Please, Fix This Shitty Website - <AUTHOR> https://fixthisshittywebsite.com/ <comment><USER2> I tried to nominate [http://fixthisshittywebsite.com](http://fixthisshittywebsite.com), but unfortunately it was so unusable I wasn't actually able to submit my comments. So I guess I'll have to list the sins here:

\- Input form text is unreadably set against loud, colorful background.

\- "[http://"](http://") ghost text in URL input is not actually ghost text, it stays after you paste a URL with "http" in it.

\- Styling of the above is off

\- Force me to pick one of the three arbitrary checkbox options, even when none apply (not even a little) and I've listed the problems in detail in the text area.

Some version of Muphry's Law I guess.

<comment><USER3> I tried (and eventually succeeded) to do the same. My problem was being forced to check one of the boxes even though none of them really applied. I ended up checking the third box and provided my own alternate meaning. The really funny part was that the "thank you" message after submitting was black text on that partially black background image. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This website is essentially 6 lines of text and a web form. This could be implemented in, say, 25 kilobytes of PHP code.

Your website took around 6 seconds to load, weighs 3.5MB and requires my machine to pull data from about 17 different domains.

I realize that you (assuming you are the author of this site) are mostly just following current web design trends (single page websites) so I'm not putting the blame squarely on you, but how is this even remotely reasonable? Honestly, I prefer the average 90's website to this.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have to admit that I cannot figure out the purpose of this. Did I miss an 'about' section or something? What happens with the nominated sites?

<comment><USER6> I am not sure ether. I think they are looking for leads on work.

<comment><USER7> Looks like public shaming, like peeple.com was going to be, but for websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This site itself is an epitome of the bland website design.

<comment><USER9> Tell us more

<comment><USER10> It's a single page website, [http://i.imgur.com/EQmCc0L.png](http://i.imgur.com/EQmCc0L.png)

<comment><USER11> 1.7M & 5s initial load time, for 1266 content characters...ouch. I'm not a big fan of 'bloat-because-we-can'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So, while this website isn't particularly great and I don't see nominating... anything... on it as being helpful, I'd like to nominate every government website out there that attempts to help society.

An example of this is affordable housing. While sites like Padmapper* and Live Lovely* are killing it in the UX and UI departments, government equivalents are clunky and hard to use.

And, while different rental sites include income restricted units, they have incomplete listings compared to government vendor websites like Social Serve*.

Especially in my area, a lot of people don't even know they qualify for affordable housing and, if they do know, they have inadequate tools for searching for and managing any potential units that come onto the market.

[1] [https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/new-york- ny?box=-74.232...](https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/new-york- ny?box=-74.2326937861,40.5060863643,-73.8454257197,40.757517642)

[2] [https://livelovely.com](https://livelovely.com)

[3] [http://www.socialserve.com/tenant/CA/index.html?ch=sjc](http://www.socialserve.com/tenant/CA/index.html?ch=sjc)

</comment><comment><USER13> 69 requests, 4.6 MB, 20 second load time. Fix yours first.

</comment><comment><USER14> Not going to lie, I nominated Facebook for having fake news and advertisements.

<comment><USER15> Really? I nominated fixthisshittywebsite.com. I thought everyone else did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just nominated [http://www.msn.com/](http://www.msn.com/)

<comment><USER17> TBF, it's optimized for IE/Edge (browser).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What happens after I nominate a website? I'm not sure what the follow-up is. Does it go on a list? Generate a leaderboard? Send leads to this Matthias guy?

</comment><comment><USER19> so what actually gets done with the submissions? I will admit, when I first got started out freelancing we (my business partner and I) would find local businesses with outdated websites and offer our services, touting mobile/responsive as a selling point. Perhaps this is a way of crowdsourcing the same?</comment>


PayPal locks HackRF Blue funds - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hackrf-blue#activity

<comment><USER2> I see this a lot in general online. Paypal treating people like absolute crap and simply locking their funds for 'suspicious behaviour' and then just sitting on them for very long periods of time, gaining interest at the end- user's expense. The trouble is, Paypal can get away with it because they're so embedded in the standard end-user's online way of life. Shopping on Amazon? Might as well use Paypal, it's quick and easy. Ordering Pizza? Hey, I can just use Paypal for this, too!

I don't see the issue resolving itself until a viable alternative starts to knock Paypal off its golden pedestal.</comment>


Ask HN: Are we still in a tech bubble? - <AUTHOR> Haven't heard people talk about that in a while. Has is just been overshadowed by the block chain bubble, or was there never really a bubble at all? Maybe it came in for a soft landing? Could it be that the media got tired of that story and it's actually worse than ever and ready to pop? <comment><USER2> Bubbles, like Recessions, are designated with certainty as having occurred, only a few months after they have occurred.

Mainstream media will always have stories like this every few months, because it creates F.U.D (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) which is a beast that feeds itself, with the end result that the stories get 100s and 1000s of pageviews in a matter of days = ad $ converted for said media outlet.

This is very similar to how the sports section teams of major news outlets declare that "Boxing is Dead" after every top boxer retires. They did it after Ali retired, after Tyson retired and most recently, after Floyd Mayweather retired. But Boxing is still alive and well to this day, even if viewership has dwindled from that in the 80s.

Related: Larry Merchant still writes letters to the local paper. This one is to the LA Times after their "Boxing is Dead" Article [https://twitter.com/steveucnlive/status/779413847102722048](https://twitter.com/steveucnlive/status/779413847102722048)

</comment><comment><USER3> When I think tech bubble I think of the dot.com years in the 90s. We're way passed that... The internet remains the driving force and backbone of any future tech.

If you think in terms of where the internet was, is and is going - you'll see there's plenty of juice left...

Internet v1.0 was primarily the internet of "links". V2.0 - which we're at the tail end of now - is the social network and connecting people. (I'm appropriating this "versioning" concept from something I heard or read - can't remember where)

We're on the verge of Internet 3.0 and there are multiple driving forces that will shape it: 1. cryptocurrency and decentralization of payments 2. blockchain and decentralization of ledgers 3. IoT 4. AI enhancements ... (non- exhaustive list & should be taken with a grain of salt as the things we think will be big never do end up being so... )

The focus on technologies that support decentralization and network resiliency will most probably continue - especially with net neutrality repeal.

</comment><comment><USER4> It doesn't feel like a tech bubble really. The recent crop of unicorns may not be as successful as FB/Google but besides theranos they're making good money. Most are busy burning free cash so there might be layoffs when/if that runs out. But these aren't the vaporware companies of the 99 bubble, they all make a lot of money.

Except magic leap...

Cryptocurrency sure as hell feels like a bubble. My friends grandma was asking him how to invest over Christmas....

</comment><comment><USER5> The global financial system is in the midst of an _everything bubble_ , and so in comparison to everything else, the tech bubble looks less significant than a year ago.

The current regime wont last long if US inflation picks up in 2018, which is likely but not certain.

<comment><USER6> How does everything go into a bubble? The cash or production of wealth has to come from somewhere.

<comment><USER7> Quantitative easing is 1 source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We're in a VC bubble. Tons of ideas are getting funded that have virtually no likelihood of producing any return.

I would guess that this bubble will fizzle rather than pop. When the pop begins, the VCs themselves will rather abruptly find it difficult to raise money for their next funds.

This will make it far more difficult for startups to raise or re-raise, but there won't be a sudden mass extinction. We'll see many fewer getting off the ground; and those that have already raised seed or series A will for the most part spend out their runway and then die quietly.

Unlike in the first dot-com bubble, nearly all startups in this wave have customers other than other startups, so we'll see some companies struggle but less of a domino effect.

<comment><USER9> My go-to example for this is Yik Yak, which raised >$70 million before introducing features that drove their users away. I don't understand how that much money could be justified given the feature set of the app, though I'm inevitably underestimating the cost of scaling.

<comment><USER10> They had something good while it lasted. On college campuses, it essentially functioned as an open chatroom for large classes. Of course, most of the fun was at the expense of the professor. That and random trolling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Everything is a bubble:

[http://www.mauldineconomics.com/editorial/infographic-the- ev...](http://www.mauldineconomics.com/editorial/infographic-the-everything- bubble-is-ready-to-pop)

This whole thing will come down to how the Quantitive Easing winds up:

[http://www.livemint.com/Money/hyDe0jAEnml43F1kd2FzhJ/Feds- Gr...](http://www.livemint.com/Money/hyDe0jAEnml43F1kd2FzhJ/Feds-Great- Unwinding-begins.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Nah, it's deflating in a relatively soft landing, though returns for most VC funds in the next few years are probably going to suck.

Most bubbles only really affect the people who buy in at an inflated price (the 2009 mortgage crash was an exception because there was so much counterparty risk that it nearly took down the whole financial system). Dot- com bubble made several retail investors lose their life savings, but if you didn't invest in dot-coms and didn't work for them, you probably weren't affected. Web 2.0 bubble meant that several young founders (myself included) had to go get real jobs. The mobile bubble is going to hurt the funds & accelerators that invested in these companies, and they may not be able to raise again, but outside them most people will go on with their lives.

Crypto bubble will likely be the same - folks who buy in at an inflated price now can expect to lose everything they invest, but losses will be limited to that. I know a bunch of people who have invested (again, myself included), but don't know of anyone who's put in money they can't afford to lose. I've heard it's different in South Korea.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think the bubbles have moved to blockchain, AI, and big data. Apps and dot com have solved many of the low hanging problems, but there are plenty more to solve or improve on.

Interestingly, people are solving these problems in the form of "side projects". Perhaps this means that the remaining problems don't work with the 'unicorn' VC model, but can make some solo founder a millionaire on their own.

</comment><comment><USER13> Tech appears to be going through a relatively soft landing at the moment. The past few years have seen a series A crunch affect the VC and startup worlds. More recently, the cult of the startup founder has started to crack with ethics, sexual harassment and poor behavior.

</comment><comment><USER14> I suspect it is more likely that the bubble was way overestimated by the media in the past.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes, buzzword driven business.</comment>


Show HN: Holiday project: Send thank you cards from the web - <AUTHOR> Put this together to make my own "thank you" cards easier to do. Got it done just in time for Christmas.<p>thankerin.com <comment><USER2> 1\. The purchase process is way too long. I counted 5 different steps before I got to the CC form.

2\. Don't ask for the email up front. Have people build the card first so they are emotionally invested in the process.

3\. Test those bootstrap buttons.

Now, here is how I would do the purchase flow:

1\. User lands. Clicks to get started. 2\. User pick design and fills in card. 2a. Then user enters the address of the recepient, and then his address. 3\. User clicks button that reads "Send Card Now." 4\. You take the user to the payment page where his information is already filled in (because he already provided it before). Different address on the card? Offer them the option to do it, but don't show the huge form. Use an accordion or modal for this type of stuff. 4a. Give the user the option to use paypal. 5\. When the payment is processed load another page where you will collect their email in order to give them notice of when the card shipped (important). 5a. Offer them an upsell to subscribe to a monthly "Love Letter" subscription service, where they can have a card with a love poem sent to their S.O. automatically. Charge them $3 a month, and be done with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another "You asked for my email to start the process so I closed the browser window" user here. And yes, I read your comments on the page:

"... we promise never to spam you or sell your email address to anyone."

Who is this "we"? I don't know you. I've never heard of you. Your promise is meaningless to me. It does not serve to make me feel better or get over the heebie-jeebies about giving up my email in any way whatsoever.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

So I went to Mailinator, got a DEA, and put it in - bam. Now I can at least check it out. Of course, 99.999% of users will not do this but anyway.

I'd think it's "four clicks" is the right number. At some point these users need to feel committed and want this enough to pay. You can't do that on the first page - you just can't. You need page views to build the commitment/excitement that makes someone want to pay:

1) User lands

2) User picks out card

3) User customizes card

4) User pays for card

You could move the email to the "User pays for card" step ("Would you like a receipt?"). You just have to decide on that yourself and go with whatever you select.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems like a cool idea. I can't do anything without giving an email though, so consequently I didn't do anything. Might be nice to let people see what you have to offer before they hand over their personal info.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Updated so it goes straight to the process first.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <https://thankerin.com></comment>


We switched to Amazon ECS and you won't believe what happened next - <AUTHOR> https://www.mapbox.com/blog/switch-to-ecs/?utm_content=bufferf5427&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> Make it longer. Title is way too clickbait to fly on HN

<comment><AUTHOR> Clickbait? Frankly, I'm not trying to attract clicks - I'm using HN as a free repo to save articles I find interesting and may want to refer to later. The clicks are just a coincidence...should I care what others think? Does HN penalize these kinds of posts? The sheer volume of unnecessary articles on HN would suggest otherwise. Please enlighten me if I'm egregiously violating protocol.

<comment><USER2> Woah not trying to insult you, was just browsing /new and saw the title. The post contents were fine. Any title that sounds like clickbait either doesn't get upvoted or will get changed by the mods.

Your title amounts to a longer version of "click here to see what happened next!" Instead of a summary of what actually happened.

<comment><USER3> The submitted title is that of the actual article. If you believe the title is clickbait, take some extra steps by recommending a better submission title and perhaps contact the mods via the contact link in the footer so it can be updated. If you don't think the submission is worthwhile for HN, flag it once you have enough karma to do so.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Coronavirus: 'strange pneumonia' seen in Lombardy in Nov, says Italian doctor - <AUTHOR> https://sg.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-strange-pneumonia-seen-lombardy-112931229.html <comment><USER2> If this was true, other countries in Europe would have started showing cases earlier.

<comment><USER3> I do not want to suggest anything but actually there was a bizarre increase in pneumonia cases last year due to vaping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If China wants be a powerful nation leading the world towards a brighter future, it needs to grow a spine and be able to handle/accept criticism. Without it, no one can tolerate intolerance to truth, facts and evidence.

</comment><comment><USER5> According to The South China Post.

<comment><USER3> Isn't not mentioned it was on on NPR? (I can't find it on NPR though) (edit: Found it, see my next message)

Citation: "They [general practitioners] remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November," Giuseppe Remuzzi, the director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, said in an interview with the National Public Radio of the United States.

<comment><USER5> The source is shown at the top of this article:

>Liu Zhen South China Morning Post 22 March 2020, 6:29 am CDT

<comment><USER6> That's the author of the article, not the source. The source quoted is

 _Giuseppe Remuzzi, the director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, said in an interview with the National Public Radio of the United States._

Said interview is linked in the sibling of your comment.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Run Perl in the browser with WebPerl - <AUTHOR> https://webperl.zero-g.net/ <comment><USER2> This is long overdue. As I'm sure any Perl developer that's had a chance/reason to use Javascript in more than the simplest of contexts will likely attest to, Javascript often feels like someone took some ancient proto- Perl, changed the syntax, and added a bunch of features that weren't tested for how well they meshed with the language at all.

Perl has it's fair share of syntactic oddities and mistakes, but once you understand the underlying themes and goals of the language,and how a few _core_ differences from almost all other languages inform it's use ( _statement context!_ ), it comes across as very thoughtfully designed and implemented. That isn't always apparent at first, and some people disagree with the design goals, but it does feel like it makes sense.

Javascript rarely feels that way to me. The more I can rely on only those new features the more I can fool myself into ignoring the ugly warts underneath, but they pop up whether you want them to or not (equivalence testing, null _and_ undefined, etc).

</comment><comment><USER3> Discussion on perlmonks: [https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1220426](https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1220426)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you host the page using Apache and ModPerl does the entire thing become isomorphic?

<comment><USER5> Pedantic mode: mod_perl has been neglected and somewhat discouraged as a way to run Perl web apps for at least a decade (for a variety of reasons, similar to the reasons mod_php, etc. are discouraged). There are a number of very good modern application servers in the Perl world, as you would find in most other languages commonly used for web apps.

<comment><USER6> Care to share any links to said best practices?

<comment><USER7> [https://plackperl.org](https://plackperl.org)

[https://mojolicious.org](https://mojolicious.org)

[https://github.com/miyagawa/Starman](https://github.com/miyagawa/Starman)

<comment><USER8> Having deployed Plack and Mojo in production, I would say Mojo's documentation is hard to digest.

If you stray from a simple web-server with routes, you are relegated to reading Mojo source code to identify how to integrate esoteric middlewares (I'm looking at you, JSON-RPC 1.0 and Azure AD). Weirdly, it shares this "no help off the golden path" problem with Varnish Cache's VCL docs.

However, Mojo is still the most full-featured library out there, and you can easily bend it to your will. Hypnotoad is a process-based worker pooling engine for Mojo; its performance is not terrible and debugging issues is easy.

<comment><USER5> I found the Mojo docs to be better than most Perl frameworks, but Perl web frameworks, in general, suffer from a severe lack of good examples and docs. There's just not as many people using them as Node or Ruby or Python or PHP or whatever, so you don't find as many videos and tutorials and such for anything outside of the most basic stuff. I think there's also a bit of bias toward expertise; most people still using Perl have years of experience, and so there tends to be a lot less hand-holding, which is a problem if (like me) you haven't followed Perl web development closely, and only have a sort of old school understanding of it. There's quite a bit of "now draw the rest of the fucking owl", situations, for me, in dealing with modern Perl concepts.

But, I like Mojo, nonetheless. It's really concise and does a heck of a lot with a vanishingly small amount of code (it's inspiring to see Perl excelling at something pretty modern, honestly).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's also a recent Rakudo Perl 6 in the browser via 6pad [https://perl6.github.io/6pad/#b4b147048a70e333e61ec8c2980964...](https://perl6.github.io/6pad/#b4b147048a70e333e61ec8c298096491)

</comment><comment><USER10> How is this different then Embperl? [https://perl.apache.org/embperl/](https://perl.apache.org/embperl/)

We used this old framework on a major corporate website I used to work on.

<comment><USER11> Embperl runs on the server.

I'll note that running Perl in browsers has long been possible, if the browser is MSIE on Win32 with Perl installed. I deployed a client-side Perl "solution" at my university in the 90s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Also related, PHP in the browser using webassembly: [https://github.com/oraoto/pib](https://github.com/oraoto/pib)

</comment><comment><USER13> We're flying too close to the sun here.

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't worry too much, they already tried this in the 90's and it didn't catch on...

[http://docs.activestate.com/activeperl/5.22/perl/Components/...](http://docs.activestate.com/activeperl/5.22/perl/Components/Windows/PerlScript.html#client_side)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So it continues, pandora's box was already open. :)

<comment><USER16> Do you mean people bringing their own compilers with web pages?

<comment><USER15> Yep, unless browser vendors change course, the revenge of plugins is near.

Prepare for Flash 2.0.

<comment><USER17> But if they all just compile down to WASM, why should anyone care? It's not like you'll need to install a new plugin for each new language you run across. You have a WASM interpreter already, you don't have to know or care about the process by which the site you're visiting turns source code into WASM bytecode.

<comment><USER2> > But if they all just compile down to WASM, why should anyone care?

Because some sites/people will implement a new deployment scheme that implements a new layout engine in a canvas, and use that to "prevent plagiarism" or protect data. Think an online retailer preventing price scraping, or some site that gets visions of grandeur about a more multimedia rich experience (like every photographer's website 15 years ago), or wanting to prevent ad-blockers or use dark patterns that browsers finally actively prevent.

There are business incentives for all these, in some cases if not necessarily for the end user, then for a company to trick end-users into thinking they need ("click here and for $10/mo more we'll add our patented anti- scraping/copying technology to your site!").

<comment><USER18> Seems like your issue is with the canvas tag and not necessarily with wasm as you could just do that in JS as well.

<comment><USER2> No matter how minified, JS is much more easily reversed and dealt with, and won't have the level of same performance that WASM does, so it's a harder sell.

It's sort of like saying that shipping an interpreted language file is just as hard to reverse engineer as a compiled binary. Sure, you can make the interpreted language harder to read by obfuscating it, but it's hard to compare with straight up machine code or byte code.

In addition, all the obfuscation techniques feed into each other. WASM through a canvas to protect content isn't all that useful if the content is built from JSON which is easily visible. But if that JSON is itself encrypted/obfuscated, that's harder. But determining the obfuscation method from JS code (minified or not) is much easier than determining it from machine/byte code. In both cases enough skill will bypass any mechanism since it's locally running code, but all you have to do is raise the bar high enough to dissuade _most_. An occassional switch of some underlying obfuscation methodology to make those bypassing have to continuously work at it, and you've got a system that does most of what's needed.

In the end, it's just like door locks. There's lots of technology that can be used, all of it is defeatable in some fashion, but there's things you can do to make it not worthwhile for all but the most determined. In the case of canvas content rendering, I think WASM might be the tipping point that makes this really feasible. I guess we'll see, it's not like there's really any way to stop it (nor is it clear we should try).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Pretty cool, but why would anyone new want to invest in Perl when it has the language problem of Perl 5 or Perl 6 ?

Imho they should just fork Perl 6 and continue developing Perl 5.

<comment><USER20> Perl 5 is a great language and does not deserve any of the hate it gets. Unfortunately the dev community is always on the look for bandwagons to jump into. It's a well thought out language with a comprehensive list of features nicely integrated together, a vast ecosystem of packages, very good documentation (has the best offline docs among all of the popular languages out there, after C stdlib), and has stood the test of time.

Perl 6 is a nice experiment and may hold some ground in the future, but is not a practical tool or something in the same space as Perl 5 today. It's very unfortunate naming IMO.

<comment><USER5> Perl 6 is as realistic an option as several other new languages. It is new(ish), and still has some performance issues compared to Perl 5 (though this is becoming less a thing, and there are now several areas where 6 is faster than 5), but it has had regular stable releases for nearly three years. You can deploy it today and expect the code to keep running in the future without major modifications.

I'm not using it in production, but I think one reasonably could. I suspect we'll be able to start shipping Perl 6 code in a couple of years (my company builds installable applications, and we don't want to maintain Perl 6 packages ourselves, so we need our target platforms to have good packages for Perl 6 available before we can ship it).

<comment><USER21> What does your company do to where they're chill with trying to ship p6? Just open-minded?

<comment><USER5> Who's "they"? I'm the founder of the company. It's small, we do what we want.

<comment><USER21> Ah sorry. I assumed a 500+ company with bloated and old-school IT like my own. I shouldn't have assumed that :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why? Just why?</comment>


Could the web app ad-driven business model exist in the real world? - <AUTHOR>

For instance, imagine a lounge where you can go and hang out. Pay for drinks, lots of couches, hang out with friends, and the catch is that once a week this place plays full records that won't be released for at least another month. You don't pay at the door, you don't pay per hour, you don't pay at all to just sit there. In return, at the beginning of the record they'll play selected ads, and on the days when they play advance screenings they'll plaster up some ads tastefully.<p>Could a cafe run in this way live (let alone thrive) in our current economy? Bigger picture -- could any business that gets revenue for its service (a cafe that plays advance music's service is the advance playing, not the cafe) solely from advertisements and sponsors? <comment><AUTHOR> I personally think it's interesting. A lot of B&M services are run the way they are because of tradition. Either you have the M&P private family owned businesses that have done it for years, or the big businesses who have similarly survived by playing by traditional rules.

Obviously those standards and traditions exist for a very good reason -- it works. I'm not saying it doesn't work, or that this model would work better, I'm just asking -- could it work at all?</comment>


Rebuilding Iron – An Application Framework in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jreem/from-the-forge-rebuilding-iron-953146828cc6

<comment><USER2> Great to finally see a versioning number! 0.0.1

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Ask away!

<comment><USER3> More examples would be great, including some musings about templating (i.e. a Rust equivalent to Rails' ERB templates).</comment></comment>


Poetic masterpiece of Claude Shannon, published for the first time - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=poetic-masterpiece-of-claude-shanno-2011-03-28 <comment><USER2> Wonderful.

Here's a personal recollection of Claude Shannon I always enjoyed:

<https://www2.bc.edu/~lewbel/Shannon.html>

And here's his classic paper (PDF):

[http://cm.bell- labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pd...](http://cm.bell- labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pdf)</comment>


Alternatives to Google Products(2019) - <AUTHOR> https://restoreprivacy.com/google-alternatives/ <comment><USER2> I've been tempted to switch off Android to one of the alternatives listed, but it's a big investment to try one out on my primary device. Downtime for install and troubleshooting could mean a missed call, which is also worrying. I probably just need to buy a used phone to try it out.

On desktop I'll blow away my OS on a whim, I'm much more confident that I'd get back to a working state quickly.

<comment><USER3> I've been using LineageOS on a Nexus 6P for a good while now. No Google Services/Play Store was especially challenging to adapt to. But overall the experience has been pleasant, rewarding and surprisingly trouble-free. As for missed calls, isn't that what voicemail is for?</comment></comment>


The plurality of uses for hemp - <AUTHOR> http://practicalhuman.org/hemp/10e3cfa80 <comment><USER2> The 3D printer filament is intrigueing. I wonder what the manufacturing process is for it - could a hemp farmer invest in the machine that makes hemp filament?</comment>


Ask HN: How many people pay for Sublime Text 3? - <AUTHOR> I've been curious, for a long time now, how successful a really popular app like Sublime Text 3 can be as nagware. <comment><USER2> It's an interesting question and I've wondered the same thing. winRAR is a piece of nagware that works great but has a reputation of people not ever buying it. I've seen phrases like "what?! you've actually bought winRAR" many times online. On the other hand, Sublime Text seems to have the opposite with lots of people proudly exclaiming they've purchased it. Without knowing actual numbers it's impossible to tell but there is some culture at play here.

The type of software probably plays a role as well. Sublime text is heavily used throughout the day but I can go weeks without needing winRAR.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've bought it, and bought a licence for ST2 a couple of years ago as well. I use it every day and feel kind of morally obliged to support the developers. I even spend money on Photoshop and Spotify every month.

</comment><comment><USER4> If by 'pay for it', you mean 'close the purchase popup subconsciously without even noticing it', then yes, I pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I paid for it, but am not using Sublime Text any longer. I now use phpStorm and Webstorm (paid for both, well worth the workflow/efficiency improvements) and Atom for one-off file edits. Just swap 'sudo subl /etc/hosts' with 'sudo atom /etc/hosts' and you're all good! ;]

<comment><USER6> I was using PHPStorm but stopped using as it adds a big data folder(idea) into the application folder along with several xml files which was messing up my GitHub push. I read some documentation but was not able to figure it out. Any idea how to avoid it? Thank you.

<comment><USER7> You should create a ~/.gitconfig file that specifies an excludes file for all of your git projects that keeps editor generated files/directories out of your repo. ([http://365git.tumblr.com/post/519016351/three-ways-of- exclud...](http://365git.tumblr.com/post/519016351/three-ways-of-excluding- files))

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the information. It was helpful.

<comment><USER7> No problem!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've paid for it, but have since switched almost entirely to Emacs(evil mode), Vim and IntelliJ. LightTable intrigued me for a while, but I'd say I'm more interested in the source code (as it's a sizeable ClojureScript application) than using it for active development.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have ST3 installed, but only as a secondary editor (primary is UltraEdit Studio). WinRAR was brought up and I do own a license for it. Granted, I purchased it about 6+ years ago, but still valid to this day.

</comment><comment><USER9> I pay for it , best purchase i've made.

</comment><comment><USER10> I paid for it and use it every day.

</comment><comment><USER11> Paid for it, learned vim, now it's gathering dust on my SSD.

<comment><USER12> How did you go about learning vim, and how long till it you became more productive with it?

<comment><USER13> Spend a few minutes each day writing some code in vim. Force yourself to use its macros and try and find new macros to use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> nope trialing it at the moment to replace notepad++ under windows, but I find the price hard to justify.

</comment><comment><USER15> I do.</comment>


There's Nothing Magical About Breakfast - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/upshot/sorry-theres-nothing-magical-about-breakfast.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 <comment><USER2> This reads like "I don't eat breakfast, so here's the reasons why I'm right." Studies that support his conclusion, while flawed, are probably right. Studies that oppose it are obviously tainted by various problems.

The fact that research shows that breakfast is actually beneficial for children is hand-waved away because 'reasons'.

This is honestly just a low-quality, cherry-picked opinion piece by someone who really doesn't like breakfast.

<comment><USER3> > _This reads like "I don't eat breakfast, so here's the reasons why I'm > right."_

Actually he gives very reasoned arguments and comments on meta-studies showing that he is right -- not that breakfast is bad, but in that it doesn't make any difference, and if it does nobody has clearly shown it.

(a) . In a paper published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2013, researchers reviewed the literature on the effect of breakfast on obesity to look specifically at this issue. They first noted that nutrition researchers love to publish results showing a correlation between skipping breakfast and obesity.

(b) However, they also found major flaws in the reporting of findings. People were consistently biased in interpreting their results in favor of a relationship between skipping breakfast and obesity. They improperly used causal language to describe their results. They misleadingly cited others' results. And they also improperly used causal language in citing others' results.

(c) Few randomized controlled trials exist. Those that do, although methodologically weak like most nutrition studies, don't support the necessity of breakfast.

(d) Further confusing the field is a 2014 study (with more financial conflicts of interest than I thought possible) that found that getting breakfast skippers to eat breakfast, and getting breakfast eaters to skip breakfast, made no difference with respect to weight loss. But a 1992 trial that did the same thing found that both groups lost weight. A balanced perspective would acknowledge that we have no idea what's going on.

(e) Many of the studies are funded by the food industry, which has a clear bias. Kellogg funded a highly cited article that found that cereal for breakfast is associated with being thinner. The Quaker Oats Center of Excellence (part of PepsiCo) financed a trial that showed that eating oatmeal or frosted cornflakes reduces weight and cholesterol (if you eat it in a highly controlled setting each weekday for four weeks).

Your comment however, reads exactly like you describe his, but for the opposite preference.

<comment><USER2> (a), (b), (d), and (e) are where he's argued that support for "breakfast is good" is methodologically weak, but then he goes and brings out (c) as an argument for his conclusion, while also being methodologically weak at the same time.

You've also neglected to mention (f), where the author discusses studies that show that breakfast is beneficial to children and then handwaves both of them away:

> What about the argument that children who eat breakfast behave and perform > better in school? Systematic reviews find that this is often the case.

and

> It has been found that children who skip breakfast are more likely to be > overweight than children who eat two breakfasts.

<comment><USER4> The quote between your two selected lines

> One of the reasons that breakfast seems to improve children's learning and > progress is that, unfortunately, too many don't get enough to eat. [...] > It's not hard to imagine that children who are hungry will do better if they > are nourished.

Seems a pretty valid point as opposed to handwaving. Nutrition research in general has a pretty studious history of ignoring results in an attempt to support pre-existing conclusions.

For support of last statement, see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-ration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-ration) (side note: military nutrition has a long and interesting involvement with civilian nutrition guidelines)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems pretty clear our understanding of diet is still in its infancy and news sites need to stop reporting every small piece of diet evidence as advice people should follow. Journalists in general need to do a much better job of explaining how robust new evidence is.

I love this website for health science news and wish there were more like it: [http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx](http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx)

In each article they break down what the actual study was, how robust the evidence is and what it says in the context of other research which you never see in mainstream press.

For example, this article traces a flurry of headlines in the mainstream press about the importance of breakfast back to the original research and critically looks at the evidence in depth: [http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/08August/Pages/Breakfast- not%20t...](http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/08August/Pages/Breakfast-not%20the- most-important-meal-of-the-day.aspx) It nearly always end in "needs further study" but it's sad there's no incentive for news outlets to have more accurate science reporting.

<comment><USER6> I'd say it is at least a ways into adolescence. Understanding vitamins and trace minerals was a pretty big step forward.

<comment><USER7> I actually think it wasn't. It was our first foray into nutritionalism [1], which is the belief that foods can be deconstructed, analyzed, and reconstructed and still be healthy. This has proven wrong over and over again. No matter how much we discover about what our foods contain, it's been consistent over the past 150 or so years that when we process food, it removes healthy stuff that doesn't get reintroduced when we try to add it back in.

The discovery of vitamins led to Wonder Bread, when we thought that we could make highly processed white flour healthy by adding vitamins. We now know that Wonder Bread, despite the vitamins, is one of the least healthy things you can put into your body since it basically converts directly to sugar. And that's just one example, the middle of a supermarket is replete with boxes of processed foods which claims to have added healthy stuff that have consistently made the people who consume them less healthy than the people who get their food from the produce and deli aisles, where there's no added vitamins and no such health claims.

If we've learned one immutable truth from recent health studies, it's that we're really bad at constructing foods that are healthier than what nature has already constructed. That's not to say that we shouldn't continue to try to learn about what's in the foods we eat, but that information should be used to constitute a diet of natural foods rather than foods engineered to be healthy.

Research, especially when it's reported without understanding like the media typically does, leads to fads that almost always turn out to be wrong. It's how we spent 4 decades trying to eat low fat which led to the highest obesity and diabetes rates ever. Meanwhile, those eating traditional diets based on the foods that their ancestors have eaten for generations are consistently healthier. Given that we know so much more about vitamins and minerals than they do, how is that they're so much healthier than us? If our understanding of vitamins hasn't made us healthier, is it really a big step forward?

[1] [https://metasteve.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/in-defense-of- foo...](https://metasteve.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/in-defense-of-food- part-2-nutritionalism/)

<comment><USER8> Except for people who eat Soylent, they're so far alive and healthy.

<comment><USER9> I've never been so sad as when I read the New Yorker profile[1] of the creator of Soylent. Most people understand that food can be extremely healthful, and is a crucial part of culture and social bonding.

[1] [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/12/the-end-of- food](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/12/the-end-of-food)

<comment><USER10> It's not so much the idea of smoothies or protein shakes or yogurt drinks or whatever (tasty) on-the-go nutrition you choose. It's the mentality around "lifehacking" and my work being too important and all-consuming to partake in the types of life activities that the muggles do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm sure there are many breakfast food manufacturers who would vehemently disagree with this article.

I recall hearing a story about how the father of modern public relations and propaganda (Eddie Bernays) played a key role in making sure that bacon and eggs were a part of an American breakfast. You can watch him in this interview explain how he created and manipulated a poll of 5,000 physicians to convince the public they should be eating a heavy breakfast consisting of bacon and eggs.

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

<comment><USER12> Bacon and eggs is still better than a sugar-blasted bowl of breakfast cereal, which it seems we are thankfully getting away from as the default breakfast.

<comment><USER13> Of course that's not what they taught us in school, which was that we were supposed to have a pile of carbs with more carbs sprinkled on top and wash it down with carb juice and milk. Bacon and eggs would kill you by clogging your heart with pan drippings.

<comment><USER14> Is there any scientific evidence that carbs are bad? It seems to be true on the internet, but I would prefer to see some proper peer reviewed studies.

<comment><USER13> Carbs aren't bad, they're just calorie-rich, hard on the pancreas and less satisfying than not-carbs, so you eat more of them.

<comment><USER14> They are as calorie rich as protein gram for gram, and less than half of fat. Have you any evidence for the other two claims?

<comment><USER15> [http://www.gnolls.org/2407/when-satiety-fails-why-are-we- hun...](http://www.gnolls.org/2407/when-satiety-fails-why-are-we-hungry- part-4/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> 'What made breakfast into a distinct meal dominated by cold cereal? Ad campaigns like the one that coined the phrase "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" in 1944.'

[http://priceonomics.com/how-breakfast-became-a- thing/](http://priceonomics.com/how-breakfast-became-a-thing/)

<comment><USER17> Thanks! Was looking for a comment about this. So many of the long surviving 'myths' seem to be traceable back to an advertising campaign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yikes, I hate to be "that" person, but when I pulled up that link it was worse than a paywall. They said I can either subscribe, or whitelist them on my adblocker. No preview of the content or anything.

No thanks, I'll take a pass on the malware this time and just read the comments from people willing to get through on here.

<comment><USER19> No need to hate being that person! The bullshit paywalls are obnoxious! It's good to know I'm not the only one annoyed!

<comment><USER20> Honestly, how are they obnoxious? They're asking you to pay for a service. I wish there were more paywalls in online journalism. Low-quality ad-funded journalism is how we get clickbait and crap like the Huffington Post.

<comment><USER21> Do you subscribe to all of the sites with paywalls?

<comment><USER22> Not the grandparent, but I don't run an ad blocker, which is how I "pay" for the sites. I do run NoScript, but I'll enable sites like the NYT.

It's sad how the entitlement mentality convinces people that they not only have the right to consume all media on the web for free, but they also have the absolute, inalienable right to view it without looking at ads. Because the

It seems very juvenile to me. "I want everything for free, even if it does cost money to create, and if I can't have it free, I'm going to post to complain about it!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd be interested to know whether the author eats in the evening. I don't think he mentioned one way or another. I don't eat anything after a light dinner and I usually wake up very hungry. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, but if someone typically sleeps 6 to 8 hours starting at, say, Midnight, and the last meal prior to retiring was at 7 PM, that is 12-13 hours without food.

<comment><USER24> I usually fast for 16 hours a day, and I don't wake up hungry at all. Usually I only start to get hungry around the ~14-15 hour mark.

Hunger is something that can be trained, not simply a static phenomenon. There's a reason you get hungry when you smell something delicious. If you eat every day shortly after waking up, I'd certainly expect to be hungry at that time.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, when I was doing keto for weight loss for a few months, I just naturally ate one big meal in the evening, and usually a snack of almonds a few hours before. And that's it.

I was never particularly hungry during my accidental 16-ish hour "fast". In fact, I usually had to force myself to eat a bit extra just to bring my daily calorie count up to something reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Honestly, fasting for >16 hr/d >> eating breakfast, in my experience. Pet- theory is that you get a lil' neurotransmitter upregulation as an added benefit ;)

Thoughts?

<comment><USER26> Anecdata, but I've found the same. I have more energy and better performance (for physical activity and cognitive activity) when I fast for the majority of the day.

Not a fan of gimmicky diets but my eating pattern seems similar to "the warrior diet", look it up if you're curious. I just think that in nature (if we were wild humans) we wouldn't have access to a huge meal right out of bed, We'd have to work hard all day to hunt and gather our food, then celebrate as a group with a food orgy around the fire.... okay I got a bit carried away :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Isn't the first meal that you eat in the day your "breakfast?"

Because wouldn't that be the time you "break" your "fast".

<comment><USER28> Yes from the "words have meaning" point of view, breakfast is unavoidable.

<comment><USER29> There are other points of view?

<comment><USER30> Taking your question seriously, yes. Two major schools of thought are "prescriptive" vs. "descriptive". This terms are usually applied to the noun "grammar" but it works for vocabulary, too. See: [http://amyrey.web.unc.edu/classes/ling-101-online/tutorials/...](http://amyrey.web.unc.edu/classes/ling-101-online/tutorials/understanding- prescriptive-vs-descriptive-grammar/)

Descriptively, breakfast is clearly an early-morning meal eaten within an hour or two of the end of sleep. There is also, at least in America where I can speak for it, a set of associated "breakfast foods", making it reasonable to "have breakfast for dinner" and most people know what you mean. (i.e., even my 5-year-old knew precisely what that meant when I first said it, so one should carefully consider one's internet-pedant options before claiming that makes no sense :) ) Prescriptively one could make a case for "the meal that breaks your fast", though I daresay it would be a rather weak case. The term "fast" is almost dead in modern American English, though it may be making a comeback via things like Intermittent Fasting: [https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners- guid...](https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners-guide-to- intermittent-fasting/) (Which, for the purposes of this post, I'm merely pointing out a word usage. Though I do it myself now, I'm not defending or advocating it here.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> My breakfast was magical - amazing smoked kippers, marmalade and toast, freshly roasted and ground filter coffee, a handful of fresh berries, and that was just the first course!

<comment><USER32> Waffles at the right time with coffee can be magical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Here's what I think:

People who are college students, young professionals, _esp._ developers and entrepreneurs often work late into the night, either because they're partying or because they want to put that one problem to bed before they go themselves.

They often eat small snacks at night. Some wake up early, some wake up late, but many rush to work and forget breakfast.

As a result, their bodies adjust to intermittent fasting, and they actually have good calorie intake. Provided they don't eat junk food.

People who have been doing that since their early 20s are for the most part not overweight.

That's my theory. You could also do intermittent fasting by skipping dinner, but few night owls would do that. Instead, they eat dinner and some snacks at night, it digests overnight and they aren't hungry in the morning.

</comment><comment><USER34> tldr: methodological flaws and conflicts of interest undermine supposed superiority of breakfast

</comment><comment><USER35> I am just so unsettled by those broken yolks (I like my egg sunny side up), that I couldn't read the rest of the article.

</comment><comment><USER36> Also see this nice YouTube channel:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syleh_6Aopw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syleh_6Aopw)

</comment><comment> UK-AL I'm a victim of this myth. I'm just not hungry in the morning. Some people love breakfast, and that's ok.

But don't barrage me with "it's the most important meal of the day" old wife tales, when you don't understand my lack of hunger.

</comment><comment><USER37> Why does everything have to be so polarized anymore?

<comment><USER38> "Breakfast isn't magical" isn't a polarized position. The polar opposite of "breakfast is magical" is "breakfast is evil", a position this article is at pains not to take.

<comment><USER39> I'm not sure that "evil" is the opposite of "magic"

<comment><USER40> It's the perfect opposite if you look at both words the way you have to look at them when they appear in writing about nutritional science. There, both could only ever be used as deliberate exaggerations of the healthy/unhealthy dichotomy, because neither Hogwarts nor James Bond supervillains have a place there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> "As with many other nutritional pieces of advice, our belief in the power of breakfast is based on misinterpreted research and biased studies."

This is the real piece of truth in this article.

</comment><comment><USER42> Breakfast became "magical" to me when I started eating high-protein breakfasts - basically eggs and bacon or sausage instead of cereal. The years I ate cereal for breakfast, I was battling to stay awake until lunch time. I felt so sleepy in class. Years later I moved to San Francisco and started eating eggs almost every day in SoMa cafes. I could not believe the difference. I was wide awake and had so much more energy.

<comment><USER9> I recently re-introduced chicken into my diet after 12 years after being a vegetarian. I started eating chicken breast for breakfast instead of the usual toast and peanut butter, and the difference in my energy level is astounding. I'm no longer carb-foggy, my digestion is much better, and I don't have to eat again until well into the afternoon or evening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> As somebody who does weight lifting I can say from my experience that I performed much worse back then when I didn't take the time to eat a breakfast before going to the fitness studio.

I actually even had to stop the training sometimes because I had to vomit. (probably too low blood sugar)

During that time I made very slow progress.

Since I started to eat breakfast 2-3 hours before training I never had any issues and I also gain more weight (muscles)

<comment><USER44> > Since I started to eat breakfast 2-3 hours before training I never had any > issues and I also gain more weight (muscles)

I think this is the important part. Breakfast (the morning meal) isn't the critical factor, it's having the nutrients (proteins, sugars, etc.) in your body when you need it. If you worked out in the evening, like me, you'd probably find that a decent sized lunch + a small mid-afternoon snack would be fine, breakfast optional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Heh. I'm a breakfast eater now.

I used to not eat breakfast. I'd be _starving_ at 11:45am when it was time to go out to lunch with my coworkers.

I decided to make some changes in my diet so I wasn't so hungry for lunch and could make better choices. Started eating a healthy breakfast every morning.

I was _starving_ by 12:00pm.

So, for my anecdatel point, I think it has more to do with when your body expects food than actual hunger.

</comment><comment><USER46> There's nothing magical about the way the author dismiss breakfast either. In the end it's an article where the author says that "breakfast research is flawed" and "I don't like breakfast".

I'm disappointed on how the author missed intermittent fasting which, even not being scientific consensus, has many studies in favor of not breaking the fast.

</comment><comment><USER47> I can highly recommend "The diet myth" by Prof. Tim Spector, who does a good job in explaining why there are so many myths about nutrition, food, digestion etc:

[http://tim-spector.co.uk/](http://tim-spector.co.uk/)

<comment><USER48> FiveThirtyEight had an article about this recently: [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what- you...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-read- about-nutrition/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I don't eat breakfast since a long time. I wake up at 11am-12pm and sleep at 3-4am. I just sleep through it. Does that mean that my lunch counts as a breakfast?

</comment><comment><USER50> Well, magical or not, I do not want to be hungry until lunch.

<comment><USER51> The author doesn't get hungry before lunch. Maybe that seems weird to you, but it doesn't to me. I don't get hungry until lunch, either.

<comment><USER50> Not really weird, no. I felt that way when I was in high school. But now my habits have changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> If I don't eat breakfast, I get a headache after I eat lunch. So for me breakfast is the equivalent of two Excedrin Migraine. Pure magic!

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm also not hungry in the morning, but without breakfast I feel sleepy and often get headache. So I'm not sure what author was trying to prove here. Natural schedule and physiology is different from person to person.

<comment><USER54> > _So I 'm not sure what author was trying to prove here. Natural schedule and > physiology is different from person to person._

That sounds exactly like the thing the author tries to demonstrate: There isn't a clear-cut evidence that breakfast is important, or that it is bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Time is an illusion. Breakfast time, doubly so.

</comment><comment><USER56> Eating requires a lot of energy. Eating too much in the evening will for example impact negatively your sleep.

Therefore, it is better to have a good breakfast and lunch so you can skip dinner or have very light dinner (lean protein, veggies).

If you skip breakfast, you will have to eat dinner/late dinner. Goodbye good night sleep.

<comment><USER57> I sleep fine when I eat late, perhaps even better because my stomach is full and that feels good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> >I don't eat breakfast...In fact, I'm rarely hungry until about lunchtime. So, other than a morning cup of coffee, I don't eat much before noon.

This is fairly amusing. First, coffee is a well known appetite suppressant. Second, unless coffee is black it is probably far from zero calories, with dairy and sugar maybe between 200-300 [empty] calories which would be in the ball park of bacon and an egg.

Of course some starbucks drinks can easily be >600 calories so who knows, the author could be drinking a coffee every morning that is closer to the caloric equivalent of pancakes with syrup.

<comment><USER59> > This is fairly amusing.

Or not. The effect of caffeine as an appetite suppressant is nowhere close to letting you skip a meal (that's what we are talking about when saying breakfast, not 5 corn flakes with a sip of milk). A lot of people take their tea/coffee without sugar and the calorie content of a table spoon of milk is negligible.

<comment><USER58> >The effect of caffeine as an appetite suppressant is nowhere close to letting you skip a meal

I don't know what you mean by saying caffeine doesn't let someone skip a meal, no one is asking permission. Most can skip a meal with or without caffeine, but the caffeine would only help curb hunger pains in those few hours before lunch. I am not suggesting caffeine has some magical properties (though we all know it does).

>A lot of people take their tea/coffee without sugar and the calorie content of a table spoon of milk is negligible.

Ok lets use your example of how _a lot_ of people take their tea/coffee. A Starbucks 16oz coffee with _no sugar_ and just 2% milk still has over 100 calories (120), just shy of a 12oz coke (140).

Clearly, whether or not that is negligible is sadly a matter of opinion more than science, because you say it is and I say its not. Consider this though, while sugar in coke is no doubt the larger health issue, you won't find to many people who say the amount of empty calories from a coke every day over a year is negligible (maybe just the Coke people themselves, but they will also say the sugar isn't an issue). Nevertheless, what you define as negligible calories is still more than an egg, still more than 2 pieces of bacon...and none of the nutritional value.

<comment><USER60> That's all milk though, and be sure you look at the unsweetened data.

A 16oz, Ice Coffee (which is what I prefer so that's what I'm posting), is a mere 5 calories[0] - drip coffee with no sweetener or splenda or some other low/no calorie sweetener would be the same.

[0] - [http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/iced-coffee/iced- coffee...](http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/iced-coffee/iced- coffee?foodZone=9999#size=106510&sweetened=0)

<comment><USER58> I acknowledged that in my original post:

>Second, unless coffee is black it is probably far from zero calories, with dairy and sugar maybe between 200-300 [empty]

Notwithstanding the fact that you and I tend to drink coffee black, we likely are in the minority. The fact that starbucks beverages are over 200 calories at a ratio of 5:1 tend to support my assumptions about the demands of the market (based on a sample of 51 starbucks beverages).

I think a lot of people took issue with my figures (200-300), but they are starbucks figures not mine. Still my point remains, even if an average coffee is 120 calories a number others have conceded who otherwise said I grossly exaggerated, I wouldn't consider that skipping breakfast insofar as one can have a very nutritious breakfast for that amount of calories (say 1 whole egg and 2-3 egg whites; even bacon and an egg).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can JavaScript be treated like machine language? - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering if it's possible to treat JS as if it's a CPU instruction set and then building a compiler back-end for Clang or GCC for it.
Even if it's not possible for Clang or GCC, any reason(s) why JS cannot be treated as a machine language, potentially using a subset of it in the beginning.
I imagine the "model" would be centered around DOM manipulation and AJAX facilities.
I'm sure I'm not the first one to ask this, if people have relevant links to share, would love to see them. <comment><USER2> Uh... does this list of "languages that compile to Javascript" count? :) [https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of- langu...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-languages- that-compile-to-js)

More specifically, Emscripten seems to be exactly what you're describing: [https://github.com/kripken/emscripten](https://github.com/kripken/emscripten)

<comment><AUTHOR> These are more like transpiling, right? That is, there is a direct translation from <language> into JS?

I was thinking more along the lines of how a compiler works, translating into some kind of AST and then converting into JS from the AST.

<comment><USER2> "Transpiling" _is_ compiling. The term is just used to refer to output that is another high-level language, rather than some kind of assembly or bytecode.

While I haven't looked at the implementations of any of those compilers, I would assume that most of them do actually parse their source language into an appropriate AST, and write out JS based on that AST.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it. Thanks for the links too, helps to get some context around this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> See asm.js. This is exactly what you propose.

BTW, asm.js has been superseded by Webassembly which ditches Javascript completely.

<comment><AUTHOR> As I understand Webassembly, it's meant to replace JS completely as a native implementation in a browser. That is, it's meant to replace the JS interpreter.

Not sure if I understood it correctly though.

<comment><USER3> Not exactly.

The browser, instead of downloading javascript, downloads WASM bytecode, and this bytecode gets compiled ahead-of-time to machine language and ran by the browser.

The bytecode itself is the product of compiling a source code written in the language of your choice, for example Java or something more advanced like INTERCAL.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see, that makes sense. The bytecode part still has to be implemented in a browser though, right?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dyson to make electric cars from 2020 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41399497 <comment><USER2> Since the most complex part of a car (IC engine) is on its way out I think we can expect a lot of companies/people with big pockets enter this segment but whether they will make or loose money only time can tell.

<comment><USER3> I imagine it'll be like the current smartphone market; all the internals are made by a handful of companies with design being the real differentiator

<comment><USER4> Yet Apple builds as much as it can itself and doesn't share anything. Which sounds even more closed than the existing car market (who will sell you a drive train, follow standards, and aren't forever locked in patent wars despite rampant copying).</comment></comment></comment>


The 40-30-30 Rule: Why Risk Is Worth It - <AUTHOR> http://the99percent.com/tips/6103/the-40-30-30-rule-why-risk-is-worth-it <comment><USER4> As somebody that does alpine skiing and is a great fan of the sport, I feel I should elaborate on that analogy. You see the coach was talking about practice. And yes in practice you should be pushing yourself and risking a fall.

There is a tradeoff between speed and risk in slalom. The faster you go the more likely it is to fall or miss a gate. But skill goes into it too. A more skilled skier will be able to go faster without making any mistakes. And how do you get skills? Well you practice. That's why you should practice at speeds that tend to cause you to fall. Because as you keep falling your skills at that speed increase and eventually you will fall less and less until you stop falling and you are able to ski reliably at the higher speed. If you practice at comfortable speeds, you will not gain the skills to deal with higher speeds. But all of this is true because it is training and in training the cost of a fall is more or less nothing (again we are talking about slalom here, not downhill where one fall can easily kill you).

Of course when you start racing things get different. One fall or missed gate usually disqualifies you from a race. Also, a single race includes two runs down the hill. Thus, one could race brilliantly for most of the day and fall in the end of the second run and become disqualified. A world cup run involves many races around the world, wherein each skiier earns points for each race and the points are added up in the end of the year to determine the gold medalist.

So an elite skier can afford to ski relatively safe in order to get consistent results over the many races. What you actually see in slalom is that many of the top skiers do not ski as fast as they are capable during the year. They want to control their risk. It is the younger and less known skiers that try to ski as fast as they can, because they figure if they play it safe they will probably finish behind the experienced guys, but if they risk it all they might get first place and make a name for themselves.

So the lesson of embracing risk works only during practice and not always during the race.

What life or business lessons one can gain from this? I don't know I just felt like talking about skiing. But hey I have one, maybe if you are a startup founder you should be like a young and inexperienced skiier and risk it all, because if you play it safe you will always get beaten by a big company playing it safe.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would add to this that it's important to view optimism and pessimism in the face of risk as a conscious choice. Which view you take is your strategy for acting in the face of that risk.

The research presented in the book "Learned Optimism" by Martin Seligman more or less tells us that people who make this choice consciously have the highest rates of success in life.

The rule, then, is if the consequence of taking the risk and failing is dire, you should be pessimistic, otherwise, always be optimistic. That is, if failing would be catastrophic or really bad, believe that the worst will happen and act accordingly. If the consequence of failure is trivial or not a problem, believe that the best will happen and act accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER6> Expressing the percentages this way is misleading, because it leads people to believe that they should allocate their time proportionately to the different factors that lead to success. This is pretty ridiculous on it's face, but I'd say >90% of athletes and coaches believe it, even on the professional level.

While strictly speaking we could probably do more to educate people about this fallacy, it would probably just be easier to express the same idea with respect to time. That is, figure out how you should be spending each day to maximize success, and then go from there.

Let's say you train 3 hours a day. Of that, maybe 90 minutes should be cardio, 60 minutes should be strength, and 30 minutes should be devoted to pushing oneself. And while these high intensity pieces are mostly designed to make one mentally tougher, they also make one physically stronger as well. So therefore, we get that ~10% of success is mental.

The good thing about expressing the problem this way is that it leads people to measure what they do and optimize their training according to what's empirically happening to their bodies and performance, rather than arbitrarily choosing some system and ignoring all feedback.

<comment><USER7> Misleads who exactly? There are many things to which we ascribe ratios that have nothing to do with time. For instance, people say poker is 80% skill and 20% luck (more for tournament poker, less for limit ring games). Does that mean we should spend 20% of our time rubbing rabbit's feet? Not to anyone who has spent anytime playing poker.

I have been involved in sports at a fairly high level, and to assume that 90% of athletes (or other professionals) apportion time based based on non- concrete goals is, frankly, naive. First a non sport related example: Let's assume we have a Rails programmer who really wants to gain experience with Scala. I would contend there about 0% chance he sits down and says I want to spend 30% of my time learning Scala and then starts reading books. A more realistic scenario would likely revolve around picking a project and spending time completing that project, a concrete goal. The same holds true for a professional baseball player. When he goes out and takes hitting practice, it is not just to hit better, it is to improve his swing motion or change his mechanics, or mess with his footwork, all concrete goals. Yes, he wants to improve his swing, but there is no way he goes out there and says I want to spend 30% of my time improving my swing, he thinks, today I will work on my stance and tomorrow I will work on my grip etc. Sorry if this is belaboring the point, but I think it nonsensical to assume that high-level professionals anywhere do this kind of rationing.

That's not say that we should do away with non-concrete goals altogether. They are important drivers and having some indefinite goal for the future is a good mechanism to drive us to do the smaller things. That said, it is my experience that we partition time for concrete things (heavy bag work, jump rope, complete newest incarnation of website frontend, practice mozart on piano, etc etc.) more efficiently, and most importantly way more often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Favorite bit from the article: If you're not falling at least once per day, you're not trying hard enough.

There's a saying in football that's more funny but the point is the same: If you're not cheating, you're not trying.

<comment><USER9> If everything seems under control then you aren't going fast enough - <USER2> Andretti

{ If you've never hit the ground while skydiving, you're opening your parachute too early.

If you've never gotten food poisoning, you haven't been eating interesting enough food.

If you've never gotten a speeding ticket, you're driving too slow. } - <USER3>

To wit: Maximize your expected return.

<comment><USER10> Is hitting the ground while skydiving ever survivable?

<comment><USER11> Ordinarily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some risk is good but too much risk is just plain stupid. You have to gauge the situation and make a calculated guess. Take software development for example. Going dark (i.e. without customer feedback see <http://www.dynamicalsoftware.com/news/?p=61> ) risks your application's relevance but it is necessary or you will never get any coding done.

</comment><comment><USER13> well, my coach told me while pointing to some "optimistic risk taker" like this with such mental self-confidence:

\- Regardez, ce qu'il fait, c'est très dangereux, il ne maitrise pas du tout ce qu'il fait: _il fait ce qu'il peut, et non pas ce qu'il veut_. Il va finir se casser, ce n'est pas comme ça qu'il faut faire...

...and the real trouble is, is that he puts others on the slope into danger as well.

<comment><USER14> Would you please translate it? I don't want to translate via google as it would certainly miss something.

<comment><USER15> \- Look at him, what he's doing, it's very dangerous, he isn't in control of what he's doing at all: _he's doing what he can, not what he wants._ He'll end up broken (), that's not how one's supposed to do...

() probable missing word here

<comment><USER14> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article came at a perfect time for me. Thanks!

Edit: Nothing in it is anything especially new it just reminded me of a simple fact.</comment>


Why reading 100 books a year won't make you successful - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/why-reading-100-books-a-year-wont-make-you-successful-1863dad5944d <comment><USER2> Reading is input. To be successful, you have to produce output. If you spend too much time on input, there's not enough time for output.

<comment><AUTHOR> It took me many years to build up the courage to go full time on my business. All the books I read gave me that confidence. I was thirsty for knowledge and reading other experiences made a difference for me. I had a rough guide about what was ahead.

At some point you need to stop reading and start executing. But, don't feel bad about reading if you still haven't filled you tank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think speed reading is a great skill but rather for reading articles when I need to learn something quickly or find specific information - then "scanning" the text is useful.

For books? Come on... Just dedicate some quality time daily and choose a book wisely.

</comment><comment><USER4> I agree with the title but highly disagree with much of this article.

Speed reading does work well, but you have to deliberately practice comprehension. I've read well over a million words in the last month. Fiction and history books are especially wordy, but are worth reading fast. Ever read Stephen King? He's got some excellent ideas, but you have to just slog through the descriptions. I'm grateful I can speed read as it makes the book more like a story that flows.

But in general, the really good books are very hard to read, because the ideas are hard to grasp. Going for X books a year means you end up selecting "easy" (and thus, less impactful) books.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think the objective of reading books is to be successful.

This has the same problem as "going to college won't get you a high paying job".

</comment><comment><USER6> My problem is that I stick with a bad book for too long. I keep thinking there'll be more 'good' parts, but it's lost time.

I'd probably benefit from reading fewer books, but sticking with quality material.

<comment><USER7> it took me a long time time to reach the level of maturity as a reader to say "enough is enough" and dropping books a couple of hours in. "starting what you finish" at any price is a waste. Life is too short for bad books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reading doesn't make anyone successful. Working does. Reading improves your knowledge if you read the right stuff. Working and applying what you read improves your odds.

</comment><comment><USER9> Reading for reading's sake is entertainment. You have to actively put what you learn into action for the knowledge to be effective in your life. You can't do that when you read 2 books a week.

<comment><USER10> The other problem is _what_ you read; if you're reading 2 books a week... you're probably not reading very good books, if only because it would be difficult to maintain a backlog of good stuff at that pace. You normally build a library of hundreds of books over a decade, and a thousand books in a lifetime is _impressive_.

I wouldn't be surprised if most people reading at this pace have a library similar to barnes and noble, with perhaps the cult classics of their field. But I can't imagine their actually committing to much research in each subject area, and thus, not much depth

<comment><USER5> Given that many people don't read in the first place, I'd be very happy having people reading a library similar to Barnes and Noble, and I think this attitude discourages reading overall. People generally get into reading by finding things they like first.

I think this falls into an optimization fallacy, where you are trying to optimize for some faraway conclusion like success and miss the forest for the trees. Reading, even a fun novel, is very beneficial.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but reading 100 books by michael crichton doesn't offer much value beyond the first.

My point is that _both_ quality and quantity are important (and diminishing returns apply). The speedreaders described in the article Im assuming have focused primarily on quantity, leading to the lack of value derived.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> swingline-747 Felix Dennis called these sort of cargo-cultings "point-at-the-sky guide to success." If the billionaire points at the sky, clearly that's really, really important. _sarcasm_ ;)

</comment><comment><USER11> He could have written too : "Why reading 1 article a day on medium won't make you successful".</comment>


Rust gets a faster sort implementation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/38192 <comment><USER2> The code review here is excellent and supportive. I'm very impressed.

<comment><USER3> I've submitted a couple of small patches and the Rust core team has always been very helpful and pleasant.

<comment><USER4> I once submitted a patch to Cargo. Despite being uninformed and violating code style rules which I should have read and known about, they patiently guided me, I resolved the issues, and it ended up being merged. They're great folks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The original TimSort had a problem:

[http://envisage-project.eu/proving-android-java-and- python-s...](http://envisage-project.eu/proving-android-java-and-python- sorting-algorithm-is-broken-and-how-to-fix-it/)

I assume the author knows about that and/or it does not apply to this modified version.

<comment><USER6> Author here. Yes, this is an interesting problem TimSort used to have. A counterexample to incorrect TimSort is sequence "120, 80, 25, 20, 30". This simple sequence could have been easily discovered by generating sequences randomly and verifying that the TimSort invariants hold on it. The fact that it took 13 years to discover the bug (using formal verification!) is just silly :)

Fortunately, the problem is easy to fix and there's a brief mention of it in the comments: [https://is.gd/txKd4I](https://is.gd/txKd4I)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Enjoyed reading the review process. Thanks for sharing on HN!

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't mean to be off-topic (sorry!), but what's the best CGI/FastCGI library for Rust? My impression is that it's not ideal for webapps at the moment, and I'm comfortable with that. Putting all of Python into a webserver chroot isn't exactly ideal either. I specifically ask about Rust because when I looked at it a while back, it just felt so right to me.

<comment><USER9> It looks like there are a few CGI crates on crates.io, but they're not super popular. Crates.io uses [https://github.com/emk/heroku-buildpack- rust](https://github.com/emk/heroku-buildpack-rust) in combination with [https://github.com/ryandotsmith/nginx- buildpack](https://github.com/ryandotsmith/nginx-buildpack), which puts nginx in front of a Rust application server, communicating over a socket. See here: [https://github.com/ryandotsmith/nginx- buildpack/blob/master/...](https://github.com/ryandotsmith/nginx- buildpack/blob/master/config/nginx.conf.erb) for the default config, [https://github.com/rust- lang/crates.io/blob/0f3adf36108dfac6...](https://github.com/rust- lang/crates.io/blob/0f3adf36108dfac662e3463b4ff97567261f5de9/config/nginx.conf.erb) for the one we actually use.

(Given this is offtopic, I'll leave it at that. Happy to answer questions over at [https://users.rust-lang.org/](https://users.rust-lang.org/) )

<comment><USER3> > Crates.io uses [https://github.com/emk/heroku-buildpack- > rust](https://github.com/emk/heroku-buildpack-rust)

Oh, wow, maintainer here. I had no idea. :-) Thanks for making my morning, and never hesitate to send PRs!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which of your degrees was most difficult/required the most intelligence? - <AUTHOR>

I have had numerous discussions with peers about which area of study was the most difficult/required the most intelligence to achieve a degree-level of knowledge.
There are many (understatement) ways to measure difficulty/intelligence and unfortunately people with the most narrow collegiate/academic/etc. focus often have the most closed minded view on the topic. What are the experiences of people who have multiple degrees – especially with minimal subject overlap.
Notes:
• By degree I mean degree or equivalent degree-level of structured knowledge acquisition. Also, I am referring to various levels of degree – Minor, Undergrad, Masters, PhD., etc.
• I am using difficult/required intelligence/etc. in the broadest sense possible. I am interested in other ways people might measure or quantify the challenges required to obtain a degree level of knowledge in any field. <comment><AUTHOR> My degree level areas of knowledge:

• BS Computer Science (including 6 masters level courses)

• BA Graphic Design Minor – The Minor was officially added the year after I graduated, I met all of the equivalent requirements but do not have an official minor.

In both areas I have have continued to take structured action to improve upon my skills and increase my knowledge.

\-----

What was more difficult?

•Overall my computer science courses were more challenging in a mathematically academic sense – especially in the courses where I had the lowest levels of prior knowledge.

The graphic design program I was in was more challenging in the realms of self evaluation and critical feedback. Objective observation/evaluation/criticism were larges components in early GD classes. Evaluating the quality of CS homework is extremely clear – so clear it can usually be evaluated programmatically. This is not the case in a subjective medium like graphic design.

</comment><comment><USER2> Asking what sort of degree requires more intelligence is kind of a misguided question. Intelligence depends on the task at hand. A degree in physics doesn't require more intelligence than a degree in anthropology, or vice versa. They require different types of intelligence. Intelligence is just the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. To say that one task requires more intelligence than a task in a different area of knowledge isn't a great comparison.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently, the last bullet point in this post was either not read by you or not clear enough. I am interested in first hand comparisons in the difficulty various degrees.

I am absolutely certain that certain things I have done are easier or harder than other things I have done. Some tasks clearly require more intelligence than others. For example, folding clothes requires little intelligence compared to getting any degree (based on my measure of intelligence). In a less clear sense degrees are not all the same difficulty and require different levels of intelligence (hence this question and my curiosity).

I am wondering: Given your measures for intelligence/difficulty, share what parts of various degrees were more difficult for you.

Also, share how you are measuring your intelligence/difficulty.

These are the complex topics that I am curious about.

TLDR; I am interested in first hand comparisons of getting different degrees.</comment></comment>