Ask HN: How do I go about making a coding camp for kids? - <AUTHOR> Earlier this week there was a post about Scratch and a lot of people touched upon programs that they were involved in that helped to teach kids the basics of coding. I have been thinking about running a coding course for middle schools over the summer and have some questions before I contact the library I hope to do it at.<p>1: How did you pitch the idea to the place you ran the event at and advertise to the students? 2: How did you go about installing the necessary tools on their laptops? While the online block languages seem like they might be a good, foundational first week lesson, as I plan on targeting in the middle school age range I feel they would get a little more out of python or javascript. I am looking for solutions that may be a bridge the gap, preferably a block language that converts into text javascript that can make games, with only minimal success. I might try to build my own using googles blockly and phaser.js but I am not sure I will be able to get it up in time.
3: What, if any, curriculum did you use? How many classes did you have and how long were they?
4: How much time did it take. I am a junior in highschool, so it should not be too big of a deal over the summer; ideally though I would not want to be spending more than 10 hrs a week planning lessons. 5: Overall how was the experience for you and your students? And is there anything that you would have done differently? <comment><USER2> I have been running coding camps for kids for the last 5 years (techlabeducation.com). It's a highly rewarding experience and when executed correctly, can be very lucrative. To answer your questions:

1\. Find a location that is not well-served. There are hundreds of coding camps in Silicon Valley, and you'd have a difficult time marketing. I have a friend who started a coding camp in a more remote city of around 100,000 people - he had the only technology camp (every other summer program was an art, music, or outdoor camp) and had no issues with convincing the local library to rent him space, or profitably run the camp. Most importantly, he provided an experience to kids who would otherwise not get one.

2\. Don't try to build your own tools until you are sure you can deliver them. We promised a bunch of online videos to parents about 2 years ago, before I realized it takes around an hour of work for _each minute_ of final video. Just like with any business, see what tools are already out there (there are many) before building your own. One of the most successful tools to come out of my summer program was pythonroom.com, which is now used in schools around the world.

3\. You can find free curriculum online for any subject you cover. A good idea is to write down an exact lesson plan for each class you want to teach in a Google Doc so you can easily share it with any instructors you hire.

4\. It's a full time job to get any business started. You're not going to have much success starting a camp at this point since most kids are already signed up, but it's a great project for next year and I'm sure you can have a profitable summer camp up for the summer before you go to college.

5\. The experience was great and gave me tremendous insight into education technology. If I had to do it again, I would try to automate the customer acquisition process and keep overhead as low as possible.

Send me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com if you have any more questions!

<comment><USER3> My coworker and I have been talking about doing an after school program. I've taught for college kids in a scientific programming class, but not younger kids.

Are there subjects that you find help keep them motivated? I figured simple games like hangman could be easy, but I'm unsure how quick the kids will take to the subject and how to keep that age group interested. Any suggestions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Make sure to contact the pertinent government office in your area that regulates child care. Summer camps, even those for middle schoolers, generally fall under their umbrella. Get all of the certifications you need and know what the requirements are for your instructors. Make sure your location will meet all of their requirements.

If possible, avoid this by teaming with a center that already has these certifications.

</comment><comment><USER5> Depending on the age of the child you might want to look at unity3d. It's a game writing environment. Perhaps you're looking at kids 9 or over for this.

My thinking is the kids will be super interested as they can write a small game and the environment is complete and free with lots of tutorials.

</comment><comment><USER6> Leave the kids alone...</comment>


The sad truth about our boldest climate target - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/1/3/21045263/climate-change-1-5-degrees-celsius-target-ipcc <comment><USER2> This is one if the best writings on climate crisis I've read recently. To add my two cents

"I am a pessimist by nature. Many people can only keep on fighting when they expect to win. I'm not like that, I always expect to lose. I fight anyway, and sometimes I win."

\-- Richard Stallman

Fuck hope and optimism. I am gonna go out and fight no matter what. Doing nothing makes me sick.

<comment><USER3> Hey God bless you, me too! If there is anything inspiring about watching David Attenborough films, other than our gorgeous Earth, it is that nature has the processes to recover. Even in the worst of conditions. Just look at Chernobyl. A whole ecosystem returned and is thriving better than the ecosystem on the outer perimeter of it.

<comment><USER4> Talking of Attenborough, it's difficult to stay hopeful after seeing his one hour Climate Change - The Facts, despite Attenborough's optimism at the end. The time lapse sequences from satellite of deforestation, destruction, pollution etc to an extent rarely seen really puts our species' suicidal, destructive tendencies in context.

For me it was far more "we're fucked" than inspiring call to action. Haven't given up trying yet, though I am not at all hopeful now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > They believe that without that public optimism, the fragile effort to battle > climate change will collapse completely.

I can imagine this being true.

If a meteor is going to destroy Earth you probably aren't spending your last few days doing the dishes and sweeping the floors. You're only doing that if there's a > 50% chance that we'll be able to divert it.

And better than "being optimistic" is rapidly developing the technology and passing the law to make it realistic.

</comment><comment><USER3> Man if Al Gore was elected we may have had a shot in 2000. But I guess Florida voted to grow gills.

<comment><USER5> I knew someone who lived in Broward county and voted for Bush in the 2000 election. His reason: Gore was boring.

Not everyone sizes up the issues.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I didn't think Gore was all that exciting either so I can understand. But unfortunately everything has to be one side or the other. Even science.

<comment><USER6> I don't understand this about politics - what needs to be exciting? What does it mean for a politician to be boring? Even back then, I thought politicians are elected to be boring. I am ESL, is this word used differently in politics?and how was Bush exciting? Is it some flashiness he maintained? I think I misunderstand.

<comment><USER5> Politics has become entertainment. It's like a reality show where contestants gradually get kicked off.

In one election someone even proposed a litmus test "who would you rather have a beer with?". In other it's been "who would you invite into your home". Neither are ever going to happen, but it's easier to tug at people's emotions than get them to listen to information.

<comment><USER4> That type of litmus test is hardly new, even in UK politics which tends to trail the worst US "innovations" in politics and campaigning.

Blair got a fair few votes as he had a nice smile, the Tories tried to demonise him with their "demon eyes" campaign. Go back further and there were elements of the same in Michael Foot losing election against Thatcher. He famously attended a national event in very poor weather and wore a brand new coat, chosen by his wife, that the right wing press tried -- very, very successfully -- to brand as a donkey jacket, and him a bottom of the heap disorganised type, when it was just a normal, formal and supposedly very expensive duffel coat.

Or Attlee against Churchill at the tail end of WW2. Churchill was going around in style, using an election train and limousine. Attlee was going around casually mixing with the troops who were starting to come back from Europe, and talking to the people, as one of the people. Thus Britain's great war winning leader was resoundingly kicked out, in a Labour landslide in July 45 -- between VE Day and VJ Day.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Weakest Link Reporter - <AUTHOR>

This is my first post, and the first project I will be posting to a community... so be nice please. Also, I am not really interested in any other projects that do the exact same thing… I often like to reinvent the wheel, just for the experience.
I work as a front-end web developer, and whenever I am about to push a site live, there is usually a huge list of bugs and general issues to fix, before a website can be seen by the public. The lists of bugs, are generally created by non-programmers, which means they really only care about the content of the site (ie grammar, spelling etc)… If I can fix all of the programming related errors before they get a chance to make these UAT lists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_acceptance_testing#User_acceptance_testing), it makes my life and their lives easier. One of the most common problems are bad links, as I hardly ever click each link that I create. I created this tool to test all links found in every html file, found in a target directory, recursively; and generate a report on the results. If the script finds an internal/relative link, it checks to see if the file exists; if the link is external, it does an http request.
I wrote this script in perl and made it work like a unix command line tool; I eventually want to make it a real command line tool, but I don't know how yet. Also, my co-workers who are not unix friendly, suggested that I make a web form interface to activate the script.  There are many things I can do to make this tool more useful; this version met a specific set of criteria for a project. Now that the project is over, I plan to expand this tool for more general use.
Let me know what you think, if you would use a tool like this, and if you want to help dev it.
Project: https://github.com/mathew-fleisch/Weakest-Link
Script: https://github.com/mathew-fleisch/Weakest-Link/blob/master/weakest_link.v1.0.pl
Sample Report: https://github.com/mathew-fleisch/Weakest-Link/blob/master/bh-eu-12-link-report.xls <comment><USER2> Great tool! This will definitely come in handy!

You might consider adding parameters for different logging levels. For example, it might be nice to only see the missing files.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Chris, I actually thought of this too! I put all of the things I plan to do, in the README file on the github page here: [https://github.com/mathew- fleisch/Weakest-Link/blob/master/R...](https://github.com/mathew- fleisch/Weakest-Link/blob/master/README.md)</comment></comment>


Sublime Text – What's Next? - <AUTHOR> I have been a huge fan of sublime text since the beginning . But recently I feel there is nothing much new and very few updates. What are you guys working on next? Any big releases coming soon? <comment><USER2> I definitely wouldn't spend money on buying a sublime license today. Development definitely seems to have stalled.

If you want a premium ide and/or text editor look at ones [https://www.jetbrains.com/](https://www.jetbrains.com/) has to offer. I am a polygot so I paid for the intellij Ultimate license which covers all the languages I code in.

But there a lot of excellent FREE / Open source editors out there too, consider these before spending any money:

[https://code.visualstudio.com/](https://code.visualstudio.com/)

[https://atom.io/](https://atom.io/)

[http://spacemacs.org/](http://spacemacs.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=2&sid=47d0...](https://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=2&sid=47d0c367959227fbf5437c2d9225ddee)

</comment><comment><USER4> Sublime Text 3 works really well for what I need.

I tried atom editor / shell / electron ??

But it seems its in constant flux. I am waiting for things to settle down and then move on to using it since its open source.

I think the creator of sublime text took a long vacation and he deserves it.

<comment><USER5> I moved on to GVim. I set it up as I liked and I don't miss Sublime. I'm hoping this will be my last editor switch.</comment></comment>


American Drone Assassinations May Violate International Law - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2015/10/29/american-drone-assassinations-may-violate-international-law-experts-say/ <comment><USER2> I think this highlights the complexity of fighting battles against enemies who are operating out of another country. I suggested this as a thought exercise to my Dad, "Let's say Mexico flew a drone over Las Vegas and dropped a hellfire missile into one of the wedding chapels where a drug lord was getting married?"

Sounds kinda horrific that way, doesn't it?</comment>


Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/25/aetna-accidentally-exposed-customer-hiv-statuses-in-clear-envelope-windows/ <comment><USER2> This is the kind of thing that induces panic attacks in my business because so much time is spent on the look and feel of any letter going out to customers, and so little time is spent on the finished product (ie QA process for the letter in the envelope). It's probably not a matter of the company being evil (although Aetna could probably be described that way at times). It's more than likely 1) the lack of proper procedure in place regarding mass mailing, 2) the lack of a standardized Quality Assurance program, and/or 3) a 3rd party was contracted out by Aetna to do the mass mailing and they you could probably wrap back through #1 and #2 for them as well.

None of scenarios can diminish just how awful this is of course. There are some things you can get wrong on that envelope that are bad, but not really livelihood threatening. This is life changing for a huge number of people I'm sure, and the companies involved should be held accountable for the breach.

<comment><USER3> > 3rd party was contracted out by Aetna to do the mass mailing and they you > could probably wrap back through #1 and #2 for them as well.

To contract this out would be a terrible breach of protocol.

<comment><USER4> >To contract this out would be a terrible breach of protocol.

That's false. HIPPA covered entities are allowed to engage contractors, who are allowed to handle protected health information (they also must comply with HIPPA, of course).

Source: have worked for an HIO (health information organization, a type of HIPPA compliant contractor), and [https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for- professionals/faq/547/to-what-...](https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for- professionals/faq/547/to-what-extend-does-hipaa-allow-third-parties-to-access- information/index.html)

<comment><USER3> You are 100% correct, I messed that up. What came to mind was the likes of Sendgrid or Mailchimp. Apologies and thank you for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Note that the USPS also scans and stores images of the front and back of all mail it delivers, even if you don't opt in for their digital delivery service[0]. So this means that the USPS - and anybody else with access to their images, which includes law enforcement - now knows the HIV status of these people.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service- confirms...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms- photographing-all-us-mail.html)

<comment><USER6> Scarier point: USPS probably knows without that. If these letters are sent out in batches and the envelopes/timing/vender is unique, then all it takes is knowing that 1 letter is abut HIV and then you know all of them are without ever seeing the content.

<comment><USER7> At USPS scale, wouldn't the density of the letters versus public statistics on disease prevalence be a strong indication?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Oh neat, I just signed up for Aetna (first time working in America since ACA).

Is this normal for them? Am I an idiot?

<comment><USER9> You shouldn't be downvoted for normal and reasonable questions, or even for self doubt.

Aetna is terrible. The lobby against healthcare reform at every turn. They didn't want obamacare/ACA they didn't want to compete accross state lines, they want to be able to exempt people from pre-existing conditions, they want to give people the run-around.

They are not trustworthy and they are run by bad people. (don't beat up on their phone agents though, they are just trying to make ends meets).

<comment><USER8> Awesome. I can't change my decision for another year, and then only to Blue Cross. Are they also terrible?

<comment><USER10> Right now I'm on the hook for 5 figures with BC/BS for my son's birth expenses, because HR screwed up his application. It's a Kafkaesque byzantine labyrinth of red tape and buck passing. I'm not sure they're evil, just bureaucratic.

<comment><USER11> I think that should be covered under the mom's insurance at least for 30 days post birth (at least in California). I could be wrong..

<comment><USER10> It is for sure, but it's tough getting them to do what they're supposed to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, this is actually something I consider when sending letters to my clients. I don't ever want to "leak" their info, even if it's not really considered sensitive.

I always assume the top third to be "compromised", only putting the private contents in the lower two thirds or on the back.

I wonder why they don't have the mailing rule of the top third as a written policy.

<comment><USER13> A cost/benefit analysis of "put all HIPAA-relevant information inside an opaque envelope" probably comes out ahead if it prevents one issue like this.

Hell, make the envelope a specific color to make it really obvious that you've done things correctly.

<comment><USER5> > A cost/benefit analysis of "put all HIPAA-relevant information inside an > opaque envelope" probably comes out ahead if it prevents one issue like > this.

To be pedantic, the patient's name and address are both considered PHI under HIPAA.

The way that most insurers deal with this is by mailing an envelope that has no obvious information on the outside about the sender (it has a return address that's usually a PO box somewhere in the midwest, but not the company's name). So without opening it, you can't tell that the piece of mail relates to medical information.

Banks do this as well when mailing things like credit cards, to make it less obvious to a would-be interceptor of the mail that there's something valuable inside. (Of course, the deliberate inconspicuousness of it is itself conspicuous, but that's another problem).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does the US not have standardized letter and envelope sizes?

In Germany we have standards for paper sizes, window placement and the layout of business letters. Considering this type of letter is probably not typed out by hand, it's trivial to use a template with the correct layout. At that point the choice of letter becomes irrelevant.

I'd expect the US to have something similar but maybe they don't? If there are standards, this boils down to either "Aetna used non-standard envelopes" or "Aetna formatted letter incorrectly".

<comment><USER15> There is no standard that I'm aware of. On a related note, if I had a dollar (or a Euro) for every US problem that the Germans solved long ago through straight thinking, I'd have enough money to move to Germany.

<comment><USER16> If I had a dollar for every problem the Germans introduce by over-thinking current problems I could drive a German luxury car (that is old enough to not still be under warranty).

<comment><USER17> > I could drive a German luxury car

...and then your mechanic will curse you for having a vehicle that is insanely difficult (and expensive) to repair (hang out on /r/justrolledintotheshop for a little while to see what I mean - "service position" anybody? Or what about the carnage to fix a simple heater core?)...

<comment><USER16> Service position is a Volvo thing IIRC.

Reddit has an Toyota fetish which I find pretty intolerable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A dude in my girlfriends class at a good university in nyc just had this happen and his roommate saw and went to the school and said they want him removed from the dorm, school obviously said no, but it was a huge ordeal.

</comment><comment><USER19> Separately, it has been reported in the last several years that the U.S. Postal System has implemented imaging _every single piece of mail it moves_.

They have already OCR-ed addresses from mail, for years. If they are now retaining the raw images, does this mean that they've inadvertently collected and are holding the HIV status of all the Aetna customers affected by this information leak?

So far, it seems the USPS is not selling what it's collected. (Although I'm sure some of the "make a buck any way you can" crowd in DC and elsewhere would not be above enabling and pushing them to do so.) But, next year? And in case you thing this is far-fetched, many state departments of motor vehicles (DMV) already make their drivers license photographs commercially available, IIRC.

</comment><comment><USER16> Since most of this thread has turned into comparing the terribleness of insurance companies I'll say it again:

A good said of less than legitimate identification documents are probably far more useful to someone needing urgent medical care than insurance coverage is.

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://vine.co/v/5hBviTJuHj5](https://vine.co/v/5hBviTJuHj5)

</comment><comment><USER11> massive HIPPA violation.

</comment><comment><USER21> Reading further in, it was a screw-up on the paper envelope that had too big of a window and referred to HIV treatment connected to the person's name. This is really bad, but it was 12k localized instances of crummy physical mailing.

Its pretty bad, but it's not like this was "300k people leaked by hackers for ransom".

<comment><USER22> This could have been prevented, though, and now folks could have to deal with a lot of harassment. There are still folks out there that think AIDS is a punishment from god for a sinful lifestyle or will assume you are gay (with all the discrimination that comes with it). Yet other folks finding out will simply stop using normal gestures with you and stand further back, simply because they are afraid they'll magically catch aids.

Sure, it wasn't 300k people leaked by hackers for ransom. It was giving folks reason to discriminate against 12k people. Does it matter if it was localized?

<comment><USER23> There are two sides to the story though (I'm not defending Aetna, I'm saying this is not only a problem for people who live around bigots.)

Some non-zero percent of those 12k people live with a partner who doesn't know their HIV status. It is (edit: could be, if untreated) totally unethical for those people to fail to disclose their status to their partners, but arguably it's much worse for those people to be outed by their health insurance company, who should really be the (#@[expletive](/#@ experts in privacy here.

I'm really not sure it's OK that this letter went out at all, even if they had used the right privacy envelopes!

<comment><USER5> I fully expect to get downvoted for this, but it's an important point that I have to address.

> Some non-zero percent of those 12k people live with a partner who doesn't > know their HIV status. It is totally unethical for those people to fail to > disclose their status to their partners

This is itself based in old misinformation about HIV that serves to perpetuate harmful stigmas around HIV.

HIV is treatable, and when properly treated, _cannot be transmitted_ [0]. That's not even taking into account other forms of HIV prevention that are practiced to reduce the risk of HIV transmission. While it's advisable for an HIV- to ask their partner's HIV status (and HCV, and other STD statues), a person with HIV under proper treatment should not be expected to proactively disclose that to every partner or potential partner, and it's not "totally unethical" for them to make the decision not to volunteer that information unasked.

[0] Decades of misinformation have drilled the false belief that HIV is always infectious into people's minds, to the point where public health groups are literally launching massive campaigns to correct this belief.

<comment><USER24> So then how are people still getting HIV?

When thinking about the ethical implications you have to take the real world into consideration, not the perfect world.

<comment><USER22> "So then how are people still getting HIV?"

Some folks don't know they have it, and there are big gaps in health care. Not everyone that needs to be tested or _should_ be tested has the means or transportation to do so, let alone afford the medications. Theoretically, we could test this with normal bloodwork and have tax dollars pay for the medications, treating it like a public health cause. We just don't, partially because of outdated views on it, bigotry, and so on.

Granted, this is completely ignoring the world outside the US, where there are other difficulties.

This is the real world you were referring to, right?

It should also be obvious that he's referring to folks that have medication available. HIV isn't the death sentence it used to be because we've made great strides.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Localtest.me redirects to 127.0.0.1 for local testing - <AUTHOR> http://readme.localtest.me/ <comment><USER2> Today it does. Tomorrow maybe it goes to my nefarious host...

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the advantage of this over either the dotted quad or the unqualified localhost name with the appropriate hosts record?</comment>


Is the future of the internet going exclusively mobile? - <AUTHOR> http://cloudinary.com/blog/is_the_future_of_the_internet_going_exclusively_mobile <comment><AUTHOR> This article examines the relationship between the increased use of mobile phones to the decreasing requirement for websites compared to apps, and how to prep your site.</comment>


Ask HN: What kind of small programs can I develop for small income? - <AUTHOR>

Well, I am college guy who would love a small extra pocket money. Being a programmer, mainly a web developer, what can I develop which might be helpful to others and could be sold at marketplaces such as CodeCanyon. <comment><USER2> Go look at the bestsellers on these websites, they'll give you an idea of the problems people want solved, then write a better solution to each problem you discover.

You can even give your best one free here on HN, to get attention for your paid offers.

Also, what sells well on codecanyon, will sell outside codecanyon so you can build your own online storefront and build an audience around it, or find other marketplaces and try to bring the bestsellers from one marketplace to another. I used to do this a lot for physical products and it worked for me with varying degrees of success.

Good Luck

</comment><comment><USER3> One good way to come up with ideas for plugins is to look at other similar marketplaces or platforms and port them. For example, Joomla may have a very successful addon, but no Wordpress equivalent exists. You may find that specific addon isn't even being sold on Codecanyon.. make your own and sell it there.

Another: go to users of a specific platform, say Wordpress, and ask them what's lacking or what could be improved.

Another: integrate. Find some new software and see if there is a Wordpress plugin. Is there a Stripe plugin for Wordpress? Joomla? Drupal?</comment>


Is this job a deadend? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently a student in Computer Science with around 2 semesters left. Last October I found and part time job doing some web development for a small company. It pays well enough and the hours are good, but I'm wondering if it's taking me down a useless path due to the technologies used.
I work on the internal website which was originally written in 2005 or so. It's all written in Classic ASP (JScript) and is the biggest mess (spaghetti code, no design considerations). The db that powers the site is SQL Server 2005 and the server is IIS 5.0
Many times I've considered asking to rewrite it in something more modern that is receiving updates. The problem with that is this site might be phased out entirely if the company decides its time to implement a real ERP system. They are growing and I feel like this is a good possibility. If that were to happen my job would most likely transition into implementing some open source ERP. I'm the only developer at this place and am supervised by the IT guy who does everything else (db admin, external site admin etc..)
I'm just wondering how beneficial this is to my future career and if I should get out. I like this job because it's laid back and eliminates some stress looking for an internship this summer. The problem is the future. I feel like I'm not gaining valuable industry experience here (aside from having a job in general). I'm not learning anything that is still being used.
Am I wasting my time here? <comment><USER2> For various reasons, it's not uncommon these days for people to only stay 2-5 years at each employer. If you think of it that way, then the best purpose that your job can serve ( in addition to paying your bills and maybe giving you exposure to a positive equity event ) is to help you get the _next_ job.

For you to even pose this question, the answer is probably "yes". I'd recommend starting today and working on your resume. Focus on your accomplishments at this job - when you go into the next job interview you'll want to be able to talk about your successes that you're proud of! Good luck!

edit: typos

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, this is pretty much what I was thinking. I've already applied for a few internships for this summer but I don't know. If I don't find anything else I'll stick with this at least until the fall semester. I enjoy this job but it's stuck in the past.

Would be nice to hear from others who have been in a similar place</comment></comment>


Hostile code bases - <AUTHOR> http://tatiyants.com/hostile-code-bases/

<comment><USER2> I'll make the same comment I did over on the blog:

Pro: I like the metaphor. Bearing in mind that one must defend against the unknown tricks and traps of old code certainly is useful.

Critique: One thing I'd change is the implicit gender assumption -- my team is 50% female, a relative rarity.</comment>


Skype employee unhappy with Microsoft acquisition - <AUTHOR> http://www.tinycubicle.com/hateit/microsoft-bought-skype-im-outta-here/

<comment><USER2> Who is this jerk? I mean, this Daniel?</comment>


Apple strips clips of devs booing $999 monitor stand using copyright claims - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/06/05/apple_stand_copyright_lockdown/ <comment><USER2> Isn't it fair use?

A small fragment of a copyrighted video as part of a larger work made to satirize is completely legal!

Aren't there penalties for fake DCMA requests?

<comment><USER3> _Isn't it fair use?_

Nothing is automatically fair use. At the end of the day only a judge can decide if something is fair use or not.

<comment><USER4> YouTube is also a private platform, they can take down your video for any reason at all.

<comment><USER5> While it's true, it's also missing enough detail to be wrong. There are laws governing content use on websites and Youtube is obeying the safe harbor provision with hasty response to take down requests. So the reason they take your video down here is "compliance with the law".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article seems to be 10 days old, and the video they were using as example is not blocked.

<comment><USER7> The uploader filed a counter-notice and Youtube put the video back. The fact that some of the videos got reinstated doesn't change that Apple filed the DMCA takedowns in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is total nonsense, non-news.

Apple hosts itself a recording of the keynote, and that contains the developer reaction unedited. (This I have verified after they finally posted the keynote on their website; it is conceivable that they've edited it afterwards again, but we'd need evidence for that.)

Apple also takes down videos and excerpts of the keynote on Youtube.

There is no hiding of the developer reaction going on.

(Unless someone can provide evidence that it is only those particular excerpts of the keynote that are being taken down on YouTube.)

</comment><comment><USER9> For anyone who want it: Apple includes the full WWDC keynote, unedited, on their YouTube channel, including the moment in question (at [https://youtu.be/psL_5RIBqnY?t=6118](https://youtu.be/psL_5RIBqnY?t=6118))

<comment><USER10> The moment in question is edited in Apple's video though

<comment><USER11> That doesn't appear to be true to me.

I watched the portion of the keynote from Apple's feed and a couple other videos and they seem substantially the same. The sound's actually better on the Apple video so I can hear the rumble (not really "boos") more clearly.

Can you explain what you mean?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can we call it the Streistand?</comment>


Snobbism-less way to save hacker-news from becoming another digg/reddit - <AUTHOR>

The only two aggregators I consume in my google reader are this site and http://friendfeed.com/.
I recently noticed that hacker news is gaining popularity which makes posts less interesting.
I was wondering what if the karma will removed, would it cause karma-motivated posters looking for other places to be top ranked
I just wish we will remain a small community with common interests but I am not sure it is even possible nowadays. <comment><USER2> The site has been diluted a bit. The TechCrunch post increased our traffic by 20% like a step function, and since then I've noticed slightly dumber stories getting slightly more votes. I don't think getting rid of karma would solve the problem, though. The problem is voting, not submission.

I may finally try turning on some kind of vote weighting. But there is a more organic solution:

 _Long-time users: please vote more._

If people voted up good stuff more often, that would fix the problem. And I know there is a lot of room to do that, because we now get around 12k unique visitors a day, and yet top stories rarely have more than 100 votes.

<comment><USER3> The best voters are going to be the ones who take the time to read and evaluate what they're voting on. They're naturally going to get outpaced by people who vote reflexively based on titles (Ron Paul syndrome) or who go for short attention span content. So even if you somehow manage to convert habitual readers into active participants over the long term you're fighting an uphill battle in terms of numbers.

I, for one, would love for you to turn on vote weighting because I'm really curious how well it will work.

<comment><USER4> _They're naturally going to get outpaced by people who vote reflexively based on titles (Ron Paul syndrome) or who go for short attention span content._

Perhaps a little javascript could be used to disable the article vote arrow until the page was actually read by the user, or maybe the arrows should only be on the comment page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The issue to me is between these two things: Alienate potential users versus allowing the mainstream crowd to alter the community. Digg and Reddit are prime examples of what eventually happens once sites become mainstream. To determine the best action we need to know what the long term goals of the site are, without knowing that its tough to generate any 'fix'.

How about going the invitation only route? Or creating a series of basic coding/php type questions in order to sign up (think captcha)? I think either of those if implemented would cut down on the drive by comments that bring down discussion.

<comment><USER6> Personally, I'd go the mefi route and charge $5. That seems to work there, and (since this site is primarily about YC's aims and its potential founders) I'm sure serious entrepreneurs wouldn't think even _once_ about paying.

Look at it this way: people will pay for the privilege of an intelligent conversation, but trolls feel so entitled that 99% of them will never pay.

<comment><USER7> It felt funny how different my reaction was to the idea of paying at Metafilter vs news.yc. I scoffed there, but I'd pay $5 here in a heartbeat. If that's all we have to do it seems a small price to pay.

Maybe if it added up to enough there'd even be a YC company funded by it :-)

<comment><USER8> Oh, _man_ \-- your post made my math-addicted brain start estimating the financial cost of the time I spend here on news.YC. Now I need a drink, and it's only noon.

Believe me, $5 would be _nothing_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not convinced that this "less interesting" problem is real.

For one thing, talking about the "quality" of news.yc posts is like talking about the weather. It's partially random, and it fluctuates. Sometimes it's grey and drizzly! Sometimes it's sunny! Sometimes you have Hurricane Katrina!

There certainly are lots of people complaining about the quality of posts, but that in itself isn't evidence of anything. People constantly talk about the weather, too. It's a safe topic, it's a shared experience that connects you with your audience ("Did you get wet yesterday? Yeah, I got wet, too!"), and it changes a lot, which guarantees that there will always be something to say.

Any community larger than five will never agree on the definition of an "on topic" submission. One person's sensationalist linkbait is another's clever marketing hook. One person's banal retread is another's timeless classic.

Finally, I don't think we need another system. We have a system: PG edits the site using whatever tools that come to hand. (Yes, the karma system is there, too, but it's kind of lightweight -- karma does not convey ultimate power, it's subtle in its influence, and it mostly serves as a way to send small- scale social signals.) Ultimately, I don't trust systems to build readable sites: I trust editors. I'm confident that, if the site starts to suck, PG will start arbitrarily pruning and transplanting and reworking the rules until it doesn't suck anymore. I certainly trust him more than I'll ever trust any mindless, gameable, automatic system, or any silver-bullet gimmick.

<comment><USER9> Believe me, it's real. I've been on reddit for a long time and I've seen it go from a great site with quality links to kitten pictures and "Vote Up If You H@te Hillary" posts. It's not as bad as most people say, but it's certainly a different site than it was a year ago. I'm not sure how to prevent it here, other than manually editing the system and deleting certain users.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps I should clarify that I'm not convinced that it's real _on news.yc_. Not yet, anyway.

Yeah, reddit and Digg are disaster areas. I don't know why, and your guess is as good as mine. My impression is that, in Digg's case, they tended to play up the gaming aspect early on -- e.g. they put up huge banners trumpeting the number of diggs for each article -- and built their audience out of people who think that competing to push articles up the leaderboard is a fun sport. Now they've reaped the whirlwind. Reddit, I'm not so sure I could even guess. I didn't stick around to analyze the phenomenon; I just left.

I do agree, however, that the only proven solution involves manually editing the system to some degree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing that might be useful is for users to be able to block other users. If I don't want to read any more posts/submissions by WakeUpSheeple or AlienFromPrisonPlanet, I can just block them.

One could combine this with flagging accounts for possible deletion if they are blocked by too many people (as WakeUpSheeple probably would be). Deletion would occur only after editorial review.

This wouldn't work for that other site, since trolls have critical mass. But it might work for us.

</comment><comment><USER11> Good question, as I've noticed a few posts completely irrelevant to everything that goes on normally here at Hacker News. It's a thin line to tread about removing karma and I'd love to hear some users thoughts about the issue.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sorting, searching, filtering, tagging and personal preference should solve this problem

Moral is, this site should add features that solve the problem instead of asking the users to ... just behave!

<comment><USER13> > Sorting, searching, filtering, tagging and personal preference should solve > this problem

and ruin the sense of community (baby + bath water)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've also noticed a lack of interesting articles on the front page ever since pg's "troll" essay. The current general hubbub over zoo vs savanna comparisons takes up too many slots.

I think there are a couple ways to go. One thing to try is to show points, but no upvoting on the front page, and allow voting on the 'new' section, but no point totals. That way, articles that that get upvoted are interesting articles from people browsing new articles. Without the influence of points tallys, people will be voting more or less independently.

As it stands now, social news isn't a 'wisdom of the crowds' sort of thing, but more like a positive feedback system that relies on a catchy title and a chance on the front page. This probably makes it more of a hit-or-miss for good articles.

Secondly, as any community gets bigger, the common ground between them gets smaller. There was some quote about television being stupid and inane, not because people that watch it are stupid and inane, but that the common interests we have are stupid, but our refined tastes are varied.

I find myself upvoting very little on the front page now, and the I have to spend time scouring the 'new' section to find the interesting stuff. To be honest, I see no reason why we shouldn't fragment the top news. This isn't like a newspaper where we only have one page to print on. However, I don't mean, breaking it up into "subHNs" like reddit did.

I mean, I should be able to alter the weighing of the front page. The simplest scheme would be to allow a user to follow certain people's submits. I regularly like nickb (other than his xkcd submits) and chaostheory's submits, but not as much edw519. A mere difference in taste. However, my own news snobbery shouldn't affect what goes on the front page. Everyone then has their own 'view' of the top news. That way, if Hacker News sucks ass for you, it's because you voted for "haha news" and followed submitters' articles that you don't actually find interesting.

One of the arguments against this is that the articles would homogenize, because people would follow the same types of things. Though potentially computationally expensive, one might be able to characterize a user based on the articles submitted/voted in some parameter space, and then you can show a distance measure between this user vs you and all the people you follow.

</comment><comment><USER15> i think going social and "asymmetrical" is the way to go.

think twitter. their subscription system does not obligate you to follow people following you. this is the key to good content filtering.

of course we can keep a "public timeline" (for new users which don't know where to begin)

</comment><comment><USER16> I agree that the posts are getting more mundane as some try to get 'the top score' possible. I'm all for this place being incredibly pompous if keeps up the quality of the content. I question the purpose of a number based karma system. Couldn't we just have a thumbs up and thumbs down approach on individual posters and not their posts. This way if you personally recognise that someone has a higher quality of posts, then you will go to the effort of recommending that person. Then you may choose to look at those who are connected to them. This way people don't have the same motivations. I'm all for a subscription based scheme as well if it keeps the quality up. Maybe even charge for it.

</comment><comment><USER17> use a pagerank-like karma assignment (high karma people give more karma). it's better than having a slashdotesque editor. (and the only thing our grahamist overlords would have to do is to kill someone's karma if they go off topic)

<comment><USER17> all these ideas are a little experimental. how can we try them out without nuking this community?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _I just wish we will remain a small community with common interests_

It's interesting to see the comments in this thread while others are talking about optimal company size (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=144969>) and why large companies can be dysfunctional (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=144904>).

</comment><comment><USER19> How about imposing a small karma penalty to post a new story?

Then, set a minimum karma requirement for posters. The karma requirement could be positive or negative.

It would eliminate spammers and reduce bad stories in one fell swoop.

I noticed a couple users tend to post a large number of stories which generate no discussion and earn no points, but there's no loss to the user and no prevention mechanism.

</comment><comment><USER20> It is possible if you add proper trust metric, karma as it is right now is just a little bit too primitive for that.

<comment><USER21> What do you mean by a proper trust metric? I see systems of karma on sites like these eventually evolving into reputational economies so I'm curious about any way of making karma more complex.

<comment><USER20> Trust and reputation are always in context, current karma system ignores it. But once you add context visualizing and interpreting karma becomes hard. Take a look of how we're trying to deal with this problem (link in my profile, sick of being accused of spamming, sorry).

<comment><USER21> I have an account there but I'm unclear on what you're doing differently with reputation..

<comment><USER22> Utilizing reputations through clustering of voting histories in order to produce their recommendations is a pretty good description of what's going on there now. Next they're planning on giving you even more control by allowing you to control who you trust directly. This combined system should be the special sauce that really solves this problem, I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How about this approach: the earlier a member signed up, the more their votes count in the rankings.

</comment><comment><USER24> > I just wish we will remain a small community

This might be the problem? Simply the size?

</comment><comment><USER25> so remove the karma and there's no more motivation to gain some sort of social ranking cred? interesting idea.

<comment><USER26> I don't know that could go both ways: Those who post in order to spread information for information's sake may continue to do so, while those who spam may simply go away because there is no "reward/recognition" anymore. However those who spam may also feel that they now have nothing to lose and may post more worthless stories even more often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I would seriously consider changing the appearance of the colored header bar. There are 9 items on this bar, but they are not all the same kind of item.

The first 4 (Hacker News, new, threads, and comments) are different views of the same data, so they should be tabs.

Leaders, jobs, and <login id> should be links (blue underlined) because they take you to another page, not another view.

Submit and logout should be buttons.

I would change "Hacker News" to "Popular" and I would put the "New" tab first, because the Popular view is the default. I still get confused by the "threads" and "comments" tabs (now what are these, again?)

Why do I make these suggestions?

Because we are all so used to the site, it's almost impossible for us to visualize how noobies see it. We really need to think about how to better direct people to the new page more often and more easily, without making it the default page. I think the biggest problem is that too many good stories never gain enough traction to graduate to the popular page. If a good story falls to 31st on the new page without an upvote, we'll probably never see it again. This happens often because new posts come in faster than people get to vote for them.

I often read a story that I think is fascinating and wonder how people here will react to it, so I submit it, only to find it disappearing without any upvotes or comments. On the other hand, sometimes my submission takes off to the top of the front page. I realize that I probably think a little differently that a lot of people, but not THAT MUCH differently. Sometimes, I think, it's just timing. Thus, the "It fell off the new page too fast" hypothesis.

Just a thought. Of course, if the data suggests otherwise, then never mind.

</comment><comment><USER28> remembering the name of everyone interesting works less and less well as the site gets bigger.

<comment><USER29> _"... remembering the name of everyone interesting works less and less well as the site gets bigger. ..."_

I've noticed this as well. I keep a running tally of the frontpage with hacker, points, karma where I can sort the front page to read the top pages by person/karma. A quick scan of the front page shows me almost all are new names, most have karma of <700\. Another check is the /news page compared to the leader board.</comment></comment>


The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3046685/most-creative-people/the-5-billion-battle-for-the-american-dinner-plate?Src=longreads <comment><USER2> I really enjoy cooking and think that it lets me unleash my creativity in a way. Cooking from raw ingredients at home is not only easier on the pocket but helps make sure that you eat healthier. I started cooking only in grad school and YouTube and a variety of recipe websites were a blessing to ensure I knew what I was doing.

<comment><USER3> What about exactly this growth in the middle of the cooking and eating out space with (mentioned in the article) the likes of Blue Apron? It seems like people can still cook what they like with some degree of control over what they eat whilst eating healthy but...they are likely to pay more for the convenience of getting only the ingredients and instructions they need.

My question is... Is this convenience catered only to those who can afford it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I cook everyday, often 2 meals, while going to university and working. I used to be a chef, and while it's much different cooking at home, I now feel I have a pretty good handle on it.

My advice:

\- Buy a pressure-cooker and learn to use it

\- Salads are great - no cooking, healthy, tasty (for dressing use just lemon/balsamic/flavoured vinegar and olive oil)

\- Eat more vegetables (healthy, and easier/quicker to cook than meat)

\- Eat more fish (fish cooks in less time than meat, is easier to cook, and is healthy)

\- Buy seasonal - you can get great quality products for cheap - especially if you go to the farmer's market and buy near the end of the day

What dinner looked like today - grilled halibut, rice, tomato/spinach/goat cheese salad. Total time from start to finish - 20 minutes. Probably only 10 minutes of my actual time, as I sat around watching TV while the rice cooked and the fish was on the grill.

As for the article on meal-kits, while it's an interesting idea, I don't see the 'value' in simply assembling a few raw ingredients in a box. It saves what, 5-10 minutes at most, for a decent mark-up in price. If anything, people just need to practice cooking with raw ingredients (and pay less attention to the food networks).

<comment><USER5> UK: Birmingham food market has a good range and is fairly cheap (not organic stuff, its commercial grower stuff trucked in from Poland/Holand/Warwickshire). Part of the fun is seeing everyone else (real slice of life stuff). I like to support this market and I like cooking, so box of ingredients would not be something I'd pay for.

Some local organic growers have £5 boxes or £10 boxes they deliver to your house each week. These are bulk seasonable veg not prepared ingredients. I used to sort of like the 'ready steady cook' aspect of making meals out of what was in the box, but now I quite like the shopping aspect. Examples below...

[http://www.farm-fresh-organics.co.uk/](http://www.farm-fresh-organics.co.uk/)

[http://www.morefresh.co.uk/medium-vegetable- box-3-4-people-%...](http://www.morefresh.co.uk/medium-vegetable- box-3-4-people-%C2%A3725)

Pressure cooker: is this for beans? I've always gone for tinned beans on the basis that they are picked fresh in Turkey and industrially pressure-cooked in the tin. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER4> > is this for beans?

Yes but not necessarily. You can cook a stew in a pressure cooker in under an hour, it's incredibly useful for cooking tough cuts of meat quickly. We make beef stews and curries at home all the time in the pressure cooker, to get the meat tender would normally take 3-4 hours, in the pressure cooker takes about 25 minutes. And we do use it for legumes as well (beans, dal, chickpeas for hummous, etc...).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These prices are ridiculous for something you still have to cook. In many parts of the country they are easily as much if not more than an equivalent meal at a diner or similar establishment, even including tip, and of course much more than any fast food joint. I could see this as a complement to one's regular eating strategies (whatever they may be) but not a replacement, which is apparently what is being sold but not what is marketed. You get three or four meals a week out of 21. The other big failing is selection. I'm tempted to try it out for a week, but most of the services don't even tell you what you'll get and only one or two offer exclusively vegetarian options.

Still, if one of these companies slashes prices in half and offers a wide selection of food that can be selected a la carte, I do think they're offering a service that is quite valuable. Until then, it's mainly a curiosity at best.

<comment><USER7> Seriously, in Atlanta there is a delivery service called zifty and I got really excited when they announced these meal plates. Well guess what? The cost of a meal for 2 that I still needed to cook myself was 34 dollars. Who in their right mind would think that is a good price point?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't imagine this service helping me. It would easily double my ingredients' costs, and I enjoy planning and cooking meals myself.

However, one related problem I have is the accumulation of ingredients. Something I cooked yesterday called for mustard, apple cider vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Now I have enough of each to last a decade, and as a college student in NYC, space is at a premium. I wonder if there is room for innovation here.

<comment><USER9> The trick is to not too slavishly follow the recipe.

I always replace obscure items in recipes with more common ones I have at home. For example instead of apple cider vinegar just use the plain vinegar you likely already have and use for other things. Usually works just fine and also cuts down on the planing significantly.

There are some more tricks. The best one is to go for relatively simple recipes. Avoid the "Indian housewife" style recipes who are designed for people who have nothing else to do.

Avoid the recipes from the "foot p0rn" industry with professional chefs, which are usually also too complicated and with too exotic ingredients. I

I often start with the ingredients and then select a recipe based on that (I call that "google cooking"). Basically you google something you already have in your fridge + recipe, and then replace anything too exotic with other things that you also have or just leave them out. May not end up exactly the same as originally intended, but typically works just fine.

<comment><USER10> >>The trick is to not too slavishly follow the recipe.

Sure, but this is mostly for experienced cooks who know what alternatives are feasible for a given ingredient. For everyone else, ending up with something that tastes like crap and having to order pizza is too big of a risk.

It's also about building expertise. When I learn a new recipe, I follow it as closely as possible until I can cook it without looking up the instructions. Only at that point do I feel comfortable with deviating and experimenting: because I know what the actual thing is supposed to taste like, I can try alternatives and judge whether they work well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My favourite hobby: Go to a restaurant or friend's house. Taste something good. Go home and do similar - research if necessary / results don't hit the spot.

This hobby is just plain fun, but is also has the benefit of saving money and really appreciating and showing that appreciation to a skilled chef.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why cooking is viewed as difficult thing to do in US ? I see many people get surprised when I say we cook daily .

<comment><USER13> Going a step further, I cook multiple times a day. Although now that I'm going to the office, I mealprep so I cook meals in advance. But I'm still cooking at least once a day.

If I had to guess, I'd say the reason Americans think cooking is hard is because they leave home at 7am so they can be at work by 9am. Then work until 5pm, and make it home by 7pm. And cooking, while not hard, does take time. Not much _time_ in that schedule.

They also hold this weird notion that you can't have dinner at 9pm, which is when I usually have it at.

But really what matters most is that they just don't value it as much.

<comment><USER14> Even with my relatively slacker-ish schedule of up at 7, work by 730, leave at 430, pick up son at daycare, home by 515, it can be fairly challenging to cook some days. Especially if you haven't planned things out in advance.

That said, it's crazy expensive to eat out all the time. We probably cut our yearly budget by a healthy $2500 just by cutting down on takeout. And there is some true joy that comes from knowing that you are the reason your wife and child have smiles on their faces at the dinner table. Even if you did it with a meal kit rather than shopping for ingredients yourself, who am I to pooh pooh that.

<comment><USER13> > Especially if you haven't planned things out in advance.

That's why on non-special days I have a limited set of things that I will cook. Or a limited set of combinations, if you will. I don't come home thinking "Oh what do I have, what can I make with this, let's find a recipe". I look at the fridge and it's like "Ah, I have ingredients for X, I'll make X". Then on another day it's "Ah yes, today it's going to be Y" and I just cook the same things all the time.

Helps with a lot of things. I always know what groceries to buy, I know how much nutrients my meals will have in advance, I know which of my staple meals fits a particular day's type of activities etc. Limiting your choices makes life a lot easier.

Think like a line cook, not a chef. Leave the chef stuff for weekends and special occasions.

<comment><USER14> This is solid advice. One thing I have to work on is expanding my wheelhouse of common-day recipes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Millennials spend more on food outside the home than any other generation, averaging $50.75 a week." That's... actually way lower than I expected, though that's average across the US I suppose.

Gonna provide a contrarian view since people seem to be surprised at eating out: some times you just want to outsource the thinking and execution of food to others while you focus on winding down, hanging out with friends, connecting, or what not.

Let's use the example of an SF techie: makes around 100k ($50/hr-ish, or let's say $40 take-home pay). Would you rather work 1hr and explore good foodie options around the City or cook for an hour ($40 for 3 meals)? And what if you enjoyed your work?

Now let's use 50k income, the value prop becomes a little more compelling for cooking, and the lower that income goes the more interesting cooking becomes. But food not just a necessity but a recurring entertainment expense...

PS -- I love cooking for fun, but I only want to cook when I'm inspired and when I can share with friends. Sous viding some steak or salmon, 36-hour prep some pork belly, or making pasta noodles and spicy meatballs from raw ingredients. Eating alone... I'll just grab a to-go box, thanks.

<comment><USER16> Food variability is a large factor. I eat the same food, in differing quantities, every day. Total prep time per week is around 2 hours on Sunday, plus .5-1 hour per each other day. The health and financial benefits I get make it well worth my time. For others it might not be worth the effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > As the two of us consider starting a family, we worry about how our culinary > ineptitude will impact our future children. We are beginning to wonder > whether we even have what it takes to put a proper, nutritious dinner on the > table for our little ones.

This is marketing bullshit at its finest. Not only is our product convenient, no, it's essential to the health and well-being of your children!

It's easy to eat healthy if you have $140 per week for four dinners (Blue Apron) prices. We order fresh fish delivered to our house once or twice a week, along with seasonal vegetables. Oily fish like salmon or steelhead trout can be cooked easily with just a few minutes under the broiler, and while the oven is hot you can bake some root veggies or green beans. If you're smart and use foil to protect the baking sheets, it's a 5-minute prep/cleanup operation. If you've got 10-15 minutes, marinating some chicken thighs overnight then grilling is tasty and healthy.

I'll plug the vendor since I think it's a much better deal than meal services: [https://www.relayfoods.com](https://www.relayfoods.com).

</comment><comment><USER18> I've used Plated and looked heavily into these services as way to eat healthier and try new things. If I had to put my finger on one part I liked the most it's sourcing. I like cooking and have no problem looking for and finding new recipes online but I HATE with a firey passion going to the grocery store. I hate not knowing where things are and spending a fair amount of time googling on my phone in the store to find out if cornmeal == cornstarch == cornflour. Sometimes I can't even find what I'm looking for and even asking the help results only in a blank stare. This is particularly annoying for things I need that I've never heard of or cooked with before. I can follow recipes perfectly and have food turn out very good but finding the ingredients is the hard part for me.

Plated results in way too much waste for me as well as sometimes sending me ingredients/recipes that I don't like/want which is why I've gone back to just buying all of my ingredients directly (when I can find them).

</comment><comment><USER19> Oh for f's sake. Life isn't all about work, fast food, meal kits, (or burritos...mmm...burritos) are a stop gap. Making decent meals doesn't take a lot of time in the aggregate, it is just like planning out any other project. Prepare when you have time on the weekend, or a spare moment during the week.

Soups and stews, lasagne, salads, even meat dishes can be prepared ahead of time and enjoyed over the course of days (or if you use a freezer) a week or two.

Someone "married" and especially if children are involved, would do well to learn basics and do food prep and rudiments of cooking. Work is not everything.

For me, the kitchen is zen. I'm probably the other extreme, but my coding breaks when I need to just relax and let go, I cook. That said, making dishes for my wife and I during the week don't take that much time (in the aggregate).

<comment><USER20> True this. I have about 5 goto meals that I can prepare, eat, and clean up in 15-30 minutes any time. While growing up my family made everything frozen and from cans, so I didn't learn there; I taught myself in college without any fanfare, and enjoy it (which, btw, CS degree w/ grad electives in 3 years, still had time to learn to cook).

Each meal is, as you say, zen to prepare. I make it perfect every time because I've made the same few meals dozens of times+. All are made with food from the organic market for << 10 per meal. Bonus: there's excellent food in SF, and if you eat at home 4 days per week the others don't hurt the budget so bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A lot of negativity in this thread but Blue Apron and co. are clearly doing something right.

As someone who subscribed to Blue Apron for a few months last year, the value to me was less about convenience and more about entertainment and education. For the cost of a movie ticket you get a shared experience cooking with someone else, you learn a new cooking technique, maybe discover a new recipe and get a darn tasty meal at the end. That's a pretty good deal.

These services don't replace grocery shopping, they're a fun way to spend time with people. If they can convince Americans that cooking can be fun, that's an extra bonus.

</comment><comment><USER22> Quick tip for hackers: Cook big meals and then freeze the rest in many small bags for later meals.

</comment><comment><USER23> Can we HN types create affordable combi ovens and be done with it?

</comment><comment><USER24> the article lost me when the opening sentence started right out with hipster horseshit. this generation did not invent farm-fresh food.

</comment><comment><USER9> A good sub title of the article would be "The sad sad world of people who cannot cook"</comment>


Social feedback without judgment - <AUTHOR> http://sideview.us

<comment><AUTHOR> We are looking to expand the beta test for our social journaling experiment designed to focus on internal validation rather than popularity. Instead of focusing on hearts or likes, Sideview allows you to honestly document and share (anonymously) the moments that shape your life. There are no approvals or popularity--feedback simply comes from observing the diary entries of other people going through what you're going through, and seeing statistical data about the relationships between your location, activities and emotions over time. Thanks in advance for being willing to give it a look!</comment>


How to track subscription revenue with Google Analytics? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a way to configure Google Analytics to track recursive payments? Or how should one use GA to track the revenue from a subscription based website? <comment><USER2> It would depend on how your system is setup.

In Google Analytics you can enable "e-commerce tracking" for the profile that contains your payments.

Then whenever a new payment is made you can make a call to GA and record the transaction.

Check here for more info: [http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?...](http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55528)</comment>


How network sysctl variables fit into the Linux network flow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leandromoreira/linux-network-performance-parameters <comment><USER2> Nice post but I think the overview graphic of the linux network queues are not 100% precisely, mostly the links between packets and skb but overall it's great.</comment>


Many railway lines in Britain that were closed in the 1960s are re-opening - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21697012-many-railway-lines-britain-were-closed-1960s-are-re-opening-re-coupling <comment><USER2> Travel between Oxford and Cambridge is a great example of how busted the UK transport network is outside big cities. They're about 80 miles apart, as the crow flies. By road, there's no decent east-west connections so it's a good 2 hour drive. By train, it's even worse - the shortest route is typically going to involve travelling into London, changing stations via tube, then heading back out on another line - probably a three hour train journey with two connections.

Reopening the Oxford/Cambridge trainline (and by extension Cambridge/Oxford/Reading) would be a huge boost to the development of the UK tech industry, connecting academic centers to tech hubs.

<comment><AUTHOR> "East West Rail Link is a planned railway route linking the Great Western Main Line, Oxford, Bicester, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich in England using part of the former Varsity Line. The western section from Oxford to Bedford was approved by the Government in November 2011, with completion expected in 2019."

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

<comment><USER3> It's been obviously necessary for decades yet the Government dragged their feet on it, and they're not even planning on constructing the segment into Cambridge yet. In the meantime, Cambridge house prices have gone through the roof due to a combination of a lack of transport links and programs to encourage new businesses there, and the Government has committed huge amounts of funds to HS2, which is yet another line out of London running in parallel to existing lines. Coincidentally, traveling in and out of London is the main kind of travel our politicians do. Also coincidentally, the Beeching cuts seemed to hit cross-country lines that didn't directly benefit London the hardest too.

<comment><USER4> Beeching mostly hurt rural communities, but he absolutely murdered Wales's transport network. What were 20 minute journeys now require a 200 mile circuit via England. Here's a (spammy, sorry) article that illustrates just how mad it was and is. [http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/7-ways- beeching...](http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/7-ways-beeching- cuts-stitched-6934180)

All on the idea that people would drive to a main line station, park, then catch a train.

Except they never actually thought that, beeching and his chums were taking, uh, considerations, from the automotive lobby, just like his predecessors did when they ripped out the trams.

Cars suck for distance travel. Where did we ever get the idea otherwise?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "many thought that roads would rule and rail would go the way of canals"

Particularly the transport minister who had a background running a construction company that built motorways:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#The_people_and_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#The_people_and_the_politics)

<comment><USER6> One of the most shameful episodes in recent British political history.

That crook literally killed a strategically viable public transport network just so he could line his own pockets.

<comment><USER7> For certain values of "viable".

The railways were massively loss-making in the 1960s, with ancient Victorian infrastructure and pre-war rolling stock commonplace. They were only being kept afloat by huge government subsidies. TBH Beeching's cuts were probably the most logical way to save the industry _with what they knew at that time_.

Having said that, my preference (with 60-year-old hindsight) would have been to mothball the loss-making routes, rather than tear them up completely.

<comment><USER8> > Having said that, my preference (with 60-year-old hindsight) would have been > to mothball the loss-making routes, rather than tear them up completely.

Even twenty-five years ago when the privatisation of the railway was happening there was an expectation that passenger numbers would continue their downwards trend—certainly no though that it would end up with passenger numbers quickly increasing throughout more of less the whole country.

It's worthwhile pointing out that much of what was got rid of was duplicated routes: unless you have any expectation of the surviving route reaching capacity, what's the point in keeping a parallel alignment free? In the vast majority of cases, that rationalisation made sense, even in hindsight.

<comment><USER9> > what's the point in keeping a parallel alignment free?

Freight, which has seen a huge growth over the past 10-15 years, especially inter-modal traffic.

<comment><USER10> Also: redundancy. If a road gets closed because of a traffic accident, people take a slightly slower detour, and get home. For trains, there often is no alternative that isn't at least twice as long, and includes a switch between trains with a waiting time that is long because the time schedule wasn't designed for that weird switch.

<comment><USER4> Redundant, you say? Tear it up!

Amazing how that word is contronymic, yet not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For a map of what we've lost, here's a map I researched and drew, covering Southern England, the Midlands and Wales: [http://www.geowiki.com/New_Adlestrop_Railway_Atlas.pdf](http://www.geowiki.com/New_Adlestrop_Railway_Atlas.pdf)

Haven't had time to finish it (paid work gets in the way...) or update it for recent reopenings, but it gives you some idea of the network we used to have.

<comment><USER12> Great map! Not sure if you are aware of [http://www.openrailwaymap.org](http://www.openrailwaymap.org) \- although your project includes interesting snippets ("proposed for reopening", etc)

<comment><USER11> Thanks! Yes, OpenRailwayMap is fun. I have an OSM rendering database sitting around on my server - one of these days I'm going to sit down and do a railway stylesheet for it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If only politicians in the US were capable of seeing things this way..

So many smaller cities in the US northeast have been isolated from the regional economy by railroad shutdowns, but there's so little interest in rail here anymore that I doubt local leadership even understand the severity of the problem.

Great example being the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. Commuter rail connections to NYC and Philadelphia from Allentown & Bethlehem PA were completely dismantled in the 20th century. There's large highways connecting them but the drive is 2-3 hours, lots of traffic. It's grueling by car. Yet a person could comfortably commute by rail if it was available. So this sizable metro area with tons of charm, walkable town centers and 19th century housing stock almost frozen in time, just sitting economically sluggish as the larger cities prosper around them. Very frustrating.

<comment><USER14> Yep a lot of passenger rail lines were turned into freight only lines in the mid 20th century. Alas even a lot of those freight lines are being abandoned now. Rail infrastructure is the kind of thing that is much easier and cheaper to maintain than it is to get rid of and then build anew.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In the 1960s, Britain's railway lines had to either be modernized or closed. There were a lot of small lines still running on old equipment. British Rail had a huge inventory of steam engines. While steam engines are cool in small numbers, they're huge polluters and very high maintenance. (A 1940s steam engine needs about as much maintenance per day as a modern diesel-electric needs in six months, and about once a year or two, a heavily used steam locomotive needs a full rebuild.) Britain had too many trains with small numbers of passengers.

</comment><comment><USER16> Our railway system was built by competing railway businesses with lots of inefficiency, it was nationalised, made painfully efficient (Beeching etc) and franchised out to businesses. This is the next stage where demand is catching up with the network and old routes are reopening.

<comment><USER17> There's a little more to the tale - East Coast rail being nationalised when failing and then privatised once it returned to health ([http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/27/privati...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/27/privatising- east-coast-rail-rip-off)) and the Govt selling off its Eurostar share prior to it becoming more valuable ([http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/06/eurostar- sel...](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/06/eurostar-sell-off- national-audit-office-report)). Also for some reason TfL remains in public hands - maybe because it's too important for private sector to mess up?

<comment><USER18> I remember when the bus system was being privatised and watching the transport minister on the news explaining that he'd been 'inspired' by watching multiple double-decker buses crossing in front of parliament - all with no passengers and his feeling that 'something must be done'.

Yet London got left alone while the rest of the country got the full 'freedom' of the private sector. It's a tad annoying ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Now, if only the tram lines would be rebuilt things would be a lot smoother (at least from a public transport perspective).

<comment><USER8> In Scotland at least the abysmal project management of the (new) Edinburgh trams has likely killed any chance of more new tram lines in Scotland (I don't think _any_ party has new tram lines in their manifesto for next month's elections).

For those who don't know, it was budgeted at £375 million, and eventually opened in a cut-back scheme (with about half the route cancelled) at £776 million.

<comment><USER20> It was something of an administrative nightmare in that it was paid for by Holyrood and project managed by the local council. There's an inquiry into the causes of the failure which has _also_ run over budget, absurdly. But I don't think it's entirely dead, there are still noises about extending it into Leith sometime in the next decade.

Meanwhile the Borders railway appears to have opened successfully - and is immediately full at commuting times. I hope they left enough space to double track it.

<comment><USER8> > Meanwhile the Borders railway appears to have opened successfully - and is > immediately full at commuting times. I hope they left enough space to double > track it.

Not for all of it was — there's certainly provision in places, but there's also parts where doubling would be incredibly expensive (the viaducts especially, where the maximum dimensions of the trains it has been built for are larger than it was originally built for, are inherently single-track now).

<comment><USER21> There's passive provision (ie: at not a lot of extra cost - perhaps no real new infrastructure, not entirely sure) to run a 4tph service to Gorebridge + continue half of them to the rest of the line.

I think a 4tph / 2tph service pattern is fine and future capacity could be gained by platform extensions + longer trains.

I'd rather they 'value engineer' it to that level now than build a double track railway at significantly extra cost, and spend the ~£100m (educated guess) on other railway improvement projects for other areas (eg, the quad tracking of the ECML near Musselburgh to allow them a 2tph service - will cost around £100m for the various improvements).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Following on from this: access to rail is now seen as a potential boom. In my area, areas with rail access are outgrowing areas without it [0].

[http://www.northjersey.com/news/population-rebounds- around-t...](http://www.northjersey.com/news/population-rebounds-around-train- stations-in-n-j-1.1546298)

</comment><comment><USER23> Roughly the same thing as the Beeching cuts is currently happening to night trains on the European continent. There is demand, but due to a combination of high track access charges, the fact that train operating company management is only interested in high speed trains, and lack of vision by the governments and EU, night trains are being cut drastically in both Germany and France.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi And in Spain too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> A propos of nothing, the linked URL set a new record for Ghostery on my browser: 64 trackers found. Yikes.

<comment><USER25> They really should gamify this and build in a high-score feature for situations like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does the UK, or other countries, have a political movement similar to the U.S. that opposes government investment in things like transportation, education, etc?

<comment><USER27> Not as strongly. The main issue is, for all the cheap talk that comes out of the government, the fact is that spending (on many things, but especially infrastructure) is divided into London (plenty of money) and the rest ("maybe some of what's left, and you provincials better be grateful").

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Richard Beeching cut 100,000 jobs, closed 2,000 railway stations & 5,000 miles of track built at the cost of untold labourers' lives. Pollution, traffic jams and commuter misery were some of the results.

He was a public servant who knew he'd never have to bear the responsibility for his actions which affected millions.

<comment><USER29> Burdensome taxes to support underutilized rail infrastructure cause misery too. We can call names at public policy, but that's not a good way to manage public policy. Efficiency has to matter too.

And, strangely, this article insists there's no central decision-making group for managing rail stations and lines. Then, _how did Mr. Beeching manage to close all those lines?_

<comment><USER30> When Beeching wrote the report the stations, carriages, services, and rail were publicly owned and centralised under one public company: British Rail.

In the mid-90s the services, carriages, and the stations were sold off as 14-year franchises to the private firms (most of which are actually public rail companies from other countries such as Germany and France), but the rail itself kept in a weird thing called National Rail that has an odd public/private structure that I don't understand. Ownership and responsibility for the network is somewhat unclear in many cases. I think at this point there is a political consensus that its been a complete mess and a botched privatisation that either need to be redone or just be re-nationalised, though Conservatives try to not talk about it if they can (they implemented it).

There was an awkward period in recent years in which one of the private companies abandoned a major line as unprofitable and it was temporarily nationalised - it ended up becoming the most popular and profitable line while under public management. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_(train_operating_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_\(train_operating_company\))

<comment><USER8> > the rail itself kept in a weird thing called National Rail that has an odd > public/private structure that I don't understand

No, it wasn't. The rail itself was sold off as Railtrack.

Following on from the Hatfield crash, after which it spent £580 million on repairing similar track faults as which caused the Hatfield crash, and a few hundred million more on compensation, which led to the failure of the company and it entered "railway administration" (essentially a special form of administration created along with the privatisation of the railways to avoid the railway ceasing operating when in administration). Network Rail then bought Railtrack in 2002, bringing the railway infrastructure back into public hands. Railtrack was then subsequently liquidated.

<comment><USER30> Oh sorry, I forgot that part of the history. I was a little young at the time so the Hatfield crash is not something I remember in much detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Many of the pre-Beeching lines cannot be re-opened, as they have been built over with roads and housing, especially in the South East. The closest you will get to experiencing pre-Beeching railways is the Hogwarts Express in Florida, I'm afraid.

</comment><comment><USER32> > Feasibility studies take years.

They don't really. Just ask China how it's done.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your creative outlet? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Running, yoga, gardening and self care :)</comment>


AMD Optimizing C/C++ Compiler - <AUTHOR> http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/cpu-development/amd-optimizing-cc-compiler/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand. What's wrong with gcc/llvm and why not contribute to those projects directly?

I thought -march=native was supposed to handle things like this?

<comment><AUTHOR> If i understood it correctly, they are in fact contributing to llvm/clang and this is just a binary release with some EULA stuff.

Here's a Phoronix thread about it. Most posts are… well, garbage, but there are some from an user named _" bridgman"_ who apparently works at AMD: [https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest- phoron...](https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix- articles/951916-amd-releases-optimizing-c-c-compiler-for- ryzen?p=951956#post951956)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Definitely helped clarify some stuff. I guess I should be more careful about assuming things next time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So this is just an AMD-branded version of Clang?

<comment><USER4> Reads like maybe it's an enhanced version of Clang, with custom optimisations? [http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2017/04/AOCC- User-g...](http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2017/04/AOCC-User- guide-%E2%80%94-AOCC-LLVM-1.pdf)

It's a bit hard to make out.</comment></comment>


Making cloth from spider silk - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/arts/design/23spiders.html

<comment><AUTHOR> _[Golden orb spider silk is] five to six times stronger than steel by weight..._

Insanely cool.

<comment><USER2> If you look at steel under a microscope you see discontinuities, and grains and other things.

Spider silk however is totally uniform and made almost atom by atom, that's why it's so much stronger. I believe it's even stronger than kevlar.

<comment><USER3> IIRC it isn't stronger than kevlar, it's roughly equal, however many of the properties of spider silk are more desirable. I believe the first is that it is more elastic than kevlar, allowing it to more easily absorb the impact of a bullet and spread the load. It is significantly more flexible than kevlar, meaning it can be used to make fully armoured bodysuits (instead of using overlapping plates), quite literally pants and jackets could be made out of it comfortably.

Spider silk also has one bonus benefit to it in that it's antiseptic, but it also supposedly binds into a wound preventing bleeding and acting as a natural gauze. This would mean that not only could it save your life by stopping the bullet, but if you got knifed you could actually use your body armour as a first aid kit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whatever happened to that company that was going to create spider silk in bulk using the milk from genetically engineered goats? That was a big story about five or six years ago but I haven't heard anything since. Sure sounds easier than putting spiders in tiny harnesses.

<comment><USER5> Last I heard they were having problems with the stability of the silk produced. Apparently it would start to break down within a month or two, losing all of it's unique tensile properties in the process...

I had a quick look around but couldn't find anything to back that up. The applications they mention on this page <http://www.nexiabiotech.com/en/01_tech/01.php> talk a few times about how 'biodegradable' the silk is though...

<comment><USER2> Biodegradable spider silk is pretty useless.

You would want to use it for things like suspension bridges, bullet proof vests, high tension electrical lines. Space tethers even maybe.

Things that are not disposable.

I have a hard time thinking of a disposable application for a fiber that is stronger than steel. Unless it was really really cheap.

<comment><USER5> On their website one of the first applications they listed was for sutures in eye surgery. Apparently the high initial tensile strength and biodegradability make it perfect for that.

I agree though that most of the interesting (and widespread) uses require a material that is not biodegradable.

I would love to have a spider-silk ballistic/stab vest... That would be a _very_ cool piece of kit...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh they did it the old fashioned way, neat but sadly not as interesting as gene splicing would have been. Gene splicing would make it possible to produce spider silk fabrics for less then one million.

We have spliced some spider silk protein genes into goats, and their milk does contain those proteins, and we can crystallize them into large crystals. But that's not silk, spider silk is those proteins carefully assembled along with H2O molecules to create threads.

Another problem is, spider silk tends to rot pretty quickly.

</comment><comment><USER7> FTA: "...to show what Mr. Peers and Mr. Godley — along with more than a million spiders and a dexterous team of intrepid Malagasy spider handlers — had accomplished."

"...an endeavor that, as he has written, always seemed to be 'imbued with metaphor and poetry, with nightmare and phobia.'"

Yes. That.

</comment><comment><USER8> So that's undyed? What a fantastic color. Yet again the inadequacies of digital interfaces driving me mad --- I want to _see_ it! And (no doubt I'll never get the opportunity) _touch_ it.

I'd like my VR now, please.

</comment><comment><USER9> From the title I thought this would be about Dwarf Fortress.</comment>