Call Girl: What I Learned During My Year as a Customer Service Representative - kevinalexbrown
http://bygonebureau.com/2013/04/23/call-girl-what-i-learned-during-my-year-as-a-customer-service-representative/

======
graeme
>If you think you’re talking to an expert when you call a customer service
center, you’re probably not.

This strongly affects my opinion of a company as a consumer. _Some_ companies
have great support.

For instance, I've published a book with Createspace. They are phenomenal.
They call me when I put in a support request, and within ten seconds I have an
expert rep.

Usually the call takes only 20-40 seconds, including authenticating my ID,
because the reps are very knowledgeable and efficient.

Contrast this to most support calls where I waste about 20 minutes of my time
waiting (I do other things), and often 10-15 additional time speaking to a rep
who doesn't know things, and eventually transfers me to someone who does.

The company pays those reps by the hour, so they lose money, AND make me hate
the company.

This doesn't mean it always makes sense to provide knowledgeable support, but
I suspect there is a stronger case for it than many companies suspect.

~~~
etchalon
I think it comes down to scale and cost.

I've spent a bit too many hours in a call center, both as an employee, and a
few years later developing the software that ran one.

In both instances, there were people there who really knew what they were
talking about, and a lot more who read from a script. I was a script-reader my
first month or so, before moving up the chain, and I was shocked by how often
the script worked. Something like 3/4 of my calls were resolved with a one-
line fix in a knowledge base I could search.

As I moved up, so did my pay, and I cost the call center more per hour (nearly
double). So it made sense for them to a.) not have very many people like me
and b.) to make sure that my time was spent only on the problems that couldn't
be solved by following the script.

In fact, hell hath no fury as the per lower-level call center person who
forwarded through a call to me that could have obviously been resolved if
they'd just followed the script! I'd berate them in notes for not reading the
numerous knowledge base articles I'd carefully prepared, or for not bothering
to check a few simple things clearly outlined in their training before even
engaging the script, or searching the knowledge base. They'd just wasted
everyone's time. The customer who sat on hold waiting for me, the manager who
had to approve the escalation, mine because I'd spent thirty minutes assuming
they'd done their job when they hadn't (and double-checking just made the
customer furious if, in fact, they had.)

You might think that it makes some fiscal sense for companies to ONLY hire
people like me, and eat the cost as a marketing thing, or accept that by
offering great support, they'll get better customers. But you literally could
not find enough support people like me to handle all the calls if you tried.

So you hire relatively dumb, but friendly and resilient people, because that's
what you can find. They're cheap and readily available. If one of them shows
promise, you promote them. You try to find experts that are desperate for the
job, but they're few and far between and generally come with baggage.

You work with what you can get, and optimize around it.

~~~
thisisrobv
I disagree with this premise. The cost of quality customer support can easily
be mitigated by factoring it into cost of your product.

"Software is eating the world"... and it's allowing companies to scale
customer support more easily through active knowledge bases and better more
intuitive searching. The 3/4 of calls that could be resolved with a one-line
fix should never make it to a phone call, they should be directed to an online
support tool that could more efficiently answer their question and if not then
funneled into a call or chat system.

It isn't happening quickly, but more and more companies are understanding that
the relationships customers build with companies matter immensely and those
relationships often begin with customer support reps.

Quality, friendly support scales and you don't have to create a shitty work
environment for employees. Look at companies like Rackspace or on a smaller
scale, 37 Signals for proof. It's not just about finding "friendly and
resilient people" it's about finding people who are passionate about your
company's mission.

 _disclaimer, currently building<http://awesomatic.com> and tackling this very
issue_

~~~
quanticle
>The cost of quality customer support can easily be mitigated by factoring it
into cost of your product.

Sure, but that only works for high end products. Apple might be able to get
away with this (and, in fact, they do exactly this by virtue of offering free
in-person support at their stores). But the high end is a miniscule part of
any market. But Dell? Samsung? Do you really think you can sell ten million
units and offer expert support for all of them?

The Rackspace and 37 Signals examples don't apply. In both cases, they can
assume a certain level of competence on the part of their customer. My mom
isn't going to set up Basecamp. My grandmother isn't going to be spinning 30
or 40 Linux VMs. Rackspace and 37 Signals offer excellent tier 2 support, with
the assumption that you're competent enough to do your own tier 1
troubleshooting. That most emphatically does not apply to the vast majority of
products.

------
milesskorpen
Pretty easy to identify the company she's talking about (CSN Stores, now
Wayfair). They've significantly changed their strategy, and consolidated their
various speciality stores into one shopping destination ... and made it into
the top 50 internet retailers.

That said, I'd imagine most retailers have pretty comparable customer support
experiences once you get to a certain scale. I'm not sure the 37 Signals
experience really scales ... and from my, limited, experience, customer
service work get really monotonous fast.

------
e40
Even the most calm and cool among us will become on edge when they have to go
through 10-15 levels of voice menus, dropped transfers and being forced to
listen to ridiculous and inane advertisements for the company website ("did
you know you can find information about our products on xxx.com?".... thanks
for that 20 second delay).

When I have to call a customer service rep, by the time I finally get to them,
I'm usually in a worse mood than when I called.

------
hkmurakami
_> 4\. Okay, so this one’s not a huge surprise: people are jerks._

I try really really hard to be as pleasant and understanding as possible when
I'm speaking to a customer service rep (and I think that I behave decently).
I've found that rather than raise my voice, trying to be understanding of
their position and limitations gets me closer to "what I need/want" from the
support organization.

That being said I _have_ had cases where the person had absolutely no idea
what I was referring to and gave me wrong information, etc. But even then, I
can't blame them (a DTC stock transfer isn't something that a bank's retail
branch person is going to deal with very often. They didn't even know what a
DTC number was, and I don't blame them. I managed to get the correct info on
the 3rd try.)

------
pinaceae
seriously, what did she expect?

if you work any kind of helpdesk, inbound call center or even management -
your job is to help people fix their problems.

now, does a calm, rational, smart person have a problem? unlikely. something
is not working, hard to figure out, etc. the person is frustrated, angry,
feels stupid for not figuring out - and _now_ you come into the picture.

it is assymetrical, one side has build up emotions, one hasn't. if you get
affected by this, the job is not for you - and it is great to realise this as
early as possible to prevent yourself from causing harm to others by being a
shitty helpdesk, inbound call center, management person.

i think this assymetry is the prime cause of all the BOFH
(<http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/>) behaviors encountered in IT departments. young
males wanting to work with machines, but suddenly being forced to interact
with and help other humans in an assymetrical, emotional state.

~~~
lsc
>seriously, what did she expect?

now, first? you are saying "this is completely normal and expected" - and if
by 'normal' you mean 'average' I agree. this is how customer service usually
is.

But it's not acceptable. Certainly not acceptable from the perspective of the
poor kid getting yelled at.

>it is assymetrical, one side has build up emotions, one hasn't. if you get
affected by this, the job is not for you - and it is great to realise this as
early as possible to prevent yourself from causing harm to others by being a
shitty helpdesk, inbound call center, management person.

Here, you seem to think that it is mostly the employees fault. I'd argue it's
mostly management's fault.

Yeah, a lot of the problems you list are real; sure. But they are hugely
exasperated by companies that setup their callcenter such that employees can't
be anything but emotional punching bags for angry customers. The place I
worked as a tech support person? you were judged by your call times, not by
actually solving problems. (fortunately, I got promoted to NOC before I got
fired for, you know, actually helping people.)

It was exasperating, because, at the time, I had a bunch of experience helping
old people operate windows boxes (I was a helpdesk tech in highschool for an
office with a median age around 45.) /and/ I had a basic understanding of IP,
routing, and the like. And I liked helping people. But my supervisor kept
giving me a hard time about how long I'd spend on the phone with a person.

I mean, I was pretty good at focusing on the actual problem, and generally?
when they figure out that you are actually solving the goddamn problem, even
angry people calm down. And you know? actually solving the problem feels
pretty good, even if many of the people start out angry. (the hard cases are
the problems you can't solve, of course, especially when the problem is
probably between the keyboard and the chair and they won't try the thing you
ask. It's /way/ easier to do this in person.)

Seriously, if you (the company) aren't going to put in the effort to maintain
a decent callcenter? why bother at all? people buy products without phone
support all the time. The way it's set up most places, not only are most
employees not technically qualified, you don't train, and you don't expect
employees to be technically qualified.

But my main point, here? is that as a callcenter employee? you need to
recognize a bad callcenter and /leave/ - if management's goal is to get
complainers off the phone, well, you aren't going to be successful if you try
to actually help people.

(I mean, I think firing your expensive customers; the customer who need the
most help is a reasonable business model. Hell, I put a lot of effort into
scaring that sort off at signup. But having a really bad callcenter is about
the worst way to do that firing, especially from the point of view of the kid
who has to answer the phone.)

~~~
pinaceae
i never said it is her fault. but listing this as some kind of hard obtained,
new knowledge?

of course the company should properly train their support staff, etc. but this
is not the point here.

people needing help are in a stressful mental state. they don't act rational,
some stay nice, some turn into monsters. first step is to calm down, then
solve the problem. some need tough love, some need love.

dangerous analogy: sort of like dealing with an argument with your female
partner in a relationship. it's first and foremost about the emotions at play,
the factual problem is secondary.

if you get stressed out by other people's emotions, you can't help them. basic
human triage is calm down first, establish sympathy/empathy, then move to the
issue. a good doctor works like that, a good sales person as well.

~~~
lsc
>people needing help are in a stressful mental state. they don't act rational,
some stay nice, some turn into monsters. first step is to calm down, then
solve the problem. some need tough love, some need love.

If you solve the problem, the rest of it goes away. Yeah, if you exasterbate
the emotional bullshit, you can make it harder to solve the problem, but my
experience on the phone? Playing the autistic nerd works just fine. They
called for help on a problem, if you just bring the conversation back to the
problem, and, you know, fix it for them, they are usually pretty happy with
it, even if you don't "build rapport" or whatever.

Of course, this assumes they are contacting you because they are trying to
solve a technical problem. If you are sales or what have you, I'm sure the
rules are completely different.

------
vacri
It's worth pointing out that all callers aren't arseholes. It follows an 80/20
or more probably a 90/10 rule. As long as your queues aren't hitting 20
minutes, most people just get on with it and you go your separate ways. It's
just that the arseholes really stick out.

I once did customer support for a telco. I'd have people ringing up to pay
their $900 phone bill with zero concern or hesitance, and one old man who rang
to contest a single 20c flagfall charge.

But the funniest demographic were the people ringing up to complain about
having their internet cut off for non-payment. So many of them were 'brokers'
who were 'losing thousands of dollars an hour', yet for some reason never had
backup internet, never paid their bills, and never bothered to move off a
residential-class connection with all that moolah they were making, nor show
interest in moving to a business-class when offered.

~~~
danielbarla
I'd also say that by the time I've waited 20 minutes, I'm a bit of an asshole
(probably). While managing call centre service levels is a very challenging
problem, I haven't been particularly impressed in the past.

Slightly off topic, but a different story regarding cutting off for non-
payment: I recently had my ISP invent a new credit card number for me while I
used a free trial account in parallel with my actual subscription for a while
(it was "123456..."). They then tried to debit this imaginary card to pay for
my actual subscription, eventually adding a penalty fee which brought my
account into arrears. All of this without my knowledge of anything strange
happening. As a result, my account was disconnected a few days before the end
of a month I had already paid for. This type of incompetence seems to be
fairly widespread these days, and after several emails, phone calls, etc, all
I got out of them was a "oh yeah, you should probably change those payment
details".

~~~
vacri
_I'd also say that by the time I've waited 20 minutes, I'm a bit of an
asshole_

The flip side of the coin is that the busiest call centres are generally for
the cheapest services - and you get what you pay for. Running a support
service is extremely expensive. For most services, there's usually an option
where if you open your wallet wider, you get better service (often at another
company), but the general public don't like that option.

 _This type of incompetence seems to be fairly widespread these days_

Not just these days. I worked for the telco 9 years ago, and we had a main
product and a rebadged rural-friendly product. We could access the main
product webpage to help talk people through how to log in (very useful), but
the side product was banned for us. I emailed management: please unlock our
own product page, it will help us help the customer and shorten our queue
times. Management's response? "That's an IT decision". So I emailed IT the
same thing. IT's response? "That's a management decision". Come on guys, I'm
taking calls 100% of the time and I have the political power of a newt.

At this same job I would work 15 minutes unpaid overtime just to finish off
the paperwork for the day and leave good notes that I didn't have time for.
The other calltakers thought I was deranged for working when not paid. After
the above story, it's not hard to see why. Management really didn't care, and
that filtered down. It's not like my colleagues were motivated achievers in
the first place, but there was also no high bar set at any point, no leading
by example. Next time you're angry that no notes were left in your account,
realise that more likely it's a management issue. Curiously as a counterpoint,
in my next job it was expected that 30% of a field technician's time was put
aside for paperwork. Didn't quite work out that way, but that was the nominal
benchmark (as opposed to 0% at the call centre).

Clusterfucks in billing were the usual error on our side. It was interesting -
the call logs off the exchange were almost always rock solid (in those cases
where investigations were launched), but billing had mistakes six ways from
Sunday.

~~~
danielbarla
I hear you, it's a complicated problem with many sides to it (I was also
involved with call centres from the software side). In my particular case, I
was just disappointed with everything from the implementation of the actual
free trial, their silent changes to my billing details, adding penalty fees
when it was clearly their mistake, daring to deny me access during a month I'd
already paid for, completely indifferent call centre agents, and lack of any
response from their management when I pointed out the original problem to them
(multiple times). And this was a small company who supposedly pride themselves
on service - I suspect they've grown in size sufficiently to be flooded with
support calls now.

------
petethepig
My girlfriend used to work in customer service of a hosting provider and this
is funny because I feel like I've heard every single one of these stories
before.

She wasn't that pessimistic though, I think she liked explaining stuff to
other people.

------
angersock
In college I worked phone support for the IT department--learned a lot about
talking with people and being patient. You get an awesome range of human
communication: "I want this right now now now" to "You are the best thank you
for the help <3 <3" to "I have a simple problem and I know it's really easy
and can you just do this" to "WHAT THE CHRIST GOD CANT YOU EVEN FIX THIS
SIMPLE THING".

It's also a great chance to get out of your shell if you are nervous about
talking to strangers; you are effectively anonymous and don't have to worry
about getting stalked or screwing up too badly if you do your job and help the
customer.

Honestly, I think it's every bit as valuable as, say, a job as a waiter or
server or some service industry experience.

~~~
cowpewter
I spent 6.5 years in a call center for a smallish (really only covering a
single state) dial-up internet service. Everything you say is true. Though I'd
add the caveat that while I am more comfortable talking to strangers after
that experience (I was, and still am, a shy introvert), I now _loathe_
speaking on the phone, even to friends/family, where before, I had no problem
talking on the phone for hours. I now try to use email/text messages as much
as possible.

~~~
lostlogin
On-call work makes you hate phones too. Phones ringing with annoying things
for you to do at annoying times.

------
weisser
I don't think the pun in the title is in good taste.

~~~
brazzy
I think it is, and Good Taste is having a good time.

------
flust
Why would she work in a call center when she could probably make $200+/hr
instead of $10/hr as an actual call girl? (i.e. a prostitute)

Beats me why anyone would do something that pays 20 times less what they could
earn WHILE ALSO getting laid, working whenever they want and being more
appreciated than in any other job.

And yes, it's illegal in the U.S. but it's not really enforced and she could
anyway move to several European countries where it's legal.

~~~
etchalon
…because I'm betting the joy she gets from not having disgusting men enter her
vagina with their penis is worth more than $190/hour to her.

~~~
brazzy
For all I've read about the topic, the kind of men who are able and willing to
pay $200+/hr tend to be not so disgusting, and the kind of women who gets
$200+/hr can afford to be somewhat choosy in their clients.

The direct downsides seem to be more psychical than physical, and not
necessarily worse than regularly being verbally abused by irate jerks while
having to remain calm and polite yourself.


Ask HN: What have you completed in 2015 - lakeeffect
What have you completed in 2015 or are looking to release in 2016.  I use completed loosely. Would love to hear some progress to motivate me into the new year.
======
ionicabizau
A lot of open-source stuff. The best ones were:

\- [https://github.com/IonicaBizau/git-
stats](https://github.com/IonicaBizau/git-stats) (January, 2015) \-
[https://github.com/IonicaBizau/node-
cobol](https://github.com/IonicaBizau/node-cobol) (October, 2015) \-
[https://github.com/IonicaBizau/gridly](https://github.com/IonicaBizau/gridly)
(December, 2015)

Working part-time (~100 hours / month) for the company I work for, I still
have enough "free" time when I do: open-source stuff, JavaScript training,
playing piano, playing with high-voltage (!), playing with chemistry
explosions and experiments (in fact making fire almost anywhere, anytime).

One of this year goals was to drop out of college. I did it two months ago.
Since officially I'm still a student (my documents are at the university), I'm
still getting loans because of my good results from my previous year. But I
don't regret this decission at all (at least, until now!).

All the thanks go to God! I enjoy being a Jesus follower. I believe this world
is not our home. God prepares for us a better world. Until then, I'm happy to
love Him. Actually, being a believer and web developer is a nice combination.

Wish you a happy 2016! :-)


Is the new Jeet.gs the most flexible grid system ever? - sheddybird
http://blog.mojotech.com/jeet-a-grid-system-for-humans/

======
SEMW
Specifying the width proportion with fractions looks pretty nice. But the
paragraph explaining how jeet's better than bootstrap/foundation/etc. because
it lets you use sass mixins (instead of inline classes) to separate content
from presentation seems a little misleading - it's not like you can't do the
same with foundation (jeet: @include column(1/3); foundation: @include grid-
column(4);). (I don't use bootstrap, but presumably it has equivalent LESS
mixins).

(True, it's not the most popular way to use foundation, but that's cos a lot
of people don't care about semantic layout and/or don't want to use a
preprocessor).

~~~
CorySimmons
The difference between Jeet and Foundation's grid are two things.

1\. Jeet uses actual columns whereas with Foundation you need to nest elements
within elements: [http://imgur.com/a/OWyOQ](http://imgur.com/a/OWyOQ)

2\. @include grid-column(4) isn't as "on-the-fly flexible" as Jeet since you
have to define the base number of columns in Foundation whereas in Jeet you
could just say @include column(4/12) or column (1/3) or column(33.333333/100),
etc. - being able to say in natural language what you want your container to
do is pretty powerful stuff.


Windows 7 Network Awareness: How Windows knows it has an Internet connection - ivoflipse
http://blog.superuser.com/2011/05/16/windows-7-network-awareness/

======
mlinsey
" If the response is never received, or if there is a redirect, then a DNS
request for dns.msftncsi.com is made. If DNS resolves properly but the page is
inaccessible, then it is assumed that there is a working internet connection,
but an in-browser authentication page is blocking access to the file. This
results in the pop-up balloon above. If DNS resolution fails or returns the
wrong address, then it is assumed that the internet connection is completely
unsuccessful, and the “no internet access” error is shown."

Would this mean that DNS poisoning msftncsi.com would prevent Win7 machines
from accessing the internet? Or would this merely cause the 'no internet
access' error to be displayed despite your connection working anyway?

~~~
yakyak
This service can be disabled, so obviously it doesn't prevent you from
accessing the internet even if it thinks it doesn't have access. It would SAY
"no internet connection", but internet resources would still work just fine.

~~~
alvarosm
Well, you tell my granny to disable some service...

------
snprbob86
The iPhone uses a very similar technique. If you connect to a wifi network
that requires login, a browser sans address bar will pop-up over your current
app and allow you to login. Once an external resource can be reached, the
browser disappears and returns you to the previous app. Steve Jobs even
alluded to it / bragged about it when the iPhone was first unveiled, 2 years
before Win7 was released.

~~~
upthedale
In fairness, this has nothing to do with Win7 specifically. The NCSI service
was introduced with Vista.

~~~
kinetik
...8 months before the iPhone was released.

~~~
aneth
Yes, Apple was focused intently on copying Vista's technology coup.

~~~
StavrosK
Haha, I like how nobody said anything when the topic was how Microsoft copied
Apple, but people speak up to defend the opposite!

~~~
danssig
Probably because MS _does_ copy Apple (do they even try to hide this?) but
what would anyone copy from MS?

------
jerrya
Yes, I have wanted to build something like that for Android, mainly to keep my
phone from getting confused when it's connected to someone's wifi that demands
some check box be checked off for service.

It would periodically awaken, see if the wifi is connected, if it is is there
connectivity, if there is, go back to sleep, if there is not, turn the wifi
off.

I've also wanted to build for Android the same piece of code, but if for 2 or
5 urls it gets back the same page with a checkbox, it checks off the box and
sends it back off.

But I am curious, do all those wifi dns terms and agreements hijacking pages
break any sort of RFC?

And is there any solution in ip6?

Or is there a real fix possible in ip4?

~~~
dsl
To answer all of your questions: Don't use someone else's wifi if you don't
like how it behaves. Your sense of entitlement makes me sick.

~~~
jerrya
Can you expand on that?

How is my wanting to either turn my wifi off, or automatically checking a
terms and conditions box at a starbucks, or library, or school, or courtroom,
or hospital router demonstrating a sick making sense of entitlement?

I would think many people would want such behavior from their phones, but I
can see that you and whomeever voted my original question down are genuinely
disturbed I would want this.

~~~
kelnos
I think the point the parent is trying to make is that when you're using
someone else's wifi network, it's their network, and they get to determine
under what terms you're allowed to access it. If that means logging in, or
viewing a page where you're required to explicitly agree to terms, that's the
network operator's prerogative.

Annoying? Sure, a little. A "violation of spec" or something to get overly
pissed about? Eh, there are far bigger fish to fry.

~~~
CWuestefeld
Fine, but the way the thing works today, there's no mechanism for discovering
what those terms and conditions are, or indeed, that they even exist.

So I go somewhere, flick on my WiFi, and then get frustrated because various
tools (say, my native-code Google Reader app) can't communicate. It can't talk
to the network because HTTP is trapped.

The thing is, HTTP is the de facto transport for everything. But these
authentication/confirmation pages assume that a human will be reading them.

It seems to me that a mechanism that detects the presence of such a trap, and
pops up that response page in a browser window for the user to react to, would
solve everyone's problem (if inelegantly).

~~~
jerrya
And the other issue is that (if I have this correct), the reason my phone
connects automatically to various portal hijacking waps is because in the past
I have connected to those waps, and almost certainly checked off the terms and
agreements for them, and continued.

I don't believe the nexus one will connect by itself to any open wap, it will
just tell you one is available.

It seems absurd for anyone to think I need to check off the terms and
agreements every single time I connect to the open wap, everyone's suspicion
of course is that no one ever reads through the terms and agreements, we just
check the box to make some lawyer or IT dude happy and continue.

------
ilikejam
Possible vector for some sort of attack? The ncsi service that requests
www.msftncsi.com is presumably very simple, but then...

~~~
jerrya
It serves approx 32 bytes but it serves it to such an enormous number of
machines that I have been curious as to how it is set up.

Netcraft says: F5 Big-IP Microsoft-IIS/7.0 213.199.181.90

But I am curious as to what the real details of the setup are.

~~~
TeHCrAzY
probably a small cluster of w2k8 servers? I doubt ms would be using anything
else.

~~~
code_duck
Are you sure about that?

~~~
seabee
You mean like how Hotmail ran Apache? It's true that not all MS properties run
IIS, but there is no indication they'd lie about it.

------
ahi
I just assumed it noticed when I entered the login information 2 minutes
prior, then waited until the most annoying moment to give me a completely
useless fraking notification.

------
known
Sounds like <http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/ruptime1.html>

------
drivebyacct2
if you're paranoid enough to disable this, you shouldn't be using windows.
there are far more and better ways for windows and other windows software to
phone home.

~~~
Blarat
I think that making it phone your own NCSI server instead would be quite
interesting, just in case your computer gets stolen.

~~~
omh
It could be useful for corporate laptop users. I can imagine using this so
that I know the IP address and connectivity status of remote users to use when
they call in with issues.

------
idonthack
Do we really need an entire article about this? Seriously, if you couldn't
figure this out on your own in about 10 seconds, you're in the wrong line of
work

~~~
aneth
It's nice to see the precise mechanics explained, and it might be rather
"negative" to make your point, but it is a pretty obvious solution and I agree
with you.

------
dominikb
Apple claims that Mac OS X is "the world's most advanced operating system".
But it's these details that I consider advanced and clever. Apple's marketing
statements went from funny to offensive and unsupported.


Ask HN: What would a site with threaded bump-order ranking look like? - heartbeats
There's a lot of forums, like this one and Reddit, which have threaded discussion and voting. Classic blogs often have threaded comments, but just sorted on date posted.
Classic forums move the thread to the top each time someone responds, but they don't thread the comments.
This seems like a much simpler solution, which is much harder to game. Yet I've never seen a site actually use it in the wild. How come?
======
josquindesprez
I imagine for popular posts, you'd get way too many low-value bumps: lots of
leaves in the comment tree would be low-effort back and forth replies of
uninteresting content (e.g. Reddit). If there's a voting system, the top-level
thread would get bumped a lot but it'd be difficult to find that low-value
content. The signal that the bump is trying to convey (there's new and good
stuff here!) wouldn't match the value of the information that the user gets
(the scattered dregs of many conversations). If there isn't voting and you
sort by newest content, the experience would probably be like 4chan in slow
motion: bump ordered blasts of low-value replies.

In a classic forum, since posting something not only moves the thread to the
top, but puts your post in a highly visible place (the end of the thread),
it's a lot harder to have too many deeply branching side conversations with
low value replies: there's a social norm against polluting threads.

For something like HN where comment trees don't get too deep and the replies
are always meaningful, I think threaded bump ordered ranking could work.

~~~
heartbeats
No, posting somewhere moves the whole subthread to the top.

Before:

      ├── a
      │   ├── b
      │   │   ├── c
      │   │   └── d
      │   └── e
      └── f
          ├── g
          │   ├── h
          │   └── *i* <- this is new
          └── j

After:

      ├── f
      │   ├── g
      │   │   ├── i <- moved to top of its thread and its thread moved to the top
      │   │   └── h
      │   └── j
      └── a
          ├── b
          │   ├── c
          │   └── d
          └── e

------
gshdg
I’ve seen classic forum software that supports comment threading.


Trump’s big league microphone - Tomte
http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14384774/trump-microphone-speech-long-neck-shure-sm57
======
ConfuciusSay02
A whole piece about what microphone he chose to use? This is beyond petty.

Media not doing themselves any favors here.


Candy Crush Monetization and Virality - TraustiThor
http://papers.traustikristjansson.info/?p=223

======
pstack
I don't understand the popularity of Candy Crush. It's just a less complex
variant of Bejeweled style games. Mobile gaming is littered with them. I
played for the better part of an hour before hitting the eject button, but
plenty of people in the gaming press are enamoured with and addicted to it.

Hell, I even understood the popularity of Rovio's Artillary-like far more than
this.

It just goes to show that you don't need a good idea to be successful. Just
throw enough dumb ideas to the wind and, eventually, something will sail.

~~~
TraustiThor
I agree that the game itself is not really better than bejeweled or other
similar games. It's the manipulative social strategies that they use to get
people hooked and get people to spread the game to their friends that
differentiates it from previous games. You can't argue with their success!

------
AlexeyBrin
If you show the webpage source you'll see hidden divs that contains Viagra
links and other things ...

There are two possibilities:

1\. OP website was hacked and he has no idea.

2\. This page was purposely build with these SEO "enhancements" and the OP
knows.

I would love to hear an explanation from the OP about this :).

~~~
TraustiThor
Hi, I am the owner of the website. I must have been hacked it here are spammy
links! How do I get rid of them?

~~~
AlexeyBrin
It usually depends in what CMS your website is written (like WordPress, Drupal
etc ...). You could also ask your web hosting provider if they can help you
with cleaning up your website.

Personally, I use a static website generator and I've never had any security
problem. I can't give you any particular advice about how you can clean up
your website, you could post a question on StackOverflow or do some Google
searches once you know in what CMS your website is written.

(From your page source code it seems that you are using WordPress, do some
research about cleaning up an infected WordPress site. The first thing that
comes to mind is to always keep your WordPress updated to the latest version
... this, however, won't help you now.)

~~~
TraustiThor
Thank you, I think it is ok for now.

I found and removed the spammy links, and it passes
[http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/website-safety-
reports/domain/t...](http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/website-safety-
reports/domain/traustikristjansson.info) and it came out clean after I removed
those Viagara links in header.php.

I also upgraded to the newest version of wordpress and changed passwords. The
hackers might have left a back door, so I will need to reinstall everything.

------
tlarkworthy
You missed an important viral driver. You can't play beyond level X without
friend recommendations or paying for the privilege.

That feature annoyed the hell out of me but its certainly been beneficial for
the popularity of the game. I stopped playing it at that point

~~~
TraustiThor
Ah, cool. Thanks for that pointer. I did not play that far.

------
davidpardo
I don't know if it's on purpose, but there're a lot of spammy links in that
page. I wouldn't visit.

~~~
TraustiThor
Thanks for pointing this out! I found the spammy links in my wordpress
header.php file and removed them. I don't know how they got there.

~~~
davidpardo
Works OK for me now. All in all, good post.

------
TraustiThor
I found the spammy links in my header.php wordpress file and removed them.
Apologies! I must have been hacked.

~~~
krapp
Is your wordpress installation up to date?

~~~
TraustiThor
It is now...

~~~
krapp
You might find this worth looking at if you're not already aware. Good luck.
You'll probably need it.

[http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-
config.php#Disable_the...](http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-
config.php#Disable_the_Plugin_and_Theme_Editor)

------
smartician
FYI, that page is being blocked by AVG Antivirus. It's detecting a "Blackhat
SEO" threat.

~~~
um304
Yes, I just saw "Exploit Blackhat SEO (type 1720)" by AVG and the browser
refused to show anything.

~~~
TraustiThor
Hi, I just scanned it with:

[http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/website-safety-
reports/domain/t...](http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/website-safety-
reports/domain/traustikristjansson.info)

and it came out clean after I removed those Viagara links. However, I'll go
through and harden my wordpress setup.


Show HN: Cashcash – Accounting app for visual people - binarybloby
https://cashcashpro.com/#/
======
binarybloby
Hi everyone,

Here is yet another personal finance app with, I hope, a fresh perspective on
how to handle cash flow.

In my daily life, I have to use well-crafted data visualization software to
analyze and search in our production log. Back home, I always felt frustrated
to not be able to do the same with my personal financial data so I created
this app (my first one so far).

I've also added extra stuff into it like spreadsheet import, automation rules
and budgeting capabilities. I think now is a good time to get other feedbacks
than my own brain.

Don't hesitate to ask me anything,

Cheers,


Reasons to blog even if nobody ever reads it - grellas
http://www.businessesgrow.com/2010/11/07/ten-reasons-to-blog-even-if-nobody-reads-it/

======
jseliger
No offense, but I think all these are BS, and if no one is reading or linking
to you, they're unlikely to apply. Blogging so that you might manage to get
five people using improbable search terms to find your site is a waste of
time.

But you still should blog if no one reads it for the reasons some other
commenters have alluded to: to develop your own mind. That's essentially why I
blog: [http://jseliger.com/2010/09/27/signaling-status-blogging-
aca...](http://jseliger.com/2010/09/27/signaling-status-blogging-academia-and-
ideas/) and read other people's blogs.

That, and so I have a repository of already expressed ideas I can leave in the
comments sections of other blogs and HN, so I don't have to reinvent the
answer every time.

~~~
_delirium
I've definitely found this helps for developing ideas. I think what first
prodded me into doing it was realizing that much of my interesting thinking
was coming in making long posts on forums (Slashdot, HN, various other
places). Nothing wrong with that really; discussion catalyzes thinking, and
"writing a reply to a comment" has less activation energy than "writing an
essay".

But I eventually realized that my writing output had this weird gap. On the
one hand, I had 6+ page academic papers, all official and published and
whatever and listed on my publications page. On the other hand, I had
literally tens of thousands of comments scattered across the internet, one to
a few paragraphs each, with no real way of pointing to them or even finding a
comment again myself. Writing blog posts fills a nice gap. They can be
somewhat longer and digress from the immediate conversation that spawned the
ideas, and I have something to point to in the future (and find myself).

The other thing I do now is keep a text file of comments I've posted that seem
worth finding again (as opposed to ephemeral discussion), with the URL of my
comment and some notes on what else I might want to say on that. Has only sort
of worked out so far, because like any "list of things I might want to do
someday" they mostly don't get expanded into blog posts, but it feels like a
step up in organization.

------
Vivtek
I was expecting something more along the lines of: articulating your thoughts
and discoveries benefits you personally. That's why I blog. Nobody ever reads
my programming blog - although I do have 14 followers on my old-house blog.

You could write stuff on paper - God knows I've filled a few reams in my
lifetime - but a blog will be easily found even if you're on vacation. I
really like blogging my notes.

------
kgroll
I really like Steve Yegge's take on this topic:
[http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/you-should-write-
bl...](http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/you-should-write-blogs)

" _So your fear is justified: practically nobody will read your blog. Unless
it's good. Even then, it'll be a very long time before lots of people have
read it. Don't worry, though. If you put in the effort, and you write
honestly, people will eventually find their way there.

...

I never advertised my blog, and to this day I have no idea how so many people
found out about it, let alone why they read it. I certainly haven't made any
effort to try to please people. My blog isn't "about" anything, and although
there are various running themes, I haven't tried to stick to any particular
subject. And I'm horribly inconsistent in my tone, posting regularity, writing
quality, and so on. But I'm really just writing for fun, and even if everyone
stops reading my blog, I'll still be happy with what I'm writing._"

------
wccrawford
Almost everyone one of those requires that someone actually read the blog, so
the title is completely wrong.

~~~
devmonk
Yeah, I think they meant "follows it on a regular basis".

------
Sparklin
Ok, honestly what does this title want to convey? If I knew my blog posts are
not being read and I still want to keep writing, I might as well start writing
offline and not blog. That will be my two bits in saving world resources!

------
AmericanOP
If you need to do a better job communicating about your field, writing can
help.

If you already are incredible at communicating in your field, you probably
won't remain unread for long assuming your field has media relevance.


C++ patterns using plain C - guillaumec
http://blog.noctua-software.com/cpp-patterns-using-plain-c.html

======
sparkie
A complaint about all of the examples is the use of free() directly in main().
I dislike this because it implies that the "create", or "new" used a single
call to (m/c)alloc to allocate the returned pointer. While this is the case
for the examples, it may not be the case where you are only given a prototype
for "base_new" in a header file, and you don't know of its implementation
detail.

Such example might be a jagged array where you allocate several chunks of
memory, and a final chunk containing the pointers to each one. Freeing the
pointer returned for the memory containing these pointers will not free the
memory pointed to by each pointer.

The person who wrote the _new function should write the maching _free, since
he's really the only one who knows exactly what and how the "object" was
allocated and how it needs to be deallocated.

If you find yourself ever writing such _new function without the matching
_free, you're _doing it wrong_.

Even worse is the last list example, as it not clear where, or if memory is
even freed at all from the code given. Does one of those macros free up the
memory?

~~~
guillaumec
That's a valid point. This is the reason why some C API (like the chipmunk
physic engine), offer two versions of constructor functions: one that
allocates the memory, and one that takes an already allocated pointer.

~~~
sparkie
I also think that asking the user to allocate memory is bad (for OOP) design,
because it is leaking information which should be encapsulated into the class.
How does the user even know how, or what to allocate in order to work with
your "methods"?

A constructor taking a pointer serves a useful purpose - it's the equivalent
of a copy constructor.

However, one thing you missed from the examples (quite possibly for
simplification of the blog post), is that "proper" OOP design in C is done by
having opaque data types in headers, with their fields only in the
implementation file - the "methods" you expose in a header all take a pointer
to the opaque struct as their first argument, other than the constructor,
which returns one. This is how you provide the encapsulation of classes,
equivalent to private fields, if you like - which should generally be the case
for non-PODS.

~~~
angersock
_I also think that asking the user to allocate memory is bad (for OOP) design,
because it is leaking information which should be encapsulated into the class.
How does the user even know how, or what to allocate in order to work with
your "methods"?_

What? Gods no!

The user knows more about their runtime environment than your objects--indeed,
consider this a form of DI for memory management.

Libraries that don't let me override allocations, file access, and logging are
very, very bad.

~~~
sparkie
In that case you would inject a function pointer to an allocator (and
deallocator), however, the object constructor is the only thing which knows
_how_ to allocate the object - consider the jagged array example I gave, or
even a linked list - the user has no idea how they're allocated if given just
an opaque pointer.

------
TickleSteve
Never do this!

I've worked in a large company with a legacy codebase that attempted to do
this in the 90's when C++ & inheritance was the latest-thing. It has turned
out to be a real maintenance nightmare for them, it obfuscates normal code
scaring off anyone who looks at the it. Lack of tooling is a major issue, try
getting eclipse to find the definition of one of your virtual methods...

This is before you consider that all it gives you is inheritance. Wide use of
inheritance is an anti-pattern and this gives you the mechanism without the
ease-of-use that makes it maintainable.

In summary... _AVOID DOING THIS AT ALL COSTS_ (It will cost you when you need
to re-write in a sane way in a few years time).

Anyway... this has been done hundreds of times before, ever heard of CFront??

------
Suro
Welcome back to the 80's, where C++ used to play with macro to make templates
and inheritance was only a basic compiler trick.

I can only emphasizes the need to move to real C++ if you want to use C++
idioms, to do it safely and performances wise: here you just opened the gate
of Macro error's hell which will be more horrible than anything the C++ could
throw at you.

~~~
kzrdude
The code in the article is just a plaything, a C programmer wouldn't use any
of that and wouldn't use C++ as a starting point for their C implementation.
Don't let it reflect negatively on C.

~~~
scott_s
In what way? I have seen several examples of C programs that implemented a
form of interfaces using structs of function pointers. The GIMP code base does
it, as does the Linux kernel's Virtual File System layer. This is a good
overview:
[https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt)

------
cageface
I'd miss the STL more than anything. It's so much nicer than any of the
remotely comparable C data structure + algorithm libraries. That plus RAII are
enough to keep me on the C++ side.

~~~
Peaker
The STL has huge mistakes like the completely useless "std::list".

It also does a whole lot of unnecessary dynamic allocations due to the non-
intrusive style used for all of its containers.

I think the STL might be overhyped.

~~~
srean
It would help if you could point me to something that is better than STL (in
performance and ease of use) and addresses the full scope of STL. I have asked
this a few times, but all I have got so far is cricket chirps or pointers to
worse bloatware. Not claiming that such a thing does not exist, rather would
be happy to give such a thing a try. It would also lend more heft to your
comment.

~~~
mtdewcmu
Any library that addresses exactly the same use case as STL is going to have
the same limitations as STL. Everything is a trade-off. I think you can
probably assume that STL does about as good a job as any library would, given
identical trade-offs. Note that the actual implementations will vary by
platform and compiler.

------
pjmlp
Aka as "lots of hacks using non standard C, while forcing the developer to do
the work of the compiler".

~~~
itsadok
Yon mean "non idiomatic", right? I don't think he used anything non standard.

~~~
pbsd
The max macro in Section 4 is using two separate GCC extensions: typeof and
statements in expressions.

------
torrance
I couldn't care less about trying to reimplement classes in C — structs and
functions will do just fine thank you very much. What about something actually
useful, like RAII to simplify memory management?

~~~
stinos
_RAII_

Please, yes. It happens I just spent the morning writing some C with files,
views of those files etc, and I kept on whishing there was RAII, instead of
having to build flow around the fact each of the operations might fail.

Is there a clean way to implement something like this in C?

 _I couldn 't care less about trying to reimplement classes_

indeed - the premise the OP starts with, i.e. 'here's the simplest class: BANG
two subclasses' is also wrong. That is inheritance, not just 'the simplest
class' as that wouldn't have anything to do with inheritcance.

~~~
invernomut0
I remember something implemented as GCC extension (the cleanup variable
attribute) but I never used it so I can't judge if it's really what are you
searching for.

~~~
guillaumec
Gcc cleanup extension works very well for RAII, I used it extensively to write
a simple profiler for a video game project (just add 'PROFILE' on top of a
function to have it automatically profiled). The only problem is that this is
not supported by MSVC.

~~~
mitchty
It is supported by clang though. Maybe you could use clang-cl to get it into
msvc no?

------
zwieback
This is a nice article for anyone who wants to understand typical
implementation of basic C++ features but in the end I'd say it makes the case
for actually using C++ instead of reimplementing it in C.

If you do go the OOP-C route, one thing that's nice is that you can compose
objects of different super types. In C++ an object belongs to one class of a
hierarchy but in OOP-C it's conceivable that the vtable dispatches to a
different mixt of virtual functions per object.

Also, nice trick with the #define T/#include __FILE__. Hadn't seen that
before.

------
userbinator
I've always liked to keep in mind that C++ was developed as an extension to C
( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cfront](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cfront)
), so most of the constructs that it has can be directly mapped to C --- I
think the only exception is... exceptions, although there's probably a way to
do it using setjmp/longjmp too.

Personally I prefer C because of all the added flexibility it allows, but I
can definitely see the value of a lot of the features added by C++ - C
programmers were using structures and function pointers before, now they can
use classes. RAII - a nice benefit of the semantics of constructors and
destructors - is a more implicit, easier way of doing the same thing manually
by calling the appropriate functions. Templates make it easy to generate a lot
of otherwise very similarly structured code. Operator overloading can replace
function calls and make some expressions look clearer.

However, the biggest disadvantage of all these features is that they add
complexity and cognitive overhead to understanding the code - abstractions are
only truly useful to those who know what the abstractions are of. That's why I
believe that anyone who wants to learn C++ should already have strong
knowledge of C (including structures, pointers, and memory allocation), and
preferably know some Asm; then the transition to using the features of C++
feel straightforward and natural, without the "I don't know how it works, it's
all magic" feeling to them. It's for this same reason that I recommend reading
through the code of the STL - a good one to start with is std::vector.

~~~
mtdewcmu
>>I think the only exception is... exceptions, although there's probably a way
to do it using setjmp/longjmp too.

I'm pretty sure that C++ exceptions could be simulated that way.

>>Templates make it easy to generate a lot of otherwise very similarly
structured code

Templates are a mixed bag. There are a lot of things that look like they
should be possible with templates, but once you start trying to implement
them, it suddenly becomes much more difficult. Most of the practical value of
templates is in getting around data type limitations and in inlining, IMO.
Luckily, C has simpler data types than C++, so there is less need to climb
over barriers, but templates do provide some value over C in this respect. The
value with respect to inlining may be decreasing as C compilers become more
sophisticated, but I'm not certain. std::sort() is said to be faster than
qsort(). I've wondered if there is any way to coax a C compiler into inlining
the sort routine, callback and all, but I haven't tried it yet.

~~~
srean
>I've wondered if there is any way to coax a C compiler into inlining the sort
routine, callback and all, but I haven't tried it yet.

And how is the compiler supposed to inline the callback in qsort() when all it
has is a pointer that will be provided only at runtime ? With JIT yes that
would be possible. This requires a runtime optimization solution, not a
compile time. This is also the reason why templates come so handy, sans the
error messages (although GCC has improved by leagues, now to the point I find
GCC's error messages easier to debug STL code with than Clang's). The error
message scenario would a be a lot better once they get concepts sorted out.

~~~
Someone
I don't have stats, but I would think that the comparison function's
definition typically is available at compile time.

Also, if the compiler gets the qsort prototype by including it from the system
header <stdlib.h>, I think the compiler may assume that it is the standard
qsort function. So, it could emit a custom qsort function that inlines the
comparison function.

~~~
mtdewcmu
>I don't have stats, but I would think that the comparison function's
definition typically is available at compile time.

The comparison function usually will be. The qsort function generally won't be
available.

>Also, if the compiler gets the qsort prototype by including it from the
system header <stdlib.h>, I think the compiler may assume that it is the
standard qsort function. So, it could emit a custom qsort function that
inlines the comparison function.

It could do something like that, but gcc doesn't
([https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.9.0/gcc/Other-
Builtins....](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.9.0/gcc/Other-
Builtins.html#Other-Builtins)).

If you look at the kinds of API functions implemented as builtins, they are
generally simple.

------
oneofthose
I think this proofs Scott Meyers point about the most important feature we
have in C++: the destructor.

------
ternaryoperator
The problem with many of these OO in C workarounds is how well they work at
scale. For small projects, they're fine. But in larger projects, the
compromises in the design begin to show up and require additional patching.
This same problem--increasingly messy code to emulate C++ features--led to the
abandonment of cfront and the development of true C++ compilers.

~~~
dottrap
The scale argument is dogma. We already know huge, successful code bases exist
in C and many employ similar techniques to this. (These are pretty mild
tricks.) Additionally, the scaling argument is often used to belittle other
languages like Python, Ruby, Lua, JavaScript, etc. All propaganda BS.

------
rajeevk
I have written related article

[http://www.avabodh.com/cxxin/cxx.html](http://www.avabodh.com/cxxin/cxx.html)

------
rejschaap
I could probably live with most of this, but the macros make me want to gouge
my eyes out. C macros just have too many issues

------
hamidr
It's fun to know how we implement these stuffs in C but not fun enough to use
them :)

------
bluedino
Three other ways to do OOP in C

[http://www6.uniovi.es/cscene/CS1/CS1-02.html](http://www6.uniovi.es/cscene/CS1/CS1-02.html)

------
abimaelmartell
I hate when people try to do this, it makes the code almost unreadable, if you
want to use classes, use C++.

------
zvrba
Basic template: how do you single-step through a multiple-statement macro?
Advanced template: where's specialization? Also, where's RAII?

Nothing to see there, move on.


Show HN: Do you love shopping at Costco? With TallyUp save money and shop smarter - tallyup
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tallyup-for-costco/id932235451

======
cheriot
I can't tell why I would want to track my spending at costco. What does this
do for me? How much work is it to enter data?

~~~
tallyup
Many Costco shoppers, myself included (member for 17 years) routinely get
carried away in Costco. It's part of what Costco purposefully cultivates - the
treasure hunt. (It's why they never label the aisles.) Showing up at the cash
register and seeing a $400 or $500 bill, or much more, is not uncommon.
Tracking your spending is easy. Click add to cart. Enter the 6 digit Costco
code. If it is in the database already, you're done. (We have thousands of
products in the db already) If it isn't, you enter the name and price so that
the next shopper doesn't have to. All the data is community driven. For those
who aren't concerned with how much they spend, there's also many other
features besides the shopping cart.

~~~
caminante
I still don't understand the alignment of the shopping cart feature with
Costco shopper needs.

Are Costco shoppers concerned about how much they unexpectedly spend on
treasures? Everyone splurges up at Costco, but for what you buy unexpectedly,
are you really conscientious? If so, is there another issue to address?

~~~
tallyup
This is an excellent question and the answer is it depends on which subset of
Costco customers we're discussing; it isn't one size fits all. Let's start
with a background of the demographics of Costco shoppers (2004 research). 85%
are affluent or living comfortably and 15% are getting by or poor. For many in
the 85% how much they're spending isn't a major concern and your question
about alignment with needs is a valid one. But there are many exceptions. Some
of that 85% are shall we say “fiscally diligent”. I personally chatted with
one woman in Costco (who clearly looked affluent with the fur coat and all,
and she had a cart full of stuff) who said "Oh my husband will love this, he's
always complaining about how much stuff I've put in the cart and complains
we're spending too much and that we don't really need half of it." Does a
shopping cart function serve as a sanity check in these situations? We think
so. “Gee c'mon Myrtle, look at that, the app says we're on the hook for over
$500, do we really need all of this?” Contrast that with the typical scenario
of not really knowing and showing up to the cash register and the clerk says
“$510.25”. At this point if people are surprised rarely do they don't start
removing items. They just pay up. And perhaps fight in the car on the way
home? ;-) Even those who are very penny conscious, those who shop at Costco
because the perception is they are saving money, can get carried away with
impulse purchases. These are anecdotal but on more than one occasion I've
heard conversations in the aisles similar to "Husband: wow look at the price
of that. That's way cheaper than at X store." "Wife: yeah but are we going to
use all of that before it goes bad?" If it's unclear to the couple whether or
not they should purchase it, the app adds an additional data point of “Hey, we
really can only afford X dollars here today, and the app says we're already
near that total, let's skip it for now”. And regardless of which demographic
you fall into others want to be able to confirm that what gets rung up at the
cash register is actually correct. Mistakes still get made, price cards on the
display are sometimes at odds with what is in the cash register shows. Having
a shopping cart function that details every product and what the price is
you're expecting to pay is a great feature for some people. “Wait a minute,
that's supposed to be $14.99 not $17.99.” Lastly, the shopping cart is only 1
of 4 core features that TallyUp provides. The product discovery (new products,
sales, seasonal), price and stock notifications and nearby stock search are,
in our opinion, all very compelling features.

------
byoung2
Is there an android version on the way?

~~~
tallyup
Yes, it's currently being worked on.


Ask HN: Location of tech/design/startups in Vancouver? - wasabideveloper

Hi guys,
I've been reading about how Canada is cultivating great talent and start-ups.
In terms of locale, can someone enlighten me about Vancouver and if there is an epicenter where the tech/design/start-ups congregates?
Thanks in advance, looking to visit Vancouver.
======
kat
Check out the network hub at <http://www.thenetworkhub.ca/>

Otherwise, its pretty spread out from Richmond to Burnaby to downtown.

~~~
wasabideveloper
Thanks Kat. I've checked out The NEtwork Hub's website and looking forward to
visiting.


Venezuelan Hyperinflation Explodes, Soaring Over 440,000 Percent - sidko
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-18/venezuelan-hyperinflation-explodes-soaring-over-440-000-percent
======
panarky
There's not much difference between an inflation rate of 440000% and 880000%,
it just means that the bolivar doesn't work anymore.

Money is a purely social construct. It's only worth something when people
collectively believe and trust that it's worth something.

It's a popular idea that dollars and euros derive their value because taxes
are paid in that currency, or because it's backed by the state's military
power.

Venezuela shows that neither of these are the source of the currency's value.

Collective belief is a pretty fragile foundation to build an economy on, hard
to build and easy to destroy.

Another term for "collective belief" is "consensus". We're witnessing a
disintegration of political and economic consensus not only in Venezuela, but
also in the US.

What happens to the dollar when public consensus, trust and collective belief
is weakened?

This is why I find the decentralized, trustless consensus of cryptocurrencies
to be especially attractive at this moment in history.

~~~
dude01
I agreed with everything you wrote, until near the end where you said "but
also in the US". Forget about politics, but economically the US dollar is
still the strongest and most stable currency in the world. It has competitors
(which is good!) but I have seen no signs of problems in the US dollar.
Inflation has been low in the US for long, probably way too long.

~~~
panarky
_> until near the end where you said "but also in the US"_

I'm not talking about inflation, I'm talking about political stability.

As we see in Venezuela, runaway inflation and economic collapse is the result
of political instability and a collective loss of trust in leadership, not the
cause.

US influence and power has been in decline since before 9/11, and the Iraq war
showed that the US is on the wrong side of the inflection point.

This chart [0] demonstrates that the G-Zero [1] trend is accelerating.

[0] Global Leadership
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DT1e0feVoAA8Qd0.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DT1e0feVoAA8Qd0.jpg:large)

[1] G-Zero World [https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2011-01-31/g-zero-
wo...](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2011-01-31/g-zero-world)

~~~
dude01
Thanks for the detailed response. I'm hoping that the downward trend in the
Global Leadership Approval chart that started in 2016 will reverse itself
after the US political situation changes this year (fingers crossed!). If not,
well then yes I guess the US dollar would be going down.

Of course, all good things come to an end eventually, and the US dollar
hegemony really started after WW2. Crazy to think that a Soviet spy/asset
(Harry Dexter White) helped setup the Bretton Woods accord which positioned
the US dollar as the strongest in the world [0].

[0] "How a Soviet spy outmaneuvered John Maynard Keynes to ensure U.S.
financial dominance"
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/03/14/how-a...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/03/14/how-
a-soviet-spy-outmaneuvered-john-maynard-keynes-and-ensured-u-s-global-
financial-dominance/?utm_term=.dc435d7ea441)

------
topspin
Venezuela has been defaulting on debts since November and the last junk debt
traders have finally walked away. No more credit. Venezuela has apparently
sold off the last of whatever national assets buyers were interested in; they
worked through their gold reserves in 2016-2017 and nothing new is on the
table aside from a dubious cryptocurrency scheme and some clapped out PDVSA
oil rigs. Venezuelan oil production is collapsing for lack of operating
capital and Venezuelan tankers are being seized in foreign ports by creditors.
This is cutting off the last meaningful source of foreign currency.

At some point, probably in the next several weeks, the subsistence diet of the
Venezuelan military is going to fail and the "Bolivarian revolution" in
Venezuela will finally end. But only after having stunted _at least_ one full
generation of children.

------
rm_-rf_slash
There was an op-ed in the WaPo yesterday[1] that was as fascinating as it was
terrifying:

 _Rule No. 1 of surviving hyperinflation is simple: Get rid of your money.
Given the speed with which money is shedding its value, holding on to it means
you’re losing out. The second you’re paid you run out as fast as you can to
buy something – anything – while you can still afford it. It’s better to hold
almost any asset than money, because assets hold their value and money
doesn’t.

Find a can of tuna? Buy it. Even if you hate tuna. Even if you have no
intention of eating tuna. You can always trade it for something else later.
Tuna holds its value. Money doesn’t.

I think this is what’s so hard to wrap your mind around if you’ve never
experienced hyperinflation. It sounds like it’s about prices rising fast, but
it really isn’t. It’s about money breaking down. Under hyperinflation, money
no longer works. It doesn’t store value. It just stops doing the basic things
people expect money to do. It stops being something you want to have and turns
into something you’ll do anything to avoid having: something so worthless you
won’t even bend down and scoop it up off the floor while you’re looting._

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-
post/wp/2018/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-
post/wp/2018/01/17/in-venezuela-money-has-stopped-
working/?utm_term=.e6223791bb9b)

~~~
jandrese
Not just money, the entire economy breaks down. Why bother working at last
week's living wage won't buy a loaf of bread today?

------
staplers
Just a reminder that this is a demonstration of how government-issued fiat
currencies are also "not based on physical reality" as many point out for
cryptocurrencies.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I literally don't think I have ever seen someone say that the issue with
cryptocurrencies is that they are "not based on physical reality".

~~~
cptaj
How have you not? Its one of the top 5 arguments against.

~~~
pessimizer
Only from libertarian goldbugs who don't like bitcoin, of which I imagine
there are three or four.

------
technofiend
So what's left? Moving to a commodity-backed currency? Pinning it to another
major currency? Bloomberg states the problem but doesn't even talk about
whether Zimbabwe fixed their problem and if so how so, much less what options
are available to Venezuela. I mean sure I can Google it but it's surprising
for Bloomberg to publish such a weak article. It's what I'd expect from USA
Today.

~~~
gtirloni
Brazil had an interesting take on conquering hyperinflation that might apply
to Venezuela too (although their current situation is much worse):

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-
fake-money-saved-brazil)

~~~
jeffdavis
That may work when inflation itself is the problem, but the country is
otherwise holding together.

Venezuela has serious problems. One neat trick won't save them.

~~~
gtirloni
Completely agree. As I said, Venezuela is in a much worse situation. They
first need to figure out a government.

------
NaliSauce
Apparently World of Warcraft gold is more valuable at this point than the
Venezuelan bolívar fuerte:
[https://twitter.com/KalebPrime/status/952648572729724934](https://twitter.com/KalebPrime/status/952648572729724934)

~~~
daodedickinson
Hasn't it been so for like a year now? At least half a year?

~~~
NaliSauce
Seems like the bolivar's and wow gold's value were on par around june/july
2017 (provided that these tweets are accurate):

[https://twitter.com/KalebPrime/status/877070731942789121](https://twitter.com/KalebPrime/status/877070731942789121)
[https://twitter.com/KalebPrime/status/885997066140475395](https://twitter.com/KalebPrime/status/885997066140475395)

------
mc32
Borrow huge amounts of money from the banks and buy land... Unless the
government is apt to expropriate, then, yeah, just buy anything that stores
value.

~~~
cptaj
They are very apt to expropiate. They've notoriously fucked up most industries
that way.

They also encourage "invasions" of unoccupied properties.

Furthermore, credit is a joke now. The average venezuelan credit card now
issues somewhere around $5 of credit. Buying real estate through credit is
similarly ridiculous.

(Source: I live here)

------
qwerty456127
So where is the new cryptocurrency they promised to issue? They absolutely
should switch to cryptocurrency, a highly unstable currency is much better
than a currency that is stable in its hyperbolic devaluation and can actually
boost the economy. Why don't they do?

~~~
lawlessone
That was called the petro or something, i think it was only meant to be for
oil trading and not a national currency.

~~~
qwerty456127
It was meant to be backed by oil and to back the paper bolívars in its turn
and I believe they really should start this ASAP. The only alternative is
switching to Brazilian Reals, US Dollars or something like that but who is
going to give those to them? A cryptocurrency done right can create worldwide-
tradeable, hard-to-constrain value and liquidity immediately from nothing but
the potential and I can hardly understand what are they waiting for. Is the
ruling establishment there just so power-mad they won't give up the printer
even in face of ultimate economic collapse?

~~~
freeone3000
They don't need actual dollars, just issue a currency with the exchange rate
pegged to another one.

~~~
gus_massa
Hi from Argentina!

We tried that too almost at the same time that Brazil tried the Real. If you
are lucky and it is well done, you can convince people that "1 (ARG)Peso = 1
(USA)Dollar". It worked for 10 years ... (1991-2002)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convertibility_plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convertibility_plan)

The main problem is that you must reduce the government deficit (that is
usually not popular) or get external credit (but you must not be angry with
the international banks).

~~~
qwerty456127
A relatively reasonable government like that of Argentina or Brazil can indeed
implement a monetary policy and play with deficit and the rate for good but if
it consistently fails to it ought to at least provide the people with a usable
trading token so they can take care of themselves. It's hard to say what it
actually is but given the news we get outside the Venezuelan government is
little but useless (not completely perhaps, maybe it keeps drug cartels away
or something), they should just issue a reasonably limited amount of
relatively valuable currency, halt all but some essential regulations and
leave the people alone. Budget deficit cuttig is not popular? I believe the
result Venezuelans are getting now are even less popular.

------
cs702
Nothing new under the sun.

As a first-order approximation, all currencies in history have ultimately
disappeared or stopped working as currencies, from Roman denarii to Italian
Florins to Brazilian Cruzeiros to Rwandan Dollars to Venezuelan Bolivares.[a]

Currently there are 190+ countries on earth, most of which have their own
currency. Only a fairly small number of those currencies are widely considered
stable. The rest are probably destined for the dustbin of history.

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

------
curtis
Is anybody even using bolivars in Venezuela anymore? I've been assuming people
are using dollars and euros as much as possible.

~~~
codelitt
Capital controls make that pretty difficult. There are government set controls
on whether you can purchase foreign currency and even then to how much you are
allowed to buy.

I remember back in like 2011 Kirchner did this in Argentina while I was living
there. There was out of control inflation and capital controls. The government
also covered their ear and said "lalalalala I don't care what the world
markets say, our currency is worth $x.)

If you were traveling, you could get foreign currency, but you had to apply
for it, prove you were traveling, and then accept that the government would
allot how much they thought you needed on your trip. I had a friend get $75
per day for their trip to the states. This creates the black market (or in
Argentina, the "dolar blue") where the government said that the exchange was
5:1, but economics and the black market said 15:1 (at one point).

Moral of the story - you can not just ignore basic economic principles and
dictate the value of your currency. Focus on building a strong and diverse
economy and promoting a free market.

~~~
corpMaverick
Mexico did this in the 1980's. It didn't work. It is strange that countries
make the same mistakes over and over. I suspect that the Netherlands went
through this centuries ago.

~~~
talmand
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -George
Santayana

But I guess there's an element of "they did it wrong, we'll do it right" or
"it'll work for us this time" or "this time is different because of x" and so
on.

~~~
corpMaverick
It is probably out of the desperation. Hoping for a miracle.

They don't realize until it is too late that is much, much easier to avoid
Hyperinflation (by having responsible policies) than to fix it.

------
mustaflex
shouldn't Venezuela be one the richest country in the world? As far as I know
they have the biggest oil reserves in the world.

~~~
dragontamer
Venezuela is so poorly managed they were losing money at $150/barrel of crude
oil.

Last year, oil has been $30 to $50 per barrel. `nuff said. Its an issue of
poor governance. Venezuela was heavily dependent on high-priced oil to keep
their finances together, and it all collapsed as oil prices dropped.

~~~
kaycebasques
What were they spending their money on?

~~~
dragontamer
Unfortunately, I don't know. I'm an outsider from the USA. So I don't want to
get much deeper into the details and pretend I know a lot about Venezuela.

But clearly, they're doing something wrong down there. They are a very oil-
rich and resource-rich nation. So they should have the money to do this
correctly, even as Oil Prices have dropped.

------
ctdonath
Interesting how Venezuela is being touted by both capitalists and socialists
as a prime example what's wrong with the other.

~~~
talmand
Have there been socialists blaming capitalism? I've only seen socialists, who
previously touted the shining beacon of socialism in Venezuela, now claiming
it wasn't true socialism.

~~~
jimmywanger
The socialism playbook is to blame capitalism "foreign economic sanctions" and
"economic warfare". It's what the Russian premieres did, what Castro did, what
Chavez did, and what Maduro is doing.

Also they claim that domestic capitalists are hoarding and causing the system
to collapse.


Apple prohibits App Store devs from using location-based ads - johns
http://www.macnn.com/articles/10/02/04/gps.info.allowed.only.for.beneficial.uses/
======
gte910h
And they don't let any app record phone calls anymore...

Are we surprised at their arbitrary nonsense anymore?

~~~
metachor
Is this really arbitrary nonsense?

Do you want ad networks gleaning your physical location(s) throughout the day?
Do you want random applications surreptitiously recording your phone
conversations?

While both of these limitations might seem, well, limiting from the developers
perspective, they both seem very much in the favor of the end-user to protect
them from potential abuse.

~~~
gte910h
No no no, you misunderstand.

They disallow you to even tell the person about it.

As to the recording, you're not allowed to record telephone conversations that
use the 3G or phone network in any way.

This means even in telephone recording application designed to record calls
the customer wants recorded. This is now forbidden by Apple. (As one of my
customers found out 6 months of reviews later when the app has done this all
along).

This isn't a "protect the customer from abuse" sort of issue, this is a "Apple
doesn't want apps to do it at all" sort of thing


Hacker News Highlights - kevin
http://themacro.com/articles/2015/12/hacker-news-highlights-2/
======
laarc
The content is good. It's strange how corporate the about page sounds, but
that probably doesn't matter.

Maybe a whoishiring-type weekly submission might be a better format? "Here's
some interesting stuff you may not have seen."


Another lovely Google Chrome ad - Extensions - yanw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5ryTLrgTbI

======
elblanco
They really only need to show one thing, the Google translate extension. I
have it set to automatic now and I often don't even realize I'm looking at a
page that's not originally in English. That's some serious Star Trek universal
translator business going on right there.

~~~
andyking
It's not perfect. Whenever I go on a page in Scottish Gaelic, it says "this
page is in Irish - would you like to translate it?" That could cause some
trouble.

The languages are admittedly similar and there's some level of mutual
comprehension, but they're not similar enough for Google's translator to work
across both - it emits gibberish when you click "yes".

~~~
elblanco
I have to admit, I do not spend much time on Gaelic (Scottish or Irish) sites.

I've noticed that it's support for East Asian languages is also pretty bad.
But Romance languages, German and Arabic are pretty amazing.

------
frou_dh
I'll be grouchy and say I'm put off keeping a lot of the Chrome extensions I
install because they want to plant their brash ugly icons (that apparently
can't be toggled or collapsed) on the main toolbar. Part of the reason I like
Chrome is the airy and minimal appearance.

~~~
pavs
you can hide them.

Before: <http://i.imgur.com/MJdNw.png> After: <http://i.imgur.com/5qMj4.png>

Chrome Beta build but I have seen this on Chrome stable build too.

~~~
frou_dh
Ah - Thanks. In 5.0.342.9 on OSX it seems you can push them off the edge, but
the >> drop-down isn't presented.

~~~
pavs
Just checked my mac. You are right, the drop down doesn't work on Mac. But I
guess you are trying to hide them so it works out perfectly. :)

------
Perceval
Reminds me a bit of Ok Go's latest video:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w>

Seems like something Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdRaf3-OEh4>) would do. I think it _is_
abstract, but I like it a whole lot nonetheless. It's creative and cute and
whimsical.

Kudos!

------
dc2k08
pleasant to watch but I think it misses the mark by not showing footage of the
actual extensions referred to doing what they do. It might go over the heads
of their target audience.

------
geuis
Maybe it's only me, but I find it too abstract. If I was someone who didn't
know what Chrome was, much less what extensions are, I might be scratching my
head at this point.


Popular People Live Longer - DiabloD3
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/sunday/popular-people-live-longer.html
======
pasbesoin
I've found human lives to consist in significant part of feedback loops.
Positive feedback loops, and negative feedback loops.

A person receiving positive feedback tends to feel better, be more socially
comfortable and engaging, and to receive resources that help them on their
journey.

This response and that assistance actually helps them become better. Better
nutrition, more attentive and patient instruction. Etc. It's not just that
things are done for them; it's that the feedback loops can improve their own
performance.

A person receiving negative feedback tends to feel worse, to be socially
uncomfortable and isolated, and the be denied helpful resources and
assistance.

The negative feedback loop can result in that person withdrawing more and
more. I've been there: Most people _do not_ want to be where they are not
welcome. It is one of the worst feelings.

Negative feedback loops tend to spill over into one's physical health, and
that unhealthiness furthers the rejection.

It is not just the "big things." People with a popular appearance routinely
get bigger servings, more engaged and attentive care. More respect.

It's pervasive. Pay attention. You'll see it all around you, every day,
everywhere.

I've been burned a few times by "attractive" people who deliberately used this
to their advantage. And I've been slowly figuring out, at an emotional, "feel
it" level -- as opposed to intellectual -- why some people outright pre-
emptively reject attractive people.

They've learned a life lesson: Interacting with those people too often places
them on the losing side. Whether they are being deliberately used by those
people, or just because of the comparative way they are treated by surrounding
people.

~~~
mncharity
> feedback loops

That's the basis of social-belonging and other mindset interventions.[1]

For example, when you encounters difficulty as a freshman in college, do you
think "I don't belong here", or "everyone has difficulties - I can get help,
work hard, and succeed, like I've done in the past". Students who feel like
they belong, build stronger support networks, more readily get help, feel
better, and so. Both narratives then do feedback, and outcomes diverge. So
surprisingly small interventions, to nudge the initial interpretation, like an
hour in high school, or an essay at the beginning of a course, can have a
surprisingly large impact.

I wonder if the future will look back our current lack of mental hygiene
interventions, the way we now look back at the 1800's lack of physical hygiene
interventions. Something like, well, it took a couple of decades, but NYC
finally stopped politically-connected brewers from killing hundreds of
children with adulterated milk from sick cows.[2]

[1] [http://gregorywalton-
stanford.weebly.com/papers.html](http://gregorywalton-
stanford.weebly.com/papers.html) [2]
[https://www.google.com/#q=swill+milk](https://www.google.com/#q=swill+milk)

~~~
ccdev
It's quite interesting to me that you can find homeostasis in physiological
systems, but not in social systems, where runaway effects prevail. And
seemingly a more robust social system would create a tendency for people to
reach a more stable social state rather then continue to descend in a downward
spiral.

(BTW the "negative feedback" loop mentioned in this topic is technically still
a positive feedback, because the effects of the cause produces more of the
cause. True negative feedback creates a counteractive force that promotes
equilibrium- it has nothing to do with emotional negativity)

~~~
pasbesoin
That's a good point. I guess I might have more accurately stated them as
"positive psychological/physiological feedback loop" and "negative
psychological/physiological feedback loop.

You're right, as I describe them, both are "positive" in terms of reinforcing
amplification.

------
true_religion
It's true. Most of my popularity comes from outliving my enemies.

But in all seriousness, I am intrigued with the idea that merely by being
popular, it will affect your DNA and turn on genes that correlate good health.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Causality is likely backwards. People who are damaged by their environment or
by getting unfortunate genetics end up both becoming unpopular and lowering
their life expectancy. IQ is likely also correlated for the same reason to
both.

~~~
sjg007
I would say stress, anxiety, depression

------
davidjnelson
Relationships stemming from likability have more health benefits than status:

"Yet this same research reveals that there is more than one type of
popularity, and most of us may be investing in the wrong kind. Likability
reflects kindness, benevolent leadership and selfless, prosocial behavior.
Research suggests that this form of popularity offers lifelong advantages, and
leads to relationships that confer the greatest health benefits.

Likability is markedly different from status — an ultimately less satisfying
form of popularity that reflects visibility, influence, power and prestige.
Status can be quantified by social media followers; likability cannot."

------
ianamartin
I find it problematic that the only controls consistently accounted for are
age, sex, and race.

I think they are making too big a claim, and they would've generated a more
useful insight if they were controlling for pathological behaviors as well.

Are popular alcoholics likely to live longer? How about popular obese people?
Is there, perhaps, a causal relation between being isolated/unpopular and
pathological behaviors?

The study itself (the pnas source--and by the way, thanks to the NY Times for
linking to the source) smacks of p-value fishing combined with making the most
grandiose claim you can based on those p-values.

I'm not saying the paper is wrong in a mathematically provable way or that it
couldn't be replicated. I'm saying that it isn't science that is meaningful or
useful. It strikes me as resume-driven science.

Scientific click-bait.

~~~
bjourne
It's a meta study. That means the authors themselves haven't gathered any data
but used data from other studies and done some number crunching on it. There
have already been hundreds of studies which have found links between
loneliness factors and mortality. This study's authors contribution to the
science is estimating the size, or strength, of that link.

------
petraeus
Popular people are more affluent, affluent people have greater resources to
expending on their quality of life, people with better QOLs live longer, thus
popular people live longer?

Misinterpreting cause and correlation, am I doing this correctly?

------
roesel
Do people who are popular live longer? Or do people who think are popular live
longer?

In other words, is it enough to think you are popular to affect your DNA?

------
barrkel
Status vs likability: "it's nice to be important, but it's more important to
be nice".

------
georgespencer
Or at least it feels that way.

------
subru
I have considered suicide for the past 30 years. I tried very hard to build a
life in the confines of whatever limitations I've been given and/or created
for myself. I determine that the nature of humanity is to seek power. This
study reminds me of why this world is total bullshit. I've notified to be part
of this world anymore. I'm connected into this universe more than I ever have
been. There is a black hole awaiting me

~~~
Moshe_Silnorin
Back when I was depressed modal realism cured me of any suicidality. How can
one possibly think the suffering, loneliness and utter pointlessness of life
can be preferable to the sweet oblivion of non-existence? My answer is non-
existence may indeed be preferable to life but it’s not at all clear that non-
existence exists. What the Everett interpretation, Egan's Dust theory, the
mere fact that the mind is finite and the universe is infinite (and finite
patters recur in infinity an infinite amount of times) forces me to consider
is the prospect that any attempt to commit suicide, no matter how thorough,
could result in a subjective experience of the consequences of a failed
suicide attempt in which "I" am unable to escape, even through suicide. The
idea that the universe owes you nothing, not even nonexistence, was what
killed any suicidality in me. Odd that a depressing thought would work so well
when appeals to optimism did not, but makes a sort of sense considering how
depressed people think.

~~~
KGIII
I am not sure if this helps, but we don't actually know if the universe is
infinite or finite. It is an unknown.

~~~
Moshe_Silnorin
Sure. But we have to accord it a pretty high probability, at least 50%. So
this uncertainty doesn't really effect much.

~~~
jl6
I've always assigned it pretty low probability on the basis that we have no
examples of infinite objects existing.

------
faragon
TL;DR: all you need is love.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
This is the same conclusion from the Grant Study,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Study](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Study)
. The lead researcher George Vaillant put it as: "Happiness is love. Full
stop."

~~~
shaunlgs
Which begs the question, "What is love?".

~~~
empath75
Baby don't hurt me.

------
elcapitan
"Popularity" correlates with wealth, wealth correlates with health?

~~~
ambicapter
Why don't you read the article?

~~~
joe_the_user
The article distinguishes between likability and status, sure but the survival
statistics come from a huge meta-analysis and the status versus likability
distinction comes another set of studies (so it's combining two measurement
processes, inherently harder than just using one). Given the overall
reproduction crisis in psychology, that it turns out rather few studies are
actually reliable, it seems entirely plausible that the average of the
survival studies didn't control well for wealth and ended up with sociological
factors and the status versus likability question is kind of an irrelevant
extra.

------
agumonkey
Unpopular live longer too, I believe the more hatred you have, the longer you
live, and no this is not a post SW binge comment.

~~~
collyw
Suicide bombers don't seem to have a long life expectancy.

~~~
qb45
But their leaders live longer. Which exposes OP's fallacy - haters live long
if their hatred makes them popular.

------
coldtea
> _Even some adults appear obsessed with social media, tracking the number of
> retweets on their Twitter profiles or likes on Facebook_

"Some"? Where does the writer lives, on Mars?

~~~
handedness
Yes, some.

I have no social media presence, nor do I care to.

~~~
coldtea
That just proves that you don't care -- not that those who care are few (which
is a different assertion).

~~~
horsawlarway
Let me just remind you... since you sound like you care a lot/spend a lot of
time on those services: if you're on those services you're encouraged to
interact with other people who also care a lot/spend a lot of time on those
services.

You're self selecting for a group that re-enforces your opinion.

As of 2016, only ~70 percent of adults in the US use facebook. Of those 70%,
~25% use it once a week or less.

Those who don't care are MANY (probably most).

~~~
coldtea
> _As of 2016, only ~70 percent of adults in the US use facebook. Of those
> 70%, ~25% use it once a week or less._

That leaves a 75% that use it more than once a week. Let's be charitable and
make it only a 25% (1/3 of them) that use it multiple times per week or daily
and care about their standing there.

That's still a whooping 40-50 million people, in the US alone, and of those
lots of people do care and are influenced by their social media status.

It's not like "even some adults" as if it is as rare as butterfly collectors
or septagenarias that are into Eminem or something -- it's a huge social
phenomenon.

A 50% of the adult population (70% * ~0.75) that use it more than once a week
is already impressive. And 'adults' is the wrong metric, since it includes
anyone 18-100. So "70% of adults in the US use FB" doesn't reveal the whole
picture, as a lot of them are not even in the relevant demographic (e.g.
people that were already 50 or so when FB hit the scene in the mid-late
2000s).


Computer Scientists Show That Mass Incarceration Is Contagious - dallenallred
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3032447/computer-scientists-show-that-mass-incarceration-is-contagious

======
EvanPlaice
Crime rates tend to be higher around police stations, military bases, and
airports. Not because of a higher rate of people committing actual crimes but
simply because of the increased police presence.

All it takes is an ambitious cop who doesn't want to leave his advancement to
chance. Once you're in the system it's difficult/impossible to get out.

I grew up in a pretty nice area and rarely had encounters with the police
unless I was doing something stupid and deserving of their attention. Even
then, I was treated with decency and respect.

I didn't understand the difference until I moved to an area that was close to
a large police station and courthouse. There was no doubt about the increased
police presence.

One day on my way to work on my motorcycle I got pulled over by the CHP
(California Highway Patrol). When I went to hand over my
license/registration/insurance the officer reached over and snatched the keys
out of my ignition. Instead of telling me what I was being charged he started
with a threat, "you will cooperate or I'm going to tow your bike and haul you
off to jail." I was completely shocked by his escalation of force because
leading up to this I had no clue why I was being pulled over. I wasn't driving
fast, aggressive, or recklessly.

It turns out that California passed some wonky law a month prior that any
muffler louder than stock (guess that gives Harleys a free pass) is illegal. I
don't run an aftermarket muffler so he couldn't charge me. He tried his best
to convince me that I was in the wrong but by then I had shrugged off the
initial shock and wasn't going to admit to an offense I didn't commit.

He couldn't pin me with the charge he pulled me over for. So, he held me there
on the side of the road for 20 minutes antagonizing me and asking personal
questions that had nothing to do with being pulled over. It was clear as day
that I wasn't going to be let go until either he could find another reason to
charge me or he I'd snap and give him one.

Meanwhile, I did nothing out of the ordinary beside driving past a corrupt cop
who was looking to bump the statistics on a new law and probably earn some
brownie points with his boss.

As soon as my lease was up I moved the hell away from that area and try my
best to avoid/evade the CHP when I see them.

I'm not saying all cops are bad. Escalation of force and violence are tools of
their trade because violent criminals often don't respond to anything else.
The problem is, there is no incentive for them to hold back. Performance is
measured by arrests and charges regardless of 'actual' crime. Anybody who has
worked for the US Govt knows that the survival of any government organization
is based on perceived performance measurements, whether or not they serve the
greater good.

It's not much of a mystery why kids who grow up and get out of bad
neighborhoods are usually the type who spend most of their childhood indoors
reading, studying, or playing with a computer. The concept of 'guilty by
association' is common knowledge but the less understood one should be 'guilty
by proximity'.