Climate Models for Lawyers - <AUTHOR> https://judithcurry.com/2016/11/12/climate-models-for-lawyers/ <comment><USER2> It is a common misconception that the theory of global warming, and the concern about global warming, is based on the results of global climate models (GCMs). It is not.

In fact, the _opposite_ is true: it is skepticism of global warming that depends on the correctness of GCMs.

In the simplest model, which any kid can test in middle school, you take a plexiglass box full of air (representing the atmosphere), add some extra CO2 to it, and see if the temperature goes up. It does.

Well, since the mid-1800s, we have been adding CO2 to the atmosphere. We know that we've burned a lot of fossil fuels (that were underground), and we have directly measured an increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. So based on the simplest model, we'd expect to see the temperature going up. And we do! Yay, science works.

Of course there are a lot of ways to say that the simple model is wrong. But they all involve the construction of a more complex model. In order to see if anything will mitigate or compensate the basic physics of how more CO2 traps more heat, you have to add in additional factors.

So when someone goes on and on and on about the shortcomings of super-complex GCMs, remember this. GCMs are important tools for making detailed predictions and policy decisions, but we don't need them to predict the basic fact of global warming.

In fact the original hypothesis of global warming dates back to about 1900, well before anyone was using computers to model anything. The theory of global warming rests on basic thermodynamics, and it was first proposed not long after those basics were discovered.

<comment><USER3> Is this how we ended up shifting from "global warming" to "climate change"? Improved models showing that things won't just get warmer, they'll go all kinds of sideways?

<comment><USER2> The change in terminology doesn't have scientific significance, it was done to try to improve public understanding.

Basically "warming" in popular usage means "I can take my jacket off now", whereas warming in scientific usage means "increasing the heat energy stored in a given volume."

Scientists have known for a long time that global warming (increasing the heat stored in the atmosphere) would create both local heating in some areas and local cooling in others (it's chaotic). But when a regular person hears "warming" and then the temperature goes down, they're confused. Hence "climate change."

Incidentally, predicting the local effects of warming is a major goal of GCMs, and one for which no other tool will do. But it's damn hard (again: it's chaotic).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt on Curry (Google cache):

My reading of the evidence suggests clearly that the IPCC conclusions are an accurate assessment of the issue. I have tried to follow the proposed logic of Judith's points here, but unfortunately each one of these arguments is either based on a misunderstanding, an unfamiliarity with what is actually being done or is a red herring associated with shorter-term variability. If Judith is interested in why her arguments are not convincing to others, perhaps this can give her some clues.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pLrHr9q...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pLrHr9q7_qkJ:www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/08/ipcc- attribution-statements-redux-a-response-to-judith- curry/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari)

<comment><USER5> This quote from Gavin Schmidt is two years old. I'm not sure what is has to do with this blog post by Curry about what climate models are.

<comment><USER6> Note that this blog post is not "about what climate models are". It seems she's been making the same types of arguments in the past, and this blog post is no different, so the past criticisms are still relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Scientists that evaluate climate models, develop physical process parameterizations, and utilize climate model results are convinced (at least to some degree) of the usefulness of climate models for their research. They are convinced because of the model's relation to theory and physical understanding of the processes involved, consistency of the simulated responses among different models and different model versions, and the ability of the model and model components to simulate historical observations."

Anyone can create a model that behaves consistently when it is trained on historical data to predict historical data.

How do they overcome the problem of overfitting and why should anyone have any confidence in it until it shows accuracy going forward?

<comment><USER8> I think the key is in the last quoted sentence: there isn't one model. There are many, and they are generated in different ways with differing emphasis on different data sets. They gain confidence when these seem to agree with each other and the acceptable physical knowledge already understood. They also check the sanity of the model to make sure that it is consistent with what has already been observed. In that way anyone may gain confidence that multiple approaches are converging on similar results.

That, and there are metric crap-tonnes of data to work with of all sorts. Just ungodly amounts of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In other news:

[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/11/record...](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/11/record- heat-despite-a-cold-sun/)

There was a lot of crowing about sunspots a couple years back by Judith Curry et al. The Earth's heating can be explained by reaching a solar maximum! Etc.

But now the situation is reversed--the sun is cooling--and despite that we're on track for yet another record year of heating. Third in a row.

Her points about model uncertainty and overfitting have some limited level of validity. But it's hard to read her blog and not come away with the accurate takeaway of she'll say whatever she can to provide a cover story for not doing anything about AGW.

</comment><comment><USER10> Having skimmed the final paper and without being aware of Judith Curry or her reputation, my initial reaction while reading was "This seems to be a white paper in the school of 'here's something you can cite to justify why nothing should be done about climate change/global warming/CO2 emissions/etc.'"

Looking her up afterwards, it seems to me that this may also be her push for a significant position in the Trump administration. Seems that Judith Curry is the scientist who says "Well, they've revised the likely range so clearly they don't know what's likely and maybe it's too expensive to do anything right now."

I won't bother linking, a simple search based on her name will turn up a wide variety of links to her history, people bemoaning her stances, and people refuting some of the arguments she uses.

<comment><USER11> Yeah it's kind of sad actually. I started reading this as serious piece and then sent it to a professor I had during my undergrad for a class on climate change. So embarrassing!!

The broad points about training data and non-linearities are important- but on a second pass it's hard to believe that people who spend their lives building GCMs don't think deeply about these challenges.

<comment><USER12> I think the worrying thing is that it's not hard to believe, she's pointing out the breakdown of the scientific process.

She cops a lot of flack and hysteria, just for raising reasonable doubts!

If climate science is solid, then it shouldn't feel the need to vilify anyone who questions it. If it isn't solid then it should be subject to as much scrutiny as possible given the derived policy will have tremendous impacts to life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Could someone with domain knowledge give feedback on the specifics she brings up? As I take it, the backbone of her argument is:

1) "If climate sensitivity is high, then we can expect substantial warming in the coming century as emissions continue to increase. If climate sensitivity is low, then future warming will be substantially lower."

2) "In fact, it seems that uncertainty about values of ECS has been increasing. The bottom of the 'likely' range has been lowered from 2 to 1.5oC in the AR5, whereas the AR4 stated that ECS is very unlikely to be less than 1.5oC. It is also significant that the AR5 does not cite a best estimate, whereas the AR4 cites a best estimate of 3oC. The stated reason for not citing a best estimate in the AR5 is the substantial discrepancy between observation- based estimates of ECS (lower), versus estimates from climate models (higher).

3) "If the climate sensitivity is on the low end of the range of estimates, and natural internal variability is on the strong side of the distribution of climate models, different conclusions are drawn about the relative importance of human causes to the 20th century warming."

4) "Whether or not human caused global warming is dangerous or not depends critically on whether the ECS value is closer to 1.5oC or 4.5oC."

5) "Given the uncertainties in equilibrium climate sensitivity and the magnitude and phasing of natural internal variability on decadal to century timescales, combined with the failure of climate models to explain the early 20th century warming and the mid-century cooling, I conclude that the climate models are not fit for the purpose of identifying with high confidence the proportional amount of natural versus human causes to the 20th century warming."

Is this an accurate summary of facts? Do we have good evidence about the true value of ECS that she does not mention? Is there evidence for scenarios where a 'low end' Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity still results in a dangerous warming? Or are there indeed values for ECS that would be considered 'likely' but do not result in dangerous warming?

Lack of knowledge about the true value of ECS is not an excuse to avoid precautionary measures, but it would seem to raise questions about the suitability of current climate models as predictors for future climate. At the least, it would imply that determining the true ECS should be a very high priority while other mitigation measures are taken.

<comment><USER14> It sounds like she's advocating for a political policy of doing nothing, because of "uncertainty". Consider our position on risk/uncertainty when it comes to minor disasters like an airplane hijacking. Now consider the appropriate response to the risk of a nation-destroying disaster. Is it reasonable to take the do-nothing policy?

<comment><USER13> While there is probably a legitimate fear that others will use her evidence to claim that , I see her as making a more limited claim in this piece: current GCM's cannot reliably be used to make definitive claims about climate a century out, and therefore should not be relied on for policy decisions unless their true uncertainty (model risk) is accounted for. Which quotes from this piece do you read as a "call to inaction"?

That said, it's true that she does write elsewhere about her belief that uncertainty does not necessarily increase the urgency of action: [https://judithcurry.com/2016/01/05/climate-models-and- precau...](https://judithcurry.com/2016/01/05/climate-models-and- precautionary-measures/). I haven't read many of the linked posts, but it would seem fair to summarize her position as something like "we don't yet have sufficient understanding of the problem to justify taking actions that will cause definite harm".

<comment><USER14> If "definite harm" includes moderate financial cost, that's a disastrous policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "I conclude that the climate models are not fit for the purpose"

Without any statistical treatment at all. And then later puts "expert opinion" of others in quotes.

At that point, I lost confidence in the analysis. Do some well known numerical and statistical tests of the models, and create a Bayesian based estimate based on all the models, and see where you end up instead!

<comment><USER12> Perhaps you missed her point about selection bias? Only models confirming climate change can be published, any analysis is just going to confirm that.

It's unfortunate because climate change could be happening, but we aren't going to learn much more about it because research can't be invalidated. We've killed the skepticism science needs to function.

She's not denying it's happening, she's just not buying the grandiose narrative. I'm glad to hear her view, even just to know that it's there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ah, yes she is a bit of a skeptic- [http://www.skepticalscience.com/Judith_Curry_arg.htm](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Judith_Curry_arg.htm)

<comment><USER11> One point that it looks like Curry takes aim with more generally is the degree to which there is a consensus about global warming among scientists. She says that 97% of scientists can't believe in it because they haven't studied it or built their own models, etc -- they have "second order belief"

That's an important epistemological point to make. I guess we should all make our own GCMs to confirm for ourselves that we believe in AGW?? Sure maybe if we all had unlimited time. In science we share a common set of methodological beliefs and assumptions-- maybe there's a breakdown for her there, but I'd like to think the at the research institutions and tools that exist help accurately propagate true findings to the public especially in a matter that's as pressing to our long term wellbeing as climate change!

<comment><USER16> Research institutions did a pretty poor job of telling us cholesterol consumption causes atherosclerosis. Largely because we discounted minority scientific opinion.</comment></comment></comment>


How Kitkat will reclaim Android and unify Holo with Kennedy - <AUTHOR> http://techtainian.com/news/2013/10/20/editorial-how-kitkat-will-reclaim-android-and-unify-holo-with-kennedy

<comment><USER2> Articles like this make me realize how much people barely know what's going on in Android.

The ability to change homescreens existed for years now, I think the API was even in Android 1.0 (I can guarantee it's in 1.6 at least).

The only thing 4.4 could do to clean up the experience is allow Android apps to theme the UI elements in the settings app, notification bar, face buttons, and apps that use Holo.

<comment><USER3> Modding community has given users the ability to retheme the entire UI since at least Android 2.x (including mods to make parts of the UI transparent, like the notification area). Cyanogenmod ROM added in the T-Mobile theme engine[1] and everyone else followed afterwards so we're to the point that you can go to the Android Market and actually download themes that work on most aftermarket ROMs. Good to see that Android may finally have it natively.

[1] [https://code.google.com/p/android- theme/wiki/TMobileThemeEng...](https://code.google.com/p/android- theme/wiki/TMobileThemeEngine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sounds to good to be true but let's hope for it.

Since the announcement of KitKat and the coop with Nestlé Android's brand awareness and recognition skyrocketed. Not that Android is now more hip than iOS but it's definitely not less attractive from a brand perspective.

</comment><comment><USER5> Am I the only one that prefers Holo to KitKat/Kennedy?

Kennedy seems a closer to iOS than Holo was, so I expect this to make cross- platform themeing easier for app makers, but I'm sad to see Matias Duarte's work diluted

</comment><comment><USER6> Question is – as Google reclaims more and more of the software side, how will manufacturers continue to differentiate their devices from one another?–As this, as far as I can tell, is the main reason they skin devices...

<comment><USER7> I think the Moto X is a perfect example. It leaves what is already good about stock Android and only adds where it makes sense.

Many other OEM skins reinvent the wheel for no-reason and it's not helping anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Somewhat offtopic - but what are they using to make that page?

It's completely blank unless I disable noscript, and I can read faster than it scrolls.</comment>


Psyop Mistakes? - <AUTHOR> http://www.psywarrior.com/PSYOPMistakes.html

<comment> chris-at "However, the operation failed when the rubber stamp on those cards intended for the city of Hamburg misspelled Hansastadt as Hanfastadt. Apparently, German is difficult language."

Funnily enough, it's actually "Hansestadt".

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

<comment><USER2> The mistake was probably made by confusing one of the two variants of 's' that were used back then with a 'f': The one that looks like an f was only used at the beginning of words, also within compound nouns. In this example, one would read as "guardroom", the other as "wax tube" [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Wachstube.svg](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Wachstube.svg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This article is (and/or was influenced by) western psyops.</comment>


PHP Dark Arts: Shared Memory Segments (IPC) - <AUTHOR> http://www.re-cycledair.com/php-dark-arts-shared-memory-segments-ipc

<comment><USER2> PHP: Bringing you yesterday's IPC today!

      *: SysV shared memory is incredibly clumsy to implement anything more complex than a cache in, and memcached still does a better job of that. There's really very few reasons you would ever want to use it in production code.

<comment><USER3> In fairness, PHP provides other methods of IPC as well. <http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.sem.php>

<comment><USER2> Those are all still cruddy SysV IPC methods you're pointing to. They're marginally better than just throwing data into shared memory and hoping it sticks, but you're still much better off sending messages across a UNIX domain socket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Kinda cool, but can anyone imagine why'd you'd do this with PHP?

<comment><USER5> I had a go at using this a little while ago to implement (erlang style) message passing concurrency in PHP:

<http://github.com/dhotson/phork>

The main use case is something like: Let's say you've got a mysql query that's going to take a few seconds. In the meantime, you can do some other useful work in PHP while the query runs.

<comment><USER6> The amount of complexity it could introduce to an application doesn't seem worth the minimal amount of gain.

<comment><USER5> Probably true. But it depends. Let's say you've got 5 queries that take 1 second each.. There's a potential 5x speedup if you can run them in parallel.

I think some basic concurrency support in PHP (such as Futures) would have a pretty huge benefit. The other alternative is to have async APIs for libraries like mysql.

You could argue that anything that is taking too long that it needs parellelizing is probably a candidate for a background queue + frontend polling (or similar).

<comment><USER6> It still doesn't make sense to me. I can either use my time to fix the queries or use my time to play around with this disaster waiting to happen.

<comment><USER5> It's not just db queries though.. it's also things like 3rd party API calls (S3 for example).

Basically anything where you're blocked waiting for a response you could be busy doing something else.

Synchronous APIs are kind of wasteful in a lot of cases. Node.js does a good job of this by using async APIs.

It's a tradeoff. But the extra complexity can be worth it if it means your pages load 2x faster.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Implementers, Solvers, and Finders - <AUTHOR> https://rkoutnik.com/2016/04/21/implementers-solvers-and-finders.html <comment><USER3> This reminds me of a Steve Jobs quote "it doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do." Any company that doesn't have this as part of its culture will feel very depressing to creative people.

<comment><USER4> Even Apple doesn't do it that way. Like many things Steve Jobs said, it contradicts what he did. The things we say about ourselves espouse ideals and far-mode thinking to enrich our status and legacy. But the brass tacks of what we actually do is still boring, controlling, manipulative, micromanagerial, and petty.

I've never encountered any company, nor heard of one, that enacts the advice of that Jobs quote.

In fact, I've recently been taking a deep dive into some organizational management literature to try to better understand where these absolutely ass backwards ideas of "cross functional" and "full stack" teams came from, and why they are so bundled together with open-plan offices.

I found an interesting paper [0] that seems to serve as somewhat of a basis paper in this area, and which makes bald and unsupported claims about the superiority of what are called "process complete teams" (this, as far as my research has yielded so far, seems to be the prototerm that led to "full stack" and "cross functional").

The entire idea of this management philosophy is that you _exactly_ should hire smart people then tell them what to do. The advice is basically to take generically smart people and then re-train them to have a generalist skill set as it relates to your business, so that every person can do every task, from talking to the customer to filling out the right paperwork to actually writing the code (whether it is front end, back end, whatever) and walking through all of the steps from start to finish.

The paper advocates having a small number of job titles in an organization, each of which has many employees with that title, and to create teams and positions with enormous overlap in terms of their skill set and responsibility set.

The paper makes all sorts of weakly supported (or entirely unsupported) claims that organizing by specialization (what they call "functional" units) is bad, and spends time talking about how to "break" specialist employees form their mindset that their specialization matters and instill into them a cross- functional "sense of responsibility" for the entire possible pipeline of work.

This is where the ties to open-plan seating arrangements come from. It is argued that open-plan, community seating creates a communal sense of responsibility for the entire pipeline of work, whereas even changing to an organizational structure that is "cross functional" or "full stack" is not enough whenever employees are allowed to have privacy while doing their work -- their privacy, so it is argued, and private work habits prevent you from successfully "breaking" their mindset that they are a specialist focusing on their special subset of tasks. _Eerily similar to both military indoctrination and prison inmate indoctrination..._

It's very easy to see how this mid 1990s organization literature has created the bizarre dysfunction of modern "cross-functional" teams and "full stack" developers, leading to Agile/Scrum bullshit, pan-everything job ads with a million bullet points, the treatment of specialized workers as undifferentiated cogs, and the flagrant hostility on the part of the modern HR apparatus towards employees whose sense of pride in their personal specialty (something they had to protect in order to have a resume that would have gotten them hired in the first place) leads them to protect themselves by demanding an employer provide relevant work resulting in HR labeling them as "not a team player" or some other buzzword meant to "break" them (isn't it insane that a professional management article is using language like "breaking" an employee, like this is boot camp or something??).

Anyway, while I love indulging in some good far-mode thinking about the peachy world where companies actually hired specialists and did the real work of managing them (instead of the lazy "throw it all in a cross-functional bucket" non-management they do now), it's just not the world we live in.

[0] "Breaking the Functional Mind-Set in Process Organizations" Ann Majchrzak and Qianwei Wang. Harvard Business Review, Sep/Oct Issue 1996. < [http://business.unr.edu/faculty/Kuechler/788/breaking%20the%...](http://business.unr.edu/faculty/Kuechler/788/breaking%20the%20functional%20mindset.pdf) >

<comment><AUTHOR> > I've never encountered any company, nor heard of one, that enacts the advice > of that Jobs quote.

You should read our culture deck (especially the section about "context, not control", starting at slide 80): [http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664](http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664)

<comment><USER4> I've read the Netflix document many times. To be fair, I don't have any special knowledge about working at Netflix to suggest that Netflix doesn't actually empower specialists. I am curious if Netflix avoids Agile/Scrum or offers real private working conditions though, and if not, why not? Answers focused on "collaboration" would count as evidence that, contrary to the slide deck, you aren't actually "hiring smart people and getting out of their way."

<comment><AUTHOR> Generally we have cubes (as far as working space goes). It's up to the teams if they want Agile/Scrum (most don't, a few find it useful, folks are encouraged to experiment).

Collaboration, in contrast to many other valley companies, isn't a big priority. Since we only hire senior (Finder) devs, each is capable of taking on one or more projects almost solo. So where you'd have an ~8 person team at Google, Netflix has a single developer. There are pros & cons to this approach, I might talk about them in a future article. The practical upshot is that everyone does what they think is best for their particular project (others are encouraged to provide feedback but the ultimate decision is left up to the project owner [who is not a manager]).

Does that help?

<comment><USER4> If you can guarantee that non-Agile teams never have deliverables required for Agile teams (and it sounds like such a guarantee is something you strive for), then this seems reasonable. But it seems very fragile if you can't guarantee that condition.

"Do what you feel is best" is the right attitude, so at least it suggests you treat employees as grown-ups. But I would worry how that "do what you feel is best" property could possibly trickle down to subordinates within Agile teams.

<comment><AUTHOR> > But I would worry how that "do what you feel is best" property could > possibly trickle down to subordinates within Agile teams.

Simple, we don't have subordinates (at least as far as I know). Netflix only hires Sr. devs and then empowers them.

<comment><USER4> Subordinate is just anybody who has to take direct instruction from someone else. Doesn't have to be codified via job title. If you have a "team" that does Agile, you thereby have subordinates (the members of that team, subordinate to whomever is reviewing e.g. burndown) even if no one calls them subordinates or explicitly thinks of them that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Koutnik links to this article, which inspired his essay. [http://thecodist.com/article/my-biggest-regret-as-a- programm...](http://thecodist.com/article/my-biggest-regret-as-a-programmer).

It was very painful to read, because I made exactly the same decision. I was VP/chief developer at a company that withered on the vine after a 10 year roller coaster ride at a software company that I had co-founded. I had two paths: I could have looked for a VP/Director job or I could have continued on as a Developer/Consultant. The money was pretty much the same, so I took the consultant route. The money was pretty much the same and programming was more fun.

All went reasonably well until September 2008. I had just finished a very satisfying consulting gig, but I walked out into a very changed world. The day after was the banking crash. Even earlier a divorce had taken me to the cleaners. But far worse, small interesting companies had no use for older, still up-to-date, still competent developers. I found myself going from Finder to Implementer. Agile development, which had seemed like a boon, turned into a tool to lock everyone into two week death marches controlled by upper management. Technical decisions where made by people who didnt have a clue.

Just as in the linked article, a woman working for me in the 80s took the management route and was a VP in a major SV software company a few years later. Now she is quite well off. Good for her; we are good friends.

Moral? If you are a software developer, dont get old. (I'm still doing it because I like it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I'm sorry to hear about your experience. That must have been an exceptionally crummy time in your life. Here's hoping things have been better for you. If you're ever in the bay area, shoot me an email (in my profile) and I'll buy you a burrito just to hear more of the stories you've got (and hopefully, happier ones).

<comment><USER6> Thanks, now I'm missing the Mission... =/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On Job Titles: I think it is unfortunate that Senior Engineer is a title that is often now in the middle of the career ladder[0] but I feel that has more to do with the fact that historically most companies didn't have a technical career path like some do now.

Those companies that only have the three levels (Junior, Intermediate, and Senior) are generally speaking not looking for Finders to fill their senior- level positions; their business model just doesn't call for it. At most, their looking for Solvers who can also give direction to the more junior engineers. In many places that's all you need.

However, I think at companies where technological innovation is a strategic business value, you need to be able to distinguish between different levels of Solvers (Senior vs. Staff engineer) as well as identify and reward Finders (Principal and beyond).

I think its important to have the larger list of job titles because I think it communicates valuable information to non-engineers, but I also think separating out this notion of autonomy is really useful and I think can help a lot of technical people think about where they want to go with their career. Thank you for sharing.

[0][http://changelog.ca/log/2013/08/09/software_engineer_title_l...](http://changelog.ca/log/2013/08/09/software_engineer_title_ladder)

edit: minor grammatical issues

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe my experience isn't typical, but working as a SW developer gives me a lot of autonomy, even if am "just implementing features".

First off, the requirements are "what should happen", not "how it should be done" (the latter is up to me, or the team).

Secondly, I often end up discussing the requirement with the product owner. What should happen if this happens? Why don't we do it like this instead? It's often a back-and-forth before we arrive at the actual requirements.

Then comes the implementation phase, where it's up to me how to solve it in code. So in my opinion, I do get a lot of say in what to do, and get to make a lot of decisions - which is why I still love coding, even after 25 years: [https://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love- coding/](https://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/)

<comment><USER9> I don't know about how typical it is necessarily, because I have a more similar experience to you, but I've definitely worked at jobs where I wasn't only told what to do, but how to implement it (usually by architects).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are two really good rules for building teams that have worked well for a bunch of companies I've observed and been a part of.

\- Only hire people better than you

\- Ensure you create a workplace with high alignment and high autonomy

Management's job is not to dictate solutions or to be "the people with the answers". It's their _responsibility_ to make sure the constraints are set properly, and that the environment allows smart people to do their best work.

<comment><USER11> "Only hire people better than you"

I've got a few issues with that. First, and I know it's ego-centric, but I don't get a chance to hire many coders who are _better_ than me. I've only met a few of them, IMO. That's partially because it's so hard to judge others, but partially because I honestly don't think they code as well as I do.

Second, just because they aren't better than me right now doesn't mean they can't surpass me in the future. If I rejected people just because they aren't better than me, I'm denying them the chance to grow and the company the chance to help and prosper from that growth.

I'm sure I'd have other objections if I sat and thought about it for a while, but those 2 came to mind rather quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've switched to using "Only hire people who bring new things to the team" rather than "better than" because the latter assumes that talent is linear. So if your team already had expertise in one area, don't hire in that area - <USER2> people who will be coming to the problems you have from a different direction. It's hard to innovate when everyone's just a carbon copy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think that, at the end of the day, most companies have no clue how to properly utilize really smart and self-directed people (Finders). And that's at least due, in part, to the way granting people serious autonomy break the "command and control" structure that most people are so familiar / comfortable with.

Many (most) of the Finder types are probably better off leaving and launching startups, as opposed to trying to carve out a niche in someone else's company.

</comment><comment><USER13> I like this framework–it captures different levels of autonomy in different development jobs. As my career has advanced, it's definitely moved from implementer to problem solver, with occasional elements of problem finder. I have a lot of autonomy, but still get to spend most of my time writing code (or rather, thinking about code.)

I don't think I want to be a problem finder, at least not yet. Being given business problems and solving them feels like the point where my brain can really engage without feeling like my work is either too vague or too controlled to be important.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad this article helped you out - and no worries about needed to shoot to the next level. There are some great advantages to the Solver level - as you've mentioned, there's plenty of space to play & learn without worrying about incredibly vague instructions.

Enjoy it all you want. I can't begrudge someone who's found someplace that makes them happy.

<comment><USER12> _and no worries about needed to shoot to the next level_

I think it's a bit off to characterize them as "levels" in the sense that a "higher" level is "better" than a lower level. My sense is that some people want near complete autonomy (I do, for example), but other people would be very uncomfortable in that kind of role (or at least, ineffective). I suspect this overlaps to some extent with some basic personality characteristics as well as goals / intrinsic motivation.

Still, it's a very interesting and worthwhile article, and I believe this definitely contributes something new and useful to the overall discussion. I'll definitely use some of these ideas in the future when it comes to hiring and what-not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Three years is more than enough for a good and motivated programmer to become disillusioned and want to be a manager to "escape" or to "do it better". Only to fall in the same traps previous engineer-turned-managers fell into.

One of the things that I've started to say to friends for the past few years is that "The worst thing that I ever did was to turn a hobby into a full-time job."

I mean that only half-seriously. I imagine how much worse it would be to do something I did not enjoy doing previously even as a hobby.

Still, the motivation dies from a thousand cuts, until all that remains is looking forward to having more free time, so that one can finally do really interesting things.

Unless one is afforded John Carmack-levels of autonomy...

</comment><comment><USER15> This is an awesome insight. In the past I've matched them up this way, coder = implementor, tech lead = solver, architect = finder. It has always been interesting to me to look at the skills that made people good in each of those roles, whether it is attention to detail in implementors, breadth of understanding in solvers, or skill diversity in finders.

</comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps _problem finder_ should be _solution seeker_? Not everything requiring this level of insight/autonomy is a problem (in the sense of a negative), often a new opportunity for an entity or an individual _does_ need a solution, however.

Edit: Grammar fix

</comment><comment><USER7> On Autonomy:

For those developers who are complaining about management anti-patterns, I don't think they necessarily want autonomy. I think they really do want just better managers, but the truth is that, whether or not they want it, they need autonomy to counteract/avoid bad management.

Everyone is flawed, including managers. You can try and "fix" managers, but that generally works out as well as trying to "fix" anyone else that isn't yourself. The best thing to do is to restrict the scope of those who manage you and increase the scope of your own self-management.

However, most people (if they are honest) are their own worst boss. They work for other people because the alternative would be to work for themselves. Having come to that realization a few years ago, I have definitely been working to improve my self-management. A consequence of this is that I come to crave that autonomy.

I also get to be more picky about who I work for: if I do a pretty decent job at managing myself, you're going to have to really impress me if you want me to hand that job off to you instead.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's not about skill. My brother who recently started programming has a lot of autonomy at work because he's trying to help out the business in anything he does there. Same thing has happened to me. Your boss is more likely to let you do your own thing when you actually want to help make the company and your boss succeed. Again it's not always about skill

<comment><USER18> The quickest way up the ladder is to prove to the person above you that his (or her concerns) are yours, and to proactively solve them.

<comment><USER19> This depends entirely on the person above you. I've found in the past that doing this just results in the person above me either (a) feeling threatened, or (b) relying on me to solve all their problems. Neither is good for career progression.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Just remember, becoming a manager will not necessarily lead to more automation, in fact in most cases I have seen in my career is it leads to even less autonomy. (and in many cases more unhappiness)

Middle management sucks because you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. You are expected to produce results by top management, but can't produce those results yourself, instead you are to cajole those results out of your team.

That is the ultimate in powerless, the unreasonable demands from the top and the stupid developers constantly not working fast / good / hard enough to produce those results. And constant firefighting...

</comment><comment><USER21> Great article, but I want to rant a bit about this:

>Turns out science agrees on this: People want power because they want autonomy. Most of the time, folks desire to move up the career ladder not for pay, better title, or keys to the executive washroom (are those still a thing?) but because they wish to be able to exercise greater autonomy over their lives. Psychologist Daniel Pink agrees - he's found that the three qualities that contribute most to workplace satisfaction and overall productivity are autonomy, mastery & purpose.

It's very common to cite psychology to explain human behavior. But I hate that it can often come off as dismissive of a person and their decisions. There's implied irrationality.

Often times the psychological need aligns fully with rational objectives.

If I were to program a robot to work a human job, and I wanted to maximize its generated income, I would try to program it to maintain its own autonomy in that workspace. Because without autonomy, resources are endangered.

</comment><comment><USER22> An interesting write-up and perspective, yet in my experience, has no practical or pragmatic designs by which to replace seniority-based, heirarchical and heavily engrained systems. Re-naming titles is a start, but it's still wishy-washy. I mean, sure, start from scratch and implement, but can it work in software or running a bakery or for a pool cleaning business? Context is important, and while I enjoy reading 'open mind' type educational riffing (of which this is clearly an example), it's hard to capture any genuine take-away approaches for, well, generalization.

</comment><comment> awinter-py 'done and get things smart' is such a good take on people & work. It gets to the heart of what everyone wants to be, I think.

</comment><comment><USER23> This seems like it _can_ become truly useful.</comment>


Show HN: I created a mailbox-app clone for the Chrome developer console - <AUTHOR>

Just copy and paste this to the console and hit Enter:
a=1000000; b=0; setInterval(function(){a-=34;b+=53;console.log('There are ' + a + ' before you and ' + b + ' behind you!')}, 1000);
You're welcome! <comment><USER2> What am I missing? If it requires knowledge of recent news, I've been travelling for the past 2 days and have had very limited access to the world outside of my own head.

So far my investigation has lead me to the bottom of mailboxapp.com's homepage where there is a ticker which uses similar language to describe my placement in their app's user adoption.

<comment><USER3> Mailboxapp's iphone app displays the number of users waiting in the queue infront & behind you to access the app. Many people are claiming that it is a marketing ploy designed to create demand.

More info: [http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/09/mailboxs-virtual-queue- succ...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/09/mailboxs-virtual-queue-succeeds-in- the-waiting-game-where-peter-molyneuxs-curiosity-stumbles/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Clever!</comment>


[Show HN] My entries in the 2011 Google AI Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://f06mote.com/post/16481170308/ants-for-ai-challenge

<comment><AUTHOR> My bots are neither spectacular, nor especially smart, but I had fun and wanted to share.

My code is linked to from that blog post, but for the impatient here it is: <https://github.com/plredmond/ants.py></comment>


Yep. BlackBerry is dead - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/12/16/yep-blackberry-is-dead/ <comment><USER2> I picked up a Blackberry Classic in October and it has replaced my Oneplus as my day to day phone. I bloody love this thing.

I'd never owned a Blackberry before, but it didn't take long to get used to and start to appreciate its quirks.

I put F-Droid on it and everything I've tried from there works perfectly. A few Android apps from the Amazon store are a bit unreliable on BB10, particularly Spotify, but nothing essential to my day.

I'm tempted to but a couple more of these in case I break this one (impossible though that feels) because I can't imagine going back to on screen keyboards.</comment>


The Wiki-Hacker Strikes Again - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/07/19/security-hackers-internet-tech-cx_ag_0719wikiwatcher.html <comment><USER2> I love the Forbes.com interstitial. It's so awesome with Flash blocked. The way you have to wait for it to redirect because there isn't a link rocks too.</comment>


Goodbye, P2P! P4P is Coming - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/goodbye_p2p_p4p_is_coming.php <comment><USER2> _Unlike P2P, which selects random peers to share with [...]_

This is misleading. BitTorrent, for example, starts with a random set of peers, but then prefers peers that deliver better bandwidth (that's what "tit for tat" is all about). P4P isn't selecting peers that perform better at all, it's selecting peers that _cost Verizon less_. Overall bandwidth performance is the only relevant metric here -- hops are more about Verizon's costs than your bandwidth.

The touted "performance boosts of 200 percent on average and increases of up to 600 percent in some cases" occurred because peers were selected from within Verizon's high-speed Fios network (see this write-up for more details: <http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9893915-7.html?tag=nefd.top>). That's selecting faster peers _a priori_ in a way that only works if you happen to be a customer of a higher-speed service. (If you could identify Fios peers, it would boost performance similarly for any peer on any ISPs to prefer them, regardless of how far away they are.) Customers of lower-speed services would find their P4P programs preferring slower-than-average peers, and the average customer would find her P4P programs preferring average peers.

Figuring out the effects on the network overall is complicated, but so far Verizon hasn't released any information about that.</comment>


Why I Sued Google (and Won) - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_172403.html <comment><USER2> Ummmm...it sounds like the guy totally violated google's terms of service. He was hosting ads on a domain-squatting site that had no content. The advertisers were refunded their money, and the guy's account was closed down.

As somebody that buys ads from google, I would be pretty pissed off if I found out that i was paying $1 a click for my ads to be on a parked domain...which is why they have their terms set up the way they are.

Yeah, it sounds like the appeals process sucks, and that they didn't give him a real reason, but "you are a leeching douche-bag cancer to the DNS" should be a pretty good hint.

<comment><USER3> Looks like Googe send in a pretty useless paralegal to defend their case. Instead, if they had send you (or someone with the same arguments as you), they'd have probably won.

I think it is fairly obvious what this guy did wrong. I am just surprised Google's paralegal was not apt enough to figure this out.

<comment><USER4> The argument wasn't that he hadn't done anything wrong, it was that he was not informed what he had done wrong. He admitted to violating the ToS.

<comment><USER3> AFAIK, to win a small claims court, you still have to prove that you deserve the money. I see nowhere in the story he admits to the judge that he violated to ToS. He simply used the lack of customer service at Google/AdSense to win this case. As I mentioned it is amazing that Google sent an unprepared para- legal to defend themselves.

<comment><USER5> On the contrary, it would have been amazing if Google had sent a highly trained lawyer to deal with this. The amount in question, about $760, is probably less than a day's wages+benefits for a Google lawyer.

If you want to optimize for justice, there are plenty of failures in Google and Google's ad programs. They seem to be pretty clear about their intention of optimizing for profit, though.

<comment><USER6> Do small claims have any bearing on legal precedent? Could someone site the legal reasoning in this case to also sue Google for their small claims, or even higher amounts?

<comment><USER7> No, (at least in Canada) they do not. Small claims is not judged by a "real" judge and those courts do not have the ability to set precedent. Same with most traffic courts. Of course you can always bring up the judgment in another small claims court, just won't be taken as rule of law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the same guy who claims Facebook was his idea, and tried to get Facebook's trademark revoked:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/17/greenspan_harvard_fa...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/17/greenspan_harvard_faceboog_trademark_battle/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Tom,

I don't think we've ever met, and I'm not sure what I ever did to you to merit repeated disdainful (and in this case, misleading) jabs in public forums, but I actually think 280 North is really cool and I look forward to seeing where Atlas goes.

In the meantime, my so-called claims (which are narrow and do not include the wild notion that I "invented social networking," but do involve execution and not merely an "idea") were verified by The New York Times and are publicly available for inspection, so they're really facts. The trademark dispute is in the middle of discovery right now, and ironically, there are posts on this thread that support my case--so "tried" wouldn't be the best word to use, either.

Anyway, if you want to selectively link to only articles that call me names, that's your prerogative.

Aaron

<comment><USER9> Dear Aaron,

You seem to be someone who enjoys ligitating, so in an effort not to get MY ass sued, I will take a leaf out of the book of Penn Jilette.

You, sir, are a fucker, a shit-stain and a crotch weasel. You're an asshole, a jerk and I probably wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.

Fuck you and the boat you sailed in on.

<comment><USER10> You might be willing to say this to his face (thus not contravening the HN guidelines), but it's still not the right mode of speech on this forum.

<comment><USER9> Maybe so, but I fully expect the next thing to hear about will be him suing Twitter for shutting down his viagra spam empire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great article; I had no idea that you could just go up against whoever without some crazy legal team in small claims court...

<comment><USER6> Is there a possible startup business that helps people go to small claims court and win? A "How to" FAQ of course is useful, but I wonder if there is way to get a business model behind it.

<comment><USER12> Google is pretty good at it:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=small+claims+court>

Heck, they've even got a business model around it: look at how many Adwords results there are!

<comment><USER6> And the top placed AdSense ad is giving a go of it, too, I see. :)

<http://www.civiltree.com>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm all for fairness but this guy was technically at fault and the paralegal should really have known the ins and outs better than he/she did.

Another point, I don't want to send any extra traffic to the huffpost by "liking" this article.

<comment><USER14> Google was also at fault, because they had to provide a reason for disabling his account. I think it was correct to sue them at least for discouraging such a practice in the future. He was their customer, it is too much to ask for at least a one sentence response from human?

<comment><USER15> He should have put some content up on the domain before putting the advertisements up. If you have this sort of traffic, why not monetize it properly in a way that doesn't violate the terms of service?

Expecting Google to be as responsive as his own business simply because he is the boss is unrealistic. Nice to see Google giving some young legal interns experience this way. They probably save considerably over having more experienced counsel handle it.

<comment><USER16> Your claim that putting AdSense on a domain without first publishing some content is against the Google TOS is unsubstantiated. In fact, Google actually advocates publisher to monetize their unused domains with the Adsense for Domains program.

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

Even if the step was against the TOS, Google should have communicated it clearly and set the record straight. The author doesn't begrudge that Google disabled his account, rather that Google didn't inform him the reason for disabling.

<comment><USER17> And I just want to chime in here and state that I'd be miffed if I had a domain up, generating clicks for Google (in the story the author claims there was no click fraud, and i choose to believe him) and they shut down your account, without reason, and refund money.

Then, two days later, the TOS violation he did is okay, but through another program.

The crux of this, is that the clicks he sent to advertisers (and the eyeballs) were real. If I'm selling a product, I don't care if my customers find me from search results or a squatted domain. All I care about is closing the sale and increasing my business.

But that's just my $0.2

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've never used the small claims court to sue large companies. But in genuine disputes my partner and I have used it to sue small businesses where we have been aggrieved. In every single case we've won, even when the disputes were against lawyers for their fees. I know so many people who have been badly treated (e.g. landlords keeping entire deposits claiming because some minor damage happened during their tenancy). Yet none of my friends ever carry through and seek legal justice. I just don't understand their fear of the very simple small claims procedure.

<comment><USER5> I know it varies by state, but where I live (MA) the small claims limit is $2000. When you take into consideration the amount of time you're sinking into the case, and the risk that you might not win, there is only a small range of damages that are likely worth pursuing in small claims court. If you're in a line of work where you routinely sign contracts, you probably have clearer-cut cases than the average landlord-tenant situation. I think most people hardly understand most contracts they sign, and doubt they understand the range of options offered by the legal system.

So two things would help: raising the small-claims limit (I think $8k or so would make sense) and educating people about the option. Follow-up question: do shows like People's Court serve or hinder the mission of educating people about small claims court?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As much as I like Google, their customer service sucks when you're trying to get in touch with someone. What other customer facing company could get away with something like that? If it was a bank, I'd be speaking to customer service managers. If it was a store, I'd be able to speak with a manager and try to get the issue resolved, or at least be told why my account was canceled.

Whether or not he violated his terms of service or not, doesn't mean that they had a right to swallow his $700.

</comment><comment><USER20> There's a problem with being litigious: it closes doors for you, and you'll probably never even know what doors they were...if someone does their due diligence, sees you're litigious, and decides not to contact you, it's quite unlikely they'll contact you to let you know they decided not to contact you.

</comment><comment><USER21> This sort of thing will be the downfall of google. The lack of communication with smaller (1-10K/mth) business partners is a big problem. When you do a certain level of business with them you'd expect to be able to talk to somebody on the phone much less get a response to an email. Communication is worth at least 10c CPM.

</comment><comment><USER22> The Google Adsense TOS clearly states they can terminate accounts for any reason. And yes that includes having brown hair. You have no right to any of the money. They DON'T owe you ANYTHING! I don't understand why people can't realize this!

<comment><USER23> You can't disable constitutional rights by TOS.

<comment><USER24> And that will matter when Google becomes part of the US government.

<comment><USER25> lutorm should have said "federal and state non-discrimination laws", not "constitutional rights", but the result is the same.

This is the same reason private business in the South are no longer allowed to be Whites-only.

<comment><USER26> I do not know of any federal or state US laws against discriminating by hair color.

<comment><USER25> I don't know of any that explicitly mention hair color, but there are broader laws where hair color would probably fit in. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights act prohibits discrimination on traits "associated" with certain racial or ethnic groups.

<comment><USER26> Oh, true. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How much more money could he have made had he put all the time he spent complaining about Google, suing them, and then writing about it into improving his product? Or coming up with something that's at least not totally lame?

At decent programmer salaries, $761 is like 2 days of work. Probably more if you're self employed and have a decent business. There's a reason why startups do their best not to get involved in lawsuits...

<comment><USER16> You horribly misread the article if you think he did this to get his $761 back.

<comment><USER27> Agreed. You don't take Google to small claims court to win $761, you take them to small claims court and win so that you can write about it in the Huffington Post and have a bunch of nerds react to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am not saying Google its a bad company, but certainly its not the white knight everybody believes.

<comment><USER2> are you kidding?

They're protecting the people that buy ads from them, people like _me_ , people with no advertising budget that are just trying to get a few people to check out their stupid blog (<http://www.gibsonandlily.com>).

Those ads cost something like $1 a click (or more). If I found out that my tiny tiny budget was going to ads on some stupid domain parking website, I would be LIVID. Yeah, google terminated his account. They did it to protect people like me, and they are the reason the reason that people like me use them.

I'm sorry, but domain parking/squatting/tasting/leeching/whatever-you-want-to- call-it is an instant failure in my book.

<comment><USER29> While I agree with most of your sentiments, I think Google could have at least provided an explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't care who the guy is. A contract termination needs to come with a reason, a termination without reason is bullying. 700$ is enough money to make an effort and go to court to settle the sidpute.

What I find it hard to believe is that Google couldn't come up with a reason, I just can't believe they are so incompetent!! Something just doesn't add up...

</comment><comment><USER26> Can someone explain to me how domain squatters add more value to the world than beggars? (Leaving aside that beggars usually have an excuse for not being able to find productive work.)

</comment><comment><USER31> Hey thinkcomp, are you going to sue E*Trade too?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504950>

</comment><comment><USER32> I had my Google AdSense account terminated a few years ago, too. I emailed Google asking why and never heard anything back. I remember being frustrated about it since I wasn't doing anything that would have been considered sketchy. I should've sued and become internet famous... ugh.

</comment><comment><USER33> Propaganda attack on google.

Everybody sue them! We can't compete with them in terms of innovation and services so we better sue them into oblivion by proxy.

Nice try...</comment>


Structor – UI Builder for React - <AUTHOR> http://helmetrex.com <comment><AUTHOR> I'm author of Structor. Now I'm working on documentation. If you have any questions you want to know, please put the issue on GitHub ([https://github.com/ipselon/structor](https://github.com/ipselon/structor)) or write directly to support. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks promesing, but it looks like the person is still working on it to get it ready.

I don't understand this line: "This project was developed for real-life site on [http://helmetrex.com"](http://helmetrex.com") But the url is the site that you are already on, and it is called StuctorMarket, but Stuctor is something else here: [https://github.com/ipselon/structor](https://github.com/ipselon/structor)

<comment><AUTHOR> "Project" here means the boilerplate on the market. But not the project on the GitHub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wow, so many negative comments in here. First of all, thanks to the author for this project! Not that I directly benefit from it, but I appreciate the effort that has gone into taking the pains to make a project of this complexity, setup a website for this and most importantly, open source it! Still requires a bit more polishing, but this project being open source, I see no reason why it wouldn't, pretty soon.

Thank you for your effort!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I appreciate your opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been waiting to see something like this. Using good practices with React I think it'd be really easy for something like a web Qt to work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you try it already ?

<comment><USER4> I haven't, I'm speaking more about the concept in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Divshot was aquired by Google and probably we will see built-in support for Polymer and Angular in a not so distant release. I guess Helmetrex will face the same destiny under Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone tried this with Electron? This seems like the ideal place to arrive at for building GUI components to be used in desktop applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a discussion about embedding builder into Electron here [https://github.com/ipselon/react-ui- builder/issues/10](https://github.com/ipselon/react-ui-builder/issues/10)

And I didn't get the answer on my question: how developer will work with this in Electron ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What does the GPLv3 means for users? Does it propagate to the code generated?

<comment><USER8> I guess not, similar as you can compile non-GPL code using gcc.

I hope the author could use a more permissive license like MIT or BSD though.

<comment><USER9> He could also keep it GPL3 and make license exemptions that remove ambiguities about the generated code like SWIG does

[http://www.swig.org/legal.html](http://www.swig.org/legal.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there a demo out there? I'd like to try it without installing a bunch of stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, there is no demo for builder. Structor runs as server on localhost and reads files from local filesystem. So, if there was a demo for each on-line demo session we would have to start new docker container or something like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Will this work with React native?

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't try so far. Will think about it...

<comment><USER11> I've really wanted a way to have prototype GUIs be cross platform deployable. Probably there would be demand given the popularity of prototyping tools like zeplin.io, www.invisionapp.com, [https://www.flinto.com/](https://www.flinto.com/), [http://framerjs.com](http://framerjs.com), [http://giveabrief.com/](http://giveabrief.com/) and others.

<comment><USER12> Neonto is a prototyping-oriented GUI tool that generates iOS and Android code:

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

The code generation is tailored for each platform, so there's no common framework or other library dependencies in the generated project files. Instead the generated code uses the native stuff directly. On iOS that means you get UIViewControllers, UINavigationControllers, UIPageControls etc. Likewise on Android the native equivalents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks good. But problem with all this kind of builders is customisation. Since HTML/JS/CSS is so powerful for customisation, one day as a developer you will realise, this is not helping me in that.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was said in the sample project on market site: "this project is fully customisable and hackable". You may create and bring in the project any React (and not even React) component you wish.

When team of Material UI components will make stable their library for react 0.14.0 I will publish project with Material UI components on market.

Would it be enough to say that this is customisable ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Seems a shame to couple a widget designer to a particular backend technology.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you explain what is shame here ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Would love to see something like this for Meteor.js as well</comment>


Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away - <AUTHOR> http://blastr.com/2011/09/lab-grown-meat-might-be-only-6-months-away-yum-we-think.php <comment> DanI-S This is awesome. Presumably, at some point we'll have the process optimised to the point that it could be done in your own home, or at a local (supermarket?) level. Imagine having a kitchen appliance that produces meat from liquid feedstock.

Even more speculatively, I wonder if the nutrient medium could be produced from other kitchen scraps? That's basically what animals were kept for in the past.

Aside, it sounds like efforts are focused on replicating pork/beef. It seems like some kind of fish might be easier, since texture is less of an issue, but I guess that's not what the US palate demands.

<comment><USER2> Duplicating the taste of fish would be more important, especially if it could get to sushi-grade. Fishing many larger fish is becoming unsustainable.

It's also more difficult because not only does texture matter, but the meat filters through sea water to get its taste.

<comment><USER3> 'Fishing many larger fish is becoming unsustainable.'

IT IS unsustainable. Many fisheries have already collapsed with many more collapses looming on the horizon.

<comment><USER4> Also note, Math for Industry 201 always uses fish stocks as an example.

Catch too many fish, and you get a suboptimal population growth - the babies that do get born do well (due to a lack of competition), but there's so few born that this doesn't really matter.

It's more true for slow growing fish, like salmon, and tuna.

Fun fact, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was not formed to stop whaling, but because it was obvious that whale stocks had collapsed, and international co-ordination was needed to allow them to grow back to an economic level. The whaling industry collapsed slowly, got a second wind as steam ships made fast-moving blue whales a feasible target, then collapsed again as the blue whales ran out. The IWC was formed in 1946, and it wasn't until the 70s that the anti-whaling movement gained any steam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > 2.5 centimeters long and 0.7 centimeters wide

An improvement on the 8mm x 2mm meat reported on just a few months ago:

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_specter)

But still, where is "6 months" coming from? A vague "year" figure is given by Mark Post (with the caveat that funding is needed), but that doesn't even bring into consideration the process of getting the meat out of the lab and into the grocery store.

<comment><USER6> I wondered the same thing about the 6 month figure. This is some aggregator site run by the SciFi/SyFy channel? It's the kind of pop science reporting I think is bordering on irresponsible, really. Their source is New Scientist requiring a signup:

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128283.500-meat- with...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128283.500-meat-without- slaughter-6-months-to-biosausages.html)

That article isn't much more informative though. That New Yorker article was much higher quality, as expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's likely that the lab grown "meat" won't be a proper substitute for the meat that we evolved to eat. Food is more complicated than it outwardly appears (i.e. a collection of muscle cells != meat)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?pagewanted=print)

<comment><USER8> this sounds more like industry FUD. People are able to get there daily sustenance from gruel. Yes it may not fit your definition of food, but this is a first world complaint. There are millions of people around the world starving, that this technique could help.

<comment><USER6> Did you read that linked Michael Pollan piece? If not, please do, it's good. So is his other work. He's not an industry shill spreading FUD. There are serious gaps in our understanding of nutrition. Suggesting that lab grown meat might lack something that "real" meat has isn't FUD. There may be more nutritionally sound food sources than vat meat for people currently starving or subsisting on gruel.

<comment><USER9> Yes, it is confusing to put meat in a category of foods missing from first- world diets. Should we add caviar and pound cake to that list too?

More significant: will it be a diet improvement to replace fatty hamburger with this 'meat'? Perhaps - since Americans eat pounds of meat per day, a whole week's worth of protein in a Wendy's Double with Cheese.

<comment><USER7> We evolved to eat wild game. First world humans are missing the meat that we should be eating.

<comment><USER9> ...and that relates to purebred beef cattle, how?

I imagine there are far more useful things to worry about in the American diet, than subtle differences between a single strain of pork muscle vs which strain of angus they're eating. Like how much they're eating; how much fat, salt, empty carbohydrates.

If you are worried for yourself, fine, FUD away and eat vegan. But as a social phenomenon, I can't see how lab-meat can be very harmful, and it is a certain good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's not much of a wait left until the day a man will be able to come home from work, eat a lab-grown Bratwurst, have sex with his sex robot, and then relax with an electric cigarette.

<comment><USER11> All that, yet he's still commuting home from work.

<comment><USER12> I think I would always commute, even if "come home from work" only means leave the room I only enter while on the clock. Blurring the line between home and work too much sounds terribly unappealing to me.

Human contact is nice too.

<comment><USER13> > Human contact is nice too.

Said the man with the sexbot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A news story I saw last night about synthetic sausages contained a vox pop from a woman who claimed that she would not eat them because it was "unethical". I have to say, my mind was blown by her apparent construction of ethics.

<comment><USER15> Strange indeed. If her answer had been that it's _unnatural_ , she may have a point (not one I'd uphold thouhg), but unethical makes no sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If they can compete with textured soy protean then they have a viable market with pretty low technical requirements. As they develop texture and structure they could replace fajita and stir fry meats, maybe nuggets. Lots of markets as the product matures.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm skeptical that this is only 6 months away (6 years sounds more reasonable), but I'm still curious about the ramifications of synthetic meat.

Would it be more energy efficient to grow meat in a factory than in the fields? What are the energy requirements for a pound of lab meat vs a pound of pig meat?

More importantly, what would happen if it turned out cheaper and tasted the same? How many industries depend on eating meat? What would happen to all the pigs if nobody wanted to eat them?

<comment><USER18> Even more interesting, at least to me- what will the vegetarians do?

As for all the animals, their populations would obviously get scaled back. The transition would not happen overnight, there would be plenty of time. Though you may have a point- domestic pigs would likely become pets and little else. However, chickens still lay eggs, cows still make milk, and sheep and goats still produce milk and wool.

<comment><USER19> Your points about non-meat animal products still very much hold still. Pigs would be pets and sources of organ scaffolding for humans.

Additionally, the yearlong production of milk in animals requires contant pregnancies, so will still cause many animals to killed. For instance, goat milk products kill far more male goats than any demands for the meat.

There are multiple types of vegetarians. Ones who dislike the moral part of meat will not have an issue with the new meat. There are energy consumption vegetarians. If this new meat is considerably close to the energy requirements for a vegetarian diet, they may go for it. The health vegetarians who are afraid of adulterated food may go for this meat now, but the ones who are afraid of the general higher cancer risk from red- meat based diets, etc, will likely not be persuaded to change.

<comment><USER20> Seems like lab-grown milk would be easier than lab-grown meat. No texture issues. I wonder if anyone's working on that.

<comment><USER15> The ethical motivation is a lot smaller though, I presume.

<comment><USER19> The energy motivation is a TON of a lot smaller. Milk doesn't take near the energy to make as meat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In vitro meat has been coming (in that it's been researched) for at least the last 16 years, and there have been edible forms since 2000. None of the other breakthroughs have lead to large-scale production, which I believe was due to the poor taste and that it's currently more expensive to produce than normal meat, per-pound. So don't get your hopes too high.

</comment><comment><USER22> Earlier results of this process at Eindhoven University of Technology included that "due to safety restrictions, the scientists were not allowed to eat the meat, which tasted bland". (sorry, lost the reference)

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting article and I hope it becomes a reality in usage very soon. I have been a vegetarian since birth. Earlier it was because my family was vegetarian and later it was because of my belief that I wanted to cause minimum harm to living thing. But I don't know why my instant reaction was that I am not going to eat it. All my reasons for not wanting to eat meat are resolved by this. No on suffers. Yet I don't think I would touch that. I am all for it and I think it would be a very good step in many ways.

</comment><comment><USER24> As a BBQ loving Texan, I find this fascinating. On the one hand, it does seem kind of creepy, on the other, this could be some cool resilient community- building technology to create a real alternative to the current food economy.

I don't think this will ever be a complete replacement for real meat. There are such subtleties to how an animal lives and what it eats that affect its taste. Wild hogs and domestic pigs are the same animal but taste entirely different (I prefer the wild variety).

Still, I'd prefer higher quality lab-grown meat created under safe and open conditions with some free range/hunted organic on the side to the factory farmed meat we're stuck with today. I drive 35 miles out of my way for groceries every week to avoid that stuff.

</comment><comment><USER25> Easier to swallow than this [http://www.dailytech.com/Japanese+Make+Delicious+Nourishing+...](http://www.dailytech.com/Japanese+Make+Delicious+Nourishing+Steaks+From+Human+Feces/article21932.htm)

</comment><comment><USER26> The other alternative meat: Japan scientist synthesizes meat from human feces

[http://www.digitaltrends.com/international/japanese- scientis...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/international/japanese-scientists- creates-meat-out-of-feces/)

 _Somehow this feels like a Vonnegut plotline: population boom equals food shortage. Solution? Synthesize food from human waste matter. Absurd yes, but Japanese scientists have actually discovered a way to create edible steaks from human feces._

<comment><USER27> There is some evidence this might be a hoax: [http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/23/japan...](http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/23/japan_feces_meat_viral)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Apparently nobody was paying attention when Meat Tube won Best New GMO in 08.

<http://www.ilovemeattube.com/about.html>

<comment><USER29> I'm not sure if you are joking but that looks like a parody site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I am 100% for devastating the livestock industry within my lifetime but I think they are going to fight this on every level, especially politically, so it's doomed.

</comment><comment><USER31> If lab-grown meat qualifies as vegetarian, will that mean that lab-grown _human_ meat won't count as cannibalism? Wacky.

<comment><USER32> A few years back, some wit on Slashdot (responding on a similar topic) wondered whether vegans might object to eating meat grown from their _own_ cells...

That's even _more_ twisty. Interesting, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hypothetical question. Let's say this fruitions and is widely popular. Wouldn't that mean we would simply stop rearing cattle and poultry? Would that mean the species will go extinct? Now isn't that cruelty.

<comment><USER34> I don't think you can be cruel to a species because a species doesn't feel anxiety and pain.

<comment><USER33> "Now isn't that cruelty" - was meant at the species going extinct. Just a pun. Not a literal comparison with slaughter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> When will I be able to print my own T-bone with my 3D printer?

</comment><comment><USER36> My first thought here is that fast food chains will try and pick this up to cut costs, it can be grown cheaper than farming.

<comment><USER37> My thought was pet foods would be ahead of human foods in adopting this, due to, well, a less-than-discriminating end-user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Molecular gastronomy should converge with this. Imagine the wacky tastes and textures that we would be able to create.

<comment><USER39> Molecular gastronomy is technology taken from the industrial food sciences, so they're probably one step ahead of you already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Wondering why the page was with no content. It seems to be Chrome (15.0.865.0 dev), loads good on Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER41> Would it be legal to produce a product called 'Soylent Green' ?

<comment><USER42> Soylent Green is people.

Seriously though, an idea of a fake meat modified to taste like human meat is both troubling and intriguing.

<comment><USER43> I'd try it. And then I'd stay up for nights on end, wondering - "Is that _really_ what human meat tastes like?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I wonder if they will grow human flavoured meat :)

<comment><USER32> Pork already has that infamy. Hence the slang for human flesh: 'long pig'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Man, this is great, because look at how well every other processed food has worked out for human nutrition!

</comment><comment><USER46> This is gross!

Can they guarantee that the synthetic meat is healthy? Like, will it contain CLA, B-12, Omega-3s (found in grass-fed cows, and well-raised pigs), B-12, and so on? We get a lot of important nutrients from animal meat and fat that are harder to process from plant or synthetic sources.

<comment><USER47> Grosser than eating something that was once a living, breathing, feeling animal? Probably not.

(I'm a meat eater but still acknowledge how horrible it is.)

<comment><USER46> Our subjective opinions on how "gross" this is won't get us anywhere. I don't find killing and eating animals to be gross—eating something that literally wasn't alive (I don't find cells reproducing in that way to meet my definition of "living") is repulsive to me.

I source all my meat possible from local farms that raise the animals in free- range methods, and slaughter them in ethical ways (IE, no shocking or killing them when they're in a panic, like a CAFO would). And that's as ethical and as kind as a meat eater can get, with no exceptions.

But the nutritional point I raise isn't a light issue. These are animal cells coaxed into growing in _foreign conditions_. Just like hydroponic tomatoes have no taste, and possibly poor nutrition too, the "flesh vats" of the future will have nutritional problems too.

<comment><USER48> >Our subjective opinions on how "gross" this is won't get us anywhere.

Then why did you start off by saying it was gross?

>But the nutritional point I raise isn't a light issue. These are animal cells coaxed into growing in foreign conditions. Just like hydroponic tomatoes have no taste, and possibly poor nutrition too, the "flesh vats" of the future will have nutritional problems too.

This will obviously be studied and tweaked at length. Input --> output.</comment></comment></comment></comment>