Harvard, Princeton Targeted in Asian Discrimination Probe - leelin
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-02/harvard-targeted-in-u-s-asian-american-discrimination-probe.html
======
kandalf
SAT scores are not a sufficient indicator for bias in college admissions.
There are two factors at work here:

1\. For elite colleges, specific SAT scores are irrelevant. Essentially, once
a certain cut-off is reached, say 2250, it doesn't matter how high you go. In
fact, I'm sure admissions officers get a kick out of rejecting the 2400 - I'd
rather have a 2380 than a 2400 any day. The variance in SAT scores over a
certain cutoff is simply not a good enough indicator for what the colleges are
looking for.

2\. In my experience, Asian families tend to place a disproportionate emphasis
on test scores and grades. This leads to higher than average SAT scores for
Asian students, sometimes at the cost of other parts of the application
package.

Taken together, I believe these two ideas contribute to a reasonable
explanation for the phenomenon discussed in the article.

This is not to say that admissions are not racially biased - I would not be at
all surprised if they are.

~~~
gxs
This is exactly right. I completely detest knee-jerk reactions and blanket
statements that crop up instead of some good old fashioned critical thinking.

I went to a school, a good school, that was predominantly asian in my
department. If admissions are racial for no other reason than to diversify the
student body, this is a reasonable approach on its own - though I'm sure there
are plenty of other more old-fashioned legitimately fashioned arguments.

So you had good grades but didn't get in because you are asian? Tough shit - a
lot goes into creating a desirable incoming class than grades and standardized
test scores.

~~~
hartleybrody
Love the "a lot [more] goes into creating a desirable incoming class than
grades and standardized test scores"

------
patio11
We will now see the same racial discrimination departments which filed court
briefs saying that race-neutral admissions policies would make them into Asian
enclaves suddenly pretend to be shocked, shocked that anyone would suggest
they were anything but valiant upholders of equal opportunity.

I'll refrain from opining on what the government will do, solely out of
respects for the HN politics rule.

[Edit: One may think I am being unfair. Here, try reading Harvard's amici
brief. [http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/legal/gra_amicus-
ussc...](http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/legal/gra_amicus-
ussc/um/Harvard-both.pdf) ]

~~~
Alex3917
One of my favorite education quotes, supposedly from Larry Summers, comes from
when he was asked about why it was that 60% of white students were jewish.
Supposedly he responded that while there was no surefire way of getting into
Harvard, it certainly helps to have every advantage one can get.

------
Shenglong
Have we considered, that maybe the reason Asians need higher entrance scores,
is because they end to have the same qualifications?

I'm going to be a little racist towards my own race here, and tell you what
I've observed recently.

Most Chinese Females... 1\. Play piano and/or violin 2\. Take pictures of food
3\. Probably applying to sciences

Most Chinese Males... 1\. Plays a racket sport - probably badminton (myself
included) 2\. Only works out upper body 3\. Probably applying to engineering

I never scored perfect SAT marks, and yet I still got my acceptances just
fine, because I did so many things most Asians don't do. If the people doing
these assessments actually spent time at elite campuses, they would understand
better.

Filing a complaint for not being admitted with a 2400 SAT score is ridiculous.
I wouldn't want that kind of person in my class, that's for sure.

~~~
pradocchia
SAT scores above a certain threshold can become a negative signal, if they
aren't paralleled by equally exceptional performance elsewhere. It suggests a
certain misallocation of effort. "Why did this person spend all his time on
the tests?"

~~~
keyu
It is really ridiculous that in the US you think it is a fault if someone
works pretty hard in study.

~~~
Dylan16807
I did pretty well on the SAT and as far as I'm concerned studying for it is a
giant waste of time. Go out and learn something. Don't prep for a single test.

------
grot
The thing is, admissions to elite universities is almost never about test
scores. Immigrant parents from countries like China and India are used to test
scores mattering a lot. In those countries, your absolute score on the
National Exam determines not only your placement into a university, but also
what fields are available to you for study.

The SAT is nothing like that. If you walk into Harvard or Princeton, you'll
find that most of the kids got above 2300 on the SAT, and a ton had perfect
scores. If you tried using the SAT to distinguish between members of the
student body at either place, you would have little success. The admissions
committee has the same problem, so, kids are not selected based on SATs. You
get in because you're good, or at least, you show a lot of promise, not
because you can study for a test.

So yeah, maybe asians have higher test scores as a cohort, but maybe they also
have less other things that are equally important -- sports, focus, passion,
alumni connections, etc. These things count just as much in admissions
decisions.

It's possibly to argue that selecting for these things is inherently racist,
but I mean, what isn't? The SAT itself privileges a white collar suburban
education. Who's to say it's more valuable to be able to memorize vocab, or do
arithmetic than to run or paint?

~~~
aeeeee
I would say just because one culture is more inclined to sports and social
activities doesn't mean it is racist to use these things as a discriminating
factors. I don't think it's possible to argue that a selection criteria is
racist unless the color of your skin is the sole discriminator.

~~~
tesseractive
On the other hand, it bears mentioning that you can be racist _in your choice
of selection criteria_ , if you choose criteria based on their ability to
produce a certain racial outcome.

The use of a poll tax people have to pay in order to vote isn't racist _per
se_ , but in the segregationist south, poll taxes were used as a mechanism to
suppress black votes because they knew (disproportionately poor) black people
would have a harder time paying it, and this use _was_ racist.

------
bilbo0s
Wow... I wonder what the Ivies would look like if admissions were 100% merit.

No legacies. I think there would be FAR fewer trust-funders.

And MIT's 'Chocolate City'...pretty much gone.

I suspect they would be very Asian places with a smattering of Jewish
students. I think I can see why they would give ... say ... a Colorado snow
boarder a few extra points. I think there is something that he brings to an
Ivy campus...though I can't quantify it.

~~~
gte910h
>I wonder what the Ivies would look like if admissions were 100% merit.

The issue is "how do you determine merit".

~~~
geogra4
Right on. Merit is much more than SAT scores and GPA. It is, in fact, whatever
the school wants it to be.

~~~
vecter
Surely merit does not include race?

~~~
hackinthebochs
Merit can include a consideration of race. One factor of merit is being an
outlier of your group. There are many ways to analyze a given population that
reveals different clusters. Being an outlier of this cluster is a factor in
merit. The question is, is race a relevant dimension to consider? At face
value, the answer is no. But in the US at least, race is a proxy to many other
factors that are extremely hard to quantify. These hard to quantify factors
are relevant in determining who "deserves" a spot at your prestigious school.
Thus a consideration of race within specific contexts can be relevant, college
admissions being one of them.

------
hugh4life
Here are my problems with Affirmative Action.

1\. Academic Mismatch - Those who benefited from AA often can't keep up. They
often fall behind or transfer to an easier major.

2\. Cascading Academic Mismatch - This mismatch is replicated everywhere
because the top academic tier recruits the top 'racial balancing' students
from the tier below it.

3\. Academic Mismatch Semiotics - This mismatch encourages judging people by
their race on campus. It breeds racial conflict(no matter how low level it may
be) and reduces solidarity between peoples on campus.

Racial balancing and academic standards are at odds with each other. Schools
that value racial diversity should set their academic standards appropriately.

~~~
setzer
Respectfully, do you have any references regarding your first point?

------
tokenadult
A very comprehensive FAQ on "race" and "ethnicity" as those categories apply
to college admission in the United States can be found at

[http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-
admissions/12282...](http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-
admissions/1228264-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-9-a.html)

The FAQ links to the relevant federal regulations defining the categories, and
to guides to admission professionals on how to apply the categories, and to
admissions statistics from a variety of colleges. Some colleges admit a
substantial percentage of students who decline to self-report race or
ethnicity, as is the right of every United States college applicant. Harvard,
for example, has 12 percent of its currently enrolled undergraduates reported
to the federal government as "race/ethnicity unknown"

<http://members.ucan-network.org/harvard>

(even though Harvard personally interviews essentially all of its
undergraduate applicants) and another 10 percent of its enrolled
undergraduates are international students, for whom race and ethnicity are not
reported as a matter of federal regulation.

It will be interesting to see how this latest case turns out. As the submitted
article notes, "While the Office for Civil Rights has the power to terminate
federal financial aid to colleges, it almost always negotiates agreements with
schools on steps required for compliance, rather than taking enforcement
action, the Education Department spokesman said."

------
yosho
Isn't it pretty easy to determine if there is racial bias in admissions?

Isn't the fact that Asians need to score a couple hundred points higher on SAT
score just to get admitted enough evidence that there is bias?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at Berkeley where Race is not considered in
admissions, Asians comprise like 50% of the student body. I'm pretty sure
you'd see similar numbers at all the elite universities if race wasn't an
issue.

~~~
crazygringo
No, because SAT scores don't determine admissions. A schoolmate of mine with
straight A's who scored a perfect 1600 SAT was rejected from Harvard, because
he had essentially zero extracurriculars.

Schools like Harvard and Princeton look both for well-rounded students
("future leaders" they call them), as well as diversity in their student body.
This means they won't accept, for example, 100 top violin players in the same
class, no matter how impressive their individual applications are. Instead,
they want a complete and balanced orchestra, for example.

So if, hypothetically, Asians tended to disproportionately cluster in the same
extracurricular activities, or have less extracurricular activities, then
there would be a very valid non-race-based explanation for the SAT gap.

~~~
aeeeee
> 100 top violin players in the same class, no matter how impressive their
> individual applications are. Instead, they want a complete and balanced
> orchestra, for example.

I agree that SAT scores shouldn't be the only factor, I disagree though if you
are saying race can and should be factor. Where it's legal and appropriate to
discriminate on say what instrument you play it is illegal (and most would
agree immoral) to discriminate on race. Proving racial discrimination may be
tricky in this case though.

~~~
neilc
_it is illegal (and most would agree immoral) to discriminate on race_

It is actually not illegal to discriminate based on race in educational
admissions -- you just need to meet certain criteria (serve a "compelling
interest" and not use quotas) to be able to do so.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger>

<http://www.npr.org/news/specials/michigan/>

------
GiraffeNecktie
Are the essays that some universities require there to offer a layer of
plausible deniability ("sure your marks were excellent but your essay somehow
didn't get us very excited").

~~~
w1ntermute
That's exactly what Malcolm Gladwell suggests in this article:
[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge?currentPage=all)

------
balloot
This article fails to mention that college admission is not based solely on
test scores. Many Asians are almost solely test-driven and tend to ignore the
other aspects of a "well-rounded" eduction.

I am sure if you looked at race-based stats on who played sports in high
school (as opposed to test scores like in the article), you would see that
Asians are way behind in that particular metric.

And while some may not think sports matter, colleges do. And it appears that
there is good reason for this, as sports teach leadership, teamwork, how to
perform under pressure, etc.

I would hope this lawsuit is thrown out, as this country really should not be
encouraging "tiger mom" behavior as the right thing to do. Instead, if you
want your son to get into Harvard, stop making him study 15 hours a day and
get him into extracurricular activities.

~~~
edwardy20
Nope, the article mentions that.

" _If all other credentials are equal_ , Asian-Americans need to score 140
points more than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points
above African-Americans out of a maximum 1600 on the math and reading SAT to
have the same chance of admission to a private college, according to “No
Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal,” a 2009 book co-written by Princeton
sociologist Thomas Espenshade."

~~~
balloot
I would be interested to see their definition of "all other credentials
equal". My assumption is that it is some very simplistic compilation of grades
and test scores, because the article barely mentions any factors other than
these. Also, many of the things that drive college admission are not easy to
objectively compare - is a great cellist equal to an 3 sport letterman who was
also on student council? How does a rich kid whose parents send him to math
camp compare to a kid who had to work full time during the summer? And so on.

------
dgabriel
Long ago, the valedictorian of my high school class (white, female), did not
get into Brown, Harvard, MIT or Cornell, despite a stellar academic record and
near-perfect SAT scores. She wound up going to a state school. Another white
female in my class got into three of those places, despite being below the top
10%. Ivy admissions are entirely mysterious to me.

~~~
itg
The number of people with good academic records and top SAT scores outnumber
the total seats available at top schools. They also take into account extra-
circulars, leadership experience, and other activities. This prevents people
from just studying for tests and thinking they have an automatic admission.
Personally, I'm glad they do or I imagine it would be a very dull environment
if there was nothing but people with their head in the books all the time.

~~~
unavoidable
This pre-supposes that a lack of ("stellar") high school extracurriculars
translates to a future lack of college extra-curriculars.

~~~
pradocchia
It's not that, it's that those with perfect scores appear to be wasting their
talent on test taking. They'd prefer students who studied hard enough to get
into the 95% percentile, and then devoted the remainder of their efforts
elsewhere. If you can do both, fine, but don't sacrifice everything for a few
more points on the SAT.

------
nandemo
Whenever I read articles about the American university admission system, and
the ensuing discussions about them, I feel like Gulliver visiting a weird
country.

It is so arcane and bizarre. If you want to major in CS or mathematics or
engineering, who cares if you do ice skating or can play the tuba? And if
you're a tuba player who wants to major in music, what can be possibly be more
important than your musical skills?

Entrance examinations are like the democracy. They suck but they suck far less
than the existing alternatives.

Of course, a lot of the top universities in the world are American; but I
think that's despite the admission system, not thanks to it.

~~~
jinushaun
Because there is much more demand than supply in the US for a college
education. Going merit based is not that simple. If you have 1000 open seats
at your school, 50,000 students apply and 1500 of them all have perfect SAT
scores, how do you choose who gets in if it's entirely merit based. What makes
this perfect SAT score different from that equally perfect SAT score? If
everyone looks the same on paper, you need something extra to stand out.
That's where extra-curricular activities come in.

The other issue is programs. If you're a school with 1000 open seats and 100
of that is music, you're going to have to drop some very science-smart
students to make room for music-smart students.

------
Irishsteve
Seems to be a case of helicopter parents freaking out because their beloved
didn't get offers from the same universities as their neighbours.

Good colleges look at how rounded a person is, standardised tests don't always
capture the high achievers.

~~~
Quizzal
Keep in mind that truly sophisticated and informed "helicopter" parents know
that tests are not enough - they've done their research, they themselves have
been through the system. As a matter of fact, the truly informed helicopter
parents are engineering failure into their child as well in order make him
stronger. Many are reading how Native Americans create emotional strength in
their children; others research and study the biographies of great leaders,
investigating what separates these leaders from those that failed.

------
hugh4life
"""" "If all other credentials are equal, Asian-Americans need to score 140
points more than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points
above African-Americans out of a maximum 1600 on the math and reading SAT to
have the same chance of admission to a private college, according to “No
Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal,” a 2009 book co-written by Princeton
sociologist Thomas Espenshade. """"

The gap is nowhere near that large for Wisconsin-Madison or Duke which are
rather selective institutions. I bet you're only going to get those kind of
gaps at the Ivies and even then I'm very skeptical.

------
Quizzal
We should explore why some people deserve to enter Harvard/Stanford/etc. and
why some don't? Part of the reason Harvard graduates are successful have
little to do with merit and everything to do with being a "Harvard Grad", so
it is a self-fulfilling prophecy in many ways. In other words, if we pulled 3
super-hard working freshman from random state schools, and put them through
Harvard, and follow them 10 years later, would it surprise anybody that they
would end up being successful? If so, what does it matter that their SATs
sucked in the first place? Do they not deserve a shot at success as the next
person? So they scored "only" in the top 20%, because they were hard working
dual athletes with a part time job helping out their single parent and no AP
classes, so what? Why should they not have the same shot at the Harvard
lottery ticket as the kid who's fortunate enough to be born to a "tiger" Asian
mother or well connected blue blood parents?

It's clearly a racket, this whole Ivy/Stanford system where grads from such
schools receive the benefit of the doubt when it comes to employment.

By the way, I am such a tiger parent, and it's almost ridiculously pathetic to
game this system to a certain degree. Let's see, he is currently enjoying: 1\.
Summer computer camps 2\. Singing/piano lessons + rock band camp in the summer
3\. Leadership/Scout programs 4\. Private school education with very small
teacher/student ratios 5\. Competing on the swim team 6\. Starting a recycling
program at his school as his "entrepreneurial project" and writing a journal
about his experiences

Most importantly, the above is very fun for him because he's allowed to enjoy
the moment after periods of incredibly hard work. And he just turned 8. The
only time he watches "TV" is Netflix on the iPad in the car while we shuttle
him between activities. This is the new normal, and what I'm doing is what all
the other Tiger parents are doing to create the "balanced" individual.

Yes, he goes to birthday parties, yes he has sleepovers, and yes he has lots
of friends. But because he's having "fun", we are not pushing him 24/7 to be
the "best" in all these activities, but to simply do his best, as best as an 8
year old is expected to do. Nevertheless, I feel bad for the kids that do not
have such supportive parents with the resources to help their children in this
way. My son does not deserve success any more than the next child, he's simply
blessed that he was not born in the 'hood.

------
lobster45
This has been happening for at least 15 years. When I was in high school mid
1990's we had several Asian students with over a 4.2 GPA that were not
accepted to local universities such as UCLA. There was not a specific
rejection reason related to race, however several students with a GPA around
3.6 who were not Asian were accepted to UCLA.

~~~
tikhonj
One thing to keep in mind is that large schools like UCLA tend to have
different admissions policies for different colleges. So somebody interested
in engineering would have a harder time getting into UCLA than somebody
interested in anything else.

I don't know exactly how it works for UCLA, but for Berkeley the admissions
percentage for the EECS program is much smaller than the general admissions
percentage. So, even ignoring differences in the application pools, getting
into the EECS program is going to be much more difficult than getting into
most other programs. And if you don't get into the program you applied to, you
don't get in at all.

So perhaps the different students applied to different colleges at UCLA? I
know that from my high school, some fairly smart people didn't get in to
Berkeley Engineering while some who weren't particularly gifted got into, say,
the College of Natural Resources. This was just a reflection of the different
admissions policies than any discrimination.

------
estevez
I don't get it. Family income is a very strong (if not the best) predictor of
SAT score. In this case, if you order each race by median income you get the
exact same order as mean SAT score, Asian-American families with the highest
median income and SAT, African-American families with the lowest.

~~~
rottencupcakes
Correlation does not imply causation.

You have, in fact, provided no proof that family income isn't ordered that way
as a result of SAT scores.

~~~
fluidcruft
Causation is irrelevant. The question is the extent to which SAT score and
family income contain the same information.

~~~
lurker17
Causation is measure of the extent to which they contain _different_
information.

Assuming a college wants to admit a student with high "intelligence" or
intellectual potential, which cannot be measured directly.

If high income causes high SAT, and high intelligence also causes high SAT,
then (low income, high SAT) may well indicate much higher intellectual
potential than (high income, high SAT)

If high income and SAT are both caused by high intelligence, then there is
less (intelligence-related) reason to prefer (high income, low SAT) or (low
income, high SAT).

------
neilparikh
People are pointing out the fact that Asians may not be getting in because
they are focused too much on their studies and do not spend enough time in
extra-circulars. If that's the issue, why not remove the race category on the
form? That way, it is completely merit-based. I don't the admissions officer
needs to see the race of the applicant to determine if he/she is interesting
and has diverse extracurricular activities. The name could still hint at the
race, but it should be much fairer than currently.

------
juiceandjuice
I'd like to see some numbers related more to where people applying/going to
prestigious schools are actually from, and application density for a given
area.

------
mhartl
_The issue remains unresolved, said Stephen Hsu, a physics professor at the
University of Oregon who blogs about the admissions process.

“The only way to answer these questions is to force these schools to open
their data sets,” he said. “College admissions should be transparent.” _

If this every happens, heads will roll. Alas, Hell will freeze over first.

------
eneveu
Guess they should use "Asian Problems"?

<http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3096793>

------
carguy1983
Controversial topics like these usually have a core "assumption" that the
discussions and arguments always circle around.

The un-stated assumption in this case is that Asians, are for the most part,
not well-rounded (and only focus on test scores), and hence, any reasonable
admissions process that favors well-roundedness will result in an
understandable (obviously!) bias against Asians.


Ask HN: Where to find online mathematics community? - mcrwfrd
After browsing HN for a couple of years, I've seen that a fair few members of this community have studied math at the post-secondary level. It's not uncommon to see Ask HN posts about how to weave a mathematics background into a coding job or how to continue studying mathematics on one's own.
I find myself in a similar position and have resolved that, at a bare minimum, I need to involve math in my life at least in a recreational way, if not in a professional way. Although this could be fun completely solo, I'd like to have like-minded people to talk to about this. Since my location is somewhat rural and because of COVID, I'd like to commune with other math people online.
For clarity, when I think about involving math in my life, I'm thinking about picking up where I left off with abstract algebra, real and complex analysis, and maybe some theoretic physics.
So HN, the question is, where are the other math lovers hanging out online?
======
akully
I imagine you could roam around the subreddits and check out what's up.

I also imagine that (at least this is my own thought) that you not only would
be interested in talking about math with others, but also talking with good
people that are easygoing, chill, etc.

I went to undergrad in Math and believe me, it wasn't easy to find the "right
crowd" in my program.

~~~
mcrwfrd
100%. You picked up on something that I thought about but didn’t write in the
post in the end. All through undergrad I had one friend in my program who was
laid back but also interested in math. Trying to find more people like this. I
don’t imagine it has gotten much easier, but hoping that being online and not
limited by physical location would help.


Show HN: 25 days of procedural music experiments - fenomas
http://aphall.com/2017/12/advent-of-procedural-music/
======
mundo
Neat stuff! The gypsy jazz Zelda theme is really pretty on point. And the
"Take 5 drum solo" really does sound like it could be just a chiptuned version
of the Take 5 drum solo.

I don't see a source link, but it'd be interesting to read about how it works,
e.g. how the different tunes are different from each other (completely
different procedural code, or just different starting parameters?) and what
packages you used and so forth.

~~~
fenomas
Thanks! The short version on the tech side is, it's all hand-written and very
ad-hoc. There is some mid-level code for managing patterns and notes that's
reused across the demos, but the settings for how each instrument sounds, what
kind of chord progressions to use, etc. is different for each demo.

I didn't use any outside libraries, but I did package up the part of my code
that actually plays sounds as 'npm/soundgen' (but it's not documented at all
yet..).

------
gus_massa
I would add at least one of the sounds generator to the page you submitted. I
have no incentive to click any of the links.

I clicked anyway :)

I actually clicked the #1 (at the bottom) and it doesn't sound very good, but
I think this is expected as a first version.

The last one #25 (at the top) is nice. Perhaps you should add both to the page
so the readers can listen to the difference.

[I'd like a bit more of information, like what are you adding in each step, or
why are you adding it.]

~~~
fenomas
Thanks for the feedback. There is no particular pattern to the demos - I just
tried to do something different each day for 25 days. So, some of them are
chiptunes, some are ambient, some are gypsy jazz, etc.

In short it's the project page for a series of 25 separate experiments. I
added a tl;dr to the top that may make things clearer.

~~~
gus_massa
Which one is the best? (Or at least, which one is the one you prefer?)

Add at least one of them (the best one) to the main page! Is it too difficult?
Sorry for insisting, but I think that with at least one example the post will
be much more engaging.

~~~
fenomas
My favorites are the ones I linked in the tl;dr! :D I understand what you're
saying and I do appreciate the feedback, but this isn't really a living
product page that I'm trying to make more compelling - it's just a collection
of experiments I thought HN readers might be interested in.

Probably it would be best if I resubmit this later as a "text" style
submission, with a description that links directly to a few specific demos.

~~~
gus_massa
What about a static image that has a "|>" button (like play) and link to your
favorite sample?

Something like: [https://imgur.com/a/QpNxE](https://imgur.com/a/QpNxE) (5
minute graphic, sorry, with more time you can make something better but I hope
it's enough to understand my idea)

In case this is resubmitted by someone later, or posted in reddit or other
aggregator, it would be nice to have an easier way to discover the content. I
understand that this is not the main project, but a more friendly page will
get you more unuseful internet points, and perhaps too many visit to break
your server. You will not get money, but at least a tiny amount of
recognition.

Anyway, if someday you decide to make a post with more technical information
about how you wrote them, I'd like to read it. (both the programing part
and/or the music part).

------
fenomas
Procedural music seems to show up a fair amount on HN, so I thought folks
might like this.

Of possible interest - none of the demos use any audio samples. All the sounds
are being generated from scratch out of oscillators, noise buffers, and so on.

Enjoy!


Show HN: SheetDB – Connect Remote SQL Database with Google Sheet - zhuxuefeng1994
https://github.com/Xuefeng-Zhu/SheetDB
======
kevin
Is something like this always just a hack/shortcut or are there people who
want this as their ideal workflow? I'm curious because I see stuff like this
all the time being submitted to YC.

For example, is this for IT / DBAs that need to gather info for data analysts,
marketers and sales people? Are there many people in that position and what
would the ideal flow look like? I can see startups and small companies willing
to use this as a stopgap, but I couldn't imagine larger customers/companies
willing to use something like this.

This isn't to say I don't know why this was built. The same forces are what
drove us to build Wufoo. We were tired of building these tedious data
collection apps. The DIY builder was out of laziness on our part.

But when it comes to accessing existing data, there's so many concerns about
security and privacy that I worry an idea like this will always be limited in
terms of adoption.

If people think differently, I would love to know.

------
kevin
Oh, and you should add PostgreSQL support. Maybe it's already supported, but I
didn't see it explicitly listed.

~~~
zhuxuefeng1994
I am using the JDBC built into Google App API. Based on latest, it has not
support PostgreSQL yet.


What career should I choose? - arikr
https://www.quora.com/What-career-should-I-choose-4/answer/Auren-Hoffman?share=1
======
spicyusername
Many of the best careers are ones that have a fairly high degree of
specialization and an official and well recognized track for certification.

Grind hard to meet all of the official certification requirements and do your
best to immerse yourself in the body of knowledge. Usually this results in a
long career full of flexibility and good pay.

Examples: Actuaries. Consultants. Lawyers. Professional Engineers (Civil,
Mechanical, etc). Auto Mechanics. Paramedic.

There are tons of them off the beaten path if you look for recognized
certifications.

Also look for quality of life not prestige. There are plenty of great "blue
collar" positions with good pay and work life balance.

------
purplezooey
_Your career should be dependent on the timescale that you operate best in._

What about the hiring market that pays you best in


Welders set off Beirut blast while securing explosives - tafda
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/report-welders-set-off-the-beirut-blast-while-securing-explosives
======
Gerardd
We were 600 meters away from the blast walking peacefully in the popular
Beirut street Mar Mikhael. The scale of the explosion was surreal [1]. I
hugged my sister and thought it’s our last moment. We miraculously survived
with only a few scratches. Ten days have passed and there’s not a single
minute I don’t think of what happened and emulate different scenarios where I
could’ve died. I also work at the most affected hospital that became instantly
non-operational and had to be evacuated with over 17 patients, staff, and
visitors dead [2].

Please consider donating [3].

[1] [https://youtu.be/SkIYjNGiaoA](https://youtu.be/SkIYjNGiaoA)

[2] [https://youtu.be/JIxuwE_WPXw](https://youtu.be/JIxuwE_WPXw)

[3] [https://www.stgeorgehospital.org/stgeorge-
donation](https://www.stgeorgehospital.org/stgeorge-donation)

~~~
Teknoman117
I had a similar personal reaction after getting into a high speed car crash
(mechanical failure of my car, while traveling at 70 mph on the highway.
Entered a spin, slid off the road, did at least one complete roll). 8 years
later, I still sometimes think of all the ways the crash could have gone
differently that would have resulted in my death.

If I was going a little faster, my car could have ended up in the irrigation
ditch and caused me to drown. The 220 lb combat robot in the trunk it could
have killed me during the tumble (it tore through its straps and ripped
through the back seats into the car). If I had a passenger, the only part of
the roof that wasn't crushed in was the driver. A passenger could've easily
been killed.

The result was a few superficial injuries (bruises from seatbelt and airbag
system). Unscathed otherwise. Woke up thinking the car was on fire (was smoke
from airbag) and crawled out. Walked down the street to find my phone (it was
in my backpack which flew out a window during the crash) and called for an
ambulance.

These are natural human reactions, but the sad truth is that many of the
things in our lives come down to luck. You can only do so much to make your
environment safer. I, for one, have never transported another one of those
combat robots inside my vehicle.

edit - 220 pound combat robot, not 300.

~~~
khazhoux
Morbid thought: Google Street View right now almost certainly has a 360
panorama of the location of your death. An intersection, a highway, a
hospital, somewhere. That panorama will someday be filled with sadness for
your loved ones. But you don't get to know its coordinates just yet.

~~~
Balgair
2005's _Lord of War_ , staring Nick Cage and Jared Leto, has a great quote
similar to this. I'll bungle it, because I can't find the exact line but it
goes like:

"Yuri, every single person has a bullet waiting for them; trying to find them.
The trick to life, Yuri? Before that bullet finds you, find a way to die."

The opening sequence to that film is also superb film-making. A set-up, a mid
point, and a twist ending, all in three minutes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LUEiKs2UAo&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LUEiKs2UAo&feature=emb_title)

~~~
khazhoux
Tip: Announcing a twist ending ruins it.

~~~
jdub
It's a twist ending to _the first five minutes_ of the film.

~~~
khazhoux
Still. I watched the 5-minute clip just expecting "the twist". Then when it
happened, it had less impact because I was anticipating something different or
"twistier". Had OP not announced the twist, that last shot might have actually
surprised me.

------
formalsystem
Lebanese here

Focusing on the direct cause of the blast is a huge distraction from
understanding why the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate were stored in the middle
of Beirut for 7 years.

The president Aoun and his senior leadership were all aware of this problem
but said they didn't have the authority to do anything about it. IMO, this is
a hilariously bad argument that's deflecting who the most likely owner is.
Aoun and his lackeys apparently have the authority to start a state of
emergency and shoot protesters but don't have any such authority to prevent
half of Beirut from being nuked.

The director of the Beirut port Badri Daher has been running bazaar ever since
he's been in that position, regularly stealing supplies from shipments, suing
reporters for defamation and beating up investigative journalists. The port
director also reports to the Amal party which is closely allied to Aouns.

~~~
rbanffy
2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in the same building, next to a cache of
fireworks, mind you. Corruption plays a part, but I'm astonished by the
incompetence that's usually going hand in hand with the corruption. I'm
surprised a catastrophe took 7 years to happen. You simply do not store that
much fertilizer in a single place.

And Brazil (Brazilian here) sent a diplomatic mission to help. It's lead by
our very own Badri Daher, the previous vice president who threw a coup against
the previous president.

~~~
stingraycharles
Perhaps an interesting datapoint from a Western government, a similar disaster
happened in The Netherlands in the year 2000. 177 tones of firework were
stored in a single building in the middle of a residential area.

The results were pretty much what you’d expect.

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

~~~
Gys
> Prior to the disaster it had a good safety record and met all safety audits.

At least one thing that differs from Beirut

~~~
Scoundreller
Though...

> When it was built in 1977, the warehouse was outside the town, but as new
> residential areas were built it became surrounded by low-income housing

and

> However, the illegal use of shipping containers reduced safety

Netherlands starting to sound like Lebanon

~~~
fuzzfactor
There's a whole magazine about things like this.

In previous decades they had feature articles and a few pages of fine print
with a couple sentences about each reported incident large or small.
Fortunately most were not fatalities but were kind of grim like obituaries
anyway.

_Man checks oil tank with lighter and lives._

Now it looks like their website is mainly an incident log:

[https://www.industrialfireworld.com/567881/hydrotreater-
fire...](https://www.industrialfireworld.com/567881/hydrotreater-fire-breaks-
out-at-houston-refinery)

This linked event was last week when I was actually driving through the
massive tank farm of this old refinery which extends to both sides of a state
highway which has always cut through.

I wondered what that smoke was.

~~~
Scoundreller
You might like these videos by the US Chemical Safety Board:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB](https://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB)

------
jacquesm
Welding, roof work, grinding. Those three are responsible for a good chunk of
all fires. I've done quite a bit of all three and have to confess that once or
twice I was lucky rather than smart to have no bad effects from a _very_ small
mistake. When grinding, all it takes is a rag used to degrease something days
before at 30' to set it on fire. When welding you _really_ want to keep a very
good idea of what is on the other side of your weld at all times. Surprise: a
box member of a car filled with PU foam. I really never saw that one coming.
And finally, when working on a roof a friend of mine did not properly
calculate in the effect of an exothermic reaction in a vat of resin exposed to
the sun. Close call that one, averted by denying oxygen to the already burning
vat.

This one is on a completely different level though, and I'm sure that the
welders did not live to tell the tale. Even so, before you go and claim they
were stupid you have to take into account that this is Beirut, not exactly a
place where the local OHSA is going to beat down the doors to ensure
everything is done safely and by the book, that in a harbor there are always
lots of dangerous things in close proximity and that they may have taken all
possible precautions and still ended up drawing an unlucky card.

It _really_ doesn't take much.

~~~
mindcrime
_It really doesn 't take much._

It really doesn't. You don't even need a grinder. Oily rags can ignite
spontaneously. People usually laugh at the phrase "spontaneous combustion"
because it's so often associated with "spontaneous human combustion." But
actual "spontaneous combustion" does happen in certain (not uncommon)
circumstances. See: [https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/Public-
Education/Resource...](https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/Public-
Education/Resources/Safety-tip-sheets/OilyRagsSafetyTips.ashx)

And what makes things even scarier, is realizing that buildings, ships, etc.
that are either under construction or undergoing maintenance are more "at
risk" because alarm systems, automatic fire suppression systems (eg,
sprinklers), etc. are often times not in place yet, or disabled, while work is
going on.

This is one reason it's so common to see a building complex that is under
construction burn to the dirt if it catches fire, as opposed to a finished
building where you might get a "room and contents" fire. No sheetrock, just
miles and miles of exposed wood, no sprinklers, no alarm - recipe for
disaster.

~~~
djmips
And it makes me think of fires caused by accidental optical focusing of the
sun such as a polished metal dog bowl as one odd example and others such as
hanging glass artwork.

~~~
chasd00
a buddy of mine is an architect. he wants to design a building with a concave
facade such that when the sun is just right it produces basically a death ray.
"imagine you're sitting in your office, causally glance out the window, and
see a bird explode for seemingly no reason... " heh

~~~
longwave
The Walkie Talkie building in London has already achieved this:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Fenchurch_Street#Solar_gl...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Fenchurch_Street#Solar_glare_problem)

------
rectang
If the conclusion you reach is that welders should be scapegoated for blowing
up Beirut, then you are either corrupt or cretinous.

The real question is, why were the explosives there?

But pursuing that question might make powerful people uncomfortable, or lead
to less satisfying conclusions about institutions deliberately designed to
disperse accountability.

~~~
MattGaiser
> The real question is, why were the explosives there?

In a highly structured and rule driven entity (government) what happens when a
problem falls outside the set up structure?

It tends to be ignored as nobody is responsible for dealing with it.

~~~
rectang
I've read numerous articles and although it seems lots of people knew the
situation was dangerous and lots of letters flew back and forth, I'm _still_
not clear on who had jurisdiction or failed to take action. The Port
Authority? The courts? The Army? The General Directorate of State Security?

This Reuters article is maddening, but it hits much closer to the truth than
all the pointless "welding is dangerous" threads going on right now around us:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast-
do...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast-documents-
excl/exclusive-lebanons-leaders-warned-in-july-about-explosives-at-port-
documents-idUSKCN2562L7)

The hypothesis I tend to reach for is a general lack of "good government",
originating because the factional tension in Lebanon completely overshadows
any other political differentiation. The factions can't compete on competence
because votes are locked in by group identity.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
In an advanced country with a modern legal system, like, say, Australia, the
answer to your question is:

Every single person who knew the dangers is personally liable for up to
$50,000 for an individual, if I recall correctly.

And for industrial manslaughter the maximum penalty is 20 years jail and AU$10
million for a business operator:

[https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/business-
fine...](https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/business-
fined-3m-under-new-industrial-manslaughter-laws-20200611-p551mp)

~~~
bjowen
The concentration camps aren’t a mark of the effectiveness of the legal system
so much as one of the political system - as inexcusable as they are, the
country still manages to have mechanisms of state to administer airspace,
health and safety and so on.

But those institutions are fragile, especially when they're exposed to the
political system (robodebt and the Murray-Darling authority spring to mind)
but it’s also possible for dangerous situations to evolve in pretty well-
defined regulatory frameworks. There’s a bunch of case law around situations
such as buildings that failed inspections under one code or another, then
caught fire and destroyed neighbouring property before the compliance deadline
had elapsed. Common law negligence is there to catch these sorts of cases, but
it’s much more of a way to assign liability than to guide behaviour.

I haven’t followed the West Footscray fire from a couple of years ago, but it
definitely had the signs of something that slipped through the cracks between
regulations, which leaves it a matter of luck that it wasn’t something super
duper toxic, explosive, or flammable and under pressure.

------
mabbo
> Sparks from their welding work ignited a supply of fireworks, which had been
> stored next to the ammonium nitrate cache.

That sentence is nearly unbelievable, like something from a cartoon show. How
much incompetence can you layer upon further incompetence to reach this insane
level of danger?

~~~
devwastaken
The CSB has a number of YouTube videos detailing how industrial accidents
happen, and it's almost always flame, sparks, gasses, corrosion, and a fuel
source.

Nobody is going to get paid for being safe, few care about learning it,fewer
are going to get paid teaching it, and few are going to be listened to.

The "safe guy" is going to be the butt end of the jobs because they cost more,
get it done slower, and aren't going to work on unsafe places. It's all about
get it done and if someone dies that's the cost of doing business and that's
on the worker.

~~~
bootlooped
I worked in a factory where some other employees seemed to view safety as
something that is in direct opposition to masculinity. So that's another
factor that contributes to it.

------
Johnny555
_Sparks from their welding work ignited a supply of fireworks, which had been
stored next to the ammonium nitrate cache._

Seems a little unfair to blame this solely on welders -- the root cause was
whoever decided it was a good idea to store 2700 tons of explosive fertilizer
so close to a city.

Secondary is whoever decided it was a good idea to store fireworks in the
warehouse that stored this explosive fertilizer.

Last on the list is the welders that were told to work on this door near the
fireworks and fertilizer.

~~~
tim333
>explosive fertilizer

Seems it may have been made for use as a straight explosive rather than
fertilizer:
[https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/12907955327014256...](https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1290795532701425664)

~~~
azernik
Note that this is specifically in a form factor made for mining explosives
(i.e. to be mixed with oil at the worksite to make ANFO) - not necessarily
very convenient for military use.

------
FillardMillmore
I don't understand why they'd store a cache of fireworks next to a cache of
ammonium nitrate. And what kind of rent-a-welder wouldn't be aware enough of
their surroundings and the associated risks that they wouldn't properly secure
the perimeter from sparks?

I'm not the conspiratorial type, but it really does seem like there's some
other information that we're not getting.

~~~
ceejayoz
"People did something dumb" hardly requires a conspiracy.

~~~
datameta
As the saying goes: Don't attritubute to malice that which could easily be
attributed to stupidity

~~~
danesparza
Also known as "Hanlon's razor" :-)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor)

------
DC-3
The first frame of that 1st video when the explosion hits is morbidly
fascinating. The image looks almost as if it is pieced together from torn
paper.

[https://i.imgur.com/1GkJgxt.png](https://i.imgur.com/1GkJgxt.png)

~~~
gnulinux
Is this because shock wave compresses air and makes it refractive like water
so it almost looks like there is a water droplet where the explosion
originates?

~~~
DC-3
That feels plausible. I think the effect of shock on the camera sensor also
plays a part.

~~~
_ph_
This looks like an early frame, a couple of seconds before the shock wave
reaches the camera. That is why there are so many clear videos, as it takes a
while for the shock wave to reach the observers - if you are 3 kilometers
away, you have 10 seconds to watch the explosion, before it hits you.

Camera sensors should also not generate artifacts due to shock, unless they
fail. But what is possible, that very fast moving subjects create artifacts in
the image due to the limited shutter speed.

------
rmason
I worked in the fertilizer business and my company sold ammonium nitrate to
farmers, mostly for use on potatoes. You need to use extreme care with this
fertilizer.

No one could purchase it (even before Oklahoma City) without us knowing them.
After Oklahoma City some TV stations in Grand Rapids sent reporters undercover
trying to make purchases and they failed.

You need either dynamite or a substantial amount of heat to cause ammonium
nitrate to explode. My boss tried to create a farm pond with it and his
initial attempt failed. He failed to use enough dynamite ;<).

Personally I'd nominate the Beirut Port Authority for a Darwin award. Without
the fireworks being stored in the building the welders sparks wouldn't have
caused the explosion.

------
myth_buster
> the port sent a team of Syrian workers to fix the warehouse

Welder's nationality doesn't seem to me a relevant info to be included in a
postmortem.

~~~
keenmaster
We haven’t been told the race of the person who ordered the welding, the race
of the judge who ordered that the nitrate stay on the port, the race of the
people who put fireworks next to thousands of tons of highly explosive
material in a dense city, etc...

Someone is trying to make Syrian refugees into Girardian black sheep. This
wouldn't be the first time. The irony is that Bashar Al Assad used nitrate-
filled barrel bombs to decimate the Syrian people, and he is supported by
Hezbollah and Iran, which have a huge influence in Lebanon. Their influence
cannot be separated from the incompetence and corruption that led to the
blast.

Here's the really crazy part: some people are saying that a lot of the nitrate
which was originally stored must have been smuggled out, because otherwise the
blast would have been larger. If true, it wouldn't be surprising that the
nitrate was smuggled for Assad to use in barrel bombs.

Here's a list of barrel bombs dropped by the Syrian Air Force. That's a lot of
nitrate...:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_Civil_War_barre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_Civil_War_barrel_bomb_attacks)

~~~
kamel3d
just a correction Syrian is not a race Lebanese and Syrians or Jordanians are
all arabs but you find different beleafe groups there, christians muslims
(Shia and sunni and...) and more but most of them are Arabs if not all

------
tunesmith
Welders next to fireworks next to ammonium nitrate

~~~
frankhhhhhhhhh
Reads like a cartoon to me.

------
azureel
I think the main issue here is: budget.

Lebanon is in severe economic crisis. And that effects everything, especially
government spending.

You say, "a demo expert should oversee storage of these stuff appropriately",
well that means hiring an expert. Or "use a professional repair crew"; that
means protective gear, removal of explosives around, special cold-welding
equipment; and all these require budget.

Hiring 2 immigrant welders for a week = 200 dollars (and I’m being extremely
generous here). Versus taking all the security measures and use protective
gear to do things right = 20.000 dollars.

I believe there are more and more bad things on the way for Lebanon. A major
electricity outage, or a leak in a chemical plant, or a bridge collapsing...
All due to maintenance problems, might be just around the corner.

~~~
ronyfadel
AN has been stored since 2013, economic crisis hit in late 2019. 20,000
dollars is nothing for the port authority, and the cost of storing the 2755
tons of AN in prime commercial real estate (Beirut port) is much higher to the
cost of disposing it. The issue is corruption, ignorance, apathy, lack of good
governance.

------
duxup
Who organizes these welders?

Whose job is it to check the site come up with a safe plan where / before the
welders work?

Maybe the welders should have known better, but there needs to be more between
total disaster and welding than just some guys with welding tools who probably
have little power to say no without consequences ...

~~~
throwaway0a5e
>Who organizes these welders?

>Whose job is it to check the site come up with a safe plan where / before the
welders work?

Nobody does any of that. It's not a rich country. They simply can't afford
that kind of overhead. Sure the welders could but they can't/won't do that if
the rest of the economy/society normalizes it and normalizing that and the
whole economy can't afford that. It sucks but that's just how it works. You
gotta get rich before you can afford to care about worker safety and the
environment. (Obviously it's not a hard cutoff, as you get richer you care
more about each).

Imagine the state of workplace safety in the US but in the 1950s. That's where
they are right now.

------
hprotagonist
Welding without sufficient care can cause a _lot_ of trouble.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Boston_Brownstone_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Boston_Brownstone_fire)
I hadn't seen a fire go to 9 alarms before this one.

~~~
pixl97
Really the welding was the thing that matters least in this case. The
environment that was created was so incredibly dangerous, so incredibly
negligent that practically anything involving a spark would have caused this
incident.

Fireworks near AN? Why not play Russian roulette with a single shot.

Storing AN for 6 years? Madness.

~~~
ashtonkem
When storing 2,750 tons of AN inappropriately near other flammable materials,
the question isn’t “why did it explode”, the question is “why didn’t it
explode for 6 years?”

This was bound to be the outcome eventually until someone got around to
actually storing that stuff correctly. It seems a small batch of welders just
finally drew the short straw.

------
fhub
I think many people are picturing the firework fuse getting ignited by a
spark. But it seems more plausible that the packaging/box caught fire igniting
the fireworks inside. Perhaps the packing/boxes obscured the contents of the
boxes.

------
SkyMarshal
_> Sparks from [the repair team's] welding work ignited a supply of fireworks,
which had been stored next to the ammonium nitrate cache._

Oh wow, I was wondering what the white-ish sparkles were just prior to the
explosion. It was the fireworks cache going off, which then ignited the 2750
tons of Ammonium Nitrate.

That's an immense amount of Ammonium Nitrate. I suspect one outcome of this
will be a new ordinance/law will that disallow such large caches of explosive
material from being stored in the same place. Rather it will have to be
divvied up and distributed to holding facilities out of blast range of each
other.

------
bichiliad
I’m having a hard time evaluating the credibility of this article. They
mention “multiple sources,” but I can’t find any references. Can anyone find
anything that vouches for the credibility of this report?

~~~
sumedh
Maybe the source(s) want to remain confidential?

~~~
bichiliad
Possibly, but I’m surprised that this is the publication they’d choose to
disclose such high-value information to.

------
chromaton
One thing I haven't heard about yet: who was paying for all that prime
warehouse storage space all these years?

------
deadalus
Archives :

[https://archive.is/vSiKi](https://archive.is/vSiKi)

and

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200814174018/https://www.marit...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200814174018/https://www.maritime-
executive.com/article/report-welders-set-off-the-beirut-blast-while-securing-
explosives)

~~~
llacb47
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.maritime-
executive.com/article/report-welders-set-off-the-beirut-blast-while-securing-
explosives)

------
matt-attack
Can someone explain the “heat wave”-like distortion that the camera briefly
experiences well before the blast wave seems to reach the building. How could
an atmospheric effect make it to the camera at two different speeds?

Not to be callous to the incredible tragedy at play, but I simply find this
video to be mesmerizing in its quality and potency.

In America we’re born and raised on countless explosions in pop culture
whether it’s a Hollywood or gaming. They’re to the point of being so utterly
mundane that it’s rare for Hollywood to wow an audience with a mere explosion
anymore (though I could certainly name some memorable ones from over the
years). We all now _think_ we know what they look like in urban environments,
and have for the last 30 years of high quality special effects. But. This
video is real. And the details and nuances at play have simply never been
depicted in film or tv before. To see the physics at play is simply mind
boggling to me. I’d love to read a frame by frame account by a true expert of
this 4K video.

~~~
jiggawatts
I'm not sure which video you're referring to, but there are several things at
play that can cause visual effects like you described.

1) The seismic wave travels through the ground much faster than the shockwave
in the air, and will rattle the camera. Cameras with anti-shake technology
will try to compensate, often badly, resulting in smeared or blurred images.

2) The visible expanding shell of vapor is not the shockwave, it is caused by
condensation in the low pressure zone _behind_ the shockwave. The shockwave
itself is harder to see, but it is still visible as a distortion or slight
blurring.

------
pizza234
There's something I don't get in this story.

Based on Wikipedia/Aljazeera:

      Customs officials had sent letters to judges requesting a resolution to the issu
      e of the confiscated cargo, proposing that the ammonium nitrate be either export
      ed, given to the army, or sold to the private Lebanese Explosives Company. Lette
      rs had been sent on [...]. One of the letters sent in 2016 noted that judges had
      not replied to previous requests

Have the authorities been so indolent that they avoided "doing some
paperwork", and indirectly causing a catastrophe, or the proposal of selling
the material was not realistic?

------
ghastmaster
I ran across the image in this tweet of work being done on the door to the
warehouse a couple hours after the blast. I presumed there was welding going
on and this set off the fireworks which led to the blast. It amazes me how
much information can be gathered in such a short time compared to just twenty
years ago. The internet is wonderful.
[https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1290782284686266372](https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1290782284686266372)

The repairs in the image are probably not the repair that caused the blast.
That was my thought process though.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
_> a supply of fireworks, which had been stored next to the ammonium nitrate
cache._

Wow.

~~~
techsin101
welding next to fireworks which is next to ammonium

------
erie
The reason that ship came to Beirut after all is very weird, there is
reportedly a mysterious businessman who pretended that there was another
shipment going to Jordan, that the ship could pick up on its way that would
the ship owner who was unable to pay its crew, to get some money, but it
turned out it was a ploy to lure the ship and take its AN shipment as a
compensation for an old debt between that mystery businessman with the owner
according to the marine agent.

------
hourislate
It's incredible that 4Chan had a thread with pictures of a 3 men working on
doors to the warehouse. They were welding them.

This was within 24 hours of the explosion. Was going to post it here but then
don't really think this board would appreciate 4chan threads...

Picture...

[https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1596600309252.jpg](https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1596600309252.jpg)

------
davidgerard
Reblog of original Reuters article from three days ago:
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast-
do...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast-documents-
excl/exclusive-lebanons-leaders-warned-in-july-about-explosives-at-port-
documents-idUSKCN2562L7)

------
ineedasername
Wow, welding next to a firework cache stored next to highly explosive
chemicals, a situation known about for years. There's really no need to appeal
to the swiss cheese model here. This was not a series of otherwise low-risk
events that came together at the wrong time. This was... I don't know,
something like the opposite of that.

------
aaron695
HN's hive mind will never get it but if it interests you here's a great write
up of how this happened in Texas, deals with some of the government processes
and creep too -

[https://youtu.be/pdDuHxwD5R4](https://youtu.be/pdDuHxwD5R4)

CBS is a great resource that should be shown in high schools.

------
LatteLazy
Scarey that a judge ordered the detention of this material and kept it and
kept it in a populated area for years despite multiple regular objections...

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosions](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosions)

------
llacb47
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.maritime-
executive.com/article/report-welders-set-off-the-beirut-blast-while-securing-
explosives)

------
LatteLazy
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosions](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosions)

Interesting history on why there explosives were stored in the port in the
first place...

------
dboreham
Right up there with "checking if there's a gas leak with a candle".

~~~
myself248
There once was a gas-man named Peter

On a dark night, asearch for the meter

Touched a leak with his light

He arose out of sight

And as anyone can tell by reading this, he also completely destroyed the
meter.

------
ChuckMcM
I love the description, welders working over a pile of fireworks stored next
to a ginormous pile of Ammonium Nitrate.

So in many ways it really was a bomb, but one constructed by circumstance
rather than intent.

------
sradman
I noted the maintenance connection in a CNN article about a week ago on HN
[1]. This “report” seems to skip the fire stage and the reports that fire
fighters were on site and noted the oddity of the fire.

> Maintenance was conducted on the warehouse door just hours before the blast
> on Tuesday, he added.

This looks like a key piece of evidence. Warehouse door maintenance could have
caused the fire seen at the start of the videos of the incident.

Until more evidence is revealed I think “warehouse with 2750 tons of ammonium
nitrate caught fire” is a good hypothesis.

Coulda, shoulda, and speculating about motivations can come later.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24069640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24069640)

------
jbirer
I call bad attempt at cover-up. The government is trying to redirect the anger
to "welders" because there is growing anger towards the ruling class.

------
doggydogs94
Hezbollah does a pretty good job of staying out of the line of fire; even
though I am sure they have helped themselves to some of the AN from time to
time.

------
shrimpx
They store a pile of fireworks next to 2700 tons of explosive materials, then
they send in people to make sparks right next to the fireworks.

------
umvi
Seems like hot work causes lots of accidents.

[https://youtu.be/zWkcuR0adeI](https://youtu.be/zWkcuR0adeI)

~~~
myself248
I would say, hot work reveals unsafe situations.

Unsafe situations cause lots of accidents.

------
coretx
This story stinks because;

-1- When you try to "weld" AN, it deflagrates at best.

-2- There where 2 explosions to be heard and seen. First subsonic, followed by a supersonic one relatively much later. |

-3-In order to detonate, not deflagrate AN, it needs to build up pressure.

-4- When either a fireworks or AN storage facility is on fire; the first thing you do did not happen.

-5- The explosion radius does not correspond to the presented narrative.

-6- The measured earthquake does not correspond to the presented narrative.

I can't tell you what did happen, but I can say we're all eating bullshit.

------
TwoBit
> "May God protect Lebanon"

Well there's your problem mr. government official. You thought God was going
to do your job for you.

------
majormunky
"Sparks from their welding work ignited a supply of fireworks, which had been
stored next to the ammonium nitrate cache."

Huh..

------
dcanelhas
This news article reminds me of the beginning of the book "Mostly Harmless" by
Douglas Adams.

------
throw7
"I am not responsible!"

I'm hearing this a lot from multiple so called "leaders".

------
tobyhinloopen
Seriously? They were welding next to fireworks and explosives.

Oh boy

------
beamatronic
Who stores fireworks next to ammonium nitrate?

------
kidintech
473 comments, 0 mentions of Rafic Hariri or Hezbollah. HN, I really had higher
expectations.

------
TimesOldRoman
Does this make a case for pro-Federal-Government? What would a libertarian say
about how a society would prevent these types of accidents?

------
m3nu
> Sparks from their welding work ignited a supply of fireworks, which had been
> stored next to the ammonium nitrate cache.

Wait. What?

------
mensetmanusman
Incompetence should never lead to a city exploding.

Whose whats when where why so much nitrite?

~~~
jagged-chisel
Ars Technica has an article [1] with some answers.

1 - [https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/ripped-chemical-
bags...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/ripped-chemical-bags-added-
to-risk-of-beirut-blast/)

------
olivermarks
[https://asiatimes.com/2020/08/who-profits-from-the-beirut-
bl...](https://asiatimes.com/2020/08/who-profits-from-the-beirut-blast/) an
alternative perspective which has a level of detail and questions that has
been missing from western media but is arguably from a hostile source

~~~
jcranmer
I downvoted you because the article you link is basically insane
conspiratorializing, based on the non-paywall link in the sibling comment.

It doesn't even keep the conspiracy theories straight:

* It was a plot by Russia to give explosives to Syria in a roundabout way [but it sits in Beirut for years despite being nominally in the hands of the people who are supposed to be delivering it?]

* Israel blew it up with a secret missile/bomb/weapon thinking it was a Hezbollah weapons cache and only realized their mistake after too much went up [because hyper-competent spy agency somehow decides that the best way to take out a large amount of explosive that dominates the list of largest non-nuclear explosions is to blow it up, or maybe they somehow did the intel figuring there was a large weapons cache but couldn't figure out what it was?]

* It's a US-France-Saudi conspiracy to seize control of the Lebanese economy and destroy the Chinese Belt-and-Road Initiative [that last bit comes out of nowhere actually].

~~~
olivermarks
Happy to be downvoted on HN! I agree there is much conjecture and projections
in the article but it does provide various facts about the peculiar route the
materials took to get to Beirut, lots of other questions about lack of
bureaucratic oversight etc etc...

I do feel there is a dangerous trend towards labelling investigative
journalism as 'conspiracy theories' and 'insane'. Facts are always
interesting, ideas about them often less so.


A Scrabble Luck Calculator - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/73/play/presenting-the-scrabble-luck-calculator
======
dmurray
> the computer who goes first won more than 56 percent of games, suggesting
> that there is a notable advantage to playing the first hand [...] There’s no
> way to know for sure what specifically causes this advantage, but perhaps
> giving one player initial control of the board has some beneficial effect.

"What specifically causes this advantage" is, to put it briefly, playing
first. The first player will have about 0.5 more opportunities to score. In
fact, since it's legal to pass, it's a trivial game theory result that any
advantage in Scrabble belongs to the first player.

~~~
gubbrora
Consider what happens if neither player wants to go first. P1 passes. P2
passes. Now p1 has to play or the game is drawn. If the game is played with
win3 draw1 lose0 rules, then p1 should play even if at a slight disadvantage.
A 49 % chance of payoff 3 is better than a 100% chance of payoff 1.

------
Amorymeltzer
The context is good, but fwiw here's the direct link to the calculator:
[http://www.kevinrmcelwee.ml/scrabble_luck/](http://www.kevinrmcelwee.ml/scrabble_luck/)

------
dbieber
I used to have a scrabble bot playing itself three times a day, posting its
games to tumblr:
[https://scrabblebot.tumblr.com/](https://scrabblebot.tumblr.com/)

IIRC simulating an AI-AI game only took a short period of time (maybe a few
seconds to a minute), so replicating the study with this scrabblebot wouldn't
be too difficult.

Source:
[https://github.com/dbieber/ScrabbleBot](https://github.com/dbieber/ScrabbleBot)

------
foxhop
Sorta related, I wrote a scrabble solver a few years back (includes sourcecode
in python)

[https://words.gumyum.com/](https://words.gumyum.com/)


New YC clone planned in Philadelphia - kkim
http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2007/12/24/story2.html?b=1198472400%5E1566817

======
gaborcselle
This sounds very methodical: They have "innovators", "strategists" and
"gurus".

What they'll be lacking, though, is access to the entire nation's talent pool.
They have no desire to attract people from all over. Unlike Boston or Silicon
Valley, PHL is not a desirable place to move to.

Also, they lack the pull of having a PG who is known to a hacker community.
This is the main reason why you and I can't clone YC (and yes, I've thought
about it: [http://www.gaborcselle.com/blog/2006/04/on-cloning-
ycombinat...](http://www.gaborcselle.com/blog/2006/04/on-cloning-ycombinator-
in-europe.html))

~~~
jwinter
No PG is a big drawback, but you're wrong about Philly.

Philly's got lots of great restaurants most of which are BYOB, plenty of cool
live music spots, great bars, cheap taxis, way more affordable downtown
housing, etc. A friend of mine pays what I'm paying in rent: he lives in a
spacious apartment overlooking the waterfront in Philly; I live in a tiny
third-floor walk-up a mile away from the closest T stop outside Davis Square.
Crime is starting to become a problem there again, but other than that it's a
great place to live.

~~~
icky
> No PG is a big drawback,

Evidence?

~~~
icky
Heh, I might have misparsed "'No PG' is a big drawback" as "No, PG is a big
drawback"... :P

Disregard my previous post.

~~~
edw519
(no pg) = (big drawback)

(% of us) CouldaBeen (English majors) > 90%

(% of us) CanWriteWell < 50%

HaveAbility.ToReadThisPost = Priceless

------
nailer
This is quite exciting. I was born and raised in West Philadelphia, where I
spent my days chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool, and shootin some b-ball
outside of the school.

Though I've since moved west to be closer to start-up opportunities (and after
an unfortunate physical confrontation with two gents up to no good), I applaud
their efforts.

------
rms
>The three men are willing to put up the money for DreamIt's first fund but
would like to get some economic-development money from the state and/or the
city for it, and aren't willing to back future funds without assistance.

Clearly they are not very confident. There are a number of state funded early
stage venture capital in Pennsylvania and they all lose money.

And their webpage looks like it was designed in Frontpage 2000:
<http://www.dreamitventures.com/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx>

------
ALee
I'm just wondering what their expertise is in comparison to YC and other YC
look-alikes. I mean if I were choosing something outside of YC, I would go
with TechStars, Europe, and probably the newer Launchbox Digital.

They seem to be in it to benefit on someone else's creativity versus YC (and
possibly others, time will tell) are in it to make "something useful."

------
lg
I live near philly and there's always "brain drain" talk (aka how can we keep
wharton grads in the city?) It looks like a lot of their speakers and mentors
are in finance/accounting. So whatever they say, I think this project is not
really about software startups.


Twitter employees threatened by ISIS-affiliated group - cgtyoder
http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/09/08/twitter-employees-threatened-by-isis-affiliated-group/

======
BrandonMarc
When we expect, and depend on, the truth coming out, entities involved in
spreading information take on responsibilities they may not have expected.
Yes, that means Twitter, and even Comedy Central.

Anyone remember the South Park episode with Mohammed, but in a bear suit so it
would be "okay"? Comedy Central showed where they stood on free speech by
letting that episode air.

Then, when Comedy Central employees were threatened, they also showed where
they stood on free speech by aggressively censoring the following episode.

Chilling effects ...

So now there's Twitter. I pray for the best for their employees, and I hope
they're secured in ways they can truly trust ... because I'd hate to see
Twitter bend to such threats. Actions set precedents.

It's amazing what chilling effects can do. Hell, just today, the Dutch Safety
Board said the Boeing 777 passenger plane shot down near Ukraine was "downed
by high energy object outside of plane" [1]. The whole planet knows it was a
missile, but the Dutch are afraid of pissing of Putin, so they tone down their
language to the point of saying as little as possible.

[1] [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/9/malaysia-
flig...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/9/malaysia-
flight-17-likely-downed-high-energy-objec/)


What Impossible Meant to Feynman - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/68/context/what-impossible-meant-to-feynman
======
eigenhombre
How fortune the author was to have had these interactions with him. Feynman
was my greatest hero as an undergrad physics student (largely because of
"Surely...", and the Feynman Lectures) and I was heartbroken when he died
before I could meet him.

Among other things, he showed again and again how much economy and power was
gained by attacking problems from different angles, and by building up and
applying physical intuition, rather than relying solely on brute-force
calculation. More importantly, he showed how much fun you could have solving
hard problems, simply by _playing_ \-- lessons that I was able to apply well
outside of physics.

------
oska
After the description of quasicrystals in the submitted piece, I found this
paragraph on the author's wikipedia page [1] quite interesting:

> Peter J. Lu and Steinhardt discovered a quasicrystalline Islamic tiling on
> the Darb-e Imam Shrine (1453 A.D.) in Isfahan, Iran constructed from girih
> tiles. [2] In 2007, they revealed a conceptual breakthrough that enabled
> early artists to create increasingly complex periodic girih patterns over a
> period of centuries, culminating in a nearly perfect quasi-crystalline
> Penrose pattern five centuries before their discovery in the West.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Steinhardt#Other_contribu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Steinhardt#Other_contributions_to_the_field)

[2]
[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/315/5815/1106](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/315/5815/1106)

~~~
agumonkey
not long ago there was an article about Leibniz inspiration through geomancy.
Which was also used for ages by humans, albeit not in a mathematical rigor
setting.

That led me to some rant, I think most of the core of mathematics is
absolutely natural to the layman of any place in space and time. Simplicity
and regularity is quite obvious to any body, but the education systems blurs
that off mathematics. Only advanced research can reconnect the two sadly.

------
l3robot
What a beautiful text. It just made my day. I think, for most of scientists,
these previously thought impossible outcomes is as, if not more, rewarding as
aligned with theory outcomes. Certainly this is one of the reasons that
encourage me to continue in science. Curiosity of course, but also the feeling
that impossibility is only temporary.

------
tzs
Feynman was still doing Physics X when I was a student there, about 8 years
after the time the author is describing.

One of my regrets is not taking advantage of that. It had been described as a
weekly session where you could go talk to Feynman if you wanted help with
physics, and since I was doing OK in freshman and then sophomore physics I
didn't need help. I didn't realize at the time that you could do more than
just ask about whatever was currently being covered in Physics 1 or Physics 2.

------
ken
"The groups of atoms in crystals repeat at regular intervals, just like the
five known patterns."

What is "five known patterns" a reference to? I found [1] but I don't see five
of anything here.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_structure)

~~~
ebcode
The Platonic Solids:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid)

~~~
jacobolus
Quasicrystals are based on the symmetry system of the
icosahedron/dodecahedron, in which it it is impossible to periodically tile
space.

“Proper” crystal structures are periodic, and are not necessarily related to
any Platonic solid. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_system)
(but I’m not quite sure where the 5 comes from in TFA).

------
xfitm3
Feynman was a brilliant man and quite the character. If you haven't read
"Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" I highly recommend you give it a read.

"The title derives from a woman's response at Princeton University when, after
she asked the newly arrived Feynman if he wanted cream or lemon in his tea, he
absentmindedly requested both."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Fe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Feynman)!

~~~
umvi
I liked that book and highly recommend it, but... by the end I got the
impression that Feynmann was intentionally _manufacturing_ interesting
anecdotes in his life, not just randomly having all these interesting crazy
coincidences happen to him.

~~~
wycs
Of course he was manufacturing them. He explicitly talks about the art of
having an adventure in the book.

~~~
tfha
There's definitely an art to setting yourself up for suprising and interesting
adventures in your life.

------
vira28
I read "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" during my high school days. In that
book he mentions multiple times about Pasadena (where CalTech is located). I
moved to US 3 years back and right now live in Los Feliz (close to Pasadena,
Los Angeles). First thing which I did after moved to LA, was visiting CalTech.
He made such a huge impact on my life.

------
l33tbro
Great read. What would be a good introduction to Feyman's writings for physics
noobs such as myself?

~~~
vajrabum
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman and it's sequel for fun. The Feynman Lectures
if you're interested in Physics. There are also some very interesting and fun
lectures on Youtube.

~~~
falcor84
Another good starting point might be "Six easy pieces"

------
darkerside
[http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_01.html](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_01.html)

The first of the referenced Feynman lectures. It's quite the fun read for an
introductory physics text.

~~~
agumonkey
his writing/speech style is lovely, so down to earth, it's a pleasure

------
tokyoHacker
A really good read. Apart from the books that he has penned, I really like the
videos ( available on youtube) in which Feynman explains the “why” behind many
common sightings.

Just a sidenote: Coincidentally flying to Caltech today for a week of
training. Wish he was still alive.

------
mcnichol
Oh just how fantastic!

Such great detail, I felt like a fly on the wall. Thank you for this.

------
signa11
from the article:

'''

I also learned that “impossible,” when used by Feynman, did not necessarily
mean “unachievable” or “ridiculous.” Sometimes it meant, “Wow! Here is
something amazing that contradicts what we would normally expect to be true.
This is worth understanding!"

'''

~~~
redleggedfrog
But, a pretty good read none the less.

------
sus_007
> _Feynman thought a moment and, much to our surprise, replied “Yes!” So every
> week for the next two years, my roommate and I joined dozens of other lucky
> students for a riveting and unforgettable afternoon with_ Dick* Feynman.

I don't know if that's meant to be a typo or an intentional name-calling ? Can
somebody confirm ?

~~~
richardhod
Back before Nixon, Dick was a perfectly allowable shortening of a first name
for [edit: mostly] white American men called Richard. Dick Feynman, Dick van
Dyke, Dick Sargent, even Dick Cheney. Only since the 70s / 80s has it become a
perjorative among younger generations, perhaps because of the Liar in Chief.

~~~
finnh
only white?

~~~
HorizonXP
I think this is a fair question. I think it was predominantly white men. Never
heard of a black man named Richard being called Dick. I think they usually use
Rick instead.

Richard ~= Rick == Dick

~~~
vibrolax
One exception was black comedian, author, and activist Dick Gregory.

~~~
raldi
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Allen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Allen)


Where is a good place to find remote friendly companies? - chovy

Where is a good place to find remote friendly companies that hire fulltime for software engineers?
======
sublimino
From [https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job#job-
board...](https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job#job-boards)

[http://www.authenticjobs.com/](http://www.authenticjobs.com/)

[http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote](http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote)

[http://www.flexjobs.com/](http://www.flexjobs.com/)

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

[http://www.golangprojects.com/golang-remote-
jobs.html](http://www.golangprojects.com/golang-remote-jobs.html)

[http://hnhiring.me/](http://hnhiring.me/)

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

[http://jobspresso.co](http://jobspresso.co)

[http://nomadjobs.io/](http://nomadjobs.io/)

[http://remotecoder.io](http://remotecoder.io)

[http://remoteok.io/](http://remoteok.io/)

[http://www.remoteworkhunt.com/](http://www.remoteworkhunt.com/)

[http://jobs.remotive.io/](http://jobs.remotive.io/)

[http://www.virtualvocations.com/](http://www.virtualvocations.com/)

[http://www.workingnomads.co/jobs](http://www.workingnomads.co/jobs)

------
shoo
[http://offsite.careers/](http://offsite.careers/)

[http://hnhiring.me/](http://hnhiring.me/) and filter using "remote"

[http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote](http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote)

~~~
chovy
Thanks...I haven't heard of hnhiring.me

------
BjoernKW
[https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)

~~~
chovy
I've seen this one -- its pretty good.

------
nthnclrk
[http://remoteok.io](http://remoteok.io)
[http://nomadjobs.com](http://nomadjobs.com)


The Real Problem with Mailbox - capwatkins
http://blog.capwatkins.com/the-real-problem-with-mailbox

======
tptacek
Another alternative to things like Mailbox is not using your email inbox as a
project manager at all.

After 15 years of abusing my own inbox this way (5172 "unread" todos to go!
yay!), I grabbed a copy of Things.app a few weeks ago, and then swept the last
month of my inbox into Things (skipping everything that wasn't actionable). I
use virtually none of the features of Things; it's just a hotkey bound to
"create a todo for this email" with the nice property of linking the todo back
to the original email. I've played with tagging and projects, but they're not
nearly as useful as just having a list of todos with checkboxes.

I don't do "GTD" or any of that stuff, and I am not a believer in the value of
"inbox zero", but I'm now a convert to the idea that your inbox is a crappy
organizer.

~~~
hinting
Mind sharing how you hooked the two apps together? Applescript?

~~~
kmf
Yep, Applescript. Quick Google search turns up this: [http://smoove-
operator.blogspot.com/2011/05/gtd-intake-autom...](http://smoove-
operator.blogspot.com/2011/05/gtd-intake-automation-with-things-and.html)

Worth mentioning that OmniFocus has a built-in tool for this (humorously
called the "Clip-o-Tron 3000")

------
uptown
My problem with Mailbox (and the reason I never activated it despite getting
to the front of their queue) is that it requires me to trust someone else with
access to my email. The inbox is the keys to so many other systems these days
once you factor in password-resets. I'm just not willing to hand over that
kind of access to an additional third-party beyond what I've already chosen to
accept as an acceptable level of risk by trusting Google for my webmail. What
Mailbox, and that decision not to use their service, has caused me to do was
make a concerted effort to reduce the amount of automated and spam mail I was
dealing with. Over the past couple weeks I've been able to make a noticeable
change to what hits my inbox each day.

------
pkulak
When Sparrow came out people complained that it couldn't send new mail
notifications. Now Mailbox does the only thing you can do to get that kind of
control and people complain that their servers could go down. People want bear
patrol, but they don't want to pay taxes for it.

~~~
cmicali
This is the reason. With iOS, this is the only way to get pushed new mail
notifications. The rest could be done without a server, but that was sparrows
#1 complaint (and for me and many others a requirement) +1 for bear patrol!

------
benatkin
Please don't call this travesty of a proprietary mobile app "Mailbox". They
don't own the word.

~~~
kmf
I'm curious what you'd prefer the author to refer to it as instead? Even the
article name uses it as a proper noun; I'd understand if it was "mailbox"
instead of "Mailbox", but it seems pretty clear to me. Mailbox.app?

~~~
benatkin
Not really my problem, but Mailbox on the Apple App Store (yes this is a
fractal of trademark abuse) or Orchestra Mailbox (like Google Tasks) works.

~~~
mst
I call it MailBox.app

Seems to disambiguate nicely.

~~~
benatkin
How about Mailbox.ipa ?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ipa_(file_extension)>

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qnk
Does Mailbox stores your e-mail in their servers? Even if it's temporary, I
don't think is a good idea. Why exactly do they need to do this? Building the
same awesomeness on top of an IMAP client wouldn't have achieved the same
goal?

~~~
uptown
"Mailbox helps you manage your email, and in order to provide you with that
service, we need to collect, store, and in rare cases, share your personal
information."

Yay - sharing!

"Mailbox is designed to help you manage your email account with other
providers, like Gmail. When you link your email accounts (provided by third
parties) to Mailbox, you give Mailbox permission to securely access your
information contained in or associated with those accounts. If you link your
third party account to Mailbox, that third party may also pass certain
information along about your use of its service. While Mailbox does not store
your password to these email accounts, the service does securely store some
emails on a temporary basis in order to deliver them to you as quickly as
possible and keep track of your deferred messages."

<http://www.mailboxapp.com/privacy/>

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ben336
I think the author is missing part of the reason it runs through the servers.
Along with storing the "read it later" actions, running it through their
servers allows background checking and push notifications, which isn't
possible for 3rd party email services on iOS otherwise (though I agree that a
graceful fallback to checking gmail directly would be nice)

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goronbjorn
> And look, I'm not an engineer, but this seems like a really bad plan. When I
> launch Sparrow, the only way my email doesn't come through is if Gmail
> itself goes down. With Mailbox, I'm adding a second point of failure.

The first and most likely point of failure is network issues (i.e. no Wifi or
3G access).

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rogerchucker
[EDIT: This might be a bit off-topic to the issue raised by the author] I find
the whole idea of zero inbox incredibly useless to my workflow as I don't care
to treat email as GTD. The only value I get out of keeping Mailbox on my phone
is the snooze feature (which unfortunately no Google App Script or Chrome
Extension has been able to address properly yet). Once that gets solved by
Gmail, Mailbox will be a goner. And yes, even though the author pooh-pooh'ed
them at the introduction of the article, lack of labels and a couple of other
features (like Undo) make Mailbox a no-go for me on a regular basis.
Countering these objections with "missing the point" is extremely lazy IMHO.

~~~
borski
Have you tried Boomerang? Pre-Mailbox, their "snooze" feature was the only
thing I used for email. I love it.

<http://www.boomeranggmail.com>

~~~
spullara
I just mark things unread and handle them later.

~~~
rogerchucker
That's how I have been doing it until not too long ago.

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huhsamovar
No second point of failure => no native push notifications.

~~~
zwily
Not true - they could check email and send you push notifications server-side,
but still have the client talk directly to gmail for nearly all functions.

~~~
huhsamovar
> they could check email

That requires non-google action. That is a point of failure.

~~~
zwily
Sure, but the failure means that you don't get push notifications - you can
still use your email app.

~~~
huhsamovar
That is correct, and has nothing to do with my original statement:

No second point of failure => no native push notifications.