700+ hp electric Honda S2000 built by high school senior - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2012/09/16/700-hp-electric-honda-s2000-built-by-high-school-senior/

<comment><USER2> There's much more information in the linked forum thread: [http://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/975497-wait-that-isnt- an-f20...](http://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/975497-wait-that-isnt-an-f20c/)

For example, he also built a keyless entry system with an arduino board and an iPod. This kid is pretty amazing.

<comment><USER3> Does anyone else not see any of the pics submitted by the OP in the forum?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's no way he's getting 700+ HP from those two warp 9 motors. It says each motor is capable of outputting 34HP continuously: [http://electriccarinternational.com/media/img- prod/WarP_9_Sa...](http://electriccarinternational.com/media/img- prod/WarP_9_Sales_Sheet-1.gif)

<comment><USER5> That appears to be at 144 volts and 500 amps. His stated plan is to deliver 343 volts and 2000 amps. Assuming this doesn't melt the motors, he'll get more power than the datasheet claims. That said, his calculations might be a bit off.

144Vx500A = 72KW or 96.5HP. He's assuming 85% efficiency, which would give 82HP, not 34. Furthermore, if the motor were to deliver 100 ft-lbs of torque as stated at its stated maximum speed of 5800 RPM, that would be 110HP. This would obviously require more than 72KW of electrical power input.

Taking the ratio between the motor's stated performance and the electrical numbers given on the datasheet, and multiplying by the electrical power he intends to supply, we get 34/96x920 = 326HP. This too seems a bit off, as 35% efficiency is quite low for an electric motor. My guess is that the motor is actually incapable of producing its full torque at higher RPM.

My guess is he will actually produce something resembling the amount of power he's hoping for, but only briefly, after which they will deliver no power at all, ever.

<comment><USER6> Without the torque-speed curves for these motors, you just can't tell.

The actual graphs are at <http://www.go- ev.com/images/003_09_01_WarP_9A_Graph.jpg> and <http://www.go- ev.com/images/003_09_02_WarP_9_SpreadSheet.jpg>

_My guess is that the motor is actually incapable of producing its full torque at higher RPM._

Correct. At 100 ft/lbs the speed drops to just over 2000 rpm.

I would guess these motors have a thermal fuse wound into the stator coil (source: spent a summer in a rewinding shop), and if he tries to drive them much outside the design limits, they'll simply cut out, perhaps permanently.

EDIT: the datasheet mentions a temperature snap switch, so it sounds like they have a non-permanent cut-out on thermal overload.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let´s see if he get´s this thing working. Building two e-motors and some batteries inside a car is a very "easy" task compared to building the "control unit" and cooling the batteries down. This two motors will draw a lot current, the electrics to control this huge amount of current will be a hard task to figure out. Another one is the battery cooling. 700hp will take a lot energy, the batteries will get very hot. If you ever had played a 3D game on your phone, you know what I mean. ;o)

If he get´s this thing working, it would be really great! I can´t wait to call a electric car my own. :D

If you interested in such kind of work, you should search on Youtube for "electric VW Golf II", "electric VW Polo" or "electric VW Käfer". ;o)

<comment><USER7> And if he want´s to build a "good" electric car, he should keep an eye on the EMF and EMI radiation.

<comment><USER8> Good point, although I can see the ricers using this to cause trouble instead of their boom boxes instead :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Introductory blog post here: <http://electrichonda.blogspot.de/2011/05/introduction.html>

Juan's project is impressive, no doubt, but his analysis of the superiority of electric cars is suspect. He writes:

 _The average car uses about 20% of the potential energy of the fuel in useful motion while wasting the other energy as heat, noise and pollution. Electric cars use upwards of 80% of their 'fuel', a percentage which can be increased relatively easily as most of its losses are electrical._

The biggest problem is that he's treating the electricity in the battery as raw fuel. He does acknowledge that most electricity in the US comes from sources like coal, but ignores various losses between that coal and his car flying down the road. Let's add those in.

The best we can do from a coal plant is about 49%[0]. It may be possible to use the waste heat from such a plant for other purposes; I am not including such uses in this calculation as they do not have anything to do with powering the electric car.

The US power grid is around 93-94% efficient[1].

Electric cars don't get all the power from the grid in to the batteries as chemical energy. Charging batteries generates quite a bit of heat. The EPA estimates that the best electric cars are 62% efficient at converting power from the grid in to kinetic energy[2].

So we have 49% * 94% * 62% = 28.6% efficient at converting the chemical energy in coal to propelling the car. This is not a dramatic improvement over internal combustion. There is, of course the advantage of using power sources other than coal and oil, but the claimed efficiency is not quite what electric vehicle proponents would like it to be.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aved%C3%B8re_Power_Station>

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Los...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Losses)

[2] <http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml>

<comment><USER9> If you want to include the efficiency of the entire electrical pipeline, then you need to do the same for the gasoline/diesel engine.

How much energy is used for the extraction, refinery, transport, and distribution of gasoline/diesel fuel? I suspect 26% efficiency for gasoline would also be extremely high compared to reality if those costs were factored in.

<comment><USER5> I'm talking about the efficiency of the pipeline starting with a fossil fuel and ending with a car moving down the road. It's also fair to start the comparison with a fossil fuel in the ground, but in that case you also have to start the electric pipeline at a coal mine.

Electric might well win by a significant margin, but it isn't nearly the 85% to 20% claimed.

<comment><USER9> Well, your car comparison started at electricity production. At the very least, your gasoline example should start at the refinery.

Does anyone know the efficiency of the average refinery? Or distribution costs? My suspicion is that they are actually just as bad as the overhead of burning coal.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure what the 'efficiency' of a refinery is. In terms of energy consumed per energy produced? How about equipment/installation costs, costs to the environment, man-hours etc. All different units, hard to avoid apples/oranges issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Props to the kid for being such a whiz, but DAE shudder at the thought of a 17-year old getting behind the wheel of this thing? My mom's minivan had about 150hp and I still managed to do incredibly stupid shit with it. All the while believing I was an above-average driver...

<comment><USER12> I've met anyone who doesn't describe them self as a above-average driver

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I just wondering where he's getting the cash to convert his s2k into an electric drag racer. I wish I had that kind of access to car and batteries as a kid.

<comment><USER13> It says he runs his own CAD business, and I imagine he's from a fairly cash- rich background.

<comment><USER14> He also mentioned he's getting some sponsorship in the forum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting that he bought the batteries "in china" (his scare quotes), I'm wondering if they are off market copies? Having built high current battle bot battery boxes I get really really twitchy around "good deal" battery packs. That said, its amazing how 'off the shelf' this tech is becoming. Hats off to this guy for taking the challenge.

</comment><comment><USER16> His project inspired me to write a blog post: [http://blog.octanenation.com/news/high-school-senior- builds-...](http://blog.octanenation.com/news/high-school-senior- builds-700-hp-electric-honda-s2000/)

It's a complex undertaking and he will definitely learn more than his classes in high school!

</comment><comment><USER17> Just read through the whole thread on the s2000 forum, I'm an auto enthusiast but I was more interested in how this kid knows how to do all of this more than I am interested in the car. 16 years old and you know how to retrofit an s2000 with a custom electric motor and build CAD models of it!?

<comment><USER18> He's 16 years and 300 months old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Only a 15% loss of power to the wheels is very low.

Just the drivetrain loss on muscle cars is around 30% approximately.

<comment><USER20> Honda has fantastic performance gearboxes and drivetrain loss is usually in the low 20%.

Also most muscle cars are slushboxes and the torque converter ruins efficiency.

<comment><USER19> looks like tesla's are about 88% efficient, so definitely in the range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What's the weight of the 104 batteries and the gain/loss after removing the gas engine and replacing with electric?

<comment><USER22> A123 cells are about 180wh per kg, hes using 20ah _4 at 104 cells in series. so thats about 104_ 3.7 = 396 volts at 120ah. multiply that together you get 47kwh of energy. These batteries would be around 500lb.

These battery pricing must've came down a lot over the past couple years because this would've cost something like $40k couple years ago, but a quick google for pricing looks like the battery pack he is using can be bought for around $13k pricing source: [http://www.a123rc.com/goods-468-Excitingly+Powerful+A+123+20...](http://www.a123rc.com/goods-468-Excitingly+Powerful+A+123+20ah+PRISMATIC+CELLS.html)

<comment><USER21> 500lbs in batteries and a quick search shows each of his motors is 156lbs. Since the gas motor he took out weighed 326lbs, he's got a net gain of ≈ 480lbs. That's a lot to overcome.

<comment><USER23> These cars offer excellent balance, handling and braking from the factory. I'm guessing all of those _may_ suffer after gaining that much weight.

I had an '05 S2000. I wish I still had it, wonderful car.

<comment><USER24> Agreed. Best car I ever had (and totalled).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'll be interested to see how he's going to deal with the torque problem that Tesla had to solve.

<comment><USER26> I'm interested in how he's dealing with even simpler problems like charge time and battery life.

<comment><USER7> Me, too. I don´t see any battery cooling system. This will be a problem, if he´s getting it to work. With these big motors, the batteries will get very hot ... and maybe, burn down ... or at least don´t work very long.</comment></comment></comment>


5.05 Gigawatt Titan Wind Project is... Titanesque - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/5-gigawatt-wind-farm-south-dakota-clipper-bp.php

<comment><USER2> Hmm - thats a little more than 4 times the power needed to power a time travelling Delorean...

... Great Scott!</comment>


Huawei is treated differently from other companies that have violated sanctions - <AUTHOR> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-us-not-china-is-the-real-threat-to-international-rule-of-law/ <comment><AUTHOR> I changed the original title because it seems unnecessarily provocative. Regardless the article has some interesting paragraphs:

 _Ms. Meng is charged with violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. Yet, consider her arrest in the context of the large number of companies, U.S. and non-U.S., that have violated America's sanctions against Iran and other countries. In 2011, for example, JP Morgan Chase paid $88.3 million in fines in 2011 for violating U.S. sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan. Yet Jamie Dimon wasn't grabbed off a plane and whisked into custody._

 _And JP Morgan Chase was hardly alone in violating U.S. sanctions. Since 2010, the following major financial institutions paid fines for such violations: Banco do Brasil, Bank of America, Bank of Guam, Bank of Moscow, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Clearstream Banking, Commerzbank, Compass, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, National Bank of Pakistan, PayPal, RBS (ABN Amro), Société Générale, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Trans Pacific National Bank (now known as Beacon Business Bank), Standard Chartered and Wells Fargo._

 _None of the CEOs or CFOs of these sanction-busting banks were arrested and taken into custody for these violations. In all of these cases, the corporation – rather than an individual manager – was held accountable._

</comment><comment> a0-prw The fig leaf known as the rule of law, covering international relations, was definitively removed by the invasion of Iraq. A big war is coming.</comment>


"The whole world ought to be concerned": HK lawyers on Beijing's "clarification" - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/830533/the-whole-world-ought-to-be-concerned-hong-kong-lawyers-react-to-beijings-clarification-on-oaths/ <comment><USER2> What is the world going to do?

Boycott Chinese goods? That would entail massive economic pain.

Do a UN resolution? China is a permanent member of the Security Council with veto power.

Launch a military intervention? This would make people wish for a low casualty war like WW2.

Secretly arm a Hong Kong insurgency? No matter what arms Hong Kong has, China could destroy the rebellion with an army armed only with sticks due to the massive population difference.

There honestly is pretty much nothing Hog Kong or the rest of the world can do except whine.

<comment><USER3> This is a silly reply.

We should calmly and firmly articulate our objection to the Beijing's hardball tactics. This interpretation, like PRC behavior in the South China Sea, represents further evidence that Beijing has little regard for rules that constrain their power to act. If the international system has an investment in rule of law, we should see these actions as evidence that China is an unreliable partner in a rules-based order. We should be wary of including China in liberal institutions that are at the core of that order. Nations around the globe should adjust their relations with China accordingly.

A good start would be public statements supporting rule of law and respect for the use of the judicial system to resolve issues questions of legal interpretation. Foreign businesses with significant operations in Hong Kong should take note that Hong Kong is at risk of becoming more like mainland China (i.e. weaker courts, stronger political control), and consider moving operations if this would impact their operations or bottom line.

<comment><USER4> A public statement. So, to be charitable to the person you're replying to, that would be filed under "whining". The fact that we have no real moral authority with which to whine doesn't help either.

<comment><USER3> Moral authority doesn't come into it. The key questions are: "Does China care about rules?" And: "What do China's actions here say about how it will act in other circumstances?"

Should we see China as a reliable partner in the South China Sea? (No.) What would a regional economic order look like under China? (Maybe TTP isn't so terrible.) Should companies continue to use Hong Kong as a base for legal operations in China and SE Asia? (E.g. Singapore is looking better and better for arbitration.) Certainly, Taiwan should take note what any promised autonomy would look like if China offers a grand bargain to reunify.

Countries should see how China acts, note it, and behave accordingly.

<comment><USER4> >Moral authority doesn't come into it. The key questions are: "Does China care about rules?" And: "What do China's actions here say about how it will act in other circumstances?"

Well the answers are clearly: "No" and "A lot" respectively. If you think the world needs the US of all countries to trumpet that fact, you're delusional. The problem there is that they see how we act too, and they're probably not so dim that they can't appreciate why we get off on pointing fingers at "bad guys".

This just in: We're the bad guys too... we're all pretty bad guys in direct proportion to the power we wield, and in inverse proportion to our accountability. China, Russia, the US... lots of power, virtually no accountability.

A strongly worded statement is just a bad joke that people see through these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "I do not know how we are supposed to proceed," Dennis Kwok, a lawyer and > legislator said.

Call your local Communist Party office. They will tell you how to proceed.

Oh you wanted rule of law and freedom of expression? Move somewhere that respects it.

The Chinese government gives approximately 0 shits about Hong Kong's silly foreign ideas and just wants to extract as much wealth from the area as possible before redwashing it. Their days of freedom were numbered from the day the Brits took over.

<comment><AUTHOR> Acquiesce or move are not adequate options.

Bringing the matter to the public stage and attempting to hold Beijing accountable is the best available option.

Will this influence Beijing? I don't know, but I doubt it.

Will 10 or 100 instances like this, or disputes in the South China Sea identify Beijing as a bad actor? Yes.

I don't disagree with where you are coming from, but it sounds like you are endorsing giving up.

Matters such is this will take decades, now is not the time to give up for the Hong Kong or Chinese citizens that seek freedom.

<comment><USER6> > Acquiesce or move are not adequate options.

We live in an inadequate world.

(See also: ongoing US election, or Erdogan's purges in Turkey)

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is that the options are not binary as proposed by the post I was responding to.

I'd argue the third option, which I proposed, is adequate, and the best if only because it includes hope over the long-term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Forgive my being naive, but isn't HK part of China? Why is it the rest of the world's problem? If China wants to mess up one of the world's great cities, it's their right. If the US wants to mess up New Orleans, it's not for other countries to intervene.

<comment><USER8> Unlike New Orleans, Hong Kong was not a part of its current country just 19 years ago, but was under the control of Britain. It's also one of the world's most important financial centers. So it is deeply connected to the outside world and its existence and current status are owed entirely to outside forces and agreements with them.

Hong Kong may be a part of China but China does not own the people of Hong Kong like some sort of property.

<comment><USER9> They never chose to be part of the British empire... Which gave them back to China.

<comment><USER8> True, but they didn't choose to leave it either. Britain had agreed 100 years earlier to return HK to China and kept its promise.

Really HK should have become independent, but no doubt China would still claim it as theirs.

<comment><USER10> Did they have even have a choice under Britain control? Nowadays at least you hear the voice

<comment><USER8> Yes, they were eventually self-governing under the British and were British citizens from 1904 onwards. Though it was a long and winding transition from a colony to a self-governing territory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The media really downplayed what those two did. I really want to know what American gonna do if Hillary call all African American the n word after she wins.

</comment><comment><USER11> Inasmuch as Trump gets significant mindshare/voteshare today, it's largely because of fears that something similar might happen here.

Hillaty Clinton has stated that she thinks the SCOUTS decisions in _Citizens United_ and _Heller v. DC_ were wrong. She wants do-overs on them both, and will nominate only justices who will reinterpret the laws as she sees fit.

I'm no Trump supporter but that is _scary_. Inasmuch as we have a constitution that means anything, it means the rights so protected by that constitution can't be just interpreted away by nine men and women who don't think you should have them anymore.

And no, _Citizens United_ isn't about campaign finance or "getting the money out of politics". It was about a corporation paying for their own movie to be distributed and advertised with their own dollars. The movie could be wildly inaccurate and needlessly fearmongering -- and probably is, I've never seen it -- but the First Amendment should nevertheless forbid government from banning private entities from producing or exhibiting it, or the amendment has not very much meaning at all.

<comment><USER12> My understanding of the case is different that yours. I don't want to get into a political disagreement so I'll leave it at that.

I think it is unfortunate that Hillary made that statement about SCOTUS, but at the same time it is not unprecedented for SCOTUS to reverse itself. Look at Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. There are many others as well.

Also, it seems disingenuous to call out Hillary for this and not Donald Trump (and many more republicans) who only want to nominate SCOTUS justices who will strike down Roe v. Wade.

<comment><USER13> _" Also, it seems disingenuous to call out Hillary for this and not Donald Trump (and many more republicans) who only want to nominate SCOTUS justices who will strike down Roe v. Wade."_

Every election, the boogeyman of a Republican-stacked SCOTUS tearing down Roe v. Wade is brought up. There have been _five_ Republicans in office following the ruling (Nixon [in office at the time], Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43) and it has yet to happen, under far more conservative atmospheres.

I don't buy the fearmongering on this front.

<comment><USER12> Trump[1] and Cruz have said this. Are they lying?

In the past, the supreme court wasn't the political football it has become today.

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/19/trump-ill-appoint-supreme- cou...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/19/trump-ill-appoint-supreme-court- justices-to-overturn-roe-v-wade-abortion-case.html)

<comment><USER14> Slight counterpoint:

I believe Republicans want to campaign on overturning _Roe_ , and do want to chip away at it in ways which don't completely overturn, but that they want to be able to _continue_ campaigning on overturning it, forever.

They're not idiots. They know they have a topic that gets a lot of single- issue voters to go out and cast ballots every election. And they know public opinion is overwhelmingly against fully overturning _Roe_ , so if they ever succeeded they'd be in trouble: a lot of the country would be against them, and the single-issue hotheads would no longer have a righteous cause to motivate them to vote.

So what they want is the campaign issue, not the reality of actually overturning it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lunar orbiters find most recent volcanos on dark side of the Moon - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/07/lunar-orbiters-find-most-recent-volcanos-on-dark-side-of-the-moon.ars <comment><USER2> I do get so annoyed when people talk about "The Dark Side" of the Moon. It actually gets more light than the side we see (by a tiny margin because it's completely symmetrical except for lunar eclipses, and the far side is never eclipsed)

It's just ignorance to call it "The Dark Side"

</rant></comment>


Ask HN: Questions for Wes Bos about how he learned coding without a degree? - Pete-Codes I'm interviewing Wes Bos soon for my blog: www.nocsdegree.com<p>Does anyone have anything they want to ask him about how he learned to code or about his courses? I was pretty surprised that he did Business Management at college and not Computer Science given he makes a very good living now teaching Javascript. <comment><AUTHOR> Lots of people learn to program without a degree. Is it a particularly interesting thing in some way?</comment>


You can see through frosted glass by using clear tape - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sehnaoui/status/1086315467160072192 <comment><USER2> The point seems to be "apply to the frosted side".</comment>


Trump Admin launch FindSomethingNew campaign about job train and opportunities - <AUTHOR> https://findsomethingnew.org/ <comment><USER2> Politics aside, this seems incredibly tone deaf.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand why everyone keeps repeating this "tone deaf" sentiment. A time when many people are unemployed and looking for work is _exactly_ the right time to launch a campaign educating people about additional job opportunities they might not have previously considered. There literally couldn't be a better time.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This seems related to the executive order from couple weeks ago on skill based hiring instead of degree based hiring:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/why-we-need-new-trump- execut...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/why-we-need-new-trump-executive- order-on-no-college-jobs-hiring.html)

Related tweet:

[https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/1283138411268841477](https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/1283138411268841477)</comment>


Show HN: Feel who is calling you. Caller ID with vibration patterns for Android - <AUTHOR> https://market.android.com/details?id=com.base2apps.vibes

<comment><USER2> Vibration pads could be more widely used than they are. I'm thinking of the direction belt, and, then, this. It's a great, non-other-disturbing asynchronous alert. You could have one on your watch band, or tucked inside your belt.</comment>


How Frank Lloyd Wright Tried to Solve the City - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/05/frank-lloyd-wright-tried-to-solve-the-city.html <comment><USER2> There are more architects who tried this. Christopher Alexander dedicated a lot of time to solve building countries to doorsteps.

What amazed me after reading some of his books are the physical effects of today's cities on humans (and animals).

Some examples:

Living higher than 4 stores: there is evidence that this will disconnect you from the life happening on ground level.

Streets made for cars: cars are more important than humans.

<comment><USER3> To clarify: these are examples of what NOT to do, and Alexander stated them as such.

<comment><USER4> I disagree. I can't ride a human to work. :-)

<comment><USER3> That's the point: bad city planning forces you to use a car.

Compare that to a city like Groningen:

[https://vimeo.com/76207227](https://vimeo.com/76207227)

<comment><USER5> Groningen, a city of less than 200,000, is not scalable for the biggest cities in the world, which is the problem. Biking across New York or L.A. is not even remotely feasible. I'm not saying better cities are not possible, but just putting everyone on bikes is not even close to a solution. You'd be better off going back to horses.

<comment><USER6> Well 1 horses are dangerous (horse riding is a high risk sport) 2 the removal of the horse poop becomes a major issue.

I cant see a problem in riding across New York - I have done cross central London a few times.

<comment><USER5> And you are of course, elderly or handicapped, correct? Or you need to travel with two small children? And when you say you biked 'across New York', you mean from Long Island or Yonkers to Manhattan or some similar commuter trek, correct?

<comment><USER6> Across manhatten yes done that distance many many times in London its surprising how quickly you can get from a train terminus in the north over the river on a bike.

You can get kids bike seats and trailers I see a tandem with a kids trailer do a commute from my village to the local town (3 miles quite often)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd recommend Leon Krier's Architecture of Community if you want a better look at this: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Architecture-Community-Leon- Krier/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Architecture-Community-Leon- Krier/dp/1597265799) He gets somewhat repetitive and preachy, IMO, and I don't feel the book delivers on its promises, but it's a much more in-depth look at the ideas faintly alluded to in the article.

Differently, check out Vishaan Chakrabarti's A Country of Cities, which disagrees with Krier (and thus agrees with Wright) on the skyscraper: [http://www.amazon.com/Country-Cities-Manifesto-Urban- America...](http://www.amazon.com/Country-Cities-Manifesto-Urban- America/dp/1935202170/) It suffers, IIRC, from not enough citations but is otherwise pretty strong on its argument.

I tend to lean towards agreeing with Chakrabarti and Wright more on the vertical space issue, largely because Krier never quite managed to form a coherent argument against density except that it was being done badly. Krier, on the other hand, highlights the idea of the poly-centric city which is at least a reality in Seattle (where I live).

</comment><comment><USER8> The article mentions that his spread out, one-acre-per-person city "would be connected by a complex design of streets and highways."

Is anyone familiar with his highway plan? My impression of city planning is that roads are the hard, boring part, so I'm curious if Wright's roads were just a thing he drew between his beautifully arranged buildings and parks, or if he had an actual plan for how to move people efficiently around his cities.

Saying "everyone should live close to their workplace" only works if you have a single, mega-office/industrial park, with all of the housing arranged tightly around it. Once you have _two_ places people can work, changing jobs requires people to change houses, and only people who work together can live together. So in practice you need to have a transportation system that allows everyone in the city to commute between work and home in a short amount of time during a small window of time in the morning and afternoon.

Sitting in traffic in a beautifully designed city does not sound particularly more fun than sitting in traffic in a poorly designed city.

<comment><USER7> > Saying "everyone should live close to their workplace" only works if you > have a single, mega-office/industrial park, with all of the housing arranged > tightly around it.

You're assuming zoning.

Check this out: office. And then put a house on top.

More reasonably, do what I ended up having to do in SimCity: zone a couple spaces as commercial, then zone another couple spaces as residential, and then zone another couple spaces as commercial, and keep flipping back and forth.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't matter if you have zoning or intermingled commercial/residential.

I work at Industrial Widgets, it's in an intermingled commercial/residential building, there's an apartment free on the three floors up from the very office.

My wife currently works at Consolidated Sprockets across town. There's an apartment across the street. However, it's just an internship at she hopes to get a job at Conglomerated Weevils in a few months. It's located in a third location.

Where should we live?

<comment><USER7> [edit] I wrote a thing about transportation, but I didn't realize you were criticizing Wright's plan, so nevermind; I've actually never found a reason to admire Wright and the article didn't really do anything for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I recommend everyone to visit his masterpiece building: Fallingwater tucked in the Pennsylvania countryside, and also a nearby smaller house Kentuck Knob. I visited both twice. During my second visit I stood breathless before the Fallingwater and weeped, so beautiful and perfect it was.

<comment><USER10> Seconded. I wrote up a little piece about my visit to Fallingwater and why it particularly fascinates me, as a software engineer:

[http://www.zerobanana.com/essays/fallingwater/](http://www.zerobanana.com/essays/fallingwater/)

(Kentucky Knob is also really interesting, and so close that it's certainly worth visiting both if you're in the area.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> No discussion of cities and reimagining them is complete without referencing Jane Jacobs.

Her approach was almost the direct opposite of Wrights (and of many urban reformers). Her focus was the street and interactions between residents, shopkeepers, and other inhabitants of the city. Her realization (mirrored well by Garrison Keillor in a biographical documentary I caught a year or so back) was that _cities are collections of neighborhoods or villages_. rglover her contrasts his impression of Chicago with the small towns of Ohio in which he grew up. My experience with large cities is that frequently their _downtowns_ are impersonal (though even there I've found my niches), but it's in the neighborhood that their character really shows. Sometimes it's a character you don't much care for, but often there's a sense of place and community, even in dynamic and rapidly changing cities, which can persist for years, decades, or even generations. It does take time to appreciate and find, though.

Back to Jacobs: finding her _The Life and Death of Great American Cities_ was a watershed for me (and I can still remember the marginalia in my uni's copy at one of her common-sense observations: "God bless you, Jane"). _Cities and the Wealth of Nations_ and _The Economy of Cities_ changed many of my perceptions of what economics was about and where its real centers lay (it's rarely nations or states, cities and metropolitan areas, yes).

Wright's interesting. But he's no authority on cities or urban planning.

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

</comment><comment><USER12> Frank Lloyd Wright tried to solve the city by destroying the city. His Broadacre design experiment is pretty much affluent, planned suburban America.

No thanks.

</comment><comment><USER13> I grew up in suburban Ohio and have lived in Chicago for the past two years. Before I moved, there was a longing to join the energy of the city. Ohio, by and large, is pretty slow moving. It wasn't until I got to Chicago that I realized the effect that change of pace had.

In order to both live and function in the city, I had to rewire my brain. I recall the first few months in the city being absolutely terrifying. Not because of any one thing in particular, but your sense of self starts to evaporate. You start to see the boundaries between _you_ and the universe. You feel small.

Occasionally, my girlfriend and I travel back to her home town. An honest to goodness town, too. It's classified as a "village." When I'm there, I often take walks around the entirety of the town. The change of pace is incredible. Even compared to where I grew up, there's a sense of serenity, not just in the immediate experience, but in the people.

The behavior you see there is a total 180 from what you experience in the city – a cold, dismissive brood that makes you feel entirely too insignificant.

When I moved to Chicago I made it a point to visit FLW's home and studio in Oak Park (about 20-30 minutes outside of the city). Though the area he built in has changed dramatically (based on the descriptions told as a part of the tour), there was something really serene about it all. His home was directly adjacent to his studio. Seeing this, the whole time I thought "yeah, I could dig this."

This article makes his vision sound akin to the modern day suburb, which, while there are similarities, doesn't feel like an accurate interpretation. If you get the chance to experience some of his more rural-based work, I would check it out. There's a certain flow to the buildings he designed that elicits a feeling of peace. I can imagine his plans outlined in this article were to accomplish that on a much bigger scale.

<comment><USER14> I think you're a harsh judge of cities if Chicago is your only example. I had similar thoughts about Chicago on a brief visit; that it's big, cold both physically and emotionally, windy... generally, somewhat hostile to the senses. I'm sure there are a lot of great activities going on that I don't know about, but that was my surface impression.

I live in Buffalo, New York which to me is a "just right" sized city. I can walk around the urban core as one might walk around a village. It's busy enough to feel lively on a business day, and relatively quiet in the evening.

Having grown up in the suburbs, I only now realize how isolating boulevards and strip malls can be. I like walking and biking. I see my neighbors more. I get more exercise. I create less pollution. I feel more connected and more alive.

I'm not shy to the charm and serenity of country living. The stars alone can entertain me for hours at night. It can be so enriching to have some space, some quiet, some separation, some peace. Some time to think and to work.

Wright's family-per-acre spread seems neither urban, nor rural; technically, 'sub urban' \- but not our current suburbia. Still, it seems to lose sight of the value of density. The highways he proposes would mean cars, noise, pollution, and isolation.

Buffalo has a trove of FLW treasures: his boathouse, gas station, mausoleum, Martin house, Graycliff. There is definitely something to them, a sense of space and elegance.

Having warmed to Buffalo's urbanism, the appeal of FLW's 'city' vision is lost on me. But his freestanding works are unique and worth experiencing.

<comment><USER13> Chicago is the only major city I've lived in. I didn't mean to articulate my feelings toward _all_ cities. There are parts of New York City that feel incredibly homey (strange as that may sound). There's definitely a size of city that's just right, like you've described here. I also used to live in Ann Arbor, MI. Considered a city, but also has a nice hometown feel to it.

I agree on the isolation of boulevards and strip malls. I prefer areas where there's a microcity/downtown area, but a lot of grassy residential space close by. The modern mega suburbs (with Best Buy's, Wal-Marts, and every fast food imaginable) are terrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As mentioned in the article, there's an exhibit right now at NYC's MoMA on Wright's ideas about the city: [http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1448](http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1448)

I saw it last week, and it's really great. They have the scale model he built there along with a lot of his drawings. A lot of fascinating ideas in there. I just wish I could locate some of his writings on the subject without dropping $200-$300 on an out of print copy of a portion of his autobiography or papers. :(

</comment><comment><USER16> Wasn't Frank Lloyd Wright the inspiration for the main characer of Ayn Rands 'The Fountainhead?' She uses him to draw a figure, mocked by regular architects, fighting against the 'fake' style of that day: architects trying to build 'classic' buildings from Greek times with columns and all. In the novel 'man' is what the buildings are about, if I'm correct. I don't know for sure, but I imagine Frank got his share of ridiculement as well.

<comment><USER2> From Wp[1]: _" The character of Roark was at least partly inspired by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Rand described the inspiration as limited to "some of his architectural ideas [and] the pattern of his career".[19] She denied that Wright had anything to do with the philosophy expressed by Roark or the events of the plot."_

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Howard_Roark](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Howard_Roark)

<comment><USER16> Hey thanks! I'd never realised they were from the same time-frame and knew each other. From the same article: "Rand's denials have not stopped other commentators from claiming stronger connections between Wright and Roark.[21][22] Wright himself equivocated about whether he thought Roark was based on him, sometimes implying that he was, at other times denying it.[23] Wright biographer Ada Louise Huxtable described the "yawning gap" between Wright's philosophy and Rand's, and quoted him declaring, "I deny the paternity and refuse to marry the mother."[24]"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> i can recommend Urbanized. a documentary about urban city planning. it covers lots of current ideas, and has interviews with many leading architects and urban planners.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1701976/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1701976/) [http://urbanizedfilm.com/](http://urbanizedfilm.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> See also:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Niemeyer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Niemeyer)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BAcio_Costa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BAcio_Costa)

and their work on:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia)

<comment><USER19> I lived in Rio for 3 years and every time I saw a building or design that didn't seem to fit, invariably it was a Niemeyer work or inspired by Niemeyer. You can still find the old Portuguese architecture in spots but you really have to look for it <sigh> maybe I'm just not modern enough.

<comment><USER20> Lived in Rio for long time and always go there to visit. Agree with you, Niemeyer stuff is just out of place, and some just look like badly aged sci- fi. Here in Sao Paulo there's this little mall on the first floor of one of his buildings, and none of the stores have bathrooms. I was told by an architect that Niemeyer, being a communist, wanted bathrooms to be collective. So you have to go up a flight of stairs and pee in this dark, dungeon-like cave that nobody uses anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've heard the name lots of times in a Simon & Garfunkel song but I didn't know who he was.

<comment><USER22> As someone who studied architecture for years, this made me literally groan out loud. Frank Lloyd Wright is usually the one architect whom people at least have heard of. One of the issues which has discouraged me from pursuing computer programming in the past is my impression that a lot of people involved in technology-related careers (ie my would-be future peers) have narrow perspectives on the world due to their reduced levels of interest in a wider liberal arts education, and it is annoying when I see something which confirms that. I really hope that I don't sound like a troll, but I also value giving and receiving honest feedback, and my guess is that some of you could probably benefit from looking away from the computer screen once and a while and exploring something new.

<comment><USER20> What are you talking about? Here in HN people are aware of and interested in a bunch of different subjects. Plus, unlike the liberal arts/artist crowd, they have tachnical knowledge and are usually more rational about their opinions and conclusions. So one person says he hadn't heard of Wright in the middle of many more people commenting the article, and you say hackers need to look more at the arts?

<comment><USER22> I'm not necessarily talking about HN, but about people I have known in person - classmates in college, people I knew socially afterwards, and (this probably has skewed my judgement somewhat) an ex-boyfriend. I also personally suspect that the phenomena may even be making some hard-to-trace contribution (through reduced opportunities to practice communication skills, limited peer groups, and less time spent studying human diversity and other cultures in general) to the headlines which keep popping up about how sexist the technology field is. I know that concern may sound extreme, and I really hope that it can be proven wrong. Obviously (and thankfully) none of that can be generalized, but the original poster's example was so shocking to me that I felt compelled to say something warning people that the situation is in some cases possible.

I also don't know what you mean when you say that people with technical knowledge (which I have some of) are "more rational about their opinions and conclusions" \- I sincerely believe that taking a literary theory class and learning about often-vilified (perhaps not here) ideas such as postmodernism and deconstruction improved my decision-making ability by allowing me to better understand both sides of an issue.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it better to start a business in society or on the frontier? - <AUTHOR> I mean figuratively, of course.
By "society" I mean how once something is invented legisliation gets put up all around it making it more difficult for upstarts.
You have to be a lot smarter to be on the frontier but there are fewer rules. AI, blockchain, and VR/AR all seem to be on the frontier. <comment><USER2> Edges and intersections are always more interesting. This is true across multiple domains. Coastlines, roads, music, business and academic fields to name a few.

Starting a business that relies on the edge of the frontier raises the stakes, higher risk and higher reward.

If you guess right that the market is going this direction you can get a head start on defining the new direction and you have little or no competition. However, it is very difficult to get all of the following right: technology, general market direction, timing of readiness to accept a new technology or process, brand desirability/acceptance and willingness to spend money on your innovation.

I have done some arguably cool innovative things at the edge. But here I am still selling my time. It is really tough to get them all correct.

<comment><AUTHOR> What lead you to trying things on "the edge" in the first place? Were you actively looking to make money or were you having fun?

<comment><USER2> I came from a research background - PhD dropout and although I made money selling my time in consulting there is part of the research mindset that stuck around.

One of the best ideas that didn't really work out came out of a casual conversation with a tech friend and my statistical background combined with his programming background suggested that we should just try it. The proof of concept worked. No one else seemed to be doing what we developed and competing techniques didn't get as good of answers. The application would have been in search. But at the time no one had yet made significant money in search. Google was still burning through VC cash and the investors that we had access to just couldn't see how search would ever become a big business.

In the end, we just walked away and went back to making a living in more ordinary manner. About 7 or 8 years later the kind of techniques/technology finally became hot with VC firms but we were not in a good place to circle back around.

So that is a long answer to "making money" versus having "fun". Building the proof of concept was mostly just for fun. After seeing cool results we spent some time and effort trying to figure out if it could be a business. In retrospect it feels like we should have found a way to persist.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sort of goes back to the same problem of simply knowing what to make, when. Im not even sure what I'd make if I could start two years ago knowing everything now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like your brain.

But in order for something to be salable, lots of people have to like it. If you are always on the leading edge you might be more in to research than business. There might even be grants available to help fund it. There are research laboratories that build things and then those inventions are used for entirety different purposes. The example I was given were the airport scanners could have been used in malls for fashion instead.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've seen a few times the term "smarter" almost used synonymously with crueler or more negligent to society. Conversely, "stupidity" means those that do the footwork of following a market's consumer or worker protections.

"Better", for now, might be business that elevates worker and consumer rights while still making a profit (or being non-profit).

As you mentioned blockchain, it's vastly driven by speculation (including manipulation), marking it a sign, in my opinion, of a dire state of capitalism as Marx explained best. Real estate markets are in a similar cycle.</comment>


Build an IDE with tmux and vim - <AUTHOR> http://alexyoung.org/2011/12/19/build-an-ide-with-tmux-and-vim/ <comment><USER2> One nit: "considering the loss of the convenience of mouse input"

You can get full mouse support in tmux/vim.

I recently read the tmux book by the pragmatic programmers and highly recommend it: <http://pragprog.com/book/bhtmux/tmux>

It's short, well written and contains lots of essential configuration tips to get not only mouse support but also system copy/paste on a mac. Here's my tmux.conf if you're curious: <https://github.com/briandoll/dotfiles/blob/master/tmux.conf>

<comment><USER3> I can second the recommendation for Brian Hogan's tmux book. I have a feeling it will become _the_ tmux book to get for some time. It's short enough that you can get through it without a major investment, and long enough that covers everything (and more) to become productive with tmux.

<comment><USER4> Wow, that's really humbling. Thanks so much for the kind words.

<comment><USER5> Please make your book available via Google Books if possible! I'd really love to purchase it, but I like to read in between devices and Google Books is the only platform that supports this well right now. Also, I like to keep it attached to a single account instead of having to spread my credit card details everywhere.

<comment><USER4> The book is available in DRM-free epub, mobi, and PDF, and PragProg.com can deliver your books to a Kindle or Dropbox automatically. That's how I read books across my devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I do something similar but instead of tmux in a terminal, I use a tiling window manager (called awesome) to achieve a similar user experience but with all GUI windows instead of only terminal windows. (it's not a daemon like tmux, though).

This way, I can also get a browser window in the mix too, or any other windowed application. I also prefer using gvim and not console vim, because I can have a different coding font and drag and drop files from my version control GUI (an enterprise VCS with a really crappy CLI, guess which one).

Switching to a tiling window manager is perhaps the best productivity booster I've had. It even allowed me to start working comfortably with one display only or a laptop display, I've always used multiple displays before.

<comment><USER7> I do exactly the same thing. It works really great for me. An additional plus if you go this route is the tagging feature of tiling window managers. This allows you to have multiple views. I use for example one e-mail/web view, one development view (vim in multiple consoles), one server view (consoles connected to various remote systems) one Matlab view and of course one music player view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I do this. Vim + tmux rocks.

One tip that Works For Me (tm) is to map the rarely-used function keys to pane and window selection commands (I hate multi-key commands :))

I've got F1/F2 mapped to cycle through panes, and F3/F4 to cycle through windows, F5/F6 to split windows, F7/F8 to resize panes, and F9 to open a new window.

Also, I always run my tmux terminal fullscreen and without the menubar.

YMMV.

<comment><USER9> Can you post/pastebin your config for this function keys mapping? thanks!

P.S. dont you have problems using tools like "top" and so on?

<comment><USER8> Hope this helps. It's nothing fancy. No, no probs with 'top'.

        # use ^K instead of default ^B.
        set-option -g prefix C-k
        unbind-key C-b
        bind-key C-k send-prefix

        # F1, F2 to cycle between windows within a "workspace".
        # what tmux calls "windows" are like workspaces in WindowMaker.
        # and what it calls "panes" are like individual xterm windows in a workspace.
        bind-key -n F2 select-pane -t:.+
        bind-key -n F1 select-pane -t:.-

        # F3, F4 to cycle between workspaces.
        bind-key -n F3 previous-window
        bind-key -n F4 next-window

        # F5 split a workspace horizontally and F6 to split vertically.
        bind-key -n F5 split-window
        bind-key -n F6 split-window -h

        # F9 new workspace
        bind-key -n F9 new-window

        # to disconnect from tmux do: ^K+d
        # or exit all the windows you created.
        bind-key -n F7 resize-pane -L
        bind-key -n F8 resize-pane -R

<comment><USER9> Thank you, unfortunately I dont know why but F1-F4 are not working, while F5,F6,F9 works. I'm using putty, dont know if this matters. When i press F1,F2,F3,F4 i got ~ on the shell

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I just saw this. And I'm right now on Linux so I can't confirm, so I might be slightly off here.

There's a setting under keyboard (or terminal, I forget). You might need to change it to 'X11R6'.

Look at section 4.4.3 here: [http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0.62/htmldoc/Chapter4.ht...](http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0.62/htmldoc/Chapter4.html#config- keyboard)

I hope that fixes it for you. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been using tmux + vim as my primary mode of work for quite some time now, and as time has gone on my productivity has markedly increased as a result. I don't think I could ever go back to a workflow that required me to use a mouse or be away from all of the standard linux utilities and pipes.

</comment><comment><USER11> I used to do the same, recently I switched to MacVim. I found using Vim in Terminal/iTerm2 slowed down drastically after I worked with it for 10-15 minutes. Opening a file would take 1-1.5s, compared to MacVim which was instantaneous. I thought it was tied to a plugin, tried going barebones and still the same problem. (Although removing vim-rails sped it up a tiny bit.) Unable to diagnose it any further, I had to switch to MacVim.

Anyone else had similar problems and managed to resolve? Here is my dotfiles if you're curious <https://github.com/jeyb/dotfiles>.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is an honest question from someone with 0 experience with TMux. What benefit does it give me over using split windows within iTerm?

<comment><USER13> I've never used iTerm, but does iTerm run from a daemon and remember your window config even when you close the window?

The main use case for that in tmux is when you ssh into a server, start tmux and vim, do some work, then log out without shutting down the tmux daemon. You can then log back in the next day, reattach to the tmux daemon, and continue with your tmux layout the way it was when you logged out the previous day.

<comment><USER14> No, but they maintain a fork of tmux that integrates into the iTerm UI to provide that type of functionality. It's a work in progress, but it's coming along nicely.

<http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/wiki/TmuxIntegration>

</comment></comment></comment><comment> momo-reina honest question... but how is this different from running an emacs server with split windows/buffers plus a console emulator that supports multiple sessions?

ex. i use yakuake (KDE) with three sessions. one with an emacs buffer and the CLI, one session dedicated to wanderlust, and one running erc. if i do some dev work i just add another session and fire up emacsclient to connect to the running emacs instance. this can be adopted for use in a server environment, you just ssh in and hit 'emacsclient' to connect to emacs instance. screenshots: [https://plus.google.com/photos/111355179120790769944/albums/...](https://plus.google.com/photos/111355179120790769944/albums/5721561914598066785?authkey=CPvdxZiGxuavGg)

<comment><USER15> It's.. vim?

Posts about using vim and tmux are pretty obviously not pointed at emacs users.

<comment> momo-reina vim can split windows as well, and most terminal emulators support split sessions... my real question is what is the real benefit of tmux?

i'm not trying to start a flame war here, i used to use vim until i got into lisp. i'm always interested in looking into different workflows.

<comment><USER16> It's a different way to do more or less the same thing.

The differences:

* The editor is Vim not Emacs.

* Vim is not able (without unconvincing plugins/hacks) to run a shell in a window so if you need one you are pretty much forced to run it somewhere else. Be it another terminal emulator instance, another terminal emulator window, another terminal emulator split window (like you do), in the same terminal emulator window (juggling with Ctrl+z/fg), another window in tmux/screen, another pane in tmux/screen, etc.

* Yaquake is a GUI app that you can't __realistically __run on a remote server while tmux is CLI-based. When SSHing, tmux is possibly the closest thing there is to Yaquake.

* Tmux and screen both allow you to attach/detach sessions which makes these tools very useful on remote machines where they are commonly used to launch servers or long running tasks.

* Probably many more…

Note that these are DIFFERENCES. They CAN be benefits, depending on your workflow and needs.

Totally OT. I know about Yaquake since years. I know about Quake since much longer. I know that Yaquake "top-sliding" UX is based on Quake's console since all those years. Yet I've just realized, now, that the "quake" in Yaquake is actually "Quake" and that, for all those years I've pronounced it in a kind of japanese-style "Yakuake". Oh well…

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you run them in Putty fullscreen folks don't even have to know you use Windows!

</comment><comment><USER18> I've been using tmux for the last year or so, and feel lost developing without it; I use tmuxinator and have it open tabs called editor, shell, vm, db, logs, scm (with a slightly different setup per project) and it works fantastically.

<https://github.com/aziz/tmuxinator>

</comment><comment><USER19> Two things that I really like about my IDE is the project file explorer and working on multiple files using tabs. Part of that is not just the quick access, but visually seeing what I have open. Are there equivalents for those things with the tmux/vim setup?

<comment><USER3> vim supports tabs (as well as windows). tmux also supports "tabs" as well, which you can rename. I currently have about 6 tmux tabs open, each split with various windows. Some will have vim inside, and vim will have it's own windows and tabs separate from tmux. It sounds confusing, but it's actually very simple to keep everything straight.

My tmux tabs are all named for their purpose. So, if I'm working on different areas in a project, I can easily move to that area and focus on that.

tmux also supports having different sessions. So, I can open one session, and if I have to move to a completely different project, I can open up a session for that.

As for file access, their are numerous plugins for vim that accomplish that. I think they are NerdTree and something else I can't remember? Not sure, I don't use them. With tmux, I can have a pane opened up and just use the command line to see everything.

But as for seeing what you have open, tmux and vim give you numerous ways to do this, as well as move through all those screens, easily in many different ways, far easier than any IDE I've ever seen.

<comment><USER13> _> As for file access, their are numerous plugins for vim that accomplish that. I think they are NerdTree and something else I can't remember?_

Command-T probably.

<https://wincent.com/products/command-t>

<comment><USER3> That's it. I knew if I mentioned it, someone would pop in to help. =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I might be attracting a lot of heat towards me but can somebody post something similar about emacs as well. I had seen one of my friend doing it once but it didn't work very well and I was pretty unfamiliar to linux at that point of time.

</comment><comment><USER21> Other than the vertical split, does tmux do anything that GNU screen can't do? I find screen is more readily available on a wide variety of systems.

<comment><USER22> Configuring tmux is easier than configuring screen. And you can patch screen to do vertical splits. The patched screen has been the one that installs in Ubuntu for some time now.

<comment><USER23> For some reason the vertical split patch (available on Macports) stopped working once I upgraded to OSX Lion and I find myself depending on terminal "tabs" to mimic it (which is slow and painful). Well, maybe it's time to make the move to tmux!</comment></comment></comment>


Bay Area unemployment rates fall to lowest in 15 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconvalley.com/2016/12/16/south-bay-jobs-surge-east-bay-slumps/ <comment><USER2> They aren't showing the regional true (U-6) unemployment rates, just the cooked number that excludes "discouraged workers". Even the Data Tools on bls.gov don't provide access to the regional rates that I can find (corrections welcome).

 _Why this distinction is important_ : the gap between the U-3 and U-6 rates has grown by roughly 200-250% during the Obama administration[0]. That smells like cooked numbers.

[0] [http://unemploymentdata.com/current-u6-unemployment- rate/](http://unemploymentdata.com/current-u6-unemployment-rate/)</comment>


Why do so many of today's pop hits sound plucked from bygone eras? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/cuepoint/pharrell-bruno-mars-and-the-age-of-pastiche-pop-cdeaf98aff54

<comment><USER2> Pop culture is inherently "pastiche".

To think of pop culture contextually, it's really only been a phenomenon we've experienced for the past century or so, depending on how you want to define "pop culture", but I'd say the advent of radio and cinema would be a good starting marker.

So, making claims about what pop culture is "supposed to be" are somewhat frivolous since we are still very much in the process of defining that. However, at this specific point in 2015, I would agree that we're falling into "an emptiness in contemporary pop culture" more so than ever before - but that emptiness has always kind of been there.

Take Elvis, for example. The author made repeated examples of Bruno Mars and Pharrell, but in a more abstract sense of the term, Elvis was the king of pastiche, most of his hits either being Blues/R&B/Soul covers or written by someone else. Considering Elvis as one of the first major acts in manifesting the phenomenon of pop culture, it's pretty fair to identify pop culture as an entity which capitalizes on previous work. The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Nirvana - the most successful pop acts have followed a formula of commercializing genre tropes.

I understand the author's main point that, in the most current critique of contemporary pop music, the 2010s feel more empty and less innovative as opposed to having a branded identity like the grunge of the early '90s, the (now retro-)futuristic visions of the '80s, et cetera. While the "EDM" movement may refute that, I think the bigger issue is that with today's level of exposure to different cultures, Americans are less "forced" to subscribe to pop culture.

Innovation doesn't happen in pop culture - pop culture just capitalizes on it and brings it exposure. Nirvana were a talented group but hardly the first "grunge" band, and if you've seen Dave Grohl's Sonic Highways, Sub Pop was actually a little surprised that _these guys_ were the group to nationalize the grunge scene, when several other bands under the label were just as qualified. Michael Jackson was obviously talented as well, but a lot of his success can be attributed to Quincy Jones building off Disco's pioneering and nudging it into a "poppier" format.

Maybe we're reaching a point where the general public is no longer so dependent on "pop culture" as a means of exposure to something "new" or "innovative," where we don't have to sit through hours of Peter Gabriel and Cyndi Lauper music videos, hoping something by NWA will pop up on MTV, or where hearing something outside the same 7 songs the radio is such a jarring experience that we almost have to like the new member of the rotation by default. This is probably why the music industry is having a bit of a difficult time as well. With such a wider accessibility to culture, a byproduct seems to be that the general public is growing more cognizant of the "pastiche" of pop. (That doesn't mean we can't enjoy that Bruno Mars song, though)</comment>


Can We All Succeed? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.shedd.us/can-we-all-succeed/ <comment><USER2> We are a 2 person start-up and have been through exactly the same mental re- adjustment. We started by defining success as 6 figure investment and 7 figure exit. We're now happy to define it as a positive trend: maybe 5 figure investment - or bootstrap sales - and a sustainable business or 6 figure exit. This adjustment comes from seeing how hard it really is to sell a product, no matter how good, and a belief that what really matters is the trend not absolute outcomes, so long as you are constantly learning along the way.

</comment><comment><USER3> >"It's like setting off to build the next Empire State Building when you haven't even even looked at the construction plans for a one-story house."

Makes me think of Diaspora.</comment>


Announcing the MapD Cloud: self-service GPU-accelerated analytics - <AUTHOR> https://www.mapd.com/blog/announcing-mapd-cloud/ <comment><USER2> I love MapD and been following them for a couple years. . I've been trying to do similar things using crossfilter, dc.js and custom elements. It works well up to 100K records, but we're starting to need millions of rows. But the entry previously was steep technically and financially. This cloud offering sounds perfect.

</comment><comment><USER3> > data allowance of 10 million rows, and range up to a 100 million row > allowance.

Only supporting up to 100 million rows seems extremely limiting for a lot of analytics use cases. What's the reasoning behind this? Does the product not scale?

<comment><USER4> (I'm a MapD employee)

The limitation of 100 million rows is just for 14-day trial purposes; for the paid versions, the lower volumes are quoted as 'Getting Started' prices. For enterprise scale, people can contact MapD to get customized pricing.

As far as the scaling question goes, MapD has a public demo on the website with 11 billion records (and product performance scales somewhat linearly as more GPUs added): [https://www.mapd.com/demos/ships/](https://www.mapd.com/demos/ships/)

<comment><USER5> Is the demo down ? getting a 502

<comment><USER4> Thanks for letting us know, it looks like it might be down temporarily. In the meantime, the other demos work just fine: [https://www.mapd.com/demos/](https://www.mapd.com/demos/)

<comment><USER4> The demo is back up now, thanks for your patience!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Between pitching bloggers and paid press - <AUTHOR>

I have a website which i want to promote. Tried reaching bloggers but got a low response rate. The website needs users to continue business else existing users would leave. Thinking of using prweb to do a release. Which is better? <comment><USER2> You didn't really give us a lot of information. I'll assume you have a chicken and egg problem. Relying on media for anything is not a good strategy.

1\. Divide your users into to chicken and egg categories. Build an egg plant! Build a website that allows eggs to show up and is useable without any chickens and add the chickens latter. Often times your eggs are a niche user or geography.

2\. If you're going to pitch bloggers and they have no idea who are you already, it probably is a little late to start trying to build a relationship.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. The website is an advertising network that helps website owners sell directly to advertisers. I guess i should have had a relationship with the bloggers before now. I will have to rely on press release.

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't look at this as binary. You have more options here.

You need to target bloggers, who look like they might be up and coming. I'd even target a specific niche. Basically, go to them, and say, "If I can get six of you signed up, I can then get awesome rates from people interested in your niche." Now the hard part: deliver! Once you got all six on board, I'd spend everyday on the phone, e-mail reaching out to the major and minor players about how they've got to advertise with these up and coming trusted players in the niche.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I think that is the next route for me to try..</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I better market my JavaScript library - <AUTHOR> I'm a big fan of building web apps with React/Redux, but I found a number of issues with that paradigm, including excessive boilerplate, indirection and difficulty with code re-use.  I wrote an API framework that solves these problems, and I've gotten it to a point where it provides pretty major time/code savings.
I've presented it a few times for groups at my workplace, and I've always gotten a very enthusiastic response.  Unfortunately, when I try to promote it online, typically my bounce rate is extremely high (~93%) and the time on page averages about 12 seconds.  I get the feeling I'm not communicating quickly enough how much of a time and energy saver the framework is.
I would greatly appreciate if anyone who has had success promoting their library/etc online could take a look at my pitch and give me some feedback for improvement.  Ultimately, I wrote it to scratch my own itch so lack of uptake doesn't bother me much, but I think it could make people's lives a little easier.
Links:
http://www.nathan-rice.net/projects/radical/ http://www.github.com/nathan-rice/radical/ <comment><USER2> Hey, had a look into the description and my subjective feeling is first two sentences should be really high level. What direct benefit would I get? 50% less time spent on development (making things up now).

My general understanding (not being a javascript expert) is you need really good justification for adding something on top of stuff like react.

Oh forgot to mention, I'm consumer of these things, not creator.

</comment><comment><USER3> the only real way to market it is to engage with the core react guy and gals, and big players in the community. Get them on board. If they like it, they will tweet about it and spread it. Case studies/real world demos are also helpful.

</comment><comment><USER4> As an aside, angular2 is just coming online and there's a big interest from our community on redux, so you might share into that community too. The fact radical is written in TS means it's a great fit :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Hey. I think I'm in a pretty good position to give you some feedback. As background, I maintain a well-received list of high-quality React and Redux tutorials and articles [0], and a catalog of Redux-related libraries, addons, and utilities [1]. I also spend a lot of time hanging out in the Reactiflux chat channels, and apparently currently have the messages posted in Reactiflux since the service moved to Discord [2]. Finally, I wrote the official Redux FAQ page from scratch [3]. So, while I'm not a public name in the React community like Dan Abramov, I'm pretty in tune with what's going on in the ecosystem.

The first thing to consider is that the size of the target market for any "addon", "mod", or "extension" for any technology is, by definition, limited to the size of the user base for the original technology. While Redux is certainly popular, and basically the winner of the "Flux Wars", you're limited to a subset of the JS dev community.

A second factor is idiomatic usage. Any framework ecosystem is going to have an idiomatic way of doing things. Tutorials will teach those same idioms, training classes will teach those idioms, people will write apps using those idioms, and the vast majority of the userbase is going to share those idioms. When you start going outside those idioms, fewer people will understand your approach, and fewer people will be interested in something that's not "the normal way".

Redux is fairly minimal, so similar to Backbone, there _is_ a fairly active ecosystem with people adding numerous different spins in usage, and additional layers on top, like yours. However, only a few of those have gained particular traction (like redux-saga). Idiomatic Redux tends towards explicit and functional, rather than implicit and object-oriented.

Third, there are a number of overlapping approaches and implementations being developed by different people, as you can see by browsing my addons catalog. Two dozen libraries implementing "local/component state" in various ways, a dozen more for "subscribe to changes in a slice of state", and I don't know HOW many approaches to handling "side effects". Not sure how much of that is people not knowing what else is out there, how much is "Not Invented Here" syndrome, and how much is people just trying to scratch an itch. So, any one addon in a given category is somewhat competing for mindshare, and only a few will really get attention.

Fourth, honestly, a lot of it really is actually getting the attention of the "thought leaders and influencers". I signed up for Twitter just so I could actually reply to some of the conversations I saw going on, and when Dan saw that, he tweeted out that I'd just joined. Five minutes later I had 30 followers, and 100 by the end of the day. Small potates as Twitter goes, obviously, but the point is that people followed me just because Dan said I was interesting. (I'm not, really :) ) The "Doing Whatever Dan Abramov Tells Me To Do" fake book cover has a bit of truth to it [4]. Now, I'm not saying go harass Dan, or Ryan Florence, or Christopher Chedeau, but when core members of the React/Redux community point at stuff, other people look. And, that said, Dan does tweet out anything that looks vaguely interesting, so tweeting him a link is a valid approach.

So, Radical. I _do_ actually have Radical listed in my addons catalog, but I have it listed on the "Variations" page [5], which is where I list libraries that are distinctly deviating from the idiomatic Redux approach (and, as you'll note, there's quite a few of those). Looking at it, there's good points and bad points.

Good:

\- "Reducing boilerplate" is certainly a viable selling point. One of Redux's core principles is that things are explicit rather than implicit, but obviously many people dislike much of the verbosity. So, that's a good focus.

\- Radical has documentation. Like, _real_ documentation. An actual description that tries to give a motivation and explanation, some meaningful code samples, and API docs. The average JS lib on Github has a short repo one- liner, maybe a couple paragraphs in the README, and a five-line code snippet with very little explanation for where it fits in. This is decidedly a good thing.

Mixed:

\- Focus on grouping actions and reducers. Again, there's numerous opinions and ideas, and putting those together _is_ one semi-popular approach (per the "Ducks" concept), so it's not unheard of. On the other hand, Dan encourages arbitrary reducers responding to arbitrary actions to prevent coupling, and that's considered the idiomatic approach.

\- Use of Typescript in the lib and the samples. There are certainly Typescript users in the Redux community, but ES6 is the common approach.

Bad:

\- Use of an OOP approach to managing things. I know it's still dispatching actions and such and updating its own slice of the store, but the Redux community is heavily influenced by Functional Programming, and as such an OOP approach is less likely to gain interest.

\- The fact that you do need to hook the generated reducer into the store isn't as clearly called out as I'd like to see.

\- Lack of a full-blown example written using Radical. Again, the fact that you have actual code samples is good, but if this is such a big improvement, a "real" app example would go a long way to show that.

\- Both the docs and the source are in single files. Both might be easier to read through if they were split into smaller pieces.

\- There's a number of libraries that look like they do something fairly similar. The list at [6] has many that are more component-oriented, but there's some overlap. The list at [5] also has some similar options.

Overall, it looks like a well-written library, with a valid use case, but the fact that it's a non-idiomatic approach means there won't be as much interest, and therefore fewer users _and_ fewer people willing to pass it along.

For what it's worth, I hang out in the Reactiflux chat channels [7] evenings EST if you'd like to drop in and talk about it.

[0] [https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux- links](https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links)

[1] [https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem- links](https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem-links)

[2] [http://pipend.github.io/reactiflux- dashboard/#/fame?ago=1+ye...](http://pipend.github.io/reactiflux- dashboard/#/fame?ago=1+year)

[3] [http://redux.js.org/docs/FAQ.html](http://redux.js.org/docs/FAQ.html)

[4] [https://twitter.com/ThePracticalDev/status/71846227233570406...](https://twitter.com/ThePracticalDev/status/718462272335704064)

[5] [https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem- links/blob/ma...](https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem- links/blob/master/variations.md)

[6] [https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem- links/blob/ma...](https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem- links/blob/master/component-state.md)

[7] [https://www.reactiflux.com](https://www.reactiflux.com)

<comment><USER6> for the record, I didn't follow you because of Dan's tweet. I followed you because your links are excellent! You answered my question in reactiflux in detail. love love. kbye

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [ Disclaimer: I have no OS libs to my own name, but I: (a) do enjoy using a good bunch of them ;-) and (b) I hold a degree in Advertising, if that helps on anything :-P ]

So here's a couple of things that I was able to notice right upfront that can help you improve:

Improvement 1: Your long textual diatribes are most definitely scaring people away (including myself!). Seriously, even inside your code samples has long, +10 line comments, what's up with that? No wonder you're having such a high bounce rate!

What you have to understand is that developers don't want to be _told_ why they should use our library. Instead, they want to just "get it". In other words, they want to be invited into the discovery process and reach that conclusion by themselves - usually by seeing some practical application (aka code samples) and deciding by themselves if they like what they see and if it looks like something that works for them ... this discovery process is a big part of the fun of picking up new tools for ourselves and should not be underestimated.

So, to put it on more practical terms, make sure you use a code-first approach to your ReadMe file and begin with commented code samples, not explanations, and make sure the code comments are no longer than 2 lines, too. Also look around at the ReadMe of the some of the most successful libs out there and with ideas above in mind and I'm sure you will quickly recognize some best practices and nifty tricks that you can emulate in your own ReadMe file.

Improvement 2: Another thing you can do is put a gitter/discord/slack button up there and also make sure you're making yourself available as much as possible for quick feedback. This is not 1999 anymore and with all the hundreds libs out there fighting for developer mind-share, people tend to favor solutions which have some sort of community/ecosystem they can rely on for those though moments.

Improvement 3: Finally, a video tutorial is something that a lot of people out there are linking to on their ReadMe, as it's a great way to show that you really "means business" when it comes to getting people up to speed with your lib. The reasoning for them is that -- "Hey if someone went to all the trouble of investing his/her time to make a video just to show me how to use this thing, maybe I should really invest some __my own time __to take a closer look at this ". If you don't feel like you can make a good job of doing the video, just find someone to do it for you - but make sure it has: a) nice, clear audio b) large, visible text; c) 5 min or less of duration d) A hands-on approach to it (aka less talking, more coding).

Hope these suggestions help a bit and good luck conquering the World with your lib ;-)</comment>


No social support for airnnb app? - <AUTHOR>

you can see houses where you like but you can't share w/ none :-( ..... am I right? <comment><USER2> iOS app has a share button top right when viewing a property, options for Facebook, twitter, email and SMS</comment>


7th Circuit Excoriates Judges and Lawyers for fear of Science - <AUTHOR> http://www.ims-expertservices.com/blog/2013/7th-circuit-excoriates-for-fear-of-science/

<comment><AUTHOR> All I can say is "ouch."

Link to the opinion: [http://www.ims-expertservices.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/ja...](http://www.ims-expertservices.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/jackson-v-pollion.pdf)</comment>


Facebook invites developers to monetize Messenger at F8 conference - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/2902395/opensource-subnet/facebook-invites-developers-to-monetize-messenger-at-f8-conference.html

<comment><AUTHOR> For the last two years, a Facebook buy button has been expected. The company did recently introduce Payments to Messenger, foreshadowing Facebook's evolving ecommerce capabilities. At F8, ecommerce became a development platform. The large community of Facebook developers, given open access to the Messenger platform, are more likely to produce a killer Facebook ecommerce app than the company is to do so on its own.</comment>


Google Searches Put Consumers at Risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/google-searches-privacy-danger/413614/?single_page=true <comment> slipstream- "adlessness can be a luxury for those who choose to buy ad blockers so their webpages load faster."

Wait, buy ad blockers? I understand some ad blockers, mainly on iOS, are paid, but on other platforms they are generally FOSS...</comment>


7 Things Your Boss Doesn't Understand About Software Development - <AUTHOR> http://simpleprogrammer.com/2015/08/03/7-things-your-boss-doesnt-understand-about-software-development/

<comment><USER2> Something bloggers don't understand: If you stick a bloody great pop-up over your text, I'm going to close the tab. If you don't respect my time and attention, I won't give it to you.

If I like what you wrote and think it might add value, I absolutely will click on a subscribe link at the bottom of the article. If I don't get to the bottom of the article, I sure-as-eggs-are-eggs won't want to subscribe.

And I certainly won't subscribe before reading it.

Complete waste of time, total turn off.

At least it saves me having to read the rest of the article.

<comment><USER3> The other thing they don't understand is the words agile and proactive are signalling me that they are a bobblehead.</comment></comment>


The most useful GCC options and extensions - <AUTHOR> http://www.antoarts.com/the-most-useful-gcc-options-and-extensions/

<comment><USER2> _"If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution." — Robert Sewell_

Nice ;-)

<comment><USER3> How is that nice? And I can't find this quote in the article.

<comment><USER2> It's in the sidebar. Just amused me is all.

<comment><AUTHOR> The quotes are randomly chosen from a database of my favorite ~50 quotes, so it isn't related to the article, though

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was definitely not expecting an article about useful GCC options to mention -trigraphs. The -ansi option isn't particularly useful either, imo, since just about every interesting program is going to do something crazy like open a network socket or list the files in a directory.

By far the most useful gcc extension wasn't mentioned at all. typeof().

<comment><AUTHOR> I mentioned trigraphs as an example of a C standard feature disabled by default in GCC, and then I just mentioned how to enable just that feature. It wasn't supposed to be included among the most important options, it just got there ;-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Has anybody used the __builtin_expect feature to good effect? We had been using this extensively in our codebase in places where there is an obvious common "fast path".

I tried an experiment where I did a comparison of the __builtin_expect version against a version with our likely/unlikely macros defined to the identity, and I actually saw no difference, which was disappointing. When I did some digging I found this blog post: [http://bitsup.blogspot.com/2008/04/measuring- performance-of-...](http://bitsup.blogspot.com/2008/04/measuring-performance- of-linux-kernel.html) which suggests the same result for the Linux kernel.

FWIW GCC also has a reasonable set of PGO options (not mentioned in this article), and those actually can (anecdotally) make a noticeable difference, although you're subject to the overtraining problem if you're not careful.

</comment><comment><USER6> Another useful GCC extension is statements within expressions:

#define max(a,b) ({ typeof (a) _a = (a); typeof (b) _b = (b); _a > _b ? _a : _b; })

</comment><comment><USER7> Computed goto: [http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-3.4.1/gcc/Labels-as- Values...](http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-3.4.1/gcc/Labels-as-Values.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> A few others I use are -Wsign-compare and -Wformat-nonliteral. Sign compare warns on possible bugs/vulnerabilities due to comparing signed and unsigned values. Using nonliteral formats can lead to vulnerabilities (such as the famous attacks on FTP servers <http://seclists.org/bugtraq/1999/Sep/328>)

<comment><USER9> -Wall includes -Wsign-compare

<comment><USER10> You must be a C++ user -- I (a C guy) immediately thought "what? No, that's in -Wextra, not -Wall", checked the man page to confirm, and sure enough, it differs (-Wall includes sign-compare when compiling C++, but not C).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sometimes when compiling and trying to use system calls gcc will complain about the functions not existing. This is usually because of some preprocessor guard not being defined. An easy way to see what macros have been defined is to run gcc with the "-E -dM" flags.

</comment><comment><USER12> -fmudflap always interested me, but I never seem to remember it when I'm actually confronting a hard to debug pointer issue.

</comment><comment><USER13> My favorite is the "weak" attribute. <http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Attributes.html>

Makes separate compilation for languages that compile to C _much_ easier.

<comment><USER14> My favorite _would_ be "pure" -- it's perfect for saying "this function pointer, which calls an assembly function, doesn't muck with any of your data structures, so you don't have to reload every single pointer after it returns".

But unfortunately, since it was basically written only for libc purposes, it doesn't work on function pointers, so it's useless for this purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is it me, or is this statement from the article wrong:

 _"All warnings can be enabled with -w."_

man g++ says:

 _"-w Inhibit all warning messages."_

Inhibit means to prevent (not to enable).

<comment><USER16> It is case sensitive; -W enables more warnings, not -w, which as you noticed suppresses them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> No love for --coverage?

<comment><USER12> A similar article about C code coverage tools would be great.</comment></comment>


How Rachel Carson Cost Millions of People Their Lives - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/04/how-rachel-carson-cost-millions-of-people-their-lives.html?via=twitter_page <comment><USER2> Retro Report actually covered this the other week: [https://www.retroreport.org/video/malaria-and-the-silent- spr...](https://www.retroreport.org/video/malaria-and-the-silent-spring/)

No Rachel Carson didn't cause the deaths of millions. Malaria carrying mosquitos have become resistant to DDT, as she had predicted. She was advocating for using a diverse range of tactics to solve the problem, instead of one brute force approach.

<comment><USER3> Ok perhaps it should be put more accurately like this : millions of people died at 5-20 years old that would have died at 50, maybe even 65 years old.

And the reverse is also true, if we hadn't outlawed DDT, when resistance occurs, a number of people would have died (at age 50) without it actually affording them protection. That number would have been smaller and of course those people would have had a life before they died from DDT side effects and complications.

The thing about outlawing DDT that's "surely not related" is that it protected hundreds, maybe even thousands of western lives, and lives of the local very rich (mostly politicians, UN diplomats, ...) at the cost of millions of black children deaths, poor children.

And, of course, environmentalists are still at it. You see, the only way you're ever going to protect against malaria in Africa is "vector control". Eradicating the mosquitoes in other words. How ? Well, by purposefully destroying their habitat. Anything that's a swamp, or swamp-like anywhere near human populations (that's almost everywhere), we dump in sand until it doesn't support that ecosystem anymore. Doing this is what's currently protecting tens of millions of lives yearly, and apparently it's bad.

In the same manner, the (few) alternatives, like genetic modifications to eradicate the mosquitoes by inserting "termination genes" into male mosquitoes, are being fought by environmentalists as well.

<comment><USER2> Please watch the video: [https://www.retroreport.org/video/malaria-and-the- silent-spr...](https://www.retroreport.org/video/malaria-and-the-silent- spring/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is ridiculously poor logic and the author should be ashamed to expose this flawed reasoning as an example of presymed intelligence. Rachel Carson did NOT cause ANY deaths because of her work. The cause of those deaths was malaria. Malaria was killing people long before the advent of DDT. Centuries before. That DDT was banned had to do with its own deadly flaws and nothing else. To try and hang mass murder accusations in this gifted and courageous woman is patently absurd.

<comment><USER5> I don't follow your reasoning.

People died before seat belts. We have seat belts and they save lives. I publish a paper claiming that seat belts cause lung cancer. Seat belts are withdrawn from cars and people die. If my research was bunk, haven't I just killed a lot of people in the name of public health?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" the most striking feature of the claim against Carson is the ease with which it can be refuted." DDT was never banned for anti-malarial use,[92] (its ban for agricultural use in the United States in 1972 did not apply outside the US or to anti-malaria spraying;[93] the international treaty that banned most uses of DDT and other organochlorine pesticides—the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants—included an exemption for DDT for the use of malaria control until affordable substitutes could be found.)[86] Mass outdoor spraying of DDT was abandoned in poor countries subject to malaria, such as Sri Lanka, in the 1970s and 1980s, not because of government prohibitions, but because the DDT had lost its ability to kill the mosquitoes_

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

</comment><comment><USER7> Paul A. Offit, the author, is chief of the division of infectious diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of vaccinology and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. One would think he'd know how to analyze the trade-offs invoked with DDT. As kkojei points our, Offit's analysis (such as it is) is just plain wrong.

DDT is effective against anopheles mosquitoes and so helped control malaria. But that control came at a significant ecological cost. DDT is a fat soluble estrogen and androgen mimic with significant long-term environmental impact on fish, birds, and mammals. An honest evaluation of Rachel Carson's impact would have tried to weigh the cost of saving lives from malaria against the cost of destroying significant ecosystems and possibly pushing some species into extinction.

</comment><comment><USER8> This article is bullshit. DDT was never widely banned for anti-Malaria use, only for agriculture: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane#Restrictions_on_usage)

In fact, the restrictions on agricultural use substantially prolonged and improved DDT value for Malaria control by reducing the rate at which mosquitoes evolved resistance.

<comment><USER3> Given the net effects of the ban, it might as well have been that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> DDT is still in use, and WHO-approved for vector control (only).

As of ~2008, we (the US) still made quite a lot of it for the Indian market.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think I'm well and truly sick of the Slate Pitch at this point.</comment>


Is a HTTP DELETE request idempotent? - <AUTHOR> http://www.duckheads.co.uk/is-a-http-delete-requests-idempotent/491

<comment><USER2> I typically do the following for DELETE requests:

Look up the item in the database. If it does not exist, serve a 404.

If it exists and would be otherwise accessible (e.g. a GET would return 200), then I set a delete flag in the database, and serve a 204.

If it exists, but would not otherwise be accessible (e.g. a GET would return 404), I would serve a 404.

If it exists, but has a delete flag set in the database, I would serve a 410.</comment>


Review my side project: csv2wufoo.com - <AUTHOR> http://csv2wufoo.com

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a site I put together for staff at our church to be able to import flat data into their forms on Wufoo.com.

It's a Sinatra app that uses James Edward Gray's FasterCSV lib to parse the input and my WufooParty lib to access the Wufoo API.

A few notes:

1\. I have to know your account name and your api key in order to do the import. The api key is deleted immediately and automatically once the import is complete (even if it errored).

2\. A cron script deletes import data over 3 days old. I keep it on the server for a few days so I can find the cause of errors and improve the app.

3\. The app is limited to 5000 hits to the Wufoo api per day, which maps roughly to the number of records being imported. So, please don't test with a large file, so there'll be some left for others to use.

 _Edit to add:_ 4\. I contacted the Wufoo guys to see if this sort of thing was alright. Got the go-ahead as long as I met their api limitations and it was non-commercial.

Your feedback is welcome.</comment>