Hacker News Reader

david_bon On Solitude

I'm not sure to what degree her perspective is specifically feminine, but Sara Maitland has written two books on solitude and silence: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518977-how-to-be-alone https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4437202-a-book-of-silenc...

david_bon Harold Herings failure to demonstrate acceptable qualities of leadership

There also is a Radiolab episode

http://www.radiolab.org/story/nukes/

david_bon 3D scanning by dipping into a liquid

A somewhat similar, much simpler process is in wide use in the manufacturing industry for form measurement:

https://www.google.de/search?q=air+gaging

david_bon Modified yeast produce opiates from sugar

It's definitely very impressive - just five years ago they still had to feed the yeast precursors:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/canadian-s...

david_bon LA is dumping millions of plastic balls into its reservoir to tackle the drought

Why not, indeed...

Bromates are formed many different ways in municipal drinking water. The most common is the reaction of ozone and bromide.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromate

david_bon Interview with Michael Moorcock

Unless the people are humans or elfs (hence orcs) or dwarfs or hobbits - then they aren't influenced or changed at all by the power of the ring. The fact that the characters are somewhat like woodcuts might also be owed to two things:

- Tolkien was a linguist, not necessarily well-versed in the craft of literature. Writing good believable characters is extremely hard; moving stick puppets around (Dan Brown comes to mind) is practicaly the default-state, entry-level of writing.

- the books were his answer to the edda. I can't find a sources on this but I believe part of what he wanted was England to have a set of epic myths commensurable with those in the edda - this motivation certainly influenced the overall style of the stories.

I wouldn't call the analysis necessarily wrong or completely unconvincing (the pdf linked here shows his ideas much better), but I would call tendentious in that it looks like everything that doesn't fit conveniently is left out.

david_bon Interview with Michael Moorcock

> The Moorcocks now divide their time between Paris and Austin, Texas,

It's alway good to know where people talking about fascism actually live - it gives a sense of perspective about their opinions (jodhpurs: nasty and evil / state run by nutcase defending dildo bans and religious commandments in front of state capitol: totally ok).

> “In Tolkien, everyone’s in their place and happy to be there. We go there and back, to where we started. There’s no escape, nothing will ever change and nobody will ever break out of this well-ordered world.”

Has he even read the books? Nothing changes? I'll give him that the manichean world Tolkien created is certainly somewhat uncomfortable to anyone with a worldview that includes shades of gray (although I don't think that the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are as black and white as they are made out to be) - but calling someone a crypto-fascist is really harsh.

> Science fiction/fantasy author Michael Moorcock has suggested that the Gor novels should be placed on the top shelves of bookstores, saying, "I’m not for censorship but I am for strategies which marginalize stuff that works to objectify women and suggests women enjoy being beaten."

I want to hear him on Fifty Shades of Grey...

david_bon Google didn’t lead the self-driving vehicle revolution, John Deere did

I'd say Daimler and co. got there first:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Prometheus_Project

Google has obviously taken taken that a lot further (no driver reacting every 9km)

> "We kind of laugh when we see news stories about self-driving cars, because we've had that for years," Poole said.

Yup, no wonder he is a farmer (to be fair: if you're running a tractor at 2 am you may well imagine there to be heavy traffic on the field...).

david_bon How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

> For example, I cannot stomach green beans. Attempting to chew them results in vomiting within my mouth. The smell of them alone is repulsive to me.

Maybe you're just really sensitive to lectins and your body is trying to tell you something...

david_bon How Cash Sent the Portland Home Market Spinning

Corn Laws - what do they have to do with selling real estate internationally?

> Taking away citizens' right to sell to whomever they wish is not a moral solution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_R...

We do regulate to whom we sell specific things (real estate is obviouly not exactly the same) but allowing international kleptocrats to launder / hide their money in western cities is hardly the most moral choice one could propose.

edit: I'm not opposed to such legislation on moral terms but I don't think I can trust the state with enforcing legislation like that - finding a good way of treating real estate investment funds or long chains of shell companies seems extraordinarily difficult (it already is pretty hard to trace who owns what internationally).

david_bon Riots are destructive, but can lead to social reforms

You may want to read this:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/nonviole...

and then this as background infomation:

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on...

david_bon The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

In many countries exerting influence in the democratic process is heavily tied to the monetary resources of the person doing the influencing. Given that mechanism it might be easier to remove the wealth inequality than to dismantle the inequality in the democratic process directly.

david_bon Plants in offices increase happiness and productivity

Sadly the lifespan on wikipedia is not sourced:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halocaridina_rubra

If they indeed life up to 20 years the Ecosphere can hardly be very well balanced if it keeps them going for only 2-3 years.

david_bon Plants in offices increase happiness and productivity

Please don't buy Ecospheres - I realize that many people don't feel particularly sympathetic toward shrimp, but they really are amazing creatures slowly starving to death:

http://www.petshrimp.com/opaeinfo.php

Although I have to admit large-scale installation of these things in cubicles would be quite the fitting ststement for many companies...

david_bon Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

Your comment is slightly off-the-mark as his comment wasn't merely about a festival, but also about his opinion on Portugals drug policy. As your comment implies that you aren't familiar with said policy, you may wish to recap Portugals efforts in drug decriminalization:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal

While it is apparently hard to say how effective these efforts were, it is quite easy to see that the neo-prohibitionists worst nightsmares have yet to happene in Portugal.

david_bon Ignoring the amount customers confirm is no security bug according to PayPal

While I can see how this behaviour of PayPal is close to credit cards, I cannot see how they can show an amount that may be incorrect - they could just ask the shop whether the amount is final or not and indicate that in some way.

I wouldn't be astonished to see chargebacks (by buyers who think they were overcharged) resulting from this - that can hardly be in anyones interest.

david_bon Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

OT: Since I don't have permissions for an Ask-type post I'll do this here. The lines in this thread break extremely 'late' (http://imgur.com/IzmwWBo), causing me a lot of painful sideways scrolling - my screen only has a 1024x600 resolution, but all other threads I have open look normal (http://imgur.com/Q45ZDQ6). What causes this and how can I get rid of it (FF30 with NoScript and Disconnect)?

david_bon Antibiotic resistance: The last resort

Yeah, there is something that is regularly overlooked about developing antibiotics: new ones end up on a shelf as the new last resort. If you've got a timeframe (imposed by patent lifetimes) in which you have to recoup your investment, that is a shitty situation for a pharma company to put itself in. "It's for the public good" is not the kind of due dilligence many shareholders like...

david_bon Mouse path smoothing

Yes, the horror of an open ecosystem on iOS would hardly be bearable.

You do know that nobody forces you to use foreign code to earn your money?

Pretty much everybody in a commercial setting knows about licensing restrictions, so these warnings are useless.

david_bon German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister

-- strict adherence to rules and procedures in aspects of life that most cultures don't care about (clear your sidewalk of snow and ride your bicycle only on the correct side of the sidewalk, for example).

Not very good examples:

--When someone falls in front of your house it is your responsibility (not an 'act of god' as it says in english law) - you can get sued for that.

--As an adult you can't ride on the sidewalks - if you want to, that particular piece of sidewalk has to be marked as a bicycle path (which makes sense considering the high difference in speed between pedestrians and cyclists). In reality nobody cares about bicycle paths so you get an obstacle course of trash cans, cars (and their doors) and pedestrians...

david_bon 75-year-old soybean farmer sees Monsanto lawsuit reach U.S. Supreme Court

We're talking about a company more aggressive and protective of its patents than Apple or any tech company anyone has ever seen before. Not that I condone Monsantos actions, but they kinda have to be: their inventions replicate quite freely, lowering the bar on infringement to entirely new levels (basically to infringe you have to do what your standard-issue caveman was already capable of...) - it raises the question of how to finance crop research when you can only take money for the first generation of seeds you sell.

david_bon What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

Don't forget the Anti-Dildo laws:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_obscenity_statute http://daxlegal.com/dildos-sexually-obscene-toys-illegal-in-...

This is so fantastically nutty I could hardly believe it (when I first read about a woman that had been arrested in Texas for smuggling Dildos).

david_bon Ask HN: Where can I learn meditation and mindfulness without the bullshit?

That depends on where you are: there are many retreat centers worldwide: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki...

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/messa...

S.N. Goenka runs a lot of retreat centers worldwide - but those seem to be a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to quality of instruction and treatment of participants. They partially run on donations and I've read at least one account where people had to listen to talk of 'you would feel so much better if you donate money' (not exactly that but close to it).

There actually isn't that much to learn about meditation - the hardest part is actually staying with it.

david_bon Ask HN: Where can I learn meditation and mindfulness without the bullshit?

Mindfulness in Plain English is good - there is some weird stuff in it (something about levitation) but it is a very minor part and the rest is solid. It's free: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html

If you need more guidance get the MBSR/MBCT (I did the latter) book + audio tracks from Jon Kabat-Zinn - it takes all the buddhism out and teaches just meditation and mindfulness (and little bits of yoga).

MiPE was the first book I got, but the guidance of 'sit down, listen and follow this program' really helped me get on my butt.

Edit: I can't find the levitation part in MiPE - but there was _something_

david_bon Dengue, aka "Breakbone Fever", Is Back

Much as I want to, DDT isn't the wonder-pesticide it is sometimes seen as (it affects not only birds - the german article has more info on wildlife, the english more on human health effects): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT Also, I want to see how you drain Florida :-)

david_bon How Do You Raise a Prodigy?

Here you go:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050703004351/http://www.nybooks...

david_bon A Software Entrepreneur On The Madness Of Software Patents and Trolls

I would argue that Math does have side effects: it runs on mathmaticians brains. After all math is a chain of logical equivalencies based on a set of axioms (I'm not a mathmatician so that is most probably not a very complete definition). Every computer can trivially spit out many, many such logical equivalencies - what makes math interesting is the human factor: www.xamuel.com/mathematics-objective-or-subjective/ Mathmaticians are doing this incredibly well, when you think of the fact that a lot of math was discovered decades before its applications. The idea that maths is somehow completely decoupled from the guys 'running it' seems slightly false to me. You could obviously argue that brains are not computers, but then you'll find yourself in an argument with a lot of angry singularists. Please don't downvote me if I'm completely wrong, this is partially fishing for an interesting argument.

david_bon Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs

Even other countries get pressured into drug prohibition - to my knowledge, there is no country where it would be safe (as in legal) to make drugs for yourself (Portugal maybe?). Not every prison system is as inhumane as that of the US, but here in Germany we had a report just last week that the chance of getting raped in juvenile prison is shockingly high.

Getting precursors and equipment would at least be rather expensive here (also chemical suppliers are prone to notify the police if you buy the "wrong" stuff).

PCR machines are essentially Peltier blocks with a chunk of aluminium on top - there is no hard tech in these things.

A used chromatograph with detectors is easily above 10.000€ - I saw a guy in a german chemistry forum who bought a gas chromatograph with detector(s?) for around 10000€. You don't absolutely need one - but if you want to be sure about the cleanliness of your product you need some kind of analysis. I have to admit although I have vocational training in chemistry and analytics I don't know how low the detection threshold of something like a TLC plate is, which would be the easiest (/cheapest) way to get a guesstimate. Overall this looks easy when you get into it (it's just a bunch of chemical reactions after all) but the closer you look at it, the harder it gets.

There is no Moores law in chemistry - there are probably a lot of new synthetic pathways that could be applicable; finding the right ones (to get a good yield; to use available precursors) is hard and takes knowledge the average weekend warrior won't have (it would be a lot easier to just use the recipes on rhodiums archive and try to make the precursors you can't buy).

david_bon Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs

That made me smile - you really don't know a lot about drug manufacturing, do you? A couple of points: 1. The war against drugs may not seem very effective to you, but it is in its own perverted way: punishment is harsh - add to that that the kind of people who would attempt something as complex as that (brainy people who often have sth. to lose) would get raped in prison on a daily basis. Just look at the Aryan Brotherhood - depending on the scale of your undertaking, they are the kind of people you would be in a cell with. Don't underestimate this as a strong deterring factor. Another interesting article on the excesses of drug law enforcement and the history of drug prohibition: http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/opium-made-easy/ 2. Who say there isn't such a movement? Somebody already mentioned marihuana growing, but there was at least one very high profile webforum that discussed these matters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hive_%28website%29 3. Precursors and apparatus are expensive and hard to get (in Texas you can't even buy glassware without registration). 4. If you are making drugs for your own consumption, you want them to be safe (for example free of unhealthy precursors) - the analytics are even more complicated and expensive than the manufacturing. 5. Everybody can turn on you - hiding an undertaking of that scale would be nearly impossible if you have a social life (friends, family etc.). As I tried to point out above, you are literally taking your life in your hands when you are working with these things: whom would you trust with your life? One wrong word from a drunken friend and "the conseuquences will be never be the same". You are moving into a war zone and your loved ones with you.

I think the future lies in biotransformations - candian scientist apparently have alread done it for yeast: www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/493629-Canadian-scientists-create-morphine-producing-yeast Such a system will completely destroy both the drug market and prohibition. People will simply cultivate their drugs in yeast in the forseeable future.

david_bon Stranded Jet Skier Breaches Multimillion Dollar Security System At JFK Airport

I don't know when they erected this security system, but shouldn't this be a much smaller problem now with the progress in image processing? Put up a bunch of cameras and let humans weed out the false positives?