionary processes strive for streamlined and optimal solutions is simply false, for various (even _a priori_ ) reasons.]

<comment><USER10> You should point out a counterexample. I guess it would reveal that your definition of optimality is different from "evolutionary fitness", and it shouldn't be.

Note I didn't claim that "evolutionary processes strive for streamlined and optimal solutions". I have no idea how you derived that or why are all these people voting you up and me down (I'd appreciate an explanation btw). I just made a joke that I think contains a kernel of non-trivial truth, although I don't believe it's true if you take it literally as a claim for a universal fact.

Edit: Perhaps I figured out part of the voting - people think I disagree with a popular HNer in an irrelevant way. Amusing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> why the fuck doesn't the banner on the english language site direct to the ENGLISH "personal appeal"?

ip based localization is fucking imbecilic.

<comment><USER13> What mystified me was all those mentions of {{$sitename}}. Is there an english community-based site somewhere that shares the funds, but not the name, of Wikipedia?

<comment><USER14> Donations go to Wikimedia, so I'd assume the funding gets split among all their projects[0]. If you take a look at, say, Wikibooks right now, you'll see the same banner there.

[0]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia#Projects>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Portuguese Wikipedia: 2 donations, $ 30,00

Because it's hard for Brazilians to donate via PayPal or credit card.

Always remember that donations schemes are not one-size-fits-all.

<comment><USER14> Or Brazilians just hate Jimmy Wales, or...

It's a bit preemptive to draw a conclusion like that.

<comment><USER15> Not preemptive, it's slow as hell to link a paypal account to your bank account and few people use credit cards because of the ridiculous interest rates.

I've been through this a lot before a couple of freelancer jobs filled my paypal account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anybody else bothered by the lack of p-values on these tables? Kudos to the authors for doing some research to see whether there are differences between the performance of the various landing page and banner designs... but the way they're reported their results leaves a lot to be desired.

The the stated differences (in terms of mean donation as well as conversion rate) between banners and landing pages strike me as pretty small (e.g., $26.92 vs. $27.07)- confidence intervals would be helpful here, as I suspect that the differences aren't significant.

Also, is mean really the right metric to be reporting? I suspect that these data aren't normally distributed, or, at the very least, have some outliers on either side of the spectrum (some people who donated hardly anything, plus a few "high rollers"), so it seems to me that the median would be a more informative statistic.

</comment><comment><USER17> My only concern with these fund-raisers for Wikimedia / Wikipedia are they never publicly disclose their financials. You gotta dig around wikimediafoundation.org for details.

Any fund-raiser for these non-profits, including wikimedia, should at least include links to a balance sheet and profit/loss statement.

<comment><USER18> it was a pretty quick google search: <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports>

<comment><USER17> Yeah... but if you're going to put up your face and ask for money, it would make people a lot more comfortable if you explained how much of that goes directly in your pocket and what you do to earn it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It is awesome to see them being so consistent and publishing all of this. I've never seen a non-profit do so in such detail. Some of the comments here (particularly the stats) might be very welcome there, on the talk page or elsewhere. Presumably some at least will do that, and that makes them better able to learn and understand than similarly-sized and staffed organizations would be.

They're just awesome.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm curious which _versions_ of each type of banner did the best... (If I missed this in TFA, please let me know.)

To me, the first one I saw, where he is standing off to the right, wearing a black shirt, in what looks like some sort of industrial area, is the most effective.

</comment><comment><USER21> I know it's Wikipedia, but it's still impressive that they can get 50k donations in an hour.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm wondering why only in the italian version of the ad he is called Jimbo Wales... weird.

</comment><comment><USER23> I thought he looked slightly zombie in this one, it freaked me out a bit :)

<http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2010-11-15-wales2.png>

<comment><USER24> totally agree!

Also I browse with chrome at 144% zoom so that picture ended up taking more than half my screen which freaked me out some more.</comment></comment>


Book of Proof – An introduction to the methods of proving mathematical theorems - <AUTHOR> http://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/ <comment><USER2> I've only read small amounts of this just to get a taster. My impression is that is readable, careful, and (so far) accurate.

It is readable enough that there is a danger that a reader might read it from cover to cover and believe that they now understand it all. But like programming, mathematics is not a spectator sport - you need to engage it in hand-to-hand contact to get the most out of it.

Reading a book about programming without trying to write programs leaves you with only a superficial understanding, and potentially no extra ability. However, reading a book about programming and _writing programs_ is immensely valuable. And so it is with proofs, and mathematics in general.

So don't just idly read this book and believe you now understand proofs - engage with it. Try to find errors in it, do the exercises, go back and re- read - you will get more the second time through. And based on the quick dips I've had, it will be worth it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am planning on using "How to Prove it" by Daniel J. Velleman to prepare for Tom Apostol's Calculus Vol 1. How does "Book of Proof" compare to "How to Prove it" .

<comment><USER4> How to Prove It is more comprehensive. Book of Proof is great as a supplement if you get both.

<comment><USER3> Sounds good!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I read this book cover to cover and did all of the exercises earlier this year. I didn't take any upper math in college that involved proofs, and this book has really helped me get over my fear about it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm interested in Common Logic (a form of First Order Logic that allows for some almost Second Order Logic activities) (info at [http://cl.tamu.edu/](http://cl.tamu.edu/) )

Does anyone know how much of this "Book of Proof" would require re-write to handle Common Logic ?

<comment><USER7> "Normal" math is usually not done using any formal logic at all. You can try, but you'll enter a world of pain regardless of the formal system you choose. Logic and foundational theories are _designed_ to remain out of the way and relatively hidden. It's good to know that they're there, but you don't actually use them in the day-to-day (unless you decide that logic is your field of expertise, or you're interested in the sisyphean task of formalizing proofs).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great to see Virginia Commonwealth University(VCU) highlighted for something other than NCAA basketball. There are some real gems at this university that often times get overshadowed by the numerous other universities also residing in Virginia.

</comment><comment><USER9> A good resource for books that are Free, including this one, is the American Institute of Mathematics [http://aimath.org/textbooks/approved- textbooks/](http://aimath.org/textbooks/approved-textbooks/).

</comment><comment><USER10> As a TA at Georgia Tech, this has become my go-to reference for OMS students preparing to take the Computability, Complexity, and Algorithms course.

</comment><comment><USER11> Great book. Another one is "Proofs from THE BOOK"

</comment><comment><USER12> Also a good (non-free) book: _A Logical Approach to Discrete Mathematics_

</comment><comment><USER13> Is it really true that "all of mathematics can be described with sets"?

<comment><USER14> Yes. But true in the sense that anything computable can be computed by a Turing machine. sets are universal building blocks but most of the time you want a higher level abstraction.

<comment><USER15> "Set theory is the 'assembly language' of mathematics. Type theory is the 'functional language' of mathematics."

<comment><USER4> According to who? I don't think that's a very good analogy. I think it's better to say type theory is just another language in a 'family of assembly languages'. Its superiority is very debatable and not commonly accepted as a foundation.

<comment><USER16> I think it's a nice analogy. It's a bit tongue in cheek, but it does give you the right idea when you compare it to programming languages.

Set theory is a reductionistic system. It's supposed to give a foundation which is as "small" as possible. In set theory you start with almost nothing and you have to encode all useful concepts into sets before you can start proving/programming.

Compare this to Turing machines, where you start with a very primitive model of computation. The first step in most treatments of Turing machines is similar to set theory, you show that some useful concepts (associative memory, high-level control flow, etc.) can be encoded into Turing machines. You then use this encoding to construct arbitrary programs.

Type theory starts out with a functional programming language and you derive new concepts from free constructions. In type theory you shouldn't be encoding things at all. You should be describing concepts (~adding an API) and possibly extending your model (~the compiler).

As analogies go, I'd say that this one is pretty accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a great resource! I would have loved to have had it in undergrad. I ended up reading a semi-expensive used copy of 100% Mathematical Proof by Rowan Garnier and John Taylor for my Abstract Algebra class.

</comment><comment><USER18> Excellent book. The chapter on cardinality gives a well-written, clear treatment of this important concept (e.g. # of elements in countably vs. uncountably infinite sets).

</comment><comment><USER19> This looks wonderful. I've had to give up on some MOOCs because I lacked the math background to understand proofs. This is exactly what I needed.

</comment><comment><USER20> Used this text for my Introduction to Proofs course I took this summer. Good quality text and exercises are pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER21> Good explanations! As I recall this stuff is usually introduced as part of classes along the boundary between basic and higher math, so having a mini- book about it seems a bit unconventional -- but it's a really good idea. Nice straightforward presentation. Very readable.

</comment><comment><USER22> Ok, so this is intro to general proofs instead of software proofs, right?

<comment><USER23> Yes, it most certainly is.

<comment><USER22> Aight, thanks! Might add it and others in comments to my collection. Need some basic intros before I do the deep stuff.</comment></comment></comment>


Learning to Program Is Getting Harder - <AUTHOR> http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2018/02/learning-to-program-is-getting-harder.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> I think this is fundamental point, related to yesterday's discussion about the need for "transparent" computing tools, which can be used in a "convivial" fashion — custom shaped by users to match their own needs. Humans have always used technology in this manner till the industrial revolution and the use of machines to scale production meant inflexibility of the product. IMHO, the next step of progress should involve ways to give back the flexibility while keeping the power of modern engineering. Software makes this easier to do than hardware, since experimentation and cloning are particularly cheap — so "software eating the world" should hopefully find ways to give power back to the users.

In the urge to make interfaces "simpler" by dumbing them down (appealing to the lowest common denominator), we have lost sight of the importance of ramping up novices into power users rather than having them stagnate and atrophy. Yes, there might be a learning curve, but keeping it gradual and steady can allow users to reach great heights! In what seems like an eternity ago, it is difficult to put in words the _freedom_ I felt as a college student when I first moved from Windows to using Ubuntu — for the first time ever, I had the freedom to shape my own computing experience, rather than accepting the straight jacket I was given. Two other examples that I have less experience with, but am quite fond of include Emacs and SmallTalk. There's a lot that can be learned (at least philosophically, if not technically) from the passionate love inspired by these examples.

The user/programmer divide is a symptom of yet another sharply increasing "inequality". We need to think about it in fundamental terms, and can't solve the problem just by making "coding" appear cool. It's not enough to have references and guides, because all those only make sense once you've crossed a knowledge barrier. They contribute to a shitty on-boarding experience. Focusing specifically on teaching programming is missing the point, IMHO. No amount of teaching (artificially structured) can ever be as good as a platform that enables people to gradually learn and adapt at their own pace. The human mind is enormously capable of learning with experience.

<comment><USER3> > The user/programmer divide is a symptom of yet another sharply increasing > "inequality". We need to think about it in fundamental terms, and can't > solve the problem just by making "coding" appear cool. It's not enough to > have references and guides, because all those only make sense once you've > crossed a knowledge barrier. They contribute to a shitty on-boarding > experience. Focusing specifically on teaching programming is missing the > point, IMHO. No amount of teaching (artificially structured) can ever be as > good as a platform that enables people to gradually learn and adapt at their > own pace. The human mind is enormously capable of learning with experience.

Right now we don't have the right environments for regular people. The operating systems they use are locked in and the main parts of the system they manipulate give users no hint at all about how to easily change things "computationally". For example, a user cannot easily create a button that does something (either by example or by a comprehensible scripting language), and then leave that button on their desktop. That's pretty absurd given how much normal interaction for them comes in the form of buttons. And that's just one example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think a big issue is where the average programmer begins his journey. If you start with visual studio and all you have to do is click "build" or "run" and all the magic occurs in the back, of course you'll be lost later on. If you start with C and have to write Makefiles or compile simple programs on the command line, you'll learn much more and probably won't run into this later. It's tough to understand what's going on when so much is happening behind the scenes.

<comment><USER5> At the same time you would want to see results as soon as possible because, and I know that from personal experience, at first you shouldn't care about makefiles, pointer arithmetic and actually most of the things a C programmer should care about. I would encourage everyone to learn problem solving before `make`.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can sympathize with some of the points in the article, but personally it seems like it is easier than ever to learn to program:

* There are definitely more resources now than ever before, many which are available for free online and are accessible 24/7\. Most questions you can think to ask for a beginning programming task have been asked dozens of times on Stack Overflow.

* For many programming languages, there are web-based interpreters (see: repl.it, godbolt, etc) and/or easy-to-install bundled platforms (things like R Studio). Many programming languages have installers for Windows, macOS, and Linux that work well via a GUI. And once a learner has overcome the fear of opening up a terminal, package managers are easier to use than ever before. So my personal experience has been that installation is easier now than in the past, but perhaps others will disagree (as it seem the author does).

* Running VMs (and installing OSes from scratch) is easier now than ever before. I remember how difficult installing some Linux distros was 10+ years ago. Installing Ubuntu is mindlessly easy now - just follow the instructions in the wizard. There are pre-built images for most VM software and on all cloud platforms that means you can get a machine up-and-running while knowing next to nothing about system administration. Recently I got a DO droplet spun up with Ubuntu 18 in less than 10 minutes from wanting it, and almost everything was handled for me. Linux does come with a lot of programming tools preinstalled, which gets around some installation worries of the author.

I do think it is getting harder to understand all layers of a software stack (and there is more information to know now), but just getting up-and-running with a single programming language is easier than ever.

One caveat about my first point: I see more and more top questions on StackOverflow or programming tutorials that use syntax that is out-of-date (or use packages that don't exist anymore). But this has always been a problem, and its more a visibility thing in my opinion.

So ultimately, my point is that the "Embrace the future" and "delay the pain" options are very natural for the new programmer learning today. As such, they will have more experience and confidence in the software world before they need to muck about in the sysadmin world, and by then picking up some system administration skills will be much easier.

</comment><comment><USER7> I keep kicking around the idea of creating a website that teaches Python that starts with guiding you through the installation of PyCharm and the Python interpreter, and really teaches how to properly use the debugger.

Things like recursion, something a lot of new people struggle with, is about a million times simpler to understand if you step through the code in a debugger and can visually see the call stack and local variables.

It honestly kind of blew my mind that I went though college and got a degree and never once was taught how to use breakpoints and the Step In/Step Over/Run to Cursor/etc buttons that every GUI debugger offers. I figured them out on my own, but I recently had a co-worker who insisted on only using vim to write some Python and he had a bug that he just couldn't squash. I was looking over his shoulder and couldn't figure it out either. But once I got a copy of his code and set a breakpoint in PyCharm and saw exactly what was happening, I had it fixed in minutes.

<comment><USER8> > how to use breakpoints and the Step In/Step Over/Run to Cursor/etc

Most of these are doable with pdb though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The three options aren't mutually exclusive imo, so the students can start right away with cloud resources before getting in more serious things which will teach them how it works under the hood.

<comment><USER9> I've had courses and classes which make sure that the students have everything installed that they need. And sometimes they also provide some sort of web interface to enter code.

Overall I completely understand where the author is coming from. It used to be that you could easily pick up programming in Basic, since it was installed by default. Now, not so much.</comment></comment>


Google Chrome OS is Linux. Not. (Here comes applinuxes?) - <AUTHOR> http://fwd2tweet.com/59/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like the conclusion is that Chrome OS _is_ Linux, but only in the strict sense - the kernel and not the distribution.

<comment><AUTHOR> It sure sound like a good project. Google gears lets you put all your javascript etc offline when net is not available. Even otherwise, all OS like components and downloadable programs of today can be converted to XPI's/Browser extensions.

Just move the tab bar at the botton, Bookmarks button in place of "Start Menu" and you have nearly got yourself a complete desktop. New windows with multiple tabs can act like multiple desktop features of Gnome/KDE.

If nothing else, it would be an interesting experiment, I frankly do not see any reason it can't be done by someone who knows enough of linux startup scripts, and desktop environments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Google hypes what looks to be a Linux thin client targeting netbooks?

Call me back in 2010 or whenever GCOS arrives on the market, and I'll compare it to then-current Moblin and Linux distros and Microsoft Windows for the netbooks.

(And GCOS? Wasn't that an OS from GE? Fifty years ago?)

</comment><comment><USER4> The big question is, will these netbooks and such running chrome os have all the linux tools available, or is this going to be a certified google world, with google package management?

<comment><USER5> will only run cloud apps. if your cloud apps aren't as smart and offlineable as google's, too bad for you.

<comment><USER4> that's what it is sounding like. lame</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Who is the CEO now? – me - <AUTHOR> https://www.who-is-the-ceo-now.me/ <comment><USER2> This seems like it'd be a fun way to kill 20 minutes - sim games usually are - but I'm unable to begin any projects and so am unable to make revenue. I thought maybe I had to hire each position first (PM+Marketer+Designer+Developer) but that didn't seem to be the case.

I'd think it were intentional as a joke if it weren't for a /js/projects.js file existing.

<comment><USER3> I started with marketers until the first project suddenly came in. Then more marketing and developers until there was a constant flow (3-5 projects ongoing). 50mil balance after 3 years, increasing about 100k/month.

<comment><USER2> That... actually makes sense - hah!

The rendering began to slow down so I stopped doing anything and let it run. My 3 year mark: [https://vgy.me/xgjxkO.png](https://vgy.me/xgjxkO.png) with about 250k/day increase. Most of my branches look like this: [https://vgy.me/FAnavY.png](https://vgy.me/FAnavY.png) with a range of projects: [https://vgy.me/j8zcHS.png](https://vgy.me/j8zcHS.png)

Without any experimentation for metagaming, I think hiring senior marketers at a 10:1 ratio with any other position would probably rake in money as most revenue is based on how many projects you can get - while having "just enough talent" that the projects are profitable.

E: Tested my theory and was right. 500k/day but the UI had become too unresponsive to continue hiring. As predicted, was a fun way to spend 20 minutes. :) [https://vgy.me/e1pSZJ.png](https://vgy.me/e1pSZJ.png)</comment></comment></comment>


Compiler Warnings for Objective-C Developers - <AUTHOR> http://oleb.net/blog/2013/04/compiler-warnings-for-objective-c-developers/

<comment><USER2> 'Treat warnings as errors' is the greatest thing since shirt pockets. I've found that most warnings are really latent errors. I've been using this setting for as long as I've been compiling with GCC/LLVM, going back to gcc 2.x.

Whenever I take over a new project I immediately endeavor to fix all the warnings. The reason is simple: I've spent too much time chasing bugs that were directly related to a specific warning in a sea of them. Once you get a project warning-free it's quite easy to keep it that way.

Regarding the author's specific complaint--unused variables--I find that it's quite simple to comment out the declaration. There's no need to resort to pragmas in this instance.

<comment><USER3> I never really understood this, what's stopping you from resolving those warnings even if they won't make the build fail? I mean, you still get a list of all the warnings and you can still have a zero-warnings rule (which is something you should really do)? This is, in my opinion, exactly as pointless as my wife setting her alarm clock seven minutes forward in order to stop herself from being late.

<comment><USER2> Have you ever tried to spot a warning in a large project with hundreds of files? It's nearly impossible as all those build commands fly by. Note that I'm speaking to a more traditional Unix Make environment. Therefore, it's easier to fail on that specific file than to let the build continue.

Certainly building with a tool like Xcode makes the warnings more conspicuous, and you can just choose to fix all warnings. I don't see anything wrong with that approach, but I still prefer to just treat the warnings as errors. I guess it's just how I'm built.:)

<comment><USER4> When I build a program with make, the warnings are very easy to spot. While you do, without warnings, see a bunch of text fly through the screen, all of that text looks incredibly simmilar. Warnings (and errors) stick out in the wall of text.

<comment><USER2> I guess we've just had different experiences. I can say from experience, without a doubt, that I could not possibly pick out a warning among hundreds of compile/link commands.

Now, if dependencies were in order, and I'd just made a small change to a single file, and had previously built the project successfully, I'm sure I could probably catch a single warning. That's a lot of assumptions to work from. I prefer to let the build fail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it horrifying how many developers are perfectly happy having warnings in their code.

On the projects I manage, warnings are unacceptable, and treated as errors. We will not release an update until it builds without warnings.

</comment><comment><USER6> This post has made me visit one of my large project's warnings. There are two that I can't seem to be rid of:

Using NS_REQUIRES_NIL_TERMINATION on a var args Objective-C method seems to cause a warning "Attributes on method implementation and its declaration must match" — despite both the declaration and implementation being exactly the same.

Using uniqueIdentifier in debug builds (for TestFlight) triggers an API deprecation warning. Despite being OK to use for non-App Store iOS apps.

</comment><comment><USER7> The author just retweeted a link to this header file to enable Clang warnings using #pragma's <https://github.com/macmade/SeriousCode> <https://twitter.com/macmade/status/328219581879558144>

</comment><comment><USER8> I find apples compiler seems to change its mind on what is a warning with every single version, which in turn made me less interest in removing every single one of them (especially when you use third party stuff - unity3d seems to spit out a bunch of warnings right now).

</comment><comment><USER9> I never do -Wall and -Wextra. Why? Because too many of clang's warning switches have names that have little to do with what they actually warn about. One in particular has to do with it finding duplicate selectors in different classes. I can never remember what it's called, but it's very annoying when you need to find it to disable it. Even worse, when you disable that particular flag, it disables a whole bunch of other actually useful warnings as well!

You also DON'T want to do -Wall and -Wextra along with -Werror. Why? Because when a later version of the compiler gets smarter and puts in more warnings, suddenly your (working) code won't compile anymore! That would go over very poorly in a CI system or an open source library! Your "future proofing" has just ensured that sometime down the road (and likely at an inconvenient time), your project is guaranteed to break!

<comment><USER10> This is so horribly wrong.

Firstly, when clang warns you of an error, it tells you the switch it uses to highlight that error, the disabling flag is then "-Wno-$switch" (or simply use a clang pragma to disable the warning: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7017281/performselector-m...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7017281/performselector- may-cause-a-leak-because-its-selector-is-unknown))

Secondly, the errors reported by -Wall and -Wextra are likely to be program bugs / bugs further down the line.

Thirdly: I upgraded my compiler on my CI system, I'd damn well want to know about new errors!</comment></comment>


Stay Connected with Free Airport Wi-Fi from Google this Holiday Season - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20091110_free_airport_wifi_holiday.html

<comment><USER2> Ostensibly more useful links:

[http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20091110_free_a...](http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20091110_free_airport_wifi_holiday.html)

<http://www.freeholidaywifi.com/></comment>


Ask HN: Who was your favorite manager and why? - <AUTHOR> I'd like to hear the story of who was your favorite manager and why. What was the unique thing they did that made you more productive and/or happy? <comment><USER2> My first job, luckily. The office was a pretty aggressive and political place, lots of people screwing each other over. He had a way of getting things done while still being one of the nicest people I've met. More importantly, he was liberal in sharing his thoughts.

It also showed me you don't have to be an asshole to get ahead. He had already moved up very fast, and 10 years later is now the head of a 5000 person organization. "What would Navneet do?" is still one of my internal checks when I'm struggling with something. I'm pretty convinced management is an apprenticeship business and I had a great mentor early in my career. I had some lousy management later, not sure how well I would have coped without the earlier exposure. I've developed my own style and incorporated stuff from other people, books, and blogs. I'm probably fairly different in style and personality to him today, but I think that one year laid the foundation of me being at least competent.

</comment><comment><USER3> At my first job after college, I was invited out for drinks with a group of co-workers. Being as shy as I was, I told them I had a big day ahead of me the next day and that I couldn't stay out late. Well, my manager caught wind of this and called me into her office to explain myself at which point she gave me the next two days off to ensure that I would have no excuse for not going. I went and had a great time.

I had a healthy fear of her but she was also a friend to me and gave me relationship and career advice at every possible opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER4> In the first couple weeks of my first job I was helping a client build a custom integration with our product. I thought through the general way I wanted to do it, although I could imagine a couple alternatives. I started presenting my ideas to my boss, and before I got to the end he told me to go for it. I asked if he wanted to hear about the other options, and he said, "No, I trust you." That was a pretty amazing way to get started.

</comment><comment><USER5> I had a manager once who I don't recall ever actually telling me I needed to do something.

Instead, he would let us know what he/we were trying to accomplish (Can we do X?) and we'd figure out a way to do it. I remember telling him many times: "Learn to live with disappointment Adam." \- but then I'd try to make it happen anyway.

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you ever been in a situation where someone fixed every problem you have or might have in the future because he or she understood your job and all the problems you face better than you do. Yeah, that has never happened in 20 years of working.

</comment><comment><USER7> I had a manage who tell me how to improve my ability of work with patience and also encourage me in learning English frequently.More important thing is that he can tell us how to do and give constructive feedback.

</comment><comment><USER8> Who was yours?

<comment><AUTHOR> When I was an intern at a large fortune 500 company, in the first week, my manager had me schedule a 30 minute meeting with the 20 or so people I'd have to interact with during my internship. This was pretty awkward at first to walk up to people and ask 'can I interview you'?

Still, the benefits of this were huge. After the first week, I was aware of who everyone was, what their job was, what they studied and what they liked to do. It was a nice icebreaker that cut my onboarding time by a significant amount.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Who Are the Startup Friendly Accounting Firms? - <AUTHOR>

I've heard PG say one key element of Viaweb getting acquired was that they had a top brand accounting firm which gave great credibility to their books.  He felt it contributed a lot to sealing the deal with Yahoo.<p>Does anyone know who Viaweb used or who is considered the Wilson Sonsini of startup accounting? <comment><USER2> _"... I've heard PG say one key element of Viaweb getting acquired was that they had a top brand accounting firm which gave great credibility to their books. ..."_

Where did you _'hear'_ that? Have you mixed this up with Viaweb engaging a top _"PR"_ firm [0] to get better exposure? [1] It's still a good question though.

[0] _"... When we started our startup in 1995, the first three were our biggest expenses. We had to pay $5000 for the Netscape Commerce Server, the only software that then supported secure http connections. We paid $3000 for a server with a 90 MHz processor and 32 meg of memory. And we paid a PR firm about $30,000 to promote our launch. ..."_ ~ <http://www.paulgraham.com/vcsqueeze.html>

[1] _"... Our startup spent its entire marketing budget on PR: at a time when we were assembling our own computers to save money, we were paying a PR firm $16,000 a month ... Our PR firm was one of the best in the business. In 18 months, they got press hits in over 60 different publications"_ ~ <http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>

<comment><USER3> We did have one of the big accounting firms (forget which) so I might have said in a talk somewhere that this helped us seem legit.

<comment><USER2> _"... We did have one of the big accounting firms ... I might have said in a talk somewhere that this helped us seem legit ..."_

Thanks for the confirmation. I'd never come across the accounting angle before. Was this later in the startup process where some recognition of Viaweb, introduction or wads of cash like the PR firm?

No stone unturned hey. Didn't think you would have to work that hard at it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you are pre-funded neither PWC nor EY, who do most of the tech accounting in Silicon Valley, will want to engage. There are a number of part-time, interim, and "rent a CFO" firms who are more appropriate for early stage startups.

Very early on you are better off selecting a small firm to help you with the basics of bookkeeping and taxes until you either raise a real A round (e.g. $4M or more) or have significant revenue. Ask your attorney for a "due diligence" checklist: both funding and acquisition teams tend to look for the same documents and disclosures. The more you can keep all of that straight and documented from the beginning (e.g. purchase agreements, license agreements, major supplier contracts, ...) the easier it is later on.

</comment><comment><USER5> Random guess - one of the "Big Five" <http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3003864?f=search>

<comment><USER6> I was thinking the same. Although now it's the "big 4" because of the Arthur Andersen/Enron fiasco. Viaweb had revenues and was starting to get profit when it was acquired [<http://www.paulgraham.com/vwfaq.html>]. Perhaps the auditing firm made the due diligence process for Yahoo faster?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> But the Big 4 are also notorious for very high fees. I'm guessing it's someone who is affordable enough for a startup, but who has the clout, capacity and expertise to help ensure a successful acquisition or IPO.</comment>


Why "Killing Hollywood" isn't the answer - <AUTHOR>

While* all of the recent talk about "Killing Hollywood" has sparked conversation throughout the hackasphere, the truth is the the record industry, the movie and tv industries are and have been the best employers of artists this side of the Medici clan.
To understand the problem, it is in my opinion crucial to understand what it is that artists do, and what the (few) industries that explicitly support artists mean to those whom they employ.
Unless and until the tech industry can do this, and help develop new ways for artists to empower themselves, the self-righteousness will backfire, the way it did for musicians who railed for generations against the powers that be and are now left with less employment opportunities in the industry than at any time in the last 100 years.
I'm a musician, and software developer myself, here is my attempt at solving the problem: http://www.feed-forward.net
I think that helping artists self organize is the future, to that extent I've developed an application that gives incentive for artists to engage each other in meaningful discourse over each others work.  The more constructive criticism and positive reinforcement artists give for one anothers' work, the more exposure they get for their own.  In this way I hope that artists won't have to "Kill" their corporate masters, but rather that we can become our own bosses.  After all I read somewhere once that people are willing to work harder for less if they are doing something that they love...
What does HN think? -Shoham <comment><USER2> "Unless and until the tech industry can do this, and help develop new ways for artists to empower themselves, the self-righteousness will backfire, the way it did for musicians who railed for generations against the powers that be and are now left with

I'm also a musician and software developer but I don't agree that there are "less employment opportunities in the industry than at any time in the last 100 years." That is just ludicrously false. You're saying that, in the Great Depression, to pick an obvious example, times were better and easier for musicians? Or during World War I? Or WWII?

Sorry - I think this is the golden age for being an artist. Never before has it been so easy to record and distribute. I can self-record as many albums as I want today for $3000 worth of pro-sumer level gear. I can print physical copies of the CDs for $1.50-$2 each and sell them for $10 at shows or make $7 by selling them online. I can sell digital copies for $0 upfront cost to me. I can have a free website with any number of sites. I can post my events on Facebook at no charge.

I'm sorry - I 100% disagree with you here.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's OK. I think for hobbyists it's a great time, but for making money, it's not so good out there, especially because of technology-- almost all entertainment is not just free, it's available on demand 24/7 at home, so people don't go out to shows like during the depression.

Just what I've seen from my experience over the last 15 years, and what I hear from peers.

On another note, let me know what you think about what we're doing with Feed- Forward: <http://www.feed-forward.net> I think you might like it. One benefit is we don't take any cut from your sales (digital or otherwise).

Take care! -Shoham

<comment><USER2> "I think for hobbyists it's a great time, but for making money, it's not so good out there, especially because of technology"

Again - I 100% disagree, for all of the same reasons I listed above. I respectfully will just tell you flat out that you are wrong - 100% wrong. Hobbyists who aren't worth a crap - yes, it's tough for them to make money. True musicians who can play and write amazing music can make more now than ever before. There are more avenues to make money today also - it's not just CD sales and live shows anymore. Now it's merch, DVDs, writing, lessons, television/movies, internet collabs.

You are just naive or willfully obstinate if you tell us that you think differently.

Sorry - I have no desire to check out your site since we see things so differently. I wish you the best but I don't see why I would check it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think that the major problem that many people (myself included) have with the music and film industries is that they actually show very little interest in supporting, nurturing, or rewarding the talent that they rely on. The call to "kill hollywood" isn't a call to wipe out these large companies on principal; it's a call to bring in a new _breed_ of companies which give everyone (artists and consumers) a better deal.

The real problem is that people have been beholden to these monopolies who very obviously don't have their best interests at heart. We are now, thanks to internet and unprecedented levels of connectivity between people, in a position where we can (with a bit of effort, admittedly) take back some control and build something better for everyone.

So that's how I see it. This isn't a knee-jerk reaction to SOPA/PIPA/ACTA (at least, not entirely). This is a call for people to make the world a bit better before the incumbent powers that be destroy our chance to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Let me know what you think about a little project I launched over a year ago with a friend: <http://www.feed-forward.net>

A few things about FeeForward, from an earlier post:

FeedForward (A)Gives incentive for artists to give constructive feedback and positive reinforcement for each others work (helping to overcome what I call "The crabs in a barrel effect" whereas artists often ignore each other, spam each other or troll each other online and IRL, on Feedback the discourse is both constructive and insightful) (B) I take no cut or commission from sales, either digital or physical -- so artists keep their earnings (minus a small PayPal transaction fee)! and (C) FeeForward features artists of all disciplines: writers, flash developers, musicians, visual artists as well as film makers. Artists help support and promote each other, and thereby earn more exposure for themselves.

My primary interest is in doing exactly what you're talking about, supporting struggling artists (like me) :D

Let me know what you think. -Shoham

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "the movie and tv industries are and have been the best employers of artists this side of the Medici clan."

Your definition of "best" and mine are vastly different.

They exploit artists, for great profit. There's such demand that they are able to exploit many artists. The costs are so low, that they can afford to employ many more artists than will succeed. The artists love their craft so much, and are often so desperate to make it big, that they will work for ridiculously low wages AND absolutely zero job security.

We all know that distribution used to be hard, and now it is not. Distribution used to be the main reason why you needed to sign with a label, or a studio. Reaching a "good enough" level of quality used to require an enormous, up- front investment of capital. Now, it doesn't.

Kill exploiters. Reward supporters.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that distribution is as important as promotion, but promotion is incredibly hard, in reality. Yes, the internet provides the ABILITY to promote oneself, but actually getting through, and capitalizing on whatever exposure you earn is tough stuff!

If you want to reward supporters, I submit to you a project I launched over a year ago to support artists that is continuing to grow, but can always use more support itself: <http://www.feed-forward.net>

FeedForward (A)Gives incentive for artists to give constructive feedback and positive reinforcement for each others work (helping to overcome what I call "The crabs in a barrel effect" whereas artists often ignore each other, spam each other or troll each other online and IRL, on Feedback the discourse is both constructive and insightful) (B) I take no cut or commission from sales, either digital or physical -- so artists keep their earnings (minus a small PayPal transaction fee)! and (C) FeeForward features artists of all disciplines: writers, flash developers, musicians, visual artists as well as film makers. Artists help support and promote each other, and thereby earn more exposure for themselves, I think you'll like what we're doing :D Check it out, and let me know what you think.

Thanks, -Shoham</comment></comment>


Show HN: Visual risk assessments - <AUTHOR> https://sitevis.it

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm a serial starter-upper, this project being my fifth push in the past 10 years. Three were quick little things that started and stopped soon after - wrong market, no route to market, stronger competitors etc. One did become moderately successful locally, letting me take on a full time developer for a year before the economic meltdown brought us down. I've never been so excited about an idea as I am with SiteVis.it

Architects and Engineers visit sites every day, and their employers have a duty to ensure that they're safe whilst there. A simple way to comply is to do Risk Assessments for the sites that they visit. These documents should be checked before each trip, people should sign them to say they've reviewed them, and edits should be made if things change. IT NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENS. These things get shoved into a file, and never looked at again.

Whilst this is a monumentally unglamorous problem, it's one that can be at least partially solved by throwing some 'convenience' into the process.

SiteVis.it allows everyone in the company to have up-to-date copies of all of the active risk assessments that the company is working on, edit them intuitively, and track who sees which version. Offline editing, and background data refreshing.</comment>


Viewing 3D objects from 4 dimensional space - <AUTHOR> https://chemistcodingios.wordpress.com/2018/03/15/4th-spatial-dimension-whoa/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'd be interested to find better explanations of this.</comment>


Show HN: A generic memory and disk cache in Swift - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Haneke/HanekeSwift

<comment><AUTHOR> This was created as part of Realm's Summer of Swift and presented last friday at NSSpain. It might very well be the first implementation of a generic cache in Swift.

Feedback and contributions are more than welcome!</comment>


AMD's Newest Processors Are So Good You Can Skip the Graphics Card - <AUTHOR> http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwrIW3tTo <comment><USER2> [http://www.jargon.net/jargon/jargonfile/c/cycleofreincarnati...](http://www.jargon.net/jargon/jargonfile/c/cycleofreincarnation.html)</comment>


As Our Skin Sags With Age, So Do Our Bones - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125387566&sc=fb&cc=fp <comment><USER2> I'd been wondering for years why people's eyes got more deeply set as they got older. I thought perhaps some tissue behind them shrunk. I had no idea the zygomatic arches actually moved.

It isn't only in the really old that you see this. Even by 35 people's eyes are more deeply set. It's one of the main reasons plastic surgery can never really reproduce the appearance of youth. Or perhaps I should say, can't currently. Presumably one day they'll get good enough at munging bones to move people's eye sockets.

<comment><USER3> > Presumably one day they'll get good enough at munging bones to move people's > eye sockets.

I have no question in my mind in this regard. So long as we don't wipe ourselves out first, I'm pretty sure we'll eventually be able to sculpt ourselves how we see fit. Well, so long as laws and money don't restrict availability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the conclusion of the article :)

Cleaning our teeth is a funny thing; there are no downsides, more and more upsides, and it's easy. Heck, it sounds just like exercise, except even easier. Yet, we are still quite bad at taking care of them even with toothbrushes etc. freely available.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Well, OBVIOUSLY," I muttered to myself and then realized that the title said "bones".</comment>


Exit Interview: The creators of no-longer-with-us products explain - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2682-exit-interview-the-creators-of-no-longer-with-us-products-explain-what-went-wrong

<comment><USER2>
      1. Didn't build something people would pay for
      2. Beaten by the competition
      3. Didn't build something people would pay for
      4. Didn't build something people would pay for
      5. ?
      6. Didn't know their users and build the product with them in mind
      7. Didn't build something people would pay for

Notice a pattern?

<comment><USER3> I'm one of the founders from #7 (EventVue) and we had paying customers from the beginning. We had people who would pay, just not enough money and not frequently enough.

<comment><USER4> Why didn't you make the product free for event organizers and generate revenue from the lead gen of hotel rooms and flights that accompany events ?

<comment><USER3> We probably would have tried that if money was the only objection for event organizers. They had enough other concerns (like giving up access to their attendee list) that made customer adoption of our product tough.

<comment><USER4> Have you seen what Lanyrd have done in this space ?

<comment><USER3> Their challenge is w/o the attendee list from the event organizer, it's tough to get a meaningful % to participate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a good read, particularly for HN. As naturally optimistic people, we all believe that the "9 out of 10 startups fail" statistics apply to everyone else. This is a good read as perhaps it reminds us that 9 out of 10 means us, not just those other silly people with their terrible ideas and poor commercialization strategies. These companies all had super-smart people, worked really hard, were funded and had as much chance of succeeding as the rest of us plugging away.

<comment><USER6> I wonder whether it's really 9 out of 10, or higher, or lower. I suppose it depends how you define "fail," maybe something like "made less money for the liquidity event than I would have working for an established firm all those years." So the answer could be very different for founders than for employee 1 or employee 25.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love how they emphasize that doing a feature well takes a long time. I think this is somrething you can only understand by starting a company. It's really hard to do a feature such that it will workin all the cases in the real world.

<comment><USER8> Everyone who has ever built anything knows this about features. You don't need to start a company to learn it.

<comment><USER7> Thats not really true. When your working as part of another company there are abstractions around you created by others that protect you. You dont have to deal with a lot of stuff because a lot has been abstracted away. In the startup world, either you pay for the abstraction or you deal with the real word.

Lots of people say things like "I could code that in a day" but when its for a startup, that one thing could take a month to do right.

Its completely different when its your own startup. Completely.</comment></comment></comment>


The case for capping all prison sentences at 20 years - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/12/18184070/maximum-prison-sentence-cap-mass-incarceration <comment><USER2> > Studies have found that people almost always age out of crime

This is in the local news today, DNA matched on a rape from 1990, the suspect was in jail already on another case. [https://www.wxii12.com/article/dna- evidence-helps-winston-sa...](https://www.wxii12.com/article/dna-evidence- helps-winston-salem-police-solve-rape-case-from-nearly-30-years-ago/26311067)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, people with rap sheets, I don't think tend to age out of criminality.

Young offenders (most?), yeah, I believe they have the potential to age out as they mature and are given avenues to pursue other civil endeavors.

<comment><USER2> I know personally both kinds of cases but unfortunately the career criminals are not as rare really as they seem to be for this author

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One problem is that this has follow-on effects of reducing sentences for other crimes. For example, murder would be 20 years because that is the cap. What do you make rape? You don't want to make it 20 years since then that incentivizes the perpetrator to always kill the victim. Given the above, you are looking at 10-15 years at most for rapists. Then you need to differentiate the serial rapist (see Larry Nasser) from the non-serial rapist. All said, you are probably looking at sentences of 5-10 years for even the most heinous single rape conviction.

<comment><USER5> So long as pirating music stays at 20 years, society should be fine.

<comment><USER6> Don't forget tax evasion!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Practical arguments are irrelevant. Some crimes deserve longer incarcerations therefore we have the unpleasant obligation to do so. That's justice.

<comment><USER8> It is perfectly reasonable to argue that actually, practical arguments are the only ones that are relevant. It is not inherently apparent which crimes deserves how much incarceration without analyzing each one case by case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What about adding caning to the sentences ?</comment>