Why Perl Lost It - <AUTHOR> http://martin.drashkov.com/2009/11/why-perl-lost-it.html

<comment><USER2> One niche for Perl is it's omnipresence in most commercial Unices, even if as ancient as 5.0005.

I recall many cases at work when we had to use what's on the box and we were restricted by some funny policies to not to install/use any third-party (incl. open source) stuff. You may think it's weird, still it's quite popular in telco companies, banks and other monstrous borgs. Such organizations often run some quite old hardware/OSes and will run it for years, as they think it's cheaper to pay maintenance fees than to introduce a massive change (well often it's true). One indication you're using such box is lack of bash in favour of ksh or some so-called 'posix shell' (which usually isn't standarized at all, btw).

So, Perl saved our asses many times. The reason why some 'certified' stripped down Perl version was installed by the OS vendor was usually some ugly installer used by the vendor.

A little quiz: which commercial Unix do I have in mind? ;-)

[edit: typos]

</comment><comment><USER3> I would like to add three reasons to that list:

\- detrimental advocacy, people 'pushing' perl even when it clearly isn't the right solution just because it is their solution.

\- tons of really ugly and unmaintainable perl code out there, where the only viable solution is to toss it and rewrite, which creates a natural opportunity to keep perl or drop it. Because the experience at that point is a negative one the decision to drop it already has one vote in favour.

\- those perl programmers that you tend to meet on the job are not the examples that you'd want to follow when programming professionally, for some reason perl seems to attract people with an 'attitude', and I don't mean that in a positive way. I've yet to come across a PHP or Python programmer that wasn't aware of the shortcomings of their respective languages, but those perl programmers that I've met will have you believe that perl is gods own language.

<comment><USER4> My experiences conflict with your first and third points (especially if you add Ruby, Java, and C++).

Your second point has a lot of truth to it, though I wonder why it's not true of spaghetti PHP. A language that's incredibly easy to deploy and incredibly easy to begin and easiest to embed in HTML doesn't lend itself to creating huge amounts of well-structured, well-factored, easily maintained code.

<comment><USER3> I think as the author of the piece writes that the 'there is more than one way to do it' has something to do with that. As for the first and third points, they were about perl, not about Ruby, Java and C++. Sure, there are other languages where you see the same kind of behaviour, but the 'perl' gurus that I've had the non-pleasure of working with over the past couple of years were without exception detrimental to my view of perl.

I know it shouldn't matter but if every guy you run in to that tries to ram a certain language down your throat is basically viewing their code as a means to achieve job security then that doesn't really help.

As we're speaking I'm still busy disentangling some perl one of these guys wrote, it's the biggest mess you've ever seen. Perl certainly gives you a lot of rope to hang yourself with.

In perl you not only have to contend many times with ugly code, on top of that it might be written in a way that is completely alien from the way you would write it.

<comment><USER4> > In perl you not only have to contend many times with ugly code, on top of > that it might be written in a way that is completely alien from the way you > would write it.

After seeing code which used files on disk because the author either didn't understand or trust arrays, I've come to the conclusion that code not designed and written and tested specifically with maintainability in mind will quickly become a big ball of mud, independent of language.

Perhaps certain languages offer syntactic tricks for obfuscation and cleverness in the small, but the mindset that prefers cleverness over maintainability will always be able to perpetuate great evils throughout a codebase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If mod_perl had been easy to use then I think Perl would not have lost much ground to PHP. PHP solved a particular problem back then - people wanted an interpreter embedded in Apache for better performance. PHP made it simple, mod_perl didn't.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't think Perl lost "It", but it did lose the Web.

There's tons of Unix back-end glue written in Perl, and I imagine tons still being written right now, but as a language for web-apps it just didn't get critical mass for some reason.

I think krf's comment might be part of the answer. I've had to do some mod_perl recently and the documentation is very patchy even now. I shudder to think what it might have been like 5 years ago.</comment>


Paradise Lost: Paranoia Has Undermined US Democracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/paranoia-has-undermined-united-states-claim-to-liberal-democracy-a-932326.html

<comment><USER2> Well, it ain't exactly Tocqueville, but it does provide an interesting perspective on how the US is viewed abroad.

The thesis is simplistic though, and can be distilled along pretty obvious classic political theory: every society has to balance liberty against order, and decide how to deploy power to defend its borders. It's the essential question in classic political philosophy from The Republic to Machiavelli and everything that came after.

It's not enough to simply repeat the ancient truism that "power and fear are dangerous," which should be axiomatic by now, particularly coming from a German point of view, which has spent the last half-century-plus contemplating that exact question, from the point of view of having quite dramatically been both oppressed and oppressor in that time frame.

The broad question that needs to become visible and widely discussed in American politics right now is both classic and novel, and quite frankly we need help in guiding this discussion:

The classic question that needs to be resurfaced is, how does the US become self-conscious and more transparent about the specific boundaries we draw between protecting order and establishing liberty?

The novel question in the new post-9/11 context is how to manage that same balance in the ongoing battle for intelligence which by definition requires tremendous secrecy and daring.

It's clear that many both in and outside the US are profoundly uncomfortable with the current state of NSA surveillance and I agree. But what _is_ an appropriate level of surveillance? How can US citizens take back control of that conversation and make deliberate decisions about that kind of society we want to be?

And that's really the underlying problem that I think the Speigel article was simplistically, indirectly getting at: citizens in the US no longer have the democratic power to make those decisions. But in order for the governing powers to trust democratic processes to make those policies, we need to become self-aware and articulate enough to advocate those policies, and bring up leaders that energize and focus that discussion with real statesmanship.

Statesmanship! Where is it? Can it exist in the current broken and polarized political environment?

To the degree that we still have some democratic processes in place we are responsible to say more than just, "Snowden is right!" We have to know what kind of society we actually want to be in this new context.

The enemies and threats are new, but the questions are ancient. We have not yet adapted old answers to the new context. And for that we need not only novel political theoretical solutions, but the strong statesmanship to apply them.

<comment><USER3> > _The novel question in the new post-9 /11 context is how to manage that same > balance in the ongoing battle for intelligence which by definition requires > tremendous secrecy and daring._

I'll give you the beginnings of an answer by addressing this statement.

The "battle for intelligence" is a fantasy created by those who would wield fear over you. In any society, there is a risk that some people are crazy and murderous. The solution to this is not a battle, but a hospital: care better for the crazy, and the they are far less likely to shoot up their neighbourhood. Negating that risk through a "battle for intelligence" is like negating the risk of bullying at school by installing a constantly monitored camera on every pupil's shoulder and electrocuting any transgressors. It may work, superficially, but it ain't the right solution. The cost isn't worth the benefit.

This addresses internal crazies. What about the external ones who want to destroy America? Same difference. Instead of fighting an endless war, ask why they are trying to "destroy America" in the first place, and fix that. While I do not condone terrorists in any way, the US has a deeply hypocritical foreign policy, and has had that for well over half a century. Change that, consistently for another half a century, and miraculously the hatred against America will vanish.

So the problem begins with your assertion that there is any "battle for intelligence" with a worthwhile definition, let alone one that requires "tremendous secrecy and daring". There isn't. It's all a paranoia in your and your compatriots' heads.

Which funnily enough, is precisely the point of the article.

<comment><USER2> I wish this were true, and I share your compulsion, not necessarily a rational one, to prefer compassion and understanding and detente to bellicosity and intrigue.

Unfortunately for both of us, the truths of Machiavelli are not easily defeated, least of all by something as saccharine as "make love not war." The most tyrannical and imperialistic societies in history, from Rome to Stalin, often began with variations on such noble sentiments.

"Care better for the crazy." In other words, anyone who means to do harm to the republic should be institutionalized? How? By force I assume. Who defines "crazy"? The history of international conflict unfortunately is not a story of the rational and benevolent vs. the "crazy and murderous", but of competing ideologies, scarce resources, and plain corruption.

The problem with such naivete is that it assumes the problem is theoretical, and merely needs the correct sociological constructions and psychological theory implemented by benevolent institutions.

But how do those institutions grow over time? Who governs them, and which of the many competing and contradictory sociological and psychological models do we apply, first of all to define and identify "crazy," and then to apply the appropriate remedy? Further, what concrete example of such an application can you offer as proof that such a program works consistently on the local individual level, much less the international level?

Further, can you show through examples how such an institution sustains and protects itself through means other than power and violence?

<comment><USER3> > _I wish this were true, and I share your compulsion, not necessarily a > rational one, to prefer compassion and understanding and detente to > bellicosity and intrigue._

No, I don't think you do. First of all, you dismiss it as an irrational fantasy. How would you feel about my opinion of your "compulsion" if I dismissed it as an irrational brand of paranoia? Not chuffed?

It feels like you're deliberately twisting my points, from which I surmise that you are merely starting from such a completely different set of assumptions that there is no possible conversation between us. However, I will attempt it nevertheless. Probably all this is a waste of time. Arguing on the internet, yay.

> _Unfortunately for both of us, the truths of Machiavelli are not easily > defeated, least of all by something as saccharine as "make love not war." > The most tyrannical and imperialistic societies in history, from Rome to > Stalin, often began with variations on such noble sentiments._

The "truths of Machiavelli" were written down in 16th Century Italy, in a time of constant warring and feuding between petty little dictators, at a time when it was acceptable to saw your enemies in half or cut off their balls and make them eat them, where rape and pillage were the way to conduct war, where assassination of political rivals was a primary political tool. They are not fit to be quoted in a discussion of how to conduct a democracy.

> _" Care better for the crazy." In other words, anyone who means to do harm > to the republic should be institutionalized? How? By force I assume. Who > defines "crazy"? The history of international conflict unfortunately is not > a story of the rational and benevolent vs. the "crazy and murderous", but of > competing ideologies, scarce resources, and plain corruption._

That's a ridiculous straw-man interpretation of my statement. Your country has a great combination of a shitty healthcare system that is well known to fail the mentally ill (unlike the functioning healthcare systems of other countries) and wide availability of firearms. Strangely enough, this results in a higher incidence of shootings and other violent mass killings. Want to solve the problem? Reduce the number of guns and increase the number of services taking care of the mentally ill. How to diagnose them? The same way as in every other country.

> _The problem with such naivete is that it assumes the problem is > theoretical, and merely needs the correct sociological constructions and > psychological theory implemented by benevolent institutions._

No, the problem is deeply practical: how to have less violence both from the inside and from the outside. The solution is deeply practical too: take better care of the mentally ill who tend to become mass murderers so they are in hospitals shooting valium instead of in school shooting toddlers, and don't do the multiply fucked up foreign policy things the US does that result in crazy people outside of the US wanting to cause it trouble.

> _But how do those institutions grow over time? Who governs them, and which > of the many competing and contradictory sociological and psychological > models do we apply, first of all to define and identify "crazy," and then to > apply the appropriate remedy? Further, what concrete example of such an > application can you offer as proof that such a program works consistently on > the local individual level, much less the international level?_

See earlier point about how other countries "identify" mentally ill people. My understanding is that it comes through a combination of family and friends and medical professionals making assessments. Seems to work fine for the rest of the world.

<comment><USER2> > (Machiavelli's teachings) are not fit to be quoted in a discussion of how to > conduct a democracy.

Sorry, I should have qualified that, because I wasn't endorsing Machiavelli, only acknowledging his influence on our current context.

You're right about the violent times of _The Prince_. You're wrong about two things: the notion that it is removed at all from our contemporary environment (such brutality has not been surpassed _in extremis_ in the last century alone? Please...), and the idea that the fundamental turn from the idealism of Plato and the ancients to the pragmatism of the moderns was not prefigured and in fact architected by Machiavelli. The philosophies of _Real Politic_ and Neo-Conservatism (at least) are fundamentally Straussian/Machiavellian in origin.

All I can say about the rest of your points regarding the mentally ill is, I wish mental health was the world's biggest problem as you seem to think it is. But in this discussion it's a complete _non sequitur_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Surveillance capability has advanced beyond broader public awareness and legislative controls. The gap between what can and what cannot be monitored continues to shrink. It's in the various intelligence agencies best interest to not educate the public, so they don't.

This is why recent revelations have proved so shocking. There has always been an assumption that checks and balances would prevent such fascist behavior from taking root. Instead, it's being legalized in secret courts without any public involvement. Now that behavior has been exposed, laws are being drafted to publicly legitimize what's been performed in private ([https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/sen-feinsteins-nsa- bil...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/sen-feinsteins-nsa-bill-will- codify-and-extend-mass-surveillance)).

All this in the name of security. In a country where the loudest politicians are publicly 'fiscally conservative', yet somehow the US still spends more on its military than the next 10 highest defense budgets combined ([http://pgpf.org/Chart-Archive/0053_defense- comparison](http://pgpf.org/Chart-Archive/0053_defense-comparison)).

Where truly can the US go from here?

<comment><USER2> This is _exactly_ the question. If the channels of democracy still exist in any form (and the alternative is unthinkable), then we have to take control of them and put forth real statesmen to answer this challenge. The consequence of failing to do so is a society that steadily descends into complacency and despair.

EDIT: BTW, I've no idea why your comment is not higher. Anyone downvoting it is not paying attention imo.

<comment><USER5> "If the channels of democracy still exist in any form (and the alternative is unthinkable), then we have to take control of them and put forth real statesmen to answer this challenge."

Of course the alternative is thinkable. History and politics and sociology classes are not that carefully censored and some people actually like the liberal arts. World history did not being with the US constitution and it'll go on past it, its already just a piece of paper as our leaders say, so I guess we are already in a post-constitutional era.

You won't be permitted to change things by voting. As has been said before, if voting could change anything it would be outlawed. You'll be given two choices, one who is in support of the NSA and says he opposes abortion but won't do anything about it, and the other who is in support of the NSA and says he supports a womans right to choose but won't do anything about it, because divide and conquer is how you control uneducated people, and no one is more uneducated than your average American, although there is a cultural goal to obtain training to obtain credentials to obtain a job to become a consumer.

The purpose of a democracy is to provide a tranquilizing influence on the masses once mass media exists, until mass media is conglomerated and mergered into only a few large controllable corporations. At that point democracy is not even needed as a soporific. This is the stage we're at now, confusion that we're subjects or serfs but not fully realizing it yet, just kinda confused.

This isn't just being grouchy or pessimistic; its a blueprint for the future. Want to know what will happen next election? Closest thing to a time machine ever invented? Read the above closely and guess what happens next based on it. History never repeats itself, but it does occasionally rhyme.

<comment><USER2> "History and politics and sociology classes are not..."

"its already just a piece of paper..."

"You won't be permitted to change anything..."

"if voting could change anything it would be outlawed..."

"You'll be given..."

"This is the stage..."

"The purpose of a democracy is..."

"its a blueprint..."

A litany of declarative bromides, delivered with pseudo-authority and strung together without forming a coherent thought, call to action or proscription for remedy. Such could only ever be pointless, nihilistic, and and anarchic.

Demagoguery in the making.

<comment><USER5> "Such could only ever be ... "

You missed predictive in your list. A model resulting in falsifiable observationally verifiable prediction about the future, resulting in the model either living to fight another day, or being disproven. I'm optimistic about my predictions and model passing the test, how bout you?

Not liking the future results of the theory, doesn't disprove the observation or theory behind it.

Also the "its just a piece of paper" is a quote from a recent former president, not me.

<comment><USER2> The difference between your declarative and mine is scope. Mine focused on one person's statement; yours was a sweeping historical generalization.

"falsifiable observationally verifiable prediction..."

Go back and read _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ or _Objective Knowledge_. and you'll find this statement constitutes a fundamental misreading of Popper.

Never mind the fact that Popper was basically wrong and the notion of 'falsifiability' is a non-starter when it comes to practical application of political theory, Soros notwithstanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe it's a silly theory, but just I thought the other day that the increased fear of disaster is a result of less spirituality in the west. (= decline of christianity, increase of atheism) And also a result of detachment from nature (= life in cities, spending lots of time in cyberspace etc.)

Perhaps the less you believe in life after death or a meaning of life, the more afraid you are of terrorists. The less likely you are to smoke cigarettes. The more you start to believe in technology. And so forth..

As if any of that would prevent the inevitable..

These thoughts are probably just the direct result of my current location (Buddhist Asia) and the South Park episode about NSA-surveillance. ;) (but its a good episode.)

I guess my point is: People need/want/tend to believe in something, and if that something isn't religion, it's something else.

<comment><USER5> "People need/want/tend to believe in something"

Isn't there data that correlates an inverse relationship with education?

Combine that with a system intentionally designed to de-educate children and culture in general, and the future results aren't pretty, but are predictable.

I think you might be missing an aspect where "fear of terrorists" is an extremely thinly disguised "fear of non white people". or an aspect of "Finally, an excuse to attack Israel's enemies". Aside from the obvious military-industrial complex profit seeking corruption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a little hard to take someone seriously when they come up with a grand theory on some particular topic and then use a TV show as their supporting example. I had the same problem back in the Bush years when people would support torture by saying it worked on '24'.

I understand that nobody is REALLY saying that something is valid just because it was in a TV show. But the fact that they couldn't think of a real life example of their position suggests to me that maybe they aren't informed enough to be having such strong opinions in the first place. For the Hacker News audience, it would be like opening an article on computer security with an example of "hacking" from the show NCIS (anyone who's ever watched it knows what I'm talking about).

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow. This is among the worst political articles I've ever seen posted here; its lede is literally _about_ a cable soap opera about the CIA, and its premise is that the US shares a memetic heritage with other "paranoid" democracies like Israel and South Africa. Absent is any real comparison to the democracies of Europe, or for that matter any analysis of US democracy that wouldn't be available to a US high school sophomore sitting on his couch. That's because it's not actually analysis, but rather a rageview-generating provocation gussied up as one.

How did this get voted up onto the front page? Are people forgetting the flag button?

</comment><comment><USER9> _Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety._

</comment><comment><USER10> I found the author's main idea valid and the connection to the threat of Native Americans interesting but a stretch. The details are what sink this piece. Perhaps a great-great grandfather of mine worried about Indians, but its likely most have zero connection to that mindset today (attacks from similar).

</comment><comment><USER5> One interesting analysis is cause and effect and minimizing total casualties.

9/11 resulted in preplanned implementation of security theater, because good security can be inconvenient, anything inconvenient must be good security, right?

(something that didn't happen) results in preplanned implementation of big brother style surveillance of the entire worlds population. Its profitable for contractors and hardware mfgrs and great for industrial espionage etc etc. Also it makes a population of dunces feel safer because (something that didn't happen) could have been prevented, in theory, by the new, Bigger Big Brother.

So... what was (something that didn't happen)? Were we as a nation planning on nuking SV and leaking the reaction plan before it happened eliminated the reason for us to nuke SV ourselves? We "need" a reason to attack Iran to extent WWIII in the ME, so I could see if some Cuban citizens nuke SV so we invade Iran and publicize the "new" spy programs. In that way, looking at what it cost to implement 9/11, program leakers are probably saving thousands of lives, maybe more, by skipping the Reichstag fire and going right to the oppression stage. How many people, as a country, were we planning to kill to implement the recently revealed spy programs?

</comment><comment><USER11> Brody actually was a terrorist. Who's paranoid now?

</comment><comment><USER12> This article presents typical left-wing German point of view to the point of predictability. As a dual Polish/US citizen I understand and can relate to a lot of this what the article author says, but on the other hand what is striking in German liberal left is this: world is nice, safe place and any indications of terrors done by communists, or terrorists, etc. are widely exaggareted. I remember how I lived in Communistic Poland and during the Martial Law imposed by Communist Generals in 1980s Reagan not only called them Evil, he also started helping Polish resistance including food donations. I was one of these little kids really grateful for American food I got through a local church courtesy of the Paranoid US Tax Payers. Thank you for that guys. I still remember this tasty yellow cheese. Will never forget it. At the same time the West German political class was downplaying the Martial Law in Poland and refuse to criticize Polish GOvernment trying to "understand". And I see they continue doing this stupid thing. On the other hand after WW2 there were some extreme changes in German society. Pacifism uber alles instead of Deutschland uber Alles. And this is stereotypical article in that sense. In the sense of "All Germans and pacifist to the point of imposing danger on themselves and others".

On the other hand I sincerely believe that the US is way over the top with the reaction to 9/11\. The terrorists wanted to destroy our fundamental liberal freedoms. By taking away those freedoms the uS Government seems to be confused on which side it is really fighting for.

<comment><USER13> The USSR had dozens of nuclear ICBM's pointed at every major European city, and, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. city. They also had massive armies.

If war had occurred, The U.S. could have been completely annihilated, utterly destroyed, ceased to exist. That's simply not the situation we face with today with Islamic terrorists.

It's reasonable to ask the question if we might be willing to accept a handful of causalities in exchange to remaining a free country. Than, take the money we're spending on the MIC and use it for safer pools and bathtubs, saving an order of magnitude more lives.

<comment><USER2> It's a reasonable question, but is it practical? 9/11 only killed a fraction of the number who probably died in the last few days in the recent typhoon, but the effect was to bring the entire country and economy to a halt.

The US would need statesmanship beyond that of Churchill to galvanize and harden society against those eventualities.

Moreover, in an era of dirty bombs, chemical weapons and even full nuclear devices, the consequences might not always be merely a "handful of casualties," and the grotesque effects of certain weapons, particularly on children, would be images that would be highly likely to incite increasingly aggressive responses.

The US historically is not a society that is accustomed to the idea of being under any kind of siege, nor of allowing its families to remain under threat of any kind. That's not the underlying narrative, and it's just _not_ in its DNA.

<comment><USER13> I really don't think asking too much of our presidents to try an instill in the public the value of Liberty and Democracy; nor is this some Herculean task. It costs nothing, nor does it require a PHD from Harvard to explain, but it's an investment that will continue to pay off for generations without end.

As for Nuclear Weapons, Al Qaeda obviously does not have the technology to make them, so their safety is almost entirely a factor of international cooperation in regarding their security in countries that do. Such cooperation regarding their most sensitive and strategically valuable weapons requires trust, something that will be in shorter supply if we continue unhindered economic and political espionage.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fake Sweden expert on Fox News – no connection to Swedish security - <AUTHOR> http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/fake-sweden-expert-on-fox-news-has-criminal-convictions-in-us-no-connection-to-swedish-security/ <comment><USER2> Let's look at raw statistics for a second. The data comes from the Swedish crime agency bra.se: [https://www.bra.se/bra/bra-in-english/home/crime-and- statist...](https://www.bra.se/bra/bra-in-english/home/crime-and- statistics/crime-statistics.html)

1) Total numbers of offenses. Rape statistics chart is displayed below:

[https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/013dc374/1/#fullscreen](https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/013dc374/1/#fullscreen)

2) Population pro-rated:

[https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/013dc374/3/#fullscreen](https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/013dc374/3/#fullscreen)

What happened in 2002-2004? As was discussed in media, the Swedish authorities have encouraged reporting of sex offenses and changed the methodology of how rape crime is reported and counted.

One of the unintended side effects is that it's difficult to compare the time series, and this is one of the challenges that all statistical agencies are facing. If you change the definition, be prepared for misunderstanding and misreporting - both intentional and not.

By the way, the country where Julian Assange is alleged of a sex assault is ... Sweden.

<comment><USER2> By the way, here are two rape definitions used by the FBI: 'legacy' and 'revised': [https://www.ucrdatatool.gov/offenses.cfm](https://www.ucrdatatool.gov/offenses.cfm)

Made a difference to Brock Turner's case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In what way is the term "defense and national security advisor" used in the US? Does this necessitate being an advisor to the military or the ministry for foreign affairs?

Because this article to me, as a swede, seems to contain very little substance, and given that DN for no apparent reasons lists this guys whole criminal records makes you wonder what the purpose really is here. For comparison I'm not aware of ever having seen this detailed of a listing of someone's criminal record. There is no mention of any inaccuracies in what this person has said, only that the title chosen by Fox News is incorrect.

It's also somewhat ironic that they quote Nils Bildt as complaining of the way media behave, when this whole article, and publication of his criminal record in particular, in many ways seems like a way to "punish" him for criticizing the politically correct image championed by the media over here.

Finally, it might be worth pointing out that the surname Bildt is in Sweden strongly associated with the politician Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and former minister for foreign affairs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Things like this makes me worried about the future of the USA. How can a country succeed in the future if they reject reality? I know Fox News is not representative of all US media, but even the president admits that his worldview is based on whatever the news editor cooks up that day.

<comment><USER5> All this makes me think a war is being cooked up though the stance on Europe doesn't make any sense to me. I thought China is the "issue" now not EU which still pays the price of the latest NATO war(s).

<comment><USER6> Yup, my guess it will be 6-7 years until war.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't get why the Right is so keen to vilify Sweden.

I've lived abroad and travelled and feel I have a fair handle on all the countries I've visited and I'm living abroad now.. In Sweden! Nordic countries are by far the best functioning countries I've ever visited and should serve as positive examples.

<comment><USER8> Because Scandinavia has countries that are aggressively left-wing and really successful at it. These are the places that prove that liberal ideals work. And they've accepted a tremendous number of refugees.

So ideologue right wingers are desperate to see them fail, as proof that Muslims are intrinsically hateful and that Scandinavians are chumps for falling for leftist ideals.

<comment><USER9> That seems to be basically it.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Soviet-affiliated communist parties were triumphant in large parts of Europe. In countries like Hungary and Czhechoslovakia, they came to power through elections and rapidly seized absolute government control. Many communists in Western European countries were expecting France, West Germany and others to soon follow suit. After all, the "scientific" theory of Marxism-Leninism explained this would happen, and enough cherry-picked facts were available to support the inevitability of the capitalist governments' collapse.

Today's right-wingers look a lot like those 1948 communists. Plenty of things are going their way, but that is not good enough in itself -- the Bannon-style ideological framework makes fatalist predictions that must be validated, by adapting facts if necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a bit weird that a country safer than the US now gets portrayed as a sodom and gomorra of rape and violence. The striking difference between Swedes and immigrants in terms of violent crimes (four times as much, five times for rape) is declared for a large part by the fact that Swedes on average are nice and peaceful people.

Fox and Trump blowing everything out of proportion shouldn't stop a healthy debate about what the benefits of the current wave of immigration for Sweden and the Swedes really are.

<comment><USER7> Immigrants don't commit crimes. Poor people commit crimes. It happens that the poorest people in Sweden right now are immigrants.

The rape stats are also way different from how they are portrayed in the media. In Sweden, if you are in an abusive relationship, _every_ instance of abuse is counted individually, and as Assange learned, the law is very strict. As other countries tend to do far worse at reporting and prosecuting abuse, and as other countries tend to count all occurrences of abuse together as one crime, the numbers are not directly comparable to other countries.

Source: am living in Sweden in a "hotspot", am an immigrant but am rich and white. I saw nazis demonstrating in the local town center yesterday, which shocked me. Sweden is a very safe nice country, and the alt-Right in Sweden (SD being big where I am) and abroad are misrepresenting it.

<comment><USER11> "Immigrants don't commit crimes"... Well, if you import a lot of very poor and unskilled people, the result will be more crime.

Actually, I think it's more complicated that that. I can't find the data but I remember a report that stated that Somali and Iraqi immigrants had 5 time higher conviction rate, and that more than 25% had been convicted for a crime, compared to ~5% of swedes.

I also remembered that immigrants from Sri Lanka -that have been a conflict zone for a very long time - had more or less _half_ the conviction rate than Swedes, which is an interesting fact.

[Swedish article about statistics in Norway, with very similar demographics and culture, except way lower immigration: [https://www.svd.se/brottslighet- bland-invandrare-borde-oroa-...](https://www.svd.se/brottslighet-bland- invandrare-borde-oroa-alla-partier)]

<comment><USER12> So, don't let them be poor.

<comment><USER11> I doubt that any other country gives more money in the form of subsidies or social assistance programmes, both per capita (giver and receiver) and in absolute numbers.

They also have free healthcare and enjoys free education up to university, including financial aid for studies and a home equipment loan.

There are also very few signs of structured racism, when looking at various ethnic groups with comparable education, etc, although it of course exists, just like all other biases and generalisations in a society.

There have been a substantial asylum related immigration for long enough that we can look at the second generation, and their level of education, crime, etc, and draw the conclusion that whatever we are doing, it's not really enough or possibly not even the correct things to do.

<comment><USER11> Personally, I think it's more related to that many immigrants have a hard time to understand the highly individualist society when coming from clan societies, the case that many of them have traditional and backwards values that is frowned upon in the rest of the society although it's never ever done in the open, the islamists and wahhabist propaganda that uses them for their own purposes, and even how we put them in areas where the brutalist architecture, disappointing, misguided, and dirt-cheap city planning amplifies the social group dynamic effects that could perhaps been kept in check in a more non-anonymous society (as explored by Philip Zimbardo.)

And class ( or socioeconomic background - there are related problems that are ignored ). And education. And the fact that we have not done anything to prevent this for the past 30 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm interested in how this is being reported on in the USA - is there a discussion about the complete fabrication of this story, or is the story itself successfully doing the rounds? It seems amazing that manipulation of the public on such a massive scale is even possible in somewhere like the USA, if that's what is happening.

<comment><USER14> I saw something about it on Twitter. But it's Fox News, so wasn't really that unexpected.

They have been attempting to manipulate the public on a massive scale for a long time, as long as the manipulation serves the preferred narrative.

<comment><USER15> Surely, NBC, CNN, etc try and do this also?

Note: Don't take this to mean I, in ANY way, support Fox News.

<comment><USER14> I'm not suggesting they don't but we're not discussing a specific instance on any of those networks, so that's not really at issue here. I think Fox News showed that low-integrity narrative-fitting and selective editing are very profitable. Other networks have probably followed to some extent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When an immigrant politician in The Netherlands made up a "fact" about Dutch doctors pulling the plug on immigrants patients sooner because of racism / a language barrier, he was asked by all journalists why he would use an unsubstantiated rumor in his campaign and how he thought that using something like that was ethical. When I saw that I was proud to be a citizen of this country, even though we have our own Trump wannabe with even tinier hands: Geert Wilders.

</comment><comment><USER16> Utterly embarrassing, but not unexpected. News in the US exists in a different reality compared to other countries. If the BBC did this it would be such an utter shock it would probably make the newspapers. But in the US? Business as usual.

</comment><comment><USER17> So many comments here imply that there is no immigration problem whatsoever in Sweden. It's all Trump/right-win made-up. But it is not true:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/world/europe/sweden- natio...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/world/europe/sweden-nation-of- open-arms-debates-implications-of-immigration.html)

Sweden, Nation of Open Arms, Debates Implications of Immigration

"In 2014, the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats gained 12.9 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections to become the country's third-largest party, up from only 2.9 percent eight years earlier."

</comment><comment><USER18> Nevertheless, what he said was completely correct.

"National security advisor" in an American context is apparently not just someone who gives advise on national security, but a specific high ranking post. Nils Bildt however is an independent analyst from Sweden who is based in the US. If the Swedish government considers him an "expert" or not seems irrelevant.

While the presentation of who he is was misleading, it doesn't seem like a huge conspiracy and could simply be a mistake. The reaction to it looks like a case of killing the messenger when you don't like the message.

</comment><comment><USER19> Murders / 100k people in Sweden: 4. Chicago has 27.

<comment><USER20> Comparing Sweden to Chicago seems a bit of a stretch. A number more directly comparable would be the US Non-Black homicide rate, which was 2.54 per 100,000 in 2015.

I think that's lower than the Sweden figure in the sibling comment.

[Edit: I had said that this rate was also lower than England. I was wrong on that one. ]

[https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in- the-u.s.-...](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in- the-u.s.-2015/tables/expanded_homicide_data_table_3_murder_offenders_by_age_sex_and_race_2015.xls)

<comment><USER21> The actual rate for Sweden and the UK is 0.9, each. So even the 'non-black' rate in the US is higher than both, put together.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intenti...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

<comment><USER2> I recommend double checking reference tables in Wikipedia.

It is conveniently displayed first in search results, however for Sweden:

[https://www.bra.se/download/18.358de3051533ffea5ea7f2cf/1459...](https://www.bra.se/download/18.358de3051533ffea5ea7f2cf/1459417671952/Reported_offences_1950_2015.xls)

      > 305 Completed murder, manslaughter and assault resulting in death.
      > 9,851,017 Total population

= 3.1 per 100000 people

<comment><USER21> The differences are due to different definitions of intentional homicide between countries, which is why I would argue a UN study with its own definition is better for comparison than a Swedish and US source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The family name Bildt is an old noble one with registered heraldry and absolutely not a surname you can take in Sweden. It's also the surname of the prime minister at the time Nils emigrated. Perhaps that's a bit of background to who puts on such a charade.

</comment><comment><USER23> Ironically coming from DN, who under current editor Wolodarski has lost a huge amount of credibility among Swedish intellectuals. What used to be the premier journalistic publication of Sweden now runs a highly biased agenda, and has been involved in a number of journalistic scandals (cover ups etc).

<comment><USER24> I find it interesting and telling that you don't present any sources for your argument. Which paper in Sweden does the "Swedish intellectuals" read now? I think it is still DN, but would be interested to hear your sourced argument why this isn't true.

<comment><USER23> If you read my post again, you will see that I did not actually say that the Swedish intellectuals (for the lack of a better term) are not reading DN, just that DN has lost a lost of credibility. It is my observation that this is becoming more and more of a wide spread view, based on discussions with friends and colleagues. You are right - I'm busted! - I have not conducted a market study of this. But then again, do you have any sources why they still read DN as you claim?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Unfortunately the news cycle has already moved on.</comment>


Where should I host my app: amazon ec2/softlayer/Google compute engine - <AUTHOR>

Should <comment><USER2> This totally, totally depends on your requirements. However, my preference is at least a VPS, if not a dedicated server. A dedicated server (or even a couple) can be had fairly cheaply now, and you can get amazing performance out of even a lower-end dedicated server. But again, __totally __depends on your requirements. More info?

[edit] What do I mean by cheap dedicated? By watching this page: <https://www.datashack.net/dedicated/> I got a dual processor dual core amd 2.4ghz, 4gb ram, 146GB SAS drive (as a bonus, mine was upgraded to SSD!) and 20tb of transfer, for $35/month. If you're concerned about reliability, you can get several of this class of machines from different companies for redundancy. (compare to what you'd get for $35/month from AWS) It just takes some hard work & research.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can also explore dotcloud. I have been using it for more than a year now and it's quite good.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a fan of rackspace cloud. I find their performance to be better than EC2.

</comment><comment><USER5> Same question in mind here. I can't post ask because I just got created my account, but upon googling overnight, it seems that budget seems to be the most de-facto you must have. Interested to some folks posting more hosting experiences.

</comment><comment><USER6> why not your own VPS?

</comment><comment><USER7> Depends how much money you have. Unless you have fluctuating scaling needs I would stick with a VPS or dedicated. You will get a lot more 'bang for your buck'. Just avoid companies like GoDaddy, Linode etc.

Have a look around:

<http://webhostingtalk.com>

<comment><USER8> What? What's wrong with Linode?

<comment><USER7> Google "Linode Security".

This year they had a major security incident which resulted in a number of their customers being compromised. We still don't know exactly what happened, what they did to fix it or whether it will happen again. And as a customer at the time we heard about it on Reddit days before they bothered to tell us about it.

That lack of transparency is completely unacceptable and a giant warning sign to take your business elsewhere.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps many hosts have the same security issue, but they haven't been targeted due to having less bitcoins. I suspect instead the Linode incident was an inside job, in which case it could happen anywhere regardless of security. Still, Linode should provide more info about what they did if anything to fix it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introduction to computational thinking for real-world problems with Julia - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGojI9xcCfg <comment><AUTHOR> Course Info: [https://github.com/mitmath/18S191](https://github.com/mitmath/18S191)

Lectures and Problem Sets: [https://github.com/mitmath/18S191/blob/master/course- materia...](https://github.com/mitmath/18S191/blob/master/course-materials.md)</comment>


Try F# on WebAssembly - <AUTHOR> https://forums.websharper.com/blog/86246 <comment><USER2> Programming professionally with WebSharper has been the best web development experience I ever had. Several years later I ended up doing some web development with Angular and it was a horrific experience.

The one thing I'm most certain of is that popularity in software development doesn't correlate with merit. This is unfortunate because approaches that are superior are generally overlooked in favor of gimped alternatives from big names like Google and Apple.

IntelliFactory have been strong at F# for over a decade now and if you have yet to use an ML like F# in anger yet, you just can't know what you are missing on.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious if you have played with "Safe Stack" yet and have thoughts on how it compares to WebSharper?

<comment><USER4> There's a response to your question from one of the SAFE stack developers, but it is dead so only those with "show dead" on see it. I'm not sure if dead comments show up for people without "show dead" on if they follow a direct link to it, but if they do, here is a link [1].

I'm curious why it is dead. The account has only posted two comments, both technical comments on F# threads, and both are dead. It has no submissions. So how did it get killed?

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18778089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18778089)

<comment><USER5> Accounts without much history are subject to additional software filters, mainly because of past abuse by trolls. We've marked isaacabraham79's account legit so it won't happen again.

If you see a [dead] comment that shouldn't be dead, please vouch for it instead of posting offtopically about its deadness. Usually that will just fix the problem. That's why we implemented vouching!

To vouch for a dead comment, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'vouch' at the top.

<comment><USER4> In this case I did vouch for it, and it didn't bring it back.

<comment><USER5> Ah, I missed that because it looks like you clicked 'unvouch' afterward.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, when I saw it had become visible I was curious if my vouch made a difference, and so un-vouched to see if it would disappear again. If it had, I would have re-vouched.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a neat idea, but I found it painful to use for anything but trivial examples, since the main thread pauses for a second or two every time I edit my code. (Using Chrome.)

I tried running this snippet: [http://www.fssnip.net/7VB/title/Enumerating- the-Rationals](http://www.fssnip.net/7VB/title/Enumerating-the-Rationals)

Problems I ran into:

* BigInteger isn't available, even though it's part of F# core and I opened System.Numerics.

* Syntax coloring failed when I defined static member (* ). It seemed to think that (* opened a comment that was never closed. (Sorry, HN formatting prevents me from typing the correct inline multiplication override.)

</comment><comment><USER7> I just hope Microsoft can put more resource on F# to help the community grow faster.

<comment><USER6> I just want them to add typeclasses to F#. I think that's the missing piece that it really needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How is this different from Blazor?

<comment><USER8> Asking in the wrong place, please ignore</comment></comment>


Google Removes http:// from Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/23171/Google_Removes_http_from_Chrome <comment><USER2> Considering how much is abstracted from the user these days, I've always wondered why something as technical and meaningless to the average user like "<http://> hasn't been removed before. Good move I say.

<comment><USER3> What would you say about "www.", then? Shouldn't that be removed as meaningless, as opposed to the protocol prefix which a) identifies something as a URL, b) makes it detectable and parseable?

<comment><USER4> Not really www.foo.com is distinct from foo.com. <http://> is pretty redundant - you usually only want to specify the protocol if its not http.

<comment><USER5> I doubt that the "average" person would realize that foo.com is different from www.foo.com — or that they could even be different.

<comment><USER6> But they would probably see abc.foo.com as different from xyz.foo.com

<comment><USER5> The _www._ prefix is a special case for people; it literally means "its the _w_ orld _w_ ide _w_ eb" or "its the internet" to them. Technically, the subdomain is irrelevant. But, most people don't know this. They don't know how the internet works and (I'd suspect that this is true in more cases than you might think), think that www. is needed to get to whatever site they want to visit.

Of course, this is all assuming that they even type the address in, rather then searching.

<comment><USER7> I generally just type in the name of the site that I want:

'amazon' for www.amazon.com

Firefox is generally smart enough to take me to where I want to go. The only issue is when some hack site games it's way to the top of a search result for something else, but I've only run into that a few times.

Which is itself an issue -- since many browsers are now turning the 'address bar' into a combo search+address bar, novice users may not even realize what the difference is (or was).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a lot of comments about this over here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1274591>

<comment><USER9> also here: <http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=41467>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like not seeing the http. But I hate that now when you copy-paste, it doesn't do plain-text anymore. When you paste the url in email, it shows a hyperlink to example.com/page while linking to <http://example.com/page>. I would love it if onfocus event for the address-bar shows the http and selects the full address and copy-paste just copies the plain-text url.

<comment><USER11> I hate rich text copy/paste. I probably only want to copy formatting 5% of the time. Do any operating systems provide ways to configure how copy/paste works?

<comment><USER12> It's not exactly "configuration" but Mac OS apps usually have "Paste" and "Paste and Match Style". The latter being basically a plain text paste with the current app figuring the rest. (that's what it feels like at least)

However, I have seen a few times where it doesn't really work as expected. Not sure why.

And I also dislike rich text copy/paste. One example that comes up often for me is that I copy the link to a comment on HN and paste it to Gmail, and it just shows up as "link". Stupid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Since 99.999% of the people only ever encounter <http://>, ftp://, and > <https://> (did I forget any?), why not create a standard set of easy-to- > understand icons to replace them, in cooperation with other browser makers?

For me at least it's a lot harder to memorize the meaning of a 16x16 pixel image than a four-character string.

Also, we have exactly the same problem that Google's having with this, which is that it's difficult to copy/paste, to speak nothing of entering in a url you have written down.

<comment><USER14> how do you copy/paste a 16x16 pixel image + half of the URL?

<comment><USER15> and how do you tell when to copy it? If I wanted to avoid the load-balanced subdomain in a url:

www35.company.com/bar/foo.aspx

and just copied: company.com/bar/foo.aspx

Would the <http://> come over? how about if I just copied "bar/foo.aspx" ?

<comment><USER16> Nope. The <http://> only comes when its all selected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Good move, overall. Every browser I know of automatically inserts the <http://> and has for some time now. Removing the visual component of this just completes the abstraction that's already there.

The author suggests replacing the string of text with an icon, like RSS. But the RSS icon quickly went from "standard" to "indecipherable clusterfuck" in practice. <http://images.google.com/images?q=rss%20icons>

<comment><USER18> The "<http://> has been replaced by an icon. I suspect it's supposed to be a small planet earth icon, but the color choice makes it look like the moon, and the continent placement makes it look like a squinty smiley face when viewed from a few feet away.

Icons.. feh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can see the obscuring of <http://> being useful way back in 1995, but in 2010, it seems kind of a moot point given how ubiquitous the act of web browsing is.

<comment><USER20> Wouldn't it be more useful now that web browsing is so ubiquitous?

<comment><USER21> To be entirely honest, I can't see how it would be useful either in 1995 or now. A person either cares about URLs or they don't. In the first case, the URL should be displayed properly; in the second, they won't have a damn clue what all that funny text in the box at the top of the screen is anyway, so you may as well show it properly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just noticed this on my daily build. I actually kind of like it. Copy/paste works just fine on Ubuntu Karmic.

</comment><comment><USER23> The scheme is an essential part of the URL. Copying an URL from a browser's location bar used to be a reliable way of sharing links, but this change introduces a greater potential for errors (there's no reason to assume an https resource is available via http, for example).

<comment><USER7> Copy-pasting includes the scheme (mostly, there's a couple bugs at the moment). Better to read up on the issue before commenting about how it's supposedly broken.

<comment><USER23> I didn't say it was broken, but that the change increases the possibility of errors. Look at the other links provided in this thread to see why this is so. I stand by my statement, which I made after reading up on the issue.

<comment><USER7> Editing your post and claiming you never said the original comment is pretty shady.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's been removed from search engine URL lines for a while.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've already been bitten from this change a half-dozen times. Every time I want to share with someone an url I have open in chromium now, I have to manually type "<http://>.

Hopefully they will eventually fix it so copying from the location bar will include the full url. (Complicated of course by the fact that a user may only copy part of the url, leaving off eg "?foo")

<comment><USER25> I was under the impression that copying from the location bar was supposed to include the <http://>. If it doesn't, that is a pretty strange oversight.

<comment><USER7> It generally does, although there are a few issue with copying partial text out of the bar, e.g:

[news.ycombinator.com]/somejunk

Copying the bracketed portion should include the <http://> but some situation were causing it not to be copied, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Since the OS X pasteboard is clever enough to add <http://> back in when copying the url from the location bar, this actually works pretty well on my Mac. I like it too.

I can see how it'd be intensely frustrating if the pasteboard doesn't work, though.

<comment><USER27> The addition of '<http://> is made by Chrome itself, not OSX.

<comment><USER26> Understood, but I hear that that doesn't work on, say, Linux. I don't know who's to blame, nor do I care.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, except it works fine on Linux. Nothing to do you with your beloved OSX.

<comment><USER29> I just updated the 41609 with one more way of how it does not work on Linux.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> When you click in the address bar it should return the <http://> (ala Win7's explorer bar) - SOLVED!

</comment><comment><USER31> Good move, but they need a new way of showing https or a broken https site.

<comment><USER32> They do, in either red or blue depending on the SSL state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The author had to pick on Apple..

</comment><comment><USER34> What happens on Copy/Paste?

google.com <http://google.com>

are not the same in the context of the web.

<comment><USER35> The full url with <http://> is added to the clipboard when you copy.

<comment><USER36> Only if you copy the entire link. If you try and extract a subsection like a directory, by either dragging across, or by shift unselect, it will not copy the '<http://>.

A fringe case? Maybe, but I've already run into this pain a few times jumping back and forth from chrome to emacs.

<comment><USER35> Have you submitted it as a bug? It's the dev track people! Why are you expecting it to be perfect already?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Monopoly</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for an iOS developer in NY. - <AUTHOR>

If you're an iOS developer with a year or two of professional experience based in New York City and looking for a full-time position at an exciting NYC startup, reach out!<p>contact at ratsimihah dot com <comment><USER2> You might give [http://getlambda.com/](http://getlambda.com/) a call. They post here on HN sometimes and they service mostly the SF and NY areas for development and connect you with engineers.

Also see the monthly hiring threads:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827545](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827545)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827554](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827554)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks! It seems to be for freelancers, though. What I need is a developer for a full-time position. Let me edit the post.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Doodle with strangers 1 on 1 in real-time - <AUTHOR> http://www.PaintAcquaint.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys,

I'm re-releasing PaintAcquaint and I wanna know what you guys think about my site! I'll be doing a live-stream at 8 o'clock buuut here are the updates:

Updates from Beta:

-Cleaner UI w/ new icons courtesy of #tehkseven

-Updated Java Server

-Bitmapping so no more layering for each brush stroke for a drastically improved performance

-Full Screen Mode

-Hard Link for your saved photos

=]

<comment><USER2> I just had a CRAZY session with some random dude. We wound up playing tic-tac- toe together, without saying a word.

edit*-> I guess I'm assuming it was a dude...

<comment><AUTHOR> haha awww. That's awesome! I remember when I first showed the prototype to my classmates earlier this year they ended up killing an entire lecture just using it and the professor ended up yelling at them to stop. I really hope this time around it can catch some steam online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great idea. Unfortunately all of the people I was paired with wanted to draw pictures of penises, scribble over the whole thing, or leave after 15 seconds.

<comment><USER4> As soon as I saw this story I thought "DoodleRoulette!".

<comment><USER3> Had better luck this time:

<http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=231>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Aww just had a good sesh where we drew (I think) a guy with a poster about looking both ways before crossing the road. Accidentally clicked leave.

This is fun, and I understand the idea of communicating through drawing... but I still find myself wanting to type at some point.

Maybe if you hang out for x seconds, you can text chat?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was debating whether or not to add text chat, but I think the general consensus so far from people using it is they wanna talk. I'll definitely be adding it in the near future!

<comment><USER5> Also, completely separate thought, but I think the reddit crowd would love this if you could draw rage faces.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was painting a guy then someone did a dog, then someone painted the sky, some trees, and someone was starting to do an elephant but i got disconnected, if you saved that image please share!

EDIT:

here's how it started

<http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/221.jpg>

<comment><USER6> I was looking for my drawing on his images folder when i got this (NSFW) <http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/245.jpg>

Not my drawing by far but hilarious!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=235>

This was a really fun thing and really creative picture imo!

Wow, some of the other links here are terrific. I'm amazed two random people have enough dedication to build such detailed stuff.

</comment><comment><USER8> That was fun, I tried to paint a happy sky and a landscape, just like Bob Ross does on his shows. But I think I did it in the wrong order. Wonder if you could capture some of the pictures as they were being doodled and then show it as an animation, then let people vote on their favorites.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well, the site's starting to bottom out. If anyone's still reading this, does anyone know what's a good way to pull in more traffic?

I've been kinda relying on reddit and deviantArt the past couple of days.

</comment><comment><USER9> <http://colorillo.com/> does the same thing, using HTML and JavaScript with no Flash, and it allows arbitrarily many participants at once.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey JoshTriplett,

Colorillo does a pretty good job at real-time drawing collaboration. There's a bunch of online-real time painting programs out there, like Flockdraw or scriblink. I purposely coded it to have the users pair-up to kind of emulate Omegle or Chatroulette.

The only reason why I didn't decide to make this application using HTML and JS is because I wanted to teach myself Flash + AS3. This was my only 2nd project in flash. I'm definitely planning on porting it to Mobile once I have free time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think I win:

<http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=224>

</comment><comment><USER11> I had a great time playing with this tonight, got into a virtual cartoon "fight" creating super-heroes and so on. Great app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! All this positive feedback means a lot :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=233>

</comment><comment><USER13> Pretty neat, but needs a chat window or something. I just found myself painting messages ;)

</comment><comment><USER14> Pretty cool. What's the technical stack behind it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh! Glad finally someone asked. The front-end's using flash w/ as3. It was the 2nd project I made using flash, so it was really exciting when I was scrambling across the web for resources. The original front-end the client was actually layering each stroke on top of each other, so what ended up happening was the client would crash after 20ish minutes of moderate use. So I fixed that and ended up using bitmapping to handle the screen. I had a bunch of other features that I disabled for this release [opacity and the undo function] just because they were too buggy.

The server's running I believe CentOS 5.6? or .7? And it's written in Java. Anywho when there's incoming information it stores the coordinates that are being drawn into a buffer. If the buffer becomes full then it shoots it out those coordinates. There's also a 50ms cycle that checks the size of the buffer, so even if it's not full, it'll shoot out the points.

-edit-

I mean, for now the server architecture can handle light load but I definitely plan on implementing a more scalable solution if I get more traffic.</comment></comment>


Which Areas Will Be Flooded with Homes Once Boomers Start Leaving Them? - <AUTHOR> https://www.zillow.com/research/silver-tsunami-inventory-boomers-24933/ <comment><USER2> _It seems likely that, in the coming two decades, the construction industry will need to place a greater focus on updating existing properties, in addition to simply building new homes._

Remodelling existing stock seems like an enormous opportunity for construction tech.

<comment><USER3> The elephant in the room here is that the lifespan of a lot of recently built houses is not necessarily what we might expect. A lot of these houses will turn out to have problems that will effectively "total" them as they age. There are a lot of McMansions out there that simply have no real long term future.

<comment><USER4> Could you expand on some of these points? For example, has there been new construction material of which the long-term effects are unknown, or has there been new architectural design methods?

Or were you saying that as a blanketed statement of opinion

<comment><USER5> Not the new materials but the new design and construction methods. The decades of shaving margins have had their toll to the point where apartment complexes are not even making it out of the warranty period before developing major structural flaws.

There is also, for example, the fascination with butterfly or hipped roofs (where the main gutters are in the middle of the roof instead of the edges), which will cause problems any time the rainfall exceeds the capacity of the gutters and down pipes. Given we are heading into more extreme weather with shorter, heavier downpours, it seems to me that hip and butterfly roofs are a bad idea.

I have seen a few houses condemned because of water damage due to eg: one builder using a three inch deep gutter instead of the specified six inch gutter. Saving a few dollars at the cost of destroying the value of the property.

Cutting corners and an increasing reliance on industry "self regulation" means that housing built in the last decade here in Australia is only temporary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Florida is likely in for a double-whammy with climate change compounding with the Silver Tsunami.

I wouldn't want to own property in Florida in the long term.

<comment><USER7> I keep saying that once rise to the point where the problem is undeniable, Floridians will demand— and probably get— a colossal bailout on the taxpayers' dime for their property, either in the form of some megaengineering project to hold back the ocean or just forcing the government to buy their homes, because Florida is a swing state with a large number of crucial electoral votes and neither major party can blow them off.

<comment><USER8> It's literally not possible to hold back the ocean in Florida. The bedrock is porous.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but that doesn't mean we're not going to spend billions of dollars trying. Voters don't like to be told "there's no fix"; they'll gravitate toward any politician who promises to preserve their property values, especially with other people's money.

<comment><USER8> _sigh_

You're not wrong...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> An example of "worth" (as in net worth) which has potential to simply evaporate. Individually disastrous for families assuming intergenerational wealth was safe in the parents house, fiscally disastrous because the economy will be in shrinkage as it was in the sub prime, because of excess housing stocks causing a decline in construction spend, and declining values forcing more people into drawdown on capital, or a retreat from spending. Under employment hits. Deflation isn't fun.

</comment><comment><USER10> A lot of this also appears to be visible in the northeast. Entire towns greying so rapidly that it's hard to find any services at all already. I wonder what will happen with so many houses being dumped on the market.

<comment><USER11> Same thing that happens to any dying town. Decrease in property values and decrease in quality of life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I expect this will hit every city differently as a lot depends on what the younger generations can afford relative to what the median price of boomer housing is in the area.

</comment><comment> BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 A substantial portion of retiree houses will come onto the market as elderly move into care homes, sometimes several years before they pass away. The price houses sell for depends on who will be buying _ either other retirees or local employed people, who may enjoy opportunities to upgrade. As usual housing prices depend on either local incomes or outside cash.

</comment><comment><USER13> Corporate-sponsored research is always suspect. Why is this an important research topic? Is the study notable or significant compared to other studies in this field? Just asking.

<comment><USER14> Is this actual research? Or is it just Zillow extrapolating from data they already have to drive traffic?

<comment><USER13> Well, the URL contains the word "research", so I assume Zillow considers this to be a research report.

"I don't think industry really does very much research. They come up with an idea and they try to sell it. If it was a good idea, maybe they will make money. Even if it was a bad idea, if they have good marketing people, they might still make money and we never know..."

Héctor Garcia-Molina, 1953–2019

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> LOL. The article completely ignores that today's 40-somethings will be 60-something 20 years from now. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Uspop.svg)

edit: Seeing the flood of downvotes I'll give some data. Home ownership increases with age. 60+ers leaving their homes from death, poor health or inconvenience will be supplemented by today's 40+ers over the next 20 years. [https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/08/homeownership...](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/08/homeownership- by-age.html) . We were in the same situation 20 years ago, 21 years ago, 22 years ago, and so on.

<comment><USER16> It's very different. I'm fortunate to be in a good place from a retirement perspective, but at this point my parents had made a 10x return on their home that they purchased in late 70s NYC, plus a legacy pension, plus a retirement healthcare.

Most of the housing wealth will be eaten up by health costs. With families moving away and people retiring to alternate locales, property wealth will be seized and sold off by the county to pay for Medicaid.

Many of the folks in our field are doing great, but tech is boom/bust and people are making way too much money now.

<comment><USER17> > Most of the housing wealth will be eaten up by health costs

Unless the home is somehow stripped down or otherwise damaged, the intrinsic value of the housing wealth will not change; it just is owned by a different entity.</comment></comment></comment>


Is it just me or is Amazon having certificate issues? - <AUTHOR> Trying to get to amazon.com from both Firefox and Safari is giving me a certificate error ... <comment><USER2> If you just did an up on Linux and running pihole you likely need to reboot. Same problem tonight. Tried Safari, Firefox, mobile, Linux same results.</comment>


Show HN: HearthSim, an AI and game simulator for Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/oyachai/HearthSim

<comment><USER2> In order to balance the game I am working on, I am planning to use a somewhat similar automated system (although its good to note, you can get a very interesting statistical analysis by ignoring the AI and just playing random cards/skills/whatever you are testing against each other). This of course works best if you are selecting two discrete subsets of one superset and playing with card variance (random decks, control decks with only one different card between them, etc).

Off topic: I've played Heathstone enough to appreciate it. It is a good game (I'd give it maybe 4.5 stars), but not perfect; my critiques:

\- Chance of winning is based largely on luck - the same deck drawn two different ways can be almost a guaranteed win/fail, even if it is balanced.

\- Card starvation is way too common of a problem. Could not count how many times I ended up exhausting the deck, even with plenty of cards to counter it. When you only have one card to play at a time, the game becomes rather dull.

\- Classing leads to a certain lack of permutation and surprise - most decks have a few basic strategies.

\- Cards outside of the class decks tend to be fairly generic feeling for the most part. Many cards feel a bit mundane compared to other CCGs.

\- Free to play model hurts the game a bit - I don't mind paying money, but many aspects of the game feel too grindy (in order to get you to pay money).

<comment><USER3> The #1 reason I stopped playing the game is because I would do fairly well at the game, get matched with stronger opponents, and subsequently lose because I dont even have the full set of Mage cards while my opponent is pulling legendaries. That kind of a game just isnt fun for me and it happens over and over.

<comment><USER4> You get matched against people who are winning about as much as you are. The system looks at nothing else. This is the best and really only way to do matchmaking.

If you were kept separate from the rest of the decks how would that work?

(FWIW, my best deck doesn't is the one that doesn't have any legendaries in it anyway, and it got as high as rank 2, 4 stars.)

If you were isolated from decks with legendaries and had a seperate ladder, h

<comment><USER5> > If you were isolated from decks with legendaries and had a seperate ladder, > h

Offtopic but that reminded me of those decade-old Slashdot posts with the sudden cutoff mid-sentence followed by 'Connection dropped' modem messages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note that the game only implements about 50 cards of the 382 cards available in the game: [https://github.com/oyachai/HearthSim/tree/master/test/com/he...](https://github.com/oyachai/HearthSim/tree/master/test/com/hearthsim/test/card)

BTW, if you haven't tried it yet, Hearthstone is a great CCG with a very fair progression system and very good polish/balance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I'm up to about 100 cards at this time, working on the basic cards first. Besides the cards, there needs to be more work on the AI modeling... currently, it won't handle any card with elements of randomness to it. I think I have an idea on how to treat it (without the AI cheating), so that implementation is coming up... soon.

<comment><USER7> Are you implementing each card by hand? I was going to make something like this and was just going to regex match all of the cards (from HearthPwn). It seemed like there were few enough variations to make something like that possible.

Curious if you already tried automating it.

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of the cards are more or less automatically generated in the sense that they don't actually extend any functionality of the parent class. Variations in the special effects ("text" effects) are big enough that for those, I find implementing them one by one much easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a bit against the code style: [https://github.com/oyachai/HearthSim/blob/master/src/com/hea...](https://github.com/oyachai/HearthSim/blob/master/src/com/hearthsim/card/spellcard/concrete/ArcaneExplosion.java)

So the card that does the damage has to do the removal check for the minions? Talk about duplication of code. Wouldn't something like this be better:

engine.dealDamage(1).to(Category.EnemyMinions);

<comment><USER8> Or better yet, write the entire thing in a logic programming DSL.

<comment><USER9> DSL as in write your own language? That sounds complex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does this implement the many completely undocumented corners of the game correctly?

Some examples: [http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/24tvce/unwritte...](http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/24tvce/unwritten_effects/)

Some examples from personal experience: Ongoing effects last until a player could act, not until the minion causing them leaves the battlefield. So if you trade your 2/3 harvest golem for your opponent's 6/2 stormwind commander, they both die, you get a 2/1 damaged golem, and your knife juggler throws a knife at your opponent's wisp, the wisp will take 1 damage, go down to 2/1, then lose the buff from stormwind commander (who died a long time ago!) and go down to 1/1.

If you have a young priestess and a 1/1 imp master, your imp master can kill itself and your young priestess can target your dead imp master with her buff. This will not bring the imp master back to life, you just miss out on your buff for the turn.

<comment><USER11> I was confused for a moment on what you meant, but I believe you were referring to the 'Stormwind Champion'.

In the future Naxx release, they will implement a queue to keep track of the timestamp that each creature enters the board. All effect that triggers/depletes from a 'mass death' will take place in the order of each card's timestamp, earliest first.

So for the 2nd example, it depends on which creature came into play first. If Young Priestess, then Imp Master doesn't lose health and you get a 1/1 imp. If Imp Master first, then Imp is spawned and gets buffed but the master dies.

<comment><USER10> Whoops!

I am not sure if this will fix young priestess thing - the issue is that the young priestess chooses its target before the imp master uses its ability, but uses its ability after the imp master does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _HearthSim is a generic Hearthstone game simulator and AI, designed to run large numbers of simulated AI vs AI games in order to test and understand the values of various game mechanics and cards._

Then I read an article about The Coin on OP's blog: [http://buddypanda.com/?p=65](http://buddypanda.com/?p=65) and I don't think that the simulator is that useful. Maybe I'm too dumb to understand this, but my intuitive idea is that a card like The Coin gives you various advantages and no disadvantages, since it is an extra card that comes for free and gives you more flexibility. How come then, that the simulator says that the player actually wins more games without The Coin?

Hearthstone isn't mainly about random encounters between AI opponents, but to gain advantage in material over your opponent over the course of the game. Sometimes, 1hp, 1 card, 1 round is sufficient to decide over victory or defeat. If the simulator neglects hero abilities (as in The Coin article), my guess would be that it's not too accurate.

However, I thought that a simulator for Hearthstone would be a great idea. I think you're onto something here, but I'd like to see a few more use cases that match my intuition I gained from playing hundreds of games of Hearthstone.

<comment><USER13> > How come then, that the simulator says that the player actually wins more > games without The Coin?

This isn't what the results say. The win rate for the player who goes first ("Player 0") rose from 41% to 61% when the player who goes second ("Player 1") was not given The Coin.

This is summarized in the text:

> The Coin basically makes what used to be a first player advantage into a > first player disadvantage. Not bad for a single card!

<comment><USER14> As far as I'm aware, official stats from Blizzard is that the player going first is wins a higher % of the time than going second, despite the coin. I'll try and find the source.

User dtech already found the source for me (: -> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8020232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8020232)

<comment><USER15> Not with all decks though apparently. Freeze mage can benefit from the coin immensely

<comment><USER14> I appreciate your point about coin being stronger in some decks than others - that doesn't change the fact that across _all_ of the games of hearthstone being played, if you go first you're more likely to win than if you go second.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just curious: have you watched any of these games to see what kinds of mistakes the AI makes for various settings of the parameters in your scoring functions?

Also, I'd be interested in doing offline learning. For example, if you have some formal way to record the actions taken in a game, you could ask pro players to submit their games. Of course, this would require Blizzard to allow a replay mechanism like it does for starcraft. But it would make the AI design process much more interesting than exploring game trees (without perfect information) or greedily picking the best single move.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have informally looked at what the AI does. Turns out, as far as I can see, the AI does a pretty good job... with a BIG CAVEAT. The decks that I have used so far consist solely of minions and one other special card, so there really isn't any "mistakes" the AI can make. The decks are just so simplistic at this point. As more interesting cards are implemented, I'm sure there will be situations where the AI will make interesting mistakes that we can learn from. It is something I'm really looking forward to exploring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You have no idea how excited this project makes me. I have a total nerd boner for AI and Hearthstone, so... I'm hyperventilating right now.

Hopefully I can grok your work and maybe I can contribute!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm a sucker for AI and Hearthstone too :) I'd love any contribution and collaboration!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can someone clarify if this is the same HearthStone AI/Machine Learning project being presented at DEF CON this year by Elie and Celine Bursztein[1]?

[1] [https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-speakers.html#Bu...](https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-speakers.html#Bursztein)

<comment><USER19> There's another pretty good one that I found a few days ago on github, I don't think it's the same as the one you're talking about, but it seems to be more complete than the OP's.

[https://github.com/danielyule/hearthstone- simulator](https://github.com/danielyule/hearthstone-simulator)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very cool!

Isn't there some kind of copyright or terms-of-service violation involved in publishing this?

<comment><USER21> Seeing as it doesn't reproduce the functionality of the Hearthstone client or server in its entirety, I think it falls in the same category as fansites such as Hearthpwn. Blizzard could probably pursue a successful takedown, but I can't see a good reason to put resources there when there are things like WoW private servers that pose a legitimate business threat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting, I've written very much the same thing with the same name. Only difference is I've written it using C++.

</comment><comment><USER23> Dear god thank you for not writing this in javascript.

<comment><AUTHOR> Simulation speed is of primary concern here (though javascript isn't too shabby)! I actually have a C++ version too, but I thought Java might be more accessible to more people...

<comment><USER24> How can simulation speed be a concern in a turn-based card game?

<comment><AUTHOR> HearthSim is designed purely as a AI vs AI game simulation tool. It's not a "playable" Hearthstone clone. In the examples on my blog, I usually run 40,000 simulated games per data point, and each set of 40,000 games usually takes a few hours to run on a relatively modern PC.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Think Twice Before Ordering Coffee or Tea on a Plane - <AUTHOR> http://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/flight-attendants-dont-drink-coffee-tea-planes <comment><USER2> I never know what to take away from these "germs are everywhere" scare stories. I've been drinking coffee on planes for years. Maybe I've been exposed to something, but I've never been sick. Maybe it's making my immune system stronger. I'll make reasonable choices but I'm not going to be paranoid or even think twice about something like coffee on an airplane.

<comment><USER3> The water is boiled to thermo-nuclear levels so I'd be shocked if anything nasty could survive it - certainly the flavor can't!

I'm not sure if it's because there's more content available these days, but the "germs are everywhere" movement has far greater prominence than when I grew up. We'd spend all summer barefoot, put our hands in places they shouldn't and then in our mouths, eat food that we almost certainly shouldn't have and yet we somehow survived.

There's some things that we absolutely shouldn't consume, but airplane tea and coffee are pretty low down that list.

<comment><USER4> boiling water kills most of the organisms, but the toxins they excreted will still be present and can cause problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you've ever had coffee or tea on a plane, you probably already know that the water usually tastes terrible anyway. So, germs or no germs, stick to cold drinks. Like gin and tonic.

<comment><USER6> That's my philosophy. The Quinine will also help suppress any malaria one might catch due to humid conditions in the rear cabin toilets. Slice of lemon for a Vitamin-C immune system boost. The mild sedative of alcohol to drown out the screaming void of my mind left idle without access to the internet.

<comment><USER7> >The mild sedative of alcohol to drown out the screaming void of my mind left idle without access to the internet.

Consider doing something with your mind...

<comment><USER8> There's nothing as pleasurable as reading a book on a plane, as there's not much else to distract you. That's changing, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Damn near every flight I see the pilot and copilot enjoy a cup of coffee, and yet we don't hear about the waves of moribund pilots unable to perform their duties....

<comment><USER10> What kind of flights do you take that you get to _see_ the pilot in this post 9/11 world? (I agree with the sentiment though.)

<comment><USER11> If you're paying attention you'll notice that, typically after cabin beverage service ends, the flight attendants will make and deliver coffee to the cockpit. What happens to that coffee once it's behind the door is, of course, purely speculation.

<comment><USER12> _What happens to that coffee once it 's behind the door is, of course, purely speculation._

Its times like this that I'm reminded of the risks of failing to fund high- quality investigative journalism...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _" According to a 2004 EPA sample of 158 planes, 13 percent contained coliform. Two of the airplanes were found to have dangerous E.coli in the water."_

That is kinda gross, but realistically all that bacteria would be killed by heating the water.

More of a concern is that is the same tap water in the bathroom for washing hands. Last flight I took I noticed there was a Purell dispenser in the bathroom next to the sink and I wondered why that was necessary given there was soap and water.

<comment><USER14> Simply heating does not kill all bacteria magically. That would require boiling for some time and I doubt that happens in-flight.

<comment><USER15> Heat absolutely does kill bacteria. Heating water for just a few minutes at 60C will kill e. coli, 70C will kill it instantly. Coffee is brewed at 90-100C.

[1] [https://academic.oup.com/jtm/article- pdf/3/1/11/5107757/jtm3...](https://academic.oup.com/jtm/article- pdf/3/1/11/5107757/jtm3-0011.pdf)

<comment><USER16> Airplanes are not pressurized to sea level though, water boils at lower temperatures at altitude.

<comment><USER17> On airplanes, pressure is equivalent to about 2000m ASL, at which water boils at 93.4 °C

<comment><USER16> There are several ski resorts at 2000m, you notice the difference in coffee temperature from sea level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hypercleanliness may be making us sick [2013]:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health- science/hyper...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health- science/hypercleanliness-may-be-making-us- sick/2013/03/25/9e6d4764-84e9-11e2-999e-5f8e0410cb9d_story.html?utm_term=.d85b0756c125)

<comment><USER19> More proof that absolutely everything makes us sick.

/s

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Asked two flight attendants I know, neither agree with this. But hey, more coffee for me.

</comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash _They cook the shit out of everything now cause everybody's afraid of food poisoning! Hey, where's your sense of adventure? Take a fucking chance will you? You know how many people die in this country from food poisoning every year? 9000... that's all; it's a minor risk! Take a fucking chance... bunch of goddamn pussies! Besides, what do you think you have an immune system for? It's for killing germs! But it needs practice... it needs germs to practice on. So listen! If you kill all the germs around you, and live a completely sterile life, then when germs do come along, you're not gonna be prepared. And never mind ordinary germs, what are you gonna do when some super virus comes along that turns your vital organs into liquid shit? I'll tell you what you're gonna do... you're gonna get sick, you're gonna die, and you're gonna deserve it cause you're fucking weak and you got a fucking weak immune system!_

-George Carlin

</comment><comment><USER21> Most flights I've been on are serving water in cups from bottled water the attendants are opening as they go.

<comment><USER22> Also isn't the water....boiled for coffee and tea? Perhaps not enough to totally sterilize it, but it must help some.

<comment><USER23> I'm 99% sure that any boiling will kill nearly all germs in water. I don't have facts on hand, but I do remember that once you get above ~160F, nearly all germs are dead. So boiling water will definitely kill everything.

<comment><USER24> It will kill the pathogens which cause vomiting and diarrhea: the article mentions _e. coli_ , which the CDC[0] recommend 1 minute at boiling temperature to deactivate. I'd skip that and stop as soon as the water boiled.

Note that sterilization requires higher temperatures for longer periods, but it's not required for food products consumed by the general public. Some bacteria may survive the boiling process, but your stomach acid + immune system will destroy them.

[0]: [https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/private/wells/dise...](https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/private/wells/disease/e_coli.html)

<comment><USER23> Good point! That's why posting on HN is so great, even if you're 99.9% correct, someone will always reply to tell you precisely how you are 0.1% wrong . Thanks for the link, I tried to find official sources online and had trouble.

<comment><USER24> To be clear, I think your original comment is just fabulous and you're 100% right.

I'm just curious since I know that controlling the level of _E. coli_ contamination in milk is important from first-hand work on dairy farms, plus I know that pasteurization heats (not boils) the milk, and not for the ridiculous durations I see when searching online for "making water safe to drink".

<comment><USER22> Also, the relevant factor is not just temperature--it's a combination of time and temperature. For milk, you can do 1-2 seconds at 135C (UHT), 15 sec at 72C (HTST), or something like 20 min at 60C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ummm... Pasteurization used to kill deadly bacteria in our food is done heating the substance to sanitize at 73-75 degree Celsius for around 15 seconds. For brewing a good coffee or tea you need a much higher temperature and I guess they don't immediately cool it down.

So, go ahead, drink your coffee or tea on the plane. Yes, it is disgusting, but it is a matter of taste, not of bacterial infection.

</comment><comment><USER26> Also, all coffee and (especially) tea drinkers know that the coffee or tea has to be really hot to be enjoyable.

But you can't distribute weaponized fluids when your entire world is literally being rocked.

So they hand out lukewarm tea or coffee. Yes it is safe but not fit for human consumption.

Looks like they saved us from e.coli as well by giving us that tepid stuff.

<comment><USER27> Only been flying with Emirates recently, but their coffee was always hot

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I hate it when articles say "research found X in Y", without stating how much X there was and whether or not it is above normal level and is dangerous. It's California prop 65 story all over again. Bacteria are amazingly versatile and resilient, one can find _some_ of them practically everywhere, so finding some in an environment that is not specifically and thoroughly sterilized is no wonder. The question is how many of them and how dangerous that is to a common person. The article provides no information about it, and therefore is useless.

</comment><comment><USER29> I embrace all chances to strengthen my immune system. challenge accepted.

</comment><comment><USER30> No wonder my immune system is so strong; I love airplane coffee.

<comment><USER31> It's strange... I've always assumed that airplane coffee is the lowest of the low-bid, el-cheapo, nobody-else-would-buy-this coffee that you could find. But yet, I've always enjoyed the coffee on airplanes, and to a surprising degree. I think every time I've ever gotten coffee on an airplane, my thought after the first sip was "OMG, that is SO good".

But, that could just be because I'm usually dead-tired, caffeine deprived, and jonesing for coffee like a crack addict craving their next hit, by the time I get on the plane. _shrug_

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> One really has to draw the hat to Business Insider pushing surprising insights: Long haul has more bacteria than short haul. I always thought bacteria would die off over time. /s

There is however a good chance coffee or tea messes with your sense of time so moderation when flying can be important. Especially when taking into account the beverages consumed of the ever increasing leg of the flight in the terminal.

</comment><comment><USER33> I take a can of V8, if they have it. A bit of nutrition and elctrolytes. If the water is a concern, then I guess it'll be a can of mineral water to go with it, instead of "tap".

</comment><comment><USER34> I try to stick to hard alcohol but will make due with wine or beer.

In wine there is truth, in beer friendship, in water... bacteria.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't understand. Is that something that a Brita-like filter can't fix?

</comment><comment><USER36> Taking a flight can contribute to dehydration because the air in the cabin is dry and low humidity. Drinking coffee and tea doesn't help.

<comment><USER11> This is a commonly belief with no basis in actual science; see this answer from a Mayo clinic dietician.

[http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and- he...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy- eating/expert-answers/caffeinated-drinks/faq-20057965)</comment></comment>


How to block cops from visiting your site - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/contra/are-you-a-cop

<comment><USER2> I don't know man, my pal @SkinnyPete told me [http://badger.com](http://badger.com) implemented this and it turns out the whole idea of cops having to tell you if they are cops if asked is bullshit.</comment>