Ask HN: How was your machine learning interview at Google/Facebook/Amazon - <AUTHOR> Looking for feedback from folks who applied for Machine Learning engineer or related positions at Google/Facebook/Amazon. How was your interview? How focused was the interview on ML topics as opposed to coding? How big was the emphasis on Deep Learning as opposed to more traditional methods? Was the interviews math heavy? <comment><USER2> I recently interviewed for a machine learning position at Google. There was essentially no focus on machine learning. I had 6 interview sessions total (5 onsite and 1 live coding phone screen) and 5 of those interviews had nothing to do with machine learning. In fact, those 5 interviewers had no machine learning background and knew nothing about machine learning. The one interview that was focused on machine learning was fairly straightforward and simple. It was kind of funny how large a contrast there was between the Google recruiter'a pitch ("we want to become an AI first company") and my actual experience interviewing. The interview process I went through has no way of distinguishing between someone with in depth machine learning knowledge and someone with basic machine learning knowledge. It was essentially a software engineer interview. I did not get the position, but I would recommend you look elsewhere if your focus is truly machine learning

<comment><USER3> >I did not get the position, but I would recommend you look elsewhere if your focus is truly machine learning

For ML, it's really important to join a team where your interests in ML are aligned with what the team does. It's really hard to see this from a job description. There's enough going on at Google that you can find work that fits.

I've interviewed twice at Google and had the same experience as you. No ML or math questions at all. More algorithms and how to quantify a business problem. That being said, I asked enough questions to realize that some groups use ML, but that's a small part of what they are doing. For example, they might have a platform for doing A/B testing and the "Data Scientist" job is really defining A and B and feeding that into the platform to extract metrics. How much ML being done is going to be different on the Ads team than a customer facing services role for Google Cloud.

I had similar experiences interviewing at Facebook, just with more probability and stats brain teasers. Facebook doesn't guarantee which job you'll get once you're in. You go to the bootcamp and then which team you end up is decided after the bootcamp. That doesn't work for everybody if there are certain types of ML work you're not interested in.

<comment><USER4> Wow that sounds like such a boring job.

<comment><USER3> For the the type of role I described in my post, being able effectively define metrics to quantify a business problem (e.g. how can we better engage with group X on our platform) and work with product engineering to build those features (including helping to define the data collected and how it's stored) into the platform is more important than tweaking a bunch of parameters in a machine learning model.

A lot of those folks are not only thinking of ways to quantify a business problem, they are actually thinking of new business problems (e.g. what does it even mean to "engage" on our platform). It can be quite creative and challenging.

Unless you are writing the core algorithms or working as a statistician, a lot of ML jobs are some variation of the above - basically coming up with ways to turn business problems into data/features you can feed into a model and picking an appropriate model. How much code you write and the tools/languages you are using will depend on the job and size of the company.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Anonymous members say Sony attacks were 'likely' connected to movement - <AUTHOR> http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/06/anonymous-members-say-sony-attacks-were-likely-connected-to-mo/

<comment><USER2> This is kind of a non-story. Anyone can say that they're part of Anonymous. What next? Anonymous anonymously saying that Anonymous wasn't authorized to speak for Anonymous?

</comment><comment><USER3> Some members also stated that they are not involved in the attack [1]. I highly doubt that we can blame the attack on the group itself, most likely it is an attack that happened to involve some members of Anon but not a combined effort.

1 [http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/05/anonymous-denies- involveme...](http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/05/anonymous-denies-involvement- with-psn-hack/)

<comment><USER4> Once again, there is no specific group called Anonymous. The name says it all. Anonymous is anyone who wants to say they are Anonymous. There is never a 'combined effort of the entire group' because that would mean the whole planet was in on it, and if there's life elsewhere, them too!

If someone that was in on it says 'Anonymous did this', then they did. Period. Nobody can contradict them. The best anyone can say is 'I was not involved.' They can never speak for the rest of the group.</comment></comment>


Job Openings for Feb 2012. - <AUTHOR>

Post your job openings with contact details for month of Feb/Jan.<p>[For those who want to hire hacker news reader but doesn't have the privilege of YC company to post job on HN:Jobs] <comment><USER2> They have a list that is posted every month for non-YC companies.

I believe you can search for it under "who's hiring Feb 2012"

Good luck!

<comment><USER3> You get better results if you don't use contraction, i.e. search for "who is hiring ..." instead of "who's hiring ..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> OK, here goes...

Tobi is hiring software engineers in the SF area - check us out at <http://eng.tobi.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> search results for "hiring feb 2012" and "job feb 2012" don't turn up much... am I missing something, or should we just start a list here?</comment>


Nimrod Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://force7.de/nimrod/

<comment><USER2> In that code sample the variable "matches" seems to be magically set by the =~ assignment. That would not be very clean. Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER3> <http://force7.de/nimrod/regexprs.html>

You're correct. It seems to work using a template, which is a simple macro. I wonder if those are hygienic... In any case, it seems you could use the macro facility to instead have explicit bindings for match groups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It looks very much like Pascal to me.

<comment><USER5> I'd say it tastes like chicken. :-)

Seems like {perl|ruby|etc}-light.

I don't get it. The scripting languaguages in common use are quite similar; what distinguishes Nimrod?

<comment><AUTHOR> Macros: <http://force7.de/nimrod/manual.html#macros>

<comment><USER5> OK, that is Lispy (or Perl 6y). I do count Scheme as a scripting language today.

Perl 5 has had source filters for a long time. It isn't unique, afaik.

Still neat, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was curious about "Nimrod produces small executables without dependencies for easy redistribution." does this mean that it packages any third party libs in the executable? wouldnt there be licensing issues?

</comment><comment><USER7> Are functions first class objects in Nimrod, because I couldn't find function type in manual(pointers to function isn't what I mean :)).

</comment><comment><USER8> This seems pretty nice, I might start learning this actually.</comment>


Look, Ma, No More Mercator Tiles - <AUTHOR> http://vis4.net/blog/posts/no-more-mercator-tiles/ <comment><USER2> Wouldn't the ideal approach be to have projections change as you scroll and zoom around a map? Zooming into the corner of a conical map means that directions get all skewed. At high enough zoom levels, you _want_ the directional fidelity of mercator (or maybe a polar projection from the current focus point).

<comment><USER3> Right. I believe this what the National Weather Service does for their radar maps. They're using a polar projection from the location of each station. Points 100 miles north, south, east or west will all fall in a perfect circle around the center of the map.

[http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/radar.php?rid=lgx&product=N0R...](http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/radar.php?rid=lgx&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=no)

<comment><USER4> There's much to be said for that. We used that for automatic driving, using the starting point of the trip as the pole. This works well for trips of moderate length. GPS coordinates in Earth-centered, earth-fixed form (a vector from the center of the earth, which what you really get out of GPS) map easily to this form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How does the projection change with all 50 states displayed instead of just the contiguous ones?

<comment><USER6> There's a special projection just for that: [http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4090848](http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4090848).

"The Albers USA projection is a composite projection of four Albers projections designed to display the forty-eight lower United States alongside Alaska and Hawaii. Although intended for choropleths, it scales the area of Alaska by a factor of 0.35x (a lie factor of 3); Hawaii is shown at the same scale as the lower forty-eight."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The trouble has always been the map data, not the drawing of the tiles. Anyone with a highschool trigonometry education should be able to figure out the drawing given the data.

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems like the point should be the data, not the shape of the map. How does changing the projection type alter the information provided in this case?

<comment><USER9> Yes, you're correct, the point should be the data. However, the projection (not the shape), matters a great deal for a number of reasons. The classic example is to take an orange peel and flatten it. It's impossible to do without tearing or distorting in one way or another. The Earth is of course a 3d shape, and maps are 2d, thus projections to try and map the world as accurately as possible. However, it gets more complicated when you project the data, going back to the distortion. It becomes a problem of "Pick 2 out of 3." That usually means Area, Shape and Direction. You can have an accurate representation of Area and Shape, but not Direction. Or in the case of Mercator, Direction and Shape, but not size. Mercator was used by ocean going navigators so that they could draw a straight line on their navigation charts (as longitude and lattitude lines are represented by rectangles with 90 degree angles). Since then of course, we now have thousands of different projections, used for different purposes so that we can try and create the most accurate mapping of the "real" world as we can. And of course, the projection you choose, should hopefully help you in accurately communicating that geographic information to others. I hope that all makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Since my co-worker and I have been maintaining Tilestache, I am glad you included it in your tutorial :)</comment>


"could it be Sun loves Ruby because it needs lots of their servers to scale?" - <AUTHOR> http://jim.roepcke.com/2008/04/18#item7881 <comment><USER2> No.

1) The marketing reason is pretty simple. If Sun does a lot for Ruby, they will win points with Ruby users, so when the time comes to choose an OS or buy servers, Sun would be higher on the list.

2) Every big corporation likes to have it's own technology. IBM is doing more for Java than Sun is, Microsoft has .NET, so Sun can back Ruby and it doesn't cost them much, since most of the work is already done.

3) The 15-20x number was off the cuff. I'm no expert, but it seems like the perceived Ruby slowness actually comes from Rails.

<comment><USER3> Ruby was really slow prior to the latest version. It made Python look fast. It wasn't just Rails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone call Sun and tell them to stop sponsoring Rubinius work sessions, then. They wouldn't want Ruby to run too fast.

<comment><USER5> They're also sponsoring JRuby, which at the moment is often even slower than MRI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wasn't aware that Ruby could only run on a Sun machine. It's probably more likely that Sun is sponsoring Ruby for two reasons; one, because Ruby is a hot new technology at the moment, and thus has a lot of visibility; and two, because Sun needs a 'next-generation' platform now that Java is mainstream.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the real advantages of SPAs? - <AUTHOR> I don't really understand the reason behind Single Page Applications. I'm currently working on a code base so bloated with crap that I feel overwhelmed and I can't help myself think stuff like: "it's such an overkill, we don't need all these dependencies". Is it because it's too expensive to send HTML from the server? What kind of problems SPAs are trying to solve? Does people actually bother about a full page reload? At this point I think we are just following the bandwagon and we forget what problems we are really trying to solve. <comment><USER2> Soundcloud was built as a SPA so you can keep your music playing as you navigate.

I wish MyFitnessPal was a SPA in places so I could click checkboxes and paginate the food catalogue at the same time when adding food to my diary.

Nearly everywhere else, IMO, no. SPAs are absolutely harder to build and people start with them by default because everyone wants to be Facebook, which your average CRUD site is not. You can pull in those fancy javascript features as you need them, and hell, even embed React in the one part of your site that truly needs it. Which is what React begs people to do on their website, but apparently people read that and say to themselves "That message is probably for the plebeians building a Todo list app or something. _I 'M_ building Todo++ Enhanced, so I'll probably need 40 layers of abstraction and about a gig of dependences to implement a form."

<comment><AUTHOR> I couldn't put it better. I'd be happier if we stop thinking that every single website on earth must be a SPA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> While there can be UX benefits to using SPAs, something I have not often seen expressed, but which I believe is that the main advantages of SPAs are for business rather than technical reasons.

1\. Clear separation of concerns for front-end and back-end teams. With SPAs, the work is clearly divided into front-end and back-end parts, with the back- end team working on the server side code and the front-end team working on the static assets (HTML, JS, CSS). Both sides only communicate through a clearly defined API (e.g. REST, GraphQL, SOAP) which allows both teams to work independently of each other, and means that if there are bugs or problems, there is less confusion on which team is causing them and thus which team needs to fix them. Compare that with server side rendering using an MVC framework such as Rails. The migration and model code "obviously" belongs to the back-end team, and the static assets (JS, CSS) and views/templates belong to the front-end team, but what about the controllers and routing? Both teams are going to need to work on those parts of the codebase, and that's going to increase the need for inter-team communication and confusion on which team owns what. For example, I interviewed at a company where the front-end team was US based and the back-end team was outsourced to India, and they were moving to a SPA so the teams could work more independently. Previously they had used JSP, which meant the front-end team had to write HTML and then send it to the back-end team and then they had to coordinate how the back-end team was going to re-write the HTML as a JSP template.

2\. Cheaper mobile and desktop apps. While it seems HN is very negative about non-native apps, it's not hard to see the business case of quickly and cheaply converting your website into a mobile or desktop app using something like Electron, Cordova or a web view. Even if you do plan to make a native app, the SPA and native app can reuse the same APIs, reducing the amount of work for your back-end and QA teams.

3\. Flexibility in changing back-ends. While less common than the other two cases, if you decide to change your back-end code (such as Twitter moving from Ruby to Scala) if your app is an SPA you only need to recreate the APIs and don't have to rewrite all your templating code (this is less of a problem if you use a more "neutral" cross-platform template language like Handlebars). For me personally, I'm moving all my personal projects to Elixir/Phoenix from PHP, Rails or Java, and because I used server side rendering I had to convert all my templating code to EEX.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not trying to be a jerk, but the answer to this, like most things in software development is, "It depends how you use them". They're wonderful if thought out, designed, and used properly, and a bloody nightmare if not...

</comment><comment><USER5> I've seen one major use for it. We had a "site" running on a tv (think Netflix tv app).

It had to be run on one page for technical limitations of the hardware's browser. It also had to do all the login, persistent connections at the same time.

A lot of it was videos. Meaning we had to check whether users were still watching, which profiles they were logged in to, and had to optimize the API calls. Which is difficult on multiple pages.

There were plenty of overlays - we had videos on the background, navigation on the foreground. Sometimes we'd have to play another app nested within the app. And the only way of closing that app was through a command sent to the parent.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm with you, contrary to 99% of other websites that's a fair use for a SPA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> SPAs are particularly useful in scenarios where you need to combine the characteristics of desktop apps (responsiveness, event-driven UI, complex interactions) with those of web apps (links, drawing upon data various sources, declarative UI, ease of software distribution and installation).

SPAs are usually associated with frameworks such as Angular and the MVVM pattern.

While multi-page applications or frameworks like jQuery can provide similar benefits, with features such as component architectures, pub/sub mechanisms and dependency injection that come with SPA frameworks those usually allow you do so in a more deliberate, comprehensible manner.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand and I'm trying to troll you but if you need desktop features on your software why can't you just build a desktop app?

<comment><USER6> Because desktop apps lack several features of web applications:

\- links and open interfaces to other applications. Try exchanging data between two arbitrary desktop apps, for instance. Often copying & pasting or manually re-entering data is your only option in these cases. Yes, that's mostly because vendors treat desktop apps as walled gardens and yes, there are walled gardens on the web, too. The web however was designed with open standards and data exchange in mind. This shows quite clearly in the underlying protocols of the web, which is why when exchanging data between desktop apps, nowadays often HTTP is used, too. ARexx on AmigaOS (and to a limited extent AppleScript on macOS) was the only somewhat widely used technology that allowed desktop apps to communicate with each other in a manner similar to UNIX command-line applications. About the only more widely used way of calling one desktop (or mobile) app from another today ironically are customs URL schemes, which of course are quintessentially a web technology, too.

\- ease of software distribution and installation. This one's particularly relevant in enterprise environments. Rolling out a new version of a bespoke in-house app to the entire staff and each and every desktop machine in the company with all the individual installation issues that might occur on each local machine is a huge undertaking. Besides, you'd probably still need some sort of server application to synchronise to, which in case of a web application already comes with the package. Browsers on the other hand today are ubiquitous and other than old IE or firewall issues deploying a new version of a web app to users in enterprise contexts by and large works like a charm.

\- being able to declaratively define UIs. Desktop UI used to be programmed in an imperative manner whereas HTML and CSS work declaratively, which allows for faster development and immediate feedback to changes. A declarative style can make the structure of a UI easier to grasp as well. Another huge advantage of HTML - or rather browser engines - is that for the most part it abstracts over device-specific peculiarities. Again, browser engines being ubiquitous is an enormous benefit because you can expect a (largely) uniform and predictable runtime environment on each potential target device. Pretty much what JRE promised but never quite delivered (on the desktop, that is).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The framework / tooling bloat is causing a bubble to form; it needs to be simplified, now. It can be done cleanly, but SPA often is not. You are correct in your assessment, even though the cargo-cultists will say otherwise. It doesn't need to be thrown out, it needs improved standards, focusing on simplicity, http >= 2, and domain-specific concerns, such as state management, routing, etc. The innovation in the space is mostly over, time to give it an injection of standard and boring. And, for the love of God, can we really not do better than the virtual-DOM for updates? In-memory copies? Really?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, standard and boring. I pray every single day for it. And please let ReactiveX and css-in-js die too, these are a real pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Speed, interaction, service worker, local storage, PWA.

E.g wego.com built with polymer

<comment><USER9> Also if you're careful with design then the JSON API that the SPA uses can be re-used for iOS / Android apps and third party integrations as you scale.

<comment><USER10> This was one of the most important reason why I switched a site/app to PWA. It is so convenient to have single "backend".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm about to finish my first web application—created to show off as a portfolio piece—and it ended up being an SPA. Granted, it's not very complex, but I'm thinking about adding additional functionality to it, and if I do I'm pretty sure I'll stick with the SPA architecture. I like the responsiveness and sense of intimacy, but more than that, I like having all of the functionality easily accessible to the user at all times. The one thing I find most annoying about using web applications is the sense of uncertainty that lurks behind every click of a link/button. I find myself wondering:

\- Am I going to be taken to a new page with a different interface?

\- Will I have to open multiple tabs and/or navigate back and forth?

\- Is this going to take several seconds to load?

It's not the end of the world, but I find it annoying.

<comment><USER12> All of the points you mentioned to be true for web pages can also be true for an SPA. Can't they?

<comment><USER11> They can, but it seems easier to avoid those pitfalls if you go with SPA.

<comment><USER13> In classic websites you also have layouts and controller-views so I don't see how it's different from SPA in this regard.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stop overanalyzing and become the best version of yourself - <AUTHOR> http://blog.higg.so/2015/05/14/hacking-the-reptilian-brain-by-seizing-to-analyze-2/?4636

<comment><USER2> How do you stop overanalysing things if this problem itself requires analyzing which things you're overanalysing and which ones really benefit from overthiking? It's an honest question. I know I'm doing it right now and I can't help it.

<comment><USER3> Overanalyzing happens when there seem to be a right answer between several competing answers. But this is the point where you need to stop thinking and start feeling.

Your intuition is as important an analytical tool and the best executioners have a natural balance between analyzing and intuition.

So if you know you are overanalyzing stop thinking and start feeling.

<comment><USER4> A "right answer between competing answers" just sounds like a high-entropy belief state over the correct action to take. This doesn't mean you're overanalyzing, it means you don't have enough information to be sure of your decision. If that's the case, you won't get anywhere by analyzing more (although more research may help); "feeling" will just let you be overconfident in whatever you come up with, because you won't understand or question how you came up with it.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't mean you are but you most probably are.

Furthermore I would claim that very rarely is it the case that you just don't have enough information if you have analyzing something. So in theory you are right but in reality it's never really the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article identifies a possible truism but offers no advice or even contemplates what to do about it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks but obviously I already know all these things because I've spent hours thinking about it:) The question remains how do I stop?

</comment><comment><USER7> If you want to learn about quieting the part of the mind that won't turn off, read _The Power of Now_ by Eckhart Tolle.

If you want to learn about overcoming "resistance," read Steven Pressfield, e.g. _The War of Art_ .

The OP touches on both ideas but I don't see how it connects them. It also contains some all-too-commonly unexamined subtext. Is Richard Branson really the "best version" of all of us? Is an appetite for risk the only thing necessary to start and operate many large businesses, or don't you also need to cultivate an interest and aptitude for business, management, and people over the course of your life?

</comment><comment><USER8> Don't be too self-concious. Don't worry about what other people will think about you. Think about what YOU WANT and the rest will follow.

</comment><comment><USER9> >I always had a very analytical mind

Really? As opposed to what?

<comment><USER10> Some people don't give a shit, and are perfectly happy to go through life this way.

Case in point, my boss at the moment does something I've noticed quite often in stupid people. As soon as the train of thought requires more than about 10 or 15 seconds of quiet thinking and analysis, he immediately changes the subject. He either changes the subject to something that (to my mind) is completely unrelated, or he makes some vague self-affirming statement.

On the one hand, this is annoying as fuck. On the other hand, if I look at it objectively, his brain is just wired that way. He doesn't have the capacity to break down an argument or situation to its atomic level, so his brain compensates by changing the subject and continuing the analysis, albeit on another topic.

It's really just another manifestation of the idea that our brains are constantly analysing things, but it just so happens that this manifestation is incredibly frustrating to anybody who enjoys getting to the bottom of and solving problems.

<comment><USER3> An analytical mind is not what makes people millionaires, its not what makes the musician great at playing, the artist great at painting or the programmer great at programming, its not even what makes the investor great at investing.

An analytical mind is itself a hinder for making decisions so you need to strike a balance.

<comment><USER11> I disagree with every word you wrote here. A great programmer must first analyze the problem he has intends to solve or he will likely produce a solution that does not appropriately solve the problem. Great musicians practice for thousands of hours, analyzing their performance and making necessary adjustments. Same for painters. An analytical mind does not necessarily make decision-making more difficult. Often even a cursory analysis can make a decision much easier. Overanalysis is an issue related to anxiety. If the amount of time you spend analyzing a problem effectively negates any value you might gain from making the most beneficial decision, then you have overanalyzed. A great example is selecting products in the grocery store. If you spend 20 minutes comparing the prices of various jars of peanut butter to ultimately save $.50, then you have probably overanalyzed the problem. But analysis itself is an unavoidable, and often beneficial, aspect of being alive.

<comment><USER3> We are talking about overanalyzing not just analyzing. So I think you are reacting to something I didn't really write. The context is overanalyzing.

And ex. a musician practice for thousands of hours (done that myself) they don't analyze. They can but thats not what makes you a good musicians.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hacking Customer's Technology Adoption Cycles - <AUTHOR> http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/01/18/hacking-customers-technology-adoption-cycles/

<comment><USER2> This is basically a longer version of an offhanded comment I made earlier regarding answering the "How will you get users?" question on the YC application. I wasn't sure if it made sense or not, so I tried talking through it. I'd be interested in hearing what you think. (This is by no means a canonical answer to that question, by the way -- it is just an extended riff on my particular way of looking at it.)

<comment><USER3> I for one am very happy you decided to write this article. I've been thinking on this exact question ever since I read your comment, and while I don't have _answers_ yet, your article has given me a lot more food for thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _[...] there is a stepwise increase in difficulty if prices increase by $1, > as long as the price was already at whatever the company's magic number is > for maximum to be put on a corporate credit card or signed for on a non- > manager's authority._

The idea of pricing in such a way as to require the least authority possible for a purchase is fascinating. I had never considered that monthly billing completely avoids administrative hurdles for otherwise equivalent costs billed up front. The real trick is figuring out what that threshold is...

<comment><USER2> Oh, that's easy: in the US, it is overwhelmingly either $500 or $1,000.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "These statements aren't just true about the product — sure, they might have a crufty old VB6 app and you have the new Node.js hotness. They are equally true about the customer acquisition process. You're competing with their business, not with their product, so you could possibly either focus your innovation on customer acquisition or, more likely, use innovation on both customer acquisition and product in a mutually supportive manner."

This is very true. You often have a more innovative product but the established competitor has a business. It makes sense to acknowledge this fact and work on it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Plural possessive of "customer" is "customers'" and not "customer's"; might want to fix the headline.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've seen scalable content generation and link building come up a couple of times.

Approaches?

Content: -Hire content writers

Links: -Great product -Blog posts/link bait -Create a widget -Ask/Email

Other ideas?

</comment><comment><USER8> _I'm not applying to YC this time around, but I always fill out the application to force myself to talk through my business strategy._

Me too.

Funny, yesterday I was struggling with the question about customer acquisition. After reading this post, I will return to it later today with renewed gusto.

Patrick, the only thing more amazing than the quality of your input here is the fact that it is still continually improving. Thanks for another kick in the ass.</comment>


JQuery Comet Push API - <AUTHOR> http://plugins.jquery.com/project/jQuery-Comet-Push-API jQuery Users have a new Push API with Publish and Subscribe. Compatible with mobile phones like iPhone and iPad. <comment><USER2> This looks cool but is this free?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Like Google App Engine with daily free quota: <http://www.pubnub.com/price></comment></comment>


Android Forensics: How To Bypass The Android Phone Pattern Lock - <AUTHOR> http://niiconsulting.com/checkmate/2014/04/how-to-bypass-the-android-phone-pattern-lock/

<comment><USER2> Law enforcement can also force a 5x failure of the pattern, and then the phone/Google asks you if you want to reset the login through Gmail. Then law enforcement gets access to your Gmail account, and gets the necessary unlock code to unlock the device. I think Chris Soghoian from ACLU was the one mentioning in one of his talks.</comment>


Fallacy of the Non-disclosure Agreement - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/189/Startup-Reality-Distortion-3-The-Fallacy-Of-the-Non-Disclosure-Agreement-NDA.aspx

<comment><USER2> Sounds like interesting argument. But what about processes , that might get the company some advantage? Replication might become easy. But the authors perspective is really strong

<comment><USER3> It is my understanding that NDA's only protect propietary and unique information in a very narrow scope, It does not protect things that could be found by others in the public realm or that are readily known by others in the space.

So the general idea then would not seem to be protected. Only things like algorithms, some source code, some processes, and very unique customer lists are protected. For the most part almost every NDA I've seen is too broad in scope to be truly enforceable.

In my opinion you walk a fine line by trying to get people to sign the NDA and in the end you turn a lot of people off if you push too hard. It seems to me that the only people really hung up on NDAs are the people who are sharing things they shouldnt be sharing in the first place.

 __Note: I'm not talking about NDAs in M &A situations or in employee company relations and partnership agreements for established companies...things like these actually do hold weight. Essentially I'm agreeing that the NDA is often focused on too greatly by early stage companies</comment></comment>


Hands-on: Microsoft's HoloLens is flat-out magical - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/hands-on-with-hololens-making-the-virtual-real/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know how the display works? You can see in the footage from the unveiling event, where the camera apparently has one of the units strapped to the front of it's lens, that virtual objects do not seem to blend in with the background. This suggests that it is able to block the transmission of light from the environment as well as add its own light to the scene. The blocking of light could be done with an LCD element but I'm not sure about illumination. I'm really curious about this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, now this makes me excited. The Wired piece was prepared in advance and seems to be in tandem with their February issue, so I wasn't sure how much to trust it. But arstechnica is the real deal. Can't wait to get my hands on one of these!</comment>


Will the Small Screen Kill Wikipedia? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/linjaaho/will-the-small-screen-kill-wikipedia

<comment><USER2> Is everybody forgetting that along with the explosion of the small screens (smartphones) there is growth of big screens too. Compare an iMac and an AIO PC with Windows 8.1. Folks never lugged encyclopedias around with them, but they did have the at home and work and they even took the trouble to build special furniture to store and use encyclopedias.

Now if the bigger phones like the Galaxy Tab are not enough to save Wikipedia, I am sure that the bigscreen PCs in every home and library will do the trick.

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny, I've been thinking about a 100 character Wikipedia (small enough you can fit the entry plus a link into Twitter)

<comment><USER4> Interesting idea - Why not take it further and create a new Wikipedia similar to the "simple english" version but for short articles. Maybe a "summary" version of the encyclopedia that is limits articles to a certain length to suit mobile consumption better.

EDIT: In my foolishness I read and responded to a comment before RTFA. My bad, this is precisely what the article proposes :D.</comment></comment>


The pitfalls and the potential of the new minimalism - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/03/the-pitfalls-and-the-potential-of-the-new-minimalism <comment><AUTHOR> [http://archive.is/up7RZ](http://archive.is/up7RZ)</comment>


Facebook has surpassed Google.com (just visits, just USA)  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mashape.com/damn-facebook-has-surpassed-google

<comment><USER2> Google's goal: 1 Query => 1 visit

Facebook's goal: 1 visit => 1000 page views

This statistic is meaningless when put in context of the function of the two sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's just what compete can track and show for free. If you have the PRO version you can see these analytics deeper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Come on. We all know Compete numbers are picked at random. I wouldn't trust this graph at all.

</comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of the importance of thinking about what you want from each visit to your site. Google quickly became about generating a return on each visit (as someone else has said, google: 1 query => 1 visit, where that 1 visit becomes something with potential ad revenue). Facebook hasn't got the context to provide anything like this, I believe.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does this include gmail, docs, etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> they just use a "panel multi-sourcing" method. <http://www.compete.com/resources/methodology/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> nr of visits != nr of visitors ... and the later is more important to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's number of visits. If you look at Unique Visitors stats google.com still first: <http://bit.ly/8UDhHK>. What is real amazing about these stats is not the visits itself, but the growth. Thinking about the future, FB will pass google under every aspect.

<comment><USER7> The graph looks fairly stagnant towards the right.

Also I'd like to stress what others have already said: Don't trust the fake metrics from compete.

Plain old common sense tells you how unlikely these figures are. Look around you and count the number of internet users not on facebook. Now look again and count those not using google...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Link bait or irrelevant -- not sure which.

...add google.COM.

<comment><AUTHOR> you are right, now it's clearer... ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I for one, welcome our new Facebook overlords</comment>


What makes truly great leaders, the compression of seed and the future of YC - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/twenty-minute-vc-venture-capital/id958230465 <comment><AUTHOR> \- conviction around ideas that are right, but not consensus. Rebel thinking.

\- update your mental model with data.

\- conversations around what's working, not working.

\- one thing about a founder to decide to invest: shadow a founder for a day. Real life better demonstrates true nature of people vs meetings/stories/emails/interviews.

\- always think about what can go wrong with your product, strategy, competitive landscape. Extreme alertness.

\- if you have a good product, you can fix sales, customer success, marketing, etc. If you have a bad product, even doing everything else write doesn't help.

\- Concerned about excess capital in seed markets. Bad companies shouldn't be raising money. Bad for the ecosystem as a whole.</comment>


Why Someone from Apple Needs to Ride the Shanghai Subway - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/09/why_someone_from_apple_needs_t.html <comment><USER2> The same issue for the text input occurs in more mature markets like Japan and Taiwan as well. As I remember, the iPhone had crappy Japanese input when it was first introduced. I am told it has gotten better but I don't really know. Anyway the conclusion ("you can't expect your mature-market products to fully satisfy emerging-market users") does not really fit the introduction since the writing system a country uses does not have anything to do with the maturity of its market.</comment>


Just a blogging platform - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/best-thing-i-found-online-today/23a3c94c6b5a

<comment><USER2> Are there any simple blogging platforms that are _posterous simple_ , that is, email it text, documents, images, etc., and it makes a nicely formatted blog post for it, complete with image or document gallery?</comment>


As Amazon floods the market with Alexa devices, the business model is murky - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/28/amazon-alexa-growth-has-investors-questioning-the-business-model.html <comment><USER2> If you have a listening device in your home, expect half your guests to suddenly stop coming over. I talk with the host once, and only once, and move on with my life. Do not permit the normalization of private surveilance.

<comment><USER3> This is an incredibly "hner who is out of touch with reality" comment.

I don't like Alexa devices in my home, but I'm gonna need to see _any_ data backing your claim.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't stop coming, but'd keep conversations at the superficial level</comment></comment></comment>


The world's only immortal animal - <AUTHOR> http://green.yahoo.com/blog/guest_bloggers/26/the-world-s-only-immortal-animal.html <comment><USER2> _Because they are able to bypass death, the number of individuals is spiking._

Did they like ... just evolve or something? You'd think they'd have spiked before now and reached equilibrium.

<comment><USER3> According to one of the linked articles, they are suspected to be hitchhiking in the ballast of large ships, so their habitat is unnaturally expanding. There could always be other factors too, like an over-fished predator.

<comment><USER4> That sounds similar to the C. taxifolia Algae threat. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/algae/chronology.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's my understanding that certain turtles don't exhibit telomere shortening, and are effectively 'immortal' as well in that they don't age.

<comment><USER6> Do they not get cancer?

<comment><USER7> There's still background radiation.

That the telomere doesn't shorten basically means the DNA doesn't "age"; cells don't become more likely to mutate after X duplications begin to damage the code, like ours do.

<comment><USER6> Is telomere shortening the sole cause of DNA replication errors? (Besides radiation, which damages the DNA directly?)

<comment> a-priori No, it's not. DNA transcription errors occur all the time in our bodies, but there are elaborate repair mechanisms in the DNA that either correct it or, if its uncorrectable, kill off the cell.

But, sometimes these mechanisms fail and a cell survives with mutated DNA. If the right genes are mutated, then it grows uncontrolled and you've got cancer.

In order to get immortality, these repair mechanisms would have to be as robust after 1000 years as they are after 20 years. In humans, the repair mechanisms tend to degrade as you age, which is why, the theory goes, people are more likely to get cancer as they get older. It's not that there are more errors then, but that they're not corrected as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What about Hydra? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality#Hydra>

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I think there are a few animals like that. So while it's not likely the only "immortal" animal, this jellyfish does definitely seem to have a _unique_ kind of immortality.

<comment><USER9> Most living things are 'immortal' in that they do not age. This is true of bacteria, fish, lobsters, birds etc.

It just happens that most creatures we have close contact with - i.e. Mammals, do.

What is unusual about this Jellyfish is not it's lack of ageing, but it's ability to return to "childhood" at times of stress and then become an adult once again, later.

It's a weird and fascinating concept for us Mammals. Although I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to repeat my teenage years over and over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Like most living systems, Jellyfishes are self organizing systems. But the difference is that a jellyfish is quite minimalistic in structure and their neural system is simple too. And most certainly, it lacks emotions of any kind.

That is what amazes me about jellyfishes: a very, very simple system genetically programmed to for reproduction lacking any "purpose". And, now they say it can even go back to its proto stage. Wow, evolution is fascinating.

<comment><USER11> Biologically speaking, the only "purpose" of every organism is to just to reproduce. I've always been fascinated by the idea of how our brain acts like a higher level abstraction on top of the rather slow process of evolution, since ideas evolve a couple of orders magnitude faster than plain old evolution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What about single celled life? In a division one call seems to get renewed while another seems to age, you say. What if this animal is doing something similar?

<comment><USER13> There are a number of things that lead to cell mortality in multi-cellular organisms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> _says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute._

There is not Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute. The author of this article meant the Smithsonian Tropical _Research_ Institute.

[http://www.stri.org/english/research/facilities/marine/bocas...](http://www.stri.org/english/research/facilities/marine/bocas_del_toro/postdocs.php)

</comment><comment><USER15> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula>

</comment><comment><USER16> It's worth noting that there's probably no fundamental reason why animals that live forever couldn't evolve. Sadly though, evolution favours whatever genes multiply fastest. There are trade-offs between living forever and reproducing as quickly as possible; and selection favours the latter.

</comment><comment><USER17> As some already noted, there are other animals like this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligible_senescence>

</comment><comment><USER18> What about enthropy? I would expect that after going between polyp and adult many times the DNA of some cells may get damaged, and the cells may not convert correctly to their new cell types, and eventually the organism will become more and more wrong until it dies.

<comment><USER19> In humans, DNA Polymerase (the thing that replicates DNA) makes about 1 in 10,000 base pairing errors. After other enzymes "proof read"- the mistake count is 1 in 1 billion. Keep in mind, that there is a lot of "junk DNA." junk DNA is DNA that does nothing, but a lot of mistakes are made in the junk DNA and the introns (parts of the junk DNA that do nothing) are cut out and we only keep in exons.

Now I have another _very_ important point to make. Errors in base pairing, also known as mutations- are usually very very good. Why? Because 1/3 of errors are bad, 1/3 do absolutely nothing, and 1/3 are good and provide benefits. That means 2/3 of the time- mutations do nothing or help the organism.

So, I guess I am saying I think you should expect a different result =p. Mutations are good!

<comment><USER18> Suppose the one in a billion number is right. But that thing has to have at least several billion cells. So each transformation will ensure that there are several cells that go wrong.

I mean people live a limited time and do not have to have their cells do these complex transformations, yet a large part of us still manage to get cancer before we die.

Also, I do not believe that stuff about mutations being just as likely to be good. If you have a complex organism any change is far more likely to be detrimental than positive. When you hit your watch with hammer, it is very unlikely you will get a better watch. It is much more likely you will get a broken watch.

<comment><USER19> The number is right, and again one mutation most certainly will NOT ensure a cell goes wrong. Most "bad" mutations are not anything like cancer.

You don't have to believe the "stuff" about mutations being just as likely to be good because it is true. Furthermore, that's not how cancer works.

Cancer might happen when a beam of light hits the nucleus and blasts the DNA out of the nucleus. (This is normally at x-ray or gamma-ray level, and the common skin cancer has to do with our repair cycle for skin when UV light hits it, and our not repairing fast enough.) Other cancers happen other ways, and I don't want to pretend I know everything either, but I do know- the idea of the cells being degraded enough over time to just kill the animal is a little far fetched. Yeah, could happen, but the degrading will take a _hell_ of a long time based on what I know.

Also on a side note: How many base pairs do you think there are? That 1 in 1 billion may look bigger if I tell you that there are 30,000 base pairs in humans, most of which is junk DNA, and then there are also probably quite a few less in a sea jelly. 1 in 1 billion is a pretty big number now isn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We need to capture one and feed it for a couple of centuries to see if it is truly immortal.

</comment><comment><USER21> So is this animals natural predator diminishing in numbers, which is why they are spiking?

<comment><USER13> It could be any number of things. I saw a documentary about a different type of jellyfish that is becoming a problem in East Asia due to a combination of over-fishing of predators and warmer waters which increases their reproduction yields.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> In that case, they'd better be delicious, in order to keep the population down...

</comment><comment><USER23> Someone should start a business that breeds/sells those 'immortial beings.'

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a decidedly time lord-like form of immortality.

</comment><comment><USER25> But /how do they taste/?

</comment><comment><USER26> This form of immortality displeases me. I'd rather not turn back into a fetus for the sake of immortality.

<comment><USER27> Personally, I'm not particularly picky about my forms of immortality.

<comment><USER28> Seems like immortality without memory is useless, so really that's the question.

<comment><USER29> Write stuff down! BAM, problem solved. (Seriously speaking, consider the sci- fi short story possibilities of an individual who had to reboot every 80 years or so, but who had had access to a computer and competent legal/investment advice for roughly the same timescale as the present-day Catholic Church has been in operation. Age 0 through 24 is essentially one _long_ data dump, but he's gotten pretty good at constructing his curricula, given a few millenia to practice it. They call him Jerome the Eldest, he is richer than most nations, and he lives life depressed and alone, until one day...)

<comment> a-priori Keeping a journal probably wouldn't help. Take the case of Clive Wearing, who developed anterograde amnesia after a bout of encephalitis. He can conduct an orchestra, but he can't remember what he did 10 minutes before.

He keeps a journal. It's a timestamped log of him saying that he's "finally awake" over and over.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing>

In addition to robbing you of your past, amnesia makes the future unknowable. Amnesia traps you perpetually in the present with no way of improving it.

<comment><USER30> But unless I missed something, amnesia doesn't have anything to do with the subject. In this case you don't forget what you did 10 minutes ago; you forget what you did 80 years ago (which I suppose most people do anyway).

<comment> a-priori Yes, I agree this has gone off-topic. This was a rebuttal to patio11's remark that immortality without memory could be compensated for by writing everything down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Planarians (flatworms) have many immortal species as well. They are able to grow and degrow, changing their cell populations to the proportions found in juveniles. They are able to divide by fission, where the head remains and the tail grows a new brain _from scratch_.</comment>


Voice Viewer - <AUTHOR> http://slice-of-thai.com/voice-viewer/

<comment><USER2> Great idea! For anyone who wants to try it out without installing random software off the web, you can also view spectrograms with Audacity (and other stuff like Adobe Audition).

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone know any mac or linux equivalents? Would love to play with this.

Even better: First person to make a javascript version wins!

<comment><USER4> 'Spek'[0] is a nice free, lightweight, open source & cross platform Spectrum Analyser.

[0] [http://spek.cc/](http://spek.cc/)

<comment><USER5> I don't think it's really an equivalent tool. As I understood, the main point is the real-time analysis of the microphone input. Spek seems to only analyze a « static » sound file (same for SoX and Audacity if I'm correct).

<comment><USER4> Oh thanks, I'd missed the "live" part.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Scientists Create Logic Gates from Living Neurons - <AUTHOR> http://robots.net/article/2746.html

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool, but before anyone starts talking about the coming age of bio computation, keep in mind neurons are a horribly inefficient way of carrying out this kind of computation.

<comment><USER3> I was thinking something similar, that you are taking a complex biological computation device that has over 1000 synapses, each carrying some complex quantity of information, and reducing it to a bit. This is an inefficient use of a neuron.

<comment><USER4> What's nice about this is that living cells can heal to an extent, which is more than we can say for silicon.

<comment><USER5> AFAIK living cells doesn't heal they auto-destruct and are replaced by new cells.

<comment><USER6> This requires one of those "yes and no" answers. _Sometimes_ cells auto- destruct and are replaced by new cells. Other times, they heal. Both strategies can be useful, depending on the situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very cool. Deeper info on project page:

[http://www.weizmann.ac.il/complex/EMoses/projects/NeuralDevi...](http://www.weizmann.ac.il/complex/EMoses/projects/NeuralDevices/index.html)

This shows an oscillator built of diodes. On to the Nature Physics article, now.

</comment><comment><USER8> So would the barrier to making things like adders, latches, etc. (in other words, everything you need to build a Von Neumann computer) be that they don't have a way to make NOT gates? Or would making NOT gates out what they have not be a big deal?

</comment><comment><USER9> Now, if they said they made living neurons (or models thereof) out of logic gates, it might even be useful.

</comment><comment><USER10> I just want to see, oh, an 8-bit full adder. Not all that many gates and it can do real work.

<comment><USER4> I'd love a fully brain-implantable FPU.

I'm even willing to start thinking in stack notation!</comment></comment>


Taiwan's Technology Secrets Come Under Assault from China - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwans-technology-secrets-come-under-assault-from-china-1530468440 <comment><USER2> US, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Europe really needs to form a coalition that would put pressure on Chinese government-sponsored companies blatant hacking attacks/stealing technologies, either by taking steps to reduce Chinese government investments in crucial technologies, punish Chinese firms like Huawei via sanctions, or put massive tariffs on China like US is doing. China is a very bad actor in the world.

Some readings: How Chinese hacking felled telecommunication giant Nortel [https://www.afr.com/technology/web/security/how-chinese- hack...](https://www.afr.com/technology/web/security/how-chinese-hacking- felled-telecommunication-giant-nortel-20140526-iux6a). China-based hackers burrow inside satellite, defense, and telecoms firms [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/06/china...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/06/china-based-hackers-burrow-inside-satellite-defense-and- telecoms-firms/)

<comment><USER3> The US used to run rampant over other's intellectual property in the 1800's. As far as I know, that didn't involve much industrial espionage. China is exploiting its sovereignty to enable industrial espionage over computer networks without consequences. The strategic solution is to raise the cost of this activity. Maybe one of the best things Microsoft could do, would be to implement a suite of future products providing 1) iron clad application sandboxing 2) all executable content requiring digital signature. Follow this up with aggressive use of honeypots and poison pills.

<comment><USER2> > The US used to run rampant over other's intellectual property in the 1800's

That's a common myth. One person, samuel slater, memorized the designs of textile factory machinery as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British industry before migrating to the United States at the age of 21. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater) US didn't steal anything using Samuel Slater.

I haven't heard of any other examples of US stealing intellectual properties in 1800. Plus, that's over 200 years ago. Would you like to bring up the something more recent?

<comment><USER4> For a more localized version, the entire existence of Hollywood happened because the industry wanted to avoid Edison's patent enforcement, and it was hard to enforce lawsuits on the other side of the country.

For me it's not really the IP theft, and more the lack of an equal playing field for foreign companies in China. If foreign companies can't get the same effective rights as local ones do, then those other countries should give the same restrictions to chinese companies in their locales.

<comment><USER5> This is also something of a myth. There was a trust (that Edison was part of) which monopolized film production, but by the time Hollywood was ramping up their patents had already expired. They were really enforcing their monopoly through price and supply controls. The cartel was ultimately broken by antitrust litigation, not IP piracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Taiwan may end up in a difficult spot in the coming decades unless they embrace production of distinctive (non-commoditized, like "iPhone" vs. "generic smartphone") consumer brands, or step up their efforts in software.

Its current strengths are in the stuff that exists _inside_ the products we use every day. Think semiconductors and other hardware components. However, that know-how is being commoditized rapidly. China is catching up. Japanese multinationals like Sony are also eyeing the same, gradually stepping away from competing on low-margin consumer products.

For Taiwanese consumer electronics, you have brands like HTC, ASUS, Acer, or even a niche newcomer Gogoro (electric scooters). Sizeable, but not agile enough to take on players like Xiaomi.

And the software scene is unfortunately not very bustling despite the government's repeated efforts to pour money into startup hubs and coworking spaces. This is what Taiwan's #1 online shopping portal looks like [1]

[1] [https://shopping.pchome.com.tw/](https://shopping.pchome.com.tw/)

"Brain drain" to China and the US compounds some of these challenges. Very low salaries may be in part to blame here -- an engineer in Taiwan may make an equivalent of about $40k USD/year, while a home still costs as much as it does in Palo Alto.

<comment><USER7> That just looks like a different aesthetic. Much like Korea and Japan[1]; they _could_ make minimalist webpages in the Western style, but they choose not to.

[1] [https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so- differe...](https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/) and [https://www.translatemedia.com/translation-blog/website- desi...](https://www.translatemedia.com/translation-blog/website-design-in- asia-vs-the-west/) and [http://digitalcommunications.wp.st- andrews.ac.uk/2016/03/03/...](http://digitalcommunications.wp.st- andrews.ac.uk/2016/03/03/why-is-eastern-asian-web-design-so-busy/) and so on

<comment><USER6> It's not the high information density on the home page (common in Asia) but the overall web design style and functionality. The site was developed over a decade ago and has many interesting bits. For example, the "show me the product I ordered" page brings you to a captured JPG screenshot of the product listing.

And product listing pages look something like this:

[https://24h.pchome.com.tw/prod/DSAM2L-A9007SS3R](https://24h.pchome.com.tw/prod/DSAM2L-A9007SS3R)

Contrast/compare with these main players in China:

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

[http://tmall.com/](http://tmall.com/)

[http://taobao.com/](http://taobao.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Realistically, Taiwan can't stop it. The language barrier is zero, and the number of Taiwanese living in China is just off-the-charts.

The truth they might have to ultimately face, is that China is too close to them and way bigger. There might be a way to keep balance in between within their means, but to think they can ignore/prevent Chinese influence is just fantasy.

</comment><comment><USER9> [1] is an interesting recent article, sketching the mainland's multi-pronged strategy for taking over Taiwan.

[1] [https://sentinel.tw/china-threatens-essence-taiwans- statehoo...](https://sentinel.tw/china-threatens-essence-taiwans-statehood/)

<comment><USER10> I've always felt that the obsession that the Chinese government has with Taiwan has a lot to do with the CCP still being butthurt over the escape of the Nationalists after the Chinese Civil War. They essentially never achieved complete victory over the Kuomintang. I wonder if the CCP were no longer governing China whether there would be such a focus on re-annexing Taiwan.

<comment><USER11> That's a big part of it. Another big, enduring part is that Taiwan is living proof that Chinese culture and democracy mix perfectly well (something the CCP tries to deny) and a living body of culturally Chinese people who have experience with democratic governance. In other words, it's a big looming legitimacy boulder sitting above the CCP's head -- they fear every day that it will break off and fall.

<comment><USER12> > Taiwan is living proof that Chinese culture and democracy mix perfectly well

On the contrary, Taiwan is the proof that Chinese culture and democracy don't mix well. In fact that is why CNP lost in the first place and retreated to the island. China will always need a strong federal government to lead, or it would just break into smaller counties like EU.

<comment><USER9> Wow, 50c party members trolls on HN (see [1])?

       Taiwan is the proof that
       Chinese culture and democracy
       don't mix well.

Could you elaborate on this wild claim? While you do so, please bear in mind that pretty much every authoritarian ruler ever in human has justified itself by claiming that his subjects are not ready for, or not interested in democracy.

Chiang Kai-shek rules Taiwan with an iron fist, and democratisation began for real only in the 1980s, including allowing free press, lifting bans on new political parties. Incidentally it was Chiang Ching-kuo, who was appointed by Chiang Kai-shek as premier, see [2] for more detail. Taiwanese citizens are certainly very happy with their blossoming democracy, and are a shining beacon that the mainland will hopefully eventually follow.

       break into smaller counties like EU.

Why would it be a bad thing if China would split into smaller countries? Smaller countries are much less dangerous to their neighbours than big countries when they fail catastrophically (note that all countries fail catastrophically from time to time). BTW, The EU is composed of smaller countries, and a voluntary organisations. Maybe the mainland should charm Taiwan (and HK) into a voluntary union, rather than bully and terrorise?

(In fairness, it must be said that both, Mainland China, and the states making up the EU, have a long and violent history of warring states.)

[1] [https://gking.harvard.edu/50C](https://gking.harvard.edu/50C)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#Democratization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#Democratization)

<comment><USER12> > Wow, 50c party members trolls on HN (see [1])?

I like how quick you label people as soon as they share different political view.

> Could you elaborate on this wild claim?

Taiwan enjoyed a short period of economic boom only thanks to China opened up its market to Taiwan and had policies encouraging business from Taiwan to do so. This almost has nothing to do with their political system.

And now things have turned around. Taiwan's democratic system is a drag on their economy and prone to foreign influence. (Buying outdated weaponary from States? Continuous internal political struggles?) Whereas China has a much more unified vision under a strong leadership and on track to seek total economic dominance.

<comment><USER9>
       outdated weaponary from States?

Taiwan wouldn't need weapons were it not for the unacceptable bullying from China. Let's not forget that China also supported Pol Pot just a few decades ago.

       Continuous internal political struggles?

Vigorous political debate is the hallmark of a democracy.

       seek total economic dominance.

Sounds horrifying. I recommend veiling your threats in a more gentle language, maybe you can fool more people that way.

<comment><USER12> > Taiwan wouldn't need weapons were it not for the unacceptable bullying from > China.

I see that we would never convince the other at this point. But I do hope that you open up your eye one day and don't give into those radical left ideology.

I don't know if you are living in either China or Taiwan to know the dynamics of this complex situation. If not, your source would be only from your parents and biased narrative of west media. And those people most likely don't understand it either.

Watch more Jordan Peterson video maybe. Be a good citizen of the world.

加油。(wink, wink)

<comment><USER9> Jordan Peterson isn't exactly a friend of communist parties, have a look at what he's got to say about Mao. Xi's bullying of Taiwan is directly out of Mao's playbook.

<comment><USER12> > Jordan Peterson isn't exactly a friend of communist parties

I never said JP would embrace any communist ideology. I was merely pointing out that you should see and think before you make ignorant claims without any actual data or seeing things with your own eyes.

> Xi's bullying of Taiwan

I don't understand why you keep saying bullying. For a tiny little island still holding claim to the mainland, China is being extremely nice. (Imagine Mexico government still holding claims to States that U.S. has taken by force, how would U.S. government react to that?) All I see around me is Taiwan business taking advantage of Chinese market and Taiwanese employees enjoy the fruit of China's development. There may be frictions, but it certainly wouldn't come near to the level that U.S. is exploiting it's neighbors in the continent.

Hope you would stop being a hypocrite before pointing figures.

<comment><USER9>
       For a tiny little island still
       holding claim to the mainland,
       China is being extremely nice.

That is because of the "One China" consensus that the ROC and the PRC currently adhere to. A one-sided change of this status, e.g. by Taiwan renouncing being rulers of all of China, might trigger the PRC's anti- secession laws, which in turn would lead to an invasion of Taiwan by the PRC.

Another dimension is that _if_ the mainland was actually interested in free trade, as required by e.g. the World Trade Organization (WTO), the mainland had to be open to other countries ...

As an aside, you accept Mainland's claim to TW, but not the symmetric claim of TW to the mainland. So you are applying double standards. Hmmm ...

As a further aside, it was a big strategic blunder of the KMT not to rescind its claim to be the legitimate rulers of the mainland when Nixon switched from the KMT to Mao as the official rulers of the mainland, and let the mainland into the UN. At the time, the mainland was very weak, desperate for international recognition, and would probably have accepted such a deal. (Pure speculation: Nixon deliberately encouraged the KMT to keep claiming mainland rulership, so as to instate a frozen conflict [2] / do divide-and-conquer against Mao. Again, I have _no_ evidence for this, but that sort of Machiavellian trick has been used by empires since time immemorial to weaken its competitors.)

       Taiwan business taking
       advantage of Chinese market

That's part of the PRC's subversion strategy: get access to Taiwanese technology, institute a brain-drain, and most important: buy the acquiescence of the Taiwanese rich -- rest assured that Taiwanese companies can only succeed on the mainland, as long as they are not questioning the PRC's stance on Taiwan.

        you keep saying bullying.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. [1] is today's example of bullying.

[1] [http://uk.businessinsider.com/palau-airline-closes-over- ange...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/palau-airline-closes-over-anger-from- china-about-taiwan-ties-2018-7?r=US&IR=T)

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

<comment><USER12> Wow.. the liberty fighter strikes again.

Hope you enjoy your democracy while it lasts and stop being naive one day.

I literally have nothing to say to anyone who actually believes China would launch invasion against Taiwan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It needs to be reminded that, from China's perspective, Taiwan is their territory. Anything that is invested in Taiwan may (or will) eventually end up in Chinese hands. As China grows, they will require deals with Taiwanese companies that are similar to mainland deals.

</comment><comment><USER14> By acquiring ML/AI/Robotics IP China can export Ultra Low Cost/Superior Products.

</comment><comment><USER15> So now Chinese company cannot approach employees in Taiwanese companies any more. Okay.

</comment><comment><USER16> Behind paywall: [https://archive.is/uLiop](https://archive.is/uLiop)</comment>


Post-intensive care syndrome results from continuous inflammation - <AUTHOR> https://padiracinnovation.org/News/2020/02/post-intensive-care-syndrome-results-from-continuous-inflammation <comment><USER2> This topic is interesting to me for a few reasons...

Cognitive impairment has long been associated with inflammation in older adults: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3390758/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3390758/)

As well as the general population where illness is involved: [https://psychcentral.com/news/2019/12/01/inflammation- linked...](https://psychcentral.com/news/2019/12/01/inflammation-linked-to- the-brain-fog-of-chronic-illness/152083.html)

And it contributes to a variety of disorders (potentially almost all of them). The research here is pretty broad, Google if interested. Notably, depression, anxiety and other behavior impacting problems are among the aforementioned disorders.

We know that exercise levels and diet can lower or increase inflammation.

So we have this sort of rare magic bullet when it comes to health, cognition and aging. Lowering inflammation won't fix everything of course, but it will lower your risk of pretty much everything.

And yet this truth is less a part of the zeitgeist than you'd expect, given it's impact. Maybe because it's simple but not easy to change your lifestyle. Or more importantly, the lifestyles of a population. Especially when part of the problem is financial insecurity.

<comment><USER3> Big part of the problem is that inflammation is beneficial, only chronic inflammation is a problem. But treatments would reduce both.

<comment><USER4> > Big part of the problem is that inflammation is beneficial, only chronic > inflammation is a problem.

But what about anaphylaxis, hay fever, mild allergies etc. There are plenty of acute or non-chronic inflammatory conditions that are a problem.

<comment><USER3> We have acute antiinflammatories for these cases. And they have serious side effects, especially treatments for asthmatics.

Now interesting part here is the mechanism which is different from the one targeted by current drugs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article brings up a specific inflammation-related protein (HMGB1) as being correlated with cognitive impairment after an ICU stay.

Usually an ICU stay is the result of being profoundly and dangerously ill -- going to the ICU likely means that you need significant pharmacological and/or mechanical assistance in the basic things like... circulating blood. Or oxygenation. And once there, you may have tubes/catheters/wires in various orifices and puncturing vessels and organs. You're often medically sedated, and if you become too awake or agitated, you are sedated further. Unsurprisingly, many patients become agitated or delirious -- they don't know where they are or when it is or maybe even who they are. Which makes things worse. I mean, imagine it -- maybe you wake up in the midst of this horrendous state of affairs, and you become understandably upset and confused, but if you move around or holler (if you can) you may well get further sedated. Repeatedly. The cognitive impact of this alone can understandably be immense.

I don't mean to say that ICUs are some evil thing, though surely they could be improved. But the causes of "post-intensive care syndrome" are undoubtedly enormously multi-factorial, what with the level of derangement and insult to your body (and especially your mind!) from whatever illness led to you the ICU to begin with, and the experience of being there. And as such I am skeptical that this single protein could be terrifically useful either as a marker of or a therapeutic target for cognitive impairment in this setting.

(I think as protein mass spec and other technologies improve, we might gain a better understanding of how sets of dozens or hundreds of proteins in the body may be related to disease states, and perhaps therapies will target combinations of proteins or more complex interactions rather than "blocks this one protein".)

<comment><USER6> I spent 6 weeks in the ICU, half of them in a coma and intubated, it took me weeks to feel my brain was working normally when I was released to a normal recovery floor. I was confused, a little delirious and my memory was screwed up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm in my thirties and had unresolved medical issues for a decade. And in that time experienced much of our health system including visiting psychologists and taking antidepressants. And nothing really helped. The only thing that happened is that I learned to live with it.

The only constant in all is an allergy and a cyst causing constant swelling and inflammation. The technical appearance of this, and lab results, never looks very bad, and doctors are quick to discard the cyst as a source of my problems.

I'm at the end of my wits, and my mind and body are deteriorating further and I find it hard to muster up the energy to try and resolve this with ever more visits to doctors. My physicians are not concerned enough to try and resolve this quickly, because I still appear fine. I can function normally for a while. But working 9-5 and having a life is honestly above my limit. I don't dare press the issue too much because doctors are quick to jump to psychological-issues-are-the-source ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_symptom_disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_symptom_disorder)) . Physician visits and different things are spaced so widely that a lot of times passes, and I'm still supposed to wait longer and go step-by-step.

After all this time, and a lot chasing ideas and trying out smaller remedies, I arrived at the conclusion/idea that it was the cyst and the inflammation and possibly recurrent colonisation with bacertia from it all along. The cyst that I was told was not an issue.

It's a miracle that I founded and still have a family. I appreciate all the good things I received and achieved, but honest to god large parts of the way were miserable, and I'm afraid to find out that it's not going to get better.

P.S.: Sorry for venting

<comment><USER8> Somewhat similar. 3 years of intense effort to find out what was wrong.

Constantly told it was depression or anxiety.

Turned out it was an auto immune problem.

Anti depressants made me care less about problems but didn't fix them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Humans and other mammals have two seahorses, one on each side of the brain."

Today I learned that "hippocampus" comes from the Greek for "seahorse", because it looks like a seahorse: [https://images.squarespace- cdn.com/content/v1/52ec8c1ae4b047...](https://images.squarespace- cdn.com/content/v1/52ec8c1ae4b047ccc14d6f29/1401116742160-BW61VD07X8QHB0SGLKTP/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kOBdF5AVPuzIOxEwrx32HQFZw- zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZamWLI2zvYWH8K3-s_4yszcp2ryTI0HqTOaaUohrI8PIdA6tiAU9a4cuM3x7ZBNFhV- CVYwxBdv3a47FjvKvB2MKMshLAGzx4R3EDFOm1kBS/hippocampus_seahorse.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER10> I am not sure you need inflammation as an explanation. People in the ICU are there because they are extremely sick. Often they have problems with blood pressure and oxygenation. This probably leads to neuron death. In addition, because they are getting checked on continuously they likely have poor sleep and loss of day-night cycles. I am not sure how you can differentiate between very sick people are in the ICU, and very sick people often have a lot of inflammation.

</comment><comment><USER11> This makes me wonder what is happening during an extreme tooth ache. During those times when I have had a bad tooth it is like my mind is in slow motion and the ability to think is gone. I have had extreme pain and still been able to think clearly but with an inflamed tooth it's a different experience.

<comment><USER12> Teeth are fairly near the brain and are part of the skeleton. Except for teeth, bone infections are typically considered to be very, very serious.

Bone marrow is an important part of the immune system. White blood cells and what not originate there.

I feel like if you look at a tooth ache as a skeletal issue, the seriousness of it begins to make more sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone know if this is anyway related to PANDAS condition (RE: inflammation -> cognitive changes)? We were recently introduced to the condition and my understanding is the theory is inflammation is caused by the bodies immunity response to strep virus (I might be off on that explanation). The idea inflammation could give rise to cognitive impairments/changes would appear to lend some credence (or maybe that is just already established??). We have a daughter who checks some of the boxes on what people describe as the condition and are just getting an understanding.

</comment><comment><USER14> Here's something I've never understood, although I suspect the question is an open one even among medical professionals:

Given that inflammation is an immune response, is it the inflammation itself that's bad, or the underlying condition? If we only treated inflammation symptoms without curing any of the underlying diseases, would there be a significant improvement in outcomes? Or would they be worse because you'd be interfering with the body's response?

<comment><USER15> There's plenty of cases where inflammation is not helpful at all, such as arthritis and psoriasis. When the body is attacking itself in an immune disorder, there's really no down side to preventing the body from attacking itself. Unfortunately, such disorders become more and more common the older you get, so you can think of it as the immune system accidentally triggering rather than it triggering too much on some particular thing.

It's true, though, that for really severe inflammation disorders that doctors start prescribing systemic immunosuppressants, which then result in the patient getting real illnesses more often. Often the patient has such a bad condition at that point - my psoriasis leads to skin flaking off in bloody patches and smearing blood on the things I touch and my hands feeling like sand paper to other people, for example - that they prefer this overall.

Even the localized topical immunosuppressants like hydrocortisone cream have negative side effects like skin thinning, but I think everyone using those agrees it's better than the extra inflammation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sounds similar to _chemo brain,_ which is mental impairment that happens in cancer patients as a side effect of treatment.</comment>


Show HN: SendOut.io – Email Marketing Platform for Bloggers and Influencers - <AUTHOR> https://sendout.io <comment><USER2> I don't understand it, but looks nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a tool for bloggers which will help them to build their subscriber list and connect with them through emails.</comment></comment>


Ask PG: Why did you stop making products? - <AUTHOR> YCombinator is the best thing to happen to startups..However if you look at folks like Jobs and Musk etc, their main reason for having a company is so that they can build the products they envision(everything else is secondary). You started making product(sold to Yahoo) but switched to being an incubator and mentor. Any reasons? Isn't making products more satisfying than being incubator/mentor? <comment><USER2> If higher-order functions can produce functions, could there be a higher order companies which produce companies?

The name YCombinator is not accidental. The holy-grail is the fixed-point for startups.

</comment><comment><USER3> Technically he's still doing products. I'm sure that he's had different levels of input in all of the YC companies.

</comment><comment><USER4> The viaweb project was created to exit so they would become dot com millionaires. That's still their continuing mission.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hackernews is a product. There is no buyer, it is still a product.

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe the YC startups are the products? :)

<comment><USER7> Quasi Meta Product Product

I am curious if it's satisfying to become an investor like Paul Graham, because that's a dream job I'm hoping to work in myself some day too.</comment></comment>


JavaScript Gesture Recognition for Touch Screens - <AUTHOR> http://taitems.tumblr.com/post/2785024873/javascript-gesture-recognition-for-touch-screens

<comment><USER2>
        I was surprised to notice no-one had
        yet implemented web based touch and
        gesture recognition (for mobiles)
        to this degree

iGesture is a jQuery plugin. It was discussed here on HN a while back, it extends work done on another library called jgesture:

<https://github.com/raganwald/iGesture>

(This is blatant huffery and puffery, of course!)

</comment><comment><USER3> Android has a gesture recognition API in 2.2, implemented by one of the creators of the $1 recognition algorithm (the one implemented in the article).

The creators of 'one-dollar' released the next generation of the algorithm, the $N multistroke algorithm, and here's an implementation of it in javascript: [http://depts.washington.edu/aimgroup/proj/dollar/ndollar.htm...](http://depts.washington.edu/aimgroup/proj/dollar/ndollar.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Is the Android gesture recognition API you speak of purely back-end and not available in webkit?

<comment><USER3> Yes it is native, and no javascript bindings have been made for Android's webkit engine. It is packaged as a UI control that you overlay onto your application window and receive gesture events trhough it.</comment></comment></comment>


What is your best programmer joke? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/234075/what-is-your-best-programmer-joke

<comment><USER2> Three guys are in a car, a programmer, a systems analyst and an electronics guy.

Halfway down a mountain side the brakes fail, and the car starts to accelerate, completely out of control.

At the foot of the mountain there is a busy intersection, and the car is reaching it just as the lights are red and traffic from the other road is crossing.

As by a miracle they pass between two 18 wheeler tractor-trailers and make it to the other side, where after a while they run out of momentum and coast to a stop.

Wow, that was close, says the systems analyst. I think the master brake cylinder must have failed...

So, says the electronics dude, let me see if I can fix it.

No, says the programmer, let's just do that again and see if it fails again...

</comment><comment><USER3> One I've always liked, but it wasn't on the first couple pages:

A doctor, a priest, and an engineer are all out golfing when suddenly they start getting hit by golf balls. They complain to the marshall and he says, "Oh yeah, thats a group of blind golfers". The doctor says, "I will develop a procedure to help these golfers regain their sight". The priest says, "I will pray for these golfers so that God may heal them". The engineer says, "Why can't these guys just play at night?"

</comment><comment><USER4> The best programmer joke? One of my co-workers.</comment>


Starbucks to Shell Out $250M on Free 4-Year College for Every Employee - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/04/06/starbucks-commits-250-million-to-give-free-4-year-college-to-every-employee/

<comment><USER2> Great. My $5 latte will now be $10.</comment>


Ask HN: Best site for Photoshop tutorials? - <AUTHOR>

I'm mocking up some dummy ads and need to brush up on a few Photoshop skills that I haven't used in a while.  I'm finding that Google's completely useless for this.  Nothing but pages and pages of spammy results.  Any good Photoshop tutorial sites out there that you'd recommend? <comment><USER2> <http://psd.tutsplus.com/> \- has a mix of free and 'premium' tutorials.

Also, smashingmagazine.com frequently has good links to tutorials.

<comment><USER3> Tutsplus is great.

I found this Smashing magazine tutorials rather useful [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/03/10/web-20-tutorials-...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/03/10/web-20-tutorials- round-up/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found PSDtuts to be most excellent - <http://psdtuts.com>

You can also find some gems on Smashing Magazine's site <http://www.smashingmagazine.com> \- while not photoshop specific, there are some good articles like [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/10/adobe- photoshop-t...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/10/adobe-photoshop- tutorials-best-of/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I decided to learn Paint.NET "over a weekend" to do some mock ups, ended up spending weeks and actually getting fairly good at it.

My advice to you, if you're creating any type of logo, start downloading fonts like crazy. I recommend a site like www.dafont.com (unaffiliated.) The reason? you can find very interesting graphic elements in wingding-type fonts and you can scale them to any size.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm late to answer this, but there are a few major tutorial aggregation sites: <http://www.good-tutorials.com> \- <http://www.pixel2life.com> \- <http://www.tutorialized.com/>

</comment><comment><USER7> All the ones mentioned are good. Here's some from Layers magazine: <http://www.layersmagazine.com/category/tutorials/>

If you're willing to pay, www.lynda.com is great.

</comment><comment><USER8> The Revision3 podcast, Pixel Perfect, is also a fairly good resource:

<http://revision3.com/pixelperfect/>

</comment><comment><USER9> <http://www.vunkysearch.net/> is a more visual search, links to other tutorials... find effect you want, click.</comment>


Treatment of major depressive disorder using botulinum toxin A - <AUTHOR> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24910934 <comment><AUTHOR> Full title should be:

Treatment of major depressive disorder using botulinum toxin A: a 24-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.

______________________________________

What I find interesting is, that this seems to be almost a magic bullet for some depression. Half of the patient group had it's HRSD* score halved after measly 2 applications. Halved means depression gone (0-7 is OK, 7-20 is depressed). It seems that disrupting the feedback cycle between facial muscles and mood can be quite powerful.

First study on this was published in 2006.

[http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/can-botox-cure- your...](http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/can-botox-cure-your- depression-facial-paralysis-emotions-feeling-84227)

Yet there is very little research on this (4-5 studies) - even though such research is really comparatively cheap. All that is needed is a researcher who can evaluate the subjects and some very short sessions to administer the injections.

Meanwhile, millions of people are continually being prescribed psychoactive drugs with unpleasant common side effects, such as nausea, dry mouth, inability to have an orgasm, weight gain, erectile dysfunction, etc.

*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Rating_Scale_for_Depr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Rating_Scale_for_Depression)

</comment><comment><USER2> Into the _skin_ of the _forehead_? Seriously?

<comment><AUTHOR> Uhm, the target is a specific muscle. The idea that our expressions also affect our emotions, and not just the other way around is ancient.

It's been researched as of late [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_feedback_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_feedback_hypothesis)

This procedure makes it impossible for the depressed people to frown, which seems to improve mood..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Let me guess. Is the dose a fatal one?

<comment><AUTHOR> No.</comment></comment>


People Who Work in Tech Are Investing Better Than Their Friends in Finance - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-industry-invests-better-than-finance-2014-11

<comment><USER2> From the comments: "This could easily be rephrased as people working in bubble industry outperforming those not working in bubble industry before bubble burst."

</comment><comment><USER3> It is interesting to see that Financial professionals are holding more cash, considering their industry is presumably more stable than Tech.</comment>


Abandoning VIM - <AUTHOR> http://guzalexander.com/2012/09/08/abandoning-vim.html

<comment><USER2> This article was disappointing. It basically boils down to "I didn't like it", which the author is entitled to, but it doesn't give much to grab on to.

<comment><USER3> Honestly, I felt like the end of the article was a bit of a cliffhanger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You know, I could never get into using vim. All the hotkeys and commands seem really counter-intuitive. Maybe because it wasn't my first, but i find Nano and Jed far more useable day to day for quick editing than VIM. And I love how there is so much work trying to get VIM to be a IDE. I have found that Intellij is an IDE that can pretty much handle any language, Has bindings for almost anything and works well. If not, I just use a different IDE.

In all honesty< I havent found a language I that I use that I can't work on in VIsual Studio or Intellij.

I just could never use VIM or Emacs. Seemed like I was trying too hard to make it do something that it wasn't intended to do.

Then again, i do see the other side of VIM that could be awesome if I could ever learn to use it, and its powerful scripting and plugins. Maybe if we could take Nano and add the power of VIM without the horribly counter- intuitive usage of VIM.

<comment><USER5> > Seemed like I was trying too hard to make it do something that it wasn't > intended to do.

This is a very common mistake, really. Vim is different. Not embracing this difference will only result in frustration.

<comment><USER4> What I meant by that actually, was everyone says to use it as an IDE, but it felt like I was trying too hard to make it work like an IDE, than accept ti for what it really is, just a text editor with some useful scripts.

<comment><USER5> Not _everyone_. A few blowhards with blogs. You were just following what seemed like an universal truth. There's nothing really wrong with that.

Most of Vim users simply take it as it is and don't waste other people's time misleading them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You may say you're abandoning it, but you really can't. As smoyer said, it's just too beneficial when you ssh into a box and may not have access to the fancy editor that you have customized on your own setup. It and emacs are a well oiled tool in many people's toolboxes, and because of that, it makes it even more valuable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course I still use it to edit source code on production servers sometimes. Learning VIM for a long time was quite good experience that helps me a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In my opinion, this article left out the most important part: what editor or IDE Guz is switching to, or if he hasn't decided yet, what his options are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of you are interested I switched to PhpStorm. I like it very much. And it has a plugin that allow you to edit source code with VIM bindings :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use both VIM and an IDE for the very reasons described in the article. You just can't ignore the productivity gains of a modern IDE when refactoring, etc. But VIM is great for remote work and when you're creating new files and code.

It's also possible to change the key bindings in Eclipse to emulate Vi.

<comment><USER9> How much of your time do you realistically spend remote coding via an ssh connection, though?

I know enough of Vi to get by in that situation, but I wouldn't force myself into using it on my day to day just for the sake of "using the same tool" or something.

<comment><USER8> Not much at all anymore ... our processes try to be a lot more refined ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Vim is a text editor (and a very good one), it isn't an IDE and it is a bad idea to try making it an IDE.

A better idea would be to use it INTO an IDE. I know some IDE let the user choose vim for editing text but I only use vim in a linux shell so I don't know if those integrations works very well.

</comment><comment><USER11> Unless you are going to stick to a small subset of major corporate-sponsored languages and choose a different IDE for each of them, I don't see how you will get by with less tool-sharpening than vim. Vim is exceptionally useful across a wide swath of editing tasks with minimal configuration.

</comment><comment><USER12> What features "missing" from vim caused you to switch? With nerd-tree and fuzzy filename searching, ctrl-p or Command-T (I'm on MacVim,) ack, VimClojure for the repl, minibufexplorer and the rest of the Janus bundle for autocomplete / syntax highlighting I have everything I need.

</comment><comment><USER13> Linux and Vim are an IDE. The best I've ever come across.

</comment><comment><USER14> This was a pretty useless article. Do we need to hear it every time some changes editor. You don't talk about reasons. What about alternatives?

</comment><comment><USER15> If you choose Netbeans like I did, you will soon find yourself using jVi. Muscle memory is strong, you must admit that ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> Author mistakes a text editor for an IDE and drops it when he understands his error. How interesting!

<comment><AUTHOR> I knew that VIM was an editor, but I hoped I could turn into powerfull IDE as many articles suggested. I was wrong unfortunately.

<comment><USER5> You were wrong, obviously, but the people who made you believe that with their stupid blog posts are wrong, too. I'd say they are more wrong than you.

Those blog post are seriously misleading: at best, one can come up with a vim config that make it _look_ like a stereotypical IDE: file tree on the left, class tree on the right, quickfix at the bottom, completion… But there's a lot more to an IDE than that. Because Vim will _never_ understand your code as an IDE does it will never be an IDE, full stop.

It can be the (super charged) editor module of your development environment but it would take a lot more than a blog post with cool screenshots to explain how and why. Even this 7 parts series is probably not enough: <http://blog.sanctum.geek.nz/series/unix-as-ide/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm gonna write an article about the fact that I'm changing my blue car for a red one, just because.

</comment><comment><USER17> A quote: "I can almost here you guys laughing ..."

No, you can't. Not yet. s/here/hear/

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)) English isn't my native language and sometimes (may be more than I want to) I make mistypes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you want use IDE, try some vim plugin for IDE, like vrapper, ideavim and so on</comment>