text
stringlengths 44
950k
| meta
dict |
|---|---|
Scribd (YC07) Has FREE (full book) by Chris Anderson online - ALee
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17135767/FREE-full-book-by-Chris-Anderson
======
jacquesm
wasn't this on here yesterday ?
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=691077>
and before that...
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=691070>
------
syntaxfree
Scribd is quite annoying. I mean, this is probably a deal between Scribd and
Anderson, but wouldn't the actual optimal solution be releasing it
simultaneously in PDF and HTML formats?
~~~
syntaxfree
And I said that before noticing the super-annoying left-right format that
requires scrolling but is incompatible to the left-right touchpad scrolling
feature of my web browser.
I think I'll just read some more small blogs from people who will make the
disruptive innovations of 2012. I wonder why I still visit
news.ycombinator.com
~~~
earl
You can change the layout -- click More -> View Mode -> List Mode
will do vertical scrolling, not book style L/R scrolling.
------
andrewljohnson
I think I'll just read wikipedia. Zing!
------
jakewolf
And I still can't read it on my kindle for free.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus - dcgudeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/airbnb-racks-up-hundreds-of-millions-in-losses-due-to-coronavirus-11584723498
======
chadmeister
It's kind of frightening to think of the broader economic impact it would have
on the whole real estate market if Airbnb went belly up. Aren't there a ton of
cases where people are mortgaging multiple homes and paying them off with the
revenue they generate? That cash just dried up over night and there doesn't
appear to be any incoming federal support.
Edit: Look, I'm all for affordable housing, but when viewing this within the
context of a looming recession and potential financial crisis I can assure you
that the last thing you want to do is add in a potential amplifier to a
housing market crash. Houses may get cheaper, but everyone is going to suffer
in very difficult to imagine ways. Corporate debt markets are looking scary as
hell right now. If you threw a housing market meltdown at it right now, we
could easily be looking at something much much worse than what we saw in '08.
~~~
tylerchilds
As someone that would like to buy a house one day, I welcome this. People
owning multiple houses to rent out to vacationers that people would like to
actually live in doesn't upset me at all.
If people buying houses to rent on Airbnb artificially inflated the housing
market, it's just a necessary correction and federal support would be a
mistake.
~~~
mandeepj
>People owning multiple houses to rent out to vacationers that people would
like to actually live in doesn't upset me at all.
If people buying houses to rent on Airbnb artificially inflated the housing
market
net-net : is n't both the same?
~~~
jankassens
Airbnb turns housing into hotels. Typically those are zoned differently,
potentially subsidizing housing for locals at the cost of driving up prices
for travelers.
------
saltedonion
This is fair. A lot of hotel groups have seen their revenue drop 75 to 90
percent. Airbnb was never profitable (I think) and this round of trip
cancellations put them deeply in the red.
~~~
drwl
> Airbnb was never profitable (I think)
Do you have any sources for this?
~~~
MegaButts
AirBnB first announced profitability in 2018, followed by 2019.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/airbnb-
sa...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/airbnb-says-it-made-
a-profit-again-in-2018-as-ipo-looms-large)
That said, I'm not sure how many asterisks are attached to the definition of
profitable. Likewise, the fact that a company that holds no substantial assets
while operating in the face of most regulations only became profitable in
2018, while clearly being the market leader, makes me wonder what is going on
with their financials. It should not take 10 years for a company like AirBnB
to become profitable, it should take closer to 5.
I know they had a disagreement with their CFO in 2018, and it took them the
better part of a year to find a replacement. Admittedly, the replacement seems
incredibly qualified.
[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/26/airbnb-hires-cfo-dave-
stephe...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/26/airbnb-hires-cfo-dave-stephenson-
amazon-exec.html)
~~~
listenallyall
No they didn't. Literally the first sentence of your Bloomberg link includes
"based on a common measure that excludes some expenses."
They made an EBITDA (operating) profit. They were not a profitable company.
------
yesplorer
Why should Airbnb be making losses at this point?
Are they refunding booking fees to customers while paying hosts?
Traditional hotels lose money because of huge amount of, costs (both fixed and
variable) associated with running a hotel.
shouldn't Airbnb be making so much money at this point?
Edit: "...at this point?" not in reference to the current pandemic, rather at
this point of how far Airbnb has come and how they've become a household name
all over the world.
~~~
CydeWeys
Why would they be making lots of money when their business is tanking? Their
reservations have more than halved, so that's a huge drop in revenue without
much if a drop in costs (unless they fire half their workforce and walk away
from half of their office leases).
~~~
user5994461
They should not be tanking. Airbnb is in a highly profitable business with
very high operating margin.
For reference, they take 20 to 30% commission on each booking, whereas the
fixed costs to run a website are ridiculously low. Even with half the
bookings, it's still a cash cow.
~~~
shartshooter
A company growing as aggressively as AirBnB wasn't taking a 20-30% profit and
paying out shareholders.
They were taking that 20-30% and reinvesting back into growth. That means
people, offices, tech, marketing, audits of homes, process, insurance, etc.
When things look good you can run lean and focus on growth. If things start to
turn you can ratchet back those costs.
Unfortunately, things turned on them _very_ fast and they aren't that nimble.
When you've got 15k employees with salary, bonuses, benefits, offices that
aren't being used and overnight you reduce your top line revenue by 50%+
you're likely in the red and from what I hear, they were in the red prior to
this.
AirBnB will likely be a casualty of this downturn. They're highly focused on
the part of the economy hardest hit by COVID-19 and are unable to diversify in
time.
Lots of folks will lose their jobs, a lot of others may lose second or third
homes that were used solely for part-time rentals. It's going to be hard on a
lot of people and had AirBnB not gotten so far out over their skis they'd
likely be OK, but would not be the market leader they were a few weeks back.
~~~
imperialdrive
There is NO WAY they have 15K employees! edit: Wow, ok, so the number appears
to be 12,736 - incredible. Well, I'm speechless.
Good for them for passing money down to staff, but my goodness, how does it
make financial sense, no clue.
~~~
CydeWeys
You're right, the correct number is around 13k.
------
listenallyall
How does this submission drop from top 10 to 3rd page in about 20-30 minutes?
Not allowed to mention anything negative about YC co's?
~~~
dang
The opposite: we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or YC startups are
involved. Obviously the trust of the community is critical and we would be
dumb to risk that.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment)
It doesn't mean that we don't moderate such threads at all, though. We
penalized this one the same way we've been penalizing almost every coronavirus
story, because if we didn't, HN would have consisted of nothing but
coronavirus for the past week. I don't see this story as significant or
interesting enough to rise above the threshold. "$Company is losing money" is
a dog-bites-man story right now, especially in that industry. No?
~~~
listenallyall
Thanks for explaining.
> we've been penalizing almost every coronavirus story
Only you know the actual volume of coronavirus-related stories, and whether
leaving them as-is would cover the entire top 10, entire first page, or entire
first 3 pages.
However IMO the adjustment, or "penalization," being applied seems too severe.
CV is obviously the most important news topic in the world right now, the
situation changes extremely rapidly, making the comments section, with
contributors from around the globe, highly relevant and informative. My
opinion is that up-to-date CV-related content on HN has been difficult to
find, and the lack of such, in favor of random, often whimsical topics,
trivializes HN.
As I write this, the only CV-connected stories on page 1 are at #19:
"Chloroquine, past and present" and at #28: "State projections for Covid-19."
While its understandable not wanting HN to be totally dominated by CV, I think
there is a better balance to be had.
~~~
tptacek
On any given day, most of the world's most important news topics aren't on the
HN front page, and don't belong there. There are plenty of other sites that do
a better job of reporting on the entire world.
~~~
listenallyall
> most of the world's most important news topics aren't on the HN front page
because they don't gain traction among the HN audience. CV has, and to a very
large degree, according to dang's comment above.
~~~
dang
> because they don't gain traction among the HN audience
That's a bit of a misperception. They do gain traction. If we didn't moderate
them, HN's front page would consist of the hottest topics of the moment and
would be a different site altogether.
The strongest force on the internet is indignation—orders of magnitude
stronger than curiosity—so there need to be countervailing mechanisms (like
software and moderation) to contain its effects and allow HN to be HN. Upvotes
alone don't do it, unfortunately.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22upvotes%20alone%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)
~~~
listenallyall
I appreciate your thoughts in this thread, and more importantly, your
willingness to explain your decisions. Your diligent moderation throughout the
site ensures it remains a terrific, unique and much-needed resource. Thank
you!
~~~
dang
Thank you too! It's important feedback to hear that the explanations are
helpful, because otherwise I need to recalibrate how I do it, or just (if it's
not working) do less.
People are most welcome to ask further questions if there's something we
haven't explained yet. I'm slowly building up a corpus of links to previous
explanations, which is why my answers are so full of HN Search links.
Eventually we might compile all that into some web pages.
------
moneymattress
If you didn't know this already. "Poor" AirBnb here is simply letting
customers cancel their stays without even letting hosts know and is then not
paying hosts [1].
Note that a lot of these "hosts" are often small guesthouses that barely make
rent and now have basically nothing for the next months. Of course you have
your fair share of "rent hackers" on AirBnb but beyond that a lot of people
run genuine small businesses around the platform and care a lot about their
guests.
[1]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/03/15/airbnb-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/03/15/airbnb-
coronavirus-cancellations-guests-cancel-for-free-hosts-pay-the-
costs/#742ec36f131b)
~~~
imperialdrive
Airbnb was for people to make extra cash with extra space. I highly doubt
people are going to be in ruin over a couple months of cancellations.
------
gadnuk
Weren't they already losing money prior to this? Seems like a lot of companies
are attributing losses to the Coronavirus masking the actual problem behind it
all.
~~~
vincentmarle
They lost close to $300M last quarter. And those were the good times.
~~~
maximente
well that's a little disingenous. they have been profitable before.
from where i stand they attempted to turn their platform into an entire travel
experience (w/ business travel "certifications", spending lots on verifying
pictures/host setups/etc., experiences) as opposed to just sharing homes. i
believe they have large M&A associated with this, buying up some longer-term
rental sites who may have been competitors in the future as well.
------
zwieback
We recently bought a small condo in Portland for our weekend use and as we
were shopping around it seemed like the whole Airbnb-triggered rental market
was already hopelessly overheated. With the capacity that's there I can't
imagine occupancy rates averaged over the year being worth it for the condo
owners. I'm guessing there will be a glut of condos available after the virus,
many of them in foreclosure.
------
dk8996
I'm not very surprised, most of the travel industry is getting hit hard. On a
side note, I had a very bad experience with Airbnb. I found out, because it
happened to me, that they remove negative reviews of hosts. I lot of the
rating on their site are goosed.
------
mrnaught
this reminds me of the quote "You never know who's swimming naked until the
tide goes out." by Warren Buffet
------
neonate
[https://archive.md/AMpB5](https://archive.md/AMpB5)
------
foepys
It will be interesting to see what happens to all these VC-backed companies
that have been losing money for years and are still not profitable.
When the VC money runs out not even government bailouts will help. Helping
money-losing companies to lose more money isn't in the interest of a
government unless they are essential to the rest of the economy or national
security.
Maybe the bay area will be hit much harder than other companies.
~~~
shartshooter
A lot of the herd will be thinned out for sure. Customers of ours are starting
to lay folks off.
Ultimately, it's a question of how long and deep the downturn is. A couple of
months and VC-backed companies already losing money may be ok. A couple of
quarters and you'll see a lot go belly-up depending on who they sell to.
~~~
unlinked_dll
This isn't winter kill thinning the herd though, it's more like the mass
extinction of American Buffalo during the push to the west.
Companies with good fundamentals are laying people off en masse and burning
their cash reserves rapidly. It's not just the VC backed companies, or the low
marging/highly leveraged mom-and-pop, big box retail, airline, whatever.
I'm terrified what's going to happen on May 1 when rent checks and mortgage
payments bounce.
~~~
richajak
We were brainwashed that sharing economy (uber, wework, airbnb) was going to
be our savior. We were renting because assets were too high to own, better to
do short rent; cheaper and less commitment. Looks like those sharing economy
model cannot solve the root cause. The coronavirus acts as a RESET to the
whole society. We may see a collapse in housing price, business bankruptcy,
and stock market. If we have to think positively, the current situation will
only stop when all of these apply -stock price reflects 8-10x true profit, not
EBITDA -average housing price in Manhattan will be be 3x working class income.
-young people get decent job, not survival gig, not blocked by increasing
retiree or union.
If this virus was artificially made or by natural evolution, I can say it was
meant to reset the society. It will actually prevent WW3.
------
qiqitori
How? What are they spending their money on? They need to put people on leave
and "pause" their business as quickly as possible!
~~~
fbonetti
They’re losing revenue due to the massive amount of recently cancellations.
~~~
atwebb
I think the OP was asking, why is income negative on any revenue (they lost in
Q3/Q4 of FY19), what are the expenses that can't be covered?
~~~
CydeWeys
They employ a lot of people and have office space. Any big company has a large
amount of fixed costs that will drag you under when income dries up.
~~~
yesplorer
Airbnb has over 5 million listings and 150 million customers around 190
countries and they don't make enough in commissions to pay rent, salaries and
server costs?
~~~
CydeWeys
They don't. Period. That's a simple fact. No questions need asking here; they
do NOT make enough money from their listings to cover all of their costs, full
stop.
~~~
yesplorer
Then they're indeed not fit to run their business, period.
~~~
CydeWeys
OK, so what are you going to do about it?
~~~
yesplorer
Am I supposed to do something about it? Do you know the meaning or point of a
discussion forum? You're such a bad loser, lol.
Wsj published the article, what are they going to do about it?
Don't be rude, it's stupid.
You can have the last word.
------
tibbydudeza
Is WeWork still worth something ... guess co-working is a bum idea right now.
~~~
Traster
Isn't it hilarious looking back, people were making the argument "In the next
recesion co-working spaces are going to explode as a great way of managing
costs". Turns out... maybe not this recession.
~~~
paxys
Who the hell was saying that? It was pretty universally acknowledged that if
there was a recession WeWork would be the first one to go bust. Of course,
they did it before the recession actually happened.
------
joshmn
Makes me wonder if they will start to offer "trip protection" or the like. The
economics of it checks out.
~~~
sureshv
Who would underwrite that at this moment?
~~~
joshmn
Great question. But, at a company in the past that I worked at, they just took
a gamble and hoped they wouldn't have to pay it out. Morals aside, simpler
times.
------
rocketpastsix
I watched Airbnb places ruin Nashville. I feel for the employees of Airbnb,
but Im not exactly sad to see this .
------
fny
Why don't they borrow given we're at 0 percent rates?
~~~
rwmj
I suppose the serious answer is it depends on (a) can businesses borrow at 0%
(actually no, not even banks can, the fed rate is not 0). And (b) if they
could borrow at 0% what would the term be? The fed rate is only an overnight
rate so it requires constant refinancing. If AirBNB could borrow for 20 years
at 0% it might make sense, but in terms of how it able to borrow in reality,
probably not so much.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Self-Interruption and Distraction - rbanffy
http://nautil.us/issue/48/chaos/are-you-a-self_interrupter
======
krrishd
I recently stopped using all of my social media, inspired by Cal Newport's
Deep Work, and this resonates deeply with me.
At risk of sounding like an out-of-touch baby boomer (I'm 18), I think the
portrayed utility of staying connected with people, etc etc, isn't the utility
that drives our social media usage anymore. For me at least, the only tangible
thing it accomplished in the long run was disrupting my boredom. I found that
most of the content I was consuming was the equivalent of reading a magazine
in the bathroom; I probably don't give a shit about the contents, but some
content (regardless of quality) is preferable to idle boredom.
I've found, after a few weeks of not using it at all, that the times during
which I'm bored are more easily spent on things that I'd otherwise ~feel~ too
busy for, even if I had the time to do them all along. It's not even that I
fill my boredom with productivity; I, kinda abstractly, feel less busy now
that I allow myself to idle. It's weirdly made life a lot less stressful even
though browsing social media is technically zero-effort.
It's also inspired me to tune out all of the content that relied on a push
model to reach me (unsubscribing from certain newsletters, barely any
notifications enabled, etc). It gives me a feeling of control to be able to
choose when to consume certain content instead of being made to by virtue of
notification.
~~~
Robotbeat
> I recently stopped using all of my social media...
Same here. And yet here we find ourselves on HN... :)
(In our defense, the signal to noise ratio is much better here.)
~~~
rm_-rf_slash
But in a way that's worse, because the engaging content and discussion on HN
makes it that much harder to put the phone down and get back to work.
At least with Facebook I know there's almost nothing of value and with the
news it's almost always bad, so I'm otherwise not missing much.
~~~
krrishd
That's fair, although I consider HN a value-add when I use it (once in the
morning). You're right though; if it ends up being a habit to check randomly,
it causes a lot of the same problems social media does.
~~~
sjellis
It's worth noting that Hacker News has an anti-procrastination feature: set
the "noprocrast" option in your profile to "yes", and then it will time-limit
your visits to "maxvisit" in minutes, and block you for the "minaway" period.
I don't know of any other site that does this. It's a very cool thing for Y
Combinator to have done.
------
gdubs
I read a lot of dead tree books – it's easier on my eyes and after looking at
screens all day I want a break. I also tend to find devices distracting, even
if notifications are off and I'm reading something – the device itself is a
habit trigger for distraction.
But I've noticed that sometimes it will take me longer to get through my stack
of books from the library. I'm interested in them, but it made me wonder about
my reading speed. There's compelling research that speed reading doesn't
really work in the same way as reading at a pace that's comfortable for you –
and anyway, I'm a somewhat fast reader.
So I started to wonder about the root cause of my slow reading, and having
listened to an interview with Cal Newport recently – and having read a lot
generally about distraction – I had a realization: it wasn't my reading speed
that was slowing me down. It was self interruption.
Last night I tried some of the basic techniques used in mindfulness meditation
– being aware when my mind was wandering, acknowledging the random thought,
and gently bringing my attention back to what I was reading. It felt like a
form of exercise. Meditation after all is considered a 'practice'.
It made me realize that there are ways to start clawing back the capacity for
deeper concentration that has been scrambled by the constant notifications and
dopamine rewards of social media, and for me, reading is one of them.
Oh, and I burned through three chapters in relatively short time.
~~~
loco5niner
I have had the same feeling. I have noticed that my reading has slowed, and I
really struggle to get through "long form" reading these days. I really do
think the biggest influences in this are the tldr; aspect of the internet and
self-interruption. Thanks for the mindfulness meditation mention, I'll try it
out.
* also, what other things have you been reading about distraction besides Cal Newport?
~~~
gdubs
A few off the top of my head:
A book I often recommend is "The Organized Mind", by Dan Levitin. He focuses
heavily on the prefrontal cortex – executive function, etc. But the takeaway
for me was his analysis of how much it 'costs' the brain to context switch.
"Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is considered a classic on the subject.
An interview that's been on my mind recently is this one from 2013 on
multitasking with Stanford Psychology professor Clifford Nass:
[http://www.npr.org/2013/05/10/182861382/the-myth-of-
multitas...](http://www.npr.org/2013/05/10/182861382/the-myth-of-multitasking)
------
anotheryou
I have a curious thing: When I can't concentrate distractions sometimes help
me.
For example I watch twitch (I find it kinda booring, which is good) when I
can't concentrate on work. It helps me getting started, stick to the more
booring repetetive work and when a chellange arises, I just loose track of the
twitch stream completely and focus on work.
Now here my theory: I can't focus if something is too boring (e.g. waiting for
compile times or doing something repetetive). I need to stimulate my brain
enough not to drift off, but light enough so I can still focus on demand.
This theory goes will together with my habit to listen to podcasts at 2x
speed. Lower and my mind wanders off and I miss whole passages and have to
skip back.
It even kinda forms a hierarchy:
\- reading difficult texts: absolute silence
\- writing: music only
\- programing: twitch
Interruptions from outside though are always horrible. My phone is usually
completely silent (not even vibrations) and I hate people for calling when
they could have used async communication.
~~~
Graziano_M
I do similar. To not get distracted from coding when it's compiling I often go
to keybr.com and do typing practice to prevent myself from doing something
else more engaging and forgetting that I have a compilation to check in on.
------
rconti
This article is 100% me, but with an important caveat: I've always been this
way.
I've simply never been able to focus very well on tasks for an extended amount
of time. Occasionally I'm able to really dig in and work on a project for
hours on end, but that's a once-every-few-months kind of thing. Working on
technology infrastructure means that it's an endless pile of interruptions and
emergencies and fires and urgent requests and so on. I don't think it's a
_good_ way of working; on the other hand it probably suits my brain pretty
well. It makes it hard to implement truly complicated solutions, but often I
find that's not what the requests are about anyway.
I wish I was able to focus better; on the other hand, my job won't let me do
that anyway.
------
emodendroket
I don't disagree with the overall thrust of the piece, but the information
about the F-shaped reading and four-second page switch doesn't imply, I don't
think, what the author thinks it does. Typically people are sifting through
tons of search results to find what they are looking for and exhaustively
poring over each source before moving on wouldn't make a lot of sense. Not
really the same as being distracted.
~~~
aesthetics1
I think what the author (and most of the piece in general) is implying is that
because this is the way these interactions with technology occur, it is
forcing us to be less focused overall.
------
zitterbewegung
I agree I seem to have a smaller attention span for certain things. But, there
are other contributing factors. If I want to tune out of everything I usually
do this in the car while I am driving and put some music on. The reason while
I work I have a shorter attention span is usually when I am stuck on a task.
By distracting myself I can get back to the task relatively quickly. Also,
working in my department and helping others is a contributor. On the other
hand if I have a firm grasp of what to do and I am sufficiently motivated I
can get in the Zone and focus. I agree with the article that our attention
spans are shorter due to the over stimulation that society has created through
new technology. On the other hand the tasks that we do have also increased in
complexity so I think its a yin and yang thing. Due to the fact we have been
steadily increasing worker productivity we have created ways to overstimulate
ourselves to keep up with that productivity.
------
superpope99
If you are interested in this, consider reading 'The Shallows' by Nicholas
Carr. Ironically, I have become a worse reader due to distraction, so the book
took me about a year to finish - but I definitely recommend it! You will come
away from it vowing to quit Facebook/HN/The Internet.
~~~
amelius
> You will come away from it vowing to quit Facebook/HN/The Internet.
Then why are you here? :)
~~~
superpope99
Oh, well the feeling fades... but for a short while it's quite compelling!
------
wideem
Damn I couldn't even read the article without: 1\. Googling something that
came to my mind 2\. Going to reply to my friend on facebook (later completely
forgot why I went to facebook and kept scrolling) 3\. Checking Hacker News
comments 4\. Writing a comment
------
pif
Shouldn't the title be "Why Our Attention-s- Spans Are Sho _r_ t?"
Short attention span on the author's side? ;-)
~~~
acqq
It seems the submitter changed the title, against HN policies.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Xinhua's first English AI anchor makes debut [video] - ccozan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAfiATTQufk
======
ElBarto
Interestingly, there are many Chinese videos on Youtube, discussing current
events usually, which are not voiced by an actual human but by a synthetic
voice.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Low Risk Way to Start a Business - ramabk
http://www.activefilings.com/startups/the-low-risk-way-to-start-a-business/
======
rafikech
Those are very simple facts. I think there is way more into it. I recently a
good article similar to this one. I wil try to find it and post in here...
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Take a sneak peak at Moonstone's UI and tell us what you think - bitsapphire
https://marvelapp.com/a31d7h#3555223
======
ben_pr
Looks nice overall.
I have a hard time reading the light green on grey or white background. Not
sure if it's possible to improve the contrast without wrecking your color
scheme.
------
PaulHoule
I'm not signing up for something where I have no idea what it is for.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Questions about work visa and founders unable to relocate to SF for YC - justinireland
My co-founders and I are interested in applying to YC. However, one of them is unsure of his ability to be in the Bay Area during the semester. He is willing to work remotely in his spare time during the YC process but would be unable to make the full-time 3 month commitment with us.<p>Another one of his concerns is that he is in the US on a temporary work permit while he is in the process of applying for H1B. He is afraid leaving his current job would jeopardize his H1B application.<p>So my questions are:<p>1. Is it counted against us if one of the founders is not able to relocate during the YC process? Are we better to apply with him listed as a founder not able to relocate or not include him at all in the application?
2. Has anyone else dealt with work visa issues during YC or any startup? Seems like this would be a common issue as many founders are not residents of the US.
======
gamechangr
Yes it would be counted against you to have a founder not present (I have not
done YC though)
I wouldn't include him.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The American Press on Suicide Watch - tokenadult
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/opinion/10rich.htm
======
cma
Newspapers are a product sold for personal consumption and priced accordingly,
but they have enormous positive externalities. The traditional solution to
dealing with something with positive externalities is via government subsidy;
doing so for news in a direct manner is obviously a bad idea, since the
primary positive externality provided by reporting is the check it provides on
the government and other centers of power. Doing so through a government
funded voucher system could be one possible solution.
Everyone would receive $X of money with a mandate to give it to any news
organization they wish. A condition of the money is that the organization
receives it blindly, e.g. they don't reward you with anything in exchange
(this isn't a subsidy for you to buy a daily newspaper).
The primary difficulty with this solution is that under such a system, how do
you ensure the money is spent on news? As one example, how do you prevent Bob
from spending his voucher on his neighbor's sham "news organization", and his
neighbor doing likewise on Bob's sham "news organization"? You can easily
craft legal language to remove a one-level tit-for-tat situation like that,
but how do you do so robustly for the many other manifestations?
If you allow the government to choose who constitutes a real news organization
and who doesn't, the voucher system loses many of its advantages (the primary
one being proportional representation through the "individual choice" a
voucher system provides, rather than monolithic "majority choice"; of course
in both cases there is still a monolithic decision made on how much funding
will go towards news).
~~~
pie
Although it seems like a political and economic improbability in the US, I'm
somewhat fond of the BBC's (potentially as an extension of PBS's) system of
large-scale, government-supported news. Clearly we would prefer a more
distributed, personalized, and capitalist solution for funding quality news,
but it seems as though we're losing a lot of steam while groping around for
some unknown salvation of our current paradigm.
If our society really does _need_ exhaustive, deep journalism from large-ish
organizations (which seems to be an underlying consensus among articles on the
topic), then it's probably the government's duty to keep these institutions
and practices alive.
Perhaps all this hubbub arises from a lack of vision though, and investigative
reporting and in-depth analysis of current events are not in jeopardy at all -
they'll simply come from different sources that most of us would expect.
~~~
Retric
Sadly I find publicly funded news organizations (BBC,PBS) far more informative
than private organizations (NBC,FOX). However, I suspect directly paying for
news that is not primarily funded though advertising might be the best
solution. Removing the costs of TV / printing paper and filling a 24 hour news
cycle means far smaller organizations can still fill the need for real
reporting.
The other option is something like "the daily show" where in depth news is
just one type of content and you don't need to yammer on about every new case
of H1N1 to fill an hour of news every single day.
PS: The reality is paying 10,000 or so journalists is just not that expensive
a proposition and assuming the current system is the only way to fund them is
probably missing the point.
~~~
Xichekolas
I think you make a good point about the hour long format.
News seems like a case where the time constraint was beneficial, and the
product has become less valuable (more noise) ever since that constraint was
dropped by the 24 hour news networks.
When I was a kid, we watched the 10 o'clock news every night before bed. The
first half hour was world news, the second half hour was local news, and it
always wrapped up with some local human interest piece. Yeah, it was a staid
format, but it also meant the signal to noise ratio was high, because you
really only had time to say what was actually important/informative.
With 24 hour news, we basically have the same information, but it's diluted by
23 hours of commentary on "what might happen" and "what's your view on what is
happening". Why do we want to listen to people speculate all day? If the
speculation was at least honest and intelligent, you might be able to learn
from it, but I'm fairly sure you could find a higher level of discourse in
your local high school debate class.
------
lacker
It seems awfully ironic to see an article lamenting that newspapers don't
"get" the internet right after the New York Times buys iht.com and immediately
breaks all its incoming links.
------
davidbnewquist
The author laments: "Web advertising will never be profitable enough to
support ambitious news gathering."
Really?
~~~
tokenadult
Is there a counterexample on the horizon?
~~~
netsp
The assertion is not necessarily wrong, it's that it misses the point. It
implies that the natural order is that 'we do the content, you do the ads.'
You aren't doing your job, that's why we are failing.
That kind of attitude lets news-people stay high browed & complaining about
how suits are ruining their content, so long as they are bringing in the ad-
dollars. The new paradigm (as the author goes on to explain) has the dumb
suits replaced with the dumb public ("The real question is for the public, not
journalists: Does it want to pony up for news,...?") The constant is 'real
news.' The world better hurry up and find them a business model or you'll be
sorry.
If I step back and look at the whole thing from the outside I'm not worried
about democracy and the flow of information being destroyed by a mostly free
web.
Taking a step even further back, I would note that there is systemic risk in a
business model where you're main advantages are disconnected from your revenue
sources. They were never selling news. People have never bout news. They were
a way for companies to interact with their customers. They are no longer such
a good way of doing this.
~~~
akkartik
I wrote up a suggestion 2 weeks ago.
<http://akkartik.name/blog/2009-04-23-21-23-27-soc>
------
adatta02
and the irony is now I can't even read the article without logging into NYT.
~~~
jonknee
What's ironic about that? Just log in (it's even free). It would be ironic if
you couldn't read the article because the NYT went out of business.
~~~
adatta02
I'd vote for the irony because I can't opt out of signing in, I can't sign in
with fbconnect, I can't use OAuth, I can only enter the walled garden that is
NYT for no apparent benefit.
I guess it could be worse - all the NYT content could be paid subscription.
------
msluyter
There are certain ritualistic and tactile aspects of newsprint that I'll
dearly miss. Just something about waking up, drinking coffee, opening up a
fresh paper to read the front page... There's something primal about that that
can't be replicated virtually.
~~~
ars
There is a certain ritual of me starting my computer and clicking the news
sites from my bookmarks. There is just something about picking which stories I
want to read, and seeing my customized categories that can't be replicated in
a piece of paper.
If it wasn't obvious: everyone has different morning rituals. I've never had
yours, and I'm not a teen.
------
DannoHung
Well, here's the deal: We don't really want journalism, we want investigations
into everything being done all the time by a party uninvolved with the
investigated subject. We also want the findings of all those investigations to
be recorded somewhere.
After that it's just a matter of really bored people trawling through the
investigations looking for juicy information.
So, fundamentally, we want a distributed Big Brother. Always watching, always
judging... everything.
------
Ardit20
_it’s only journalism that’s essential to a functioning democracy_
Yet
_Stephen Colbert, appearing at the annual White House Correspondents’
Association dinner, delivered a monologue accusing his hosts of being
stenographers who had, in essence, let the Bush White House get away with
murder (or at least the war in Iraq)._
How is such journalism protecting democracy when it can not hold accountable
its government when it matters the most. These papers are hardly journalism
they are the establishment and this is clearly shown by: _Colbert’s routine
did not kill. The Washington Post reported that it “fell flat.” The Times
initially did not even mention it. But to the Beltway’s bafflement, Colbert’s
riff went viral overnight,_ Clearly therefore it seems that newspapers are not
doing their job of informing the public and the public seems to find the
information without their help. Hence if newspapers die then so be it. Their
upholding of the spirit of democracy is only empty rhetorics when the actions
show that they do nothing of the sort. Their drums of death to democracy if
they die is utter hypocrisy when looking at the facts. When there is a void to
be filled I doubt there will not be brave journalists to fill it without the
help of the newspapers.
P.S Funny huh, yesterday we read about Murdoch wanted to charge for papers,
today we read a propaganda piece exactly to convince people to pay. I would
not pay for New York Times and the sooner they die the better not least
because their boss seems to have the power to meet with any leader he wishes
promptly. This is not journalism, this is propaganda.
------
TweedHeads
It is unbelievable how paper still wants to compete with electrons, and how
cardboard-CEOs refuse to accept the same fate of music, videos, books and now
news.
There is nothing they can do. If it can be electronically consumed, it will
be.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Thor Stefansson reportedly escapes from prison, goes to airport and flies away - petethomas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/04/19/alleged-bitcoin-heist-mastermind-escapes-from-iceland-prison-goes-to-airport-and-flies-away/?noredirect=on
======
DrScump
I like the quote from the professor: “Prison breaks in Iceland usually mean
someone just fled to get drunk”
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: Is there an API for HN ? - olalonde
Is there an API for HN ? I've seen a lot of apps around HN and I'd like to build my own. Is there an API for HN or are those apps scraping the content?
======
tpyo
<http://news.ycombinator.com/rss> ?
~~~
mmastrac
Thanks, I've been looking for that for a while. Is that linked anywhere?
~~~
tpyo
At the bottom of the page.
------
grinich
I built the HN iPhone app. (<http://michaelgrinich.com/hackernews/>)
Right now, it's all done via web scraping. I think others have used
BeautifulSoup.py and similar tools to quickly grab content.
~~~
grinich
I've also seen a few people use Yahoo Pipes, although that was blocked for a
while.
------
zachbeane
You can download the Arc tarball and read news.arc to see what's available.
It's not up-to-date with the current version of Hacker News, but it will give
you the general idea.
The direct answer to your question is "no".
------
jacquesm
Depending on the 'timeliness' you can scrape the google cache or you can ask
Paul if it is ok to scrap HN directly.
------
Mark_B
Please don't think this a trollish answer but, why not just ask the people
behind the various HN apps how they're getting their data.
~~~
bravura
Like whom besides searchyc
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The $10,000-a-year college education has arrived (1981) - Futurebot
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/19/nyregion/the-10000-a-year-college-education-has-arrived.html
======
cassieramen
This article hints at schools inability to justify their ever increasing
prices. Why is tuition continuing to rise so much faster than inflation? Is
this simple supply and demand? Government backed loans create infinite supply
to anyone who wants them? How can not for profit schools justify gauging their
students?
~~~
crabasa
1\. Infinite supply of loans. Dept of Ed isn't even _allowed_ to deny a loan
to a person.
2\. Culture since the Clinton era of "everyone should go to college". Massive
cultural stigma for those who don't.
3\. Colleges continue to justify costs based on lifetime earnings delta of
people with degrees. Sadly, this data is backwards-looking and not indicative
of what today's students should expect.
The most heinous thing though is that student loans are exempted from American
bankruptcy laws. The gov't will give you a loan, without doing any diligence
on your ability to repay, but make it impossible to discharge your debt if you
go bankrupt.
~~~
jenshoop
Spot on. There's also been an increasing competitive push between universities
to deliver "country club-esque" experiences to students, which further drives
up cost. (Separately, let's not forget about the chaos of the educational
publishing industry and the insane price points they command for modestly
updated editions each year.) But I think items 1 and 2 above -- and a lack of
education about what loans are and the value of a higher ed degree to the
potential student -- are the true culprits here. There's a cultural
expectation that all students will matriculate to college, and many high
schools measure their success in terms of college attainment. Meanwhile,
there's a lack of counseling/education for students, so few know that they're
expected to repay loans and fewer explore the options (college and non-
college) in front of them, and counselors would be working at cross-purposes
with the secondary institution's goals if they advised against attending
college. As demand for higher ed continues to grow, for-profit higher ed
institutions continue to spring up to suck up federal loans and lower
acceptance standards.
~~~
zo1
>" _There 's also been an increasing competitive push between universities to
deliver "country club-esque" experiences to students, which further drives up
cost._"
That was my impression of University/College. Having only experienced what was
shown in movies and the media, I was under the impression that college meant
getting your own "apartment with a roommate". Unfortunately, in the non-US
university I attended, it meant "4x6" meter room, two beds, two cupboards, two
desks, and two-roommates.
Then again, the entire year's tuition did only cost about _$3500_ , about 9
years ago.
~~~
brbsix
At least in my experience at a UC, the media portrayal was fairly accurate. It
seemed like there was a never-ending onslaught of concerts, "multicultural
events", sporting events, "community center" activities, safe spaces, Greek
events, etcetera (all of which receive school funding in some form or
another). I appreciated the occasional guest speaker, but looking around I
couldn't help but notice money pouring from everywhere, namely for things that
had nothing to do with academics. Far too many administrators with too much
time on their hands.
------
blisterpeanuts
It's quite likely that by the time my 11-year-old hits 18, private
universities will cost over $100,000 per year (tuition plus fees, housing, and
food plan), and public schools will be $25K [EDITED orig. $50K] (plus or
minus, depending on state subsidies and other funding such as corporate
donations).
While the university experience is undoubtedly a valuable one for the 18-22
age range, with tremendous intellectual and socialization opportunities during
this formative period, I wonder whether it's still going to be the best and
only pathway to intellectual and social growth.
With MOOCs and other online learning resources flooding the internet, many
free or for moderate fees, the focus now has to be on justifying the classroom
experience. Are you still best off in a 300-seat lecture hall,
scribbling/typing notes while a grad student or adjunct spews information from
the lectern, at an arbitrary time of day that if you somehow miss it, you're
out of luck? You can't exactly ask the lecturer to pause while you go to the
toilet, or "please rewind 10 seconds, I missed something". _Maybe_ they have
videoed the lecture and _maybe_ the videographer remembered to zoom in on the
powerpoint screen at the right times.
You hope that meeting all those fellow students will lead to a group learning
experience -- "Hey, let's meet at the coffeeshop and go over this stuff
together!" That's possibly the best way to learn material, to teach it to your
colleagues and have them quiz you as well. But is that not reproducible in the
online model, e.g. chatrooms, skype, etc.?
In my opinion, the U.S. government should get out of the business of providing
and guaranteeing educational loans. It has resulted in a vast, bloated system
of exploitation of the students and the loan system, and we are now facing
possibly a trillion dollar bubble that may burst in the next few years if all
those freshly minted degrees don't lead to good paying jobs to retire those
loans.
Universities in the U.S. must be put on notice that the free ride is over, and
they have to get costs under control, stop with the billion dollar student
centers and bloated administrative offices, and try to get back to basics of
providing lecture halls and white boards and reasonably secure jobs for
professors to do what universities ought to focus on: teach.
~~~
liquidise
I agree with getting the US Gov out of the loan business, but i think we the
market to react, and it has begun to.
For many professions, colleges can be substituted by trade schools. We are
already seeing this surge in software, and i think we can expect the trend to
move into other verticals. At some point, and for some majors this has already
happened, a BS/BA stands to lose you money over a lifetime.
At a point, college is no longer fiscally viable. In these cases, a cheaper,
more targeted approach is highly marketable.
~~~
logfromblammo
If you separate the testing and certification from the education, it isn't
quite so important where the knowledge/skill came from, so long as the person
has it.
For instance, if you take the rock guitarist certification test, and pass, you
should be able to play guitar passably well in a rock band. It doesn't matter
if you studied in a music conservatory for a few years, or worked small-time
gigs in bars and clubs, or played a guitar-learning video game.
It's not the education that's the bottleneck. It's proving to others that you
have the knowledge/skill in an efficient way.
The professional associations for actuaries (SoA, CAS) runs their own testing
regime. You can take a university course to prepare for the tests, but you
don't have to. That testing and certification process has led to the situation
where passing another exam usually triggers a pay increase. And actuaries
consistently rate as having very high job satisfaction.
ABMS runs certification tests for specialist physicians.
Lawyers have the bar examinations and board certification for specialists.
The same could happen for other careers. A group with a narrow focus could
poach the testing and certification function from the generalist universities.
For someone who has no need for external guidance with respect to a general
education, and who knows what sort of _career_ they want, they could skip
college, and climb the ladder of a testing authority. That would present some
risk that the authority itself fails in some way before all the tests are
passed, and the career position established.
------
wlucas
What makes all the difference in the world now compared to the jaw-dropping
prices in '81 is we have alternative education options. There were virtually
no other paths to career success 30 years ago... heck... 15 years ago! A
traditional path towards a degree was the only way to assure a positive career
outlook.
I don't think MOOCs are the panacea, but all types of learning resources
(books, classes, organizations, events, people) are all more accessible. The
entrepreneurial approach to learning.
~~~
dpark
I feel like this is backwards. 30 years ago you could potentially work your
way up the ladder without a degree. Now you need a degree to get a job working
in a coffee shop, because college degrees are so ubiquitous that they've
become a prerequisite for employment at many places.
Sure, you could do some learning on your own now, but you could also do that
30 years ago, and I'm not certain most employers are going to put much stock
in self-directed education regardless, not when there are so many
underemployed college grads available.
~~~
nommm-nommm
Totally backwards.
I know a lot of people in their 30s-50s who would never be able to get hired
for their jobs now since new hires in their position need a college degree
which, by the way, is hilariously stupid. Employers expect you to have a
college degree to clean the toilets now.
------
kevindeasis
I'm still waiting for a dramatic disruption of the college/post-secondary
industry. I hope it comes really soon, but I'm starting to doubt if it'll come
within the next 5 years. I think it's going to take lots of people to disrupt
education especially since the government will get involve.
I'm starting to feel that some courses in college/university isn't worth that
much money. Like a 50,000 degree that has lectures and materials freely
available online? Seriously? Furthermore, some professors are amazing at
research, but has no business in teaching.
This looks like a massive waste. It's a huge problem and there are big
opportunities in this area.
~~~
losteric
> I'm still waiting for a dramatic disruption of the college/post-secondary
> industry. [..] I'm starting to feel that some courses in college/university
> isn't worth that much money.
It's still coming. As college grads increase in supply their value decreases
(top-tier colleges/students aside). More and more students are realizing their
college education has a negative ROI... in fact, outside of software, most of
my friends are not using their degree at their job.
I think the "code-school" trend is the start of a "micro-degree" program.
Self-service fluff-free education with a standard certification exam is pretty
compelling. As we see that proliferate to other domains, we'll start to see
micro-certifications (just the test). The missing component seems to be the
in-person meetings and networking that comes with physical college. I predict
we'll see more online school(s) supporting a physical meeting space for
students to network and learn from each other... maybe even a new campus model
that strips out the cruft of traditional centralized education institutions.
------
ewindisch
Parents pay more than this per child today for daycare[1].
[1] [https://www.care.com/a/how-much-does-child-care-
cost-1406091...](https://www.care.com/a/how-much-does-child-care-
cost-1406091737)
~~~
gohrt
Day care is far more labor-intensive than college. The student:staff ratio in
daycare is at most 6:1, for 40 hr/wk attention to students.
At a college, the ration is 10:1 or 20:1, for <20 hrs/wk attention to students
------
trentbigelow
If you're looking for a legit degree for around or under $10,000 check out
International Programmes at University of London. There's even some
undergraduate degrees from the LSE you can take remotely.
[http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/courses/search/?solrsor...](http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/courses/search/?solrsort=sort_title%20asc)
~~~
trentbigelow
I should add that I'm sharing this because I wish I knew about this before I
took on a oil tanker full of student debt to go to a "prestigious" US school
only to leave before graduating to do a startup. Startupers, consider this
option on your own time for (relative) cheap from a prestigious uni.
------
swampthinker
Adjusted for inflation, that is roughly $26,100 in 2015 dollars.
~~~
muzz
and 1981 when the article was written was a period of hyper-inflation
" 'families will still allocate about the same percentage of income in real
dollars' because college charges have only paralleled the inflation in the
nation's disposable personal income"
------
igonvalue
Adjusted for inflation, that's over $26K in 2015 dollars [0]. But of course
the punch line is that price increases since then have significantly outpaced
inflation. This phenomenon is known as Baumol's cost disease.
[0] [http://inflationcalculator.us/](http://inflationcalculator.us/)
------
peter303
The 'total package' at some schools recently passed 70K. Assuming 5% education
inflation (twice CPI), these schools may hit 100K in 8 years.
~~~
Alupis
This "total package" typically includes room and board, as well as other
normal living expenses (food, transportation, clothing, etc...).
You would be spending that same amount even if you did not attend university
(anywhere between $20K-$40k per year in living expenses).
~~~
usea
Many schools require taking said "total package" for the first semester or
first year. I know at my university, all incoming freshmen were required to
live on campus and purchase a meal plan. For anyone who lives nearby or
planned on shopping around, this is an additional cost.
~~~
Alupis
That's a good point. My university did not have this requirement, however I
should point out, even if you lived at home, or moved out on your own - you
will be spending this money anyway.
As-in, it doesn't matter if the university requires you to take this package
the first year, since you're spending it no matter what (on living somewhere).
It's just a matter of who you give that money to.
If you don't want to spend student loans on normal living expenses, one should
work while attending university, this way your loans are only for your tuition
and related school expenses... not for rent and food.
~~~
moron4hire
Well, no, not exactly. If you're living at home, your parents are paying for
your housing. It's money that is already getting spent. If you have to live in
the dorms, your parents don't get a break on their mortgage or rent because
you moved out. If your parents are helping you out, they now have their own
rent to pay, plus a new rent for you, where before they essentially got "your"
rent "for free".
Similarly, adding one person to the home grocery bill was not anywhere near as
expensive as the meal plan. Most universities run their cafeterias as profit
centers. You're paying restaurant prices. Cheap restaurant prices, typically,
but still more than cooking at home.
~~~
Alupis
The main point I was making, is it's unreasonable to complain about high
student debt when majority of it is living expenses.
People often complain about the high cost of attending university, but don't
differentiate between tuition fees and living expenses, often lumping them
together to reach a seemingly egregious yearly tab. It's not so egregious when
you examine where the money is going...
You would have spent near the same, or the same amount on just existing
(living expenses)... had you not gone to university.
Sure, if you live with your parents, they'd be picking up the tab for you, but
once you've joined the "real world" and moved out, you're having to cover your
own living expenses.
~~~
ambicapter
So you're saying people who go to college shouldn't expect to have time to
study?
~~~
Alupis
It's certainly possible to work while attending university. I did it...
~~~
moron4hire
Good for you. I had to quit working in my second year to be able to have
enough time to study as much as I needed.
~~~
Alupis
I think I understand the point you're raising - students should focus on
school-work and not have to worry about working to pay bills.
I would disagree, however.
> I had to quit working in my second year to be able to have enough time to
> study as much as I needed.
Wrong, you chose to prioritize school over working (and I presume the
resulting outcome was more student debt to continue paying for your expenses).
You didn't have to quit working, you chose to. You could have easily reached
an equilibrium between work and school by reducing your classload, and
continuing to work. School would have taken longer, but you would have less
debt (and I'd argue you'd be a better workforce candidate after graduating).
Getting back to the main point, if you decide not to work and pay your living
expenses yourself, then you will need to either borrow that same money (in a
loan for example), or get a relative to pay your way for you. It's the same
dollars at the end, it just matters how you obtained them.
So when people complain about very high school fees, and it breaks down to
60-80%+ are normal living expenses, it's tough to find sympathy. The only real
way to get rid of those fees entirely is to have the Tax Payer foot them for
you (and now we're back to just moving numbers around to wind up with the same
exact dollars spent on living expenses). Somebody's got to pay for it.
Further, I would argue students who work while attending university gain
invaluable experiences that a normal "professional student" would not be
exposed to. Working with others in a true team environment, typical
interactions in an office, exposure to "real" work in industry, "real"
consequences for missing an assignment or due date, etc. It matures the
individual a great deal - where-as a typical "professional student" graduates
with none of these experiences, then spends 1-3 years in industry having to
learn them before becoming truly productive and valuable to their company.
------
mhb
Subsidies increase tuition:
[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/12/sub...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/12/subsidies-
increase-tuition-part-xiv.html)
~~~
fredgrott
that is not real truthful..
As subsidies increased the upswing in HS students attending college happen..
1970s 25% HS students went to college
2000s 85% HS students went to college
Its not the subsidies that increased its the shear numbers of students per
college campus increased beyond what the US state budgets for college could
weather..
The correct term would be that US Federal subsidies had a side effect of de-
funding public colleges at the State levels.
------
crabasa
Another, lesser known side effect of the unlimited access to student loans has
been the rise of "degree factory" for-profit universities and their super
aggressive and deceptive recruitment tactics. It is yet another lesson in the
law of unintended consequences:
[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-for-profit-college-
set...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-for-profit-college-
settlement-20151116-story.html)
------
dovereconomics
Inflation-adjusted, $10000 in 1981 translates to $26109 in 2015.
------
jxramos
LOL, didn't even realize this was a historical piece going in. I was about to
be impressed if someone in the modern era created some means of achieving a
college degree equivalent for the stated price tag. I was envisioning some
sort of online thing, but too good to be true.
------
reubensutton
I think the real problem in education is that credentials have become prized
over learning.
------
j1o1h1n
For reference, wages in 1982 -
[http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1982/10/rpt2full.pdf](http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1982/10/rpt2full.pdf)
------
abecode
I play devil's advocate with a Cuban friend sometimes: an expensive education
is better than a free one because it shows that our culture highly values
knowledge, at least in terms of money. When education is free or cheap, it is
devalued, at least in terms of money. It's a bit of a tongue-in-cheek argument
but I think that it's good that people highly value education and it would be
even better if the tuition increase would trickle down into pay for professors
and post-docs. The high tuition does already trickle down to scholarships for
good students, at least in personal experience.
~~~
roymurdock
Students in the UK pay £9k (~$13.5k) per year out of pocket for the 3 year
university system. They were paying just £3K (~$4.5k) until 2012. University
was free in the UK until 1998. Many universities in Germany still remain free.
Is this because the British or German society values education less? No, it's
because Europeans pay more taxes on average, and their governments use this to
subsidize the sticker price of tuition in tandem with funding and guaranteeing
student loans. In the US, tax money is only used to guarantee student loans,
while private universities are left to their own devices when it comes to
pricing tuition.
Price is not always a good proxy for value. You need to look at who is paying
for it, and when.
~~~
distances
And of course, free (meaning paid in taxes) in all of the Nordics.
At least for smaller countries this makes total sense, I think. There are
enrolment limits, so the brightest get in regardless of their social status or
wealth, ensuring that the country gets the educated workforce for its needs to
stay competitive.
------
1812Overture
Classic case of Baumol's Cost Disease. The core of a university education is
still sitting in a room writing down what a professor says. This hasn't
changed in more than a thousand years. It hasn't gotten more efficient while
just about everything else has, increasing its relative cost. Unlimited easy
loans have allowed the problem to spiral out of control by preventing economic
forces from forcing innovation and increases in efficiency.
------
zekevermillion
Higher Ed in the US has long been a luxury good, where price is no object. Or
rather, there is a correlation between price and demand. Or at least, sticker
price and demand -- institutions discriminate between customers by offering
scholarships and need-based aid to maximize income, and to maintain a high
sticker price.
------
outside1234
The question I have: What is the actual cost of having a student at a
university in the US per year?
~~~
sreyaNotfilc
I couldn't say. Honestly, I wouldn't think that it would be much. A lot of the
courses haven't changed much year-over-year.
The question I have is with modern technology, why isn't there a startup that
had figured out how to remedy this issue.
Surely there's a way to provide top notch education without having to break
the bank doing so.
------
fecklessyouth
>'If there's no major reduction in Government loans and grants, we're in good
shape,' said Donald Routh, dean for financial aid. 'If there are reductions,
then we have some very real problems.'
Yes, if only...
------
ouiyaaa
I know its uncool to here to talk about Bernie, but if you dudes are really
serious about this- vote for Bernie, even if you're rich because rainy days
may come anytime
------
jnardiello
My tuition fee in a top-notch european technical college (automation
engineering) was roughly 3000$/year. But yeah, let's keep cargo-culting the US
model.
~~~
outside1234
You probably forgot taxes in that cost (that you will pay for the rest of your
life as a high earner) but, that said, that is a great model: the country
makes an investment in you, you prove you are serious about it (the $3000 a
year), and in return, the country gets a higher wage earner (and more taxes)
to pay for the next generation.
~~~
jnardiello
No, I didn't. That was the total tuition fee including taxes. Obviously that
didn't include any sort of college accommodation or meal plan - as I lived at
reasonable distance from the campus. It was just standard "classes & exams".
That said, because tuition and taxes are proportional to family income, I was
in the highest and most expensive tuition fee. Most of the students in the
campus would roughly pay half of it - unless they would start to repeat
classes and not pass exams (for which you automatically jump to the most
expensive yearly fee).
~~~
thesis
The person you're replying to mean't taxes you pay on your income after
college.
------
lsc
I have a different perspective. I'm in my mid-30s, and I'm considering going
to college. Now, I can get very senior sysadmin/sre roles, and believe I could
get a mid-level swe role (certainly could get a junior swe role)
Point being, I do okay; the Stanford budget of $65K/yr[1] would be super easy
if I could work a half-time job/half-time school; or something of that nature,
and comparing to getting accepted by Stanford[2], paying for it should be
trivial. I've talked employers into letting me work part-time before.
I guess that what I'm saying is that for a nerd, the real cost here is not
what you pay for college, it's the time off work. Now, maybe it is worth it
and maybe it is not,[3] but even when I was 18 (in 1998) I was making close to
$50K/yr.[4] Considering how everything has gone, I bet that was rather more
than Stanford charged at the time.
I mean, sure, I see that it's a problem that people pay that much for a degree
that doesn't convey a lot of privilege, but if my impression of how much
privilege is implied by a degree from a top school is correct, two or three
hundred grand for such a degree is downright cheap. We're talking like two
Teslas, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't depreciate like a car does,
unless the school falls in reputation later on.
I don't want to make light of the problems people who work in lower-paying
fields have, and personally, I think it sounds absolutely crazy that you ask
people who are all but children to decide if they want to take out loans
without the fallback of bankruptcy, and I personally don't have a problem to
some extent subsidizing people who want "education for education's sake"
-people who want to get educated and then work in a poorly remunerated field,
but I'm just saying that as far as I can tell, at least for us nerds, if a
school can do what is says it can do[5] and you aren't capable of doing that
by yourself, at today's prices, it's a hell of a deal.
[1][http://financialaid.stanford.edu/undergrad/budget/](http://financialaid.stanford.edu/undergrad/budget/)
[2]And qualifying for Stanford will take a lot of test prep, effort and luck
on my part. Qualifying is not anywhere near a sure thing for me; and that's
the first step. If I can't get into a top-20 type school... I'm probably not
gonna bother. My impression is that the benefits drop off pretty sharply.
[3]My impression is that if I want to continue on as an individual
contributor, a degree, even a Stanford degree isn't gonna get me all that
much. I already can get pretty good individual contributor gigs. But, if I
ever want to switch fields or advance into management, a degree from a top
college would be extremely valuable.
[4]I haven't yet gone over all the tax details here; all numbers are pre-tax.
I do have an accountant, though; _if_ I manage to qualify, I will spend the
money to learn what the tax status of educational expenses are in my case.
Obviously, if you have to pay for college out of post-tax dollars, that makes
a huge difference (and makes the "work half time/school half time" bit
essential, because you earn less and pay less in taxes)
[5]The theory is that a school can take a normal person and teach them how to
do my job. Maybe this is true, maybe it's not, but _If_ you accept that as
true, then even top schools are not expensive.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: What's your dream career? - quizbiz
I always wanted to manage a hotel resort even though it has little to do with my specific passions.
======
chaosprophet
Commercial airline pilot. Especially one that keeps flying into disaster-prone
areas and managing to touch down without incident.
------
jacobb
I'd like to spend the rest of my life having sex with really hot girls -- a
different one every night. That's a full time job.
~~~
entelarust
[http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/living/why-i-slept-
wi...](http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/living/why-i-slept-
with-1300-women)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Simplify Your Message, and Repeat Often - andyraskin
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/business/john-lilly-simplify-your-message-and-repeat-often.html
======
dceddia
This is a really interesting point:
_When I was a V.C. at first, I would just ask my questions and kind of poke,
poke, poke, poke. And now I’ll say: “Look, I’m going to ask some things, and
this might be kind of awkward, but I’m just going to say it, and let’s work
our way through it. And it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in you and your
company. I just want to understand where you are and what you think. I’m going
to ask some things and they might be wrong, but let’s figure some things out
together.”_
\--
I've noticed that people have different assumptions about what it _means_ to
ask questions. Some folks (like the interviewee here) just ask away, because
they want information -- their questions have no malicious intent behind them.
But on the receiving side, this can cause problems. Some people, when asked
probing questions (or any questions at all), will get defensive. Just the fact
that someone is _asking_ must mean they think something is _wrong_. Questions
like "Why did you choose Node.js instead of Java?" can be (and I think often
are) interpreted as "The questioner thinks I made the wrong choice, so I have
to defend my choice now."
People in the tech community seem particularly affected by this assumption.
Interesting that this VC ran into that problem too.
~~~
tchock23
Here is a little hack around that to not put people on the defensive. Instead
of asking "Why," say "For what reasons." It makes people less defensive.
(Source: Was a qualitative market researcher for 10 years, learned this
through hundreds of customer interviews).
~~~
bbcbasic
I'm going to use this when asking about legacy code. Thanks!
~~~
civilian
My go-to answer for questions about legacy code is: "We did it for legacy
reasons." ;)
~~~
bbcbasic
Or: git blame | grep exployees.txt
(pardon my lack of grep/git command line knowledge!)
------
TheBiv
This Q&A really hit home for me.
_Q: Early leadership lessons for you?
A: I didn’t understand the role of simplicity and messaging early on. One of
the things that happened at one of my start-ups was that I would get bored
saying the same thing every day. So I decided to change it up a little bit.
But then everybody had a different idea of what I thought because I was mixing
it up.
So my big lesson was the importance of a simple message, and saying it the
same way over and over. If you’re going to change it, change it in a big way,
and make sure everyone knows it’s a change. Otherwise keep it static._
~~~
caseysoftware
The best thing I've even seen in this space is the Brand Strategy Canvas. It's
like the Lean Canvas or Business Model Canvas but walks you through the
positioning and messaging for a startup.
At my last company, we didn't use it and had pieces of a strategy, message,
and an awful name. Then we sat down and spent ~2 hours and worked through it
block by block. It was painful but on the other side, we had a better name, a
clearer Vision, a simple way to describe that Vision, and lots of sound bites
to use in conversations, blog posts, etc.
My only complaint is that we didn't do it a few months earlier.
Here's a video of the creators walking through it:
[https://vimeo.com/112098978](https://vimeo.com/112098978)
~~~
mark_integerdsv
This is super interesting and great timing for me but I can't seem to access
the PDF anywhere,
Various links that I have found through google all point to what seems to be
an old half used domain...
Any suggestions?
~~~
caseysoftware
Looking for a copy of it.. drop me an email and I'll see if I can dig up a
copy.
------
adamjernst
> The other thing I would say is to stay close to professions that create and
> make things, and stay away from derivative professions like finance. I think
> makers increasingly have the power in our society.
Wow, interesting words from someone who works in finance.
------
User23
Like for example speaking at a 4th grade level and having simple four word
slogans?
------
MrZongle2
FTA: _" I remember when I was in second grade, we needed a new TV. All my
friends would just go to the store and buy one, but my dad bought a Heathkit,
and we had to put together the parts."_
What an awesome parent.
------
beat
Although message consistency is important, what message are you trying to
communicate, and to whom?
------
grandalf
Please let's ban paywalled articles or else change the link to a google search
so that the free version can be clicked.
~~~
grzm
The web link is the google search. Paying for news is arguably one of the ways
to improve news quality, and quality news is valued by many HN users. The
submission includes the source. If you don't want to visit a paywalled source,
HN already provides you with the information you need to make that decision.
~~~
grandalf
> Paying for news is arguably one of the ways to improve news quality, and
> quality news is valued by many HN users.
The NYT has lost its position as the paper of record and has lost so much
credibility. I used to be close to re-subscribing, but the horrible coverage
of the 2016 election has helped me vow never to subscribe again. The NYT is
America's Pravda and it continues to disgrace itself by trying to create a
narrative to supports its political interests (Judith Miller, etc.)
Posting paywalled stories is an attempt to help the organization generate
revenue, much like posting a link that adds an item to cart and funnels the
user right to the checkout page.
~~~
robbiemitchell
I don't understand your point.
\- Is paying for news categorically bad, or is it OK?
\- If it is bad, why do you think volunteers will magically produce better
results than paid journalists/editors/etc.?
\- If it is OK that news gets paid for, why do you object to posting paid news
sources on HN?
\- If you do not object to paid sources, but only to some sources, and the
sources are indicated when the link is posted, why do you think they should
the system should prevent the links from being clicked rather than let users
choose which sources to visit?
~~~
grandalf
> Is paying for news categorically bad, or is it OK?
Imagine if many HN posts were links to academic journals with subscriptions
costing $250 per year. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not fun to
continually click on links and be greeted by a paywall.
> If it is bad, why do you think volunteers will magically produce better
> results than paid journalists/editors/etc.?
It has nothing to do with how the writers are paid, it has to do with how the
publication generates revenue.
> If it is OK that news gets paid for, why do you object to posting paid news
> sources on HN?
I simply don't like clicking on a link and finding myself at a paywall. I'd
prefer to be able to filter out all such links and avoid ever knowing they're
there. They amount to teaser clickbait headlines for content that is not free
to read.
> If you do not object to paid sources, but only to some sources, and the
> sources are indicated when the link is posted, why do you think they should
> the system should prevent the links from being clicked rather than let users
> choose which sources to visit?
The source is low contrast and I rarely notice it when skimming the home page.
My suggestion of converting the link to a google search to allow the content
to be freely accessed would solve the problem.
~~~
robbiemitchell
FWIW, I believe outlets are shutting down (or have already shut down) the
Google search loophole.
------
notjustanymike
I think I get it. Let me try:
"Make America Great Again!" "Make America Great Again!" "Make America Great
Again!"
Ok. Got it.
~~~
venomsnake
Spot on. Simple focused. Connecting on the deepest possible level. It was sad
that the vehicle carrying it was not the best one. But it is incredibly strong
and potent.
~~~
pixl97
#FightingForUs, #StrongerTogether, or is it #ImWithHer today?
>The importance of a consistent message is all the more important given the
candidate Clinton is on a collision course to face in November: master
promoter Donald Trump. --Boston Globe, May 2016
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: How do some Twitter users respond so fast to get in the first comments? - bobjordan
I regularly see a few twitter users that are always among the first to respond to controversial tweets, like anything from Donald Trump and apparently, anyone else that posts content that turns into a lot of likes/hits. It seems like they must be using 3rd party software to help them get these top initial responses. Any insight into how they are doing this? Are there any open source libraries that enable this quick action?
======
DLA
Because others of us have productive jobs.
~~~
bobjordan
Sure, brute forcing it could work to an extent. But, for example, some users
are nearly always among the top 10 reposes to a Donald Trump tweet. I suspect
they are using some tools to enable it.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Oracle copied Amazon’s API – was that copyright infringement? - callwaiting
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/01/oracle-copied-amazons-api-was-that-copyright-infringement/
======
smiljo
Seems like Oracle is taking totally contradictory positions in this case and
the Google one.
> Did Oracle infringe Amazon's copyright here? Ars Technica contacted Oracle
> to ask them if they had a license to copy Amazon's S3 API. An Oracle
> spokeswoman said that the S3 API was licensed under an Apache 2.0 license.
> She pointed us to the Amazon SDK for Java, which does indeed come with an
> Apache 2.0 license.
> However, the Amazon SDK is code that uses the S3 API, not code that
> implements it—the difference between a customer who orders hash browns and
> the Waffle House cook who interprets the orders.
While I'm not a lawyer and didn't study the Google case in that much detail, I
don't see how they can claim that their own Java APIs can be copyrighted, and
then defending their copying of Amazon's API on the grounds that an SDK using
it is open source. I would think they could just look at the documentation,
and skip the SDK altogether. :)
~~~
twblalock
> Seems like Oracle is taking totally contradictory positions in this case and
> the Google one.
As a legal strategy, that's not a problem, and in fact it's what lawyers are
supposed to do: make the best possible arguments they can in any case they are
a part of. It should not be interpreted as a case of corporate schizophrenia
-- it's just the lawyers doing their jobs.
This can lead to contradictory positions if multiple cases are going on at the
same time. That's fine. The legal system is designed around the assumption
that this will happen.
~~~
fauigerzigerk
I think at Supreme Court level such a contradiction could be a (minor)
problem, because the economic consequences of API copyrightability without
fair use play a big role in that case. If Oracle's use of Amazon's API was
based on an industry-wide fair use assumption that has supported the
industry's economic viability over decades that could damage their argument.
However, I think that Oracle would argue that there is no contradiction.
In the case now before the US Supreme Court, Oracle argues that software
copyrights do extend to the interface/API and that reimplementing the
interface does not constitute fair use.
With regard to Amazon's API, Oracle argues that the license grants them
permission to reimplement the interface.
This argument doesn't rely on disputing copyrightability of APIs or on fair
use. It simply says that copyright holders get to decide whether or not
reimplementation is permitted.
~~~
ratel
Oracle will argue anything as long as it suites them. That seems to be the
nature of modern litigation.
Fact in this matter is that the license for the Amazon API does allow the API
to be copied. But Oracle did and does not follow the license, because the
required attribution is missing. They are therefor not protected by the
license. It is like using an illegal copy of Windows and claiming you had the
right to use it under the license for the small omission of not having paid
for it.
Even if the change the code to include attribution they are still liable for
significant damages to Amazon for the period preceding the correction. Amazon
can claim to them the attribution is a very significant part of the license
agreement: It would deter competitors having to advertise Amazon and tell
their customers that their product was actually invented by someone having a
competing product.
Google can claim their fair use was actually already common practice, as most
of us thought. Even Oracle itself assumed and acted on that assumption that
copying APIs was fair use / not copyrightable and did not require following a
license agreement, as they did not. Worst case for Google is that they should
not have to pay significant damages for something they and others would see as
a common mistake and Oracle's reversal complying with the Amazon license is
proof that there was no established judicial practice to follow.
So Oracle is in a pickle: Either they claim copying the Amazon API was fair-
use, or APIs are not copyrightable and they lose the case against Google. Or
they claim that the license of Amazon allowed for copying of the API and they
violated that license. The harder they push Google in the later case the
bigger the risk Amazon will claim their share of Oracle's pie in return.
Better get the spreadsheets out.
~~~
fauigerzigerk
Oracle claims to be in compliance with the license. In my opinion, that's all
they need to do in order to completely separate the two cases and make it
clear that they are not relying on a fair use defense. It doesn't matter
whether or not they are eventually found to be in breach of Amazon's license.
Also, the potential damages in these two cases are presumably very different.
Google built an entire industry on top of Android whilst Oracle is limping
along with a me-too cloud offering, some tiny part of which uses Amazon's API.
So I think Oracle would gladly take the risk of losing that case if they can
win the other one.
~~~
voxic11
But the license is for an SDK that talks to the API not the API itself which
is what they reimplemented. It's like if Google claimed that since Oracle once
released an Apache licenced Java application that means they can reimplement
any Java APIs that application used.
~~~
fauigerzigerk
My point is that Oracle doesn't have to be right in their potential dispute
with Amazon. All they have to do is use a defense that does not rely on
denying copyrightability of APIs or on fair use. And that's what they are
doing by referring to the SDK license.
------
dlgeek
I don't understand how Oracle's position here about how the Apache license
covering code covers the API and their position in Oracle vs. Google.
~~~
saghm
Their position seems pretty straightforward; other people should have to pay
them money, but they shouldn't have to pay other people money. They have this
same position on pretty much everything else too.
~~~
notlukesky
I don’t understand why stating the facts is cause for being downvoted?? The
hypocrisy is well known and documented.
~~~
tapland
It doesn't need to be stated. From reading the more detailed comments about
the cases one can draw their conclusions.
There is no need for simple 'because they are evil'-comments. It doesn't help
discussion.
~~~
opless
Maybe it does?
A causal reader might not be aware of how hypocritical certain operators are
in the IT space and are reading this for the first time.
Just because it's obvious TO YOU doesn't mean it's obvious to everyone.
Though I do agree that lots of "because they're evil" comments do not add to
the discussion.
Personally I think downvoting should be done carefully and not because the
downvoter disagrees with the comment.
~~~
nurettin
Since we are on the meta side of HN usage, I'm really curious about why people
here take time off to discuss their opinions at length. I occasionally throw
an idea or two out there to test what sort of response they would get, but
trying to convince someone out of their firmly held beliefs by arguing with
them at length in the threads? That looks like a complete waste and it is
unsettlingly abundant. Especially when the topic is a grey area where stakes
are high. High for someone else of course. Not the people who discuss these
things.
~~~
pas
Hm, it sometimes helps to organize thoughts to form a sort of well-rounded
argument. I like reading similar comments from others. (A sort of bigger
picture exposition, and/or a detailed technical walk-through that demonstrates
some point(s).)
Usually these comments are much more concise than whatever fluff article is
linked. (Or they provide some required context for posts that are very much in
need of it.)
------
Pandabob
This is wildly off-topic, but I don't understand how Oracle still makes money.
Who are their customers? What are they selling to them and what's their
comparative advantage? Do they make money off of MySQL? Java? Are they selling
services? I don't get how they're still in business.
~~~
syshum
I know many companies that just sent them 5-6 Figure checks to license JRE....
They also have Lots of Med to Large organizations using a number of their
products, a lot of them are Oracle customers simply because they were using
products that oracle acquired and since they are now entrenched into the
business process it is easier to keep paying Oracle than extract those
products with alternatives
~~~
Pandabob
Interesting. I wonder how threatened Oracle's business is by the big cloud
providers, Amazon and Microsoft specifically? I guess not enough to reflect it
on the stock price.
------
monocasa
I wonder who owns SQL. I hope IBM has been asking them this as well.
~~~
grzm
> _" I wonder who owns SQL."_
I don't know what it would mean for someone to "own SQL". It's an ISO
standard:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL#Interoperability_and_stand...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL#Interoperability_and_standardization)
~~~
gpm
What does being an "ISO standard" have to do with anything? The law does not
make exceptions for things the ISO chose to standardize.
In fact, if Oracle is right, the ISO is likely violating the copyright of the
original authors of SQL by even publishing that standard.
~~~
flomo
Almost certainly IBM was a major contributor to the SQL standard. Since the
entire point of a "standard" is to encourage third-party adoption, so it would
rather difficult to sue anyone, imo.
Sun set up a certification process for Java, but specifically had different
rules for mobile applications, because that's where they were trying to make
money. Not that I agree with Oracle's argument, but it was very willful on
Google's part to avoid licensing.
tldr; SQL is _not_ analogous to Android.
~~~
gpm
I'm not sure, but as far as I know there isn't any way to accidentally grant a
license to copyrighted material. Even if there is it is almost certainly all
sorts of things that everyone but IBM really won't like, for instance,
revokable.
And of course no one thought to ask for a real license, because no one thought
it was copyrightable.
Willful on Google's part to avoid licensing is sort of synonyms with saying
Google willfully complied with the law... I'm not sure how it's relevant.
~~~
flomo
It is the _most_ relevant thing when judges started disagreeing with Google's
take on the law. Sun wanted money for X, Google didn't want to pay for X. (And
IBM didn't want money for SQL.)
~~~
gpm
The only thing it could possibly be relevant for is if Google tried to argue
that they _accidentally_ copied the sequence structure and organization of the
API. No one is arguing that. Of course that was intentional.
It _definitely_ isn't relevant to the rest of this discussion... you're
comparing the attitude of the _producer_ of the allegedly copyrighted material
in one case to the attitude of the _infringer_ of the allegedly existing
copyright in another.
~~~
flomo
Well, Google is probably going to have to pay Oracle a lot of money, so I
guess you can wander around mumbling about _relevancy_ , despite whatever
facts are noted by the courts.
------
gregorygoc
Can I patent open/read/write/close methods? I might have an idea for the
greatest troll in modern era.
~~~
Spivak
No, because a patent would only cover your novel implementation of those
functions.
You can't copyright them either in the same way that Harry Potter is
copyrighted but not the word 'the' which is used throughout.
------
kalium-xyz
Just to be clear, you can get away with this?
~~~
o-__-o
to be clear, there is nothing illegal with reverse engineering something. the
burden is on the plantiff to prove infrigement (uphill battle). the problem is
when the source code with an unfriendly license is made available then the
question becomes is the new implementation infringing the work of the
original. oracle v google is tough because google basically took java and
executed 's/Java/GoogleJava/g'.
the amazon plea is different because amazon published their SDK AND gave it a
permissive license. further oracle is not looking at the S3 code to figure out
how to implement the API, they must implement the functionality of the API
based off guesses of the client SDK.
~~~
gpm
The permissive license here does not matter, since Oracle did not comply with
the extremely liberal terms of the license.
The implementation of Java and the implementation of the AWS API does not
matter, since the Oracle-Google suit is (at this point) strictly over the
structure sequence and organization of the APIs. How the code implementing the
API came to be is completely and wholly irrelevant to the suit at hand.
Not that it matters (as explained above), but you're also wrong that google
took java and executed 's/java/GoogleJava/g'. They re-implemented the entire
API in dispute by hand, the only portion they copied from Oracle's
implementation was the API.
------
tingletech
Did they copy the API, or, are they using open source software to implement
the API?
------
chunsj
This is why we should use free software and not just open source one. And the
importance of GPL3 for the humanity.
~~~
matheusmoreira
The GPL was created partly in reaction to copyright protection being extended
to source code. Copyleft licenses subvert copyright by forcing all involved to
do the opposite of what they'd normally do with a copyrighted work.
The real victory for humanity would be the end of copyright itself. Too much
time is wasted on trying to understand and work around this fundamentally
broken system.
~~~
ms4720
Why? Should not content creators make a fair profit on their content? This
includes books and movies. If you read Stallman's early writings on the matter
his goal was to have software development funded and directed by the
government, so no linux or bsds for example.
~~~
matheusmoreira
Creators need to figure out how to get paid _before_ their works are created.
Perhaps patronage via services like Patreon is the way to go.
If we keep relying on copyright, we'll eventually lose everything that makes
computers great. Copyright infringement is trivial because we own our machines
and have full control over the software that runs on them. Governments and the
copyright industry are growing increasingly hostile to the idea that citizens
should be able to run whatever software they want. Therefore, maintaining the
illusion that information is scarce is fundamentally incompatible with the
freedoms envisioned by Stallman's licenses, especially the latest versions.
This API copyright issue also threatens competing free software
implementations of proprietary APIs. Projects like Wine should be directly
affected by the court's decision.
------
michaelgiba
Amazon did the same thing to MongoDB by replicating their API and as far as I
know there hasn’t been any successful litigation on Mongos behalf
~~~
whoisthisfor
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/mongodb-
int...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/mongodb-introduction)
Others do this
------
warmfuzzykitten
What a stupid premise. The Apache version 2 license permits, well, pretty much
any use of the software, source or binary. The Sun/Oracle copyrights do not.
~~~
franga2000
The Apache license applies to the Java SDK (== the Java library Amazon made to
help developers use their (HTTP)API). It does not apply to the Amazon (HTTP)
API specification (or implementation) itself. Oracle could, for example,
implement their own "Oracle storage bucket Java SDK" with a matching (Java)
API that developers could drop in instead of Amazon's in their Java projects
and wouldn't have to change any code, but that is in no way transferable to
the (HTTP) API (i.e. the one that runs on Amazon's servers).
------
ben509
Whether I like their position or not is irrelevant, whether I like Oracle is
irrelevant, even whether it's what the law says is irrelevant: Oracle's
position and their actions are entirely consistent.
They're copying the S3 API, and they did so under the license granted in the
S3 client software.
If you publish either your client or server software, or some specification of
your API and you do so with some kind of license, you are licensing your API.
Amazon's publishing of their client software under Apache means they have
licensed their API to everyone who downloaded it, including Oracle. The
license is irrevocable.
Google copied Java's API without getting license to do so. Java was not
published by Oracle or Sun with such a license, nor did Google obtain such
license to use their API by contacting Oracle for one.
The I in API means _interface_. Ars is getting confused by the API and the
implementation of it here:
> However, the Amazon SDK is code that uses the S3 API, not code that
> implements it—the difference between a customer who orders hash browns and
> the Waffle House cook who interprets the orders. Code that uses an API will
> be organized completely differently from code that implements one; it may
> not even contain the whole API. And Oracle has for years argued that using
> an API is unrelated to reimplementation and not an infringement of copyright
> (or else every app developer using Java would infringe).
The client library isn't the code using the API, it contains the the API.
Oracle argues in the link:
> This case is about Google’scopying of Oracle’s work. App programmers are
> unaffected. They remain free to write any program they want availing
> themselves of the Java APIs, for free. The decision only requires platform
> developers — usually large corporations with tremendous resources, like
> Google—to take a license if they want to copy Oracle’s work and incorporate
> it into a substitute commercial product.
Oracle's point here is that an application using a small _portion_ of the API
is acceptable copying. AWS published and licensed the _entire_ client
software, containing the _entire_ API for S3.
~~~
gpm
> They're copying the S3 API, and they did so under the license granted in the
> S3 client software.
This is plainly false. To do so under the license they would have had to
comply with the terms of the license, which include attribution. They did not
do so.
~~~
ben509
You're referring to clause 4 in the license[1] which states:
4. Redistribution. You may reproduce and distribute copies of the
Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without
modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You
meet the following conditions:
Oracle's server software is not redistributing the API.
[1] [https://github.com/aws/aws-sdk-
java-v2/blob/master/LICENSE.t...](https://github.com/aws/aws-sdk-
java-v2/blob/master/LICENSE.txt)
~~~
gpm
Oracle's documentation on the other hand is
[https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/iaas/api/](https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/iaas/api/)
Not to mention, they _reproduced_ it on the server even if they didn't
distribute it. Copyright protects making copies just as more (more really) as
distributing them.
------
ggm
I didn't see the line in this which said Oracle's API claims vested in Java
bindings which were covered by the apache licence. So, in the whole
'hypocritical' thing, it behoves us to be clear, that product A, not in Apache
licence, and product B, in Apache licence, do not actually inform anything in
a legal claim of API copyright in product A, vs product B
I don't personally think an API should be subject to copyright, I think
copyright and patents in things like this is counter productive. But the law
here isn't in alignment with my personal views, and Oracle's defence does not
vest in some supposed consistency across things they use and things they own:
if they can prove they own a thing which is bound by IPR/Copyright rules, then
thats the law.
'Do not steal my property' is not rebutted by 'but you stole somebody else's
unrelated property in another situation' -If that was the case, an awful lot
of law has to be re-written, its pretty much tit-for-tat law at that point.
Another take would be "even criminals have civil rights"
~~~
jayd16
This misrepresents the situation as the client SDK is not what is being
copied. In fact, you can use the same Amazon client SDK to hit the Oracle
backend api, which Oracle did copy from S3's backend.
~~~
ggm
Sorry, but aren't you making my point for me? people are diving into
'hypocrite' arguments, comparing apples and lobster.
In what way do I mis-represent the situation? Oracle is suing Google for
copying an API. _People are saying_ "but Oracle copied the Amazon API" -I'm
trying to say "yea.. nah: not relevant"
~~~
jayd16
You're misrepresenting what was copied. The SDK is not what was copied so
bringing up the details of the Apache license is what is not relevant.
~~~
ggm
From the Ars Technica Article:
_Did Oracle infringe Amazon 's copyright here? Ars Technica contacted Oracle
to ask them if they had a license to copy Amazon's S3 API. An Oracle
spokeswoman said that the S3 API was licensed under an Apache 2.0 license. She
pointed us to the Amazon SDK for Java, which does indeed come with an Apache
2.0 license._
I only brought up the Apache licence, because the article we are talking
about, brings up the Apache licence.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Philips Hue API Hacking - craigkerstiens
http://www.issackelly.com/blog/2012/11/10/philips-hue-api-hacking/
======
izak30
As an aside, What I really need for this system is a wall-switch that doesn't
clobber the state. Right now if you cut power completely (use the wall switch)
it loses all it's last settings and turns into roughly the visual equivalent
of a 60w incandescent bulb.
I'm trying to decide the best way to do this, the easiest would be a raspberry
pi. I'm thinking there must be some way to do it with a much ligher thing like
a xbee module.
------
remcoder
Nice work! I work at Q42 and we wrote some of the (web) software for the Hue
platform. As you might guess we're great fans of Hue and we have lots of lamps
in the office to play with (<http://www.w00tcamp.nl/image/36420335853>).
Anyway, just wanted to say that I put up a list of Hue libraries on github:
<https://github.com/Q42/hue-libs>
I added python-hue as the first entry.
To everyone else: Send us a pr if you want to get your lib on the list. Would
be cool to see support for Ruby, Scale, Closure, Haskell etc ;-)
~~~
w0utert
I like how the building says 'Huelands Spoor', I guess you're located pretty
close to the train station ('Hollands Spoor' for those not familiar with the
train stations near The Hague in the Netherlands) ;-)
~~~
remcoder
in fact you can control the lights in our office yourself using this website:
<http://www.huelandsspoor.nl/>
------
kevingadd
Why does the Hue class have an argumentless constructor that must immediately
be followed up with attribute initialization and a call to the _actual_
constructor? Kind of a nitpick, but definitely doesn't seem pythonic - or
obvious.
Cool hack though, API looks straightforward.
~~~
izak30
I haven't gotten around to writing an application with it yet, just futzing
from the terminal. I agree that it's a wart, I pretty much stopped once I got
it all working here, and until tonight I haven't had much outside interest in
this one.
~~~
timClicks
I would also change h.lights.get('l3') to h.lights[l3] by defining
__getitem__(). Possibly even cut this back to h[13], as you'll always be
referring to the lights.
~~~
masklinn
And setState should probably take kwargs rather than a dict of arguments.
Might also be cool to use a context manager for a "complex send" e.g.
with light:
light.bri(220)
light.alert("select")
which would only send the whole request at once in __exit__, as in
"transactional" APIs.
~~~
izak30
I do really like this one. Been trying to think of a decent way to do
pipelining. If you haven't noticed, it is possible to do chaining with the
existing API, but it's one request/call.
------
burgestrand-
There’s been efforts to map out the Hue API. I’ve created a GitHub repository
for documenting the API, and host it via GitHub pages:
<http://burgestrand.github.com/hue-api/>
Through the README there’s additional links to other resources, such as the
EveryHue forum, where people from the Hue developer team appear to hang out as
well: <http://www.everyhue.com/?page_id=38>
------
codewright
It just so happens that I met Issac Kelly (the author of the post) three or
four years ago at a coffeeshop in Columbus, nearby the Short North I think.
Spoke mostly about entrepreneurship, .NET, and Python. Nice guy.
I'm mostly tinkering with Clojure these days, but the day job so to speak is
Python. No more .NET anymore :)
I moved to the bay area too!
About the post:
You mentioned that you were disappointed in the security of their
straightforward HTTP/REST implementation, what do you think would've been more
secure?
~~~
izak30
The security issue is that they're sending my data back to their sites (phone
homes) via HTTP not HTTPS. Schedules, on/off status and device hashes. At that
point if you had the traffic it would be fairly trivial to pretend you were
one of my registered devices locally (this is how I did initial testing),
possibly even over the internet back to Hue (not tested, as their webservice
hasn't quite worked for me in normal circumstances)
Also, reintroduce yourself! Coffee in Columbus talking shop doesn't narrow it
down enough for me.
------
derwildemomo
A friend of mine hacked something quite nice for/using his Hue.
<http://vimeo.com/54065245>.
------
remcoder
Here are some clips showing how we heuified the office:
strobe effect <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVh4V5QyVQY>
remote control <http://vimeo.com/54163866>
------
lumawake
WeMo and Hue...looks like we have much in common ;)
[http://blog.lumawake.com/post/37648185851/ask-and-you-
shall-...](http://blog.lumawake.com/post/37648185851/ask-and-you-shall-
receive-after-dozens-of)
------
acqq
Does anybody know what the response times of commands is? Is it possible to
make a disco-like light show controlled by music or are response times too
long?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
RFC: Blanking all Wikipedia as SOPA protest - lelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Request_for_Comment:_SOPA_and_a_strike
======
jxcole
Here is what I recommend:
Facebook, google, youtube and wikipedia should take down their sites and
replace them with a message about SOPA all on the same day. But it shouldn't
end there. They should also personally attack each of the original progenators
in the Senate/House of the bill. Their political careers need to end that day.
It's not enough to simply stop this bill. If they do, another will be enacted
pretty soon with pretty much the same problems. Politicians need to understand
that if they take on the internet and choose record labels over their own
constituents they cannot expect support from their own political base.
~~~
OmarIsmail
I believe this is what they call "raising the stakes" and the consequences of
this may not be what you want/expect. In fact, taking such an aggressive move
may hasten the very thing you're trying to prevent.
Let me elaborate. Right now most politicians in the US are pretty out of touch
with the Internet, that much we can all agree on. They hear that it's
powerful, and they have young staff members saying how the Facebooks and the
Twitters are necessary nowadays, but it's easy for the regular politician to
not really buy into the hype. Despite that politicians (and nefarious people
in influential positions) aren't really happy with the Internet and the whole
open thing. Which is precisely why we're getting SOPA. Now, US politician
attacks have thus far been limited media copyright and piracy, dabbling a
little bit into privacy with the Facebook stuff. These are easy targets.
Now, if these sites take this kind of action, and has the kind of effect that
you want - namely kicking these politicians out - you don't think every other
politician is going to learn a very big lesson. And I'd hope that we plebes
have also learned a lesson. When politicians/people in power have a "threat"
that they are actually vulnerable to, they don't respect it and learn to co-
exist. Instead they try to destroy, co-op, or otherwise remove it as a threat.
Maybe I'm being cynical/pessimistic, but given the history of humanity and the
way people in power behave, I think I have reason to be.
~~~
jballanc
Actually, I think you're on to something, but I would go farther. Politicians
are not just out of touch with the Internet, they are governing a country that
is rapidly ceasing to exist outside the walls of their debating chambers. They
do not have control so much as complacency of much of the public, and they
seem more than willing to do away with the reality that does exist before
letting it supplant the fantasy in which they continue to govern.
------
bittermang
There seems to be a lot of sentiment that Wikipedia should stay out of
politics. This is not a maintainable stance. In the vein of the oft quoted
"First they came..." (which has it's own wiki page,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%E2%80%A6>), sites like Wikipedia
cannot ignore a law like SOPA and have to make their position heard. Wikipedia
is not sticking their nose where it doesn't belong, politics have come to them
pitchforks and torches in hand.
Do it. Paint it black.
~~~
snowwrestler
As a 501(c)3, the Wikimedia Foundation is legally required to stay out of
politics, and has limits on how it can lobby Congress on specific pieces of
legislation. This is why, for example, the Sierra Club is not a 501(c)3.
Changing Wikipedia, and tying it to a specific bill like SOPA, would likely
tread very closely to that line, or over it. That really WOULD threaten the
future of Wikipedia as it would face legal sanctions, or be forced to give up
its 501(c)3 status, meaning that donations would no longer be tax-deductible.
~~~
rosser
IANAL (particularly a tax attorney), so no-one — least of all the Wikimedia
Foundation — should be taking my advice on this, but it was my understanding
that the rules surrounding 501(c)(3) organizations and political action had
more to do with endorsing for or against _candidates_ than taking overt
positions on specific issues.
For example, from a 2007 IRS ruling on the subject: "Section 501(c)(3)
organizations may take positions on public policy issues, including issues
that divide candidates in an election for public office. However, section
501(c)(3) organizations must avoid any issue advocacy that functions as
political campaign intervention." [1]
Further details in the referenced ruling suggest that if WM were to make
reference to specific legislators and their respective positions, for or
against SOPA, and thus even _implying_ that WM wanted you to vote one way or
another for those candidates, they'd have crossed the line.
Simply saying, "We don't like SOPA. Here's why it's the worst bill since the
Let's All Grind Up Babies For Pet Food Act of 1887..." OTOH, seems to be
kosher, per my reading on the subject.
[1] <http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rr-07-41.pdf>
(EDIT: clarification.)
~~~
BCM43
I'm pretty sure you're correct. I've worked with a number of 501(c)(3), and
most of them have worked on political issues and bills. They cannot endorse a
candidate though.
------
dendory
I think that's a great idea. The vast majority of people do nothing until it
hits them personally, that's why there's so much apathy. Cut Wikipedia for a
week, something used by so many people, and then normal people will start
caring. Show Americans what it can look like to be behind a firewall by having
many popular sites blank out for a week, and by the end of the week the whole
country will be in an uproar.
There's nothing more powerful to make people move and contact their
representatives than blocking them from their farmville, celebrity news,
homework help (wikipedia) and so on.
~~~
pnathan
Agreed.
If Wikipedia is locked out for a week, it will make mainstream international
news in no time flat.
I think it needs to happen.
~~~
cpeterso
I don't think the mainstream news media cares about Wikipedia. Plus, the
site's process and product are a direct challenge to the legacy news
oligarchy.
~~~
pak
Eh, I would say (sadly) that the mainstream news media practically depends on
Wikipedia to fill in background info for half of their stories. Gaffes by TV
reporters have occasionally been traced back to Wikipedia vandalism. Sometimes
Wikipedians then cite the misguided journalist(s) when adding the falsehood
into the article [1], a circular phenomenon of "fact-creation" that has been
lampooned by xkcd [2].
[1] [http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/02/10/2211220/false-
fact-o...](http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/02/10/2211220/false-fact-on-
wikipedia-proves-itself)
[2] <http://xkcd.com/978/>
------
bgentry
\-- My thoughts as posted in the other thread: --
_SOPA is awful, but political neutrality is an important principle._
When a law threatens the existence of your organization as we know it, what
else are you supposed to do? Would you rather have:
a) a completely politically neutral organization that has silently been
neutered such that it cannot fulfill its mission
b) a mostly politically neutral organization that only expresses political
views when the issue directly impacts their ability to fulfill their mission
_The readers will be able to figure out the right position, for their own
interests._
I don't think the problem here is whether people would be able to make up
their mind if they had all the facts. The problem is that this issue has not
received enough media attention and as a result very few people are even aware
of it, let alone aware of its repercussions.
National media outlets certainly have a reason to avoid coverage of this issue
since most of their parent companies support this legislation.
~~~
Lewisham
Yeah, neutrality is only possible if Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia Foundation,
hosts itself in a nation which isn't going to be controlled by legislation
that will affect it.
Even if it did, the domain seizures by the US means that Wikipedia is always
going to be vulnerable for as long as the US owns the root DNS zone.
You can only be neutral until you're the one getting beat on.
~~~
tejaswiy
But if there was hypothetically a law that was good for wikipedia and bad for
the people in general, then should they just keep quiet? I'll protest because
it impacts me isn't such a viable strategy. You either protest everything that
is "wrong" from some view point or you protest nothing. And this is where we
get on the slippery slope.
------
lazerwalker
I find it interesting that many of the commenters would rather see legislation
passed that could harm Wikipedia than see the site "politicized" in any way.
I definitely understand the sentiment, but I think there's a big difference
between simply taking a political stance for the sake of it and fighting to
make sure your non-profit organization is legally allowed to survive and
continue operations as it has.
~~~
waqf
> _I find it interesting that many of the commenters would rather see
> legislation passed that could harm Wikipedia than see the site "politicized"
> in any way._
That's a false choice. Many of the commenters would rather _take the small
chance that a Wikipedia protest could have been the deciding factor preventing
SOPA_ than see the site politicized.
FWIW, I agree with them, and certainly one factor which weighs into my
decision is that in my opinion the chance that Wikipedia would be the deciding
factor is, say, less than 1%.
~~~
chc
A Wikipedia protest would be a _huge_ factor. It would put a recognizable face
on the potential consequences of SOPA, whereas now it's kind of vague what's
at stake to most people. Opposition to SOPA would go from "A majority of
geeks" to "A majority of the Internet-using population," which is a few orders
of magnitude. I don't see how you could doubt any of this. Since the effect
would be massive — definitely beyond any politician's ability to ignore —
there are only two situations in which it is unlikely to be a deciding factor:
1\. SOPA will inevitably fail even without Wikipedia's help, so it's not even
worth worrying about SOPA
2\. SOPA literally cannot be defeated
~~~
waqf
I'm glad you stated that argument, because it's kind of what I suspect a lot
of people think so it gives me something to attack ;).
My specific concerns are:
a. I think politicians _can_ ignore something that "a majority of the
Internet-using population" knows. As long as the "mainstream" media (i.e.
television) chooses not to pick it up, the politicians won't be forced to
answer for themselves.
b. If there is opposition to SOPA, either the public media spin will be
controlled by politicians announcing that the draft law has been modified "in
response to" the concerns/opposition/protests, or "SOPA" will be defeated but
the powers that want it passed will regroup and send it through again next
year under a different name.
c. If there's room to argue that Wikipedia is exaggerating the threat, then
that is what will be publicly argued when this story breaks. This might not
turn out so positively for Wikipedia (or negatively for SOPA): after all,
which side has more experience and resources to put towards controlling the
public debate? And that's before we consider the possibility that someone will
seriously suggest that it would be _better_ for Wikipedia to be censored.
Don't read (b), in particular, as defeatism: I understand that this is a war
and that we have to fight the current battle as well as future ones. I claim
only that in the cost–benefit analysis, the utility of defeating this
particular incarnation should not be approximated by the utility of being free
from SOPA-like law for ever.
~~~
doktrin
a. I disagree, but this is speculation on my part. For instance, I think an
issue can gain sufficient public attention without television coverage. In
addition, I think a Wikipedia blackout would in fact garner a not-
inconsiderable amount of mainstream coverage.
b. The cost-benefit is highly skewed towards immediate action. It is highly
likely that some incarnation and/or descendant of SOPA will eventually become
law. However, it's critical that SOPA does not. If publicly defeated, future
versions will be less ambitious and more rational.
------
huhtenberg
SOPA is going down. I think it is obvious. I also think it is quite obvious
that it was _meant_ to go down by its creators. The open question now is what
part of SOPA will be reintroduced later.
\--
This is a trivial tactic based on the idea of _anchoring_. Say, one wants to
pass an unpopular piece of legislation. He would then introduce something that
is 5x as bad (an anchor), let the public take it down, and then reintroduce a
(what now seems a much milder) version. Sure, the public may take an issue
with it too, but it won't be as unified and uproarious. The public had their
win, they prevailed, and they are simply bored to fight the same fight all
over again.
~~~
CamperBob
Which, as others have said, is why the black banner or page should target the
Senators behind the legislation, not just the legislation itself. The Overton
Window needs to be slammed shut on their fingers.
~~~
mavelikara
I was unsure who the Senators were, and had to look it up on Wikipedia. Here
is the relevant section:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Supporte...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Supporters)
------
hsmyers
I wonder if it would also make a difference if Google arranged to censor all
of the supporting members of the House and Senate. It shouldn't take long for
at least their aides to get the message in a particularly realistic way. For
my .02 worth, I'd leave the 'switch' on for good, but I'm old and vindictive
:)
~~~
boredguy8
Wouldn't that run counter to Google's point about how hard / difficult it is
to censor specific sites?
~~~
burgerbrain
Suppose they just blocked access entirely to all publicly known IP blocks used
by congress members and buildings?
That wouldn't be the same sort of technical challenge as SOPA would pose, but
would drive home the point pretty well.
~~~
boredguy8
This is an interesting idea, insofar as it falls generally in line with one of
the potential effects of SOPA enforcement.
But perhaps more interestingly: because people would still have a job to do,
they'd use Bing or something else, which would hopefully demonstrate to
Washington just how circumventable the legislation is.
~~~
burgerbrain
Quite so, that's a great point.
------
bguthrie
I'm surprised by how torn the community appears to be - after their success in
Italy, I would have expected stronger support for such a proposal. Is there a
tally somewhere on that page? My rough reading is that supports outnumber
opposes, but not by much.
I'm heartened that they're considering it. I certainly think it's worth
trying.
~~~
raldi
I can't find a tally on the page, but a quick Perl tally suggests "support" is
getting ~75% of the votes.
~~~
redthrowaway
It won't have a tally, as this is just a straw poll and not any sort of
official !vote on the matter. Jimbo's floating the idea on his talkpage to
guage the community's reaction to it and get some ideas for what he should say
to lawmakers when he meets them.
If it seems like the motion has legs, then either Jimbo or someone else will
create an actual RfC where the community will hash out a plan to enact it.
------
Joakal
Adopting a silent stance is still a political stance of abstaining.
Frankly, Wikipedia organisation has every right to protest if it means long-
term problems with SOPA compared to maintaining the reputation of being
neutral.
Surely, a Wikipedia editor can point out projected costs and article effects
with the SOPA compared to losing some article experts/editors from having a
less neutral reputation. Much less emotion through the evidence route.
------
cheald
I thoroughly respect the stance that Wikipedia should remain politically
neutral, but when there's legislation that _threatens your existence_ , it's
the right time to get act on it.
"Blanking" Wikipedia uses the Wikimedia Foundation platform to make a
statement to educate the public about an issue that threatens to kill the
Wikimedia Foundation (and Wikipedia, by extension), and thereby to enlist help
in keeping the site alive. This is functionally no different from the Jimbo
Wales Annual Stare-Into-Your-Soul-Until-You-Donate funding drive, except that
then, the issue threatening Wikipedia is money rather than legislation. This
is not Wikipedia taking a political stance on an issue just to take a stance;
it is Wikipedia trying to educate the public about and beg for help regarding
an issue that threatens Wikipedia's existence.
If Congress introduced a "Make Wikipedia Illegal" bill, would it be wrong or
"politicization" for Wikimedia to attempt to defend their existence by making
an emergency call-to-education to the public?
------
salimmadjd
I understand why Wikipedia wants to editorially remain unbiased. That said,
they have a huge ad on top to raise money to stay in business. I don't this
action any different than brining to attention laws that could harm Wikipedia.
This is a simple darwinian situation. Entities that can defend themselves
survive and those that can't vanish in time.
------
EGreg
Here were my thoughts:
"You are trying to send a message that the SOPA is crossing the line for the
internet, because it gives too much power to corporations to shut down
websites and cut off their funding -- even if Wikipedia is unlikely to be
among them. Shutting down wikipedia can _illustrate_ this, but consider the
consequences. First of all, Wikipedia content is replicated elsewhere, so
people would be able to get at least a recent copy of Wikipedia articles
somewhere. But before you take such an action, consider when you will "pull
your troops out". Certain countries have started "military campaigns" due to a
very controversial reading of their constitution (ahem, [[8]]) , and it always
became unclear when to pull out. I am worried that if Wikipedia goes down this
road, it will likewise be unclear when to revert back. Suppose the SOPA is
passed anyway. Will Wikipedia voluntarily be its first casualty? In that case,
be aware that your attempt at a protest may very well get Wikipedia
permanently removed from the internet. If you are supporting this action,
please explain below what it will take for Wikipedia to go back online, or
else why you think it is OK for Wikipedia to never reopen for business as a
result of this brinksmanship. I would oppose because if we all know Wikipedia
will be back whether or not SOPA passes, then it's not a credible threat at
all, merely a protest -- which at the end of the day is worth shutting down
the site. "
~~~
sbayless
Thats a good point. What if, instead of shutting down completely, wikipedia
shuts down for just one day every week (say, each Monday). That way, people
will continue using the site most of the time, instead of adapting by
switching to some other source (like a website of replicated content), and
hence the periodic loss of access will continue to be noticed. Moreover, in
the event that the bill passes, wikipedia can comfortably continue protesting,
without permanently shutting down.
------
bryanh
Facebook and Google (or YouTube) might be the only other internet powerhouses
with enough traction to successfully pull something like this off. I hope they
take a stand. It is an awful bill with awful consequences.
~~~
bdrocco
I can't say I'd mind youtube getting shut down for a day...
It'd be comical though when a study puts a value to the U.S. productivity
increase when youtube videos are an inaccessible distraction.
Some of those videos have sucked up millions of man-hours of viewing... if
even a single digit percent of those views were by workers procrastinating,
we're talking millions in lost productivity. (Per clip!)
------
Shenglong
Too bad WOW didn't purpose this instead. I'd wager millions of angry, hair-
pulling, screaming 13 year-olds are a lot louder than all of America's
partially inconvenienced adults.
~~~
whyenot
"It is easy to dismiss video games as pointless activities that only teenagers
indulge in. The truth is that the average age of MMORPG players is around 26.
In fact, only 25% of MMORPG players are teenagers. About 50% of MMORPG players
work full-time. About 36% of players are married, and 22% have children. So
the MMORPG demographic is fairly diverse, including high-school students,
college students, early professionals, middle-aged home-makers, as well as
retirees. In other words, MMORPGs do not only appeal to a youth subculture."
<http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_demographics.html>
~~~
Shenglong
I'm fully aware. That wasn't the point I was emphasizing, though!
------
azelfrath
Imagine if all The Greats did this: Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Youtube,
Twitter, hell even 4chan.
80% of Internet traffic (just pulling that number out of thin air) blacked
out? People will notice. People will care.
Wikipedia has the right idea and needs to kick this off. Then others need to
follow suit.
------
snowwrestler
What a terrible idea; I can't think of a faster way to kill the public
credibility of this open encyclopedia project.
------
feralchimp
Perhaps someone here at HN can do what the RfC's opposing commenters
repeatedly asked someone to do, but which no one (at least in the few hundred
comments I read) actually did:
Explain how SOPA threatens the existence of Wikipedia. Show your work.
It's one thing to say "this situation is different! we're fighting for
survival!" and another thing to argue it based on past real events and the
actual contents of the bill.
There is a reason WP avoids political advocacy as a foundational principle,
and it's not just to preserve their status as a charity.
------
lambda
I'm torn. On the one hand, I strongly oppose SOPA, and I agree with most of
the online protests I see of SOPA and PROTECT-IP.
On the other, Wikipedia prides itself on its neutrality; it is one of
Wikipedia's selling points, that they (at least attempt, as much as a
collaborative, anonymously edited encyclopedia can) to provide a neutral point
of view, keep from giving undue weight to fringe viewpoints, don't allow
themselves to be tempted into being non-neutral or appear non-neutral by
offering advertising. Making a strong political statement that takes advantage
of their popularity would move away from this neutral stance.
On the gripping hand, this is something that would impact Wikipedia directly.
Wikipedia would instantly become much more liable for any problematic content
posted by users. They would likely have to change their editing policies, add
domain blacklists to avoid linking to verboten domains. Many sources of
information that Wikipedia editors use and link to may be banned. SOPA is in
direct opposition to the open and free dissemination of information that is
Wikipedia's mission.
So, I don't really know. I wish there were a good answer here. But there
really isn't.
~~~
sukuriant
I stand in a similar position to you; and am going to say something sappy
here:
Perhaps even the neutral have to fight be allowed to remain neutral.
Censorship stands in the face of neutrality.
~~~
regularfry
It's simpler than that. Even the most neutral body will be very much pro its
own existence. If Wikipedia views SOPA as an existential threat, it is not
inconsistent to oppose it.
------
rmc
There is no SOPA bill in my country, please don't block English Wikipedia from
me. Unless you are willing to block enwiki for everyone incl. USA when some
law somewhere threatens it, please don't do the same when a law threatens only
USA.
I know the USA is big in the anglosphere, but please be a bit less USAcentric.
~~~
feor
Wikipedia was created and is _hosted_ in the US, the Wikimedia Foundation is
based in the US, Jimbo Wales is American, and I'd wager a large part of en.wp
visitors and editors are American. Like it or not, Wikipedia itself is US-
centric.
And though it may be besides the point, you know as well as I do that if SOPA
happened to pass in the US it wouldn't be long before most Western countries
had their own version too.
------
jeggers5
At the moment - just by doing a find 'support'/'oppose'; there are 161
'support's and 62 'opposes'
~~~
theon144
Really? When I quickly skimmed through, the supporters seemed to be in the
absolute majority.
Well, it's a straw poll anyway, so they may or may not act according to it.
Let's see.
------
ggwicz
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to
perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really
cooperating with it." \- Martin Luther King, Jr.
SOPA is evil. We need to do everything we can to fight it. Wikipedia is one of
a handful of sites who have the power to really make a difference.
I suggest that not Wikipedia, but blogs, community sites, even your business
sites all have at least some temporary display against SOPA.
I only get ~15 visitors to my site per day.
That's still something to work with.
We must all support a temporary Wikipedia white out. Those who are opposed are
blind and need to understand SOPA.
------
deepkut
While I agree taking a neutral stance is important for an organization like
Wikipedia, it is imperative the world understands the impact SOPA will have. A
majority of the people I know understand enough about SOPA to say, "I'm
against that," but
(1) these people do not resemble your average American, and
(2) even they couldn't tell you much more than "it isn't good," or "it's what
the entertainment biz wants."
People really need to understand SOPA. It needs to make headline news. This
will push it there.
------
tibix
This is very, very interesting. I'd like to point out that the situation is
very similar to Asimov's Foundation. In the novel, the Encyclopedists where
arguing whether they should stick to their scholar work on the Galactic
Encyclopedia or become a very strong force in the history of mankind.
That decision has come to Wikipedia.
------
plasma
I'd definitely like to see this happen.
I agree with a proper blackout that presents the use of some/most of the site,
and a detailed reason about why it is happening and who's responsible in the
senate/house/etc for the bill so people know not to vote for them.
If you do nothing, its too late. One day of no Facebook won't be so bad.
------
cpeterso
If Wikipedia won't protest, a outside group (like Anonymous) could do the job
for them with a week-long DoS. They could just peg the Wikipedia servers or
use bots to continuously auto-wipe/censor random articles.
~~~
ComputerGuru
You know, that's a really brilliant middle-of-the-road solution.
And if someone at Wikimedia, you know, notices a DoS and just happens to have
problems with their load balancer.. hey, it's not their fault - they stayed
neutral!
------
jtchang
Frontpage of Wikipedia should be changed to:
"We're sorry. SOPA passed so we can no longer legally show you Wikipedia
content. So long and thanks for all the fish."
------
vldo
This seems pointless.. wikipedia pages will still be accessible via google
cached pages. Also i think wiki should remain neutral in this matter.
~~~
theon144
The point isn't to not let anybody access the content, they just use it as a
means to raise the awareness on an issue.
------
grandalf
Uh, hello, don't take sites down, just use the ad revenue to support the
political opponents of the officials who support SOPA.
------
BiosElement
If the law passes, Wikipedia will die. It's as simple as that. Anyone who
thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.
~~~
gojomo
That's alarmist hyperbole. Even if the worst form of SOPA passes...
• it's unlikely that it would be used against Wikipedia for fear of backlash –
smaller sites have much more to fear
• the law could be struck down by the courts on 1st amendment grounds, or
modified/repealed before any application to Wikipedia
• Wikipedia could move to another jurisdiction
• etc., etc., etc.
SOPA is bad, and should be voted down, and failing that should be struck down
by the courts. There's lots of equally bad legislation in the USA and
elsewhere, every year. The principle of neutrality lets Wikipedia keep doing
its main job, year-in and year-out, without constant 'interrupts' generated by
the ephemera of silly politics.
~~~
nostrademons
"it's unlikely that it would be used against Wikipedia for fear of backlash –
smaller sites have much more to fear"
The _threat_ of use is often significantly worse than the use itself.
Realistically, big sites like, say, Google are not going to get shut down for
a violation of a silly Internet law; the backlash is too big. That doesn't
stop Google from being one of the most zealous enforcers of legislation like
COPPA or DMCA, because the cost of a lawsuit, when you have gigantic pockets
that can be raided, is simply too large a risk for them to take.
Same with SOPA. No big company will ever be sued under SOPA. They simply won't
provide platforms for user-generated content, and then the Internet as we know
it ceases to exist.
(Same with startups: would _you_ start a company to fill that void if you
_knew_ that the first thing that'd happen if you became popular was that you'd
be sued for a potentially dream-ending sum of money?)
~~~
gojomo
I agree completely and such chilling effects are more reasons why SOPA is bad
for the web. But I was only listing why it's not, realistically, an
existential threat for Wikipedia.
------
kunalmodi
not during college finals!
~~~
finnw
If the aim is to maximise news coverage, that would be the perfect time to do
it.
~~~
DrStalker
But think of all the poor students forced to find original sources instead of
just visiting Wikipedia!
Would be interesting to see the changes in grades for assignments due during a
period when Wikipedia was unavailable.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Attributing the DNC Hacks to Russia – Bruce Schneier - Cozumel
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/01/attributing_the_1.html
======
rwallace
Given the absence of evidence that it was the Russians, this looks like the
Iraqi WMDs all over again.
However, suppose for the sake of argument it was indeed the Russian
government. One thing nobody seems to be pointing out is this: if there is one
country in the world that cannot complain about interference in the political
process of another country with the slightest shred of moral authority, it's
the U.S. If you want a new world order where that's off the table, feel free
to propose such a rule henceforth and let it be debated, but you don't get to
retroactively say a new rule against X started to apply after the dozens of
times you did X yourself and just before the time someone allegedly did X to
you.
~~~
travmatt
> Given the absence of evidence that it was the Russians, this looks like the
> Iraqi WMDs all over again.
I always though this argument was a kind of ideological test - like it's
demonstrably terrible on it's face, but the people espousing it do so to show
they're willing to disregard logic and evidence in order to show their loyalty
to their 'side', like the Trump supporters who have told me with a straight
face that they believe global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. In
truth, plenty of evidence has been made available and public (most damningly
the report into the spearphishing campaign), and reasonable people can debate
whether the evidence is conclusive - but to say there is none is ridiculous on
it's face.
The second terrible part of this argument is the comparison to Iraq's WMD
program, because it boldly reinvents history. In truth the IC was very
pessimistic on the question, and the actual history is that Bush and Cheney
literally invented a new office to 'process' intelligence before it was
reported to them. But apparently, because a Republican President lied, we need
to believe a different Republican President and not believe the IC. Some
beautiful logic.
>One thing nobody seems to be pointing out is this: if there is one country in
the world that cannot complain about interference in the political process of
another country with the slightest shred of moral authority, it's the U.S.
Can't be a political discussion without an appeal to 'what-aboutism'.
~~~
rwallace
As it happens, I'm not on either 'side' \- not American, and if I were, I'd be
voting Libertarian, not Republican or Democrat.
My claim is that, just as people shouldn't have believed Republicans when they
invented stories to drum up support for starting a war, people shouldn't
believe Democrats when they invent stories to drum up support for starting a
war.
As for Trump supporters who think global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the
Chinese, I'll let you have that argument with them.
As for 'what-aboutism', are you going to start throwing that term around every
time someone points out you cannot with any shred of moral authority complain
about behavior in which you yourself have repeatedly and enthusiastically
indulged?
~~~
travmatt
>As it happens, I'm not on either 'side' \- not American, and if I were, I'd
be voting Libertarian, not Republican or Democrat.
You sure sound like you're quoting Trump almost verbatim.
> My claim is that, just as people shouldn't have believed Republicans when
> they invented stories to drum up support for starting a war, people
> shouldn't believe Democrats when they invent stories to drum up support for
> starting a war.
You're conflating several different parts of the United States government in
your attempts to make this a partisan issue, the United States Intelligence
Community (IC) aren't Democrat Party officials. Neither is Jim Comey, he's the
Director of the FBI, again not related to the Democratic Party. You're also
confusing McCain and Lindsey Graham for Democrats, they're actually
Republicans who've been the most outspoken on the issue. Again, we can
disagree on conclusions, but it's important to rely on some objectively true
facts as a starting point.
>As for 'what-aboutism', are you going to start throwing that term around
every time someone points out you cannot with any shred of moral authority
complain about behavior in which you yourself have repeatedly and
enthusiastically indulged?
No, I only throw it around when people tell me I should accept a murderous
foreign dictator seeking to weaken the established world order so that he can
successfully slaughter more of his neighbors in Ukraine and Georgia. I'm not a
big believer in appeasement, personally.
~~~
rwallace
> You sure sound like you're quoting Trump almost verbatim.
I'm making true statements. If Trump or whoever agrees with them, good for
him. If he doesn't, too bad. I'm not going to start supporting falsehoods just
because this or that famous person agrees or disagrees. Are you planning to
change your mind on any issue just because someone says you sound like you're
quoting Hilary almost verbatim?
> You're conflating several different parts of the United States government in
> your attempts to make this a partisan issue
Uh, there seems to be some confusion here. The only one in this conversation
who wants to make this a partisan issue is you. My point is that I don't give
a shit _which part_ of the United States government is doing this or that. I'm
opposing dangerous and hypocritical bullshit whoever it comes from.
> No, I only throw it around when people tell me I should accept a murderous
> foreign dictator seeking to weaken the established world order so that he
> can successfully slaughter more of his neighbors in Ukraine and Georgia. I'm
> not a big believer in appeasement, personally.
Ah, so now we get to the real point. It's not actually about the hack at all.
If that hadn't happened, you would merely be put to the trouble of looking for
another pretext. What you want is a war with Russia, on whatever pretext.
One of my favorite Terry Pratchett quotes is "the flipside of the coin of
which good and evil are on the same side." I use it for things that break the
abstraction that humans are agents, that turn us into Hofstadter's sphex
wasps, blindly executing behavior that an observer could see is obviously
maladaptive.
If you achieve your goal of starting a war with Russia, you yourself will die
along with the rest of us. You are intelligent enough to know this, but it
doesn't register in your brain. You are blindly executing behavior that was
adaptive in the stone age, but has become lethally maladaptive in the nuclear
age.
At that, I've said what I have to say. Have the last word if you like. All I
can suggest is to at least _try_ at some point to turn off the tribal politics
circuits of your brain, replace the labels with arbitrary symbols, imagine you
were looking at an alien species behaving like this and think what your
opinion of them would be.
------
dimitar
Schneier seems to focus a lot on a "smoking gun" type of evidence, which the
US intelligence community probably does have and it doesn't have an incentive
to publicize. Intentionally or not it appears he spreads doubt that Russia was
in fact involved.
However the leaking of the documents was done so sloppily there was a
significant _circumstantial_ evidence that private parties have used to
conclude that it was done by Russians or the Russian government. Arstechnica
can see some of the obvious signs that don't require any specialized training:
[http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/guccifer-leak-of-
dnc...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/guccifer-leak-of-dnc-trump-
research-has-a-russians-fingerprints-on-it/)
Schneier mentions "techniques go back to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" \- well,
identifying motives is one of them and Kremlin definitely has an interest of
doing something like that and has done it before.
------
allthatglitters
The discussion of "Russian hacking' is a archetype of a "false narrative". The
"narrative" itself "hacks" the election.
------
ianai
What's sad is this discussion immediately falls along party lines.
------
draw_down
> Obama decided not to make the accusation public before the election so as
> not to be seen as influencing the election.
That's one way to put it. Another would be to say that he and others thought
Clinton was going to win, i.e., that the hacking wasn't a big deal. Now it is.
This is one reason Dems do not have credibility on this issue- either it's a
problem for our democracy or it isn't, regardless of the winner.
Another reason is Dems poured cold water on the idea that the election's
outcome could be illegitimate, back when trump was saying he'd contest the
result if he lost. Now the shoe is on the other foot and Dems are stuck trying
to declare the result illegitimate.
Personally, I doubt the strength of the effect this had on the result of the
election, and the Dems bungled it themselves by running a bad campaign and a
poor candidate. Now they want to point the finger elsewhere.
~~~
jeeva
>That's one way to put it. Another would be to say that he and others thought
Clinton was going to win,
If I see someone trying to do something shady, and don't think they'll
succeed, I'd surely care less than if I see someone doing it and they manage
to have an effect.
Also, hindsight is often said to be easier than predicting the future.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
10,000 Artists Sign Up for Pirate Bay Promotion - anons2011
http://torrentfreak.com/10000-artists-signed-up-for-pirate-bay-promotion-121103/
======
fjorder
As Neil Young put it, "Piracy is the new radio".
A pirate torrent site providing promotion for artists at the artists' request
is not something new. Private music torrent trackers have been doing this for
several years now.
For example, take Anamanaguchi (a NY based band). Their 2009 album, "Dawn
Metropolis" was featured, at Anamanaguchi's request, on Waffles and soon
became the #1 most downloaded album on that tracker. A year later Anamanaguchi
was cutting the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Yes, this kind of
promotion _really_ works.
What scares the big record labels is not that piracy is the new radio, but
that _they don't control it_. It becomes very difficult to predict what will
become successful if music trends are left to arise organically from the
listeners themselves rather than board-room focus groups. A lack of
predictability is bad for an industry that is in the habit of throwing
millions of promotion dollars behind artists in order to manufacture success.
If the labels can't predict the trends, how do they know which horses to back?
While theft of music is certainly an issue, I think it's of secondary concern
to labels. It's the unpredictability that piracy is injecting into popular
music that is really going to mess up their business.
------
CJefferson
Something about this rubs me up the wrong way.
Certainly I can imagine many bands would like to be mentioned on the front
page of the pirate bay, it is a major website and a major piece of free
advertising. However, the first sentence:
"While the major record labels and movie studios do what they can to shutter
The Pirate Bay, thousands of lesser known artists are eager to become featured
on the site’s homepage."
Seems unreasonable to me. I have no problem with bands who want to be on the
pirate bay being there. I don't think even the music industry would complain
about people giving their music away for free if they want to. The problem is
putting up the music of people who don't want to be there.
~~~
goldfeld
Only people who don't want to be there or also people whose contracts keep
them from being there? Danger Mouse and his Dark Night of the Soul is a good
example.
~~~
aw3c2
I haven't heard about it, mind to elaborate? People who sign with commercial
labels, feed on their promotion etc and then say they want their music to be
free are hypocrites to me. If you want to release your music for free, then
choose a CC license and share it. Easy as that!
~~~
mindslight
How is that at all hypocritical? Signing to a major label and publishing
torrents are both ways of giving your recorded music away for free, hoping for
publicity that will make you money on tour.
~~~
aw3c2
Conventional labels needs the revenue of record sales. So if the artist gives
away the music for free they might ruin sales. The label would still pay for
promotion etc so it would probably be a loss. Touring money is usually more
going into the artists' pockets, so that would not do the label much good.
~~~
mindslight
You're purposely missing the point - Artists have been giving away their
recorded music for free ever since Hollywood accounting was invented.
Much as how labels didn't care about properly compensating artists, artists
don't care if the labels make bad investments by relying on projected figures
that no longer correspond to reality.
------
rohamg
Panacea is when more artists can give more music away and still profit.
Freemium based on consumption, or increased reliance on alternative revenue
channels. Either way, IMHO the technology exists today to disaggregate the
middlemen in music, lower the price point for customers, and still net profit
to artists. In particular, I believe almost every function of a label can be
crowd sourced or productized. Vested interests are what have gotten in the
way.
------
gavinlynch
Sure, who wouldn't want free advertising on a highly trafficked site with no
strings attached?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Social News: Improving the Content Gene Pool - lbrandy
http://lbrandy.com/blog/2008/09/submit-yourself-to-social-news-sites/
======
lbrandy
Another essay I wrote on my vacation. Slowly posting them all... The best (or
worst) part is my idea list is growing faster than my actual output.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Media Coverage of Car Crashes Downplays the Role of Drivers - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/12/news-journalism-traffic-deaths-road-safety-accident-research/603289
======
jtlienwis
Stories about opioid addiction downplay the role of users.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Sweden is deporting entrepreneur for lowering his own salary - stareatgoats
https://www.thelocal.se/20180202/sweden-is-deporting-this-entrepreneur-for-lowering-his-own-salary
======
bjornedstrom
This happens over and over again in Sweden: skilled worker immigrants get
deported over small technicalities, that is often not even their own fault.
There have been many examples of this affecting highly skilled engineers in
some of Swedens famous (and not famous) tech startups.
What I find disturbing is that immigrant criminals, who haven't contributed to
society at all, often do not get sentenced to deportation. So we have the
situation that people who are a benefit to the Swedish society get deported,
but the criminals get to stay.
~~~
BadassFractal
In the US, if you're perfectly productive, legal, highly qualified and well-
behaved member of society on H1B from China or India it might still take you
10-15 years to become a resident, so the situation isn't totally rosy here
either. And you certainly won't have the right to work on your own idea while
you're on that visa, so that's a long time to wait before you can even get
started.
Probably explains why so many people will try to game the system and claim to
belong to the O-1 category.
~~~
qbaqbaqba
O-1 stands for...?
~~~
BadassFractal
[https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-
worker...](https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-
workers/o-1-visa-individuals-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement)
------
bjourne
I'm not a Nazi, but rules are rules. If you are intent on immigrating to a
country, then it is your duty to read and understand that country's laws. I
can't visit Singapore and then claim ignorance if I get fined for spitting.
E.g the guy could have googled "sweden work permit," clicked on the first
result, then through to the FAQ:
What is the requirement regarding wages?
To be granted a work permit, you must be offered a wage that is at the level
of a Swedish collective agreement or what is normal for the profession or
industry. You must also work to such an extent that your wages amount to at
least SEK 13,000 a month before tax.
[https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-
individuals/...](https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-
individuals/Working-in-Sweden/Frequently-asked-questions.html)
~~~
mrmekon
It's easier to get it wrong than you might think. Sweden doesn't publish a
specific "rules for work visas" document. That website is it, and it is not
all inclusive. The only way to know all the rules of the visa are to read the
actual laws (in Swedish, and in Swedish "legalese", so good luck to
foreigners... the people who would need to know), and to read all of the
relevant case law around it. On your first days in a country, you probably
aren't perusing the rulings of their high courts.
In this guy's case, there is very relevant case law. Before March 2015
Migrationsverket applied the rules based on the average of your work visa
period, 2 years. They would take your last 2 year's salary, divide by 24, and
see if it's over 13,000 kr per month. After March 2015, following new case
law, they started looking at each month individually and deporting if any
specific month violated the rules.
Depending on when he did this, it is possible that if he asked a migration
attorney for guidance they would have approved, and they would have been
correct. The rules retroactively changed that year. It still would be just as
likely to make the wrong decision after the court ruling, since migration
court rulings aren't a particularly big topic of conversation for most people.
Nobody really learned about it until deportations started skyrocketing in
2016.
I wrote a bit about the topic here: [http://dontdeportthedog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/Failu...](http://dontdeportthedog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/Failure-of-the-work-visa-policies-in-Sweden.pdf)
~~~
bjourne
There is also a pretty visible "Contact us" link with phone numbers and email
addresses: [https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Contact-
us.html](https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Contact-us.html) So I can not
feel sorry for him because he should have known. Had he been given incorrect
information, it would have been a different matter. I also believe that the
Swedish rules for work permits for immigrants are among the simplest, most
transparent and least arbitrary in the world. But you know more than me about
that.
~~~
mrmekon
Hah, I just noticed that you consult to a tjänstepension company!
My experience with MV on the phone is that they won't answer any specific
questions about the rules. According to some migration attorneys I spoke with,
many of the rules are undefined and they make them up as they go. Did you see
the one about the guy who was deported for not taking _unpaid_ vacation? Try
to find _that_ requirement on lagen.nu ;)
Everywhere I've worked and everywhere I've interviewed with in the last 2
years has had employees get deported. In all cases, they (the companies) claim
that the information that they got from the big HR consultancies and from
Migrationsverket was faulty, and they're paying the price now. I'm not saying
that it's okay to break the rules, but I will say that if breaking them
accidentally is so common, something is wrong with the system.
Every job offer I've ever received in Sweden (5) has been illegal on the first
pass, violating various requirements of work visas. Violations are typically
things like tjänstepension not starting until after the 6 month trial period.
The most common is that the job ad was only posted on LinkedIn and Indeed, but
not on Arbetsförmedlingen.
Two of my friends got hit because their employer insurance plans didn't become
"active" until their second day at work. You know, those plans that your
employer takes out on your behalf and you can't even see if they exist, let
alone when they started? So it goes.
In 2014 I would have agreed strongly with "among the simplest, most
transparent and least arbitrary in the world", but in 2018 I would add the
caveat "but worse than most of Europe."
~~~
qbaqbaqba
tjänstepension - is that some kind of social security?
~~~
mrmekon
Yes, it's an employer-paid pension that is very similar to the U.S. 401(K).
Depending on how you slice it, Swedish pensions are divided into 3 or 4
layers:
1) Income pension - equivalent to U.S. social security. Taken out of
everyone's taxes, and you have no control over it.
2) Premium pension - it's considered part of Income pension (1), but when you
earn above some amount it goes into this bucket and you can tell the
government a bit about how you want it to be invested.
3) Occupational pension (tjänstepension) - An "optional" employer-paid pension
that you have some direct control over. Depending on the management company,
you can either choose between a few fixed investment schemes, or you can have
full control over it and invest in stocks/mutual funds. It is "optional", but
mandated by the unions, so not really optional.
4) Private pension - your own personal account, like an IRA
There were a bunch of deportations over tjänstepension problems. Companies
that were not in unions paid employees that were not in unions and didn't
offer the same tjänstepension as the union agreement. Migrationsverket decided
(also in 2015) that the exact terms of the union agreements are required for
all non-EU citizens, even if they aren't involved with the unions. (If you are
Swedish or from the EU, there is no legal requirement.)
I got in trouble because the union requires a 4.5% tjänstepension contribution
from your employer. My employer paid 8% to mine, but it was structured in a
different way... which we later found out was unacceptable.
------
larrysalibra
I was in a similar position as this entrepreneur. I had the company I created
sponsored my own employment visa in Hong Kong. I often took less salary than
my employment contract that was provided with the visa application specified
because that's what happens sometimes with bootstrapped businesses.
Luckily for me, the Hong Kong government isn't the Swedish government, and
didn't give me a hard time when renewing my visa.
It will be Sweden's loss if they deport this entrepreneur.
------
stareatgoats
The law is in place to prevent foreign workers from being exploited. That they
voluntarily reduce their own salary is not relevant to the implementation (as
they could have been pressured to reduce it). Still, the outcome is absurd.
I wonder if it is because of the inherent rigidness of civil law? would a
common law system solve this better?
~~~
mcguire
Maybe if he'd sought an "entrepreneur" visa, not an employee visa?
------
throwaway7645
There's a lot of things I like about Sweden, but reading things like this make
me cringe a bit. Hopefully his lawyer keeps the deportation off.
------
callesgg
Why would he get a collective employment agreement in the first place?
Assuming there is an angle the thelocal.se is trying to hide.
~~~
tuukkah
The collective agreement is binding to every employer and employee in the
field - you can think of it as a per-field minimum wage law.
~~~
nemetroid
This is incorrect. There are many tech companies in Sweden that haven't signed
a collective agreement. However, "to obtain a work permit you must [...] have
been offered terms of employment that are on par with those set by Swedish
collective agreements or which are customary within the occupation or
industry" [0]
[0]: [https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-
individuals/...](https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-
individuals/Working-in-Sweden/Employed/Work-permit-requirements.html)
------
mcguire
Tl;dr: Immigrant employee of a company has salary reduced below the amount[1]
specified in his visa; the government refuses to extend his visa even though
he says, "It's ok! Really!"
[1] Presumably set high enough that foreign workers don't drive down the wages
of locals.
------
pimmen
There are also cases of immigrants being deported for taking a second job to
pay the bills because the law for a worker's visa says that it applies to "a
job" as in singular [0]. The same applies if you quit a lousy job and find a
new one [1].
I suspect it's game theory; the public reacts more negatively to allowing
immigrants the right to stay since it means they get access to integration
programs while the public might get mad over an incident like this but not the
overall trend of being overly rigid. The choice becomes pretty easy
politically.
[0] [http://viralt.aftonbladet.se/sheikh-29-ska-utvisas-fran-
sver...](http://viralt.aftonbladet.se/sheikh-29-ska-utvisas-fran-sverige-for-
att-han-haft-for-manga-jobb/) [1] [https://digital.di.se/artikel/han-fick-
jobb-som-utvecklare--...](https://digital.di.se/artikel/han-fick-jobb-som-
utvecklare--blir-utvisad)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Song of GitHub - goddabuzz
http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/
======
ajacksified
Author here. Thanks for the wonderful comments! I also fixed the https issues.
This was really taken to the next level thanks to a couple of pull requests
from some really talented developers; rpflorence, phuu, and everyone else with
issues and pull requests. This is what makes open source so cool.
<https://github.com/ajacksified/song-of-github/contributors>
Also, Midi.js is really fun to play with. <http://mudcu.be/midi-js/>
Obligatory song link: <http://song-of-
github.herokuapp.com/?username=ajacksified>
------
RyanMcGreal
A lament: <https://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=aaronsw>
How fitting that it ends on a discordant note.
~~~
Mahn
Doesn't seem to work anymore, I guess the autor removed it?
~~~
glitchdout
It works if you use http instead of https. I don't know why RyanMcGreal linked
it that way. jQuery isn't getting loaded over https so that's why it's not
working.
Here's the correct link: <http://song-of-
github.herokuapp.com/?username=aaronsw>
~~~
JBerlinsky
Pull request is in: <https://github.com/ajacksified/song-of-github/pull/8>
~~~
glitchdout
This is only my second post so I don't know if this goes against the community
guidelines but...
Hell yeah!, I love open source!
------
leftnode
This is great, I love small hacks like these!
I would love to be able to authorize it with my Github account so it can read
my contributions to my private repository. All around great work.
~~~
ajacksified
Great idea; I've heard it a few times. I actually built this against an
undocumented API call; if you watch the network tab when you open up GitHub,
it makes an ajax request for JSON. I replicated that request with https.get on
the server, then dump that json out on the page (to get around CORS problems.)
I think they're using sessions to determine if you're logged in /
authenticated; so I'd need to either see if I can just pass in an oauth token
and see what happens, wait for them to build an API around it, or just do the
work of combing the repositories and build the data manually.
------
sunils34
The song of linux. <http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=torvalds>
------
deanclatworthy
The song of bootstrap: <http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=mdo>
Very nice :)
~~~
xentronium
<http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=michaelklishin> another good
one
------
charonn0
Melancholy; melodic but listless; in turns sporadic and frenetic; all too
brief, and all too incomplete.
<http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=charonn0>
------
Mahn
<http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=antirez> <\- best one I heard
so far :-) this thing is fun.
------
Mahn
Also, it's just me or does MIDI.js have the potential to lead the renaissance
of midi music on the internet? I had almost forgotten midi files existed if it
weren't for this lib.
~~~
pavel_lishin
It's going to lead to someone writing a MIDIBlock extension for Chrome, which
I will happily install alongside FlashBlock and AdBlock.
------
irok
TJ's song <http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=visionmedia>
~~~
afshinmeh
LOL!
------
wyuenho
I like how mind sounds. Sounds like a lone explorer searching for programming
nirvana for a year, got disappointed for a little bit, and then eventually
rediscovered the joy of programming again.
<http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=wyuenho>
This is really really nicely done. Thanks for this. This made my day.
------
fmax30
Woah , the music generated is beautiful looks like some sort of computational
creativity. Trovalds's song is depressing , <http://song-of-
github.herokuapp.com/?username=torvalds>
------
burkemw3
My public github is pretty sad, so I wired this up for GitHub Enterprise
(<https://github.com/burkemw3/song-of-github>) and like my song much better
now.
------
cpfohl
Mine was disappointing, but here's a pretty one:
<http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=jashkenas>
------
chinchang
Awesome stuff man! mine is very boring: <http://song-of-
github.herokuapp.com/?username=chinchang> :P
------
DanKnox
Best one yet by far... <http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=sferik>
------
damncabbage
This is pretty good: <http://song-of-github.herokuapp.com/?username=radar>
------
seleucia
Congratulations, Just a musician can think that :)
------
joeblau
LOL, my song is the saddest song I've ever heard. It sounds like the score to
a point a play where the protagonist loses everything.
------
basicallydan
This is absolutely brilliant, well done.
------
sdoering
Great idea, great thing to have fun with. And a great motivation, to
contribute more in the future... ;-)
------
varunrau
I love it. So simple. So creative!
------
yayitswei
Great idea! Try using a pentatonic scale, or sharp the 4th (F) to avoid some
dissonance.
~~~
ajacksified
Oh, good idea. I may add in the ability to select scale (or select it based on
frequency of contributions / username checksum or something).
------
whage
This is the best thing I've seen on the web in 2013 so far. Amazing amazing
job
------
deanclatworthy
I would suggest that for those people who don't contribute quite as often as
big contributors, to change the pace inbetween large gaps so the song isn't
just a note followed by 30s of nothing. But this is great!
~~~
xentronium
This is not a bug! Contribute more! :)
~~~
entropy_
At least the gap at the beginning should be shortened. As that's not something
you have any control over now.
------
josebalius
It doesn't seem to work on chrome canary in OSX Lion.
------
murftown
Nice, some MIDI.js magic! I like.
------
afshinmeh
What a cool idea, awesome!
------
lpinca
Cool idea!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: AppScreens.io – Create and Localize App Screens - alexmarktl
https://appscreens.io
======
alexmarktl
I was tired of wasting so much time making and localizing App Store Screens
for our iTranslate Apps and wanted to have a nice WYSIWYG web tool to create
those fancy screens. So I teamed up with the nice guys from @bytepoets and we
created AppScreens.io
Of course we know that there are already some solutions, but AppScreens brings
three new things on the table:
\- It's totally WYSIWYG. A real App Screen design tool, right in your Browser.
\- You can localize your Screens in 5 different languages (more coming soon).
\- No login required. We use hashed urls for App projects that can easily be
bookmarked and shared.
We already have lots of new features in the pipeline and can't wait to hear
what you guys think!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: Get a private VPN server for free, no questions asked - satoshivpn
https://satoshivpn.com/learn/new-get-a-free-vpn-server-from-satoshivpn
======
Kaze404
Should make it clear in the title that this is a 1 hour trial.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Inspired by HN: Beta signups open, local social news site run on Node.js/MongoDB - travisglines
http://www.exipe.com/
======
travisglines
Feel free to ask any questions or give any comments. Feedback is greatly
appreciated.
------
pghimire
Is there a demo/preview page? It's rather hard to give you feedback without
getting a feel for the product. A superficial prototype should suffice if you
do not have anything functional to show. If you have a working link, or
anything else that you can share with HN, please post it here and I'll try to
give you some comments. Right now I am drawing blank.
~~~
travisglines
We'll send you an invite code early if you'd like (after the weekend). We just
want to clean it up a bit more before letting anyone in.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Uncertain Future of Ham Radio - MindGods
https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/the-uncertain-future-of-ham-radio
======
irrational
This summer I was supposed to go on a week long backcountry hike with a youth
group. The youth would be split into multiple teams and they wanted an adult
with a ham radio to be with each team. I volunteered to get a license since
there was only one adult who already had his license and was experienced with
ham radio. Getting the license was interesting. I’ve never studied engineering
or electronics and a lot of the test was things like being able to read
circuit schematics, understanding how inductors/capacitors/tranformers/etc.
work, learning ohms law and the power law and being able to solve equations
with them, learning laws around ham radio, etc.
What you don’t learn as part of getting a license is what do you do after you
have a license. Where do you buy equipment? What kind of equipment do you
need? How do you use a radio? What do all the buttons on the radio do? Etc.
I asked someone about this and they said I needed to join my local club to
learn this stuff. But, I don’t want to join a club. I have a family, 2 jobs,
home remodeling, and various hobbies (woodworking, drawing, reading, board
games, baking, gardening, etc.) The last thing I have time for is to join a
club ;-)
So I’m in this weird spot where I have a license, but don’t actually know what
to do with it. Due to the pandemic, the youth trip was cancelled. But it may
be rescheduled for a future year. I’ll need to figure all this stuff out
before then.
~~~
thepangolino
What’s the actual point of having to learn all that for the license? What’s
the actual point for the license in the first place?
~~~
irrational
The license is an FCC requirement. They are also the ones who come up with the
test questions. You would have to ask them. I can understand why they would
want me to understand the laws governing ham radio. I don’t understand why I
need to be able to read a schematic diagram to get a license. I assume that if
I was going to build my own equipment that I would need to know a lot more
than what I needed to learn to pass the test.
~~~
tzs
> I can understand why they would want me to understand the laws governing ham
> radio. I don’t understand why I need to be able to read a schematic diagram
> to get a license.
You need to consider the big picture. Ham radio is just one of several radio
services. They have different licensing requirements depending on their
purpose and/or who is meant to use them.
For services that are aimed at people who just want to communicate, getting a
license won't involve anything like schematic diagrams--if a license is even
required.
The ham radio service's target is radio geeks. Hams are given considerably
more leeway in what they can do with radio than are users of most other
services, and so the licensing requirements include more things concerning the
underlying technology than you need to just operate a radio reasonably.
~~~
NovemberWhiskey
> _For services that are aimed at people who just want to communicate, getting
> a license won 't involve anything like schematic diagrams--if a license is
> even required._
For people who might be interested in what those 'unlicensed' services are,
they include:
\- FRS (the Family Radio Service[0]), which is typified by the sort of $20
bubble pack radios you can buy at a sporting goods store;
\- MURS (the Multi-Use Radio Service[1]), which is common in commercial radios
used by e.g. staff at big box stores;
\- CBRS (the Citizens Band Radio Service[2]), which is probably familiar to
most from "any movie involving truck drivers".
These services may have licensing/approval rules for equipment, but not for
individuals using them.
[0] [https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
divis...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
division/family-radio-service-frs)
[1] [https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
divis...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
division/multi-use-radio-service-murs)
[2] [https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
divis...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-
division/citizens-band-radio-service-cbrs)
------
schoolornot
Dad always told me the smartest people he knew were Hams so I figured why not.
Skimmed the book, used the flash cards, and got a tech license.
In short, it sucks. Some observations:
\- the exams are oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who
just wants to go on the air to talk. They should really restore the novice
license. Give it the same privileges as technician with no rights to broadcast
over 10w or construct towers
\- there is MASSIVE underutilization of spectrum. not just at the tech level
due to inefficient coding but in general, the airwaves are not busy at all
whatsoever. I live in NYC and there are rarely more than a dozen or so people
on across the entire tech band at any given time.
\- conversations are dull. the weekly nets can be interesting but pretty much
the subject of conversation always revolves around call quality or someone's
rig or something to do with radio. It's boring!
\- proprietary. all the digital modes employ proprietary protocols or
proprietary codecs. brandmeister is closed-source. echolink is closed sourced
and rarely updated. DSTAR is proprietary. DMR isn't proprietary but the
vocoder is. want to setup a repeater? sure, go pay a shady motorola VAR a few
bucks and he'll sneak you a unit and user manual.
~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
HAM still has some interesting practical uses. Up here in the PNW rally racing
events use them to coordinate stage start and emergency/sweeper vehicles. The
races are up in the mountains where cell phone service can be quite spotty,
but a truck with a repeater parked on one of the higher foothills covers the
whole area just fine.
------
umpc
I got into ham radio almost a year ago. I did so as my software and web
development hobby became my career.
Ham radio is a very interesting hobby with a large variety of activities and
operating techniques. It's been great to learn about how to make direct
contacts across the world using just a small antenna and coil using the HF
bands.
I certainly understand the potential commercial value of spectrum currently
allocated to amateurs, though it's a shame to see it constantly under threat,
with little regard to its usefulness as an emergency communication service.
While it's true that most amateurs are older, I'm 24 and I would encourage
anyone looking for something else to do to get licensed and get on the air.
There's always something more to learn and do, and many hams are happy to help
with choosing and setting up equipment.
Check out hamstudy.org if you want to get licensed. It's pretty easy,
especially to get a basic Technician class license, and online testing has
begun due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
~~~
stellersjay
Where are you seeing results for online testing? Seems to be tricky to find as
most of the ones I have seen have been cancelled or "no walk-in / call ahead".
Also thanks for prompting this and keep ham radio alive :)
~~~
irrational
Someone in my local area told me about them. Apparently you normally have to
go to a community college for 2 days of classes and then take the exam in
person. But they did the classes over zoom and the testing over zoom too. I
didn’t even need to leave my home to get my license. Nice.
The exam system was figured out by some group in Texas. Their system was
approved by the FCC so my local group piggybacked off of the Texas group to do
the online exam.
There was a zoom call at a certain time. You had to do certain things to your
computer ahead of time to get it ready. When it was time they had me turn the
laptop all around to show my room to prove there was no one and nothing other
than a plain sheet of paper, a basic calculator, and a pencil nearby. I had to
prove the paper was blank and the calculators memory was wiped. I had to have
all family members leave the house during the exam. There were five other
people on the call all watching me over my camera while I took the test. The
proctor took control of my computer to see what I had running and to start the
exam. Then I took the exam. I missed one question, but they can’t tell you
which one you missed. I really thought I got them all right and it still
bothers me not knowing which one I got wrong ;-)
Afterwards the Texas group was given my information and they submitted it to
the FCC. I got my license a few weeks later in an email.
~~~
neilv
That test protocol sounds needlessly invasive and dehumanizing.
~~~
irrational
Nah, it didn’t bother me at all. It actually made a lot of sense. The test
proctors were all very nice.
------
beckler
I've had an amateur radio license since I was 14, and I got it through a
collaboration with our local radio club and the boy scouts. I don't use my
license enough, but I love having it.
One of my absolute favorite memories growing up was when we did a camping trip
during a field day. A field day is basically an annual global contest to see
who you can contact and how far you can reach out. We setup a massive portable
antenna in the woods, and I stayed up ALL NIGHT on one of our more powerful
SSB radios reaching out to people all across the world. Like Ukraine, Denmark,
Ireland, Australia, and more (I'm in the US). Young me was so fascinated with
talking with those people, that I'm pretty certain it was one of the first
times I experienced sonder.
SDR is fun, but no where near as rewarding as using analog.
~~~
nlh
1000% this. Same story - was one of the highest of highlights of my ham youth.
The local club’s field day operation happened literally a day after my license
arrived in the mail and I vividly remember staying up all night totally
immersed in this crazy hobby that I’d only been reading about.
Huge fancy Kenwood and Icon HF rigs (the amazing ones I could only dream about
buying as a 12 y/o), tons of people having fun, and CQ Field Day CQ Field Day
into the wee hours. Super fun experience and memory.
(Ps - DE K2KD)
------
GekkePrutser
Personally as a HAM I think our technology is becoming too stale.
Commercial tech is now migrating towards high-speed data networks to be used
even for voice. With HAM radio we're still stuck with analog voice and very
low-bitrate voice codecs in the digital standards. None of which really offer
much that analog (and linking tech) didn't. APRS is a joke with its low
speeds.
The whole idea about ham radio was to innovate... We're not doing that at all,
at best we're just using commercial technology. Some advancements to adapt
firmware of commercial rigs (MD-380tools, OpenGD77) are amazing, but we're
still lifting on what's commercially possible. This is not the ham spirit :(
We really need something good to offer and at the moment we haven't. It used
to be so cool you could talk to people around the world for free. Now anyone
with a phone in their pocket can do that.
~~~
m0xte
There’s still plenty of innovation left to do. Low bandwidth, low power, long
distance signalling is interesting. As are ridiculously high frequencies. Also
new modes and repurposing some of the modern radio ICs you can get.
But the issue I found is that the technical community is about as dead as it
gets. It created a stereotype and then proceeded to get stuck in a hole. This
was around 1970. Any newer thinking made it into appliances which cover the
95% of the rest of the user base. Most hams can barely solder a PL259 without
destroying it. Even talking modulation schemes solicits a glazed look and some
mumbling about 80m QRM. I was about done.
This year I didn’t renew my RSGB sub and sold all my radio equipment and test
gear. I spent the money on an iPad Pro with Procreate and and a new Mac and am
in a better place with respect to personal satisfaction and have some cash
left over to spend on experiences and not things.
~~~
walrus01
Compared to innovation in radios for commercial telecom microwave and
millimeter wave radios (2.4 all the way up to 86 GHz), ham radio is moribund.
There's a whole lot more on the ground real world innovation happening in
people building WISPs in very rural, challenging locations with no pre-
existing telecom services (except by two-way satellite) than there is
happening in ham radio.
~~~
m0xte
Now you see that's a thousand times more interesting. It's providing utility
to people and that has a purpose.
------
h4m1tup
I got a general license in the US since it seemed like an interesting hobby,
but haven't used it much. Sometimes I feel bad about that, and I've thought a
bit about it.
Radios are fascinating to learn about, but our HAM regulations seem mired in
the past and overly restrictive. You simply aren't allowed to do much on the
amateur bands besides chatting with people.
For example, I don't believe you can cipher communications unless they're
being used to control an RC vehicle. That rules out a lot of DIY-style
projects. The regulations and terminology around automated "beacons" are also
a tad confusing, and the potential fines are quite heavy.
And if you do spend the time reading rules, going to a class or doing flash
cards, taking your test, buying a starter radio, and finally talking with some
people on a local repeater...then what? Try to contact a different country or
continent? You can, but talking to someone across the world feels very
pedestrian in this day and age.
And while it is technically possible to set up a beacon for something like
data collection or remote monitoring on HAM frequencies, it's much easier
these days to use an off-the-shelf radio module. You don't need a license to
use a $5 LoRa module with an arduino or raspberry pi, and there's no red tape.
It's too bad, because I really admire the amateur operators who step in during
disasters to keep information flowing. But I can also see why HAM radio is
sort of a dying art in the US; like many relics of an optimistic past, it's
been left to rot for decades.
~~~
JoshTriplett
> You simply aren't allowed to do much on the amateur bands besides chatting
> with people.
Here's a fun thing you can do: 802.11b channel 1 is in the amateur band, so as
long as you don't use encryption, you can use quite a lot more power than the
802.11 band would normally allow. (Remember that you should only use the
amount of power you _need_ , though.)
Our amateur rocketry group used ordinary wifi, amplified to 1W and run through
a custom cylindrical antenna, to communicate between the rocket (breaking the
sound barrier) and the ground.
~~~
chmod600
Now that's cool!
But rocketry is also pretty tightly-regulated in my area. So that's two high-
attention hobbies, and it starts to seem like a bit much.
~~~
JoshTriplett
You don't have to do amateur rocketry to have fun with high-powered long-
distance wifi.
------
brian-armstrong
If you're reading this and you're thinking about getting into radio, you can
get a Baofeng UV-5R handheld radio which works on the 2m and 70cm bands for
$25. It has never been cheaper or easier to get into radio than it is now.
These radios are completely portable and will let you "work" the repeaters
local to you and can be received 10-15 miles away even without a repeater at
5W power [https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-Dual-Radio-
Black/dp/B00...](https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-Dual-Radio-
Black/dp/B007H4VT7A)
Do I need a license, you ask. Yes, you'll need to get a technician's license
to transmit, though you can receive on the radio without it. The test has no
morse code requirement, and it's entirely multiple choice. The entire question
pool is freely available and it only takes a couple weekends to prep for and
pass. It'd be an easy task for anyone here. Most of the questions pertain to
FCC policy as well as radio safety, just enough to make sure you don't injure
yourself or interfere with other radio users.
73s :)
~~~
dbcurtis
Please don’t get a Baofeng. Those things put out incredibly dirty signals.
They are RF polution you can carry in your pocket.
~~~
LeoPanthera
Quite apart from their quality, a VHF handheld is possibly the most boring
possible introduction to amateur radio. There is so much more you can do that
is so much more interesting than hearing 80 year old retirees talk about their
prostates on the local repeaters.
~~~
brian-armstrong
Does this imply there's a radio frequency that's not dominated by retirees? ;)
HF feels considerably harder to get into. If you're a city dweller your only
antenna choice is probably a magloop. VHF has options for things like
satellite and ISS contacts, and the fact that it's local makes it seem a bit
more relevant and community-driven.
~~~
jdc
2.4 GHz ;)
------
jvanderbot
I am working on my HAM General-class license. I have young and non-engineer
friends who are into it. It is mostly interesting to them because they have
never done something highly technical, and here is a relatively approachable
technical hobby.
However, I'm decreasingly enthused about HAM. I got my license so I could
interact with devices that I wanted to build. However, there are almost no use
cases where HAM helps. I cannot build something cheaper, or make it more
effective than a commercially available product. It's only at the extreme, un-
useful cases that HAM becomes a thing. (Want to bounce signals off the moon?)
What I'd like to see from HAM:
\- More, different competitions. Long-term monitoring, stealthy side-channel
transmissions, digital and analog networking competitions (like hackathons:
Get a signal from A to B with minimal loss / delay using teams in disparate
areas of the country --- internet OK), recovery games (set up a network
serving x users with max datarate or voice capacity using this equipment), or
encoding / decoding games, and so on.
\- More support from local governments and infrastructure. I want to know
where to sign up to be useful if telecommunications suffers a hiccup. If that
is not useful, I want to know and be told how to be useful (esp studying
different technology). Some certifications beyond HAM, and specializing in
different niche areas would be nice.
\- More training on HAM-adjacent technologies. To be useful / innovative
requires knowing the telecommunications space, and sticking to SSB voice + FT8
for DXs is great, but not helpful when trying to understand telecommunications
and make an impact on the world. God forbid a disaster did happen and the HAMs
showed up with their 10m antennas and were useful for 30 minutes until the
Verizon tech arrived. It'd be more useful if they could bridge 3G / UHF by
setting up an adhoc repeater network to actually extend the range of whatever
equipment didn't die in the zombie apocalypse.
For example: In the IoT area, I thought for sure HAMs would be front-and-
center with new mesh networking technologies, WAN, etc. But no, we got another
AWS product with minimal device-device communication and called it a day.
~~~
FlyMoreRockets
> I cannot build something cheaper, or make it more effective than a
> commercially available product.
Not sure what you are looking to do, but there are plenty of inexpensive radio
designs. Consider the Pixie or the SMT version, the Knight SMiTe, either can
be built very cheaply.
Onr could also put an amplifier on inexpensive IMS chips for really
inexpensive radio projects.
A Raspberry Pi Zero can be bitbanged into a transciever using PWM and SDR and
can operate pretty much any mode. It's a very noisy, low power output signal
and will need filtering and amplification. Still better than a spark gap
transmitter, the ultimate low cost radio.
For cheap recievers, look into foxhole radio designs.
~~~
entropea
I made it across the pond to UK from NY on WSPR 20 meter amateur band using
the ~10dBm output of a Raspberry Pi on its IO pins. It's quite capable. That
was ~7 years ago when the atmosphere/sun was a bit more ham friendly however.
~~~
FlyMoreRockets
You should see what the QRSS guys are doing down in the noise floor.
------
jimnotgym
There is something soul destroying that comes with the demographic. Long, ill
informed, right- wing speeches. Politics is supposed to be a taboo subject, of
course.
I was listening to a repeater in the UK one day and heard this,
"I don't follow the news, I don't follow politics, I don't know the first
thing about it. But in my opinion... blah blah Brexit blah"
Or another on air every night without fail on 2m FM in the SSB segment... "
These modern planes are all auto-pilots, the pilot is just sat there. No skill
at all."
That's the reality that greets us after we get our licence. You would also be
hard pressed to join in with them either, they are just chatting to their mate
up the road. I tried to get my boys interested, but they heard this stuff and
now make their own jokes about ham operators.
~~~
ColanR
Yeah, too bad there's people using a communication tool to share their opinion
with their friends.
------
jacquesm
HAM radio is a complete luxury with today's networks _right up until the point
that you really need it_ , for instance during some kind of natural disaster.
With high speed satellite internet maybe even that function will be
superseded.
~~~
teddyh
If “some kind of natural disaster might happen” is your only argument, then
you’re basically being a prepper.
~~~
jacquesm
Natural disasters happen all the time, and HAM radio in the past has
traditionally been the last to go down and the first to be back up in those
situations because it needs no infrastructure at all to work.
~~~
teddyh
> […] _HAM radio in the past has traditionally been_ […]
You know what’s not like the past? The present, and, even less so, the future.
3G/4G/5G/Satellite phones are rapidly progressing, and everybody already has
one.
But even if you were right, how does that address my point that arguing for
HAM radio with the argument “it might be useful in a disaster” is basically
being a prepper?
------
thatannoyingguy
In my country (Luxembourg) is only one place where you can take the courses.
That place is in the south of the country and the courses are held in the
evening. Their schedule is impossible to combine it with public transportation
and their sessions/courses are only done once per year, meaning that I'd have
to wait an entire year to be able to apply to their courses. As a young
person, it is nearly inpossible to participate without relying on somebody
with a car or living somewhere closer.
~~~
xvf22
It seems easier in Canada but what always puts me off is that there isn't any
formal resting center. You need to find an examiner and they set the price. A
bunch of them insist on lessons which be useful for some but if like to just
write the test.
------
chmod600
One thing I noticed when getting my license was that broadcasting is not
allowed. That makes sense, because you're not supposed to hog the airwaves.
But I think they could create room for some kind of amateur programming. For
instance, you have to pause every 5 minutes so people can either join the
conversation or ask questions. And maybe it would have to be a human speaking
live, not a recording or machine. And I'm sure you'd need certain channels and
parts of the spectrum for this.
The advantage is that this gets content on the airwaves and gives people a
chance to get involved. After the program, you can jump onto another part of
the spectrum for free-form chat. Like: "That's all for now, but join the
discussion starting right now on [callsign of repeater]".
It would have to be non-commercial, but people like talking about their
hobbies, etc. I could easily see a lot of people doing scheduled 30-minute
programs about cars or gardening or whatever.
~~~
nullc
This isn't precluded under US regulations. Broadcasting means transmissions
intended for the general public, as opposed to other amateurs. One way
communications are generally prohibited too (except in certain cases like
beacon stations and remote control), but as you note-- what you want doesn't
need to be one way.
It's not even uncommon on HF for people to blather on for many minutes at a
time without pause.
People could totally do lectures with Q&A, and I imagine many repeaters would
be perfectly fine with that use.
~~~
GekkePrutser
Yeah also many people have been duplexing over the years, upstreaming on 2m
and downstreaming on 70cm for example. That is allowed as long as you mention
your call every few minutes.
------
punchclockhero
Got the Baofeng and the callsign, in that order. Got licensed because it costs
around $10 for the exam with no mandatory classes and to use Echolink. Don't
see much point in it as I don't like to talk and the funny chatter is on the
unlicensed bands anyway.
Seriously, PMR446 near hotels and nightclubs is pure gold. Local gangsters'
seating preferences, awkward staff romance, weird room service orders, you
name it.
------
marianov
Licensing is the worst part. In my country you have to sit through about 20 2h
lessons and then take an examination. No way to just study on your own
------
zeckalpha
I got my ham license at 16, later used it at work extensively (non-commercial,
research projects), but mostly set it aside in 2016 due to the incessant
discussion of hateful politics on the local 2m band. I upgraded to general but
my HF setup is portable (no permanent antenna) so it’s harder to hop on, but I
hope those bands are less bigoted, or at least, the bigots keep to themselves.
------
m0llusk
I wonder if Negativland tracks documenting the history and art of "jamming"
might be a way of sparking the interest of young people. Track and sound arts
are popular new sounds and radio is a great way to expose lots of people to
compositions.
------
BrianHenryIE
> The 66-year-old from Dartmouth, Mass., credits his career in electrical and
> computer engineering to an early interest in amateur radio.
I initially studied electronic systems before later studying computer science,
which I credit to my dad's interest in ham radio.
------
segfaultbuserr
The original article talks about attracting newcommers to the ham radio
community, on the other hand I'm here to complain about the trouble of staying
in the community.
From my experience, one major killer of ham radio is the horrible and
dehumanizing electromagnetic interference in modern cities from 0 to 30 MHz.
HF/shortwave remains the most interesting spectrum in ham radio - it's the
only spectrum capable of international communication without specialized
equipment or infrastructure, just throw a random wire out of the window, how
wonderful it is.
Unfortunately, 0 to 30 MHz is also where most electrical and electronics
devices operate at. A cheap bike charger with PWM control can easily disable
all HF communication around it, so can a cheap switched-mode power supply,
also, yes, builders of transparent PCs without metal enclosures, I'm looking
at you (although it's not much of a problem compared to commercial devices)!
Government regulations on EMI/RFI is useless when tons and tons of
nonconforming devices made by the cheapest vendors are flooding the market.
While it's easy to add filters or stop using them if they are yours, but in
cities, you often cannot possibly know where they are coming from. And even
worse, nobody cares - without a spectrum analyzer (or an SDR equivalent),
nobody can see or smell it. Remember those stories about car key fobs being
jammed? The media makes them sound almost mysterious, because EMI/RFI is
unknown to the general public. Car keys are only a tip of the iceberg, VHF is
actually pretty clean, HF is horrible. And even to some people with respective
knowledge on the subject, many still don't care - the worst offenders, such as
VDSL and Ethernet over Powerlines technologies, are fundamentally harmful to
radio communication and can disable all HF receivers in sight. In an ideal
world where telecommunication regulations are faithfully enforced, nobody
should be allowed to use them, yet the interests of ISP trumps HF amateur
services and governments allowed their deployment.
Even with all these jammers, HF is still somewhat usable, but only for picking
up powerful stations, or using slow, digital modes designed for weak-signal
communications. It's better than none, but quite limited (this includes
digital modes that requires a higher signal-to-noise radio). When HF becomes a
lost battle, the enjoyment and capabilities of amateur radio is reduced
greatly. So one is forced to go somewhere else, either physical moving your
home or your radio (not an option for most), or moving the spectrum of your
operation: VHF (without special setups) is only capable of local
communication. Then the only remaining choices for international communication
are satellite communication, meteor scatters, and tropospheric scatter. They
are interesting technical challenges much in line with the tradition of
amateur radios, but far from easy like HF. For example, satellites at Low
Earth Orbit are only usable when they are passing your location.
With the launch of the first geostationary amateur radio satellite, QO-100
(Es’hail 2), I can only hope the situation of amateur radio without HF will
continue becoming better at the next decade and enjoy global coverage by
geostationary satellites.
~~~
jrockway
Noise is pretty bad in the city. You have to realize that you are going to be
responding to other people's CQs, not calling your own. There is just too high
a risk of the receiver being able to hear you, but you not being able to hear
the reply.
I routinely operate out of my 1st floor apartment in Brooklyn with 5W into a
magloop antenna and can make contacts across the country. I've had the best
luck on 40m, and 30m works well too. 20m is pretty much unusable for me, and
it's a popular band, so that kind of hurts. Using FT8 or CW works better than
voice (par for the course when running QRP). If you take your rig out to a
park, the noise floor drops dramatically.
You certainly have to make more of an effort than someone in the country with
a 5 element beam on a tower, but you can still make a lot of QSOs in subpar
conditions.
(Also worth noting is that we're at the bottom of a solar cycle, so HF isn't
amazing for anyone right now. A few years ago, I could reliably listen to WWV
and WWVH at the same time. But I haven't heard WWVH for ages. Aloha!)
------
hanoz
If anyone in the UK is thinking about getting a foundation license, you might
like to know you can now sit the exam entirely online, as the practical
assessment component is currently waived.
------
arbitrage
I am a paper HAM, that is a derogatory term in the amateur radio community for
us operators who only have a license and don't use it.
In short, it sucks. HAM radio is full of old weird people, talking about
bodily functions. Wanna go to a HAMfest? If you're under 50years old, you well
get weird looks. And weird interactions. The learning curve is brutal to do
anything other than exchange callsigns with randos, or talk to old people
about communism and their bodily functions.
HAM radio has outlived its usefulness. It is really sad, and I regret that.
But there is just no point to it.
------
MrRadar
As a guy in his 30s who got his ham license last year, there are two major
things I think the ham radio community needs to change if they want to
increase membership. Firstly, they need to target the right demographic for
recruitment. Right now they're laser-focused on targeting teens, since that's
the age many of these older guys originally got into the hobby, however (as
the article acknowledges) what draws people to amateur radio today is very
different to what drew people back then. I think the demographic they need to
be targeting is engineers and scientists of all types and electronics
hobbyists in their 20s-40s, i.e. people who have an aptitude/knowedge base to
build off and who can imagine applications for radio, and who have the income
and physical space to invest in the hobby. (Don't get me wrong, if younger
people want to get involved they absolutely should be encouraged to do so, but
I don't think there is enough interest there to rebuild the base the hobby
needs to continue.)
Secondly, the ham community needs a _much_ better presence on the web. ARRL's
site has a lot of information but if you don't know what you are looking for
it can be a bit of a maze to navigate. Also, they _really_ want to sell you
their books, which means some of that vital information about being an amateur
radio operator is not available for free on their site.
The web presence of local clubs is highly variable but often poor. For
example, the club I took my license exam through has two different web sites
with different information in them, one of which is apparently no longer
maintained and the other of which is "temporary". I got a free 1-year
membership to the club when I passed my exam so I get a ~monthly newsletter
from them, but it's sent from a personal e-mail account in the form of a PDF
attachment. I actually deleted those newsletters for the first few months
because I didn't know who was sending them or why I was getting them!
The club doesn't have any social media presence and meetings were strictly in-
person before the Coronavirus. Because I live a 45-minute (in good traffic)
drive away from where they hold meetings I hadn't attended any before they
held those online ones.
Clubs really need to invest in their online presence as that's where people
under the age of 50 will first encounter them. They should have a decent-
looking site with a dedicated domain, photos/blog posts about activities they
do and, if possible, _recordings of their meetings_ so people can see what
joining the club brings them. They should also maintain a presence on Facebook
and Twitter, if only to post the occasional updates and links to their main
site.
Online forums aren't much better. QRZ Forums, the largest English-language
online amateur radio community, has such a reputation for being hostile to
newcomers to the hobby that I haven't even bothered looking at it.
r/amateurradio, by nature of being on Reddit, has a much younger and more
welcoming demographic than QRZ Forums, but it has the problem of being on
Reddit which is not conducive to any kind of long-running discussions which
makes forming a community hard.
On YouTube channels that focus on amateur radio rarely seem to cover topics
related to getting people interested in the hobby or the basics of the hobby,
and those that do generally seem tsrgetted at the "prepper" community (which
is not me). What got me to take the time to get my license was a guy on a
programming forum I follow posting that he was going to do live streams of
himself making contacts and otherwise doing projects related to radio. Just
seeing the practical side of the hobby was enough to push me from a vague
interest to getting my license. Unfortunately he stopped streaming after a few
months, but this is _exactly_ the type of content organizations like ARRL or
local clubs should be putting out to get people interested.
~~~
wcfields
r/amateurradio & Han Radio Crash Course on YouTube are about the only thing
that keeps me interested in HAM; everything else is octogenarians with
Angelfire-esq websites.
For myself, late 30’s IT profesional, I’ve found the European Twitter scene of
Satnogs, Amateur TV, QO-100, and microwave comms much more interesting than
anything that’s come out of the LF OMs in the states. Hell, I saw a French
person create a high speed VHF/UHF system that’s technically illegal in the US
due to regulations/encryption.
What I have seen from Reddit is there’s a lot of “listener” trans operators
and one huge roadblock is the FCC open database of full names and addresses,
past and present. Even myself, I almost never give out my call sign online
since it has my government name and home addresses, even If I’ve updated to a
PO Box it still has historical info. I can only imagine what it’s like for a
LGBTQ person in the Midwest calling CQ and being deadnamed, or worse in
return.
In my ideal world Amateur Radio would be packed to the gills by people of all
stripes using it as free communication for ad-hoc cell phone networks, free
WiFi/internet, and DIY wireless systems. I know there’s limitations but
politically I want it to become available and free for everyone against the
oppression of paying for communications.
~~~
1996
> one huge roadblock is the FCC open database of full names and addresses,
> past and present
That is creepy. No wonder why people shy away from HAM. Even privacy conscious
geeks would just object to that!
In practice, how does it works?
Does the FCC gets its data from Experian?
~~~
sterwill
The law says you have to get a license from the FCC to operate your radio, and
getting the license requires sending them your name and addresses. It's that
simple.
~~~
1996
Then they shouldn't complain too loud that HAM is dying.
Between us privacy minded geeks who don't want our records out in the public,
and the queer teens who don't want their old names out in the public as
explained by the parent poster, it doesn't leave much of a demography.
Nobody wants their archaic rules. It's that simple.
------
sitzkrieg
ham is not an acronym, dont write it HAM :-)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Gary Taubes: The Inanity of Overeating - cwan
http://www.garytaubes.com/2010/12/inanity-of-overeating/
======
mkn
_Since a pound of fat is roughly equal to 3500 calories, this means you
accumulate roughly 7000 calories worth of fat every year. Divide that 7000 by
365 and you get the number of calories of fat you stored each day and never
burned roughly 19 calories. Let’s round up to 20 calories, so we have a nice
round number. (In the new book I discuss this issue in a chapter called "The
Significance of Twenty Calories a Day.")_
He neglects the metabolism one needs to maintain that fat tissue each and
every day. One rough rule of thumb is 11/cal/day/pound to maintain your
weight. Being 40 lbs overweight thus takes not just his (apparently trivial)
20 calories per day to gain that weight, but 440 additional calories per day
to maintain it. If the weight was truly gained in a linear fashion, that's an
average of 220 calories per day to maintain it, above the 20 per day to gain
it. This is the real math. This is why weight gain and weight loss correspond
to gross caloric intake and expenditure. The dynamic equilibrium of an
organism's weight is a feedback mechanism _in which the mass of the organism
appears as the magnitude of the gain on the negative feedback term._
Someone who is truly obese, say someone who is 300 lbs who should 180 lbs, for
example, is running an ongoing daily calorie surplus of 1320 calories through
diet and lifestyle, not the 60 per day that Taubes would suggest. This is not
an insignificant disparity, and this guy's work will be truly harmful wherever
it is--help us all--taken seriously.
I could maybe take the rest of his ideas more seriously if he were not so
obviously wrong right out of the gate.
~~~
defen
I'm not sure how the maintenance expenditure is relevant to his point - the
point is that if you only eat 20 calories/day more than you "should" (the
amount that would cause your weight to remain the same) then you will gain the
weight. The fact that the baseline changes is an irrelevant detail. Regardless
of what the baseline is at any given point, how does the system (meaning the
person's body+brain) know when to stop eating?
~~~
mkn
_the point is that if you only eat 20 calories/day more than you "should" (the
amount that would cause your weight to remain the same) then you will gain the
weight._
The point is that you won't ever gain the 40 lbs if you only eat the 20
cal/day extra.
Imagine you start eating the 20 cal/day extra. Initially, your weight climbs
at 1 lb/year. However, by the time you gain that one pound, you have to spend
an additional 11 cal/day to maintain that weight, so now you're gaining at a
bit less than 1/2 lb/year. By the time you (asymptotically) approach having
gained 20/11 ~ 1.9 pounds (which really only happens at infinity, but let's
imagine you splurged to put yourself over), then you're at maintenance for
your new weight. In order to gain more, you have to increase your uptake
again.
As you gain weight, you accumulate metabolic load, so it takes a serious
surplus of calories to continue to gain in the long term.
The steady-state condition of obesity requires a _large ongoing surplus_ of
calories to maintain.
Plausible fixes are incorporating more fiber in the diet to increase the
feeling of satiety, reduce portions generally, cut out high-calorie drinks,
and start exercising, even if only moderately but consistently.
Succinctly, the amount you "should" eat is not the amount to maintain your
current weight, but the amount you need to maintain a healthy weight.
~~~
nkurz
This is all true, but I'm wondering if you are mistaking a strawman for Taubes
actual argument. The bit about '20 calories/day' is his attempt to explain the
current philosophy, which he feels is fatally flawed, in the way you mention
among others. He's setting up this argument merely to tear it down. Despite
being the simplified version of the standard wisdom, he agrees with you that
it's wrong.
His actual point is at the end: 'Maybe when we get fat it’s because those
physiological, metabolic and genetic factors you mentioned are dysregulating
our fat tissue, driving it to accumulate too much fat'. He might be wrong
about this, but his point is that the difference between an obese and non-
obese person cannot be fully explained by an intake difference of 20 calories
per day over a lifetime. There must be something else in play.
~~~
yummyfajitas
_...his point is that the difference between an obese and non-obese person
cannot be fully explained by an intake difference of 20 calories per day over
a lifetime..._
If that's his point, it's wrong. The intake difference between the obese
person and the non-obese person is just shy of 1 big mac/day after 40 years
(440 cals maintenance + 20 cals excess).
------
tptacek
Worth mentioning, maybe, because I was surprised by this factoid when I
learned it: Gary Taubes is not one of the 10,487 "nutrition experts" hawking
diet books; his best-known book, _Good Calories, Bad Calories_, is a serious
pop-sci look at the scientific controversies behind nutrition; prior to
writing it, Taubes was already a science writer of no small repute.
Interesting to see him take the "laws of thermodynamics" meme head on.
~~~
dsdfsdf
This article is my introduction to this author. After reading it, and being
incensed at how thoroughly bad it was, I researched the author's previous
work, his background, and the list of accolades he has received. It's
distressing to see someone who clearly doesn't know what he's talking about
being rewarded as a serious expert. The things he says are either false or
nonsensical. He generates controversy. He knows how to sell books. That's
about it. Whatever scientific reputation he has is based on tricking people
who don't know how to dissect an argument.
~~~
rkalla
Was it hard writing this comment while waving your arms so wildly about?
How about some of your own facts/links/corrections showing where he "clearly
doesn't know what he's talking about".
------
waterhouse
It occurs to me that I haven't seen this question addressed anywhere: Is
everyone's digestive system, at all times and under all conditions, equally
efficient at extracting energy from food? (Rhetorical question.)
To illustrate with an extreme example, lactose is a sugar and carries energy,
but some people can digest it (and their bodies will get the full complement
of calories from it), and some people can't (it'll get digested by bacteria
and they'll get gas and feel unpleasant; I'm pretty sure they don't get
calories from it). It is incorrect and stupid to say that an item of food with
significant lactose component carries "N calories" without specifying whether
the person who eats it can digest lactose. Likewise, with cellulose, I think
cows get a lot more energy out of cellulose than humans can.
Also, it seems likely to me that people's digestive systems' performance
varies with "outside" conditions in the body. For example, I've heard that
being pumped full of adrenaline puts digestion on hold; and subjective
experience suggests to me that if you eat a lot of food (over a period of,
say, a day), your system will send it through pretty quickly, without
digesting it fully.
I suspect there are a lot of other situations in which one's body doesn't get
all N calories from an "N-calorie" item of food. I suppose that if that
happens, then the remaining part probably will be digested by bacteria, and
one may notice symptoms of... oh, hey, there's a name for this, "indigestion".
(Though if the amount of left-over energy is really small, then the symptoms
are probably too slight to notice. If 10 or 20 calories a day matters, then
this may make things unpredictable.)
I suppose one could count the bacteria digesting the food that you didn't as
"calories burned", but then that means you may be burning a bunch of calories
without doing any physical activity.
Does someone more knowledgeable than me know a) whether these things are
really significant and b) whether these researchers take them into account?
~~~
cincinnatus
It is pretty clear that digestion varies dramatically from person to person,
and from moment to moment for the same person. You hit upon two major things
in your question; what flora are in your gut, and how the rest of your body
is.
Anecdotally I've noticed I can change my stomach on purpose by what I eat, and
rebalance the flora. For example I used to eat Tums all the time to deal with
acid indigestion. Then I did a 3 day fast at the suggestion of my mother in
law, and found I was free of indigestion for months after that. Now whenever I
find myself getting heartburn more than a couple times I do a fast and it
clears up for awhile.
There is increasing evidence the balance of flora also contributes to how you
process food, and can contribute to greater development of fat when out of
whack.
------
fingerprinter
When people ask me how to lose weight or get in shape, I say a couple of
things that are quite controversial, though they won't be in 5-10 years as
modern conventional wisdom catches up to the science.
1\. 90% of what you look like is what you eat (not how much, what) rather
than, say, how much you workout or your genetics.
2\. Optimize what you eat before you optimize how much you eat. It is more
important to eat good clean food rather than eat small portions of still bad
food.
3\. Exercise fast, short and incredibly intense.
#1 is something I say to catch them off guard and eliminate excuses
(genetics).
#2 is the real issue. The past 25 years of diet information in the US is
basically misinformation. We were told that we had to eat less fat and
cholesterol and we would be healthy. Science has shown this not to be the case
but we are just now catching up to that science.
For instance...this is an ideal diet for nearly everyone: 1\. Eliminate
grains, sugars and most fruits (high-glycemic index fruits for sure: think
watermelon) 2\. Load up on veggies, eggs (best protein source around) and meat
(high fat meat is great...no worries) 3\. No oils other than coconut or olive
4\. Unless you are trying to gain weight, minimal starches (potato/sweet
potato etc) 5\. Some nuts...don't go crazy with them. 6\. some fruit, but only
of the berry/cherry variety 7\. minimal diary
<http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/> is a great place to start.
#3 is b/c low intensity exercise doesn't really do much for your
metabolism...it is a slow calorie burn that lasts as long as you are doing the
activity. High intensity workouts boost base metabolism for as long as 36
hours.
I wish I knew this when I was a teenager...feels like lost years battling diet
and weight only to seek the information later and realize the errors of modern
conventional wisdom. At least I know early enough to correct for my next 50+
years.
~~~
sliverstorm
That website you link is very interesting. For starters, I can see the logic
behind cutting legumes if the foundation of the guide is 'eat what prehistoric
man ate' because legumes require a lot of cooking, but I'm curious if they are
actually detrimental. They are usually accepted as extremely healthy.
_10\. Most modern fruit is just a candy bar from a tree. Go easy on bags of
sugar like apples. Stick with berries._
This is a very, very interesting point. I don't know if he means this, but I
realized that modern fruit is often _not the same fruit from 500 years ago_.
It's been genetically engineered through artificial selection- apples, for
example, used to be small, sour & bitter.
I've never really quite bought the demonization of grains though. We've been
eating them for thousands of years, and most of the health problems blamed on
grains seem to be recent events. Doesn't help that I dearly love breads.
~~~
fingerprinter
Yeah, grains are a tough one. We have to love grains as they basically helped
humans take over the world! I firmly believe that without grains we wouldn't
have 6 billion people today.
That being said, I don't think eating grains is optimal for our bodies. Most
of what is coming out of science today shows that we still haven't evolved to
eat grains and use them very efficiently in our body. We use them, but they
cause an inflammatory response and that is obviously suboptimal for overall
health and nutrition. We get some nutrition out of them (nothing that we
couldn't get from veggies or meat), but it also damages at the same
time...catch-22.
I think of it this way: at the zoo, you see the handlers feed tigers raw meat
and pandas bamboo because that is what they evolved to eat. What did we evolve
to eat? Answer that question and believe you will achieve optimal health.
Personally I believe what I wrote earlier is what we evolved to eat and I
believe most of the science supports that.
~~~
roadnottaken
_"What did we evolve to eat? Answer that question and believe you will achieve
optimal health."_
I hate this sort of blind naturalism. We evolved to be susceptible to polio,
tuberculosis, and plague and to live to ~30. Just because it's _natural_
doesn't mean it's optimal -- science and technology can, when judiciously
applied, add a lot to the quality (and length) of life.
Additionally (and importantly) evolution is only a factor up until age ~30-35
(child bearing/rearing age). Evolution plays no role in protecting us from
most modern afflictions (obesity, alzheimer's, cancer, etc). You can have your
"evolutinoarily optimal" paleolithic diet; I'll take my chances with
modernity.
~~~
rue
> _[…] and to live to ~30._
People used to die younger because of injuries, illnesses and poor nutrition,
not because the body is only "supposed" to live for 30 years.
> _Additionally (and importantly) evolution is only a factor up until age
> ~30-35 (child bearing/rearing age). Evolution plays no role in protecting us
> from most modern afflictions (obesity, alzheimer's, cancer, etc)._
That's absolutely not true. It seems likely that older people have played an
important role in society throughout, helping take care of children while the
more able work, sources of wisdom &c. While evolution hasn't eliminated all
diseases of the old age (because it doesn't work actively like that) longer-
lived genes have provided some survival advantage.
~~~
roadnottaken
I'm willing to bet that 10,000 years ago you wouldn't have been able to find a
homo sapien on this planet that was older than 50. The vast, vast majority of
evolutionary pressure occurred well before then.
------
roadnottaken
Boy it took him a long time to NOT get to the point... I want my 10 minutes
back.
~~~
rkalla
Noticed that as well; about half way through he introduces the thermo-dynamics
issue and the implied (but useless) truth-ly-ness of fat people eating more
than non-fat people, then spends the entire remainder of the article stating,
re-stating and re-phrasing that _same point_ again and again and again with
different analogies, examples and mock conversations.
It was about 2 paragraphs away from the end (before the last mock
conversation) that I realized he was baiting for his book OR doesn't have a
conclusion strong enough to share.
I absolutely could be wrong, but I can't stand being lead around by my chin
with arm-waving tomfoolery and flashing lights just to find out there is
nothing there.
If he had made his compelling point, or at least hinted at it more than the
very last comment -- "Maybe when we get fat it’s because those physiological,
metabolic and genetic factors you mentioned are dysregulating our fat tissue,
driving it to accumulate too much fat, and that’s why we eat so much and
appear" -- I would have been more interested.
I don't know that what I quoted there was even the correct "hook" at his book
premise as it starts "when we get fat..." talking about AFTER someone is
already fat, when the premise of his book is "why we get fat" which is the
before... the cause.
I am interested enough to want to pick his book up, but also annoyed enough to
take my sweet time doing it in case it's hollow.
\---- EDIT ----
I was critical above of Gary's blog post so I did some more reading to see if
I would be interested in his book and his ultimate point being made.
I found this review on Amazon that completely sold me on it:
[http://www.amazon.com/review/R1IGC558QIFYRU/ref=cm_cr_pr_per...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R1IGC558QIFYRU/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0307272702&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=)
While I haven't read the book yet (downloading on iPad now) and proposition
that Gary is making (according to this reviewer) is fascinating to me and
jives with the way I feel at times.
Gary talks about how sugars and the insulin response feed your fat and your
fat itself takes on a self-sustaining role in your body, not the passive
storage-mechanism we understand it to be.
~~~
roadnottaken
Agreed. In stark contrast, I appreciate Michael Pollan's pithiness:
_"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."_
It's not that complicated, folks.
~~~
jdminhbg
No offense, but that's complete bullshit, and the sort of tautological
reasoning he's mocking. Of course you should eat "not too much" -- eating "too
much" is too much!
~~~
Vivtek
The key word in that quote is "food", though; the "not too much" is an
afterthought.
~~~
mike_organon
It's 7 words and you think the last 5 are not important enough to be
criticized?
~~~
Vivtek
Not if the criticism is a blanket "this is total bullshit".
------
yummyfajitas
I'll start with one messed up point in this article: _One way to get around
this is to assume that we overeat by this trivial amount for a few years on
end and then we realize we’ve put on five or ten pounds...and then we decide
to undereat every day for however long it takes to make up for it...But then
how do animals do it?_
Easy: most animals have weight which fluctuates significantly depending on
food availability. In the wild, many are undernourished. Overeating is a real
problem for domesticated animals. <http://www.petobesityprevention.com/pet-
obesity-fact-risks/>
But now I'll argue against his real thesis. Based on other articles on this
same topic, I get the impression Gary Taubes is an opponent of the "personal
irresponsibility" theory of obesity - see this article for instance:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/health/28zuger.html?_r=1&#...</a><p>But
unfortunately, he proposes to replace it with a much higher entropy theory.
Rather than having one intuitive factor (personal irresponsibility) which
explains several highly correlated outputs (obesity, low income, low
education), he wants to propose a more complicated theory which explains only
one of these outputs. Occams Razor suggests he is probably wrong, and from
what I've seen, he doesn't even try to address this.
~~~
tbrownaw
> Rather than having one intuitive factor (personal irresponsibility) which
> explains several highly correlated outputs (obesity, low income, low
> education), he wants to propose a more complicated theory which explains
> only one of these outputs.
I could go pick a bunch of correlated things and ascribe them all to "magic"
or "Zeus" or what-have-you, but stuffing all the entropy into a black box like
this shouldn't make it count as a "low-entropy theory".
~~~
yummyfajitas
It is low entropy relative to a theory which explains only one of several
correlated things.
------
pamelafox
I read "Good Calories, Bad Calories" last year and just read "Why We Get Fat"
yesterday(both available on Kindle!).
GCBC is a good, long read with a lot of insight into the issues with science
in the last 100 years. WWGF is much more focused on the current state of the
carbohydrate theory.
Both are good, but if you want a quick win, go for WWGF. :)
[I am doing low carbs now, and lost 10kg so far.]
------
dsdfsdf
This article is inane. Just a sample:
"Twenty calories, after all, is a bite or two of food, ... an absolutely
trivial amount of overeating that the body then chooses, for reasons we’ll
have to discuss at some point, not to expend, ... , so that we don’t overshoot
by 20 calories a day. ... That’s matching intake to expenditure with an
accuracy of better than 1 percent."
The author, despite his qualifications, is numerically illiterate. Anyone who
has seriously worked with numerical data understands the law of large numbers.
If my body works to maintain some caloric level e, then over time the full
meals I skip for seemingly no reason, or the second helpings I mysteriously
decline, amortized over a scale of months, will balance out my caloric intake
with severe accuracy. (Assuming I am predisposed to maintain a specific
weight.)
Secondly, stating that weight gain is due to eating more calories than you
burn is neither tautological, vacuous, nor inane. It might not be satisfying
to the author, but it is a cogent and useful explanation of why people gain
weight. Other, worse examples that institutions might give that would give
people fewer clues about how to combat weight gain: "you've angered some god,"
"you're predisposed to be fat," "you're eating the wrong kind of food." The
link expressed between consumed calories and stored mass is not logically
trivial. Stating that I should eat fewer calories clues me in to track and
reduce the calories listed on the side of foods I buy. If you want to get
pedantic, a tautological explanation would be you're getting heavier because
you're gaining weight.
It isn't worth dissecting the rest of the article. This guy doesn't know what
he's talking about. He wraps up a lot of obvious points in a lot of science
that he doesn't understand.
P.S. - it isn't a mystery to anybody why people get fat
~~~
nkurz
_He wraps up a lot of obvious points in a lot of science that he doesn't
understand._
That's odd. You would have thought that an undergraduate physics degree (even
from a liberal arts institution) and a masters in engineering (OK, that one's
from a real school) would have given him at least a _basic_ grasp of the
issues. :)
His "20 calories a day" explanation is not the argument he is making. Rather,
he's pointing out that it's absurd to think that the sole difference between
an obese 70 year and his svelte wife is the one sugar cube per day the fat one
added to his morning coffee. Are you arguing that it is indeed this simple,
and that all we have to do to have a thin and fit population is to drink black
coffee?
p.s. Why the new account?
~~~
dsdfsdf
What's more important, the two pieces of paper he received or the fact that
his own arguments clearly depict he doesn't understand? He says:
" Does anyone – even Jonah Lehrer or the neuroscientists he consults – think
that the brain, perhaps in cohort with the gut, is making decisions about how
much we should eat, on how long we stay hungry and when we get full, so that
we don’t overshoot by 20 calories a day. That’s matching intake to expenditure
with an accuracy of better than 1 percent. (We consume, on average, about 2700
calories a day, so matching energy in to energy out and not overshooting by 20
calories requires better than one percent accuracy.)"
"...we actually have to be perfect in our matching of intake to expenditure or
we’re going to get inexorably fatter (or leaner, if we err on the side of
going hungry), or at least we have to average perfection over decades."
His argument is that the body is not accurate to within 20 calories a day. He
appears unaware of the fact that this kind of regulation, which I agree isn't
possible on a day-to-day basis (the brain never says "don't eat that last 1/12
of a candy bar"), is unremarkable when amortized over time. That is where his
scientific inexperience shows. "Averaging perfection over decades" happens all
the time and is perfectly unremarkable. He is oblivious to this fact.
This is a fatal error. Regardless of how it fits into his larger argument, he
gets this basic and fundamental point wrong. When an author can't get facts
like these straight, I become suspicious of the rest of his arguments. And
indeed, a random sampling shows they are fundamentally broken. I would not
trust him to explain any kind of complex science.
~~~
nkurz
_When an author can't get facts like these straight, I become suspicious of
the rest of his arguments._
I agree that this is a pretty good standard to adhere to, but there are other
explanations: perhaps Taubes understands the issues well, but didn't do a
great job of translating them to analogies. Or perhaps you (as reader) are not
correct in your understanding of his argument. I suspect Taubes would agree
with you that given an appropriate long-term feedback method that fine
regulation is possible, thus I presume the actual issue is something else.
I'm inclined to trust Taubes because I've enjoyed some of his prior writings.
Here's an award winning article of his that was published in Science:
<http://www.junkscience.com/news3/taubes.html>. You might enjoy this earlier
article as an example of his style applied to a different topic. While it's
certainly possible he's completely wrong here, I don't think it's because he
lacks any fundamental understanding of science.
As I read it, Taubes' basic critique is that the 'calories equals weight gain'
formula is so flawed as to be almost useless. The more I look into it, the
more I agree with him. Yes, obviously at the extremes there are physical
limits involved, but presuming a purely linear response just seems silly. I
cheer him on in his attempts to come up with something better.
------
warwick
"That more people are entering than leaving doesn’t. It’s what logicians call
“vacuously” true. It’s true, but meaningless. It tells us nothing. And the
same is true of overeating as an explanation for why we get fat. If we got
fat, we had to overeat. That’s always true; it’s obvious, and it tells us
nothing about why we got fat, or why one person got fat and another didn’t."
I was following along with the analogy, but this really bothered me. "If I am
fat, then I ate more calories than I burned" isn't vacuously true (because
there are people who are fat), it's a tautology.
I don't know anything about nutrition, but seeing an error in the small part
of the article I do know something about makes me more skeptical as to it's
premise.
EDIT: After a few more minutes thought, I have to mention that since we've all
eaten more calories than we've burned (or else we'd be massless), the
statement is true for everyone, not just obese people. But that's just me
being needlessly pedantic.
~~~
waterlesscloud
It's not that you ate more calories than you burned, it's that you absorbed
more calories than you burned.
I think it's worth asking why some calories are more likely to be absorbed
than others, and why some people are more inclined to absorb more calories
than other people.
------
elptacek
"We don’t know. It’s complicated." But then there's the thought bubble with
the words "Moral failure" in it:
[http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/physician...](http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/physicians_have_less_respect_for_obese_patients_study_suggests)
------
andrewljohnson
I take issue with his statement that there are plenty of animals that have
abundant food, which don't get fat. I just don't think that's true. Even for
the animals that have plenty of food, they still have to go out and
forage/hunt. On the other hand, if you just pile up food in front of animals
everyday, they will eat it and get fat. Some examples of this are my parents'
dogs, and there are no animals but humans and domestics that have infinite
food with no work attached.
I think people and animals eat, because that's how we are wired. Any animal
gorges itself presented with work-free food. Our body wants as much fuel as it
can get at a very basic level.
However, I don't think it comes down to "personal responsibility." I think
society is successful at instilling logical discipline in many members, and
less successful with others. If you are fat, it's probably because your family
didn't raise you to have the tools to make good health decisions and follow
through with your thoughts. I also think unsatisfied people tend to over-eat,
over-smoke, and over-everything else.
It takes both luck and hard work to be happy and fit.
~~~
joe_the_user
I weight between 135-145 pounds and I'm 6' tall. I'm well past thirty.
I eat as much as I can. The only that stops from eating is stomach pain from
overeating.
Some people may get fat from overeating. But it's hard to generalize here.
~~~
rue
No, it's very easy to generalize: an overwhelming majority of people will get
fat from overeating, some quicker than others. I'd think your condition is
somewhere in the single-digit percentages.
I've always been fairly lean – 176/70ish (5'9"/155ish in SU) – a "can eat
anything" type, but taking an almost 3-month break from cycling while not
reducing food consumption has resulted in a gain of about 8kg/17lbs. (Planning
to drop to about 68kg by June).
------
DrStalker
The article is not helpful in any practical way. It simply gives the core
thesis that eating too much doesn't make you fat, and that the author knows
some secret that he will reveal in his book once you buy it.
Why should I give any more weight to this than any of the thousands of other
"buy this diet secret!" books out there?
~~~
DougBTX
_The article is not helpful in any practical way._
True, but what it does do is explain why the "thermodynamic" explanation,
although correct, is not practically useful.
------
klbarry
This is a fascinating article that uses logic really well. Of course, he
doesn't go into the answers to the question he poses: "Why do people overeat?"
I suppose you have to buy the book to figure that out.
~~~
tptacek
He definitely has a hypothesis about that (read _Good Calories, Bad Calories_
for more details --- or, Google [ucsf fructose] and watch that video again).
~~~
fingerprinter
+1 for fructose video. Awesome watch.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>
------
fleitz
I think the medical establishment would be overjoyed if people on average were
putting on only 1 pound per year. The obesity "epidemic" is about 50-100
pounds of extra weight. Bariatric wards are filled with those hundreds of
pounds overweight not 20.
------
mmaunder
Not sure that I trust a thin guy's advice on why people get fat.
~~~
snth
Would you trust a fat guy's diet advice?
~~~
TGJ
Funny, people seem to trust Dr. Phil.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: Who has started a business because they couldn't get hired for work? - ccajas
Many people start businesses for more financial independence, or simply want to be their own boss. How many of those started it out of a more dire need, from being unable to get hired anywhere and so needed to make money independently for themselves? Maybe from a pivot away from skills that are no longer in demand, or simply having trouble passing interviews due to a lack of a good network or bad soft skills.<p>It could be anyone from HN reading this, or just anybody else, who has shared their story somewhere about starting their business under these circumstances.<p>EDIT: I have years of experience as a software developer, but my inability to survive in the job market in the past three years has inspired me to make this topic. Either due to bad luck/timing, or bad soft skills, I can't get an offer anymore. So I'm considering other avenues to make a living.
======
jedberg
Be careful with your thinking here. If it really is bad soft skills that is
keeping you from getting/holding a job, then you'll have a tough go at your
own business. Running a business requires a lot more soft skills than getting
a job, because you live and die by your sales, no matter how good your product
is.
So just make sure that you have at least an idea of how you will get some
sales that involve minimal interaction with other people.
~~~
john_moscow
> Running a business requires a lot more soft skills than getting a job,
> because you live and die by your sales, no matter how good your product is.
Yes and no. The good thing about the internet is that you can get a decent
sales funnel without having to talk to a single person. Write interesting blog
posts on relevant topics, help others by showing how to solve their problem
with your product, etc. There's a lot to learn here for a techie nerd, but the
learning curve here is much easier for those who aren't naturally good at
dealing with people.
~~~
endorphone
Getting people into your sales funnel is only the first step, though.
Converting those people into sales, however, is an extraordinarily social,
soft-skills reliant activity.
I say this as someone who had no problem getting jobs, but social anxiety made
me desire the idealized notion of working in my home office and seldom
conferring with people -- just delivering great solutions with every waking
moment.
I started my own business and quickly discovered that about 80% of my time was
courting and talking to people. People _love_ talking. Getting someone to
commit to a sale is often just a brutal enterprise.
From a time perspective, the advice to write pertinent blog posts just isn't
really that lucrative anymore.
~~~
john_moscow
>I say this as someone who had no problem getting jobs, but social anxiety
made me desire the idealized notion of working in my home office and seldom
conferring with people -- just delivering great solutions with every waking
moment.
Same here.
>People love talking. Getting someone to commit to a sale is often just a
brutal enterprise.
You just need to distinguish the types. The type that just loves talking is
usually obsessed with self-importance and doesn't really care about the solved
problems. You can talk them into a sale if you schmooze them good enough, but
as a nerd you have a few chances. The type that appreciates great solutions
doesn't care about chit-chat more than you do, but they are harder to reach
because they are usually busy solving problems. There's a separate long story
why the first type is better at forming hierarchies and obtaining political
pull, but long story short, you need to focus your funnel on the second type.
If the central part of your site is your smiling picture and a phone number,
you'll attract the former. If it's a product trial, well-organized
documentation and tutorials, the latter will be your catch.
------
Mave83
Dude from Germany here. Without a proper school education I was unable to get
a apprenticeship in an IT profession, although I started profesional coding
with age of 11 and general IT with 6-7 years (~1989).
I ended up learning mechanics and after finishing my apprenticeship I founded
my first company (~2000).
After 18 hard working years of entrepreneurship I managed to start and exited
2 successfull companies with 8 figures volume.
I can only suggest to start your own business if you are dedicated. Don't
think it is easy, or that you will have a lot of spare time. But I won't miss
a day of my journey so far. And yes, I don't need to work anymore, but can't
stop!
~~~
S4M
> I started profesional coding with age of 11 and general IT with 6-7 years
> (~1989).
That's really interesting, can you provide more details about it? I'm really
curious how a kid could make money from coding in the early 90's.
~~~
Mave83
I learned borland turbo pascal by Siemens (thanks to my bigger sister). First
projects where in the company of my dad, optimizing their business tasks.
------
remyp
I’m reasonably certain I’ve interviewed you. Send me an email (in profile) and
I’ll be happy to give honest feedback/advice.
For that matter, I’m happy to provide advice to any programmers struggling to
find work. Feel free to reach out.
~~~
kinkora
Not OP and a hiring manager myself once but I will love to compare notes and
hear your thoughts on what are the common problems/mistakes you see when
interviewing developers or engineers and if you have any general advice.
Considering most of the HN population are technical folks, many will possibly
find your experience & knowledge useful or at the very least, contribute to a
worthwhile discussion on hiring technical people.
Edit - Added a list of problems/mistakes that I commonly see when I interview
people for technical positions:
• _Being borderline arrogant, argumentative and /or abrasive in conversation
even though they are brilliant_ \- Yes, I've interviewed people that are smart
and have a wealth of knowledge but the straight forward truth is this role
(and most developer/engineering roles for that matter) requires a person to
work with not only other people within the team but also with other technical
teams & departments so if you can't show that you are a team player, it
doesn't matter how good you are as a developer/engineer.
• _Lying straight up on certain details and not owning up to it_ \- one common
interview tactic I use is to ask what version of [technology] that the person
has worked on and what are their "battle scars" experiences with that
particular version or [technology]. I have had people tell me they work on
versions that don't exist (i.e. latest v5 and they claim v8) or claim they
have 5 years experience when said version of [technology] has only existed for
3 years. Also, I find that the true experienced people in [technology] can
passionately tell you about their problems using [technology] and what they
did to get around it rather than simply just evangelizing said [technology].
• _Talking bad about anything or anyone_ \- This might just be a personal
preference but a big turn off for me is when a candidate starts bad mouthing
their ex-bosses, colleagues or company. I might make exceptions for special
circumstances (i.e. sexual harassment, bullying, etc) but even then, I will
find it as a negative against their personality if that person keeps harping
on it and don't show at least signs that they are taking steps to move on.
Call me old school but I believe in never burning your bridges regardless of
what the circumstances are and even if you don't, the last thing you should do
is bring it up in an interview.
Note - these are my personal opinions, preferences and experiences on
interviewing and I do not claim my methods to be the best way on doing so.
~~~
lsc
>Talking bad about anything or anyone
Personally, I think this should be near the top, and I think arrogance[1]
should be near the bottom. And not just for interviews. If you are known for
giving credit where credit is due? that's going to get you more help at this
job; that's going to get you better contacts, more recommendations for your
next job. You will see your co-workers again. Generally, if you can say
something good and true about a co-worker, you should.
There are few times when as an individual contributor where it's in your
interest to say something bad about someone else. I mean, I'm not saying to
lie, just if you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut.
[1]Yes, yes, socially skilled people see arrogance as a different thing from
confidence, not just a matter of degree. But if you are that socially skilled,
you don't need these tips. Me? I see it as a sort of linear progression from
low self-esteem through confidence and then into arrogance. For the tech
industry, this is a good enough (though incorrect) model. I mean, you _can_ go
too far in one direction or the other, but at least for me it seems to be a
reasonably tunable thing, and I've seen far more people fail interviews due to
being too far on the shy/humble/lacks confidence end of that scale than the
other way around.
~~~
DataDisciple
This is really an exercise in speaking diplomatically. Often we leave jobs
because we can't be as productive in the current environment. That's usually
code word for other failures in the company. I think at the executive level it
can be helpful to have the discussion on what you would do differently. Most
adults in my experience will appreciate a candid discussion as long as you are
sharing your experiences in a humble and respectful manner.
------
khitchdee
Hi. I was in my 30s and holding a steady job as a programmer with big
corporate. Then I decided to take a small sabbatical. Before I knew it,
several years had passed and my savings were getting epleted. So I tried to
get bck in the job market again, landed a job, but couldn't clear their
probration then landed another job and also couldn't clear probation, then
spent almost year without success looking for job. That's when I decided to
start my own business. It's been almost a decade since then and I still
haven't made any money, but it sure beats being jobless or unwanted at a
steady job.
An engineer's career usually tapers off beyond a certain age. Risk taking
therefore has to be reduced as your career options get narrower with seniority
-- moral of the story.
~~~
JeremyMorgan
I respectfully disagree. I believe being risk averse makes you age faster and
helps you live up to the "old programmer" stereotype.
I'm 40, so one foot in the grave in the tech world, yet I have managed to keep
myself marketable by not being afraid to jump in and learn new things when
needed, just like a college kid, but with experience. Maybe I'm wasting my
time spending hours learning Vue or Kubernetes for the future but if I had
stayed "safe" developing WPF calendar apps and cursing the new stuff I'd be
dead in the water. And taking on new positions and companies puts me out of my
comfort zone and teaches me new things.
Everyone's mileage varies on this of course.
~~~
vincentmarle
I agree, I’m in my early 30’s but I have no problem hiring people above 40’s.
The key thing that I observe is indeed the ones who are still curious and
always tinkering with new things, especially _combined_ with their experience,
are extremely powerful. Wouldn’t trade them for any young kid in the world.
The instances where it doesn’t work out is when they have an inability to
adapt or to change.
------
nikivi
I didn’t start a business but instead made an open source website as no one
wanted to or still wants to hire me.
Funnily the website solves the problem of how to learn anything in the most
effective way.
Website: [https://learn-anything.xyz](https://learn-anything.xyz)
~~~
yagodragon
How is it possible no one wants to hire you? You seem way more competent than
many devs out there and you've created a 10k stars github project among
others.
~~~
monksy
The technical interviewing process. It's one of those things where it treats
everyone if they're lying about their experience.
~~~
izacus
That's because everyone is. For every rockstar CV you'll get an identical one
where the person can't even code a fizz buzz.
~~~
monksy
What will the ability to or not to code fizz buzz about their prior
experience?
------
dsign
I did, several years ago.
My soft skills are not top-notch, but they are not bad either, and my
qualifications are good enough to get hired at good places ... not just where
I currently live. Mostly a big adversarial blob of "cultural matters" ...
let's not dig onto that, but shortly put, locals feel uneasy around me.
Mind you, if I had tried hard enough, I could have gotten a dead-end-job with
low pay and no promotions. Or I could have moved and looked for greener
pastures. I decided instead to take my lemons and make lemonade, so to speak,
and I opened a business.
The cultural problems didn't go away, to this day some of our customers prefer
to talk to my sales guy, even when they know they would solve their problem
faster by just sending me an email directly. But I don't mind having more time
for the the ever growing technical team and technical customer-related work.
For brown guys in the north, jobs are overrated.
~~~
asenna
If you don't mind me asking for a tip. I'm actually in that position where I'm
hoping to have a sales team take my load off new leads and conversion. How did
you build / hire your sales team? Was it all on location full time hires or do
you take help of Upwork / other remote options?
------
mark212
Lawyer here. Opened my own practice after the 2008 collapse because no firms
were hiring. Best decision I was ever forced to make.
~~~
anoncoward111
Congrats :) Do you feel that law school is too expensive for nearly all
applicants besides those who are eventually hired by big firms to make 175k a
year?
~~~
wtvanhest
Not op, but obviously. If you have 200k in debt and dont even break 100k per
year... it isnt a positive thing.
~~~
henryfjordan
There are a lot more factors that makes this not "obvious". If you can make
40k as a paralegal and 80k as a lawyer, and you are 25 (30ish more working
years), investing 3 years and 200k in law school might make sense.
30 years * 40k/year = 1.2mil
((30 years - 3 years) * 80k/year) - 200k = ~2.3mil
This assumes you can pay that 200k all at once upon graduation and that salary
is stagnant, but even if you drop that first assumption take your whole career
to pay off your loans and end up paying 2-3x the principle you still come out
ahead with a law degree.
Don't choose education for money though, choose it because you want to be
educated.
~~~
wtvanhest
Paralegals often make more than lawyers who don't get to big law and those
jobs are not open to people who went to law school bc they are "over
qualified".
I agree with not choosing an education due to money, but money is a great
reason to NOT choose an education.
Law is a totally broken model where the 5% who get big law do great and the
other 95% get slaughtered.
~~~
mark212
I disagree completely. That's not at all my experience. There are far too many
lawyers who expect that when they get their bar cards, they're entitled to a
premium wage just for showing up. The real work starts when you pass the bar.
And professional education isn't really "an education." That's undergrad. Go
to law school because you enjoy the work and want to be a professional -- here
I'm using the definition by the estimable Dr. J: "being a professional means
doing what you love even on days when you don't feel like doing it."
~~~
wtvanhest
Hard work has nothing to do with the fact that the market is bifurcated
between haves and have nots. 30 years ago a law degree was relatively
affordable and you could make it work by hustling. Now, you are toast if you
don't get the big law job because your payments on $200k will be $2k/month.
That will wipe out your ability to start a practice and you are effectively
doomed.
Big law jobs only go to something like 5% of lawyers. (correct me if I am
wrong). The other 95% would be better off doing any other job.
------
whitepoplar
Brian Acton started WhatsApp with Jan Koum in part because Twitter and
Facebook rejected him for a job. Facebook later bought WhatsApp for $16
billion dollars.
~~~
Techonomicon
Being refused a job or two is different than not being able to get no job,
like a million times different.
~~~
whitepoplar
Yeah, you're 100% right, which is why I hesitated posting this, but it's too
juicy not to mention.
------
ProfessorLayton
Yes, kind of. I helped my aging father pivot from manual labor to running his
own contracting business. It was, and continues to be, a lot of work, but it
was the _only_ way my parents could continue to pay their bills (Especially
here in the Bay Area).
There was a lot of learning when getting started, but the business is roughly
a 10-person concern, and growing — all completely bootstrapped.
Edit:
More details on what it took to get started
\- Studying the materials one needed know to get a contractor's license
\- Actually getting licensed
\- Setting up an online presense
\- Acquiring our first customers
\- Earning a good reputation
\- Incorporating, hiring, worker's comp/various insurances ($$$$)
One of the biggest ongoing challenges is competing with unlicensed
contractors, and being able to hire enough skilled labor.
~~~
lgregg
Sorry, I ruined your 1337 karma. What do you use to stay organized? I have a
friend who was in the same position as you and they're around 15 people now.
Their problem is staying organized, everything is paper.
~~~
ProfessorLayton
Staying organized is a huge burden! One of the ways I've helped them organize,
is by moving to digital communication wherever I can:
\- Customer leads are almost 100% digital (Website, Google Ads, Yelp). This
means they can reply back and forth without having to call, so no paperwork is
necessary until they're customers. Everyone involved seems to appreciate this.
\- Estimates and invoices are delivered digitally, we currently use Waveapps,
which is good enough for the small business for now. This allows us to keep
track of who has/hasn't paid yet. This is a _huge_ help with staying on top of
things.
\- My parents aren't tech people, so after much trying with iCal/Gcal, their
best calendar to work with is actually an old fashioned paper one. Used to
keep track of estimates, and project scheduling.
\- Ultimately we've had to hire a 3rd party to help with tracking worker
hours, payroll, and taxes. Yes there's payroll software, but again because my
parents aren't tech people and they're currently at their wits just running
the business, it was best to hire outside help. I'd like to help with this,
but I work full-time, and screwing this up can result in extremely steep fines
to the business.
\- Really the only new paperwork we have to deal with on an ongoing basis is
storing copies of customer contracts.
------
ghostbrainalpha
If I'm being super honest, I never would have started my first company (A
Funded Startup, that had very significant revenue for 3-4 years) if I didn't
have IBS.
Once the company grew to the size that we needed a real office, my need to
exit was at least partially influenced by IBS as well.
I could have gotten a job in a lot of different places, but I couldn't handle
the workplace environment because I needed to use the restroom more than 10
times per day. I also had accidents where I would need to change my pants at
least once a week, and always carried spare clothes in my backpack. I still
keep that habit, even though I've largely conquered the disease. It's a weird
PSD I kind of have.
Even today, I'd probably accept a 20% pay reduction for if a company would
give me a private restroom connected to my office.
~~~
devilfish
did you hear about FODMAP?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP)
Did it help you?
~~~
ghostbrainalpha
That's what did it for me, but I didn't know that's what it is called.
I discovered my Keto for weight loss and noticed a huge improvement in my IBS.
That led me to r/ZeroCarb eventually and after a year or two of healing, I am
now to the point I can have 1 high carb meal per week without a problem. I
just have to take big breaks in between carbs or my body starts breaking down
fast.
------
excitednumber
Not exactly what you are asking but, here's my story:
I graduated in 2009 from a masters with a focus on financial engineering. At
the time it was very hard to get a job doing what I want (let me emphasize
this point - I could get a job but just not in what I wanted).
Eventually, I took a job to afford living in a major US city. Due to my
frustration I began coding much more at home.
Fast forward to now, I have a few projects under my belt that are generating
more cash than my day job. Additionally, the skills I acquired working on my
personal projects absolutely helped me land my current job.
I have had my share of disappointments, successes and career frustrations
along the way, but I get the most satisfaction out of the work I do on my own.
~~~
whitepoplar
Any chance you can share what those projects are, either in public or in
private?
~~~
excitednumber
I apply the things I have learned in my degree, on the job, and reading
academic research.
The projects I focus on are related to investing - buying and selling
securities programmatically.
~~~
tinktank
Very cool. So are you doing the investment on your cash, others, or a
combination of both?
~~~
excitednumber
My cash for now. I work in asset management so my outside business activities
cannot also be in it.
Kind of a bummer but that's how it goes.
------
bane
I've known a few people who've done this. I've also recommended to a couple
people to do this when they're having a hard time finding work.
Here's the thing, most businesses don't make it and many people in this
position are trying to bootstrap something with virtually zero money. So you
can use these circumstances to your advantage -- use the business as an
investment vehicle to build you as a product so that you can sell yourself
later on.
What this means is that you should take the time between filling out
applications and wasting time in multi-day whiteboard interviews to start to
build up a portfolio of what you can do. Start a blog, on some topic you find
interesting, engage on twitter at least once a day. Write a couple simple but
good looking web apps using cheap/free tiers on hosting providers. Check some
code into public code repos. If you manage to launch something live, contact
the press email address on every major news site you can find -- a surprising
number will put a short article up about your app -- which you can then also
advertise on your site/blog/twitter feed.
All of this goes on your resume, except now you get to claim "Founder/CEO" on
your resume with stunning bullet points like:
\- Led social media marketing strategy
\- Designed web applications for <insert vertical>
Take screenshots of all this.
Use _this_ work as part of your resume. In an interview it's much better to
claim "I tried to start a company but I just couldn't get it cash-flow
positive, so now I'm back on the market." than to try to figure out how to
work around a large resume gap that implies you're unhireable.
This works because companies will see you as entrepreneurial and multifaceted,
capable of career growth and tackling many different kinds of problems at
various levels and making independent decisions. And the best part is that, as
you do this, it will become TRUE!
\- So the worst case is that you just build your resume for a while (instead
of it accumulating jobless gaps) -- most people I know who've done this end up
in better jobs than they expected after this exercise.
\- Best case, your company takes off and you just built yourself a career -- I
know 2 people who've managed to do this and ended up running pretty large
enterprises.
------
eruci
Me! It was 2016, I was nearly broke from being on the receiving end of a
copyright infringement lawsuit, and nobody would hire me. So, I hired myself
and started a new company which pays my salary today.
[https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/6249ac6f67](https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/6249ac6f67)
------
mettamage
Interviewed for 3 jobs. 1 rejected me for being too broad, 1 rejected me for
not being reliable diring the interview (despite good track record and refs),
1 rejected me because they only wanted to hire cheap(ish) devs (2000 - 2500
euro per month).
It was my first round to see the world after graduation. Note: I worked on
serious jobs during my studies, no internships, actual jobs.
Will start my serious round soon. If no one wants me for what I think I am
worth/can offer, then I will start on my own too. I chose this profession
partially because of this ‘power’.
~~~
misterhtmlcss
Reliable? How does one measure that from a recent graduate during an
interview? What people get rejected for is astounding to me.
~~~
mettamage
On this case: coming 5 minutes late (it was tough to find), interviewing for
90 minutes and me being late for a meetup with a friend (I told them that).
And I looked like I wasn’t taking care of myself according to him (I was in
thesis mode, still am). I feel we have different standards about what it keans
to take care of yourself.
The first one I get under certain perspectives but it is only one data point.
The second one is my personal life and the interviewer made the assumption it
would apply to me professionally. Since he made the assumption in his mind, I
couldn’t tell him that this person has been late with me a lot of times and
that we are fine with it since we can both multitask and do some work on our
laptops at any given moment.
------
ConcernedCoder
It may not be bad luck/time or bad soft skills, in my experience, as soon as
you hit 50 in the United States, you're no longer a good "culture fit" in a
majority of software development roles. It's my understanding that in places
like China, the cut-off age is closer to 30-35 which sounds terrible if true.
------
justaaron
I'm rather tired of drone-like hiring practices involving flunkies trying to
stump you with questions about topics you might have written the book upon...
(not that I'm anywhere near Ken, but the general picture should suffice)
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_o...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_our_test/)
~~~
drewmate
Some context on the Ken Thompson article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1284524](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1284524)
------
BartBoch
I am a self-taught developer and marketer.
I owned (no partners) a marketing business that grew to 85 contractors and
employees.
I have worked on dozens of huge development projects where I was a Senior
Developer or Project Lead.
I have worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies.
More than 10 years of experience in marketing and business.
Around 10 years of experience in development.
I am unemployable really.
Why?
No formal education (I have just Highschool diploma). NDA signed for 99% of my
projects (I can't even mention some of the companies I worked for). Got
trapped in the referral loop, where I get referred, take a job, sign an NDA
and so on. The only way for me to monetize my experience is to do contractor
jobs through referrals and sometimes through freelancing sites, where rules
are more relaxed.
Working on building my portfolio using side projects at the moment and
creating a blog to break that loop.
------
lfowles
Yep, left my job 8 months ago and had several promising interviews since but
nothing has come of them. Recently decided to take time to polish games I
prototyped during this period. To be quite honest I was also getting tired of
essentially "studying for finals" before each interview. Thankfully (but
probably also hurting my job search in general...) I'm in a low CoL area.
------
karlkatzke
I did. I had three years experience as a software developer (full stack, but
it was 2004, so it wasn’t a big stack) and leveraged an active consulting
business that I would do after hours into a full time thing where I made
enough to pay another employee and myself.
The problem is that I’m a shit manager. I’m a shit business manager, I’m a
shit sales manager, and I’m a shit engineering manager. So, the company didn’t
do well. But at least I learned that I shouldn’t be in charge of people!
------
Clubber
I've heard of several small businesses run by people who couldn't get a
meaningful job because of prior convictions; typically drugs.
~~~
dsnuh
Yeah, I think this is a more common occurrence in industry outside of tech. I
would imagine there are many stories that echo this amongst construction trade
and independent truck drivers, for example. I know of several folks in those
industries that started their own business because of priors.
~~~
misterhtmlcss
We don't want them to re-offend, but we won't give them meaningful work
either. Terrible cycle
~~~
dsnuh
I think a lot of Americans play lip service to "innocent until proven guilty"
and "repaid debts to society", but in reality, to many, an arrest is a
conviction, and if you are a felon, you are stained for life, even if you
served the terms of your conviction the law decreed necessary to atone for
your crimes.
~~~
Clubber
Not only that, the justice system in the US seems horribly broken. It's just
one of those things you have to put out of your mind, like the chances of
getting mangled in a car wreck driving to work every morning. I don't think
the US will change much in regards to the justice system the near future. We
seem to have full and unshakable faith in state and local police, prosecutors
and juries while at the same time, berating government workers for being
incompetent. It's completely illogical and bewildering.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-cost-of-
convicti...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-cost-of-convicting-
the-
innocent/2015/07/24/260fc3a2-1aae-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html?utm_term=.5de87e842287)
~~~
dsnuh
>The average time served for the 1,625 exonerated individuals in the registry
is more than nine years.
That's so depressing.
------
maerF0x0
Once upon a time I started doing consulting because I was tired of being laid
off. Had work in like 2 days because I was already part time on upwork . Nice
the former employer paid me like 2 months severance :D
------
wolfspider
Well I guess this fits under the same category...I’m currently rebooting my
family’s business. My father retired but has been minimally keeping alive the
LLC he founded when he lost his job. As a family we all sat down at a table,
argued a bunch, and agreed to help him start it. My sister and I were great
free labor as teens but unfortunately doing videography didn’t pay all the
bills so my father went back to work until retiring as a webmaster for our
local university. I studied business until I couldn’t afford it while working
IT jobs which turned into development and then project leader. The lack of
jobs here in NCFL made gov a nice fit eventually. Prior to that I worked in
game development, television broadcast, and fintech fields all with
concentration in dev. Companies I got to work with included CNN, Fox,
Univision, Epic Megagames, Psyonix, Wells Fargo and a whole lot more. I went
to my father asking if I could do something with that business he kept
registered- he wanted to hear a business plan surprisingly he was no push over
on this. It was difficult but he agreed so now off I go. The new pivot is
really in stealth mode I think I’ll just say this will now become a “media”
company. I don’t look like a typical developer I’m a pretty salt of the earth
guy- people in my town think I’m a laborer or delivery guy. That doesn’t help
get me hired. I’m also getting up there in years but gov provides the steady
income for me to get started and so far it’s been going great. Along the way
I’m open sourcing tools and getting a lot of support that way- if I can help
someone out we get some good R&D in return. So to summarize- lack of jobs in
the area and lack of formal CS education that would be my reason. I love my
dad he taught me everything it all started with a C64 we got at a garage sale.
I was 8 years old and have been programming ever since. Technically speaking
I’m a co-founder! So is my sister who moved to Paris to do IP law. It’s all
coming together now and feels great.
------
jschwartzi
Sometimes it's not you who has the bad soft skills. The last company I was
with versus the company I'm with now are like night and day in terms of how we
communicate. I work remotely and my boss actually reads what I write, comments
on it, and is able to tell me when I need to do something without belittling
me about not having it done already.
------
Alex3917
> from being unable to get hired anywhere and so needed to make money
> independently for themselves?
Lots of immigrants. There are tons of folks with Ph.D.s or who were doctors or
lawyers in your own country, but in the U.S. the best job they could get was
bagging groceries.
------
gregoriol
It's not that I couldn't get hired, more like I couldn't find the right thing
at that time, the kind of job I would want to invest myself into. I did talk
with many people back then, many people wanted to hire me, I even tried one of
them for some time, but left after a month.
So, from talks to ideas, I started 2 projects with a few people, and these are
working quite well now. It wasn't planned, it wasn't something I thought I
wanted. We tried, we built things, slowly, step by step, without a grand plan,
and... it works out very well!
I wouldn't advise to go alone though: talk to your former colleagues, friends,
... find some people to work with! Apart from that, go for it, try!
------
CamelCaseName
I didn't graduate because I couldn't bring myself to go to classes I had no
interest in.
No degree put me in a rough position. My resume claimed that I had graduated,
but I had not. While I did get offers, whenever I shared that I failed out of
fourth year, my offer was rescinded.
Not wanting to work for someone unethically, I went into business for myself
about 10 months ago and am doing quite well, more than I would have earned in
my first year of work at another company.
I would certainly have preferred the stability of a full time job while
moonlighting, but either way I feel like long term success is still on the
table. (Which wasn't the case 10 months ago)
If you're failing, get help. You are not alone.
~~~
catdog
> No degree put me in a rough position. My resume claimed that I had
> graduated, but I had not. While I did get offers, whenever I shared that I
> failed out of fourth year, my offer was rescinded.
Do I get this right, you servery lied on your resume and really are surprised
that you got rejected once it was revealed? What did you expect?
------
DataDisciple
I know a few who have, but its not ideal. I think if you already have
businesses that you are attracted to and the risk/reward for starting that
business becomes greater than the risk/reward of what your job prospects are
then it needs to be explored. The challenge is that most investors can easily
sniff out someone who is starting this biz because they can't get a job, and
that isn't a pattern they typically fund.
I think a good mix is to start working on the business while continuing to
look for a new job. Then if you get traction, you will likely have a better
story to sell. It also helps you minimize your risk on the business.
------
everdev
I was looking for a job in 2008, unfortunately right during the stock market
crash. I would go and interview for jobs and then get a call back saying that
hiring was freezing as the national financial markets continued to spiral
downwards.
Fortunately, companies still needed their websites maintained and I opened up
shop for myself below agency rates and above freelancing rates in the hopes of
building my own agency.
It worked and multiple clients signed on looking to save money and I was able
to build and grow a team as a result, eventually working up to market rates as
the economy improved.
------
davidhopper
As someone who runs a company coaching software engineers on landing
employment, I've worked with a number of engineers who have gone down the path
of running their own business or consultancy for sometime before deciding to
turn towards employment in a larger corporation. Personally, I've found many
of these engineers to have some of the most interesting and compelling stories
and projects to add to their resume and speak to while interviewing, and in
that sense believe that coming from having your own business can add greatly
to being successful in the job search. That said, I do not think that is the
only path towards landing a job, and in this case especially if you already
have experience as a software developer.
In my opinion reflection is key to understanding where roadblocks lie in terms
of why one is not finding employment, even more so as most companies almost
universally do not provide feedback (another topic...). In terms of "not
surviving" in the job market, I'd ask where are you running into roadblocks,
is it getting interviews, moving past recruiters, the technical screens,
onsites, and within those categories diving more into why those opportunities
did not materialize and what potential actions led to those outcomes. Would be
happy to connect (email is in profile) and learn more, and you can see a bit
of what we do at [http://outco.io](http://outco.io)
------
ahmetyas01
I came to the US to study and IT job opportunities in 2001. The IT market has
collapsed. I started my online business with $100 and turned to $50m in 5
years. Boom.
~~~
lgregg
Wow, congrats! What type of product?
------
pjmorris
I unintentionally backed my way into my own business. Back during the dot com
bust, the large consultancy I worked for went bust, and I went back to the
small consultancy I'd previously worked for. Then, after 9/11, they went bust.
The economy was in rough shape, and I was only getting interviews for junior
positions. Meanwhile, friends were calling to say 'Could you come do this gig
for a month or two?' Having plenty of free time, I read up on how to start and
run a business (Nolo Press is a great resource), set up an LLC, printed
business cards, worked hard at the gigs I got, and kept my ear to the ground
for new ones. I'd kept good relations with my previous bosses and co-workers,
and wound up working for five years running my own little consulting shop
(That might be my suggestion: keep up with your old bosses and co-workers, and
see if they're aware of any suitable opportunities).
Life circumstances changed, and it made sense to go back to work for somebody,
eventually, but I found the experience, and the confidence it built, to be
invaluable.
------
lgregg
I ended up out of school working in a field and role I wasn't happy with, so
after saving half of my salary for a year and a few months, then I resigned. I
started a marketing agency with two friends, we had the business model down
but two of us were not good at sales and the one that was had a life issue
occur and left. We were cash flow positive the whole time just not enough to
support my two friends as I wiped out my savings. We all learned a ton though.
Around a year after, I did a career switch to SWD and am currently retraining.
I would do it again if I had an idea that legitimately solved a problem. We
created a marketing agency knowing how to run things as ICs but not as owners.
I'm not sure I'd want to sell a consulting service again but maybe another
type of business. I've always been interested in WISPs and Real Estate, so
maybe something in those areas.
------
WarOnPrivacy
The org handling my scholarship & job placement were defunded just before I
graduated in 1996.
This job market here was already one that won't hire w/o a personal into. The
only way a coder w/o experience + buddies in HR was getting hired was thru
blackmail or ransom.
I knew how to do basic hardware & some networking so got a biz license & biz
cards and chatted up everyone I could find for 3 years. I went door to door to
every business in town. None of them hired me but there would be other people
around who thought it was novel that I was marketing like it was 1955. Those
people intro'd me to people they knew & that got me established.
The 2008 crash sinkholed my clients (car dealers). I started over with med
providers but by 2010 the ACA sinkholed my new clients.
I finally started writing some code 5 years ago to build blocklists for custom
firewalls.
------
bryanrasmussen
Me. Basically I have been programming long enough and perhaps with a varied
enough CV and varied enough skills and some major accomplishments mixed among
just normal stuff that I do not seem to get hired as an employee anymore but
people are very happy to hire me as a consultant (which I make more money at
mostly)
I remember there were several interviews where people suggested I would want
to do more than they wanted me to do, one example: that I would not be happy
just doing frontend development and they were worried I would go fix issues in
ElasticSearch, and I asked "well of course I will do what I'm hired to, but
why wouldn't you want me to go fix issues in ElasticSearch if I'm caught up on
my frontend tickets?"
That was probably not a good thing to say, because I didn't get that job.
~~~
bryanrasmussen
Also noting - I've been consulting 2 years full-time at $100 an hour which is
a very good wage in my country (I'd have more but I'm subcontracting through
another company) at a company that I could never get even an interview at no
matter how many years I tried. I'm pretty sure I've tried dozens of times and
never a peep of interest, but hiring me as consultant at more than double the
amount I'd earn as an employee - oh yes that they're interested in.
------
rodolphoarruda
Yes, sales is important, but don't forget about marketing, which comes first.
I have lost my job in the 2008 crisis and couldn't get employed back. I
decided to start my own business with other folks who were laid off as well.
Marketing was key for us to open doors and put us in front of the prospective
customers. We ran the business for 5 years until we decided to get back to
regular jobs, have kids etc.
So if you are thinking on starting your own business, reserve some time to
discuss marketing fundamentals: what your product/service is; pricing options
and negotiation guidelines, target markets, customer profiles, niches;
advertising (which I think grew exponentially complex these days).
Sales will tend to flow well once you have marketing sorted out. It will be
the cherry on the top, the Showtime.
------
s3nnyy
I started [https://coderfit.com](https://coderfit.com), a tech recruitment
agency in Zurich, Switzerland while being employed as a coder. I just wasn't a
very good developer and saw that I won't perform in this job as good as other
people.
Tech recruitment was/is a domain with a small barrier to entry and where I
could use both my tech skills (knowing what programmers like/want) and "sales"
skills, helping companies and developers present themselves better to the
"counterparty". Now, I am building a jobboard
([https://jobs.coderfit.com](https://jobs.coderfit.com)) that complements my
tech recruitment agency activity.
------
mgbmtl
If you suspect that you have bad soft skills, try to find 2-3 people who are
comfortable with them. I find it easier to work with 2-3 clients than to deal
with teams. If your jurisdiction makes it easy, start by freelancing,
incorporate later, if you need it (I didn't need to finally, until I wanted to
work with a small team; Quebec/Canadian law is very freelance-friendly).
In the field I work, we mostly joke that we are a bunch of unemployable
people. We like being our own bosses, working in small teams. I formed a
worker's co-op with a few ex-colleagues and I'm happy with it. We also
federate loosely with other companies in our field (around the FOSS project
that we provide support for).
------
nickfromseattle
I did.
Despite loving to learn, and spending a lot of time self learning, I never
excelled in school. I skated by in High school, but my parents weren't pumped
about paying for me to fail through college.
I dropped out Junior year to teach English in Brazil.
After I got back I realized I'm a college dropout, with a work experience in
manual labor & restaurants, and I knew no one would hire me to do the things I
wanted to learn.
So I started a company on an idea I was passionate about.
I told myself from day 1, whether the venture was successful or not, I was
going to learn the skills and meet the people to do whatever I wanted to do
next.
The venture was not successful, and I did meet the people and learn the skills
to do whatever I wanted to do after, and it lead great places.
------
a_imho
Skills are overrated in interviews, you need to get lucky, it is increasingly
a numbers game.
------
Naomarik
This is almost me. I wouldn't be where I am if I got hired from specific
companies I applied to. I found it impossible to get a job I wanted before I
learned programming.
Triplebyte denied me in a phone screening and at that time I had just read all
Paul Graham's essays and would have sacrificed a lot to move back to USA and
work for a YC startup.
At this point I'm very happy things turned out the way they did. One thing I
will never miss is having my life controlled by an alarm clock.
------
_sdegutis
I’m kind of at this point right now.
~~~
raarts
From your resume you don't seem to be one who is having trouble being hired.
~~~
ccajas
Well he is self-employed, but if I called myself self-employed that would be
an understatement. I'm actually unemployed and wondering what I could to to
capitalize on my current skills that will also not be hampered by my weak soft
skills.
~~~
raarts
Why don't you put a link to your resume in your profile? Now you got people
reading...
------
leovander
Give Dave and Jamison a listen to on Soft Skills Engineering[0]. They are
great to listen to and their episodes are driven by their listener's
questions.
Most of their immediate responses are go get a new job if you are unhappy with
your current position, but that is more of them being entertaining, but I
guess a truthful answer in most of the scenarios they are presented with.
[0] [https://softskills.audio/](https://softskills.audio/)
------
j0hnnyF1ve
I'm interested in seeing where this discussion goes, I'm in a similar position
and will have to consider different options and paths beyond the normal job
path.
------
loudandskittish
I work on a freelance basis pretty much due to my inability to "play the
game." My poor "soft skills" don't seem to be bother my clients much.
------
jetai
I've ran into the issue of only being able to be hired by Startups, this is
both good because I like the environment and bad because there's never enough
need for my skills in business development, marketing, and professional-level
creative, legal, and business writing.
This means I eventually get replaced and scramble for another job. I'd like to
start my own thing but it doesn't feel viable sometimes, seeing as I'm not a
developer.
------
matchagaucho
First... people with bad _soft skills_ don't have the ability to self-reflect
and admit it, as you have. Give yourself some credit.
Second... the dire circumstance means any entrepreneurial venture will only be
successful if you have the humility to work on problems the clients don't want
to do.
I would suggest poking around on Upwork, Fiverr, or other gig economy sites
and experiment with some short-term engagements.
~~~
retsibsi
> First... people with bad _soft skills_ don't have the ability to self-
> reflect and admit it, as you have. Give yourself some credit.
This is a nice sentiment but I don't think it's true. 'Soft skills' is a
pretty broad category, and you can definitely be bad at some of them without
being arrogant or oblivious.
(I'm confident that this is more than just a technical possibility, because I
think it applies in my own case: I'm aware of and willing to admit many of my
flaws, but that doesn't always save me from awkwardness, underdeveloped social
instincts, etc. I can even manage to come across as arrogant, despite having
quite a low opinion of myself.)
------
tluyben2
I started two small software companies before uni because no one would hire
me; note that those were very different times (80s-early 90s); now people
would have hired me. Both companies still exist and both are still profitable.
I have never had ‘a job’ in my life, so you can say the experience was a
positive one.
------
joelrunyon
I graduated in 2009 and couldn't get a job due to the recession (and me having
a poor understanding that "graduating" was not all employers were looking
for).
I ended up doing what I now would call an "apprenticeship" and then eventually
turning that into a job and then my own business.
------
chad_strategic
This post is literary the story of my life...
After 20 years in the Marine Corps, I don't have the "polish" to work in
corporate world and need the intensity of a start up or my own business.
My frustrations, probably started here: [http://www.strategic-
options.com/insight/you-cant-have-more-...](http://www.strategic-
options.com/insight/you-cant-have-more-than-10-years-of-experience-on-rails/)
In that time, I have had numerous run ins with trying to find job in the
FinTech and Tech.
[http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/how-do-you-get-a-
jo...](http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/how-do-you-get-a-job-in-
algorithmic-trading/)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15551623](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15551623)
[http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/the-best-or-
worst-w...](http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/the-best-or-worst-way-to-
decline-a-technical-interview/)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9107657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9107657)
[http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/best-cover-
letter-e...](http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/best-cover-letter-ever-
or-worst-cover-letter-ever/)
With all that said... I think that I have finally come to terms with the fact
I'm not corporate guy and ageism seems to be running rampant in the tech
field. If I'm going survive over the long term, I'm going to have to carve out
a space for myself. About a month ago, recommitted myself to a strategy of
carving out a space for myself in the FinTech space or working in some form of
start up that I have a stake in, immediately I feel a "H E double hockey
sticks" better about my career future. Soon after I wrote this educational /
semi self promotional piece, I picked up some side work in the next week. Side
work in this case, is step in the right direction and eases the pain of my
minding numbing, over paid programming job. (but I'm grateful to have a job,
cause there are times I haven't and being unemployed is a horrible burden.)
[http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/the-best-and-
worst-...](http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/the-best-and-worst-stock-
and-option-trading-apis/)
------
nijynot
Jack Ma.
------
Jemmeh
Thing is most businesses take time to build. If you're in "dire need", like
really about to starve, you probably would take a job you might even be
overqualified for.
------
jason_slack
I am considering starting a business right now to fill a gap in the insurance
industry. The company I worked for just wont step up so I put in 2 weeks
notice.
------
j45
Many immigrants become entrepreneurs because there is no place for them among
average joes.
------
fapjacks
I did, twice, and I'm about to go on a third run (though this time it's not
because of any particular run of back luck with the job market). I have a
weird-looking resume that doesn't look quite right at first blush, and most of
the hiring decisions that brought me on board I later found out were someone
"taking a chance" on me. I was in the Guard for many years, and deployed a lot
( _a lot_ ). Even though it's against the law, startups just don't have the
resources to give up a team member and save their spot while they deploy. I
actually completely grok this. But for most of my adult life, it looks like
I've jumped from job to job with weird breaks in between, which is a huge red
flag. I'm actually pretty good at what I do, if you'll pardon me for saying
so, and so I have a pretty good network to lean on _now_ , but throughout my
20s I didn't truly understand the power of one's network and so didn't
cultivate relationships that I should have. No problem, life lesson. We aren't
all jumping out of our mother's womb in full armor swinging a chain.
Anyway, I have had both success and failure when I started my own businesses.
The first time was a failure, but I saw it at the time as a success, because I
had to make rent, and it paid the rent. I literally sat there with a notepad
thinking of things I could do in less than 60 days to make rent. Incidentally,
I have always paid rent one month ahead of time. It's just something I started
doing by chance when I was 16, and it turned out to be the difference between
having a place to sleep and living in my car or out on the street.
Anyway, that paid the rent but wasn't sustainable. Everything was wrong with
it, since I thought I was smarter than everyone hah! But that was another life
lesson, that the world is full of way smarter people, and history even fuller.
The second time I started a business I was much older, late-20s, and by then
had worked at a bunch of startups and a network full of sensors (the army says
"every soldier is a sensor" and likewise your friends and professional network
are like your sensors) and also had been taking notes the entire time. I still
take notes every day on the things I learn, the decisions I make, or people
around me are making and why, if I can discern it, or if they'll tell me when
I ask (another life lesson about taking notes). That time I consider it a
success, because the people I started the business with are still running it
today, and I was able to sell out of my share of the business. I went back
into working at startups (because that's where the action is yolo), and now
I'm feeling the itch _really_ badly. This time around I've got solid business
partners / cofounders on board, and few "green leaderbooks" full of notes and
ideas (another army thing) and a couple servers full of prototyped side
projects. I've got enough saved to bootstrap whatever we do and most
importantly, as a lifelong transient with wanderlust, I feel that same
comfortable feeling of "going places and doing things and taking risks" that
won't let me put down roots in one place for too long. Sorry for all the text,
but that's my story.
------
anoncoward111
Sales engineer here. I tried to start a variety of businesses when I was laid
off from my last job, where I lasted for 4 years.
I tried to get clients for my life coaching biz (budget, brain, and brawns as
I called it). Got some traction at just 7 bux a month (I was living in Chile),
but not enough once I moved back to NY.
I also tried to test product market fit for a site i was developing (a curated
list of multi-month foreign apartment leases), but that was too expensive for
me to scale.
Ultimately, making a prototype and getting some users wasnt even the hardest
part. It was trying to grow past that base and make the unit economics work
that was impossible, maybe even with outside funding.
After one year of job hunting, I found another sales engineering position that
Im happy with :)
~~~
sahil-kang
If you don’t mind sharing, how did you go about testing the product-market fit
for your apartment website?
~~~
anoncoward111
Of course, my pleasure :) I'll send you an email too just to say hi.
So, in my case, I was living in Chile and I had booked tickets to Thailand and
Japan (Ironically I ended up moving back to the USA for a full time job that I
wasn't planning on landing!!)
In Chiang Mai Thailand, specifically, you can book a 1-3 month apartment for
about $150 a month USD cash. They speak english, there's no lease, no
craziness. And only a few guest houses offer these types of prices and terms,
so you really had to hear about it from a friend of a friend type situation.
So I wanted to build a site that was a "curated list" of these apartments. And
I didn't even have firm data, names and numbers of landlords, availability,
etc. I just wanted to make something that looked and felt like airbnb, but was
light-weight and mobile friendly (text, css, and basic js only. site load
files of just a few KB not MB!!!)
So, I mocked it up, and made some posts to some reddits and discords where I
was only sort of a contributing member. I basically said, "guys, all of us are
having a lot of problems finding legit landlords with good terms and prices
abroad. I have a list of a few that are good, but I want to scale it out and
make it available as like a public service to our channel. Is this something
you guys would read? aka, is it worth my time to do this for fun?"
And the response was overwhelming. "YES! I want to see this list!" and "Thank
you so much!!! I'm having no luck booking a room right now". and etc etc.
People I've never heard of messaging me for months, "Did you finish it yet?"
From a technical standpoint, the site was a success. It looked and felt like a
responsive airbnb that worked on any device. The problem was that it was
extremely, extremely difficult to collect data of any kind. Language barriers,
not network effects, nothing. These landlords are so hard to find, they're
like ghosts!!!
So the product fell dormant because of an inability to scale to the level of
service needed for it to be useful. But the demand is there, and the
grassroots method I used to discover that demand was really successful and
mostly by accident ;)
~~~
alfredallan1
I know the line of business you’re talking about - getting landlords to list
their properties. It is a gnarly problem, but one that’s solvable. The catch
is that it is truly hyper local.
You can’t do Thai from Chile. It needs to be done by being physically present
in different major Thai destinations that you want to list, going from door to
door to meet the landlords you already know about, and to discover other you
don’t know about. It is literally a pariah dog’s job while you’re getting
started (and you’ll graduate into a working dog’s job if you’re successful),
but once you have established basic rapport and have the contact numbers (not
just emails) of the landlords, you could very well just call from from a nice
Thai beach, as long as you maintain periodic physical contact. It is great
that the app is polished, but additionally (if you already havent) you’ll have
to make the technical side such that it is extremely easy to update - and the
owners can do it themselves. Convice the owners to do it themselves. Make a
few local friends who speak English, and are young and hungry, make them
commissioned agents. Take them along with you, assign each renter to an agent,
and be fair (and initially generous) with the agents. But be sure you the
“keys” are with only you.
If you do it right, and are able to be accepted into the culture (important to
behave as they do, be very humble, and give up the traditional
“confidence”/arrogance commonly espoused in western society), and be sociable
enough to blend in with the landlords, you might become a social phenomenon,
and get many more landlords through word of mouth. I strongly recommend you
give a serious go, physically, hyper-locally, town-to-town, house-to-house.
Not just make the app and expect that the supply side will come looking (the
demand side will, you’ve already figured that out). You have to go to them,
convince them, request them, implore to them, show them the money, and the
potential market (don’t expect them to understand the benefits straight off
the bat). You’ll also get into trouble when a renter trashes a place. When you
do, either sell to AirBnB or hire experienced people from that company. When
you pull it off, you’ll be like a mini/local airbnb, and worth a decent
fraction of what they’re worth.
Understand that this is a supply-demand business. Your demand will be off the
internet. Market it the way you know. The supply part is very different. Do
Thai landlords frequent Reddit in droves?
------
stealthmodeclan
One of my friends who is a successful entrepreneur (bootstrapped, high double
digit million yearly revenue) now recals that he never managed to find a job
because he looks arogant.
He also lacks apathy. (I think it's some medical condition and not something
sinster).
He is very honest and trustworthy but sometimes he ends up insulting us like
Linus. But he is also super talented, so we ignore his cons as limitations
beyond his control.
Currently, he is GP of our VC fund. He is lot better!
So he had no choice but to bootstrap his own company.
~~~
akanet
Did you mean empathy instead of apathy?
------
spidfire22
Elon musk did
~~~
whitepoplar
Did Elon get rejected or did he just say "Fuck it, I don't want a job"?
~~~
jamestimmins
I believe he couldn't get a job at Netscape, as he didn't have a formal CS
background. Unclear if he applied for other jobs or just this one.
~~~
dboreham
Not to contradict Elon, but: I worked at Netscape and did not have a "formal
CS background" nor did I ever ask interview candidates about their formal
background. recall we hired a guy who's previous job was mixing a Nine inch
Nails album. Fantastic coder..
In my experience the whole "must have formal background" began with Google,
some years later.
~~~
twilightcircus
Do you remember if it was Steve Duda, the guy who owns XFER Records? He was an
engineer for NIN in the late 90's.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
New Estimate for an Oil Leak: A Thousand Times Worse Than Rig Owner Says - matt2000
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/climate/taylor-energy-gulf-of-mexico.html
======
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266878](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266878)
------
SwellJoe
I have a growing concern that even when (if) reasonable heads prevail and
we're able to implement sane climate policy in most developed nations,
corporations with a vested interest in externalizing costs will simply ignore
the law and self-report compliance while actively covering up evidence of non-
compliance. This isn't a theoretical thing, we've already seen it happening.
It's widespread in fossil fuels (nearly every major player has had disasters,
often directly causing human death and injury, in recent years caused by
cutting corners, neglect, failure to comply with regulations, etc.), but also
in the automotive sector (VW), animal agriculture (e.g.
[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/20/north-
caroli...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/20/north-carolina-hog-
industry-pig-farms)), and others.
Even with our current dangerously lax regulation of these externalities,
corporations are doing everything they can to skip out on their
responsibilities, and often getting away with it with barely a slap on the
wrist. So, what happens when the policies get a lot stricter (I'm being
optimistic and assuming the current anti-science rule will somehow end and
we'll get some responsible leadership that understands we don't have time to
cut emissions gradually any more...we missed that chance by a decade or more)
and companies just say, "nah, we're going to keep doing what we were doing"?
In this case, I have no doubt the company knew what they were spewing into the
ocean for 14 years, or at least had a good hunch. There's tons of data
involved in off-shore wells. And, yet, nobody will go to jail for the
immeasurable harm they knowingly caused. Nobody will answer for it, and the
executives probably went on to drilling new dangerous wells, while their
financial backers probably continue to invest in fossil fuels and profit from
it.
~~~
GuiA
A few options: shame the companies, confront the executives, boycott the
products, organize with your coworkers and strike if your employee engages in
such practices, write your elected representatives, write poetry or paint
pictures about how angry they make you
But don’t give up
~~~
SwellJoe
I guess we can try those before we start googling guillotine plans. But, let's
keep our options open.
------
viraptor
Something that's not mentioned in the article: why wasn't it detected/measured
at the source/destination? They say the leak is from "bundle of undersea pipes
ruptured" \- so this is an active line and someone's losing $6.3k/day
according to these estimates, or $32M over the time of the leak. Did nobody
notice the difference (either in volume or in billing) - is this a rounding
error for them?
With no experience in oil transport, I'd expect them to measure things like
that, even if just to find the leaks.
~~~
samfisher83
Subsea multiphase flow measurement is very hard. The equipment is really
expensive. For full range multiphase flow measurement you probably need a
nuclear source for density measurement which companies don't want to put down
there. When oil comes out of the ground it isn't just oil. There is gas and
water as well. TO figure out what is what it takes a multi-phase meters.
~~~
sterlind
You seem knowledgeable. Do you know what radioisotope they'd need for accurate
density measurement? Are there non-nuclear gamma ray generators that could be
used instead?
~~~
saagarjha
I’m not knowledgeable, but I’m curious why you have such a specific question:
is this something that you’re interested in, or is this something that you
have a practical use for?
~~~
sterlind
_stifles mad scientist laugh_ idle, extremely specific curiosity
------
cheeze
This is the kind of stuff that makes me think "we're all doomed."
------
kingkawn
Crime Against Reality
------
gesman
This is paywalled article.
~~~
AdamJacobMuller
[http://archive.is/6bP6b](http://archive.is/6bP6b)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: Who are the most innovative law firms/lawyers for startups in the US? - hendler
After incubation, this matters more. Examples<p>* becoming a B corp.<p>* creative equity strategies<p>* crowdfunding risk mitigation<p>* intellectual property and building value while being against software patents, traditional copyright, closed source , etc
======
callmevlad
One thing I learned after meeting with a bunch of top firms in the Silicon
Valley (Fenwick&West, Orrick, Cooley, Silicon Legal Strategy) is that
"innovative" and "creative" legal strategies can be much more expensive and
can even hurt you in the critical initial growth period. If your goal is to
raise money from investors, your best (and cheapest) bet is to follow
established conventions and standard terms. When you get to be much bigger
(e.g. Facebook, Dropbox), that's when more creative strategies may be needed
(e.g. Facebook's strategy to prevent employees from selling stock prior to
IPO).
In regards to IP, it's always a cost vs benefit tradeoff. It was quite
refreshing to hear pretty much every partner we spoke to say "just focus on
building something awesome and focus on the hard legal stuff later," instead
of pushing us down the (more beneficial to them in the short term) path of
securing patents, etc.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Real Time Chat and Collaboration Tool, we are launching very soon... - arunagarwal
https://catchuphere.com/pages/beta
======
syncpeople
New Campfire??
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Quora Down? - hhimanshu
telling me Page Not Found (Error 500)
http://i.imgur.com/B9IDd.png
======
tokenadult
Who cares?
(A site that has been badly unreliable for me in past searches says that Quora
is down at the moment.)
<http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/quora.com>
~~~
bashzor
"Looks down from here" - but when trying to load it myself, it's up.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: What if Microsoft held the country's pcs for ransom? - xauronx
This is slightly "silly" but I was thinking today about how much of the country runs on Microsoft products, including the government. How much power could they leverage from that? For instance, if Bill Gates made a public announcement "Stop monitoring our shit, or we deactivate all copies of Windows in the country." I know, I know, there are plenty of issues with this, but I wanted to share my thought experiment with you all and see if anyone had any insights/thoughts.
======
kjs3
Extortion is a crime, for one thing. And it's a pretty hypocritical threat
considering Microsoft has been _more_ than willing to put hooks in it's
products to enable law enforcement/intelligence surveillance.
------
vermasque
Sounds like a TODO for a desparate Steve Ballmer
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ars Technica reviews Photoshop CS3 - mattculbreth
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/photoshop-cs3.ars
======
webwright
Not much of a "review"...
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Someone hacked Amazon’s Alexa into one of those singing fish - davidst
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/04/finally-at-long-last-someone-hacked-amazons-alexa-into-one-of-those-singing-fish/
======
douche
I love this. If there were a walk-through someday, I would definitely think
about doing this with my old Billy Bass. And yes, I have a Billy Bass.
------
DanBC
How long before Furbies or Teddy Ruxspins are converted?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine - garagumu
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140814-that-job-pays-how-much
======
rm999
I really dislike this - an article with unverified sources and no original
content in the BBC, what I consider a very reliable, ethical news source. To
me this is yet another example of the cheapening of modern journalism - quora
has been "partnering" with several "content distribution partners" including
BBC to market themselves while doing the newspapers' jobs.
> Quora exec Marc Bodnick sees the media deals as a win-win, where Quora
> writers get more distribution, and media partners get good content.
> ([http://allthingsd.com/20131119/quora-will-push-its-most-
> link...](http://allthingsd.com/20131119/quora-will-push-its-most-link-baity-
> content-to-buzzfeed-though-it-would-never-call-it-that))
At least some publishers have been called out and ended up doing the right
thing, like when huffpo published unsourced, ridiculous answers about trader
joes' two buck chuck:
>This blog post contained un-sourced claims about Two Buck Chuck and its
proprietor, Bronco Wines. It has been removed from the site in accordance with
our blogger terms. ([http://www.starkinsider.com/2014/08/trader-joes-two-buck-
chu...](http://www.starkinsider.com/2014/08/trader-joes-two-buck-chuck-wine-
really-bad.html))
~~~
crdoconnor
>I really dislike this - an article with no original content and unverified
sources in the BBC, what I consider a very reliable, ethical news source.
About that...
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilmidgley/2014/06/03/bbc-
news-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilmidgley/2014/06/03/bbc-news-
division-to-cut-500-jobs/)
I personally thought that the BBC News jumped the shark when they introduced a
"BBC Capital" section. It really rammed home Chomsky's point about major
newspapers having a "business" section but no "labor" section.
It's been a downhill slide ever since Hutton, to be honest, and a crying
shame.
At least we still have Al Jazeera, though.
~~~
endianswap
Oh the irony in linking to a third-party contribution to Forbes as your source
of this news. Is this what each newspaper's online presence is going to
devolve into across the industry?
~~~
crdoconnor
LOL, true. In my defense it was the first hit in Google.
Judging by the time it took to dig this up, BBC could do with some SEO work:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-
arts-28342929](http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28342929)
------
bendmorris
Is this what passes as journalism now? I mean:
>“My 19 year-old boss was taking home $35,000/year with benefits,” he said.
“Plus they train you on the job for free. She told me that she was on track to
be a regional manager by the age of 30 and would make 100k by then.”
>Katie Nellis said managers of Walgreen's drugstores in the US “often retire
in their 40s.”
Are we just taking these wild, likely highly exaggerated claims at face value?
And did the BBC really just re-publish comments from Quora as a story with no
additional verification?
In that case, the most surprising salary is for journalists at the BBC - I'm
surprised they can keep a job at all.
~~~
cliveowen
BBC's articles often report direct quotes from average Joes, it's part of
their style. I don't like it either.
~~~
crazy1van
I've heard it called grain of sand journalism. It usually goes from a couple
of very broad statements about the entire desert directly to an in depth look
at a few grains of sand.
------
mgkimsal
I'm not at all sure why these are 'surprising'. $100k/year for a dog walker is
not possible in most areas unless there's a lot of dogs to walk for a lot of
dog owners with disposable income. That $96k figure is 'up to', and while much
may be in cash, it's probably closer to 50-70% that on an annual basis. If
you're doing this in an area with enough rich dog owners to sustain that
business year 'round, you're living in an area where earning, say, $60k isn't
going to afford you a great lifestyle. Liveable, certainly, but not wealthy.
The 'not surprising' part really is the down to hustle - it should not be
surprising at all that some people can hustle up paying customers for services
that we'd ignore or look down on. The dog walking gig - you must _really_ love
dogs to be cleaning up dog crap for _up to 8_ dogs at a time, 5-7 days per
week, 6-8 hours per day.
I've known dog walkers and pool cleaners. Most don't make anywhere near that,
because they're not good hustlers - they're not networked sufficiently, and
don't know how to attract enough customers and manage a business. Someone with
the skills to attract customers and properly manage 'busyness', money will
flow almost in spite of whatever skills/education they may have or, more
usually, not have.
------
dghughes
The oil boom in northern Alberta, Canada is another good example of high
paying jobs without any skill or at least education.
Many small towns and fishing villages have been de-populated of men aged 20 to
their 40s who went to work in the oil fields.
Going from seasonal work drawing unemployment benefits to $100,000+ working
six months and all your food and lodging paid for even free tickets to fly to
and from home.
Small towns now have big loud trucks from Alberta and lots of "that's not how
we do it in Alberta" arguments. Small town poor boy makes it big can create
some assholes.
~~~
mikewhy
> Small town poor boy makes it big can create some assholes.
A lot of them came back to Newfoundland and the feeling is pretty much the
same. That province is going through an oil boom of its own and the influx of
yuppies, crime and condos is excruciating
------
kalleth
Proxy for UK users: [https://simple-
proxy.com/g.php?u=k3gVKwRdxrbr79mOfc6v2q7vafE...](https://simple-
proxy.com/g.php?u=k3gVKwRdxrbr79mOfc6v2q7vafEU8Vg4I7aQWp2mayClDtcUcmuUxhiayRGLR1du%2FtCtobsUCKBO5Cf8&b=7&f=norefer)
~~~
randall
Original: [http://www.quora.com/Salaries-and-Wages/What-is-a-job-
that-m...](http://www.quora.com/Salaries-and-Wages/What-is-a-job-that-most-
people-assume-does-NOT-make-a-lot-of-money-but-in-reality-pays-very-well)
~~~
grdvnl
Wow, this article merely rephrases the Quora comments' without contributing
anything new to the discussion.
~~~
Untit1ed
Pretty bad to see from the BBC, but at least you don't have to sign in to see
it.
------
jonnathanson
Not surprised at all re: construction workers. That they can make hundreds of
thousands of dollars per year is sort of a semi-open secret. The catch is that
construction is a feast or famine occupation. During building booms,
contractors and workers can make a small fortune. During busts, they can go
bust. New York is a great place to be a construction worker, as there always
seems to be a steady supply of new projects underway. San Francisco, right
now, is making a lot of construction workers quite wealthy. But this boom will
go bust eventually, and when it does, the demand drop will shock supply, and
the jobs will dry up virtually overnight. Nobody has any great idea when that
will happen, but the workers I've talked to [1] are an odd mix of giddy and
pessimistic. There is sort of a "get it while the getting's still good"
mentality afoot right now.
As you might imagine, any jobs tied to real estate development very closely
track the real estate market, be it residential or commercial. That market can
be exciting, but it's also inherently unstable.
[1] I don't work in construction, but I have invested in a few buildings, and
I talk to contractors and workers pretty regularly.
~~~
toyg
_> The catch is that construction is a feast or famine occupation. [...] There
is sort of a "get it while the getting's still good" mentality afoot right
now._
Indeed, and that's not good from the point of view of construction standards.
When the going is good, contractors go pedal to the metal and will do
everything they can as fast as they can, inevitably lowering their average
work standards (both in terms of output quality and safety measures). Plus,
construction booms typically lead to more widespread economic bubbles.
I wish we could find a way of stabilizing that particular market.
~~~
skj
> Plus, construction booms typically lead to more widespread economic bubbles.
If there is actually a causal relationship there, I would have thought it was
the other way around.
~~~
toyg
I think it's more of a symbiotic relationship: construction is the first
sector to accelerate when things start looking good and the first to crash
when things start going sour, because it relies on debt more than others.
Because of this position, it plays a very important role in exacerbating
trends.
------
chengiz
> In India, hair dressers can earn more than employees in the software
> industry. During a recent visit to the salon...
Are they really using Quora as a reference? Even if this is honest, the
responder went to probably one of the top salons in Bangalore, in which case
the same would hold in Western countries. Most hair dressing jobs in India are
low paying, and most of the rest are average paying.
------
cletus
I don't buy the numbers on dog walkers. I live in NYC, which is probably at
the high end for this and many other things, and I don't know anyone who's
paying $25/day to walk a dog with up to 7 other dogs. People will pay more to
have their dogs walked by themselves or in small groups. I don't think I see
groups of more than 4.
The theater/opera carpenter one really surprised me. I wonder why they are
paid so much? Unions?
Construction I totally understand. I come from Perth, Western Australia, which
is in the midst of a resources boom that has been going on almost unabated for
15-20 years. The scope and scale of what is being dug up from the ground or
drilled from the sea is probably unprecedented.
This puts an incredible amount of pressure on construction. So much so that in
2000 you could buy a house for ~$100k in Perth. 5 years later that same house
was $350k+. Most of that was just increased construction and materials cost,
not land appreciation.
The problem with such massive increases in the cost of construction is that it
feeds into virtually everything else. If you've ever been to Perth, you'll
know it's an incredibly expensive city now. Back in the 90s I lived
comfortably as a student in a 2 bedroom apartment and all expenses for
<$200/week.
I often wonder if Australia will suffer (or is already suffering) from Dutch
Disease [1]. It's a place now of the haves (those in mining/construction) and
have nots (everyone else). Even if you're one of the lucky ones, the standard
of living is not great.
I say this as someone who lives in _Manhattan_. But New York City has way more
options for the whole income spectrum. Less than $200k can get you a 1 bedroom
in Sunnyside, Queens that's <30 minutes to Midtown.
In Perth, there are no cheap options anymore. Even 5 years ago, 40-50 year old
crappy apartments were being rented out for $300/week sight unseen.
Anyway I don't begrudge any of these jobs their good fortunes (I am a software
engineer after all). I do worry about construction in particular however
because of the on-flow effect into everything else.
Construction really is a mixed bag too. Highly paid crane operators? That's a
stressful/demanding job. No problem there. 6 figure incomes for guys who stand
on the street with a stop sign wearing a hard hat? Well, that's just a racket.
[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease)
~~~
eCa
It's $25 _per session_... Their math is $25 * 8 dogs * 2 times daily * 240
days a year. That's how "up to eight dogs" turns into "eight dogs every day,
every time".
------
e40
_Working your way up to store manager has its perks. According to Murray
Godfrey a Wal-Mart store manager “of a store in a moderate-sized locale can
easily make $200k plus bonuses based on sales.”_
Don't forget the other part of the job: scheduling much of the just above
minimum wage workforce under you to work less than 30 hours/week so they don't
get benefits.
------
theoutlander
Several years ago I knew a hair dresser who made 90K working only a few hours
a day while I worked three times longer as a software engineer making only
75K. A third of her income was from tips (and I've heard that a lot of people
don't pay taxes on those).
------
bluewolf
The dog walking job, at $96,000, is a flat-out lie. I owned a dog walking
company for several years. There is lots of competition and no barrier to
entry.
~~~
mgkimsal
Agreed. It's someone extrapolating out 1 45 minute dog walk @ $X/hr x Y dogs,
saying "they work 6 hours per day".
Yeah... perhaps of actual 'walking'. This says nothing about the time required
to actually market your business, sign people up, deal with angry customers,
not to mention deal with sick dogs, cleaning up crap for multiple dogs daily,
and dealing with year-round weather.
If you're in an area where there's enough business to support $100k/year in
dog walking, you still can't afford to live well, because that $100k will buy
you relatively little.
------
pandaman
I am not surprised at all. Whenever my leftist friends bring up the "poor" who
cannot find a job I ask them if they know how much does a dog walker make and
why is it so.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Galaxy S III preorders approach 10 million - kemper
http://www.bgr.com/2012/05/18/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-preorders-9-million/
======
cryptoz
This phone is one of the most exciting things happening, at least for me: It
has a barometer! Joining the ranks of the Galaxy Nexus, Note, and Moto Xoom.
Except, I think the SGS3 is way more popular than any of those others (by a
couple orders of magnitude in some cases).
I'm the developer of pressureNET, an open source Android project to build a
live, global barometer network. The project has seen solid growth, but not on
the scale that would allow for groundbreaking weather prediction. We get about
17,000 measurements per day, but I think I need something like 1,000,000.
Does anyone have ideas that could help me with marketing and growing the
network with the release of this phone? I've been posting to Reddit, XDA, HN,
Twitter, Facebook, etc, but I worry about spamming them and I think I have
saturated my audience there.
Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask, but I'm anxious about missing out
on all these new barometer users.
~~~
pnachbaur
Given that a barometer is seemingly so rare on the market (and your app is
probably one of the few set to take advantage of it) maybe you could talk to
Samsung about a cross-promotional type deal? It could allow them to further
differentiate and market their phone, and you'd get your data!
~~~
cryptoz
I've been thinking about contacting the manufacturers for a while, but the
task is daunting. Does this kind of thing actually work? I'll definitely
investigate this with the kind of response I've had here on HN, it sounds like
it may almost be common. Thanks for the help!
~~~
StavrosK
Who cares? If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Just contact them.
------
weiran
This is bullshit, the "preorders" are from carriers not actual customers.
Samsung could sell zero units and still claim to have 9 million preorders.
> Samsung Electronics Co has received some 9 million pre-orders for its third-
> generation Galaxy S smartphone __from more than 100 global carriers __, the
> Korea Economic Daily reported on Friday.
Source: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/us-samsung-
idUSBRE...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/us-samsung-
idUSBRE84H00X20120518)
The number of "news" sites just blindly reposting this as if it were actual
customers is frankly disgusting.
~~~
akmiller
What is your point exactly? I'm pretty certain the carriers do their homework
before placing orders. They don't want a ton of inventory just sitting on
their shelves. So the carriers expect to sell them and Samsung did sell them
(doesn't matter who bought them).
~~~
tvon
The point is it doesn't matter how many units they sell to Best Buy, what
matters is how many units they sell to consumers.
This happens all the time, we hear about X millions of units "shipped" only to
find out months later that a small fraction of those actually made it into
consumers hands.
~~~
bsphil
Given the incredible popularity of the GS2 among the Android community, I'd
say it's not unreasonable to think the GS3 will sell well.
~~~
bradleyland
No one is saying it won't sell well. They're saying that reporting carrier
orders as "sales pre-orders" lacks an important detail. Thus, some are calling
bullshit on the headline.
------
6ren
Chipset Exynos 4212 Quad
CPU Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9
GPU Mali-400MP
<http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9300_galaxy_s_iii-4238.php>
The Mali-400MP is quad-core (x2 from before)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exynos> This seems feasible, with similar
battery life, as they've shrunk the process to half the area: 45^2 vs 32^2.
Its performance per core is comparable the sgx543 of the iPhone/iPad.
[http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/mali-graphics-
hardwar...](http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/mali-graphics-
hardware/mali-400-mp.php) vs <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVR#Series_5XT>
(though depends on the clock actually used)
So, this phone's GPU is similar to the "new iPad"3 (quad-core sgx543). (Apple
have also done a shrink, but it's only used in the old iPad 2 so far...)
I think quad-core _CPUs_ are past the point of diminishing returns (consider
the latest Transformer); multi-core are still hard to code for, and they are
usually underutilized on desktops.
Note: the iPad 4 is likely to have the next in the GPU series (Rogue 6200),
which apparently is comparable to the xenos GPU in the xbox360. So, it's
leapfrog, jumping x2 as far each year.
~~~
nextparadigms
Both ARM CPU's and GPU's seem to jump 2x in performance every year, so at
least so far, they've been moving faster than Moore's Law.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the Exynos 5250 chip, with a dual core 2
Ghz Cortex A15 CPU and a Mali T-604 GPU (new Midgard architecture) that's
supposed to be 4x faster than Mali400 (the original in GS2), so probably 2x or
faster than the current overclocked Mali400 in GS3 (will also support OpenCL).
This chip should appear in some tablets and phones, and maybe even a
Chromebook by the end of the year.
I'm also looking forward to them pairing Cortex A15 with the ultra-low-power
Cortex A7, maybe in a 2+2 core configuration. Samsung mentioned that they
might be ready with Cortex A7 by the end of the year, but in general we can
expect Cortex A7 to arrive next year.
I would prefer this over something like a pure Cortex A15 quad core chip,
which should also appear next year. Starting with 2014 we should see the
successor of Cortex A15 in dual core version, based on the 64 bit ARMv8
architecture.
------
gcp
I find it quite ironic that the same site posted this article 2 weeks ago:
[http://www.bgr.com/2012/05/04/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-htc-
oppor...](http://www.bgr.com/2012/05/04/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-htc-opportunity/)
Basically saying that the SGS3 looks like a dud and HTC is where it's at. HTC
currently isn't able to import phones into the US.
~~~
bookwormAT
Do you remember how much fun they had with the size of the Galaxy Note?
BGR,buisinessinsider,gruber,siegler,the verge,... The whole techmeme club.
Then Samsung sold 5 million Notes in the first months.
~~~
dmix
A ton of films get trashed by critics and imdb then go on to be commercially
successful.
That doesn't mean it was a good piece of film. More likely it was accessible
everywhere and well marketed.
~~~
bookwormAT
this is a good argument for sales vs quality.
But the lesson with the Galaxy Note was that many people want a device with a
5.3 in screen, and the critique was that people do not want a device with a
5.3 in screen.
Remember that Samsung sold the Note together with the Galaxy S2 (same
hardware, smaller screen, higher marketing budget) and even smaller form
factors.
Or, to put it another way: The lesson is that there is no "average consumer".
~~~
falling
_> Remember that Samsung sold the Note together with the Galaxy S2 (same
hardware, smaller screen, higher marketing budget) and even smaller form
factors._
The Note has been promoted much more than the S2. In SF I see as much ads for
the Note as you used to see for the iPad 2 when it came out, which means
they’re everywhere.
Last week three guys with Samsung t-shirts stopped me on the street to make me
try it.
------
kaolinite
Has BGR ever written an article longer than a few paragraphs? (Edit: huh..
that struck a nerve it would seem).
~~~
mpclark
First rule of tech blogging -- all stories, even those best reported as just
one line, must be expanded to meet Google News's minimum word count
requirement.
------
unconed
Still waiting for a high end Android phone that isn't enormous.
------
samhan
Now this is quite amazing . Has Samsung also started to attract an albeit
smaller apple like following .. ?
~~~
objclxt
It's certainly a good indicator of smartphone demand, although I'm not sure
it's comparable with iPhone 4S pre-orders. I _suspect_ that a lot of the S3
pre-orders are direct from carriers, rather than individuals, so it's more of
a 'product shipped' rather than 'product sold' statistic.
I could of course be totally wrong, although as it's a leaked stat it's hard
to know exactly how a 'pre-order' is being defined...but in my office (of
about 180 people, all mobile facing) far fewer people have pre-ordered the S3
versus the iPhone 4S.
~~~
jk
I guess Samsung phones are more popular outside US. Among my colleagues, of 10
smartphones, 8 are Samsung ones (includes 3 Samsung Notes) and only one
iPhone4S.
~~~
objclxt
Our split is fairly even (I lead a mobile dev team in London, both Android &
iOS). Maybe it's a demographic thing: most developers have a Galaxy Nexus, and
they don't really see any compelling reason to move on to the S3 right now.
------
mvasilkov
> CPU Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9 > GPU Mali-400MP
Finally, smooth animations?
~~~
hammersend
I've been getting smooth animations on my Nexus S ever since I put ICS on it a
few months back and this phone "only" has a 1 GHz single core CPU and 512 MB
of RAM.
------
swah
I just got my first Android phone (a 1ghz dual-core 512mb LG) and it its
fuckin slow :( (my iPhone 3GS felt way way snappier).
~~~
darkstalker
That's because in iOS the UI has maximum priority. It can even pause the app
so the UI keeps a high framerate.
~~~
rsynnott
This is a myth, introduced by an uninformed Google intern in a blog post.
Hint; start Skype on an iPhone, switch to another app, and scroll a list. Note
how your Skype call continues.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Response to Sam Odio - kaptain
http://jonathanstark.com/blog/2011/08/13/an-open-letter-to-sam-odio/
======
ColinWright
Some backstory here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880126>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880126>
Further, this exact item was submitted earlier today. It's obviously been
killed because it's not showing up in searches, and I can't be bothered to
turn on "Show Dead" and go looking for it by hand.
I wish HN had a filter so I could remove these sorts of items and get actual
technical items.
~~~
burgerbrain
<http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2883043>
A filter and a kill file would be nice.
------
coolswan
This doesn't make any sense, what's the backstory here?
Edit: never mind, looked it up.
<http://sam.odio.com/2011/08/12/i-took-625-jonathans-card/>
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
One Year of PostmarketOS: Mainline Calling - ollieparanoid
https://postmarketos.org/blog/2018/06/09/one-year/
======
djsumdog
This is a totally amazing project and I totally applaud their effort. Linux
got it's big boost on x86 back in the 90s/2000s because the PC is an actual
architecture. You're guaranteed so many standards on a BIOS or UEFI based PC.
The Fail0ver guys have a great talk about porting Linux to a PS4 and how it's
an example of an x86_64 that is totally NOT a PC in any meaningful way.
Android is designed for devices where you solder random pins to random chips
and hack a bunch of shit and blobs together to get it to boot. You can't
install a fresh Android like you can Windows, and I think it's really held
back Android as a long term, stable operating system.
Microsoft at least mandated UEFI+ARM, but their boot loaders are still locked
even though their mobile platform is dead (come on Microsoft, you just bought
Github. Throw as a bone and unlock your bootloaders or publish a key for
them!). No mobile device uses Device Trees.
It would be great if you could take most popular old android devices and just
run Linux on them, use them as a small Raspberry Pi like device. I think
that's what Postmarket is doing to start with, but it looks like they're even
progressing to getting phones really usable as phones in the future .. which
is pretty damn exciting.
~~~
nextos
I do prefer regular Linux userlands to Android. However, with Project Treble
(essentially a HAL), it's possible to produce ROMs that can be used on many
devices thus replicating the experience mainline Linux gives (where the image
is decoupled from particular hardware).
There are already some proofs of concept:
[https://www.xda-developers.com/flash-generic-system-image-
pr...](https://www.xda-developers.com/flash-generic-system-image-project-
treble-device/)
~~~
ollieparanoid
We would not even need the mainline kernel to decouple images from particular
hardware. In postmarketOS we only have a hand full of device specific packages
(ideally only one per device), and one of them is the downstream kernel for
non-mainlined devices. All other binary packages can be shared between all
devices of the same CPU architecture (in Alpine terms usually "armhf" or
"aarch64" for mobile phones and tablets). Just like Linux distributions do it.
The big benefit of the mainline kernel is, that it is the only way to get all
the (security) fixes. Greg Kroah-Hartman (Linux kernel who maintains the
stable releases) wrote in Februrary:
> As proof of this, I demoed at the Kernel Recipes talk referenced above how
> trivial it was to crash all of the latest flagship Android phones on the
> market with a tiny userspace program. The fix for this issue was released 6
> months prior in the LTS kernel that the devices were based on, however none
> of the devices had upgraded or fixed their kernels for this problem. As of
> this writing (5 months later) only two devices have fixed their kernel and
> are now not vulnerable to that specific bug.
Source: [http://kroah.com/log/blog/2018/02/05/linux-kernel-release-
mo...](http://kroah.com/log/blog/2018/02/05/linux-kernel-release-model/)
~~~
ghthor
This is the type of shit that gets me livid. It's crazy, how did we get
here??? I don't think it's through malicious intent, but rather from digging
in the dark so to speak and forceful proding for first to market or more
simply, incompetent competitive market dynamics. The engineering teams that
needed to make these devices didn't have a clear understanding of the kernels
model, how it's all connected, where the edges are, how to make low cost
additions. They got shoved forward to the edge, with someone shouting "deliver
in 2 months or it's all over." So instead of learning how to make quality
additions to the kenral, instead of building a more complete understanding,
how the code was all connected, they just hacked some shit together to ship on
time.
For all the good benefits of a competitive market system, the externalities
such as the fracturing software systems is fustrating.
~~~
djsumdog
> how did we get here?
Planned obsolescence.
------
ollieparanoid
For people curious about all the GitHub links: we are probably switching to
gitlab soon. This has been in discussion since October and recent events with
Microsoft tipped the scales for us. Besides the issue of trusting Microsoft or
not, GitHub does not have a convenient way to backup the issues and pull
request descriptions and all the comments.
~~~
pabs3
There is github-backup but it doesn't do restores:
[https://github-backup.branchable.com/](https://github-backup.branchable.com/)
~~~
ollieparanoid
We looked into that as well, and besides missing restore functionality, the
problem is that it needs to access GitHub's rate limited API to crawl through
one issue after another. In gitlab there is one API call to prepare a _full_
backup, and another one to download it. At least that's what the docs say, we
have not tried it out yet.
[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/project_import_export.html](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/project_import_export.html)
[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/settings/import_expo...](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/settings/import_export.html)
------
messe
PostmarketOS is an amazing project that I wish I had the time to contribute
to.
I'd love to resurrect my old Nexus 7 (2012) tablet with something more
lightweight than the current monstrosity that Android has become. Right now
the main thing holding me back from doing that is the lack of LVM support.
Either Plasma Mobile or even SwayWM (when it gets gesture support) would be
great for a lightweight open device for browsing the web and reading papers.
~~~
ollieparanoid
In case you should have time at some point, there is already a proof of
concept with LVM made by drebrez. It is basically working after the
installation, but all the use cases that are not straight forward (such as re-
installing postmarketOS, what happens to the LVM partitions then?) need to be
sorted out before this can be integrated into the master branch.
[https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/60](https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/60)
~~~
messe
It'll be a few weeks before I officially have time as I'm currently interning
doing maths/physics research. I choose my own hours but I'm rather terrible at
time management, so it's best if I avoid side projects at the moment.
That being said, there's a fair chance that I'll give installing that proof of
concept a shot next time I'm stuck on a problem/procrastinating.
------
Kudos
They mention "sustainable" a lot. What is that supposed to mean in this
context? If it's supposed to be a headline goal of the project, it would be
good to offer a definition for it.
~~~
rvense
In this context, it usually means reducing waste and consumption by prolonging
the useful life of hardware. By providing an updated user land (and, in some
cases, a mainline kernel) after vendors lose interest, users aren't forced to
choose between buying new hardware and software obsolescence and/or security
issues.
------
ocdtrekkie
DROID 4 making the list is impressive, and there's a decent chance I may want
to try it out someday with postmarketOS on it. AFAIK, it was basically the
last modern phone with a keyboard slider, and I have one lying around
somewhere.
~~~
MartijnBraam
The droid 4 is a great device and has quite a lot of mainline work done, The
only downside is the quite complicated way to get images on it since the
bootloader is locked.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
I'll have to take a look at what I could do with it if I went through that
hassle. Having a physical keyboard makes it pretty generally useful with Linux
software in general, I'd presume.
------
seba_dos1
I wonder how feasible would be a mainline kernel for Openmoko Neo
Freerunner...
~~~
MartijnBraam
There is some stuff for the S3C2442 SoC in the mainline kernel, I guess it's
possible but there are people who way more about that in the postmarketOS
Matrix/IRC channel.
------
curioussavage
postmarket is so cool. I need to try again to get it running on my nexus 7.
Had a problem with pmbootstrap the first time I tried
------
jakeogh
Does the Nexus5 baseband have DMA?
~~~
MartijnBraam
Yeah, basically all phone modems communicate with the main processor through
DMA (which the kernel translates in a network interface and a serial port for
control). This is still a big security hole in these devices since the
firmware on the baseband is closed.
~~~
jakeogh
Thanks. Closed and remotely flashable. I suppose at the board design level
this could be worked around by presenting the modem with it's own DMA
controller and memory mapping the interface appropriately?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
What I hear when people cite the Zimbardo experiment - bradleysmith
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3025
======
feelthepain
Ha! Here's what happened when they re-ran the 'experiment'
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6886/full/417213a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6886/full/417213a.html)
~~~
bradleysmith
never saw that; here's a bit more on it, I think:
[http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org/](http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Cheat sheets for front end web developers - Zenbach
http://sixrevisions.com/resources/cheat_sheets_web_developer/
======
alnayyir
Thanks, bookmarked this for later.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Life and Death of an Amazon Warehouse Temp - mayneack
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/life-and-death-amazon-temp/
======
yomritoyj
The death was a tragedy. But not even the family blames Amazon for it. And the
article does not really point to any evidence that the company was
responsible. So I'm not sure why the its name is there in the headline. If
Jeff had died while working at the building supply store would there have been
an article about the life and time of workers at mom and pop stores?
~~~
leonroy
I think the point is more that the current system of temping is being used to
game employees to provide work without the company doling out any sort of
benefits.
Entitlements like sick pay, holidays, health etc. things we take for granted
in the West are rapidly being eroded by effective micro management of temp
hours to ensure low skilled jobs can be fulfilled by a rolling pool of labour.
We're seeing it in the US, in the UK and no doubt across other nations which
previously provided low skilled workers some modicum of protection in the past
before effective temp management became so prevalent.
~~~
yomritoyj
Those benefits ultimately came out of higher prices for consumers. So if the
public still wants the benefits to continue, it just has to campaign for
public provision for those benefits through higher taxes or contribute to
private income transfer programs. That would be fairer since who gets the
benefits will be decided on a democratic basis and not on who was well-
connected or lucky enough to land a job in a unionized industry.
I'm not in the US, but from the news it seems that higher taxes are very
unpopular there. So demonizing corporations seems to be an easy way out where
you can empathize with unskilled workers while at the same time enjoying the
benefits that come from the cheapening of their labour.
------
dsfsdfd
Capitalism, the end game.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
He Helped Discover Evolution, and Then Became Extinct - keiferski
https://www.npr.org/2013/04/30/177781424/he-helped-discover-evolution-and-then-became-extinct
======
Finnucane
Yep, when Darwin got Wallace's letter, he realized that Wallace's ideas were
close enough to his own that he would be scooped if Wallace published first.
Later in life, Wallace got swept up in the Spiritualist craze, but continued
to defend Darwin's work.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How Bloomberg Is Advancing C++ at Scale - wslh
http://www.techatbloomberg.com/blog/bloomberg-advancing-c-scale/
======
cheez
This is so devoid of actual information. Doesn't sound like Lakos has moved
much past "Large scale C++ software design".
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The New Cheating Economy - firebones
http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-New-Cheating-Economy/237587?key=O998qdDb93HBMW6pFSQu7k2-7whQ1v-5yYJBsWeIFOjez2UA5seF8Kbhc15aZAp_YzhPMC1XcHRJSWMwWHA1eVhSRnNXQ1FBcm5uVm9kbjVGbG5WWWNyRmdkOA
======
jmknoll
As I was reading through the section on the difficulty of catching cheaters, I
got to thinking whether the process of submitting a paper might be better done
through something like GitHub, where you then have a record of the person's
commits, whether that be new sources found, time spent researching, a section
written/edited. It then allows the professor to grade the process, not just
the result.
I mean, when I'm hiring software developers, and they send me a link to a site
that they made, i find that basically meaningless, because it doesn't tell me
how they work, when/where they decided to incorporate external resources, and
how they collaborate. It also doesn't guarantee that they actually made the
site.
A link to a github repo doesn't automatically solve all of those problems, but
it solves a lot of them, and it would be almost as much work to falsify well
as it would be to just do it correctly.
~~~
divbit
If you don't mind people seeing your occasional stupid ideas that don't pan
out, then yeah, it works fine: [https://github.com/divbit/phd-
thesis](https://github.com/divbit/phd-thesis)
edit: as an addendum to this, overleaf has built-in git integration, which I
found to be useful
------
rdtsc
I have seen the end of the line for this kind of corruption and it is not
pretty. Once it starts it spreads like a cancer.
After some years we'd have doctors, engineers, lawyers, banker, nurses, safety
inspectors, police officers who got into those positions by cheating. Then
because they did it, they don't mind hinting and advising their children to do
the same, and so on.
~~~
sevenless
We're ruled by politicians, bankers and corporations who lie, cheat, bribe,
tax-dodge, and break the law with impunity. Why shouldn't the rest of us?
~~~
idiot900
Because then we end up with a broken third world society.
------
alexmat
Seems like teachers aren't spending enough quality time going over the
assignments with students. When I was teaching a Java class last year at a
community college, I had students present their homework in front of the
class. It was very easy to figure out who was cheating and who wasn't.
~~~
analog31
Quality time costs money. A potential problem is that the majority of teachers
are adjuncts who are not full time employees, and who are likely to be working
multiple jobs in order to make ends meet. Not only does catching cheaters take
effort, but pursuing it to the point of disciplining a student can be a
nightmare for the teacher if their department doesn't support them.
When I taught an electrical engineering class, the prof with whom I shared a
syllabus and exams, made the exam problems look a lot like the homework
problems. The kids who (probably) cheated on their homework lessons paid for
it on the exams.
Perhaps likewise for the humanities courses. In my own experience, writing
essays and term papers for the regular course assignments was what got me so I
could write a decent essay quickly during a "blue book" exam. I don't know any
way other than sheer physical practice, to learn how to do that. You can't pay
someone else to practice for you.
~~~
booleandilemma
I knew an adjunct who, in the words of the department head, was fired for
being too harsh on cheaters.
~~~
flukus
Can't expel your income streams...
~~~
analog31
One issue is the fear that if the student decides to lawyer up, then the
adjunct will be completely outgunned, and there is no clear indication of the
extent of their liability. As a former adjunct, I certainly would not have
gone there. The department was probably making the same calculation. In
addition, as a temporary worker, an adjunct can easily be blackballed, so
their strategy is to be as docile as possible.
My mom is a retired high school teacher, and it's a completely different
story. Among the "perks" in her contract were legal representation and
liability coverage.
------
joe_the_user
Well, sadly this does seem like the logical result of college being a purely
commercial endeavor for all concerned.
Colleges are closer and closer to the situation where they don't care about
being anything but skill-certifiers, certainly they don't worry about becoming
places where learners begin maturing and taking their place in an enlightened
society.
In this environment, what will make the student respect the university's
requirements?
~~~
gengkev
The reason this type of cheating occurs is that a college degree has external
value. If the cheaters aren't even the ones doing the learning, I doubt that
the quality or nature of the college's education would affect their behavior.
So I don't think that colleges are really at fault here (besides not putting
enough effort into catching cheaters).
~~~
enraged_camel
>>The reason cheating occurs is that a college degree has value, and cheaters
would like to obtain that degree through money rather than effort.
I don't follow your logic at all. They earn that money through effort, so at
the end of the day it comes down to the same thing. The article specifically
gives the example of someone who has a full-time job plus a commitment to the
National Guard, and doesn't have any spare time for 15 credits worth of class
and its associated work.
~~~
PhantomGremlin
_a full-time job plus a commitment to the National Guard, and doesn 't have
any spare time for 15 credits worth of class and its associated work._
Well, back in the good old days, people in similar situations took 3 credit
hours at a time. It took them almost forever to get their degrees, but at
least they obtained them honestly.
The world doesn't owe anyone a shortcut to an education. No matter how
inconvenient the honest path might be.
~~~
enraged_camel
Ah yes, back in the good old days, when college was super cheap, when everyone
with a college degree was guaranteed a job, and when wages were increasing
steadily so that they didn't need a college degree to get a pay increase.
Those good old days?
------
chipperyman573
Out of curiosity, is running a service this article mentions (BoostMyGrade,
etc) illegal?
I know _using_ one will get you expelled from a university, but does running
one breaking any laws? Assuming you follow all other e commerce laws
~~~
rdtsc
I imagine they cloak themseleves as a "tutoring service". They know exactly
what they are doing. It is a bit like when during Prohibition companies would
sell grape juice, yeast, and other ingredients needed to make wine and then
put a label on the kit saying "Just to let you know, it is illegal to mix the
contents of these ingredients, let them sit for X amount of days at T
temperature, and then consume the resulting product".
------
downandout
There's no excuse for cheating. But part of the problem here is that most
desirable jobs require degrees, yet vast portions of the time it takes to get
degrees are spent satisfying general education requirements. A huge part of
college is simply proving that you can follow instructions and do large
amounts of busy work.
------
znhll
A couple years ago as I was finishing my CS degree, I often wondered about
this. I knew lots of my classmates were cheating with stuff like this, or even
just buying whole zipped archives of past student's work to pass off as their
own.
Cheating of this nature is really is getting quite rampant, and you can
definitely notice it when you get to higher level CS classes and have to do
projects with other students who have basically just cheated, coasted, and
freeloaded of off other students for years. I had to do a capstone Software
Engineering class project with a student who could barely write anything past
a HelloWorld program in Java.
I wrote a very candid evaluation of that student and personally spoke to the
professor but nothing came of it. I'm sure he still passed the class, and
perhaps even cheated his way to graduation.
------
trevyn
Are there any good services like this, but for tutoring? I'd definitely pay to
have someone answer all my ridiculous questions as I work through material.
(Assume that I'm not able to get enough quality time with my real
instructor/TA.)
~~~
vinchuco
There probably is a market: graduate students. I am one.
I'd rather tutor 12+ motivated-to-learn people 1hr than an uninterested kid
with helicopter parents.
The only reason hours are the unit of measure for teaching/tutoring is for
practical purposes. But knowledge is not poured into minds through time as
much as by clever guidance. Like defusing a bomb, but the opposite.
------
cmurf
Some online courses make it easy to enable cheating with weak authentication.
For instance, rather than course specific login, if it were authenticated by
your real one and true prized Google account, would these students be so eager
to give up credentials? Of course merely changing to Google authenticated
accounts isn't enough, just get a throw away Google account for the cheater to
use. But there should be some chain of trust that enables authentic
authentication. What's going on here, aside from the cheating, is
inauthentication.
------
damaru
But on the other side of the medal, there are a lot of people who gets paid to
study no? If I was a poor student I'd try to get hired in one of these
business and start going to school while being paid.
------
Animats
One begins to understand where those totally unqualified people who show up
for job interviews come from.
------
Futurebot
Why has cheating become so pervasive? The book "The Cheating Culture" explores
this question at length. If you don't want to read the whole book, try this
short work by the author: [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/on-
campus-author...](http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/on-campus-
author-discusses-the-cheating-culture-with-
college.pdf?c=plag;idno=5240451.0001.004)
Excerpt:
"It’s also not surprising that winner‐take‐all competition would breed
cheating in another area ‐‐ in the classrooms of elite high schools and
colleges. These days, even the smart kids who already have everything going
for them often cheat to guarantee their success. When I was writing my book, I
spent some time looking into the cheating problem at Horace Mann, which is one
of the top prep schools in New York City.
Students there are from extremely well off families. In the grand scheme of
things, if you’re a student at Horace Mann, you’ve already won the game of
life. Paying $20,000 per year for their children to attend, parents of these
kids are loaded. And yet cheating is common at the school. Why are the most
privileged kids cheating?
There is no single reason why students cheat. But in this case, certainly one
reason is the intense desire to be a winner, to get the rewards at the top.
The Horace Mann kids are remarkably worldly.
They know what partners at big name investment firms make. They understand
just how just big the rewards are if you’re a winner and make it to the very
top of American society. Many feel entitled to those rewards. And these
students come to believe from early on that a key to being a winner – perhaps
the key – is a degree from a prestigious university, the ivy leagues. And some
of them will cut whatever corners are necessary to attain that goal.
Now, of course, the obsession with winning is not the only reason people
cheat. A lot of people aren’t out to strike it rich or become a big shot. They
just want to lead a comfortable and secure life. But increasingly, that is not
something one can take for granted, and more people are afraid of falling
behind, and not being able to lead that comfortable, secure life. This brings
me to a second reason people cheat, which is fear.
Things are tough out there. Jobs are less secure, and even the best white
collar jobs are now getting outsourced to China or India, disappearing just
like that. 45 million Americans lack health insurance, which makes us unique
among advanced nations. We just don’t look out for our fellow citizens like we
once did. And a lot of middle class Americans who should be feeling secure are
instead feeling anxious. And their kids are growing up around this anxiety. I
think there are a lot of young people who go through life, thinking “I better
not screw things up. One lost scholarship, one flunked exam, if I take one
wrong step, get one blot on my permanent record, I’ll end up living at home
for the rest of my life.”
When you make the rewards for being a winner and the concomitant punishments
for being a loser so large, don't be surprised when people start cheating en
masse.
~~~
notacoward
Very insightful. Cheating's most likely to be worth the expense and risk when
the marginal compensation for each iota of (perceived) performance is large,
so those at _or above_ that inflection point are likely to cheat the most. We
hear constantly how governments are corrupted by power and thus markets are
preferable; it helps to be reminded sometimes of how certain kinds of markets
are prone to their own forms of corruption.
------
nradov
More colleges should institute honor codes, and rigorously enforce them.
~~~
ManlyBread
Honor is dead.
------
thefastlane
"Among the assignments was a 19-page paper, longer than anything he’d ever
written."
off-topic, but wow: no college graduate should break out in a cold sweat over
a 19-page paper.
~~~
notacoward
I had the same reaction. It might not be reasonable to ask for something like
that overnight, but with a month or more of notice that seems like it should
be No Big Deal. That's less than a page a day, on average, so the actual
_writing_ is almost trivial. A page's worth of thought and research doesn't
seem like an unreasonable daily burden except maybe for something like a dense
mathematical proof.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Microsoft, Apple, and Google: where does the money come from? - matan_a
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/microsoft-apple-and-google-where-does-the-money-come-from/4469?tag=mantle_skin;content
======
tikhonj
A couple of interesting things popped out to me.
Microsoft is surprisingly diversified. It's nice to see their entertainment
division has been successful--that's my favorite part of Microsoft (outside
Microsoft Research, of course). I wonder if we'll see a separate, significant
mobile category in the future.
Apple makes a larger amount of money off iOS and less off OS X than I
expected. I guess I just see a disproportionate amount of Apple computers
around (mostly owned by college students).
Google wasn't surprising at all. Of course, this says more about me than
Google: I follow Google much more closely than Microsoft or Apple (I actually
use Google's products, unlike the other two).
It would have been nice to see Amazon here as well. They've been trying some
new things; I wonder how it's been working. (But not enough to go look myself
:p.)
It'll be interesting to see Facebook in the future too.
~~~
jedberg
Right now Facebook looks just like Google -- almost all the revenue comes from
display ads (it's in their S1).
And the thing with MS that really blows my mind is that they _lost_ 8 billion
dollars on the entertainment division before it became profitable. Imagine if
that had been it's own startup -- it would have never made it as far as it
has, because they would have run out of money long before ever being
profitable. So in hindsight, we have to give credit to MS for sticking with it
for so long.
~~~
omh
_So in hindsight, we have to give credit to MS for sticking with it for so
long_
Perhaps we should wait to see whether it ever pays back that 8 billion dollars
before giving them any credit?
~~~
hollerith
The main value Microsoft derives from the Xbox business is not the profit they
make from it, but rather the insurance policy it represents against disruption
of the PC market by the console market. It turns out that the console market
never did expand enough to disrupt the PC market (the way tablets are
currently threatening to do) but when Microsoft spent that 8 billion, they
could not have known that.
------
bilban
Excuse me for asking, but when we speak of revenue - we aren't speaking of
profits are we? (I'm from the UK.)
We have no idea of the net income for those divisions, as the expenses are
missing.
I'd have thought, the cost of advertising would be far less than producing say
a hardware unit like an iPhone.
I'd expect the wedges to be different if we saw the charts listing profits,
and that would be more interesting. Or am I missing something?
~~~
hollerith
Right: revenue means money taken in from sales.
We know that it costs Apple about $300 to make a $500 iPad 2 and the cost of
making an iPhone is known, too, and that cost is a lower fraction of the price
they get (from the carrier or retailer) than it is for Macs. Of course, Apple
had to spend many billions to make the _first_ iPad 2, and the $300 does not
include support costs (which I think are fairly minimal).
Point is that it is known that most of Apple's current profits come from iOS
device sales. Also it is a pretty safe bet that the profit on music and video
entertainment sales is fairly low as the owners of the music and video
entertainment are very good at negotiating. Finally, Apple has stated that
profit from app sales is much less than profit from even the least profitable
hardware lines (currently iPod and Mac).
It is interesting to note that even Apple and Microsoft do not know the net
income of the various divisions: since the success of the iPod brought new
interest and new credibility to the Mac line, thereby increasing Mac sales
significantly, and since it is impossible to know exactly how much Mac sales
were increased by this "halo effect', it is impossible to know how much of the
cost of developing the iPod should be assigned to the calculation of the net
income of the Mac division.
Similarly, Microsoft and everyone else knows that the immense market share of
Windows in the 1990s among consumers helped Microsoft's products to compete
against offerings by IBM, Lotus, Sun, etc, in the enterprise market where
Microsoft currently makes most of its money, but it is impossible to calculate
exactly how much of the cost of acquiring those consumers as customers should
be allocated to the Business division and the Server and Tools division.
Finally, for part of its life, Visual Studio was given away to qualified
developers because the availability of more apps for Windows was seen as
protecting and assisting that business, so a calculating of the "true cost
structure" of, e.g., the Windows and Windows Live division and the Server and
Tools division would have to take that into account.
------
rbanffy
After looking at the data a bit, it came to me why coming up with a single
coherent strategy is so hard for Microsoft - they have 4 equally important
product lines. If you ask someone what Microsoft makes, they'll answer 4
different versions, each one incorrect, because none of them accounts for more
than a third of the company revenue.
Apple has a much clearer picture - they are an iOS company that sells iOS
devices and their accessories, such as the Macs that connect to them. It seems
they have successfully invented the product that was to take "Apple Computer"
out of business - and are selling vast numbers of them.
For Google, it's even clearer. They have one product - user attention. Still,
that's a dangerous place to be in - they must invent the company that will
wipe Google out before someone else does it.
~~~
brudgers
> _"If you ask someone what Microsoft makes, they'll answer 4 different
> versions, each one incorrect, because none of them accounts for more than a
> third of the company revenue."_
Unless they answer "Software."
Microsoft has long had a clear coherent vision, "A computer on every desk and
in every home." The strategy, well, "Developers! Developers! Developers!"
comes to mind - they even get to eat their own dogfood.
~~~
rbanffy
But "Software" wouldn't be the whole truth either - a lot of revenue comes
from online services (such as Live) and "entertainment and devices".
~~~
brudgers
Well the whole truth includes research, mice, marketing videos, clouds, etc.
But software pretty much covers all four of the major categories to which your
previous comment alludes, IMO, YMMV, etc.
~~~
rbanffy
Yes, but their software offerings are very diverse. Even Windows, where OEM is
more important for desktop than server and the whole lot of different channels
that sell server software, be it Windows, SQL, Exchange, Dynamics... It's
hopelessly confusing.
Telling them "you are a software company" won't give a coherent strategy that
encompasses both OEMs for Windows Home and enterprises for multi-license packs
of Windows, Office, Windows Server, SQL, Exchange, Dinamics, Sharepoint and so
on. And would not help the very promising ecosystem around the Xbox.
I think they'd be better off had the DoJ ordered the company to be broken into
smaller pieces.
------
rimantas
The funny thing would be to animate those charts for the few last years.
Microsoft and Google would not change much, but Apple's pie would be changing
like crazy: no iPhone prior to 2007, no iPad before 2010.
~~~
omh
If we want to see the change over time then it would be much nicer to see
something like a stacked line/bar chart than an animated pie chart.
This could also show how the absolute amount of revenue has changed. I suspect
that in MS's case it would be roughly similar, whereas for Apple the iPhone
has come from nothing and total revenue has exploded.
~~~
bretpiatt
You are completely wrong.
[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=MSFT+Income+Statement&an...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=MSFT+Income+Statement&annual)
58->62->69 ... that is their trailing three years i revenue in billions. They
grew two Facebooks last year.They have more than doubled in size and profit
over this last decade when Google supposedly killed them off. They've actually
grown more than the entire size of Google to put it in some perspetive.
~~~
onemoreact
His comment is that the ratio of Microsoft's income streams has been steady
not it's magnitude. I think MS is a much better stock buy than Google or
Apple, but that's due to P/E concerns not ability to create new markets
quickly.
------
jklp
I'm surprised to see such a large chunk of Microsoft's revenue coming from
"online services". Does anyone know what this is - surely it can't be from
Bing?
Also I've noticed that there's no segment in Apple's chart for App Store
commissions, nor from iTunes. Is this classified under "other music", or are
those divisions so small they don't fit in the chart?
~~~
sathyabhat
Presumably Xbox Live
~~~
dangrossman
No, that's in E&D.
------
irrelative
I think that the data presented here is really interesting -- it presents an
obvious root cause for decisions and what might be driving those decisions.
However, presenting the data with pie charts isn't really acceptable. 3d pie
charts, even less acceptable. And 3d pie charts with gradient shading is worse
still. If you want readers to take data-driven articles seriously, please
learn even the basics of data visualization and how to best demonstrate the
differences in data, and how to further compare the data contained. A side-by-
side stacked bar chart would allow viewers to easily compare values relative
to each other within the bar chart, and also to visually compare across the 3
companies.
~~~
pixie_
It's not that bad. The slices are pretty big. I got the gist of it.
~~~
hessenwolf
Tests have shown that humans a crap at judging the relative size of the
slices. But, yeah, it's not a life-or-death chart, so prettiness is surely
allowable.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_chart#Use.2C_effectiveness_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_chart#Use.2C_effectiveness_and_visual_perception)
------
rayhano
Incredible how Apple has ONLY really fulfilled its potential with the iPhone
and iOS... so all this Mac vs PC was a distraction...
~~~
microtherion
Keep in mind that the Mac OS side of Apple has been growing at better than 20%
per year since the introduction of the iPhone. Not too shabby, except when
compared against the truly explosive iOS side growth.
------
yatsyk
Apple got most of the revenue from iPhone and iPad products that appeared just
few years ago. iOS devices drives sales of other Apple products such as
macbooks for sure so we could speculate how small revenue would be without
these devices.
------
nchuhoai
> What business is Google in? If you said search, guess again.
Really? Advertising, search ... semantics. Everyone knows that AdSense/Adwords
is Googles money making machine
~~~
sukuriant
No, sorry. They're two very different things. Search would be, to the general
public, providing answers to questions they have. No one should say search
upon any analysis, though, because search in and of itself isn't likely to
make money -- well, except for selling unique user's searching habits to other
companies for demographics information so that THEY can create better ads.
Advertising, on the other hand, is what happens when you weight certain search
results higher than others because they pay you more money, or when you, as
Google does, separate out potentially interesting advertisements for you to
click on.
You can run a search engine without being a business, without making money,
and without having advertisements or search results weighted by how much money
they gave you.
That said, how does Duck Duck Go make money?
~~~
saurik
That all makes "search" an inexact answer, not an incorrect one; akin to
answering "their stores" for "how does Best Buy make money?" as opposed to
"selling products"; your "normal" person will just look at you cross-eyed for
that correction and complain about "semantics". (That said, I agree with you
that not analyzing it far enough to at least get to the also-vague-sounding
"advertising" is probably not actable.)
~~~
dangrossman
$11 billion of Google's ad revenue is from non-Google websites. They run the
largest display advertising network in the world (thanks to the DoubleClick
acquisition). Search is just one channel for their ads.
~~~
bmuon
That was totally missing in the article. It'd be really interesting to see the
difference between display advertising and ads in search results.
~~~
saurik
From the actual filings this article is making those pie charts with, Google
reports 72% of their advertising revenue comes from websites they operate.
They also reported paying 51% (AdSense for Search) and 68% (AdSense for
Content) of the fees (which they defined as the revenue) to the "Google
Network Member".
Doing the math out, that would indicate that the advertising profit from their
own websites accounts for 85-90% of their total profit from advertising.
In essence, the fact that they "run the largest display advertising network in
the world" is actually in any way "where they make the money".
(Of course, the money they get from that isn't "chump change", and I'd even
make the argument that if they didn't run that off-Google advertising network
their core advertising business would have less content available.).
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
App Store Pricing: Worth Less than a Cup of Coffee - floriankugler
http://floriankugler.com/blog/2013/9/30/worth-less-than-a-cup-of-coffee
======
crazygringo
The whole problem comes from Apple not allowing trial apps.
I would easily pay $20 for Dark Sky, or Moves, or FitnessFast, InstaPaper,
even ExitStrategy -- but I would _never_ pay $20 upfront. It takes a couple
weeks using an app to see if it turns into an invaluable daily tool, or if you
just delete it. (Which is why free software trials for desktop apps have
existed for decades.)
I refuse to pay $1 or $2 for apps just to try them out, not because of the
money, but because of the moral issue -- I don't want to be rewarding crappy
spammy developers with their $1 or $2 just as much as the truly good app
developers out there, because that's just contributing to the problem.
Marco Ament took down the Instapaper Free version. But I never would have
downloaded the paid version if I hadn't been able to try the free version
first.
~~~
wisty
Here's my logic - when customers have very limited information, and side-by-
side pricing, they'll always minimise risk by getting the cheapest app. The
cheapest app is free. And eyeballing statistics on sales, $1 apps don't do any
better than $2 ones (depending on the platform and app - iPhone buyers can be
very elastic). Many customers aren't so stingy they'll balk at paying an extra
dollar, they simply flock to free apps because you can't beat free. Especially
for an app which has lots of substitutes (todos, games).
If customers have good information (they are already using the app), and only
one price (your IAP), or pricing you control (your IAP, with dummy prices -
feature by feature unlocks, and maybe a premium feature or two), they'll spend
be more likely to spend money.
The big money is in exploitive IAP. Skinner box games which use psychological
tricks to goad big-spending "whales" (addicts) into spending more. But the
small money is probably in IAP too - unlocking the demo.
There's no money (IMO) in $1 apps - they are too expensive (compared to free
apps), and they sell themselves short.
~~~
davidedicillo
True but not always true. Our application
([http://syncpadapp.com](http://syncpadapp.com)) is free to download and to
use up to 3 simultaneous users. If you need more we offer a "pro" plan at $5
for up to 30 simultaneous people. You'd be surprised by how many people are
asking me for a discount rate on a $5/mo plan for an app that they use
daily...
~~~
sneak
If someone is paying you, that means they have 4 or more users. That's gotta
be worth $15-30/month. Have you tested your conversion rate with other
pricing?
------
terhechte
The problem is that the difference between $2 and $1 is not the same as the
difference between $1 and $0 (i.e. free). Humans are not rational in this way,
and the abundance of free apps kills it for everybody else in the market. If
one company would start giving away really awful-quality chocolate (or any
product) for free in every supermarket, the chocolate prices & industry would
crash.
Dan Arielly did a couple of interesting experiments on this. He had people
paying for products in a cashier line (i.e. people who had their wallet out
anyway) choose between two really good offers: Hershey chocolate for $0.10 and
Lind chocolate for $0.20 (or something like that, I forgot the detailed
numbers, it may have been $1/$2 or $0.5/$1). In that case, most people choose
the more expensive Lind chocolate as it was clearly the superior product (i.e.
higher quality). When he repeated the experiment with $0.10 for the Lind and
$0.0 (i.e. Free) for the Hershey's, the game changed. Everybody took the
Hersheys. Even though the pricing didn't really change, they only both became
cheaper, by the same amount.
The verdict, really, is that if there's something free around, we go nuts and
quality doesn't matter much anymore, because it is free. If free apps, on the
app store, would be at least $0.50, or even $0.10, I think it would totally
change the game. (I.e. if Apple would change the Free Tier).
But as it is right now, I think the downward spiral will continue. The only
way out is to create a high quality superior product (many features, etc) with
a high price tag and hope that you get enough customers to survive. That also
should lead to less support load.
~~~
simonh
Oh boy are you looking at this wrong. Only someone from a western country with
a middle class wage could so utterly fail to distinguish between a choice
between two costs in resources to a choice between a cost of resources and one
of no resources.
Think of this another way. How many chocolates can you afford at a cost of
$0.20 each? How many can you afford at a cost of $0.10 each? Now, how many can
you afford at a cost of $0.00 each? The experiment artificially avoids this by
manufacturing a situation in which purchasers only had a one-time choice, but
the purchasers didn't necessarily know it was a on-time deal. For all they
know, they may be faced with the same choice every time they go back to that
store, even if it was advertised as a one-time deal. We get on-time offers
pushed at us all the time these days.
So, is a marginal decrease in cost of $0.10 equivalent in both circumstances?
Of course not. A cost in resources is always a cost. A cost of no resources is
not a cost at all. Comparing two different costs is completely different to
comparing a cost with no cost at all. To understand this, instead of adding
costs together over a few transactions, try multiplying them by many decisions
instead and you'll see that multiplying by zero has some very special
advantages when it comes to resource preservation.
What I think is happening is that analyses like the above are considering only
individual translations, but App store users download many apps. Multiplying
costs over many purchases, even small costs balloon while free is always free
no matter how outrageously you indulge your App store downloading habit.
That's without taking into account that not everybody considers buying a cup
of coffee in Starbucks something that requires no thought or consideration. I
certainly don't think that way for a start.
~~~
r0h1n
Sorry, but I found the parent's comment much more insightful, lucid and
relevant to the point being discussed (why a large majority always seems to
prefer free apps over paid ones) than yours.
And the utterly pointless ad hominem attack right at the beginning didn't help
either.
You also seem to have mixed up "price" with "cost" at places. For instance I
don't quite know what these lines mean:
> a choice between two costs in resources to a choice between a cost of
> resources and one of no resources (what do you mean by _resources_? Whose
> resources?)
> a marginal decrease in cost of $0.10 (the _cost_ of the chocolate is borne
> by its manufacturer while a consumer pays the _price_ )
I'm sure you have a valid counterpoint in there somewhere, but it's not clear
what it is.
~~~
digitalengineer
>App store users download many apps. Multiplying costs over many purchases,
even small costs balloon while free is always free
I had not thought about this one. But it is correct and explains the resoning
of consumers.
~~~
droidist2
To me it's about the stress of decision-making. I like simply saying "hey, let
me check out _____ type of app" then doing a search and downloading up to a
half dozen different ones just to try out.
On the other hand if I had to pay a few bucks for an app I'd probably spend a
while reading the descriptions, reviews, weighing options, etc. It would turn
into work.
------
NateDad
If your paid app can't compete against a free app... that's hardly the fault
of the user or the app store. It's the fault of the app maker. What you're
basically saying is "my app is so easy to make, that someone could make it
without even caring to get paid for it".
It's competition. Yes, if someone can recreate your application for free, then
your application wasn't as valuable as you think it was, by definition. Make a
better app, or turn it into a service that generates revenue past app
deployment.
I think many app developers have gotten spoiled by tales of people getting
rich off of P.O.S. apps, and expecting that to happen to them. That happened
back in the day because there was a scarcity of applications and app
developers. That scarcity no longer exists. Most of the easy stuff has been
done, and a lot of free versions have been made because, let's face it, most
apps really aren't terribly complex.
So, make something big and hard to duplicate. Make it part of a service you
provide with recurring charges and give away your app. It's a better model,
anyway.
~~~
hemancuso
Couldn't agree more. It's not the users or Apple who are racing the app market
to the bottom. It is the developers and the competition amongst them. And it's
because creating an app is not that hard. Perhaps designing a great one one
and creating and and building a market for it is quite hard. But cloning that
exact app [even if it is inferior] and providing it for free or supported with
IAP or ads is really not terrifically difficult or time consuming once the
idea is proven. It is basically impossible to build a competitive moat.
Games are a bit different given how much art and content is often associated
with the production, but users are looking for a fun distraction. Perhaps one
should try to build a $2 game with a $50,000 art budget rather than a $500,000
art budget. The users don't really care. It sounds more profitable. Tiny Wings
FTW.
~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "creating an app is not that hard"
How is this true at all? It depends on the programmer, what they are building
and the tools they are using to build it. Apps are no different to building
desktop or web software. In fact the constraints arguably make it more
difficult.
~~~
Kurtz79
I would say at least that it's much easier now than it was a few years ago.
XCode and iOs have improved tremendously in terms of usability and
functionality, compared to the first releases, and I expect that the Android
SDK has gone through a similar evolution.
In addition, you'll probably find a tutorial or a Stack Overflow answer for
every problem or question you could possibly have, while at first it was
largely undiscovered territory.
In short, barriers of entry have lowered tremendously.
~~~
matwood
For the raw coding part you are describing that is true, but the bar for what
people consider a worthwhile app has also risen substantially in the same
amount of time. I can build a native iOS app in a day, but I wouldn't consider
it releasable to the app store without a good bit more work.
------
borplk
> The economic reality is that most apps offer next to no value to people.
I'm not an app developer and I disagree that most apps provide next to no
value (some apps, like everything else sure, but many of them do provide more
value than their price).
For example there are many games priced $0.99 or $1.99 that people might play
for hours and hours. Shouldn't that cost more?
The reason that the prices are low is not because people are not prepared to
pay for them. It's because Google and Apple want it that way and also because
developers are slashing prices to the extreme to compete.
Imagine if App store and Play store didn't exist and you'd have to
individually find developers and buy/download their apps. That would certainly
result in higher prices.
The bottom line is app developers have no one to blame but themselves for
creating this perception about their apps and allowing this expectation of
$0.99 apps to grow.
People also have no freaking clue how hard it is to make apps. For example
most people think mobile apps are a lot easier to make than software/web apps,
perhaps because mobile devices are 'small' so they tend to think of mobile
apps as 'tiny' little widgets that someone pushes 20 buttons and it magically
gets created.
If a large enough group of people start raising awareness and refusing to
release their work for peanuts we'll see a shift in the market price towards
more realistic numbers.
~~~
masklinn
> It's because Google and Apple want it that way
I fail to see where they have had any influence. Apple at least has
historically priced a number of their applications pretty high (not all of
them though, basically "core feature" applications such as ibooks or podcasts
were free, but iwork applications are $10 each, and garageband and imovie are
$5)
> also because developers are slashing prices to the extreme to compete.
Mostly that one, from very early on there's been an insane tendency to price-
dump and race to the bottom.
> That would certainly result in higher prices.
It would also result in extremely low sales, as known by anyone who developed
for S60 or Blackberry back in the bad old days.
> If a large enough group of people start raising awareness and refusing to
> release their work for peanuts we'll see a shift in the market price towards
> more realistic numbers.
That's completely unrealistic. It would require a buy-in from every single
developer.
~~~
hrabago
> Apple at least has historically priced a number of their applications pretty
> high
This is incorrect. Apple has historically priced their software very low, and
their hardware very high. Their office suite is very inexpensive compared to
MS Office, for instance. Their OS is also very inexpensive compare to Windows.
On the mobile side, their $5 and $10 price points make it hard for others to
justify charging that much for less complex software (a point corresation has
also made).
Their software pricing agrees with the points Spolsky made on
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html)
.
Now of course they are giving away their mobile software, which I think helps
both themselves and 3rd party developers, so I think it's one of the few steps
they've taken to help 3rd party developers charge more. (Last time around it
was the creation of a "premium" category.)
~~~
judk
Final Cut Pro? Aperture?
Apple's consumer apps were cheap, not business apps.
------
borplk
What I find particularly messed up is the huge relative difference in the
price of the mobile device and the apps that people install on it.
When it comes to buying the device, thousands of people line up outside Apple
stores and pay - I don't know - $600 for their device.
Android devices are the same, many people easily spend ~$400-$600 on their
device that they may only use for one year.
So a good chunk of mobile users are people with good income, living in rich
countries and are well capable of paying $5-$10 for their apps that they run
on their expensive/high-end devices.
Yet when it comes to paying for apps they struggle as if their monthly income
is $10.
There are many factors involved but I think the most significant one is by far
the psychological perception of the value of apps that has been created due to
App store and Play store pricing.
There are also many people who are willing to release free and good-enough
quality apps because it's their hobby or maybe they want to create a portfolio
for themselves.
This reduces the perceived value of these apps.
In contrast people can't find other professional services/tools for free. I
mean, say, lawyers, doctors, accountants, electrical engineers, etc... don't
produce and provide their services/work for free where you can download a free
health checkup from a doctor whose hobby is being a doctor.
So the perceived value remains high.
Software engineers are unique in this regard because they 'discount' their
work constantly and justify it by saying 'i love doing this'.
~~~
Kurtz79
Just as well: there are people spending thousands of dollars in cutting edge
PCs or Home Theatre systems, and then playing only pirated games.
And in the Appstores case the free alternative is even legal!
~~~
reddit_clone
One minor reason could be lack of physical media. In old days people received
a bunch of disks or a dvd with nice cover art which they can put on a
bookshelf.
Now it is all 1's and 0's coming over the wire(less). There is no sense of
ownership. People are reluctant to pay for something that they don't touch or
own.
~~~
daemin
One reason could be that consumers aren't technically owning anything, but
merely being sold a license to use an application/movie/music for some random
amount of time.
~~~
SEMW
FWIW, how true that is does depend where you are.
Here in the EU, the CJEU rejected the 'it's only a licence' argument and
characterised software downloads (that aren't explicitly limited to a fixed
length of time) as normal sales, in _Oracle v Usedsoft_ \-- in particular,
they're sales for the purposes of the First Sale Doctrine. So I could buy your
app, use it, then extract the apk and sell it on to someone else, and you
couldn't sue me for copyright infringement (as long as I remove the apk from
my own phone, of course). (IANAL).
I'm not familiar with US law but my impression is that, on the whole, most
states' legal systems are a whole lot less consumer-friendly than the EU, so
presumably the same is not true over there.
------
andrewljohnson
This idea that Apple does not allow trials is a total misconception.
I just released a subscription boating app that has a basic free version, and
then a button to let you "Test Drive" the complete app. You can trial the paid
version over and over.
Previously, I have released a product that had limited functionality, and
prompted you to upgrade or buy the paid app.
People interpret the App Store guidelines very literally: Rule 2.9: "Apps that
are "beta", "demo", "trial", or "test" versions will be rejected"
[https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guid...](https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html)
This doesn't mean you can't set up an app to have a trial, it just means you
can't submit garbage. You're best understanding that there is a certain
twisted humanity to the app review process.
~~~
robterrell
Some of us interpret the guidelines literally because we've been burned
before. A couple of years ago, I spent months working on an app, including
paying a designer, and I was really proud of the final product. After it got
reviewed, Apple added a new rule to the guidelines and rejected the app. That
was a seriously expensive lesson. Now I recommend interpreting the guidelines
as strictly as possible... even if you know of other apps that squeak past the
rule, it doesn't mean you won't get burned.
> Apps that are "beta", "demo", "trial", or "test" versions will be rejected
It sure sounds like your app breaks this rule. I'd ask what your app is, but I
don't want Apple to see this and reject you.
------
rythie
This is distorted based on the idea that most people pay more than $0.99 for a
cup of coffee - which is not true.
I think the price of a "Cup of Coffee" needs to be defined here. Coffee can be
made for $0.07/cup [ [http://thekrazycouponlady.com/finance/a-wake-up-call-a-
price...](http://thekrazycouponlady.com/finance/a-wake-up-call-a-price-
comparison-of-popular-coffee-options/) ].
People who buy coffee at Starbucks are buying a luxury version of a luxury
item + they are buying time in a public venue. Does Starbucks actually outsell
(in numbers) coffee made at home? seems very unlikely to me. In fact most
people buy coffee in a supermarket, which is seems almost free when you
actually make a cup (you don't pay everytime you make one).
~~~
AznHisoka
A cup of coffee is like temporary marijuana to drown out the dreary feeling of
going to work. To me, the value is much much greater than most apps, no
question. Coffee to me is like having a shower. Sure, a shower is basically
just splashing water to your body.. but it's also one of the few places where
you can think to yourself with no distractions.
------
kemiller
I have a somewhat different perspective on this. Apps cost people something
much more valuable than the small amounts of money in question: attention.
Most people find learning new software to be a chore. So every app they
download has a cost in attention, in learning how to use it, however simple
that might be, and some of them have a cost in money as well. If the app is
free, they know they can abandon it instantly if it doesn't give them value
right away, and lose almost nothing. If it costs money, they will feel obliged
to get more value out of it, but that means committing to spend even more
attention. When you buy a cup of coffee, you're getting attention _back_
because someone else is taking on the slightly fiddly business of making
coffee, and once you have it, there is nothing to learn, you can just enjoy
it.
Viewing software transactions as paying attention, rather than money, for
value, makes a lot of these markets make more sense. Because if you offer
something that will reduce the net amount of attention they have to pay,
they'll often gladly give you money for it.
~~~
aestra
This is a great point. There is a useful free app that I use which has a 5
star rating. I looked at one of the 1 star reviews to see what they said out
of curiosity. It said something along the lines of "I had to customize the
settings and the user interface isn't standard."
------
tsunamifury
Do the smaller developers realize that the hardware manufactures pay
development houses to do this? I've been paid by pretty much every AppStore
provider to develop apps, which subsidizes me to undercut competition.
I feel like most app developers have a severe lack of business intelligence
and the allure of easy money has kept them from thinking rationally about how
to succeed in the market.
Provide a high quality cheap product at scale, while reducing risk of
investment in every way possible. Companies like S2BB can replicate your cute
app in days and provide it for free using carrier, oem, or AppStore provider
subsidy.
I don't think smaller app devs even realize the uphill battle they are about
to be playing.
~~~
bilbo0s
A couple of reasons...
One, the casual developer. A lot of these apps are being developed by
programmers sitting in their underwear watching ESPN Gameday on Saturday
morning. Or teenagers with nothing better to do. If they make money... well,
that'd be great... but they really have other motivations.
That alone would flood the App Stores with product.
The second point, is economics.
ie - it doesn't matter.
If you live in an agrarian society... most likely, you have to be a farmer.
It's largely irrelevant how many other farmers there are... it's probably the
only thing you can do.
I think there is a similar dynamic in the app world. There are an AWFUL lot of
unemployed programmers... chances are... they are going to ... well ...
program. What else are they going to do with their time? It's actually a
pretty smart thing for them to do as well. Keeping the skills sharp and all
that.
So... I think that's, most likely, where a lot of the apps are coming from.
And those two groups will only grow in the future.
------
clarky07
>The economic reality is that most apps offer next to no value to people. They
might say otherwise when asked about, but their actions speak pretty clearly:
A cup of coffee is worth more than almost every app on the store.
Two things.
1\. That's probably true for a lot of apps, but I don't think it's fair to say
"most." Perhaps "many". There are a lot of apps out there that provide huge
amounts of value. Of course, I don't think a cup of coffee is worth anywhere
close to the price of a cup of coffee and I make my living selling apps. I
might be biased.
2\. Starbucks made 7.5 billion last year. Apple alone paid out 5 billion to
devs for apps. If you include advertising revenue and Android revenue, I'd
guess that people actually spent a similar amount on apps as they did coffee.
------
czr80
Why is it emotionally easier to spend $5 on a coffee vs spending $5 on an app?
I have a theory on this - I think we price experiences differently from
objects, and have a much higher bar for buying an object vs buying an
experience. And I think the reason for that is ultimately loss aversion - if
we buy a bad coffee it's gone and we can forget about it, whereas if we buy an
object we're stuck with it, a constant reminder of how we made a bad choice
and lost money.
~~~
ProblemFactory
A $5 coffee also buys you a place to sit down and use WiFi, and a bit of
social interaction or "lifestyle". Nobody pays $5 per cup of coffee at a
supermarket.
No app developers include "installed by a human" and the permission to go sit
on a couch at their office for half an hour in the price!
~~~
aestra
My supermarket has a Starbucks inside, without seats or WiFi. It stays there
because presumably people are buying $5 coffee from there.
------
arbuge
>>That's a hard pill to swallow, but we should let it sink in. We pour all our
creativity, time, and passion into creating basically worthless products.
Obviously not. A cup of coffee is worth $2, period. An app only worth $0.50 to
a million people is worth $500k.
~~~
swang
Author is saying a cup of coffee is worth $2 to the customer, but an app is
not worth even the $0.50 to that same customer.
In this example, you seem to switch out this comparison where instead you
compare the cup of coffee the customer buys, to the amount you could possibly
make for a $0.50 app bought by a million people.
~~~
arbuge
Agreed, but the point is that the "total worth" of an app is the total utility
that it creates in the world across all its customer base.
Of course you're right that to each individual customer the worth remains less
than a cup of coffee; if this affects the app writer psychologically,
hopefully the size of his/her bank account will be a consolation.
------
shizzy0
Here's a potential solution to this mess. We treat app store placement like
it's a free resource right now since it doesn't take up any physical space.
However, it does increase its users cognitive load. All apps that have ever
been produced sit on the app store unless their creators explicitly choose to
take them down. That's like a department store that houses every invention
ever made no matter how antiquated or outdated. Apple could introduce a
"property tax". If you want to take up shelf space, you've got to pay a yearly
tax or make way for other apps that will more productively use that space.
~~~
commentzorro
This is an interesting thought, but history has already shown the outcome.
Shelf space dominated by the big players and defacto price fixing.
A better approach would be for a few very high quality niche apps to get
together an open their own app store. They sell only though their store and
price the apps appropriately. Thus starting boutique markets. Could happen now
with Android but currently not Apple.
~~~
derefr
Without needing to support sideloading, Apple could let users group apps on
the store into their own collections, which other users could browse. They
could even let the users theme them, somewhat like Apple's own decorated
collections -- and give the "curator" a user ends up purchasing from a small
cut (5-10%) of the sale price.
In other words, replicate the well-trodden player-vendor system from MMOs.
~~~
commentzorro
No ... a couple quick examples. Kids don't go to Walmart looking for the
Abercrombie & Fitch department. They want the fantasy built around the brand
and that means their own stores. Stihl when the dealer route because they
wanted to differentiate their higher quality and provide a more personal
customer relationship than Walmart would allow.
Gotta get Apple out of that lock-in in order to support true boutique shops.
~~~
derefr
I guess that depends on whether you see the App Store as a single shop, a
department store, or a mall. There might not be Abercrombie & Fitch
departments in Walmart, but there are certainly Apple-store-themed electronics
sub-departments within Best Buy.
~~~
commentzorro
You got it. I think the sub-departments is exactly the wrong model. Completely
separate stores with completely separate and unique identities. Apps not also
sold in the app store. Boutique shops selling and supporting a very narrow
vertical.
------
Kurtz79
I guess that, given the chioce, most people would opt for a free cup of coffee
over a paid one, if quality was similar.
~~~
masklinn
> most people would opt for a free cup of coffee over a paid one, if quality
> was similar.
Quality does not enter the equation. Most people will opt for a free cup of
coffee over a paid one if the paid cup is the best coffee in the world and the
free one is barely a step over ground-up dried shit.
~~~
highace
Ground-up dried shit is some of the most expensive coffee!
(Of course I'm talking about Kopi Luwak)
------
skc
I'm just here to smirk at the old narrative - that the iOS customer doesn't
balk at paying for stuff - being slowly whittled away as the march towards
smartphone commoditization continues at pace.
~~~
derefr
The "iOS customer" of five years ago (the wealthy early adopter) didn't mind
paying for stuff. Those customers are still there, and still buying iPhones
(probably gold 5Ses now), and apps for them. But now there are way more, more
price-sensitive consumers (the people buying those 5Cs, the people who still
have an iPhone 4, etc.) and they have much the same buying behavior as
(commodity) Android consumers.
In other words, there's still money in the market -- but it's a fixed supply
of money (there are a fixed number of wealthy early adopters) vs. an ever-
growing number of developers grabbing at it. The only way to get back to where
we were would be to make a new app store that required new apps to be designed
from scratch for the wealthy users to early-adopt all over again. (...and
that's fairly clearly what iOS7 is trying to do, isn't it?)
------
hawkharris
"A cup of coffee is worth more than almost every app on the store."
That is a "hard pill to swallow," but it's true and poignant. The problem is
not only systemic (i.e. Apple's fault). It's that many developers jump into
creating apps withour conducting market research to prove that their products
will have a long-lasting utility from a consumer's point of view.
I don't mean to be cynical or overgeneralize. To be fair, not all apps are
created equal. But in my experience, the vast majority seek to provide a
fleeting sense of entertainment (as opposed to utility). And the more
practical apps are simply unimaginative iterations of existing solutions (e.g.
fitness trackers and to-do lists).
We need to think differently about the purpose and expect more from them in
the way of tangible impact on consumers. For instance, the Robert Wood Johnson
foundation is using apps as part of nationwide campaigns to inprove childhood
nutrition.
------
paul_f
"The economic reality is that most apps offer next to no value to people."
This is completely wrong. The author of this article confuses price with
value. Apps have tremendous value. But because of market dynamics, human
nature, free alternatives, etc, they cannot sustain a high price. Price and
value are different things altogether.
~~~
icebraining
I agree. The problem to paid app sellers is that the _extra_ value they
provide - the difference between the free app and theirs - is low, not the
absolute value.
Even if your app solved half of my life problems, it'd still not be worth a
lot if the free competitor solved 49% of them.
------
svantana
>That's a hard pill to swallow, but we should let it sink in. We pour all our
creativity, time, and passion into creating basically worthless products.
What a weird conclusion. For me, the take-home is rather "why don't I stop
doing this and try to figure out something that is actually worth something to
someone?"
~~~
easytiger
I don't see those as incompatible end points.
~~~
Ntrails
The question becomes whether the meaning is that all smartphone apps are
worthless, or that you should work on one that isn't
~~~
easytiger
My goodness. What are we all doing. None of this is real :(
------
lnanek2
A cup of coffee can only be consumed by a person, or maybe another splitting
it. A digital offering can be copied for almost no cost.
This is why Bill Gates is rich. You pay to write the software, then you sell
it over and over and over again with little cost to you. You can't do that
with coffee.
So I see the low price of apps to be more indicative of this advantage being
shared with the buyers rather than it indicating the app is worth less to a
person than a cup of coffee.
You can have a successful app business selling at very low prices because if
it becomes a hit you will still make a lot. And being cheap helps you become a
hit. So everyone does it and you have to compete with those people doing it.
~~~
judk
Howard Schultz did pretty well selling coffee.
------
satyrnein
Reading some of the comments here reminds me of the Adam Smith quote:
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in
some contrivance to raise prices."
------
ricardobeat
> the business of creating products which offer very little value to people
my view is it's not that most apps offer little value, but the consumers'
perception of value is skewed. You can buy tools today for <$5 that would have
cost $50, $100 or more a few years ago, and are miles better than their old
counterparts. Also, in a way, Apple is forcing the _trial + buy_ model to
become _free + in app purchase_ , so paid upfront becomes a huge negative.
------
zxcvvcxz
Here's my perspective as both a user and developer.
Most paid apps there are the equivalent of small side projects. They're simple
things that should exist, and after enough time, someone will make them for
free. The ones that are not free tend to have better visual design. Big whoop.
I'll take my coffee please.
Here's an example of something that's worth more than a coffee: Shazam. It
identifies music around you by doing some crazy audio processing and database
magic. Aaaand I'm still using their free app (haven't had the need to upgrade
yet). So if someone offering _that_ much value _still_ can't convert me to a
paying customer, how will you?
I'm a developer as well. It's hard to create something worthwhile, I get it (I
still haven't really). My theory is that if it's not technically defensible in
some way, or doesn't get a network-growth lock-in effect quickly, then it's
easily replicated as a free app.
Would love to hear counter-arguments to any of this. Frankly all I see is
people complaining about everything except the intrinsic value of the apps,
which is exactly what the article mentioned would happen. We live in an era of
increasingly less low-hanging fruit.
------
jhh
The author's argument is faulty. The value from being able to take notes /
manage to-dos properly on a multitouch device may be rather great to many
people.
However, the price is not determined by this. The price is the result of an
equilibrium. There is a process of underbidding going on which lowers the
price for the app very close to cost of producing it, until it is unattractive
for new competitors to enter the market.
The magic thing about this is that it delivers these products to the world in
great number at close-to-zero pricing and that's pretty nice for the world as
a whole.
Think about it this way: It was worth buying mainframe computers at many
million dollars a piece and with embarissingly low computing power back in the
70s to some people.
Obviously, when these people buy a computer with a million times the
performance at 1/1000th of the price they get a great deal. So it's fair to
say that the value of commodity computers is to some people much much higher
than the market price. That does not change the fact that producing commodity
computers is a cut-throat business with ultra slim margins.
So what I am trying to say is that this emotional / ethical notion of value
needs to be seen as distinct from market pricing.
~~~
XorNot
If you're making a todo/notetaking app, you're entering a really crowded
marketplace. And from my experience, you're probably also doing it wrong.
I mean first things first: does your app sync with _anything_ standard or are
you promising me your webservice? Because a quick glance through the non-
existent featurelist from the app's website, and the only thing I see is "sync
with iCloud".
So you know, worthless. To me and anyone else who has IMAP/WebDAV/Exchange
accounts/CalDAV calendaring/Google calendars. Your apps are worthless because
they're not that useful to start with.
------
jennyjitters
While I agree with the people here saying that many apps are "worthless" due
to the sheer number of free apps available, I can't help but compare this
issue to starting a business (likely because that's what many app developers
are trying to do). Most startups fail. That's just the way it goes. Starting
and running a successful business requires success in a lot of areas: product
dev, design, marketing, customer service, etc. I think the claim that apps are
worth less than a cup of coffee is a bit narrow-minded. If you look at the
(huge) number businesses that have incorporated over the last several years,
and then compare that to the number of those same businesses that are
currently "successful", those numbers will likely look a lot like the number
of "successful" apps vs total apps. It's hard to create something that people
love, whether that be a physical product or an app. I think there's still a
market for well-designed, useful, paid apps. Just like it's still possible for
a startup to be successful. It's just really damned difficult.
------
twilightfog
Nothing like another example of a todo list app to illustrate the downward
spiral of app store pricing. Creativity can still get a high price in app
store. Find a niche, and develop a great app, and customer will pay. Case in
point: Cubasis
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cubasis/id583976519](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cubasis/id583976519)
~~~
gurkendoktor
Absolutely agree. My coworker built a business app that sold very well for
$120, until the company that provides the API crushed it with their own $10
app (bummer).
------
cognivore
>> We pour all our creativity, time, and passion into creating basically
worthless products... we're in the business of making products that provide
very little value to people. <<
If you take nothing away from the article but that you've gained some insight.
If you take a way someone's smart phone with a handful of paid apps on it and
give them a dumb phone they'll get by just fine. They will lose no significant
advantage for either work or personal life.
To drive up the price of something with little value you introduce artificial
scarcity. Nintendo does this well. If the Nintendo game platforms were open
games would be priced like apps. But Nintendo gives their Seal of Approval to
everything that goes on their platforms, and there is a high barrier to entry.
I doubt that the software development community would like that model, either.
I'm not even sure it's more profitable. But it does seem to create more
valuable software. Nothing on smart phones comes close to the quality and
polish of a good Nintendo game.
------
threeseed
As someone who bought Clear I fully disagree with the premise of this post.
All they had to do was recompile the app and potentially fix a few small bugs.
You can't sit there and act like it was some monumental change that warranted
screwing over your existing users. If they are unhappy with how much money
they are making then they simply need to raise their prices.
~~~
milen
I am the engineer behind both Clear for iPhone and Clear+. Your statement
could not be further from the truth - it has taken a lot of effort to make the
iPad component.
I'll give you a taste of some of the work that needed doing (completely
describing everything would take ages). Here's a few examples:
\- With iOS7, we switched to using TextKit so that we can vary the text sizes
(both internally and via Dynamic Text). This involved a significant
refactoring as in the previous codebase, we had to hardcode offsets. Why was
it all hardcoded? Anyone who's had to deal with the problem of editable inline
text would know that there were no APIs to match the drawing of text and
editing via UITextView (which was previously based on UIWebKit; while you
could the drawing either via the convenience NSString methods or via CoreText;
if you used CT, you'd end up with mismatched visuals when editing /
displaying). Did you also notice that when completing items on iOS6, the
strikethroughs extended beyond the text on items with more than 1 line? Not
anymore, due to the new internals.
\- The architecture on the iPad is completely different vs the iPhone - on the
iPhone, you have a single "list view" (custom implementation to be able to
provide all the advanced gestures). On the iPad, you now have two view
controllers that need to stay in sync, animate in sync, etc. It also meant
that I had to do significant refactoring to abstract away all the controller
logic as it had to be embedded in different controller hierarchies - you
really don't want to duplicate all that logic.
\- List peeking on the iPad. This required adding support to both the list
view and to the item views, again - something many people might not even use
but it's extremely handy when you need it.
\- Drag and drop on the iPad. iOS does not provide a standard API to drag
between views, so I had to implement my own which is fully animated and
interactive. Try to dragging tasks to lists on the iPad - the feedback is
immediate and you will see the 3D animations when items drop. These are all
little details but they take a lot of effort to get right.
\- If you run the iPad app, you will see that it has a completely interactive
tutorial. We spend significant amount of time on that, to make it feel super
nice and provide the best way to acquaint users with the interface. Again,
anyone who cares about details will tell you that the final 10% take a
considerable amount of the total time.
\- You're also not seeing a significant amount of research and testing. We had
experimental interactions that never made it to production. We've made many
prototypes throughout the life of the app, none of them publicly available. We
learn a lot from these but that's all invisible to our users.
The above points just scratch the surface on the work that was needed to bring
Clear to the iPad. I hope it illustrates the point that it's not a simple job
of just recompiling.
~~~
Philadelphia
The majority of those changes aren't visible to users. As a corporate
developer, I can tell you that it's extremely hard to get funding to make even
the most necessary technical changes to an existing piece of software.
Normally, the best you can do is sneak it in with a big redesign that has
features worth paying for.
------
sanjkris
Note to all my iphone app users: -Yes. I just tripled the price of my app. Why
you may ask. Read on -You whined about missing features; I added them. You
whined about in-app purchases. I removed them. You whined about a missing help
section. I gave you videos & pics inside the app. You never saw them. Dont lie
to me-I see all your clicks inside the app. -Oh yeah! You are threatening me
with a 1-star review because you forgot to check your inbox for the result
from the app. You are an app review terrorist. I just tripled the price of my
app as insurance against such terror threats -You asked for a discount on the
app when it was priced $2.99!! I am responding by tripling my app price. I
HAVE read all my competitor's reviews. They priced it $0 for a reason.
ok...got to go catch my flight to Hawaii and relax. With your $$$ thanks
------
ghshephard
What is the worth of something precious or valuable, if all around it that
same precious and valuable thing (or a very close substitute) is available for
no charge at unlimited quantity?
I wonder if Apple was aware the App Store would lead to basically infinite
supply of (in many cases) beautiful and high quality apps for little to no
cost.
With 200 million+ users, many of whom have a greater than average tendency to
pay $$$ for apps than your average smartphone user, an outstanding Apple
developer has some chance of making money on the App Store - (That old saw
about capturing 1% of a very large market) - but I really pity the third and
fourth tier platforms - they are going to struggle.
It's an IAP future.
------
clarky07
We get posts like this all the time, but it isn't actually what is playing out
in the world. Apple paid out $5 billion to developers last year and that
obviously doesn't include advertising revenue and Android profits. People ARE
paying for apps. Developers ARE creating value. These things aren't worthless.
I know because I sell lots of paid apps every day, and every month Apple and
Google deposit money into my bank account.
My response to this article -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6471131](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6471131)
------
iwasakabukiman
While I do agree that the App Store and the Play Store both trend toward the
free apps being the most successful ones, I disagree with his mentality about
the value of apps completely.
Yes, there are plenty of apps on my iPhone/iPad that I rarely use, but there
are also a whole host that I use every single day.
The author cites Clear as an example in his article. I use it every day to
make lists and keep track of things for work.
There are also apps like Downcast (a podcast player) and Comic Zeal (a comic
reading app) that I have gotten 10x the value of what I paid for them, since I
use them so frequently.
------
programminggeek
You know how you can offer a free trial? By offering a free trial!
No seriously, make your users create an account and give them a time-limited
trial. Offer them an IAP upgrade. It's doable.
The problem is to hit the mass market of millions, well you have to be free or
have a good marketing/advertising strategy. Actually, you probably need to be
a bit of both.
Anyway, it's dumb to complain about the pricing cuz it's been this way for
what 3 or 4 years now. It's not a new phenomenon.
On Google Play, it's even harder to get people to pay for an app up front.
------
prottmann
All the time i did not understand why so many developer jump on the App-Train.
Most of them did not make money with their apps. But thats another problem.
The real problem is, that everybody try to be cheaper than others and so all
developer destroy their own markets.
Why did so many sell a good product for 99 Cent ? CRAZY !
If somebody likes your app and find it usefull, this person will pay more than
99 Cent (ONCE IN HIS LIFE).
Ok, admittedly, it exists millions of todo apps, so you have a special problem
with many competitors, but this can't be the reason to be cheap.
------
FiddlerClamp
So, in comparison - would the same people who want prices on apps to be higher
be willing to avoid using contest sites like 99 Designs? Seems like the same
principle to me...being unwilling to pay someone 'the going rate' to design a
logo because you're not sure about the value of the underlying process sounds
a lot of like being unwilling to pay what developers consider a 'fair rate'
for an app when you can pick a free one instead....
------
theneb
The tagline for the post is assuming a cup of coffee, i.e a physical product
has the same value of a virtual one.
To that end, is software value not dependent on the crowd which buys it?
However, I cannot share your cup of coffee you buy from Starbucks.
My point only further raises the question: Do consumers see Apps as shared
content? Or, Do they equate physical and virtual App products as being worth
the same?
------
timruffles
That's an overly negative interpretation. An app can can be worth a lot more
than a cup of coffee to someone, but if there's a free alternative, why would
they pay?
The business impact is the same under either interpretation of course, and the
conclusion would be: don't expect it to be easy to launch a business in a
space where people offer free alternatives.
------
easytiger
Not what I expected but I completely agree.
Most productivity applications (anecdotally) are bought on a whim and oft are
never used but at all.
------
jaynos
Comparing the Clear app to a cup of coffee is interesting, especially since I
received the app for free from a Starbucks promotion.
I quickly stopped using it because that is my M.O. with all ToDo list apps.
I've never found one to replace a folded up envelope in my back pocket.
------
useful
I happily pay $60/year for Strava. But I would never buy the app.
------
ktd
>We pour all our creativity, time, and passion into creating basically
worthless products... we're in the business of making products that provide
very little value to people.
Yikes.
------
fburnaby
It's not that your app doesn't have value. It's that the marginal value
compared to a free app is small.
------
dscrd
Umm, no. A cup of coffee is worth about $0.1
------
fburnaby
If something is worth $10,000 to me and I can get it for $0.99, I will not pay
$10,000 for it.
------
kranner
What justification does OP offer for calling mobile apps 'basically worthless'
(followed by the condescending 'let it sink in', but let's ignore that)?
I'm confused: is this whole thing supposed to be sarcasm? Or does OP mean that
apps are viewed by users as worthless because they are so cheap?
~~~
feintruled
He's not trying to denigrate the amount of work or talent people put into
making apps - he's saying that if no-one wants to pay for it (perhaps because
they can use any one of a hundred free alternatives) then it is de-facto
worthless.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
A digestible introduction to the wave equation with working code - dionyziz
https://github.com/dionyziz/wave-experiment
======
raverbashing
Very interesting
And a good example of why the 'exact' solution is often not used, because it's
so slow
~~~
jheriko
its not an exact solution, and actually the implementation is just very poor.
highly optimised versions of this have been around for 20 years or more
running with /software/ rendering.
you can boil the whole thing down to a convolution matrix type trick which a
modern gpu will eat for breakfast.
i should find some time and do one of these... the quality of 'impressive
webgl tech demo' seems to be about 15 years out of date in general...
~~~
CamperBob2
It's a pedagogical exercise, not a cycle-counting contest. GPU acceleration
amounts to premature optimization when your goal is learning the basic math.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Defensible App Updated to include overlay for PGE projected outages - xfour
https://defensibleapp.com/
======
xfour
Modern MapboxGL based map of general wildfire risk updated with PGE’s
“Historic” power outage planned for later today.
Easier to view than the various other sources, especially on mobile.
------
wglb
This is a good link.
You are likely to get more attention if you mark this s "Show HN".
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Survival in Space Unprotected Is Possible, Briefly (2008) - Thevet
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/survival-in-space-unprotected-possible/
======
HCIdivision17
This kind of illustrates that it's not that your blood boils or anything crazy
like that, but rather that without external pressure, your body relies on your
squishy flesh to hold the internal pressures in check. So you'll get a full-
body hickey/swelling and the bends (though deep sea divers can, of course,
suffer far worse since their internal pressure can be multiple atmospheres).
If you've any exposed mucus membranes, expect them to off-gas and to start to
freeze on the surface.
But all that takes time to really set in, so you've got a minute or so before
you're really hurt. By that time, your real problem is simply that you've
stopped breathing, which turns out to be a big deal.
Remember: vacuum is first and foremost an asphyxiant!
(Re asphyxiant, here's my favorite story on the topic:
[http://www.sciforums.com/threads/vacuum-pockets-and-
safety-n...](http://www.sciforums.com/threads/vacuum-pockets-and-safety-
nazis.41446/) )
~~~
RogtamBar
>By that time, your real problem is simply that you've stopped breathing,
which turns out to be a big deal.
With some training holding your breath for 3 minutes is doable for anyone, and
the record is something like 8-9 minutes..
~~~
HCIdivision17
You're right, but one of the main issues is that you probably don't have
enough strength in your lip muscles and throat to keep the air in without
outside pressure. A single ATM of pressure is easy to leak, and your body is
undergoing some real nasty expansion problems; As the sibling commenter notes,
too, holding your breath is likely dangerous, as your internal chest cavity
may not be able to apply enough compressive force to hold the air in. (And
microscopically your lung will try to inflate excessively, leading to internal
bleeding, I think.)
There's a really cool idea for a spacesuit that's basically just a fabric wet
suit that's just _really_ compressive (via electromuscles or cinched bands or
w/e). That way your body gets the ability to hold onto the gas in your lungs
without the risk of your lungs attempting to expand out your gut and throat.
It's an interesting idea though: what if you could train your abdomen and
chest to compress a lung full of air in a vacuum? Then you just gotta keep
your mouth and nose shut somehow. (It'd be really difficult - it'd take a
force like trying to inflate a car tire with your mouth. Possible, but seems
hard.)
------
curtis
There was a notable incident in the 1960s where a NASA spacesuit technician
named Jim LeBlanc survived an accidental (but brief) depressurization. There's
a YouTube video describing the accident which includes film of the accident
itself:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY).
~~~
Domenic_S
What a great video, thanks for the link.
------
civilian
I remember reading an Arthur C. Clarke book where a space liner has lost their
engines and their airlocks. The protagonist on the military rescue ship
decides to do something drastic: blow up the space liner.
They seal the people into groups of 20 in separate cabins, and then they
detonate small charges to puncture each cabin at a time. Their ship is
positioned right next to the liner, with utility cords leading straight to the
airlock. Clarke took this opportunity to explain that you don't freeze and
explode in space, losing oxygen is the main problem. But also for that
reason--- don't hold your breath when you're about to be exposed to vacuum,
that's just a good way to rupture your lungs from the pressure.
~~~
curtis
This sounds like the end of Earthlight [1] (the novel, not the short story).
However, it was the space liner rescuing the crew of the military ship in this
case. The ability to evacuate the crew of the military ship without spacesuits
is an important plot point, or at least a dramatic one.
Anyway, Clarke was apparently convinced that humans could survive a brief
exposure to vacuum at least as early as 1955.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight)
------
mrfusion
Does this mean we might be ok on a 70 degree f [1] Mars with just a breathing
mask? Especially if you're covering the mucus membranes.
1
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars)
------
Oxydepth
I think the movie Event Horizon got it right. For anybody who hasn't seen it,
someone is ejected out into Space. He's saved within about a minute. Though,
he definitely suffers internal bleeding and other damages, he survives.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Caution: Event Horizon is also one hell of a mind-fucking horror movie. It's
not for the weak-minded. _Liberate tuteme ex inferis_. You have been warned.
~~~
to3m
I went to see Event Horizon in the cinema when it first came out, with a
couple of schoolfriends. There was an oldish couple in front of us, maybe in
their 50s, possibly expecting a repeat of 2001.
Eventually the film finished, and we all got up, slightly dazed - couple
included. The woman said to the man, with pursed lips - "Next time, _I 'm_
picking the film" :)
The drive home was about 40 minutes, and my friends and I were silent the
whole way. But I'm sure if I saw it again, it would seem adorably tame.
~~~
TeMPOraL
I watched it on TV, late at night, as a kid. I remember barely being able to
fall asleep out of fear, and I think it took a week for the effects of this
movie to wear off. I'm older now and I've seen enough sad, scary and
disrupting movies that it doesn't affect me anymore, but I'm pretty sure that
if I tried to show it to my SO, I'd have my own Event Horizon right there in
the apartment.
EDIT: I also had the "next time I'm picking the movie" moment after I took my
then-girlfriend to see Prometheus. The TED2023 trailer looked _so cool_ and I
didn't realize it's a prequel to Alien...
------
chromaton
This is how the astronaut in 2001: A Space Odyssey manages to get back on
board the main ship.
~~~
rrss1122
To offer another sci-fi example, it's how two pilots of an experimental
spacecraft in the TV series Stargate SG-1 were rescued when the spacecraft
rapidly traveled away from Earth and locked them out of pretty much everything
except ejecting from the craft. Their rescuers were waiting in a nearby
spaceship to scoop them out of the vacuum of space.
------
Houshalter
Im really disturbed by the scientists that tortured dozens of dogs and chimps
in vacuums.
~~~
seangrant
It's definitely a touchy subject and disturbing to the general populace, but
such experiments are necessary for the advancement of the human race.
~~~
Pinatubo
I for one am glad to know that dogs in a vacuum spontaneously deficate. I
suspect there is a vacuum that develops overnight in the corner of my living
room.
~~~
davesque
Yeah. Now you don't have to blame the dog! :)
------
untilHellbanned
The header takes up half of the page.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
“Amazon’s choice” recommends fraudulent listing - bryced
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T8LGWQ5/
======
jedimastert
Two interesting things from this, I think:
1\. This goes a long way to show that there isn't probably zero human
interaction with the "Amazon's Choice" listings and that it's completely
algorithmic.
2\. Making fraudulent listings on Amazon is extremely effective. So effective
that it can be sent to the top of the charts.
My question is this: even if the listing gets removed, I'm sure it's been up
long enough to make an insane amount of money, probably far more than they
paid for the review-bots or the stock (if they even sell the correct thing).
If they get the listing removed and "banned," what's to stop them from making
another shell corp and doing it all again? What's the barrier for entry for
fraudulent listings?
Tangentially related, if "Amazon's Choice" is based on reviews and popularity,
what stops it from becoming an echo chamber? Age of product doesn't seem like
a good factor, nor time spent in the amazon choice spot.
~~~
shakyshakyshaky
I've known an amazon worker who worked on the amazon's choice functionality at
one point- it's all algorithmic with little to no human interaction. It's also
skewed towards the products amazon stands to profit the most off of,
obviously.
~~~
jedimastert
I wonder goes into the "most profit" number between items in the same category
besides "best seller"...
------
rfwhyte
Amazon desperately needs to fix their completely broken third-party
marketplace. There are entire categories of products I simply won't buy from
Amazon as its near impossible to find anything that even approximates an
authentic listing with genuine reviews. Yet Amazon does nothing. Amazon
genuinely doesn't care that their customers are regularly getting ripped off,
given they get their cut regardless.
The depressing thing is that there's probably some Amazon employee sitting at
a desk in Seattle or somewhere, who keeps a meticulous model that tracks and
compares their losses from returns on fraudulent listings vs. what it would
cost them in effort and what they'd lose in commissions from actually doing
something about the issue, and Amazon execs have basically decided that since
they're making more money from running a marketplace that enables fraud, its
somehow justified to continue enabling fraud.
Its basically the same situation as that Ford Pinto case from the 80s where
Ford used a cost-benefit analysis to decide that it would be cheaper to settle
cases where people were injured or died as a result of a faulty fuel-system,
rather than redesign said system.
Hopefully at some point another marketplace with much higher standards and far
greater customer protections will emerge and eat into Amazon's market share
forcing them to take the issue seriously.
------
bryced
1600 reviews, almost a perfect rating. The reviews and questions are about
other products like a bread machine. I reviewed the product as 1-star but my
review doesn’t show up. I reported this listing to amazon several days ago but
it remains.
------
avensec
Webcache since it is now removed. You can still see the strange reviews, but
this cache does not have the "Amazon's choice" label.
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HeZP55...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HeZP55iEDpAJ:https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-
Compatible-Splitter-Headphone-Charger/dp/B07T8LGWQ5+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)
------
mox1
This actually sums up a lot of the problems with amazon in one nice little
listing.
Edit:
This is actually more fun:
[https://www.amazon.com/stores/node/13968870011?_encoding=UTF...](https://www.amazon.com/stores/node/13968870011?_encoding=UTF8&field-
lbr_brands_browse-bin=my-handy-design&ref_=bl_dp_s_web_13968870011)
All of the product have either 5 stars with hundreds of reviews or 0-1 starts
with tens of reviews...
~~~
bryced
yeah here is another one. why didn't they take down the whole seller?
[https://www.amazon.com/Charger-Braided-Charging-Syncing-
Comp...](https://www.amazon.com/Charger-Braided-Charging-Syncing-
Compatible/dp/B07S74HNGR?ref_=bl_dp_s_web_13968870011) edit: put correct link
------
sp332
Did they just copy 5-star reviews from other products verbatim? Or do they
keep updating this listing and changing the product for sale entirely?
------
izzydata
Amazon is such a mess. Do they have any incentive to punish abusers and
prevent this from continuing?
------
erikerikson
PoC exploit of "Amazon's Choice" algorithm?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Thought: On Convincing - SimJapan2005
======
SimJapan2005
"Convincing people one by one for an outcome is surely a trouble than by
convincing them altogether once with an outcome."
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Libtls: Rethinking the TLS/SSL API [video] - gbrown_
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd_dyRbE4AA
======
gbrown_
Slides available at the following link.
[https://www.openbsd.org/papers/linuxconfau2017-libtls/](https://www.openbsd.org/papers/linuxconfau2017-libtls/)
------
epistasis
What a fantastic man page.
~~~
daxelrod
Link to the man page, for those curious: [http://man.openbsd.org/cgi-
bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD-current/man3/...](http://man.openbsd.org/cgi-
bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD-current/man3/tls_init.3)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Namecoin - bpierre
https://namecoin.org/
======
__xtrimsky
This is almost 4 years old. This isn't "Hacker Archives", it's "Harcker News".
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Nuclear – Popcorn Time for music - devcriollo
https://github.com/nukeop/nuclear
======
porkloin
It seems like calling this "Popcorn Time" for music isn't necessarily a great
comparison.
PT allowed streaming playback of torrented movies and was very clearly piracy
and illegal.
Meanwhile, this seems like an aggregator for existing free sources of music
(Bandcamp, YouTube, SoundCloud).
That said, it looks like a cool hobby project and a great alternative for
folks who want/need a multi-source music client. Google Play Music was my go-
to service for a long time since I could not only get streaming access but
also upload my own local files to their servers for playback anywhere. Most of
that local music came from Bandcamp.
~~~
fjabre
I think everyone is tired of being ripped off by out of date copyright laws
and industry shenanigans. The music industry is full of blood thirsty lawyers,
big ticket prices, unjust YT algorithms, and death by a thousand cuts with all
the monthlies from music streaming services. I for one am fed up with this
oligarchy and am happy to see services like this pop up from time to time to
remind me that technology will continue to displace these brokers until it
murders the middle man entirely. I look forward to that day.
~~~
KozmoNau7
A little while back, a project named Supportify was posted here. It looks at
your most played tracks, and tries to find Bandcamp links for the artists, so
you can support them directly.
[https://tomduncalf.github.io/supportify/](https://tomduncalf.github.io/supportify/)
------
Deganta
Popcorn time was popular because it was way better than any of the legal
alternatives. You just had to open it, type the name of the movie/series and
you probably could start watching. You could also do this in the legal
alternatives, but the chance of actually finding what you were looking for was
pretty small.
Here I don't really see how this is better than Spotify/iTunes/Amazon Music.
~~~
skykooler
Spotify recently removed six songs in my "offline" playlist from its library,
so I can no longer play them. If this actually saves music files, that's a big
plus.
~~~
hannasanarion
You can use your own copies of music in Spotify. All you have to do is tell it
where to find them on your disk.
And if you connect with a mobile device on the same network as the computer
with the files on it, they'll automatically be transferred so you'll get them
on mobile too.
Two of my favorite bands (Blind Guardian, Kamelot) put only their last couple
of releases on Spotify, but with this method I can listen to their whole back
catalog.
~~~
vinceguidry
Reading through Spotify's docs, I really don't want to put control of my music
life in the hands of Spotify's tenuous relationship with the music industry.
~~~
hannasanarion
That's the point, you don't have to. The spotify software synchronizes your
personal collection between all your devices and uses it to fill holes in
their catalog.
Afraid that an artist is going to pull their stuff from spotify? Acquire
digital copies of that artist's work some other way, and spotify will slot
them right into your playlists where the old ones used to be. I did this when
SPV Records pulled Silverthorn, it was practically no work.
Even if the whole industry abandons spotify, it will still be unique and
valuable as a seamless way to synchronize your music library between all
devices.
~~~
vinceguidry
If the industry abandons Spotify, and my entire music life was wrapped up in
it, then I need to acquire 600+ individual music tracks from 400+ artists, if
I hadn't already done it already, all to continue listening to music the same
way I do now. The problem gets worse the longer I remain on the platform. And
that assumes I'll be able to get my data, about which tracks I need to
acquire, out when the time comes. If not then I'm really up Shit's Creek
without a paddle.
I'd rather pay more in the short term, paying for individual tracks, for a
solution that will work indefinitely, than set up a situation in which extreme
disruption of a part of my life I'm utterly reliant on can be afflicted at a
whim of a dipshit music exec who doesn't understand how people can become
reliant on music or worse, understands and does it anyway because it'll make
him more money.
~~~
hannasanarion
So you're saying, you're afraid of being reduced to small personal catalog in
an unlikely future apocalypse scenario, and you are solving this problem by
forcing yourself to use a small personal catalog today?
~~~
vinceguidry
I wouldn't call it unlikely. Music services have a history of getting shut
down. Sure, Spotify's star is bright now. But it could get acquired tomorrow
by a company that decides it doesn't want to support all my use cases. If one
of those use cases is something I'm reliant on, then Spotify all of a sudden
becomes totally worthless.
Whereas my personal catalog will never stop supporting my use cases.
~~~
hannasanarion
What music services have a history of getting shut down after 11 years of
profitability and complete cultural and market dominance? Spotify is hardly
comparable to Zune or whatever.
It's totally your prerogative to not use spotify or other music streaming
services, I'm just saying fear of imminent market apocalypse isn't really a
good reason to deny all of the upsides.
~~~
vinceguidry
Cultural and market dominance? Where can I get some of that Kool-aid? Spotify
is certainly more successful than _many_ of the alternatives, but it's a
crowded space. Apple Music, Amazon Music, Google Play Music, YouTube Music,
SoundCloud, Pandora, Bandcamp and 8Tracks are just the ones I've heard of. Any
one of these, including Spotify, is subject to acquisition, spinning out, or
outright shutdown at the whims of the music industry. Any of these events can
change the service such that it's practically useless.
The ones already shut down or folded into different companies with different
priorities include Rhapsody, Beatport, Rdio, Last.fm's streaming offering, and
the aforementioned Zune. Forgive me if I'm a little cautious and not willing
to depend on the magic of "the market," cue jazz hands, to ensure access to my
music, especially when I have a solution that's _already working_ that isn't
subject to those risks.
------
japanoise
>On an unrelated note, highly polarized opinions about languages and
frameworks are characteristic of people who lack real-world programming
experience and are more interested in building an identity than creating
computer programs.
How incredibly arrogant. It can't be that people have legitimate grievances
with elecron, like not wanting to use a program based on an incredibly bloated
and poorly designed platform, oh no, they just "lack real world experience"
and are "more interested in identity" (whatever that means).
High-and-mighty types like this are exactly why working in IT or contributing
to FLOSS is so draining at times.
~~~
sonaltr
While I get why people are annoyed by that message, I get and understand it.
It's super annoying when you are trying to create a desktop app and you get
issues (multiple of them) essentially going "Why are you using Electron? it
eats up my RAM, please use X framework and you should be fine"
This would be fine if:
1. You attached that with a PR for said framework or
2. You searched before and read this being answered earlier
From a maintainer's point of view - this is super annoying.
I'm sure the author built this to satisfy his itch first and open sourced it
because it might help others (either to directly use the product or to learn
from the code). It's super annoying when you have people who think they know
better come and tell you to use X because they have a problem with Electron
(not necessarily your app in particular but Electron in general). I say this
as it appears the author might be using arch linux and as a linux user, I
always appreciate an electron app vs no app (obviously a native app is better
but that's generally never the option - it's generally electron or nothing).
I'm sure it could have been worded nicely but eitherway it got the effect the
author wanted - it drives away people who'd be annoyed by Electron in the
first place.
~~~
zeveb
> It's super annoying when you are trying to create a desktop app and you get
> issues (multiple of them) essentially going "Why are you using Electron? it
> eats up my RAM, please use X framework and you should be fine"
It's super annoying when I'm looking for a desktop app and everything I find
is really a poorly-disguised web app which eats RAM.
Just develop programs for X11 & POSIX: every system, from Windows to Linux to
macOS to *BSD supports them to one extent or another.
~~~
floatboth
Please _don 't_ develop directly against X11 (or reach into X11 APIs when
using a UI toolkit that runs on everything else too).
~~~
CamperBob2
Why not?
~~~
floatboth
If we're talking about cross-platform: X11 is not native on Windows, it's not
native on macOS, it's not native on Wayland. (On the first two, it requires
deliberate installation of some X server, and you won't even get direct
rendering with that!)
Most annoying for me personally: it doesn't support proper HiDPI scaling. X11
apps are blurry on my HiDPI Wayland desktop, which makes me not want to use
them.
In general, X11 is absolutely inadequate for the modern world. It's a legacy
protocol that has the "any client can be a keylogger" security model, drawing
primitives from the 80s that no one uses anymore plus all the history of
bolting on more modern ways of rendering. (And don't get me started on the
input systems, of which there are several and no one knows how that code even
works.) And the protocol is synchronous, so you'll always have some slowdowns.
Oh and the fucking screen tearing! In modern display systems, every frame is
perfect, _by design_ , by _protocol_ design. X11 only has various "tearfree"
hacks in the server that work with varying levels of success.
------
joeblau
There was a time (Napster -> Bearsahre/Limewire/Kazaa) when I would have been
excited about something like this. As I've become more financially stable, and
have more hardware for music to integrate into I look at a project like this
and think: How can I share music links with my friends easily? How do I get
these songs on my watch? How do I get these songs on my phone? How do I play
these from my home speakers? How easy is going to be for my partner to do all
of the same things?
The user experience bar for a music service has gone up since the days of
Napster. If you primarily use one computer and that's your audio experience,
this probably works well. I've found that I'm increasingly playing podcasts
and music in different locations and going back to a centralized playing
source is not an experience I want.
~~~
vvillena
Ten years ago evey respectable device had DLNA support, an agnostic way to
browse and play all kinds of media content available on the local network.
Sharing a song with a friend could be easily done by sending the whole song
(duplicates were not an issue since well-formed MP3s usually included
Musicbrainz UUIDs that the media players compared), or by simply linking to
Youtube or Grooveshark.
DLNA is slowly going the way of RSS. It's too open of a standard for the
current times. Google is already mounting an Embrace-Extend-Extinguish attack
on it via the Chromecast protocol. I'm scared Bluetooth audio will be the next
to be forgotten. Meanwhile, cloud music services are current trend, and it's
not crazy to think they will follow the Nextflix-HBO-Disney steps and start
creating walled gardens full of exclusive content.
So, which options do we have now? Users can surrender power and gain
convenience by going with, say, Spotify. The app's slick, the multiple device
support is awesome, and the social features, while nowhere near
Audioscrobbler/Last.fm, are enough. Keep in mind Last.fm is more than 15 years
old. 15 years without progress on the music social media front. Also,
disappearing songs are a huge problem. A company that pulls a song from their
catalog without notifying the user is borderline evil. I feel connected to
music. It's almost like the company is deleting a memory from your brain,
hoping you won't notice its absence.
Another option is to keep living in the 00s and maintain a home music library.
You ensure no songs will disappear from your library without notice, which is
good. The bad thing is you are more isolated. There's no easy way to access
your library in other devices, there's no easy way to integrate a personal
library with a cloud service, and there's no easy way to share your
experiences with friends in the same way you can do it with Spotify.
What do I do then? I decided to go the Spotify way, while keeping a small
"memories" library which contains the more obscure songs, plus the ones I want
to keep with me forever. I'm wary, though. The day Spotify decides to become
more profitable, it will be over. Half the features will be gone, and we'll
have to start all over again in a worse position than before, because our
hardware will be less open than it is now.
~~~
Kolgrym
>Another option is to keep living in the 00s and maintain a home music
library. You ensure no songs will disappear from your library without notice,
which is good. The bad thing is you are more isolated. There's no easy way to
access your library in other devices, there's no easy way to integrate a
personal library with a cloud service, and there's no easy way to share your
experiences with friends in the same way you can do it with Spotify.
I have ~40k songs uploaded and available to stream for free anywhere with
google music. I'm still the kinda of crazy that maintains my own collection
locally and it stays sync'd automatically. It also serves as a free offsite
backup. Agreed that there is no easy way to share but I have vastly different
musical tastes from my friends so that's never been an issue for me, though
for a lot of people it might be a negative.
~~~
vvillena
I used Google Music until recently, just to unify the cloud library with my
personal library. The problem was how atrocious the Google Music player is.
It's a joke compared to Spotify, or to any desktop app.
~~~
joeblau
Does Spotify let you merge your personal library with their cloud library? I
used to use Google Music but I switched to Apple Music when they allowed you
to have a hybrid library.
~~~
vvillena
You can have a local library in Spotify, but it isn't synced. Google Music
allows you to upload your own songs and play them on all devices.
~~~
joeblau
Ah okay. Apple Music works the way Google Music does.
------
aquova
I have what is probably a very naive question, as I am not well versed at all
in Electron or web frameworks. I understand the complaints towards Electron,
but I also see the appeal of developing utilizing a cross-platform browser. Is
there a reason why developers can't simply have their application run in a
local server? (Jupyter Notebook is an example that comes to mind.) This way,
the user can use their browser of choice and doesn't have to have several
installations of Chromium, while the developer can still utilize the web. I
imagine it's more complex than this, but it's something I've been wondering.
~~~
aidenn0
Some reasons off the top of my head:
1) Local servers are a no-go for multiuser environments unless you want to
log-on every time you run your "native" app, as most (all?) browsers don't
support http over domain sockets and there is no authentication for local
sockets.
2) Managing the health of the service properly in a cross-platform manner is
complicated. With electron if the app crashes, it just crashes. With a local
server the browser tab just stops working. Sure technical users can figure it
out, but if you are targeting a gui over a console, presumably you are trying
to capture some fraction of non-technical users.
~~~
jpeeler
Ignoring the multiuser issue, could not some javascript be injected that
displays "crash" instructions (or even just closes the tab) in the event the
server becomes unresponsive? I'm not a web dev, but this sounds feasible.
------
woodlander87
Best part is the text in the LEGAL document:
# Legal information My lawyer tells me I am allowed to smack anyone saying
this program is illegal with a flyswatter.
~~~
chrismeller
So he’s allowed to smack flyswatter-owning people who say it’s illegal?
Awesome, I don’t own a flyswatter!
Isn’t English grand?
~~~
seba_dos1
No, they have to say that it's illegal by using their flyswatter.
However, that makes you safe anyway :P
------
ikeboy
Isn't that just YouTube or Spotify? Free music is freely given out legally
these days, don't see the need for this.
~~~
thieving_magpie
I wouldn't use this for my own moral reasons but we have different definitions
of free. In this case you use "free" to mean: providing personal data and
being subjected to a targeted marketing campaign in exchange for music.
~~~
snazz
Using youtube-dl circumvents both the personal data and the marketing. Just
convert to audio with ffmpeg, and then you can listen on your own devices with
a normal music player.
~~~
Retr0spectrum
You can use youtube-dl to download just the audio stream directly, no need to
remux with ffmpeg.
~~~
criddell
Are you happy with the audio quality with streams ripped from YouTube? I'm
guessing it's been compressed more than once and that can't be good.
~~~
snazz
Using the flag shown at [https://askubuntu.com/questions/423508/can-i-
directly-downlo...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/423508/can-i-directly-
download-audio-using-youtube-dl), you can see all of the different stream
qualities available (both audio and video). Some videos (particularly official
music videos) have pretty good audio, while amateur videos, remixes, and
parodies usually don’t sound as good.
------
superlopuh
People who build on Electron should understand the technical tradeoffs they
are making. On the one hand, they get a cross platform app, on the other, they
have an extra Issue in their bug tracker to move to another platform, with
occasional reminders thereof.
On an unrelated note, highly polarising comments about languages and
frameworks are characteristic of people who lack real-world programming
experience and are more interested in building an identity than creating
computer programs.
~~~
ourcat
I was recently tasked to build a cross platform win/linux/macos application.
After looking around a few options, I plumped for Electron. (Also since I can
write JS etc. pretty confidently)
Glad I did. The project was done way faster than I could have imagined. And
everyone else was amazed and pleased as punch with the result.
Job done. :)
~~~
chooseaname
Great job optimizing for developer productivity!
------
dmix
This looks great conceptually but the UX on my first run through was awful.
The prominent "Best new music" part had an Earl Sweatshirt album review, so I
wanted to listen to it, but you can't click the album title... only the artist
name. Then I had to sift through 30+ album covers (no titles... not ordered by
release date) to find the one that looked like the one I saw on the previous
page (it had a slightly different cover).
You'd think a "new" album would be at the top.
Then I double clicked the first song twice, then realize there is a popup that
has a "Play Now" button on a SINGLE click (unlike Spotify or Google Music). I
clicked that and it only added it to my "queue", I thought it was downloading
for a couple min, but nope I had to click "Play" at the bottom to actually
start it.
I went to another album, clicked "Play Now" on a song and it froze with the
logo pulsing fullscreen, and I had to restart the app.
This is basic stuff.
~~~
laaph
I'm getting the same results. I've puzzled with it for 20 minutes and have yet
to get sound out of it.
------
tambourine_man
Title suggestion: nuclear - Popcorn Time for music
It's nice to know the project's name
------
laaph
Once upon a time I used a program called iRate. It had an online database of
freely available music, and would download music, and you could rate the
music, and its algorithms would attempt to figure out what music you liked and
provide you with more of it. While the algorithms sucked, it was really nice
to listen to random music, with a menu item that said "download more music",
and get more music you had never heard of.
More recently, I used Songbird (which went through a few name changes). It was
a web browser that tried to include iTunes functionality. It really sucked -
imagine trying to take a normal web browser and make it twice or thrice or
more slower - but the idea was nice, you could go to music blogs, and click
the play button and listen to all the songs they linked to, and click the
download button if you wanted to keep the file.
I am trying to get Nuclear to work, just to see what it's about, but I
literally can't get any audio out of the program. That makes it slightly
useless.
I would love a program that collated legally available music and provide a
music player interface (preferably VLC or WinAmp style and speediness). There
is so much music out there that you would never have to listen to the same
song twice. Digging through SoundCloud and BandCamp and Archive.org would
provide endless music. Archive.org alone, if you wanted to avoid legal issues
(even though lots of music is available free streaming at the other two
websites I mentioned).
Perhaps I'll have to write this program myself. I already have too many
projects as it is, though.
------
kjullien
I love this, it's so simple (at least the idea is) yet nobody has done this.
(as far as I know). I use Popcorn Time almost daily and spent 60 700 minutes
in 2018 listening to Spotify, so it's safe to say I need my music, yet to me
120 Euros a year is 120 spent elsewhere or saved. I already have a VPN
subscription for Popcorn Time so this is really wonderful.
There was at one point an app that did something similar (I can't recall the
name), except it used YouTube instead of torrents which made it pretty useless
for me as I find 128kbps playback rate to be quite terrible.
"It's too late now to be Stripe, but there's plenty still broken in the world,
if you know how to see it." (even if it is of dubious legality)
edit: nvm all that, got fooled by the title. This does not work with torrents
but with free music streaming services, which will clearly be inferior to most
premium services like Spotify, guess I'm starting another new side-project...
------
seanhandley
Not sure making the UI look so much like Spotify was a wise move.
~~~
mhh__
Looks worse, but just as slow!
------
manigandham
Reminds me of AudioGalaxy back in the day, nothing else came close to finding
anything. Eventually it shutdown and Grooveshark was ok for a bit but that
heyday in the early 2000s of music “streaming” was really something.
------
Malp
Didn't we already get a "Popcorn Time for music" (which didn't use legal
sources) with [http://aurous.me/](http://aurous.me/) ?
------
xj9
> Popcorn Time for Music
but where is the torrent client?
------
Yuval_Halevi
Don't call it popcorn time for music.
It looks good enough to stand by itself.
------
anonymous5133
Is this another program which publicly exposes your IP address...and thus
makes you vulnerable to copyright strikes from your ISP or potential legal
action?
------
z3t4
It's amazing that some guy in a garage can do a better job then 500 guy's in a
fancy office ...
~~~
mhh__
It's worse in just about every way than the 500 guys alternative, to be
honest. It's really slow, and try searching for a specific song, or recovering
from a crash, or working out what failed etc.
------
andrewmcwatters
I mean Spotify is built on CEF, so who gives a shit if this is on Electron or
not. It's not like there's a huge difference. Adding a piece of text to the
README just to alienate people isn't wise; it just makes the author look like
a tool, ripe for criticism.
------
aaaaaaaaaab
Ah, an Electron app... :)
Something tells me it doesn't support gapless playback. (I might be wrong tho)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
My First 12 Years at Amazon.com - jeffbarr
http://jeff-barr.com/2014/08/19/my-first-12-years-at-amazon-dot-com/
======
simonebrunozzi
I had the privilege to work at Amazon for 6 years, and Jeff Barr was my first
manager.
I convinced him to hire me through Second Life - read the full story here:
[http://brunozzi.com/2008/05/22/how-i-got-hired-by-
amazoncom/](http://brunozzi.com/2008/05/22/how-i-got-hired-by-amazoncom/)
Jeff, congrats for this achievement! Looking forward to a 15 years anniversary
soon :)
~~~
jeffbarr
Managing is definitely not my best skill; thanks for putting up with me.
We had some great times in Second Life. I wish we had figured out a better way
to use it to our advantage.
------
smacktoward
The description of the State of Web Services circa 2002 is very true -- I was
trying (and failing, sigh) to convince my employer at the time, a data-
processing company, to move towards that model. The world needed a solid
example to look at in order to really "get it," I think; and he's right, at
that time no good example really existed, just toy services, so it was a hard
sell. AWS eventually became that critical example, of course.
It's kind of astonishing in retrospect how far we've come in a very short
time.
------
keithba
I remember being impressed with Jeff way back in those days when we all
thought SOAP was a good idea. His progress at AWS has great to watch.
Congrats!
~~~
jeffbarr
Thanks!
------
mp99e99
wow, great post thanks for sharing
------
bellerocky
A little bit unrelated to the topic, but the writer comes across really
cheerful and to me it feels disingenuous. Is that just me? I don't think
there's anything in the world I could be that cheerful about, maybe a cure for
cancer or eradication of malaria, but I'm not sure I'd even smile, I would
just feel huge relief. Not that there's anything wrong with smiling, I wish
I'd smile more.
> It is hard to imagine another place to work that would be more fun, more
> rewarding, or that would allow me to have a greater impact on the world.
I could see working at Amazon being fun, and you could have a big impact for
better or for worse. I think maybe this a problem I have, but I get really
suspicious when it feels like someone has drunk the Kool-aid, when someone
comes across as an uncritical cheerleader for some large corporation, product
or organization. There always has to be a touch of cynicism or self-
reflection, but this guy is like it's best day ever every day at Amazon. One
does have to reach much to come up with reasonable criticisms of Amazon.
~~~
jeffbarr
I am a positive and cheerful person! In fact, when my brain snapped in to gear
at around 4 AM, I started to outline the post in my head and went downstairs
to write it before 4:30. I think that it is important to realize that there
are real people inside of companies, and that we have thoughts and minds of
our own.
We are a frugal company and there is definitely no free Kool-Aid. I gave up
sugar on April 1 and wouldn't drink it anyway (but that's another blog post).
There are plenty of things that I could point to and say "I don't like this,"
or "that could be better" but that wasn't really my objective. There are a lot
of different ways to organize and run a company.
I have worked at a ton of difference places in my life. Some big, some small.
I have been my own boss for for a while. I have had awful colleagues and
awesome ones. When all is said and done, it is a real privilege to be able to
work with bright, energetic people.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Neil Young Archives - Tomte
https://neilyoungarchives.com/
======
rubberbandage
I love this. Such a perfect web presentation for a man who has both
experimented with cutting-edge technology (e.g. drum machine, vocoder and
synclavier in 1981, the ill-fated Pono player) and been a near-luddite in his
approach to digital music. Skeumorphism is due for its return!
Probably everyone reading HN in the last 8 years has seen the excellent video
by Monty / xiph.org specifically addressing Neil Young and sample rates/bit
rates (for delivery, 44.1kHz/16-bit is really truly all you need), but one
thing very appreciated with this website’s audio streaming is the option of
_uncompressed_ audio, which is much more significant than any high-sample-rate
file would be. And they even have a 320kbps fallback! Finally even Neil Young
can see the benefit of being 12x more data efficient for 99.98% of the
perceived quality.
~~~
jrace
Whats the benefit? \--With todays bandwidth and storage prices, do we really
need to compress audio for delivery over the net?
~~~
tasty_freeze
If you are on a cell phone or a cellular hot spot, data caps are still a
thing. I pay $10/GB for my hotspot bandwidth ($5/GB when it is on sale).
40 minutes of streaming music at 4 Mbps is 1.2GB, so up to $12 for me.
~~~
mark-r
Comcast has a cap on my cable modem. I keep my music files local so I don't
need to pull them from the internet.
------
garbre
Holy skeuomorphism, Batman!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Lip Reading Sentences in the Wild - anishathalye
https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.05358
======
anishathalye
Demo video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aogzAUPilE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aogzAUPilE)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Hundreds of practical ASP.NET Core samples to learn the fundamentals - benaadams
https://www.hanselman.com/blog/HundredsOfPracticalASPNETCoreSamplesToLearnTheFundamentals.aspx
======
32gbsd
I love these massive code dumps but its going to be hard to piece them all
together.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Hunt: A high-level D Programming Language Web framework - chenzhekl
https://github.com/huntlabs/hunt-framework
======
continuations
Why does D perform so poorly for web programming?
[https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/)
I was expecting Rust or C level of performance for D. Instead, D performs on
the same level as Ruby and Python.
~~~
vips7L
Why would you expect rust or C? D has a garbage collector, a better comparison
would be Java or Go
~~~
amelius
The best C framework in that benchmark performs roughly equal to the best Go
framework. So I don't think that garbage collector matters that much.
~~~
TylerE
It's not all clear that a garbage collector isn't an advantage in actual
workloads. Web apps tend to create a lot of short lived objects, and contrary
to popular assumption malloc and free are not free.
~~~
gnulinux
The alternative of gc is not malloc and free. It's custom memory management,
i.e. the code that decides when to execute malloc and when to execute free.
Even a gc will ultimately call the equivalent of malloc or free. The
difference is gc needs to do it generic enough that it works for all possible
programs; whereas a programmer needs to do it in a way it works for this
particular program.
~~~
pjmlp
Many GC languages like D offer the tooling to decide where to allocate as
well, it is not GC for everything.
GC, untraced references, reference counting, stack and global memory segment
allocations, OS system buffers.
The programmer also needs to do it in a way that works for a particular
program instead of doing _new everywhere_.
The advantage being that having a GC around is much more productive for the
workflows that don't need such hand tuning.
------
amelius
Does it compile to WASM so you can have the same code on client and server?
~~~
jimbob45
What would having symmetrical code accomplish?
~~~
amelius
You could speculatively run stuff on the client _and_ run it on the server, to
achieve a speedup.
But there are many more usecases. For example, decoding and encoding of
messages between client and server. Hashing stuff. The list is endless. I
think that once you have experienced programming in the same language on
client and server, you simply don't want to go back to the "split brain" kind
of programming.
~~~
realharo
_> decoding and encoding of messages between client and server_
You can generate the message types and communication functions from a shared
schema, e.g. gRPC/GraphQL/Swagger and many others, which will also lead to
looser coupling and hopefully proper API version/change management.
I feel like unless you're using JavaScript/TypeScript on the server, most of
the benefits of a shared language and framework will be negated by the lack of
easy access to the web frontend ecosystem. (This may not be true for isolated
shared modules that are oblivious to the UI, e.g. validation logic, where the
surface area between it and the rest of the client code is maybe one or two
functions.)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
RoR Quality Checklist - bradgessler
http://www.matthewpaulmoore.com/articles/1276-ruby-on-rails-code-quality-checklist#sti
======
1gor
Totally disagree about STI.
I once had abstracted a complex application as a directed graph that have only
nodes and edges. From there I STIed most of my business entities.
The resulting app had only two tables and complexity relating to the network
was nicely separated from business objects. Which was kind of beautiful.
Now, about testing. Testing of controllers is the key, you say?
Strange enough, I think that unit tests (models) are the most important.
Because controllers are dumb, and often they are not even the only way to
access the logic.
What if your application is called by some AJAX framework that has its own MVC
built-in, like Dojo?
If the design is right, I can get all of my app's functionality from command
line, ignoring the controllers completely.
~~~
bradgessler
I've got mixed feeling about STI. We're using it for one of our larger
projects with success. I don't like that they recommend polymorphism for
everything; this makes iterating collections of the interface very difficult.
Controller tests are actually really important for a few reasons; one of the
more obvious being user authentication. While our controllers tests are anemic
when compared to our model tests, we do test the more heavily used
controllers.
------
altano
Those arguments against using STI are equally valid with inheritance in
general, which is to say not valid.
------
maurycy
Sounds good: "Although unit tests can be important for iterating features, for
most young Rails apps, models are more simplistic. What you should make sure
of is that all points of interaction for users are well tested, and stay un-
broken from release to release.", but is plain bad. With REST controllers and
multiple formats, it is a bad idea to not follow the Fat Model approach.
------
litewulf
I have an actual use for STI.
I store a data grid, of which there are two types of headers. Row and column
headers. (Headers must be their own object for various reasons that are rather
boring).
Rows and columns have identical fields. Voila! STI is actually kind of useful!
As for the rest of the article, it seems reasonable but not mindblowing. Good
to keep in mind though.
------
cosmo7
Check his HTML.
Judging by the unsemantic markup I'd say this chap has a way to go before
lecturing us on software quality. I mean, <p> </p>, really.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
PuzzleScript – an open-source HTML5 puzzle game engine - octosphere
https://www.puzzlescript.net/
======
leafo
A while back I wrote a puzzlescript detector for itch.io, all the browser
based games that use it are automatically tagged. You can see them here:
[https://itch.io/games/made-with-puzzlescript](https://itch.io/games/made-
with-puzzlescript)
~~~
doomlaser
^ leafo is the creator of [https://itch.io](https://itch.io), which is about
the coolest platform for indie game developers out there (deserving of respect
alongside increpare's amazing puzzlescript). I personally like to think of
itchio as almost an Internet Archive for video game culture, as well as
serving a similar function for developers as MySpace did for bands in the 00's
decade.
One of my favorite Puzzlescripts is Farbs' Dungeon Janitor:
[https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6866423](https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6866423),
along with his puzzlescript adaptation of Pac-Man:
[https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6847686](https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6847686)
~~~
TheAceOfHearts
I don't use their platform and I'm not much of a gamer, but one criticism I
read online is that they intend to police their platform more heavily than
Steam. The creator criticized Steam's game policy on Twitter [0]. Of course,
it's their platform and they can do as they please, and if you share their
views then you might view this in a positive light. If I were involved in that
community I'd have some concerns of rules being selectively enforced, although
I don't know if that has ever been an issue with them.
Personally, I've been favoring gog.com over Steam as of late; they have a
decent amount of DRM-free indie games available. I think anyone can submit
their game, although I'm uncertain of their content policy, and I wasn't able
to find any information on it after a quick search.
It's also worth noting that the actual Internet Archive [1] has a large amount
of games freely available. It's mostly retro games, but I don't think there's
any restrictions against modern games. Of course you'd probably only upload
your game there if you were making it freely available, since it's meant as an
actual archive.
[0]
[https://twitter.com/moonscript/status/1004448157776793600](https://twitter.com/moonscript/status/1004448157776793600)
[1] [https://archive.org/](https://archive.org/)
~~~
leafo
Hey, thanks for replying. There was a lot of interpretation of my tweet that
wasn't true, I posted a follow up:
[https://twitter.com/moonscript/status/1004802016252551173](https://twitter.com/moonscript/status/1004802016252551173)
We don't "intend to police," our moderation policies have never
changed.There's a lot of weird stuff on itch.io that will always have a place.
We don't want hate speech on the platform.
It's easy to have a gut reaction of supporting free speech without
understanding the implications of what that entails. Many of the people
clamoring for free speech on gaming platforms still want games to be removed
('asset flips', things they deem low quality, etc.). With my tweet, people
conjured up an idea of a morality police force which is secretly making
decisions about things people are allowed to say. That image is easy to
attack, but it's not even close to how itch.io works, or will ever work.
The reason why I criticized Steam's stance is because they're trying to avoid
responsibility. I'm sure you're familiar with how discourse goes on the
internet: people with strong negative opinions are going to put in
significantly more energy into spreading their message than an average person
who just wants to read around. Their amplified message does not represent
everyone as a whole though. Sure Steam can ban 'trolling,' but that's too
vague. I have a pretty strong feeling that their 'trolling' ban is going to
end up policing the morality of message as well. And, their process is
probably going to be even more secretive.
~~~
TheAceOfHearts
Hi leafo, thank you for taking the time to write a response to my comment, I
genuinely appreciate it. I received a couple downvotes for my comments and I
was a bit down about that, but I think your response is very reasonable.
Like I said, I'm not much of a gamer, but your response makes me want to give
your platform a try. I think if you're willing to have an open discussion
about something for which the outcome might be unknown, things are going well.
I certainly wouldn't make any claim to know what the kinds of barriers and
limits we should have might be. And I totally understand that it can be very
challenging to manage and weight all factors. Realistically, you might get
some stuff right and wrong at times. We're only human, after all.
Having been in the tech industry for a few years, my big piece of advice would
be to try and be as open as possible. I always find it incredibly frustrating
when companies try to cover things up (not accusing you of doing this in the
slightest). I think as long as you communicate openly with the community,
everyone sensible will see that and be willing to take the time to dig into
things.
------
cokernel
This puzzle game engine was written by Stephen Lavelle, who may be best known
for Stephen's Sausage Roll.
Here's Sokogoban, a cute recent game made with the engine:
[https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=8726ac1f3addfe42cc5...](https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=8726ac1f3addfe42cc527c2217b848e8)
I recommend clicking the "hack" link at the bottom to see the code for the
game.
~~~
panic
Another tricky one by Stephen:
[https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=bf3272fd7b73c43acb4...](https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=bf3272fd7b73c43acb4f835478fb25ee)
~~~
ouid
that gave me a bit more trouble than the go one
------
sago
It is great to see this pop-up again. Such a great toolset, deliberately
limited, in such a way that anyone can create a game in an hour or so, but
powerful enough that the games aren't all the same. You can put some genuinely
interesting mechanics into it.
Stephen (the author) knows puzzle games. It is interesting to see his games,
and the sophistication he has generated with this simple rule set. Terry
Cavanagh (of Super Hexagon and VVVVVV fame) has also done some clever stuff
with it.
For someone new to game design, it's a great start. And from there you can
graduate to Pico-8!
Previous discussions in 2013 [0] and 2015 [1].
\---
[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6501034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6501034)
[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9376940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9376940)
------
devveppev
Some classics made in this tool: Heroes of Sokoban 1, 2, and 3, by Jonah
Ostroff.
[https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6860122](https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6860122)
[https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6910207](https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6910207)
[https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=7072276](https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=7072276)
------
0xBA5ED
There was a game awhile back called "A Good Snowman is Hard to Build". The
creator used PuzzleScript as a level editor/prototyper. He would make and play
the levels inside the PuzzleScript engine, then import the completed level
data into his own engine. I thought that was pretty cool.
~~~
doppp
Yup, here's the video at said timestamp:
[https://youtu.be/W_okgL6HJX8?t=24m15s](https://youtu.be/W_okgL6HJX8?t=24m15s)
------
JansjoFromIkea
Stephen Lavelle/Increpare is the most impressive indie game developer out
there by an absolutely landslide imo.
Beyond things like Puzzlescript he's just madly inventive when it comes to
making games and interactive experiences of his own. Stephen's Sausage Roll
and Slave of God ([https://www.increpare.com/2012/12/slave-of-
god/](https://www.increpare.com/2012/12/slave-of-god/)) stand out in
particular to me but on the whole he strikes me as a guy who has tons of great
idea and the talent to implement them. Only issue is he hasn't the time to
devote to take most of them beyond being extremely impressive proofs of
concept.
------
cyborgx7
If you understand games as a system of rules, an engine that lets you simply
describe those rules and then set up starting positions becomes very
interesting. I've been playing puzzlescript games from the gallery, as they
come out, for a while. Would love to see how far you could push this idea.
------
makz
Who needs unity when there is puzzlescript and pico-8?
And before you say “it’s a different use case” that was a rethorical question.
------
kyo3
This is so cool :D
------
andrewmcwatters
> PuzzleScript allows you to express this succinctly: > [ > Player | Crate ]
> -> [ > Player | > Crate ]
I'm sorry. This just isn't succinct. You've immediately lost me. The idea is
nice, and perhaps it works well within the realm of puzzle-specific scripting,
but there's nothing here for a casual reader to interpret.
~~~
0xBA5ED
>...perhaps it works well within the realm of puzzle-specific scripting,
but...
Yes, it is literally named "PuzzleScript". Also, if you continued reading,
you'd find it is succinctly explained.
~~~
andrewmcwatters
Okay, well maybe I've forgotten the definition of "succinct."
> briefly and clearly expressed
Brief, sure, clearly expressed? Absolutely not. There's more to puzzles than
moving things around.
[ > Player | Crate ] -> [ > Player | > Crate ]
This isn't succinct. This is brief. Puzzles, and games in general do more than
move things around. So, if I wanted something to turn into a different item,
where's the syntax for it?
There doesn't seem to be any.
The syntax is seems to be for moving things. Okay. What if I want something to
slide over multiple tile spaces? Where's the syntax for this?
There doesn't seem to be any.
What if I want the item to progressively become more difficult to move, say
for instance if I'm moving a snowball. Where's that syntax?
There doesn't seem to be any.
So, in short, an entire syntax has been developed for one feature: movement.
And it doesn't do it well. Why would I use this?
~~~
sago
On the off chance that you have a genuine interest in knowing the answers to
your questions, and are not grandstanding, I will answer.
First differentiate between the syntax and the tool. This isn't a tool that
supports every possible game. It is designed for creating movement-based
puzzle games. Though it can support many others, that is its focus. You can
certainly stretch it to do Tetris or Threes, but probably not Mario.
If you are involved in game technology, it is a masterclass in supporting a
very large (but still restricted) class of games in a very small tool set.
So, specifics:
> if I wanted something to turn into a different item
[> Player | Box] -> [Player | Contents]
assuming you open your box by moving into it, or
[Action Player | Box] -> [Player | Contents]
if you want to press the action button.
> What if I want something to slide over multiple tile spaces
[ > Player | Crate ] -> [ > Player | > Crate ]
[ > Crate | no Wall ] -> [ | > Crate ]
The first line says moving into a crate sets the crate in motion. The second
line says it keeps going until it hits a wall.
> if I want the item to progressively become more difficult to move
What does it mean to become more difficult, given that moves are atomic
actions? (Back to the restricted domain of this tool.) But, for one possible
design, we can do:
[ > Player | LightObject ] -> [ > Player | > LightObject ]
[ > StrongPlayer | LightObject ] -> [ > StrongPlayer | > LightObject ]
[ > StrongPlayer | HeavyObject ] -> [ > StrongPlayer | > HeavyObject ]
Regular players can move only light objects, strong players can move either.
The ethos of the system is that to change state, you change object type. This
is less restrictive than it sounds, because it is possible to layer objects.
But it is still restrictive. And deliberately so.
> it doesn't do it well.
Based on the calibre of people who have used this, including for the rule
development and level design for decently successful commercial indie games,
it might be worth entertaining the notion that it might just be you. A more
constructive and educational alternative might be to try and specify the same
sophistication of rules in a more succinct syntax.
------
andrew_wc_brown
I haven't been working on my game since my newborn has been my priority but I
have an open-source tetris-attack like game built in eletron, typescript and
phaser.
Its deterministic, has multiplayer, and frame to frame recreation to the
tetris-attack mechanics
[https://github.com/omenking/swap-n-pop](https://github.com/omenking/swap-n-
pop)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Hacking Christmas lights - jroseattle
http://www.deepdarc.com/2010/11/27/hacking-christmas-lights/
======
slug
The price surely beats buying/building a bunch of i2c rgb leds ( buy:
<https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8579> clone:
<http://hackaday.com/2011/06/22/building-diy-blinkm-clones/> )
It also reminds me of the christmas lights webcam, controlled from the web:
<http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/christmas_webcam>
------
5hoom
Technically brilliant and completely ridiculous, this really is in the spirit
of old-school hacking.
My favourite bit was the author describing how the none of the lights have
their brightness value set above 0xCC by the manufacturer, and while the
lights accept brightness values up to 0xFF:
"I don't recommend it unless you really know what you are doing. It was
probably set to this for a reason" (as if any of this should be attempted
unless you really know what you are doing!).
I must confess I had never thought of controlling my christmas lights via
webbrowser either. Fun stuff :)
~~~
joezydeco
The last time this link showed up, some guy had hacked them to show Live
Messenger contact status out of Lync. Now _that's_ a good hack:
[http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/12/15/microsoft-
nerd-...](http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/12/15/microsoft-nerd-reverse-
engineers-christmas-lights-uses-them-as-im-indicators/)
------
_pius
Every now and again you see a post that truly feels like hacker news. This is
one of those posts.
~~~
Martijn
<http://www.evilmadscientist.com/> has lots more of this stuff if you are
interested in it.
------
ImprovedSilence
I love seeing hacks like this. And one can always pick up something awesome.
Also, I never heard of Saleae logic before, but now, I must have it.
~~~
steve_b
You will not be disappointed by the Saleae logic. Almost everyday I'm amazed
by how beautiful and useful it is. My Logic16's in the mail!
------
timmaah
I have 98 of these in a box on my wall...
You can "control" it via a web app running node.js. Had a bunch of kids over
this weekend who loved playing with it.
~~~
jamesbressi
Post a video of what it can do. I (I'm sure we) would all love to see it!
~~~
timmaah
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXahEYJX9-g>
Me drawing some grass, sky, sun then house on the ipad.
The box on the wall is 2' by 4'
~~~
joezydeco
That's _brilliant_! Nicely done.
------
thirdhaf
I really wanted to use these exact lights for a giant display in some friends'
Burning Man camp this year but the G-35's are pretty much impossible to find
at the moment. These lights are on my wish list for Christmas :-)
~~~
jroseattle
Actually, I found palettes (plural) of them at Costco this afternoon. $65.
~~~
unwind
Micro-nit: you mean "pallets" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallet>, not
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palette>).
~~~
jroseattle
Yes, correct. Thank you, Firefox spell-check add-on.
~~~
unwind
From your point of view, I'm actually browser-independent. An amazing value.
------
swah
ybox2 is a collaboration with the ladyada:
<http://www.adafruit.com/products/95>
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: What techniques do you use for personal goal setting? - wacheena
I've had a laundry list of goals for a few years now that I review every month. I don't think it's working for me because I don't seem to be achieving them.<p>What methods, techniques and strategies do HNers use to set goals and achieve them?
======
eengstrom
Goal setting and achieving requires one of two things in my mind; internal
driving forces or external driving forces.
A long time ago I was both hired and fired by a pair of brilliant Hollywood
producers. The mid-sized video game company I worked for had just been
acquired by a major player; we killed ourselves for a year on a totally mind-
blowing franchise game, yet the title was sh*tcanned near release (Oh, 3DO)
and then they dumped the entire team off a ledge, myself included.
In the hiring interview the producer asked me "What is your six month goal,
year, three and five year plans?" Oddly the hiring meeting helped me prepare
for the layoff meeting and the next 18 years in my career. She referred to my
near-term goals, which had changed, obviously but I was able to take the
firing calmly because I saw it was a twist and event in part of a broader,
longer-term plan.
The vast majority of people I know are nearly headless when it comes to goals.
You don't have to define a 3,000 point plan, but if you can learn to set a
horizon and a few steps towards the point you want to reach, you can in turn
focus on the immediate and near-term and actually become much more flexible in
your approach to the outcome. You learn from practice whether something takes
you closer or further away from that 1, 3, or 5 year plan and make better
personal decisions.
If you simply can't seem to meet any goals, there are tons of books and audio
sources for basic goal and discipline building. Your goals may be unreasonable
or you may lack the underlying strong habits to push for a better outcome.
I would suspect that you are lacking discipline. If you're undisciplined you
may need to find other sources of drive to meet your goals. If you're an
entrepreneur, you need to get some mentoring and find someone willing to help
keep you focused and on track.
------
nudge
Goals don't work for me. Habits do. See if you can transform your goals into
things you can actually do, rather than things you want to reach.
~~~
dmc
An interesting post on habit-setting is on the front page right now.
[http://lifehacker.com/#!281626/jerry-seinfelds-
productivity-...](http://lifehacker.com/#!281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-
secret)
& the comment thread
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2262437>
------
petervandijck
Visualize the future (ie. dream), but don't worry about the short term too
much. It tends to work for me. (ie. the big stuff that I imagined 10 years ago
has come true, but all the little steps in between were quite unpredictable).
The hardest thing seems to be to dream big/bold enough.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Homestead High School Newspaper, May 22, 1977 - timdierks
http://imgur.com/st7eyiR
======
nealabq
The paper was, and still is, called The Epitaph.
Chris at the time was also one of the publishers/writers of an "underground"
school paper called The Road Apple.
------
DrScump
That McDonald's still exists in the same location, but I bet they won't accept
the coupon anyway.
~~~
pikachu_is_cool
Especially since it expires on May 29, 1XXX
~~~
DrScump
Theoretically, it _could_ be A.D. 10,000+
------
ashwinl
Part of the ethos back then too: "Apple Computer Inc. will explain how to use
any of the equipment you have or give demonstrations before you buy one"
------
coldcode
If you invested the price of the burger (a bit later on when they went public)
and held it to today you could probably buy a whole franchise.
------
rocky1138
I wonder... whatever happened to those two Apple ][ units which were shipped
off to Saskatchewan?
~~~
Ogre
Don't know about those, but here's an Apple ][ still in use in 2009 (How it's
made - player piano rolls of all things)
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uL9NudhhSQE](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uL9NudhhSQE)
It's like an obsolete technology fractal.
------
DerekL
The article misspells the name of the company. It was “Apple Computer, Inc.”,
not “Computers”.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Making the 'IMDB for games': how we hope to boost discoverability in gaming - elcoldtown
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-02-06-making-rawg-the-imbd-for-games
======
eridius
I assume the RAWG being talked about here is
[https://rawg.io](https://rawg.io). Odd that they didn't include a single link
in the article.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
For a cleaner and safer internet (video) - seven
http://www.cleanternet.org/
======
ff0066mote
This is definitely a satire, but it's so deadpan that it was hard for me to
pick up on until nearing the end of the video. Amazing.
~~~
Hexstream
Somewhere on the internet, someone is taking this seriously.
~~~
crocowhile
See <http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe%27s_Law> What I don't understand is what
is the position of Cecilia Malmström is.
~~~
seven
Cecilia Malmström plans to introduce a website blocking system in Europe. This
part is sadly no satire.
~~~
crocowhile
And these people keep calling themselves "Liberals". Beats me.
~~~
ugh
Liberal is used as a descriptive term in the US while in this case it’s part
of a party name. Party names don’t have to – for various historical reasons –
reflect the current political positions of a party (think US party names).
That’s especially the case in current European democracies with proportional
representation. All the parties have very similar positions close to the
center, it’s easy for any one party to end up to the “left” or “right” of
other parties on any one issue.
(Liberal also doesn’t have the same meaning in Europe as in the US. Liberals
in Europe are usually socially permissive as well as economically permissive –
like Libertarians in the US. But that doesn’t have anything to do with the
point you are making – Malmström’s position is not exactly socially
permissive.)
~~~
crocowhile
>Liberal also doesn’t have the same meaning in Europe as in the US.
I know. I am Italian.
>Malmström’s position is not exactly socially permissive.
That's the point. There's nothing liberal in censorship.
~~~
ugh
>I know. I am Italian.
Oh, sorry. I promise, no more bad assumptions. I should have just written that
party names are not a good predictor of political positions and left it at
that :)
~~~
crocowhile
No prob. It's sad to see that Internet Freedom is really being attacked
transversely by all political sides, on every continent. Always with the lame
excuse of child pornography. I still haven't decide whether this is the
Intellectual Property mafia lobbying or perhaps politicians start to be really
afraid of the internet.
------
CulturalNgineer
Satire for sure...
But the link to PayPal is real enough!
I wonder if they've taken in any money? And if so, did the people think they
were supporting this nutty idea or supporting satire?
------
jayliew
China's internet as the future of the internet for the rest of the world? I
don't know if I should laugh or cry.
------
madmaze
I really do hope this is satire. otherwise it would be the beginning of the
start of 1984
------
ra
Sadly this is true in Australia too.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Early Startup Time Wasters - icey
http://talkfast.org/2012/05/05/early-startup-time-wasters
======
localhost3000
I've had the opposite experience with working at home vs working in a shared
space. I was much, much more productive working at home (having a 'home
office', aka a room with a desk and no tv was key) but I am far happier
working out of a shared space where I have other humans to bond with (and whom
I have become close friends with). On balance, moving into a shared space has
been a great decision but I do sometimes miss the ruthless productivity that
came from having absolutely zero distractions.
~~~
sukuriant
I came on here to say basically this. Some days, especially when I've had too
much of the same atmosphere, I find that going home and working from there via
remote desktop can increase my productivity, if it's maintained for a day or
two. Then, when I return to my normal office, I'm similarly productive -- and
both of these are more productive than the day before that I didn't work from
home.
The "work from home" is definitely a "your mileage may vary"
~~~
vbtemp
Above all else, a commute to the office will suck all the creative juices
straight from your cranium. Spending 30+ minutes schlepping through traffic
each way makes the whole day a waste.
~~~
mattmanser
Don't drive yourself then? You chose where you live, if daily commute factored
so low, well, that was your choice. I walk or get the bus depending on
mood/weather. Great way to start the day.
~~~
karamazov
This comment is smug rather than constructive or helpful. It might be useful
the next time the poster decides to move, but it's certainly not useful right
now.
~~~
rohansingh
I think that in a way, your comment actually proves the parent's point. As you
said, "the next time the poster decides to move".
The operative part there is that it is the poster's decision. I think most of
us who have the resources to begin a startup or afford renting a coworking
space also have the ability to be somewhat mobile within our local geographic
area. Americans in particular are known for moving quite often.
To conclude, I think that considering a walkable or bikeable commute or the
availability of public transit is great advice for anyone who is planning on
moving within the next five years — which is nearly 75% of the US population.
------
Udo
Of course, everyone's mileage varies. There are many items on that list that
should be universal, though:
Invite-only access (pisses me off as an interested user all the time), go-
nowhere "partnership" promises from other companies (I too wasted _a lot_ of
time on these dubious proposals during my startup time) and, the closely
related point: "quick" meetings with people who do nothing but serve their own
[and often times underwhelming] agenda.
Working from home on the other hand is probably a personal thing - some people
think it's great, for others it doesn't seem to work out at all. Personally, I
prefer a mixture. At home I _do_ get a lot of things done that require
concentration.
------
ezl
This.
Startups are an acute instance of "too much to do, too little time". Good task
prioritization might be the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT skill that a startup founder
needs to develop.
Not all failures are time wasters though -- some of the items in that list
seem reasonable enough (techcrunch amazon affiliate links).
DHH said something like "If you're not working on your single best idea,
you're doing it wrong". He was talking about startups, but I think that could
be applied to your to do list as well.
~~~
jen_h
TechCrunch is a really neat cap-feather, but it mostly just pulls in a lot of
non-real-user inbound interest in my experience (VCs, potential partners) -
and if you're not close to ready or even interested in funding/partnerships,
all that inbound interest wastes a lot of time, too - so you might as well get
closer to a point where you're ready and willing to handle the inbound queries
(i.e., capture your users, make them happy first), and then get the coverage.
~~~
rhizome
"Lookie-loos," "window shoppers," etc.
------
nikkisnow
I have to agree with the first point of the article regarding 'Invite Only' -
this has been one of the biggest headaches in all of the projects I've been
involved in. It seems there is little to gain in preventing people to sign up
with your app. It doesn't seem to increase interest for users and, in all
reality, denying access when the visitor is ready to sign up is just not
smart. Numbers count; 10,000 potential users doesn't seem to be as strong a
number as 1,000 actual users.
~~~
rhizome
It started with the original GMail invites and became somewhat of a mythical
buzz-producing technique that really only worked for a limited number of
sites. Turntable.fm is the last one that I remember learning about in a way
that seemed to generate more interest.
------
jvoorhis
I tend to be much more productive on days when I work from home, but after a
1.5 year stretch with an out of state company I found it harder to stay
focused at home.
I've found lately that occasionally varying my work location – maybe 3 days in
the office, 2 at home or at a quiet cafe – is refreshing and helps me avoid
the slump.
------
javajosh
I enjoyed this post quite a lot. I'd like to see a companion post on
specifically engineering time-wasters - e.g. did you find that evaluating new
technologies to solve problems to be an unnecessary risk, or a pleasant
surprise that ended up saving time and effort in the long run? What about the
tension between "one size fits all" tools and tools that are so specialized
that you need a tool to select the right tool?
~~~
erichocean
Developing general solutions to specific problems is an engineering
timewaster, in my experience.
Using complicated tools and tooling where simpler tooling would cover your
actual needs with less effort.
Developing a solution that attempts to meet all needs with a lot of effort,
instead of developing a product that meets the needs that can be effectively
addressed.
I'm guilty of the last one, so what I do is develop two solutions:
1\. a solution that actually "solves" the problem with engineering (the
"right" way to do it), and
2\. a second approach that is an order of magnitude (sometimes a few orders)
easier to implement that _partially_ solves the problem, but requires a bit of
management to stay "solved" over time.
Engineers seem to prefer engineering solutions (go figure), but especially in
business, a combination of engineering and management is usually the most
cost-effective approach.
------
lrobb
There's 2 big ones:
1\. Writing code. 2\. Not committing.
You should never write a single line of code until you have a customer lined
up. Not in theory, in reality. Not a friend that says it's a great idea, and
they'd use your software. A list of verifiable people that you don't know that
want to pay you money. Someone that can write a check at BigCo. Someone that
is beta testing your product live.
On commitment, cue the joke about pig & chicken opening a ham & eggs
restaurant: The pig says no thanks, he'd be committed, the chicken would
merely be involved. This kind of ties in with #1... If you don't have an
actual paying customer lined up, it's really easy to get involved in "side"
activities... I'll just bust out this contract real quick... Sounds like a
cool company, I'll go interview (especially bad when it involves samples).
~~~
kkowalczyk
That sounds good on paper but in reality writing code for new product is based
on faith. You don't know what will work and figuring that is both the most
risky part of writing software as well as most lucrative (when solved).
And the only way to find out if something will sell is to build and try to
sell. The method you advocate (get sales before you have a product) just
doesn't work.
"A list of verifiable people that you don't know that want to pay you money"
How do you propose to "verify", or even find, people that you don't know?
"Someone that can write a check at BigCo."
Would _you_ write a check for something that doesn't yet exist? How do you
know, from just a description of the product, whether it's going to be moral
equivalent of Vista (a massive flop by Windows standards) or 7 (a massive
success)?
You don't, which is why no one pays for ideas or description of future
products.
"Someone that is beta testing your product live."
That does require that code has already been written, doesn't it?
~~~
lrobb
You don't have to actually have a product before you sell it, or build
something to see if it will sell... It's called vaporware : a computer-related
product that has been widely advertised but has not and may never become
available
~~~
lrobb
Don't hate peeps.
It's called "Minimum Viable Product" now, but 15 years ago we called it
vaporware.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product>
_The canonical MVP strategy for a web application is to create a mock website
for the product and purchase online advertising to direct traffic to the site.
The mock website may consist of a marketing landing page with a link for more
information or purchase. The link is not connected to a purchasing system,
instead clicks are recorded and measure customer interest._
That is how you get sales before you have a product... Or at least know that
you'll get sales.
------
knes
It maybe worked for him but I found it hard that it can be applied to every
startups
1\. Invite-Only Access. Depending the service your startup offer ( Storage &
bandwidth heavy ), you will have to offer to do invite only because you can't
just spend all the money you don't have on this. Invites will allow you to
control the cost of it all.
2\. & 3\. Real-time traffic measurement & User admin dashboard Those are the
only one I agree :)
4\. Experimenting with ads too early. Using ads early can be a really asset.
For example, It can allow you to A/B test some new messages or value
proposition. It can also help you see if you product can appeal to a certain
niche by hyper targeting your ads ( Does 20-25 old people living in New jersey
and who likes Soccer and BBQ will be interested in my product? )
5\. Amazon Affiliate links I think its great he took the time to try it out.
The goal is not to make loads of $$ with "a few thousands uniques/day" It's to
see the conversion rate. It didn't work out in his case so that "business
model idea" he can write off of his list.
6\. Techcrunch TC offer you so much more than traffic & SEO. It will be let
the world you exist to important people ( angels, VC, etc )
7\. One-off partnership projects. His experience isn't a good one. Probably
didn't negotiate hard enough with his partner. BizDev / Partnership can bring
tremendous traction to your startup if done right. Just don't get screwed up
by the other guy and don't waste time "building a prototype" for him without a
signed contract.
8\. coffee Meetings Sure the productivity can take a hit if you do it "too
much". But think about the social aspect of it. Wether it with coworker or
external people to network. it will help build a strong relationship.
9.Excessive side projects As a manager you have the duty to keep everyone
happy and productive. The coders will always have side project. Better to have
them work on a side project for your company and under your supervision than
to pissed them off and make them work on the side project during the Weekend.
10\. Working from home Working in an open space can be a pain in the ass for
some people. Because people will interrupt them all the time because of a bugs
/ ideas / whatever. If they are to introvert to say no, their productivity
will go down the drain. So better for them to work some times from home to be
truly focus on their work.
Cheers,
------
silverbax88
I do have to say that he's talking about learning the ropes of your business,
not 'time-wasters'.
An example for me would be that we have one area of business where we organize
events. In order to attract attendees, we tried Google Ads, Facebook ads,
email blasts, flyers in popular locations/stores, newsletter ads. None of it
worked, or it barely worked. By year two we figured out that for our market,
postal mailers worked like crazy. Sending a letter to the prospects home gave
us super ROI.
Do I wish I'd known that at the beginning? Yes. But it took going through all
of those other methods to hit on the one that worked, which gave our company
domain knowledge.
This is really just a version of the business axiom 'Fail faster.'
------
jen_h
Great advice. I know better now, but I often wonder how much time we would
have saved our first few years if I auto-deleted anything that included the
text "jump on a call."
------
vbtemp
This is really interesting. I'm planning my own limited invite-only beta
rollout. However, this isn't the first time I heard it's a time-waster.
Does anyone else have opinions on this?
~~~
mattmanser
Do you really think you're going to be overwhelmed with sign ups?
Simple beta: Add 'we're in beta' to your sign up page.
Done.
Invite-only: don't link the signup page to the rest of the site. Add it to the
ignore in robots.
Done.
Anyone who finds it, well they just wanted it enough. Too many sign ups? Take
the page away. Get rid of the template page, whatever. It takes about 10 secs
to kill a page in most languages without a redeploy.
Writing lots of extra code?
Sucker.
Don't over-engineer.
~~~
vbtemp
The only thing is that this is not a free service, so I want just a couple
users to flesh things out and get some new opinions, before releasing
something that flops and gets a bad rap.
~~~
ismarc
Make a signup page to be part of the beta, include the disclaimer that it's
free during the beta but once the service is publicly available it will be
charged for and the fees are waived during the beta in exchange for bug
reports, possible issues/downtime, etc. Then, whenever someone signs up, just
automatically send them an invite. You don't limit the people who want to use
it in the beta and can provide valuable feedback and you set expectations
appropriately for leaving free status and to the state of the application. And
if you think that you may get a bad rap for being in "beta" and it not being
as good as Google's beta, just call it "alpha" instead.
------
kpennell
Great list. I really like that idea of shot selection. 1000 options of what
you can do...which one will yield the best results? What a tough question.
------
par
Love this post, I definitely focus on TC too much. Love seeing how to maximize
press outlets.
------
methoddk
6\. TechCrunch
Yes.
------
sohels
Thats a great list to avoid... but why not partnerships? Specially when
working on a B2B platform, I believe its important to build relationships from
the get go.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Redux is Overhyped - shakiba
https://medium.com/@shakiba/redux-is-overhyped-3ad6e42b7730#.3z55wexom
======
ng12
> Is it easy to replace Redux with another state-container or data-storage
> without updating entire app?
Yes. This is why I use Redux. All the other stuff like reproducibility, state
persistence, and devtools are just icing on the cake.
Redux heavily encourages architectures where the vast majority of your app has
no knowledge of how data is stored, fetched, or updated. I purposely architect
everything so that Redux would be easy to remove -- not that I actually plan
on doing it, but it's a good litmus test that my architecture is properly
data-agnostic. The end outcome is that the majority of the code is "pure" \--
that is reusable, composable, and predictable. It's also immediately obvious
which code actually touches state (namely actions, reducers, and containers).
------
lioeters
This reminds me of a recent article by the author of Redux, who wrote ["You
might not need Redux"]([https://medium.com/@dan_abramov/you-might-not-need-
redux-be4...](https://medium.com/@dan_abramov/you-might-not-need-redux-
be46360cf367)). It was refreshing how he emphasized that Redux is just an
implementation of a design pattern (or a composition of a few), that it's not
necessarily "the solution". If another state management library works better
for some applications, then use that instead.
"Overhyped" implies that its popularity is not worth its value. It's clear
that it has proven its value to a majority of developers working with React.
Especially as applications grow larger, I've found that using Redux provides
an intuitive pattern for sane state management.
It does have its pain points (verbosity, async actions) but there's a plethora
of libraries one could choose from, depending on need and preference. Since
the core functions are so simple, they can be adapted as needed - for example,
in a recent project I wrote a wrapper (~20 lines) to extend actions and
reducers with namespaces.
An additional advantage of Redux, I think, is that it's becoming widely
adopted, so when I look at an open-source codebase built on React + Redux,
it's so easy to understand the application architecture.
~~~
shakiba
> when I look at an open-source codebase built on React + Redux, it's so easy
> to understand the application architecture.
That's my point, I believe a library should not imply architecture.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Put "Web 2.0" Out to Pasture - VonGuard
http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2009/04/06/Put-Web-20-Out-to-Pasture.aspx
The term is now meaningless. At least increment it, or just forget the term and conferences all together.
======
catone
I'm kind of sick of the "kill Web 2.0" meme... it's easily as tired as the
term Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 isn't a version. For O'Reilly it's a marketing term used to sell
books, blogs, magazines, and conferences. For everyone else who took part in
the infamous definition discussions it was a helpful prompt for talking about
where the web is and where it's going. Really, though, Web 2.0 just signifies
whatever we're doing with the web right now that is exciting and cool and
different from how we used the web 5, 10 or 15 years ago.
Here's an excerpt from a piece I wrote at ReadWriteWeb last year entitled
"There is No Web 3.0, There is No Web 2.0 - There is Just the Web" ...
"[The] versioning of the web is silly. Web 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 is all really just
whatever cool new thing we're using the web to accomplish /right now/.
...
Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 -- they don't really exist. They're just arbitrary numbers
assigned to something that doesn't really have versions. But the discussion
that those terms have prompted have been helpful, I think, in figuring out
where the web is going and how we're going to get there; and that's what is
important."
Link:
[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/there_is_no_web_30_ther...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/there_is_no_web_30_there_is_no_web_20.php)
So let's dispense with the "Web 2.0 is over, onto the next version!" meme and
instead just focus on what the web is, what we can do with it now, and where
we can take it in the future. </rant>
~~~
Brushfire
Clearly, you havent heard about web 4.0 -- with extra rounded buttons, and
fonts starting at 48px. We're talking about community driven concepts here,
that synergizes our enterprise collaboration dynamics, and causes a dramatic
paradigm shift of long tail immersion.
All kidding aside, I'm totally with you.
I'm also amused when people talk about 'Mobile Web'. There is no such thing.
------
josefresco
"Version 2.1 will probably look the way Google Chrome expects: individual apps
are no-longer desktop bound, and we all live in something like Google Docs and
Gmail"
If this is the future count me out. Not because I have any issues with online
apps or Google (ok I do have issues with Goog), mostly because it sounds
awfully fucking boring.
Ooo my same applications only .... online! Awesome, now what.
~~~
axod
>> "Ooo my same applications only .... online! Awesome, now what."
Ok here's a few reasons why this really is awesome for most people.
* OK, so I don't have to download anything, don't need to worry about spyware/virii/etc
* Cool. I can access my applications from my PC, my friends, my iPhone, a net cafe, the library.
* Ooops, my hard disk died. Oh well, all my data is 'safe'.
* Ooops, my hard disk died. At least I don't have to download and install tons of applications.
Not to mention the fact that those apps instantly get easy access to 'auto-
update' 'share' 'collaborate' etc - they're easy to 'multi-userfy'
Desktop software will always have a place, just like not _everyone_ uses
webmail. But for the majority, webmail is just way easier for them.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
I Can't Code, But You Can't Sell - MarlonPro
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130506164555-10486099-i-can-t-code-and-you-can-t-sell-crap
======
DamnYuppie
There is a great deal of honest introspection that has to be done in order for
someone to reach the conclusion that they are a #2 or #3 and not a #1. I find
most people don't do that.
That being said the other side of the coin is once you know your strengths and
how you operate you will find many people look at you as if you are broken if
you admit you don't wish to be the "UberFounder" or CEO. It has also been my
experience that many of the "UberFounders" or CEO's are threatened by a
competent #2.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Best E-Mail Program Ever: How Gmail destroyed Outlook. - robg
http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2210090
======
bk
"The best e-mail program ever"? Hardly. "One of the least shitty of the bunch"
is probably more appropriate.
Gmail easily beats the old-school bunch, but the quantum leap of email is
definitely still ahead of us.
~~~
shutter
What would you like to see in that quantum leap?
~~~
est
IMHO something like Chandler Project. PIM+PKM+GTD+Workflow
~~~
carterschonwald
I was actually trying out Chandler earlier this week and I found it
disappointingly hard to configure, and I'm not normally one to have that be
the show stopper (cf occasionally spending 10 hrs figuring out how to build
some unixy software and have it interact nicely with some sort of emacs
package)
------
mattmaroon
I still greatly prefer Outlook + Exchange. Gmail was not built for power
emailers or it would have folders (or at least hierarchical tags). It would
have the ability to mark something for follow up, then have it pop up in your
to-do list later. It would have ActiveSync and/or Blackberry server so it
could support push email to the smartphones that people actually own. It would
be able to sync your contacts and calendar from one phone/client to another.
(Calendar + ActiveSync + Smartphone = personal assistant.) It would have crazy
powerful rules like Outlook. It would have baked in RSS functionality. Need I
continue?
I'm a power emailer and that's why I don't use Gmail's web interface. It's
meant for casual users. I do use the service though due to free forwarding.
~~~
ohhmaagawd
Wow. I think Outlook is one of the shittiest pieces of software Microsoft has
ever made. Lets see... it crashes all the time. It is dog slow. You shut it
down and it doesn't really shut down.
The search is pathetic. This is huge. If you can't find your email, it's not
very useful.
Organizing emails by folder isn't necessary if you have a powerful search
facility. Gmail search is much faster than any outlook search and it actually
gives you what you need. Manual folder organization is a waste of time.
Labels are useful with the rule wizard. And I have to say I find the rules on
Gmail much nicer than Outlook. And unlike Outlook, you don't have to start up
your client to run them.
You can sync your contacts, etc...Google has all kinds of sync softare (gry
google-ing it).
You can access gmail from any phone that uses IMAP/POP (including blackberry).
You have 7 gigs of storage. Instead of the pathetic 100 meg that you usually
see with corporate Exchange servers.
The spam filtering doesn't even compare. Google has mastered it.
You can hook gmail up to your own domain easily (google apps account).
And GMail is free.
I think you have it backwards. Gmail is the power user's email, outlook is for
people who are stuck in the past.
~~~
eli
I prefer GMail as well, but you're not making a very strong case for it.
Outlook has its benefits and:
* The search has improved in Outlook 2007, plus there are 3rd party search tools and plugins (like Google Desktop, of course)
* Labels/Folders is not a big difference, and with a proper Exchange server set up, the Outlook rules _do_ run on the server not just your client
* IMAP/POP is _not_ the same as ActiveSync or Blackberry Server support. It's a big difference (Push vs Scheduled Pull) and is a dealbreaker for most Blackberry users.
* Gmail may give you 7 gigs, but Outlook/Exchange gives you as much as you have hard drive space for, and hard drives are awfully cheap these days. The fact that some corporations have crappy policies isn't Outlook's fault.
* GMail is free, but most people get Outlook with Office, which they were gonna buy anyway. Exchange server isn't free, but it's only a few grand. And, notably, it means you control and store all your own email, this makes GMail a dealbreaker for people for various security or legal reasons.
But yeah, the Outlook spam filtering sucks. There are plugins to make it
better, but I still think GMail has the best anti-spam I've ever seen.
------
arien
Gmail isn't perfect. The only two real reasons why I use Gmail and not Outlook
are:
\- I can access it online from anywhere without configuring much.
\- Because of the good spam filter, saves me from installing Mail Washer or
other anti spam tools.
Couple of things I don't like about Gmail:
\- Still doesn't have folders (labels are OK but they don't have any kind of
hierarchy).
\- I miss the drag&drop functionality from Outlook (e.g. mark a couple of
emails and drop them into some folder or the trashcan, much faster than having
to select the label from that pulldown).
\- It's missing desktop alerts. Sometimes they are annoying, but with some
configuring they are pretty useful at work. I have that Firefox extension to
check incoming emails @ Gmail, but I can't configure it to show only certain
emails.
Of course Outlook isn't perfect either, but I don't think it has been
"destroyed" yet.
~~~
decadentcactus
If you use Gtalk, it'll pop up (silently) when you get a new email.
~~~
froo
While I was using Windows I found Digsby to be the best of the IM clients that
I tested.
It gave the notifications for gmail, but also twitter, facebook and handled a
couple of my IM accounts.
Very useful, pity no client for linux or mac yet :\
~~~
peregrine
I don't like giving Digsby my login information for everyone of my sites.
Especially after they ask you to install 4 or 5 toolbars and spyware.
I'd rather use pidgin or just gtalk.
~~~
froo
interesting - when I first installed it it had no such toolbars etc.
Perhaps give digsby a miss then.
~~~
peregrine
They ask if you want to install them. You have the option to opt out but the
fact that they make money on people being careless concerns me.
------
kennyroo
The title of this post (not the related article) is misleading. While I wish
Outlook would go down in flames, it's alive and well in just about every
corporation in America. Gmail hasn't destroyed it. I'm not even sure that
Gmail is all that great of a product, storage limits aside. It could be a heck
of a lot better with some UI love.
~~~
anthonyrubin
As far as I'm aware Gmail is far behind even the other webmail providers.
~~~
PieSquared
Behind how? I've been using it for a while and have missed nothing; am I
missing out on something I don't even know about?
~~~
inerte
I think he meant behind in terms of number of users. Gmail is third, if I
remember correctly (after Yahoo and Hotmail)
~~~
kolya3
Everyone I know has a hotmail account. It's everyone's throwaway-give-to-
spammers account. Those same people have all slowly migrated to using their
Gmail address for their most important emails. So if you look only at number
of users, Gmail might be behind. But if you were to know the number of active
users, I would guess Gmail is way ahead.
~~~
inerte
Why guess? :)
[http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-
statist...](http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-
statistics.htm)
If you're inclined to believe what the companies say about its own services.
------
tortilla
Actually I would say, "The Best Spam Filter Ever" - Gmail
~~~
jwilliams
I actually find Yahoo better.
Not sure why - perhaps they process a greater volume of mail so they have more
data to crunch.
~~~
known
I think search in Yahoo Mail sucks.
~~~
dotcoma
so does the spam filter.
------
tokenadult
Gmail's facilities for building contact lists are still abominably poor. I
switch to the old version every time I need to build a list to, for example,
contact all students in a class I teach.
~~~
likpok
This is true. There is no way to merge contacts (if it auto-adds the same
person as two different people), which makes reasonably contact lists
frustrating.
------
neilk
Why is everyone giving the credit to Gmail? It's Gmail + Gears.
Anyway, compared to desktop email clients, Gmail still lacks a lot of
features. Although the spam filtering and search does put it in a class by
itself.
Something tells me that person-to-person asynchronous messaging hasn't been
solved forever. Call it a hunch.
------
RK
Now imagine if an email service/client actually got a large number of people
to start using encryption. That would be an impressive feat.
~~~
jff
Agreed. Encryption/signing is easy with Claws mail (which is what I use on
Linux) but Gmail doesn't seem to make any concessions.
~~~
RK
You can encrypt Gmail with something like FireGPG, a Firefox plugin:
<http://getfiregpg.org>
I use Enigmail with Thunderbird, but the number of people I use it with is
_very_ small.
The desire to have ubiquitous email access makes the implementation of secure
email even more difficult. How do receive encrypted messages on all of your
devices? Do you store a copy of your private key on each device? What about
when you're away from your devices? Would you trust a server to host your
private key?
------
seshagiric
Yeah sure, but can you wait till Gmail is out of beta? Please?
While GMail works fantastic, I do not see how I would manage my work email
without folders or the ability to sort per message/ sender. And how about the
tight integration with Calendar or being able to sync with your mobile device.
No I don't want to search all the time.
There is lot to improve for email apps. But to say Gmail killed Outlook is
only a sensational statement. A cheap trick that is.
~~~
ohhmaagawd
ya. typing "from: seshagiric" is pretty tough.
as far as organizing, set up a filter and create a label. that's what I do. I
have half a dozen email lists I manage this way. Or get the Better Gmail
firefox extension for folders, although if you think about it a label is the
same as a folder anyway.
------
ohhmaagawd
A couple tips:
Gmail Notifier <http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_mac.html>
This firefox extension gives you folders (among other cool features):
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6076>
~~~
twopoint718
Seconded, plus there is (at least one) for Linux as well:
<http://gmail-notify.sourceforge.net/>
------
njharman
Doesn't anyone else use Thunderbird?
Spam filtering is the only thing in Gmail I'm jealous of. I wonder/wish google
would offer that as a service I'd pay for that. [I think google has the
corpus/skills/infrastructure to do it better than anyone else can approach]
------
eli
And somehow he didn't even mention that GMail is free and comes with an email
address, while Outlook you have to pay for and still requires email hosting
(ideally on Exchange if you want to use all the features)
------
epe
Until I can label messages without touching the mouse (Greasmonkey and the
like don't count), gmail has certainly not "reached perfection".
~~~
robosox
You can already do this. Select a message ('x'), open the More Actions menu
('.' period), type the label and press return. No greasemonkey necessary.
~~~
epe
Thanks!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
New Study: Rewarding Good Teachers and Firing Bad Ones Accomplishes Nothing - curtis
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/06/new-study-concludes-that-rewarding-good-teachers-and-firing-bad-ones-accomplishes-nothing/#disqus-container
======
turingcompeteme
My sister is a teacher, and had been recognized as "high performing". She was
even given some type of award. She always taught in pretty well off areas
where students came from supportive families.
A few years ago she moved to a school on the edge of a native reserve. She is
now officially a "low performing" teacher. She insists she works twice as hard
as before and has much more positive impact on the lives of her students.
She's been robbed and beat up by students. Yet she now devotes her life to
these kids, and would probably be fired in this type of experiment.
My guess is that the 'good' and 'bad' teachers in the study were almost
totally dependent on the kids they had.
~~~
jackfraser
This sort of research is amusing in a sad way. IQ studies on large populations
have revealed data for nearly a century that would easily have predicted the
outcome of your sister's efforts. The scores for teachers have to be
normalized against the best available data for the demographic composition of
their classroom, if we're going to bother with it at all.
Unfortunately, people don't like what the IQ scores show, and so instead the
Gates Foundation has to spend millions on a grand experiment that "teaches us
nothing" as Mother Jones would put it, mostly because they refuse to
acknowledge just how precisely it confirms the uncomfortable things we already
know.
~~~
turingcompeteme
The parents and grandparents of the children in her class were taken away from
their families and put in residential schools where they were abused and
mistreated their entire lives. They were then released back into the world
with a very poor education, and obvious mistrust for the government.
Friend of hers have taught in schools where a cycle of poverty inflicts the
population. Most children are raised by single mothers because the father is
in jail. When the father is released he has no opportunity to make a honest
living for himself and the cycle continues.
The uncomfortable things we already know have nothing to do with IQ. It has
everything to do with centuries of mistreatment of groups of people.
~~~
jackfraser
> The parents and grandparents of the children in her class were taken away
> from their families and put in residential schools where they were abused
> and mistreated their entire lives.
Let's keep in mind that residential schools were absolutely the most
progressive thing going at the time. Let's reach out to these poor beleaguered
people and give them the benefit of our modern school system! You can see how
easily the story could be sold to people as a very moral act before the actual
results of the way it was handled were known, generations later.
> The uncomfortable things we already know have nothing to do with IQ.
Why establish a false dichotomy here? You've obviously pointed out an
uncomfortable truth which I was already well aware of. There's no reason we
can't also be aware of the implications of IQ and any number of other factors
determining school performance of any intersectional cohort against
standardized metrics.
~~~
roywiggins
It's one thing to teach people, it's another thing to beat their native
language out of them, which is what these schools were designed to do from the
beginning. The whole point was to forcibly Christianize them and exterminate
their culture.
> The Carlisle Indian Industrial School, founded by the US Army officer
> Richard Henry Pratt in 1879 at a former military installation, became a
> model for others established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Pratt
> said in a speech in 1892, "A great general has said that the only good
> Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in
> this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the
> Indian in him and save the man." Pratt professed "assimilation through total
> immersion." He conducted a "social experiment" on Apache prisoners of war at
> a fort in Florida. He cut their long hair, put them in uniforms, forced them
> to learn English, and subjected them to strict military protocols.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_sch...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools?wprov=sfla1)
~~~
jackfraser
So does this unfortunate and regrettable historical event mean that we can't
use research, demographics, and psychometrics to determine likely outcomes and
inform policy decisions?
------
theothermkn
One of the canonical motivating sketches for total quality control, developed
by Edwards Deming et al, is a mythical factory with three production lines,
each with their own line manager. The lines are performing equally well,
staying within a bell-shaped distribution about approximately the same mean.
(Widgets per hour, or defective unit rates, or what have you.) As factory
manager, in an effort to improve the situation, you decide that, at the end of
each month, you will promote the top performer and fire/demote the laggard.
Congratulations! You promote and demote/fire a line manager every month for
six months. However, you notice that the performance of your lines has
remained the same. What happened? You were essentially using the performance
numbers of your three lines as a random number generator. The system was in
control, producing no results outside of three standard deviations. You
promoted and fired at random.
In order to improve the output of a system, you have to understand it. You
can’t just blindly incentivize on the randomly distributed results. If this
research leads to a more humane work environment for teachers, freer than
before of misguided incentive programs, then that will be a good thing,
indeed.
~~~
jeremyt
Your comment assumes that educational achievement is a "randomly distributed
result". It may or may not be, but you can't just assume it.
~~~
Tade0
What holds true is that the teachers' effect on their pupils' educational
achievements is not under full control of the former, so rewarding and
punishing them on that basis alone is ineffective.
Edit: grammar.
~~~
prostoalex
This seems to be a semantic argument with “full control” implying 100%,
whereas in reality it could be 98% or 76% or 59% or 11%, who knows.
What’s the actionable item here? Should we fire all teachers and replace them
with hamsters who would coincidentally also not exercise full control?
~~~
theothermkn
In the sense of Total Quality Control, a process is "under control" or "under
full control" when the output of the process conforms to a statistical
measure, such as every data point falling within three standard deviations of
the mean. To a first approximation, anything outside of that range implies a
"special cause of variation," as opposed to a "common cause" of variation. In
this case, think of a special cause as something like a layoff at the major
industry in town, causing something like stress at home or missed meals. Those
would affect the performance of students, outside of the "common causes" of
the usual variations in ability, interest, temperament, and so on.
So, no, the answer is not to throw away the experience and insight embodied in
the faculty. The answer is to try to understand and remove (or compensate for)
the special causes of variation in the population of students, as well as the
special causes of variation within the faculty. One of the other things Deming
said that I find very insightful is that the interesting thing about geography
is not where the borders are, but why the borders are where they are. Applied
here, the interesting thing about the variation in grades or test scores is
not the variation itself, but why the variation is there, and why is it shaped
the way it is. These 'why' questions only have answers that are close to the
data and contingent upon the systems, in contrast to blanket incentives that
try to sweep an understanding of the system under the rug of punishment and
reward.
------
jedberg
As anyone who’s been a teacher knows, the parents are the most important part
of a kids education.
The teacher is there to set up the framework and guide the parents as to what
to teach.
The parent has to bring it home.
The single biggest indicator of future student success is how many of the
parents at the school are married with only one working parent. I.e the
parents with the most free time to help their kids.
~~~
Eridrus
I'm left with two thoughts after reading this, either teacher quality doesn't
matter or our ability to measure teacher quality is garbage.
The latter is no more satisfying because when you can't tell the difference
between good and bad you get a market for lemons, so you end up with a pile of
bad teachers despite the fact that good ones would help.
~~~
ncphillips
The quality of the teacher does matter, but OP says it’s not the constraint
for most children.
This is basic theory of constraints: a chain is only as strong as its weakest
link. The quality of a students education is a function of many variables, and
the teacher is just one of those variables. This is why rewarding a teacher
based on their classes performance is unfair. By luck they may either get a
class filled with exceptional and privileged students, or a class of children
with abuse and attention problems.
The only way to really get a good measure the quality of a teacher, would be
to control the quality of the parents, and all the other variables too.
------
rossdavidh
Not super-surprising to me, but I agree with the postscript: "kudos to the
Gates Foundation for running an honest test. They designed it well; they
funded it properly; and when it was over they hired a third party to provide
an honest assessment of what happened. That’s the way it should be done."
------
neel8986
Can it be the case that the constant fear of being fired is not an ideal
environment for a teacher? Teaching needs a long-term commitment which needs a
different kind of incentive than a bonus. I have similarly observed that
researcher who wants to do fundamental research are not very comfortable in
startup environment which lacks security.
~~~
briandear
We could argue that the fear of being fired ought to motivate as well.
Professional athletes operate under this model. Perhaps we could implement a
teacher’s “draft.” Lower performing but still competent enough teachers could
be “traded” and stars could result in bidding wars. At the end of each
“season” the lowest school gets first pick in that summer’s draft. Substitutes
could be like free agents. And winning “seasons” could be financially rewarded
with bonuses. There could be a system of measurement based on improvement of
students rather than just raw scores, so even lower performing students could
help the team “win” by improving even if they are still not meeting the
overall standards. You might find teachers wanting to go to tougher schools
because bringing a kid from a 20 to a 50 earns more “points” than bringing a
kid from an 80 to an 85.
I haven’t fully thought this out yet, but we do know one thing: if you are in
a hole, stop digging. If something isn’t working, brute force rarely helps. We
need innovation in education but not just pedagogical— but with the entire
incentive structure for both teachers and students.
Crazy idea, I know. But sometimes crazy works.
~~~
neel8986
In my opinion carrot and stick model works in areas where 1) participants are
extremely competitive 2) End reward is huge (fame, money). That's why such
model excels in areas like competitive sports, investment banking, startups
etc. Teaching has neither component. If you give great teachers rockstar like
salary may be it will work. Similarly most of the researchers I meet are fed
up with publish or perish model of research
------
sizeofchar
Every teacher knows that learning performance depends primarily on students.
The very same lecture, with same methods, teacher, books, resources, have
drastically distinct performance with different classes.
~~~
Viliam1234
There is a huge informational asymmetry when debating education: almost
everyone was a student once, but most people have never been teachers.
This is how people know that the quality of education in the same class can
change dramatically when you replace a teacher. But most of them don't know
that the same is true in the opposite direction: the quality of education can
change dramatically when the same teacher teaches different classes (or just
when the most disruptive child in the class happens to be sick at home today).
There is also no teaching method that would make everyone happy. Some students
prefer to work in teams, some prefer to work alone. Some students prefer to
have explained how things work, some insist on receiving a list of stuff to
memorize. Most people who have a recipe "how to fix education" simply want
everyone to do it their preferred way.
(So perhaps the best approach would be to have different kinds of school for
everyone? Problem is, people would not want to honestly admit some of their
preferences. If you listen to internet, everyone prefers understanding to
memorization. Then you start explaining stuff, and students follow every
sentence you said with "do we have to remember this for the exam?")
------
mabbo
I feel like the real problem is in how we measure teachers. It shouldn't be
about how well the students do, it should be about how well the students do
_relative to expectations_.
Imagine a school in a well-to-do area where we expect all the students to do
well and get A+'s. If an entire class of students gets A- on a standard test,
that means the teacher actually _negatively_ impacted the students. But
because they all got A-, we reward the teacher for having done such a great
job.
I propose this: for each student, far ahead of time, guess how well they're
going to do on a standardized test based on previous tests, family situation,
zip code they live in, etc. Predict based on all the things _other_ than the
teacher. Now measure a teacher on how well they did _compared to
expectations_.
To do even better, don't rate teachers based on how well the students do on
the test the same year they teach them, but rate them based on the following 3
years. Now you're asking what the _long term impact_ the teacher has on
students, on average. That's a useful measure to pay bonuses on.
The problem is that politically, it's hard to explain to the general public
(or to politicians).
~~~
shanghaiaway
That is not a useful measure because there are an unlimited number of factors
that influence the outcome.
------
jupiter90000
It seems like the primary purpose of school is to make sure kids have been
well trained to sit still and follow the rules, learn how to jump through
societal hoops, and have a place to be for parents who can't/won't deal with
them all day. How much can a teacher really do, trying to enforce all this and
get across a subject to 15+ kids in a room, who have various degrees of
motivation (sometimes none) to want to learn anything?
It seems like there must be a better way to help kids acclimate into adults
and give their parents a break/opportunity to work.
~~~
bitwize
Sitting still, following the rules, and jumping through societal hoops are all
critical life skills for that cushy job adding to the world's pile of webshit
in JavaScript. So in some sense schools are doing the job of educating the
young to prepare them for adult life.
------
maxander
I've seen more sophisticated schemes for teacher evaluation, in which the
metric takes into account the ability of the students as they enter that
teacher's class. So, for a student who got a B, say, in grades N < 5, there's
an expected grade value for them to achieve in 5th grade; that student counts
towards the teacher's "score" only insofar as they do better or worse than
that expected value.
Theoretically, this puts teachers on even footing, even when one might be
teaching a class of Harvard-prep elementary schoolers and another teaching a
class of inner-city kids who have been educationally neglected their entire
lives. And data from student performance over time in the current educational
system should be entirely sufficient to train the model.
It's not clear if the study referenced controlled for student variance this
way; if so, it would readily explain the lack of results.
~~~
AmericanChopper
>It's not clear if the study referenced controlled for student variance this
way; if so, it would readily explain the lack of results.
This headline is pretty click baity. A “better” teacher is one the produces
better outcomes for their students. Firing the “bad” teachers, and rewarding
the “good” teachers will obviously lead to better outcomes for students. This
experiment was only testing whether the metrics they were using truly measured
the quality of the teachers, and whether their insentive structure was
productive. Turns out they weren’t.
------
catchmeifyoucan
This title is really misleading. There are many other factors that this
article does not cover or examine, and it reaches a premature conclusion.
Furthermore, standardized exam measures are poor way to understand teacher
impact. From what I remember from school, the best teachers made me
understand, the poor ones helped me memorize.
------
aetherson
Neat, glad to know that we don't ever need to give teachers raises.
------
maxxxxx
Maybe they should put more effort into figuring how to create an environment
where teachers and students can perform well. It's not like the teacher is the
only player here. Students and their environments play a big role, curriculum
and so on.
Reminds me of the 10x programmer nonsense. Give people a decent work
environment where they feel respected and most will perform well.
------
curtis
I find it hard to believe that teacher quality doesn't matter at all. I'm not
sure that that's what this study is telling us. Maybe it's just telling us
that there is no significant (or at least measurable) difference between
teachers that are a little bit below some threshold and teachers that are a
little bit above.
It surely isn't telling us what would happen if you replaced all the teachers
in a school with teachers recruited from the top 5 or 10 percent of all
teachers in the country. I really want to know what would happen if you did
that. On the other hand, suppose it works really well. We still can't replace
all the teachers in the country with the top 5 or 10 percent of all the
teachers in the country, so it's not like that would be actionable.
~~~
turingcompeteme
> replaced all the teachers in a school with teachers recruited from the top 5
> or 10 percent of all teachers in the country.
My Sister and SO are both teachers and we've had this discussion. They believe
that if you took a low performing school, and replaced all the teachers with
the best teachers in the country, you would find zero difference.
My sister has been beaten up by students, breaks up fights nearly every day,
deals with child protection services, assault from parents, weapons in the
classroom, drugs, gang activity, students who haven't eaten or bathed all
weekend, etc. She teaches Grade 6. It doesn't matter in the slightest how good
of a math teacher she is.
She's has it bad, but I think many people here may be surprised just how
common her situation is.
~~~
shoo
That's a pretty strong argument for increasing the baseline level of social,
community, heath, employment services, in addition to a focus on education.
likely need to invest in those changes and then keep the programs funded and
running with careful adjustements for multiple generations.
i agree, there's only so much a single teacher, or a school full of teachers
can do if a lot of other basic needs aren't being met.
~~~
tellarin
This again links back to the Finish system. It doesn’t stand alone by itself.
All the other social services are also in place.
------
hueving
If it accomplishes nothing then the 'quality' of the teachers is irrelevant.
------
Alex3917
Perhaps the least surprising finding ever, given the previous research:
[http://www.citevault.com/#vam-efficacy](http://www.citevault.com/#vam-
efficacy)
[http://www.citevault.com/#vam-statistical-
problems](http://www.citevault.com/#vam-statistical-problems)
[http://www.citevault.com/#vam-implementation](http://www.citevault.com/#vam-
implementation)
~~~
lend000
All this means is that better methods will need to be invented to score
teachers, not that it's impossible. For example, one thing I've seen missing
in these studies is a system design that attempts to control for the
distribution of students in a given incoming class, which seems like the
single most predictable metric for end-of-year performance.
~~~
Alex3917
> All this means is that better methods will need to be invented to score
> teachers, not that it's impossible.
No, it is impossible. That's the whole point. If it wasn't impossible it'd be
a great idea.
~~~
lend000
I suspect some in the HN community assume that because public school
curriculums were generally so easy and aligned with textbooks such that they
got all A's regardless of the teacher, that the teacher does not matter. No,
the teacher definitely matters, as does the inflexible and oversimple
curriculum and a million other factors.
Switch 'teacher' with 'professor' and I highly doubt you would argue that
quality no longer matters. The difference is that professors are less bound by
stringent curriculums and teach more advanced material. This is where everyone
really feels the difference. Whereas for public grade school teachers, an
academically inclined student will only struggle under exceptionally bad
teachers, less well academically inclined students will suffer without decent
teachers even in grade school. The first quarter/semester at a good college
typically provides a reality check for students who breezed through primary
education.
------
lawnchair_larry
Alternate title: we thought money is what good teachers find rewarding, but we
were wrong
~~~
jVinc
That's not the story at all. They meassured actual performance and fired
teachers who showed bad performance, and rewarded those showing good
performance. This was not just a test of dangling money in front of teachers
and expecting them to improve their performance.
What you could get out of this study is however that it doesn't matter if
teachers find the job rewarding or not. It doesn't matter if you keep on bad
teachers, in fact the study might point to the fact that teachers are not the
bottleneck of student performance at all.
~~~
fancyfish
Good point here, that we ought to expand the scope of how we look at student
performance. We're quick to blame teachers, and indeed teachers probably have
as much an impact as anything else, but measuring up teachers and expecting
big changes isn't the greatest idea.
Yes, it gets more complicated looking at more nuanced measures. Like resources
available for the students, their home lives and personal situations, their
time available to study and focus.
Then again maybe they should look at discrepancies between teachers in
districts that pay well and districts that pay less. Perhaps the answer isn't
to pay some more and fire others, but rather pay all of them more!
I'm a fan of the Education Endowment Foundation(1) on this which looks at all
the measures you can think of to try to improve education practices (in the
UK).
[1]:
[https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/](https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/)
------
chvid
Next up: fire the educated teachers and just let random grown ups run the
class ...
~~~
protonfish
Sudbury Schools
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school)
have no curriculum, they let the students do whatever they want. Graduates
don't differ significantly from traditional schools in standard educational
assessment testing.
------
michaelscott
This is unfortunately a complex, multivariate system problem and won't rely
solely on the "quality" of a teacher in it.
In addition to the behind-the-scenes work most teachers have to deal with,
such as departmental objectives, I think great teachers enter the profession
in order to benefit children, not to get that fantastic paycheck . It's a
socially focused decision, not an financial one, so if I were designing a
system to grade a teacher's quality I would focus on attending to their
efforts with students, not throwing more money at them.
~~~
exotree
Money may not be the end all for people who go into this profession, but it
most certainly does matter. See the protests over the past couple of years in
areas where teacher pay is low.
------
randyrand
This conclusion is amazing! Finally we have a study that says hiring good
teachers does not matter. And that going to teaching school to become a better
teacher is not important!
If this conclusion is correct, teachers can be replaced low wage unskilled
laborers!
/s
This (possibly MotherJones simplified) conclusion must clearly be bogus.
Perhaps I should take a look at the actual study, because this article is
terrible.
------
derpsauce1
Mother Jones is an extremely left leaning website.
Teachers Unions are among the core groups supporting democratic and liberal
candidates.
I love a good study but it is possible that they are misinterpreting the
results of this study on purpose.
During the last election, I became very sensitive to this type of media
manipulation. Tread carefully.
------
asafira
What are good resources to learn more about what works/ what doesn't in
improving education?
At the end of the article, they add that the study deserves a lot of credit
even though it didn't work. Kudos! I was pretty happy to read that =).
------
Gimpei
Anyone check this for the quality of the study?Doesn't look like this was
randomized. Also would have been nice to see more pretreatment years for
evidence of a trend but maybe that was in the actual report.
------
dqpb
If teacher salaries were $120k and up I bet you'd get a whole new class of
teachers.
~~~
lobotryas
Would we really? At some point a higher cost will stop resulting in better
outcomes.
~~~
zeth___
And yet we keep paying CEO's more and more.
At least teachers are only in control of one class room. The most mischief
they can do is to buy animatronic dinosaurs for the one lesson where they
mention prehistory to kindergartners.
------
candiodari
Someone should make a study about management theories. The issue is that the
major examples of management theories were ... fraud.
Taylor ... was a fraud [1]. Lied about his data in order to get paid more.
Even paid the people he "tested his theory on" to act out the outcomes he
wanted to see for company higher ups. And he acted like what I've come to
expect from managers: first he commits scientific fraud, then writes a book
and titles it "Principles of Scientific Management".
Because when you go for bullshit, the big lesson is: don't just bullshit a
little. Go all out.
Weber and Fayol were no different, and even Ford ... let's just say that if
you focus on his technical accomplishments and skip all the management
bullshit you will not be missing much (besides a big part of Ford's ideas were
high wages, so I doubt many managers will be repeating it).
As can be seen, among many other places, on wikipedia [2], the fact that
Taylorism was an outright fraud has not stopped pretty much every management
school in the country from expanding and pushing on with his "work".
It's like most of the famous economists. The top ones were simply frauds, who
got important positions like chairman of the Fed, or secretary of the Treasury
and just happened to be in office during big events. Their theories were wrong
(really fraudulent, as they didn't believe in it at the time, which makes it a
fraud rather than just being wrong, and Keynes, Hayek, Friedman and Greenspan
have admitted as much, and let's face: they were "the greats". If they were
frauds, then people like our current Mnuchin, Powell or Geithner aren't even
frauds : they're ignorant and actually proud of that (Mnuchin has said in an
interview that not understanding much economics makes him a better secretary
of the treasury). Yellen actually had credentials, and seems to need another
year or two before she'll confirm she was a fraud too, she has already
admitted her theories were wrong, so all she has to do is also admit that she
knew they were wrong when she decided to implement them. And boy, she was,
like Keynes, more than a little bit wrong).
Once money or power gets involved, humans, "scientist" or not, become lying
bastards.
At least this research was honest. But it's not saying what people want to
hear, and so it will be ignored, as it wouldn't contribute (and that's being
polite) to the careers of the decision makers implementing these policies.
Meanwhile, Trump is happily pushing on Obama's efforts in this regard, who
simply continued from Bush's policies, ... and so on and so forth. Don't
worry: Trump is not about to let such a detail as science stand in the way of
looking good to a few people, and let's just not kid ourselves that Hillary or
whoever gets elected in 2020 will be better.
[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/06/the-
man...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/06/the-management-
myth/304883/)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management#Relation...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management#Relationship_to_Fordism)
~~~
darepublic
> At least this research was honest. But it's not saying what people want to
> hear, and so it will be ignored
I think you underestimate how much teacher unions want to hear this result,
and their political influence
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
22M pounds of plastics enter the Great Lakes each year - spking
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/environment/ct-met-lake-michigan-plastic-pollution-20190904-2xf3qogqv5bpfco2plndapak2q-story.html
======
groundlogic
"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European
countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options
that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue
to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with
our award-winning journalism."
How about just disabling the third-party ads along with their invasive
tracking until you've figured out a way to monetize the long tail of traffic
from EU?
~~~
ericb
Why would anyone accept an unbounded liability for no benefit?
~~~
groundlogic
There wouldn't be any supposedly unbounded liability if they disabled the ads
for that region they aren't really targetting anyway.
Also: GDPR hygiene works in the US as well. You've got some way to catch up
though; you even allow a lot of really bad food substances that are banned in
the EU (and most of the civilized world), just because... profits. It's all
kind of a sad states of affairs for a supposedly first world country.
~~~
groundlogic
I kinda feel like organizing a program blocking journalists at these american
newspapers that are blocking europeans.. from accessing european
newspapers/sites. Just because. I'm sure there's a way of figuring out the
public IPs for their NATs etc.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters - zavulon
https://medium.com/@alexkharlamov/how-mta-shut-down-my-app-for-penn-station-commuters-39e1cf69395f
======
state_machine
I can see why the MTA wouldn't want you telling people to go to a track before
it is actually assigned -- if the train ends up on a different track, now you
need to get all those people back up, off that platform an on to the new one,
clogging stairs that that people who actually wanted that platform might be
trying to use too. Obviously it would be nice to assign tracks earlier, so
that people can head straight to the right platform, but sending people to
potentially the wrong platform seems even worse.
EDIT: Penn is extremely platform/track constrained -- NJ Transit, LIRR and
Amtrak are all sharing a fixed number of platforms, some of which are too
short.
To maximize platform utilization, they have to wait until the last minute to
finalize track assignments -- if you reserve one too early and the train ends
up late, you're wasting an empty platform. Once you send a horde of people to
a platform, moving them to a different one is a challenge (stairs/bottlenecks,
communication, etc).
~~~
spyspy
Have you ever taken a rush hour train at Penn Station? The alternative (i.e.
current system) is everyone congregates on the concourse staring at the
platform screens, and when a new one pops up hundreds of people flood in the
direction of that platform in a mad dash. It's a mess.
~~~
bogomipz
It is exactly this alternative(the current system) that the Amtrak/MTA/LIRR
prefer for safety reasons. Amtrak which also has the same procedure at Penn
states this here:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/17/amtrak_s_unpe...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/17/amtrak_s_unpersuasive_response_on_boarding_procedures.html)
Although it is indeed inefficient and the MTA is completely inept, the
platforms for LIRR trains are very narrow, they are shared by two trains and
the escalators to get up to the main floor are also very narrow and crowded
already.
So although the "mad dash" is in fact a mess, its a safer mess than
overcrowding the platforms on the tracks.
~~~
eveningcoffee
I think this is also dehumanizing.
~~~
GauntletWizard
Mass transit is dehumanizing. Cities are dehumanizing. A significant amount of
the way that giant infrastructure works is making assumptions and rote;
Turning the human problem of "how do I get here" into a mechanical process of
"There are two ways to do so, X and Y, each of which follow these steps".
This is great for efficiency - that's why it's done. It's terrible for
humanity. It's stagnant, it kills creativity, it leads to these incredible
tragedies of the commons when so much relies upon the commons.
~~~
jogjayr
> It's terrible for humanity. It's stagnant, it kills creativity
Your other points may be valid but I'm not so sure about this one. Artists
tend to cluster in big cities, often with mass transit (and sometimes without,
like LA). I sincerely doubt there's any sort of correlation between mass
transit and creativity.
~~~
GauntletWizard
Mediocre artists cluster. Good artists hermit. Great artists do both - But
don't maintain city apartments.
~~~
CalRobert
Source?
------
bradleyjg
For about a year a decade and a half ago, I commuted into and out of Penn
Station with my father who had been doing so since the late 70s.
Not only did he know which track any of a half dozen trains that he might take
would come in on but he knew where the doors would open for each of the
tracks. And he wasn't the only one either. If you went down before they
announced the tracks you'd see little clusters of people waiting apart from
each other on an otherwise empty track. We'd usually go to the same car in
order to reduce the distance on the other side. Other commuters would do
likewise and so trains would have a contingent of regulars.
There's a fascinating kind of micro-expertise that develops when you do the
same thing over and over again.
~~~
mark212
same thing on the subway, with an extra dimension of starting on the local,
switching to the express, then transferring at another station. Pretty quickly
you get to know where to stand to get on the most efficient end of the train
to be closest to the stairway up to the transfer platform, etc. Makes an
otherwise tedious trip somewhat interesting as a puzzle.
~~~
cat199
And on some systems, one can usually tell if an inbound train is running
faster/slower than normal and where to adjust position accordingly to end up
at the right door/position/etc..
------
lukegb
As an interesting, although unrelated aside: platform data is available in the
UK's National Rail's feeds, but the terms and conditions[1] explicitly
prohibit displaying platform numbers early, as mentioned in their developer
guidelines[2].
I guess the wording doesn't technically ban you from displaying historical
platform information, but that would likely be a bad-faith use of the data
anyway...
[1]
[http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/documents/Terms_and_Con...](http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/documents/Terms_and_Conditions.pdf)
[2]
[http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/documents/Developer_Gui...](http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/documents/Developer_Guidelines.pdf)
"Occasionally Time-Bound Data will become available through NRE feeds before
it is ready to be published to the public. [...] One such example of Time-
Bound Data is platform numbers. Early display of platform numbers,
particularly at origin and destination stations, can lead to platform
overcrowding and/or staff not having sufficient time to prepare the train for
oncoming passengers. In some instances, platform numbers will be available in
Darwin before being displayed on screens in stations."
~~~
davidjbain
UK rail data is quite open in comparison to this story, for instance check out
these live track diagrams (of London Waterloo & many other areas) which show
real-time movements of trains. This is how I often find out the platform
numbers prior to travel and I also get information before staff during
disruption.
[http://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/wat#T_WAT](http://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/wat#T_WAT)
~~~
takno
There are maps of many more routes at traksy
[https://traksy.uk/live/M+2+CARLILE](https://traksy.uk/live/M+2+CARLILE)
~~~
davidjbain
Great to see another good implementation of rail maps, I do however prefer the
opentraintimes layout as its easier to scroll through while reflecting the
look of operational systems.
------
mjmasn
Would have been interesting to see if you could reliably crowd-source the data
from commuters themselves.
~~~
dmurray
Google almost certainly already could, without even asking the commuters,
since they have real time location for so many Android phones. But there's a
chicken and egg problem: it's hard to get the data before you're able to offer
anything in return.
~~~
mjmasn
Chicken and egg yes, but he had the recent historical data and a bunch of
paid-up users.
I'm just amazed this app was even necessary in a first-world transport system.
For all their faults, the UK rail network is pretty good at providing timely
information (and as some other comments have mentioned have solid APIs for
this stuff). Same with the LTA[1] in Singapore.
[1]
[https://www.mytransport.sg/content/mytransport/home/dataMall...](https://www.mytransport.sg/content/mytransport/home/dataMall.html)
------
jfries
For Penn Station in particular, one can beat the crowd by heading downstairs
and looking at the small CRT under the stairs. You will see the platform
assignment at the same time as the crowd, but you are closer to the platforms
and don't have to use the same stairs as everyone else.
------
harshaw
There is a similar issue with the MBTA commuter rail in Boston. At south
station, the signage in the main waiting area and at the platform only
announce the train 10 minutes before departure.
However, there are a couple of tools to get around this. For Starters, each
revenue service train has a number (like 508). In a push-pull system like the
MBTA the first coach in the consist is nearest to to the platform. This coach
has a number like 1827. Luckily, the MBTA publishes which trainsets will be
assigned to which departures. This makes it easy to know that 1827 is for
train 508. All you need to do is walk out to the platform and see if 1827 is
sitting there.. if so it's your train. You can get this mapping of trainset to
train via a bunch of apps.
This has been further expanded upon by micro-social apps like "MBTA Rail
Tracker" which has a comment section for every train. The whole thread is
basically "which platform" followed by a bunch of responses and then
snarkiness on why the trains are horribly late all the time.
------
DontSueMeBro
I've been collecting Penn Station NJT and LIRR track assignment data for
almost a year now. I've been intending to use ML to predict track assignment,
but haven't gotten there yet. I should post it to Kaggle or somewhere similar.
~~~
jrockway
Do you think the track assignment is something that's learnable? I feel like
there is some schedule where, under normal operations, the train will end up.
But then there are unpredictable events that cause this to change.
~~~
DontSueMeBro
I think it is. Like in the article, you can see that given certain parameters
like train number and time, you predictably end up with a certain track
assignment. If you can also consider track assignments leading up to this
time, you can discount those tracks. For example, the 8:02PM Long Beach train
always leaves on track 18, except when any 7:56 train left on track 18. As a
novice to ML it's currently beyond my ability to model, but my intuition is
that it should be doable.
------
daburninatorrr
Interestingly enough, I have had this same exact idea for an app, also being
one of those commuters who rely on LIRR trains, also being someone who noticed
that my peak train home arrives almost always on the same track, and also
being one of the (few) commuters who go down to the platform before the train
is called.
It is a shame that this had to happen to OP. I personally don't see the app as
an issue, because the amount of commuters that would actually use such a thing
is rather low (seriously, stand in the concourse and look around at people, a
large amount of them are not using their phones).
My original idea was to scrape the data from their webpage, or see if there
was a way to get the data from the Train Time app's Arrival Countdown page,
but according to the post, it has been removed from their website, so there
goes that idea.
The lesson to me is clear though: don't try to make an app that would make
commuter's lives easier. The MTA does not seem to want that, especially during
the track repairs. I find it interesting that it was shut down so close to the
start of the Penn Station track repairs...
------
midnitewarrior
Why didn't he switch to a crowd-sourced data model like GasBuddy?
~~~
sologoub
Was thinking the exact same thing. One possible reason would be wrong info,
but you could use some sort of weighted algorithm that would need more than
one submission to match and/or trust level per submitter based on historical
correctness.
~~~
tedmiston
Exactly. Like what Yelp / Foursquare / Google Places use.
------
dkrich
I wonder if there's any correlation or way to know based on where a train is
arriving from to know where it's headed. If that were the case, you could
potentially either look for that data, or if it isn't available, have a Waze-
like app where commuters can report which train they are on and which track
they are pulling into.
As an aside, I wonder whether the OP considered charging a hefty price (>$20
or so) for the app. This would lessen the number of users and page requests.
Having travelled from Penn many times and having had to deal with the massive
stampede that ensues when they suddenly reveal the track number, I would pay
dearly to have this info available to me. Even if I used it once every year,
not having to fight crowds or look forever to find an available seat, that
would be money well spent. Additionally, many of the peak travelers are
business travelers who probably have more money to spend on an app. I realize
this isn't the most democratic solution, but it could be a way to lessen the
crowds nonetheless.
------
x13
It's a great explanation of the need for this app, and how zavulon fixed a
problem.
But organizations change how they work with customers/the public all the time,
and I couldn't help but say Waaah.
Things change; tell us about the alternatives you tried to move around this
obstacle.
------
rishabhsagar
Ok, I understand that the Railway Authority don't want people to guess /
predict platform numbers because of various reasons (problems with platform
maintenance, safety and last min changes etc.
But what I don't understand is that why can't they change the seat allocation
process such that people can reserve remaining available seats on the trains
for free if they have arrived in station lobby? This can result is reduced
rush to grab seats and will help people to make a more informed decision
around whether to wait for the next train.
~~~
state_machine
it takes longer to load a train with assigned seating -- that's why say,
Amtrak might do it, but commuter rail trains, that at peak run minutes apart
and want to minimize dwell-times at highly contended platforms, optimize for
loading speed.
------
calvinbhai
Crowdsourcing the track data based on where commuters' phones travel,
something like waze for LIRR should help.
Instead of asking users to report the track info, it can be automated to a
great extent with the use of BTLE beacons on each platform (but that again
needs permission from MTA / Penn station authorities unless a long lasting BT
4.0 beacon can be sneaked in somewhere).
Sad that MTA is not cooperating. Can understand why the app had to be shut
down!
------
troisx
Why don't you sue them? It's a government agency, and I believe that the data
should be available under New York's public records laws (I only have limited
experience with NY's laws and IANAL). From personal experience, being nice to
a government agency never got me anywhere, but our lawyer has a 95% win rate
against them.
~~~
phonon
There is no law that NY government information has to be available through a
realtime API.
------
londons_explore
Why would you want to know the train more than 10 minutes before departure?
Surely you'd just get on the immediate next train?
Are tickets only for a specific time of train?
Or are trains less frequent than every 10 minutes?
~~~
dsr_
The next train for your destination may be 30 minutes later, or over an hour
away. LIRR has about 125 stations in 8 zones. It's not called Long Island
because it's small and round.
------
wfisher
www.njtwizard.com
We do this for NJ Transit with about 90% accuracy. We spent at least two
months figuring out how it all works, though. It's non-trivial to do right.
~~~
bayyar
How do you do it?
------
rocky1138
Whoever decided to close his access to the API should be fired.
~~~
danesparza
It sounds like The API changed. But same sentiment -- that was a shit design
decision.
~~~
strken
It sounds like locking down the API was an entirely deliberate decision made
at the same time as removing platform data from the website, which means
Chesterton's fence[0] applies - we should work out why that decision was made
before criticising it.
Discussion upthread is about commuters being pushed onto the tracks, which
sounds like a good reason not to display data that isn't 100% certain.
[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's)
fence
~~~
camiller
how about
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton.27...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton.27s_fence)
------
drinchev
Why the OP did not continue with scraping the website then? I think there will
be no legal issue if he does that.
~~~
karrotwaltz
> They also stopped publishing the track number on the website — so going back
> to scraping was not an option either.
So the only way to gather the data would be manually from the station.
~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Carefully placed raspberry pi + OCR?
~~~
vinnycoyne
I'd imagine that placing a "homemade" electronic device in a densely-
populated, public space is going to attract a lot of unwanted attention.
~~~
laylomo2
From all those military guards that parade up and down the station
~~~
InitialLastName
You joke, but Penn Station and Port Authority are effectively occupied
territory. There are at least four different law enforcement agencies present
and patrolling, stopping and frisking anybody who "looks out of place",
hassling homeless people, and generally making you feel "safer".
------
falcolas
Scraping the MTA site against the TOS, and intentionally obfuscating requests
to limit the chance of the MTA identifying and shutting it down? Yeah, no
surprises here.
EDIT: Oops, missed that he didn't end up going live with the scraping.
It would still be great for the MTA to publish this data intentionally; but
I'm sure the potential for trains to switch tracks and the associated backlash
when they do is what prevents them from doing it.
Perhaps they could adopt the airline model, where there's a best effort to
reach a particular pre-announced track, with notifications ringing out when
they can't.
~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
The author didn't do that, though. As far as MTA is concerned the app was
always using an API he had been given a legitimate key for.
As an aside, fuck websites that prohibit scraping. If you send me some bytes
I'm gonna do whatever I damn well please with them.
~~~
EGreg
In that case screw your API, if you allow DDOS I may as well do it for the
lulz.
Isn't it the same approach? If you can abuse a site you will, because they
opened themselves up to the public?
~~~
mustacheemperor
That's an illogical extreme. I don't think anyone thinks that, rather, the
question is whether this app was an abuse of MTA's system. They claim wide
distribution of the app is a hazard. Really, it's not like MTA is stopping
anyone with the inclination to do this themselves. If it's as reliable as the
author says, you could do it without any automation if you were patient
enough. Downvoting because that kind of exaggerated strawman reduces the
quality of discussion with no benefit.
~~~
EGreg
Thanks for explaining the downvote. But this is not exaggerated nor a
strawman. It mirrors the extreme "screw your website" reaction and
investigates whether the logic for such an extreme disregard holds.
So a website allows you to "download some bytes". Yes you can do anything you
want with THOSE bytes. Does this mean you should make an app to let people
scrape the website in an automated way and possibly overload it?
If airlines, restaurants give something free or discounted, does that mean you
can make an app to systematically let millions of people take advantage of the
arbitrage?
XKCD even has a comic for exactly this situation:
[https://xkcd.com/1499/](https://xkcd.com/1499/)
I wasn't the one who said "FUCK WEBSITES". I used a nicer word and questioned
the logic. Yet I get downvoted while the parent comment with expletives is
upvoted.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Facebook splitting up the word “sponsored” to sneak past adblocker - pknerd
https://www.instagram.com/p/BtjeQrcBSof/
======
mimixco
Just more evidence that FB cares only about their profits and is willing to
manipulate people (and democracy) in order to gain more of them. This is a
company that's ok with encouraging racism, violence, self-harm, stealing from
children, manipulating elections, and who knows what else.
If there was ever a time to quit FB, today is the day. (And they even make
that difficult.) I quit 2 years ago after being an early adopter (and even
teaching FB for business to clients and classrooms.) I'm very glad that I did.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Anyone Get a YC S19 Videocall? - cleansewater
Did anyone get a YC video call? How did it go? - S2019 batch
======
reynergiovanni
Yess I got one, they basically asked us simple questions like what are we
building, what the available solution on the market, when we're going to
launch (We're pre-launch), and etc. It is very short talk though.
~~~
jaggernaut
What video call is this? Do everyone get a call?
------
vineetrajan
Has anyone got invites as yet?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How To Be a Software Developer Without a CS Degree - Envincible
http://simpledeveloper.com/how-to-be-a-software-developer-without-a-college-degree/
======
mumbi
Easy. Prove you know how to develop software. I've never had anyone ask about
my degree(which doesn't exist).
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Trump withdraws from postal treaty in new front against China - gamblor956
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/17/trump-withdraws-from-postal-treaty-910675
======
gamblor956
Relevance to tech: The Postal Treaty is used by AliBabi manufacturers to ship
to the US from China for substantially less than it costs for US manufacturers
to ship domestically. This will affect the vast majority of goods sold on
Amazon today.
~~~
sharemywin
don't forget ebay.
------
rb808
This totally makes sense. I never understood how stuff shipped from China
costs less than the cost of a package sent in the US.
~~~
beatgammit
Exactly. I bought a brick of chalk for $2.50 (shipping included) from China.
Shipping alone costs more here, and they're still making a profit.
I didn't realize that this subsidy exists. I'm no fan of Trump, but this is a
good move.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Simple Windows GUI Application Written in Go - dsr12
https://gist.github.com/nathan-osman/18c2e227ad00a223b61c0b3c16d452c3
======
Impossible
Pretty basic Window creation and message loop code, but its nice to see a
starting example in Go. For comparison here is a C version:
[https://github.com/LeZuse/minimal-
win32-app/blob/master/main...](https://github.com/LeZuse/minimal-
win32-app/blob/master/main.cpp)
The C code does basically the same thing but ends up being smaller because the
Go code doesn't have an equivalent of windows.h with function and data type
definitions. The Go code might be a little nicer if it used a Win32 API
wrapper, but there doesn't seem to be a well supported and documented one out
there. This was all I could find
[https://github.com/AllenDang/w32](https://github.com/AllenDang/w32).
~~~
davb
There's something elegant about [https://github.com/LeZuse/minimal-
win32-app/blob/master/main...](https://github.com/LeZuse/minimal-
win32-app/blob/master/main.cpp)
I remember just how painful working with the Win32 API could be (a lifetime
ago), but I felt like I really understood how it worked. These days, it's
layer upon layer of abstractions. Or bindings from my language of choice to an
abstraction layer/framework running on the native OS.
I couldn't begin to explain how many of the popular UI frameworks work, all
the way down to the native OS layer.
There was something substantial, concrete in programming at this layer rather
than some higher level, fragile abstraction.
~~~
achr2
I think that sentiment is mostly revisionist nostalgia. Yes it was easier to
'know' what was going on between your code and the OS, but to say that modern
UI frameworks are more fragile than the hand-coded win32 code of yore is
certainly fallacious.
~~~
maxxxxx
Actually I would agree that win32 is more stable once you get the hang of it.
I have worked with WPF, Winforms, MFC and win32. win32 was by far the most
complete, predictable and flexible environment. It takes a lot of learning and
you can't just let anybody work on the codebase. But once you know what you
are doing and maybe have some simple wrappers for routine stuff it's pretty
good.
~~~
pjmlp
Coming from MS-DOS and Amiga as background, I was amazed how Win16 was a
productivity changer (for the better).
It is funny to see people bashing it nowadays, given how I came to enjoy it.
When I started GUI coding on UNIX, Xlib, Xt and Motif on the other hand were
anything but productive.
------
wtf_is_up
I've used [https://github.com/lxn/walk](https://github.com/lxn/walk) to make
some simple Win GUI apps. It was a couple years ago. Very easy to use.
------
juice_bus
Can anyone post a screenshot of what the final product is?
~~~
wink
[http://imgur.com/lDXqBBm](http://imgur.com/lDXqBBm)
~~~
juice_bus
While not anything huge it is very interesting to see it coming from Go.
Thank you!
------
analognoise
Is it me or is this substantially uglier than the C version?
~~~
tomjen3
It is, but that is because it has to refer it directly and import a lot of
stuff you get for free in C, when you import windows.h
I don't think it would be that ugly if you compared it C code that didn't
include windows.h
------
pcunite
Very nice. I've not always stayed true to this advice, but for commercial
products it is recommended to build software in the native language of the OS.
Something like .NET is available but this is supported by the creators of
Windows.
Why?
Less bugs, better examples, community support.
~~~
mikegedelman
I keep hearing how .NET and C# are supposed to be pretty great these days. C#
often gets credit for popularizing async/await, although I don't actually know
if that's true.
Based on that, and the point you made, I'd definitely go the .NET/C# route if
I ever ended up in the unfortunate position of having to develop software for
Windows. Barring of course some reason that it _had_ to be written in Go or
something else.
~~~
mb_72
Why 'unfortunate'? What is 'unfortunate' is developers having prejudice
against any OS / IDE / language / etc; it restricts your creation of solutions
for the problems that need to be solved. Keeping up with developments across
all platforms - like the fact these days you can use C# for non-Windows
targets- helps us be well-rounded and capable developers.
~~~
icebraining
It's only prejudice if it's not based on direct experience. Many of us would
rather avoid going back to Windows at all.
~~~
pjmlp
After several years using GNU/Linux I have happily returned.
Windows and Mac OS X are the only sane alternatives for developers that care
about desktop applications and developer friendly toolchains. Same applies to
iOS, Android and WP.
The other alternatives feel like only the CLI and daemons matter, stuck in a
PDP-11 view of the world.
Then again, NeXT was the only UNIX based OS with an alternative culture
regarding developers tools and UX.
KDE is the only environment that can match in terms of tooling and UX, yet it
is lacking some serious love nowadays.
I want my developer and user experience to be a Xerox Star and not a PDP-11.
~~~
idobai
> KDE is the only environment that can match in terms of tooling and UX, yet
> it is lacking some serious love nowadays.
KDE? Seriously? It's one of the worst DEs on linux. Any DE which isn't based
on gnome is just cheap nowadays.
~~~
pjmlp
So which other DE on GNU/Linux does provide the same tooling and platform
abstractions as KDevelop/Qt Creator do?
GNOME has a very nice HIG from UX point of view, but it is stuck in C + POSIX
as technology stack in what concerns developer experience. Vala is still not
there and I don't believe in JavaScript for native UIs.
~~~
idobai
> So which other DE on GNU/Linux does provide the same tooling and platform
> abstractions as KDevelop/Qt Creator do?
Same or similar? It doesn't matter what they provide because I'd go with
ScalaFX([http://www.scalafx.org/](http://www.scalafx.org/)) + IntelliJ or
Vala|Genie + Vala IDE. Mono is also an option if you're into it.
> but it is stuck in C + POSIX as technology stack in what concerns developer
> experience.
Yes, GTK isn't the newest but it isn't hard at all to develop apps with
Vala/Genie([https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/GTKSample](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/GTKSample)
,
[https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Genie/GtkGuiTutorial](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Genie/GtkGuiTutorial)
?)
> Vala is still not there and I don't believe in JavaScript for native UIs.
What do you mean? Vala is almost the defacto standard language for
ubuntu/gnome apps.
~~~
pjmlp
ScalaFX([http://www.scalafx.org/](http://www.scalafx.org/)) + IntelliJ and
Mono are not exposing any GNU/Linux specific feature.
I can use the same toolchain in many other operating systems.
The last time I bothered to check GNOME, there was some ongoing discussion of
JavaScript becoming the official language to pair with C.
Just checked Genie and Vala IDE web sites, they still need to do catch up with
what Borland was doing in the 90's, let alone modern IDEs.
~~~
idobai
> ScalaFX([http://www.scalafx.org/](http://www.scalafx.org/)) + IntelliJ and
> Mono are not exposing any GNU/Linux specific feature.
Why would you need specific features? You wanted to develop desktop apps, not
gnome plugins, right?
> Just checked Genie and Vala IDE web sites, they still need to do catch up
> with what Borland was doing in the 90's, let alone modern IDEs.
If you want RAD there's
Glade([https://glade.gnome.org/](https://glade.gnome.org/)) + GtkBuilder.
~~~
idobai
@woflgke you're going off on a tangent: it's about the maturity of tools and
not about "exposing" system features. That's unrelated to desktop apps.
~~~
pjmlp
No @woflgke is quite right.
Software development stack for desktop apps are all about exposing the
features that make a platform desired to be used.
------
akavel
If you're interested in Win32 development with Go, I've built a small library
for personal use, for quick prototyping of WinAPI calls without cgo and
without having to pre-declare each function:
[https://github.com/akavel/winq](https://github.com/akavel/winq)
(godoc:
[https://godoc.org/github.com/akavel/winq](https://godoc.org/github.com/akavel/winq))
------
ssebastianj
A couple of days ago I wanted to read the Active Protection Sensor bundled in
a ThinkPad by accessing Sensor64.dll under Go 1.6.2. So, after several hours
diving in the interwebs/Godocs I came to this issue [0] which suggests the
"x/sys/windows" [1] package instead the "syscall" one if you want to load a
Windows system DLL.
Note: I'm a total newbie at Go and Windows API so every bit of abstraction was
a bless to me.
[0]
[https://github.com/golang/go/issues/14959](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/14959)
[1]
[https://github.com/golang/sys/tree/master/windows](https://github.com/golang/sys/tree/master/windows)
------
fithisux
I thought walk framework was there to reduce the code.
------
wiz21c
I'm surprised by the tone of some messages here. It sounds like native GUI
programming on Windows has faded away...
Is it just me ?
------
rusanu
How long until we see the go equivalent of pinvoke.net ?
[http://www.pinvoke.net/](http://www.pinvoke.net/)
Ideally this sort of platform import should be automated so that Win32
specific apps could import the more advanced GUI stuff (comdlg et all).
------
kmetan
Very nice... Reminds me of an old good MFC. Happy new year 1996.
------
herbst
But can it backtrace IPs?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: What's being done with the HTTP protocol to fix DDOS attacks? - joslin01
======
feralmoan
DDOS has nothing to do with HTTP, its a network layer (routing protocols)
issue. Put another way, if frames are making it all the way to your stack and
up to a webserver in user space before a decision is made, you're already
toasted.
~~~
rdl
There are different types of DDoS -- layer 3 and 4 attacks are not HTTP-
specific, but there are layer 7 attacks which are DoS, and if distributed
(botnet, etc.), are a DDoS.
Anonymous's LOIC is a great example of this kind of attack. Essentially, you
go for a different kind of amplification than you do with 3/4 attacks -- it's
"time amplification", where a small http request can hit a URL and cost huge
amounts of time on the server. e.g. an unindexed search. It's actually
possible to kill some webapps with a single web browser just by hitting
"expensive" URLs repeatedly -- can even be done manually in some cases.
There are a lot of ways to protect against this -- rather than pure pipe
capacity, you generally want something like a Web Application Firewall (WAF).
You also generally want to tune your web app to expose only "safe" urls, or to
put captchas or logins in front of "expensive" URLs.
~~~
feralmoan
I hear what you're saying but layer7 DDOS attacks are a mouth breather
variety. Need to burn them with fire, network level. Because it's not just
HTTP it's the whole network stack you'll be chasing around with wacky-wavy
hands (just incase).
~~~
rdl
You used enough unknown-to-me idiom in that that I actually have no idea what
you meant. ("wacky-wave hands"? "mouth breather variety"?)
~~~
feralmoan
Sorry for the flippancy, what I meant was it's just 1 application layer
protocol (HTTP) amongst the multitude you could potentially be serving. Trying
to fix for that one service means nothing, big picture, to people who know how
to suppress a network, broad spectrum. Think ICMP, UDP, TCP, routing protocols
(BGP if they're feeling sassy), everything that happens on the wire and in the
kernel and through upstream ISP's before it even reaches your web server -
HTTP protocol handling is literally the last bastion of hope in a DDOS
scenario.
------
BraveNewCurency
I'll bet we could add a header to fix the problem, similar to the way RFC3514
fixes DDOS problems at the TCP layer.
[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3514](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3514)
------
VLM
Problem source is not at the HTTP protocol layer, so probably not much.
------
ForHackernews
You can't really "fix" this issue. A DDOS is just a lot of requests coming in
very rapidly. You can try to mitigate the problem, but at its core, any system
that is expected to respond to arbitrary web requests is vulnerable to getting
lots of them--whether from being Slashdotted (or HN'd) or from an automated
DDOS.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Multi-Zone and Multi-Cloud Deployments in Kubernetes 1.3 - TheIronYuppie
http://blog.kubernetes.io/2016/07/cross-cluster-services.html
======
TheIronYuppie
Customers that want to deploy on-prem and/or across multiple clouds (think a
Google Container Engine deployment + an AWS deployment) now can do so without
worrying about having the apps discover each other, or handling load balancers
one at a time - it's all built in!
Disclosure: I work at Google on Kubernetes.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Snapchat is raising another $55M, with a $2B valuation - louhong
http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/05/who-needs-facebook-snapchat-is-raising-another-55m-with-a-2b-valuation/
======
Mankhool
Would someone more informed that I am about VC please explain why this is a
better move than taking $3B or $4B in cash?
------
001sky
_Snapchat’s latest raise comes just a few weeks after The Wall Street Journal
reported the company was looking to raise $200 million with a valuation of $3
to $4 billion. One company named in the rumors was China’s Tencent Holdings,
which would love to be a part of a growing American tech company like
Snapchat._
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Breathtaking Magnitude of Our Technology - abi
http://blog.abi.sh/2010/the-breathtaking-magnitude-of-our-technology/
======
ewams
People make fun of me all the time when I stop in the middle of what I (or we)
am doing and say, "Holy cow man, look at what we CAN do! Look at what we ARE
doing!" Dreams of 10 years ago became realities yesterday.
We have the ability to see things that are so small, you wouldn't even know
they were there otherwise. We can compute Pi to millions (billions!) of digits
before I can even say the first 4 out loud. [Mentioned in article] I live
video chat with a friend in China, which is on the other side of the planet,
thousands of KM and miles away. Millions (billions!) of people can all access
information from their homes or their phones, in the middle of no where. We
are communicating with a man made object that is over 20 BILLION kilometers
away from us. We can store thousands (millions!) of books in a device no
larger than a human finger. We can move several times faster than the speed of
sound. We can...
Simply amazing. It is humbling to be able to work with technology every day
and see what we can do. It is truly a blessing to know that even 5 years from
now we, the human race, will be doing things that people are only beginning to
imagine now. Here is to you technology, you make my pants shrink.
------
melling
The only commercial supersonic jet no longer flies. The Space Shuttle is being
retired without a replacement. It has taken months to stop the spill in the
Gulf. Billions of dollars spent and we can't cure cancer. We can't even cure
the common cold. Only a small fraction of the world even contributes to
progress. Most people live on a few dollars a day and are just trying to
survive.
In short, we have a long way to go, and there's a lot of work to do.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Perkiness Check - c1sc0
http://fr.anc.is/2012/08/02/perkiness-check/
======
c1sc0
I'm submitting our list of perks for our indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to
the infinite wisdom of HN. This is the first time I'm doing a crowdfunding
campaign & I have no clue if these perks are actually any good or not. People
with more experience: feedback?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Woods first athlete to earn $1 billion - alexitosrv
http://www.ohio.com/sports/63381677.html
======
hughprime
I have nothing against golf as a game, and I've played it a few times myself,
but the idea that there's _this_ much money floating around just in sticking
logos on the shirts of guys who hit balls into holes to persuade other guys to
buy new sticks with which to hit other balls into holes makes me feel like
there's an awful lot of money being wasted.
~~~
DannoHung
Golf is the most popular sport for wealthy people. Ever watch (and not fall
asleep) a golfing event on TV? Advertisements are for ridiculous luxury goods
and asset management services.
~~~
eserorg
Profitability of an advertising franchise = (value-per-impression) x (Number-
of-Impressions)
Online social networking has an extremely low value-per-impression.
Professional golfing has an extremely high value-per-impression.
Which explains why Tiger Woods has generated more in profits than the entire
history of the online social networking business.
~~~
sjh
And Woods alone attracts a not-inconsiderable portion of the audience: TV
ratings for this year's US PGA Championship were around 50% higher than for
the same tournament last year, the principal difference being Woods' absence
in 2008 due to injury.
------
ankeshk
Tiger Woods should be lauded. No crazy spending sprees. No expensive divorces.
No being taken advantage of by friends and "business associates." No loss in
risky business ventures.
He not only earned the money. He retained it too.
~~~
evansolomon
Do you actually know any of this other than the divorces part? I have no
evidence that Tiger goes on wild spending sprees or has lost money on bad
investments, but I have no evidence that he hasn't either.
FYI I am about as big a Tiger Woods fan as you'll find and if you made me take
one side of a bet, I'd take yours, but this seems like an odd statement of
fact.
~~~
antidaily
I know his Dubai golf course is tanking. But I'm not sure he's not just
lending his name to it.
~~~
graywh
He designed it.
------
raganwald
I found this amusing and a little thought-provoking:
"Forbes says Tiger Woods has become the first athlete to surpass $1 billion in
career earnings.
"The magazine estimates that golf's top-ranked player crested the plateau when
he earned $10 million for winning the FedEx Cup on Sunday.
"Forbes reported on its Web site on Tuesday that Woods entered 2009 having
earned $895 million since he joined the PGA Tour in 1996. Prize money,
appearance fees, endorsement fees, bonuses and his golf course design business
were calculated to have pushed him over $1 billion.
"The magazine says former NBA great Michael Jordan and former Formula One
driver Michael Schumacher, at $800 million and $700 million, respectively, are
Woods' closest competition in career earnings.
"More golf: Watson takes 2-shot lead"
So we have this stupendous amount of money discussed for four paragraphs, and
then the cliché "And in other news..." is that Watson has taken a two shot
lead somewhere or other. The implication that both datums are of roughly equal
interest to the reader is amusing and makes me curious. Is it a machine that
decides that? Or does a human actually believe that after reading about Tiger
having earned a billion dollars the reader will next want to turn back to the
details of a match instead of thinking more about investments and careers?
~~~
rdouble
It is the sports page. Even if it wasn't, how would a journalist segue from
this to investment and careers?
"In other news, no matter how shrewd you are, you will never achieve a
fraction of Tiger Wood's net worth. But let's talk about 401k plans, anyway."
or maybe
"If you happen to be rich, remember, Tiger Woods got there by playing golf -
you had to spend 20 years trading natural gas futures in Calgary."
There doesn't seem to be a great angle...
------
nuweborder
I guess Lebron didnt have his wish come true of becoming the 1st Billion
dollar athlete. But he's got many more years to come. Im sure he will surpass
that number. As it is whatever his new contract is after this season, and
whereever it is, is going to be worth a ridiculous amount. Try the possibility
of a $50 million per year deal with a European team. Not to mention the Nike
deal, the movie being released this year, the management company, a profitable
and public relationship with the greatest rapper on the planet (Jay-Z), and
many more endorsements. Who knows, maybe he'll be the first $2 billion dollar
athlete. He taking a page from the book or "Jordan". Brand yourself, and take
away from the game, more than just championships, and shoes. But a name that
is worth even more.
Its like his friend Jay-Z said, "Im not a businessman, Im A Business, man."
~~~
ssharp
He would be able to make twice as much in salary if he went to Europe but he'd
probably lose more money in the long-run by not playing in the NBA.
I get the feeling that Lebron will be able to leverage the Chinese ties which
a new minority owner of the Cavs has and find a way to tap into the fledgling
basketball market in China. Yao Ming has opened up a gigantic market for the
NBA and someone is going to make a lot of money off of it.
~~~
nuweborder
Good point. That new Cavs Chinese ownership can definately be capitalized on,
and their is a lot of Global money to be made from that deal. They loved him
in China during the 08' Olympics in Beijing. Will be exciting to see what he's
gonna do come next summer. Europe, Stay with the Cavs, NYC, Jersey (Brooklyn),
etc. His options are endless. At one point, I thought the Jersey move was out
because the team was having so much financial trouble with the possible
Brooklyn move. But now with the new Russian ownership, along with his
relationship to part-owner and friend, Jay-Z, that may be a viable option
again.
------
jodrellblank
I'm quietly pleased that the world had a billionaire author before a
billionaire sportsperson.
------
pxlpshr
Can someone point me in the direction of why this is HN worthy? I'm missing
the connection here.
~~~
mattyb
This way -> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=225879>
~~~
pxlpshr
I'd understand your point if this story was even remotely associated to HN,
technology, or "hacking the system".
~~~
mattyb
From <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>:
_What to Submit
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic._
I personally don't find this terribly interesting, but billionaire athletes
are certainly a new phenomenon.
~~~
pxlpshr
Worm holes, black holes, supernovas, big bang, the million other galaxies
outside of ours — those are phenomenons.
Billionaire athletes (through endorsements) are the result of a sharp rise in
consumer consumption, media saturation, and globalized market place the last
20 years. How is that a phenomenon?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
We do not use C to build web apps - ElectronShak
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3079153/why-do-you-not-use-c-for-your-web-apps
======
craftoman
Cause we have to kill every hacker existed on this planet first unless if
every web developer had a team of 100+ specialists for free. For example, from
a hacker perspective writing web apps in C is like running Windows 98 as a
server in 2019 unless if you're Google and you willing to sacrifice 5000 devs
for a web application from scratch in C.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Comparing how security experts and non-experts stay safe online - devhxinc
http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2015/07/new-research-comparing-how-security.html
======
modeless
_[Non-experts] mistakenly worry that software updates are a security risk._
I think this betrays a lack of thought about the risks to non-experts. Tons of
malware masquerades as legitimate updates, and non-experts don't always have
the knowledge to distinguish legitimate updates from malicious ones.
Therefore, to non-experts software updates _are_ a security risk.
Edit: And this is why Chrome's policy of updating automatically and completely
silently is the right thing to do, and everyone else (Adobe, Oracle,
Microsoft, looking at you) is doing it wrong.
~~~
bsilvereagle
> And this is why Chrome's policy of updating automatically and completely
> silently is the right thing to do
Not everyone is hooked up to unlimited broadband 24/7\. To anyone who is
frequently jumping between capped satellite & 3G/4G networks, silent auto-
updating software not only unexpectedly slows down your already non-ideal
connection, but also eats up lots of your capped data.
Lots of services tend to forget about the users who aren't hooked up to
broadband 100% of the time.
~~~
sliverstorm
The proliferation of mobile devices and the convergence of mobile and
traditional end user operating systems is solving this one. Android and
Windows 8.1 both have the ability to mark an arbitrary WiFi network as
metered, and many core services as well as third party apps will happily
discriminate between unlimited WiFi and metered WiFi/cellular connections.
------
joosters
But are the security experts actually safer online?
The study seems to assume that they are. It may be a fair assumption, but it
would be interesting to know if it actually is true or not. It would also help
validate the security practices.
If it turns out that the security experts got infected just as much, or only
slightly less than the non-experts, then following their practices might not
be worth the effort...
~~~
lucb1e
Very good question, but I'm not sure how you imagine this could be addressed.
Security experts may use a lot more password managers and want to use unique
passwords, but you could say that's just because they have a lot more accounts
than normal people. Most people have a couple accounts for social networking,
their bank, perhaps a local library... experts usually work in the field,
spend their days online in an office, and have lots of accounts for various
tasks or activities.
The attack surface is very different: lots of accounts versus just a couple.
Lots of time online browsing various sites versus browsing your average social
network in spare time. Perhaps I'm overgeneralizing, but it probably matches a
good percentage.
And then there is the definition of "safer" or "expert". Are you an expert
when you got a degree in the field? When you followed some online courses?
When you work in the field? Or when you read a lot about security?
~~~
joosters
The paper acknowledges the problem in defining a security expert (see 5.1:
Limitations)
_Defining a security “expert” is challenging, and we settled upon a
definition that is simple (5+ self-reported years of experience in the area)_
------
tptacek
The thing that software security people do that most normal people don't do
is: browsing and accessing email in a virtual machine, not their actual
machine.
~~~
ihsw
Can we settle for containers instead?
For example, running Chrome in a Docker container. Why not? Drawbacks?
Security risks? Feasibility?
I understand that users _download_ things but personally I can't recall doing
that in recent memory, other than things like news/tech spec PDFs for later
review. Moving downloaded files out of the browser's container would involve a
fair bit of ceremony (physically selecting files/folders and dragging them out
of the browsers "Download" folder and onto the host's file system, disallowing
saving files outside of that folder, and so forth) but it doesn't seem that
bad.
What do most users do with a browser other than open the thing, browse
websites, and download files for later?
~~~
tptacek
No. I'm barely on board with the pain/benefit of running an isolation VM.
Containers provide so much less isolation than VMs, it's hard to imagine
they're worth the inconvenience.
(I hate VMs so much I just use two computers).
~~~
thematt
Why do you hate VM's so much? Usability? Or is there some technical reason?
~~~
MichaelGG
Because VMware has essentially abandoned their client virtualization software?
(Workstation 11 is a paid minor bug fix.) While it's way better than
VirtualBox, it's still annoying. Stuff like USB devices will randomly not
work. You need more system resources, which heats up the machine, making it
hot to the touch. Oh and it crashes at times, too. With Windows-on-Windows
setup, I was having daily crashes. VMware doesn't seem to care and offers no
support with the product (gotta buy a company support plan). They even had a
kb article to the effect of "Known issue: Workstation crashes when you run
Office 2007".
It's usable, just a bit annoying. I feel little option but to run Windows as a
host OS in order to get best driver/video/battery support, so VMware is
essentially mandatory.
It's also a huge attack surface.
------
taeric
I am personally concerned with the "patch, patch, patch" message. Stated that
way, I completely agree with it. However, for many it is just "update, update,
update."
I'm all for getting the latest security patches. Or any security patches,
really. I'm growing tired of getting the latest possibly risky feature from a
product because it is the only way I can get a security patch.
~~~
wlesieutre
Just yesterday, Windows Update automatically installed a driver for my GTX
970. It broke OpenGL and I had to go to Nvidia's website to get their standard
driver and reinstall it.
And since Windows 10 breaks the ability to block specific updates, I'll
probably have to keep the installer around and reinstall it _every damn time_
that Windows Update decides that the driver MS is distributing is better than
the one from nvidia.com.
I'm a techy and I completely understand why users ignore updates. Either it's
invisible and the user doesn't know it happened, or it breaks something with
no obvious way to revert, or it arbitrarily changes things that were fine how
they were. So their perception ends up being "every time it updates, things
get worse."
~~~
fluidcruft
I am extremely, extremely skeptical that Microsoft doesn't have a way for
nvidia to fix this.
As a heavy desktop Linux user, hearing about examples of half-assed,
incompetent, hacky, lazy product support by nvidia isn't exactly new
territory.
Nvidia is causing your pain, not Microsoft.
~~~
wlesieutre
I'm not sure sure you can blame it all Nvidia. The versions that Microsoft
ships are written by Nvidia, yes, but they're torn down to essentials with a
bunch of features removed. Among those, Nvidia's various control panel type
addons, and apparently some important OpenGL extensions that LWGL relies on.
By going through WHQL, Nvidia gets to have better out of the box support on
Windows, and Microsoft gets to ship a stripped down driver without Nvidia's
control panel cruft and with better support for DirectX than OpenGL.
I don't see what Nvidia's motivation for the last part is unless Microsoft
said "Don't bother including all of the OpenGL capabilities, DirectX is fine
for basic drivers."
------
phlo
Brilliant. Measuring how well typical users understand/implement security
measures has long been overdue.
Personally, I find Figure 2 (on Page 5) of the paper most interesting: it
shows the difference between expert and non-expert mentioning certain
practices -- which to me seems roughly equal to how under-/overappreciated
that practice is.
The top contenders for underrated (i.e. used more frequently by experts
compared to non-experts) are: System updates, 2-factor-auth, password
managers, unique passwords and checking for https. Most overrated: antivirus,
password changes, only visiting known sites and using strong passwords.
As a security community, we appear to have gotten the point across when it
comes to antivirus and strong passwords. Anyone giving general advice should
consider this and emphasize the "underrated" measures.
~~~
sarciszewski
> Anyone giving general advice should consider this and emphasize the
> "underrated" measures.
Funny enough, we did exactly that last month!
[https://paragonie.com/blog/2015/06/guide-securing-your-
busin...](https://paragonie.com/blog/2015/06/guide-securing-your-business-s-
online-presence-for-non-experts)
Unfortunately, Archive.org did not crawl us before this Google blog post came
out, so I can't prove that I did not ninja edit the post. Google has a cache
from July 8, though:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-ovweQ...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-ovweQsOFBMJ:https://paragonie.com/blog/2015/06/guide-
securing-your-business-s-online-presence-for-non-
experts+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)
------
zzzcpan
> The high adoption of antivirus software
> among non-experts ... might be due to the
> good usability of the install-once type of
> solution that antivirus software offers.
Or due to the fact, that antivirus companies make money on selling antivirus
software to non-experts and have a long history of advertising it to non-
experts as a security solution.
~~~
iulia_ion
Yep, it seems that marketing works. :D
------
emergentcypher
One bit of advice that should be up there is to run an ad blocker and a flash
blocker (not so relevant anymore now that FF started blocking by default). I
know, I know, websites depend on ads for revenue. But ads are also a great way
to deliver exploits, in addition to all the personal tracking ad networks do.
Our number one priority is to protect ourselves, not to protect website
revenue.
~~~
Balgair
For the lazy:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
us/firefox/addon/ublock/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
us/firefox/addon/ublock/)
[https://www.ghostery.com/en/](https://www.ghostery.com/en/)
[https://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/](https://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/)
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/self-
destruct...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/self-destructing-
cookies/)
[https://noscript.net/](https://noscript.net/)
Anything I missed?
~~~
asquabventured
ublock origin is the original creator maintaining the code. it is better than
ublock!
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-
origin...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/)
Some others potentially worth installing:
[https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere](https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere)
[https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger) I
prefer this over Ghostery. You can also for the most part replicate Ghostery
by just downloading an appropriate filter for Ublock Origin.
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy/)
------
JupiterMoon
Do security experts place less emphasis on virus scans because they do their
browsing on OS for which virus scanning is less important?
EDIT This question is partly motivated by wondering if a Linux browsing user
should be running a virus scanner?
~~~
Zikes
Security experts have more faith in their ability to avoid triggering a
scenario where a virus has the chance to gain a foothold. That's why there's
such an emphasis on patches, to plug the holes they can't see to personally.
------
medmunds
Not entirely surprising the experts ranked "install software updates" #1, but
it didn't even make the non-experts' top 5.
We, as an industry, still have a long way to go in making it easy and safe for
consumers to keep their software up to date. Have you ever tried to explain to
someone (outside the industry) which "click to install the latest version"
messages are important to obey, and which are malicious?
~~~
jacquesm
And which, even when they are not intended to be malicious will break your
system in an unrecoverable way...
------
peterwwillis
This seems misleading. Good security jerks know that there isn't a rule that
works for everything. This list might be a little misleading to the non-
security jerks.
For example, 'software updates' are half the battle, but the other half of the
battle is configuring your software to be more secure (browser sandboxing,
NoScript, pop-up blockers, malware detectors, OS hardening).
All the rest of the security concerns are authentication-based, but there are
very few accounts that are important enough to need a secure account. Banks
and money transfer services, business accounts (taxes, professional services,
ebay/etsy merchants, etc), followed e-mail accounts, are probably the only
really critical accounts most people have. You can hack my Facebook or my
Huffington Post account; it doesn't really threaten my safety.
I think the one thing _nobody_ does that would actually matter to them
eventually is keep offline backups. Facebook might lose all your pictures and
FB messages tomorrow. They have _zero_ responsibility to keep that crap for
you. If you do get hacked and someone deletes all your pictures, don't go
crying to Facebook; they have enough problems.
At the end of the day, the biggest threat to your online safety in general is
malware. Once malware is on your device it's game over.
------
Canada
Something obvious seems missing:
Our systems can be hacked, expert or not. Minimize online footprint. Do not
keep years and years of email and other stuff on Internet connected devices,
back it up to external media.
------
nhf
A plug for our paper, also at the SOUPS conference. We tackled a similar
topic, but with a different method and broader focus (how experts and non-
experts in general conceptualize the internet as a system):
[https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/soups2015/sou...](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/soups2015/soups15-paper-
kang.pdf)
It's great to see a large company like Google focusing on this kind of work
though.
------
platz
How do I apply my patch,patch,patches to TurboTax, Adobe Reader, and Skype?
I don't think we're talking about the same applications here when comparing
security experts and non-experts.
------
progmal1
I am going to have to go with the non-experts on items 4 and 5.
~~~
JupiterMoon
In terms of only visiting websites you know. Unless you block adverts most
websites you know serve a lot of content from organisation you don't know.
------
cmurf
I've had my mom use lastpass for a couple of years, and just recently enabled
grid multifactor auth (free). The main thing about their multifactor options
is you can optionally "trust" a computer and only do multifactor on it once.
So she won't have to ever use multifactor, but it's mandatory elsewhere which
essentially keeps everyone else out while not changing her workflow.
------
noipv4
Namebrand home router vs pfSENSE router.
------
ozim
Seems like another attempt of google to get phone numbers from users. Experts
are using two factor authentication, review your security settings and give us
your phone number. Maybe I am a bit paranoid...
------
ipsn
Odd that they did not mention VPN, Tor, User Agent spoofing, tracker blockers,
flash blockers, and so on.
------
rilita
What kind of security experts are they talking to... My personal list of most
important things to do:
1\. Run a version of Linux ( Windows is simply insecure )
2\. Use Firefox + NoScript and only ever temporarilly allow JS to run as
needed. ( JS is -not- safe and at any point in time there are at least a
handful of zero day exploits )
3\. Use an offline password manager ( KeePass )
4\. Use a secure anonymous non-logging VPN for all internet use
5\. Use a paid private email account, not some free one
6\. Use VMs for running software that may not be safe
~~~
eldridgea
Those sounds good but I'm shying away from Firefox at the moment for security.
I love their open source approach and would prefer my browser to be open
source.
However Firefox does not have tab sandboxing, extension sandboxing, or process
isolation. These are pretty standard features in most browsers now (except for
process isolation which seems to be Chrome only at present).
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Lack of regulation is the main reason for huge success of the web - emmanuelory
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2011-03/02/gq-comment-ed-vaizey-internet-neutrality-censorship-bt-virgin
======
ramanujan
This is more true than most people realize. The web was inherently hard to
regulate from the beginning because a given page could pull in assets from
many different states and countries. So regulators basically gave up.
It's quite possible that with a different set of circumstances, the problems
of spam, porn, black hat SEO, etc. would have triggered a regulatory response
that would likely have massively slowed down the growth of the internet.
Imagine FDA-style, mandatory, centralized, single point of failure, pre-market
review of every website for "safety" and "efficacy".
That's insane to contemplate, but a few high profile "Myspace child predator"
scare stories at the beginning of the internet could very well have made it
happen.
Even the very concept of pre-market review is strange to the internet. Here
it's accepted that you launch and figure things out iteratively. Part of the
reason is that we're more tolerant of visible crashes in computers than other
fields.
However, systematic studies (e.g.
[http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/12...](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/12/device-
lag-at-the-fda.html)) have shown that centralized pre-market review even in
areas like healthcare costs more lives and money than it claims to save. [Not
to digress too much, but among other things, the lack of an opt-out means the
FDA has no incentive to remain competent. There are thousands of schools that
certify medical doctors, but only one certification agency for medical
devices. The relative lack of innovation in healthcare vs. IT is in nontrivial
part due to this stifling regulation; see for example what happens when
internet culture collides with FDA culture here:
[http://mobihealthnews.com/6932/interview-the-iphone-
medical-...](http://mobihealthnews.com/6932/interview-the-iphone-medical-app-
denied-510k/)]
~~~
hexis
"There are thousands of schools that certify medical doctors, but only one
certification agency for medical devices."
Somewhat amazingly, there are only 133 schools in the united states that award
MDs - <https://www.aamc.org/about/medicalschools/>
~~~
maxharris
The fact that this is so tightly regulated is directly responsible for the
well-known shortage of physicians (especially primary care) in the US.
Here's some data about how the supply of doctors is constrained by law:
[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S8p3XotZRpI/AAAAAAAANQ...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S8p3XotZRpI/AAAAAAAANQ4/9Bn63-6lmgs/s1600/medschool.jpg)
([http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/medical-school-grads-
hav...](http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/medical-school-grads-have-been-
flat.html))
For the last 30 years, only 16,000 new doctors are let through each year, and
this is very carefully regulated to keep guild members rich. There's nothing
wrong with people getting rich, so long as they don't use the government to
secure and maintain their monopoly. This is why state licensing should be
abolished.
Unfortunately, it's been this way since the Middle Ages. Does it have to be
this way? Not if you decide that people should be free to choose for
themselves which expert they should seek medical help from, and what
qualifications they require. If you own your own body (and I say you do), this
is your right to decide.
~~~
jbooth
There's probably a middle ground between the current exclusionary system and
some guy with a mail-ordered Hard Knocks University degree on his wall being
allowed to practice medicine on people.
~~~
maxharris
The solution is freedom.
Freedom means freedom from fraud. So if the guy with a mail-ordered degree
_lies_ to someone and says he got a degree from Harvard, causing that person
to get "treated" when they would otherwise have gone elsewhere, that's when
the government should intervene.
Saving people from themselves is foolhardy, and such efforts are invariably
used as tools of repression.
~~~
jbooth
Is this tongue in cheek? The solution is "freedom"? Like get ahold of a whole
bunch of powdered freedom and just sprinkle it over the medical industry?
The solution is likely a series of detailed, technocratic tweaks to the
accreditation process to allow more schools offer an MD while not allowing
Clown College to offer one. I'm an educated guy and I have zero ability to
rate a doctor aside from the fact that in order to get the MD there's a
uniformly high bar. You're suggesting I should bring a copy of US News and
World Report Med School rankings to the doctors' office with me to make sure
they don't operate on the wrong knee or something? And if I'm not diligent
enough to do that, I deserve whatever happens to me?
~~~
dpatru
When people are left free, they tend to work out effective solutions. In a
free society, there would likely be a multiple authorities to judge physician
competency. The consumer would get to pick.
A big problem with doctor certification today is that doctors are graded on a
boolean scale, pass/fail. So two physicians can both be certified, but one can
be vastly better than the other, and you, as a uninformed patient, have little
way of judging. A close relative of mine has had an opportunity to assist in
many open-heart surgeries performed by several doctors. He tells me that there
is a huge difference between surgeons. One surgeon regularly completes
operations in 20 minutes with no mistakes and complications, another surgeon,
at the same medical center, takes two or three times as long, is much
"messier" (cutting things he shouldn't), and his patients have many more
complications. It's obvious to everyone in the operating room who is the
better doctor, but no one will tell patients. For patients, both doctors are
"competent." In free market, presumably there would be at least one rating
agency that would provide a more nuanced report on doctors.
Also, to get an MD, there is not a "uniformly high bar," at least there hasn't
been in the past. Medical schools discriminate in their entry requirements
based on at least race, but possibly other non-competency factors like sexual
orientation and parental alumni status. So entering medical students are not
held to a uniformly high bar. Once in medical school, student performance
diverges. Some students are at the top of their class, others are at the
bottom. Some pass the certification exams with high scores, others barely pass
after two or three attempts. Most of this information is not readily
accessible to the average healthcare consumer.
The primary aim of doctor certification seems to be to restrict the supply so
as to keep wages high, not to help consumers choose. The best solution really
is freedom, not mere "detailed technocratic tweaks" to a system designed from
the bottom-up to protect the interests of the medical profession against
competition.
~~~
jbooth
Look, empty platitudes like "more freedom" are never the answer, unless the
question is, "how do we sell people on something so crazy that they'd never
agree with it otherwise, like for example, 'giving jbooth and dpatru the
ability to sell a MD degree for 5 bucks on the street corner'"?
You may as well say the solution to the medical credentialiing problem is
pancakes.
There was a point in time where you didn't require a government certified
authority to give you the title of doctor. People decided to start certifying.
For obvious reasons.
~~~
ramanujan
There was also a time you did not need a government issued ID to get on a
plane. That also changed, for obvious reasons, but not necessarily good ones.
Fear of the unknown is not equivalent to rationality.
The worst government policies are those where "concerned mother" (= Democrat)
and "stern dad" (= Republican) stand shoulder to shoulder to protect you from
yourself. Millions of people are in regular contact with that sort of "stern +
concerned" thing in the form of the TSA, but other agencies are no less
Kafkaesque (more so in fact given that they are operating in comparative
darkness).
You can stand on a street corner and call yourself a programmer willing to
work for $5. Or for zero. That doesn't mean that GE will hire you to write the
code for their next X-ray machine. Distributed intelligence is much smarter,
and centralized evaluation much dumber, than many believe.
------
ajays
An analogous story I heard (and it could just be a rumor) was that such lack
of regulation was also why the movie industry took off in LA.
The story goes that Edison had lots of patents on movie-related tech, and
wanted to squeeze the movie makers and control them; so the movie makers ran
off to the furthest place possible from NY (where Edison was), i.e., Los
Angeles, CA. There they were free to operate without Edison and regulations.
~~~
Travis
I would love to hear more about this if you can find a source...
~~~
waterlesscloud
This is perhaps the most readable book on the founding of Hollywood.
[http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Their-Own-Invented-
Hollywood/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Their-Own-Invented-
Hollywood/dp/0385265573)
As the subtitle indicates, it has a particular focus on the early Jewish
players in the movie business, but it covers all aspects along the way.
As for the decimation of the European industry, that really happened more in
WWII than WWI. There's a good documentary mini-series on the early days of the
Euro-industry, which ends with the WWII decline.
[http://www.amazon.com/Cinema-Europe-Hollywood-Kenneth-
Branag...](http://www.amazon.com/Cinema-Europe-Hollywood-Kenneth-
Branagh/dp/6305837171/)
Apparently out of print now, but worth watching if you can find it.
------
zacharyvoase
I’ve never heard a politician speak/write in such bullshit-free terms (i.e.
plain English). I suppose that’s why he’s “minister for culture,
communications and creative industries”.
~~~
isleyaardvark
I actually think he is deliberately unclear. That's based on previous
statements he has made, plus the tendency of other politicians to give false
definitions of net neutrality.
You or I might think that this statement of his:
"My view on net neutrality is pretty simple: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I want an open internet, with a few simple guarantees - that everyone should
be able to access any legal content they want; that there should be no
discrimination against content providers on the basis of commercial rivalry;"
...is a perfect quick description of net neutrality. But you'll notice he
doesn't say that _is_ net neutrality. He says things like "Supporting net
neutrality means supporting unfettered access to the web for everyone. But
there's a problem here." and "The self-appointed defenders of the internet...
are now actually calling on governments to regulate in order to guarantee net
neutrality, or at least their version of it."
He's dissembling. Their version of NN is _the_ version of NN. It's the same
version he earlier said he supported. And this isn't the first time the
minister for communications has had to try and clarify his statements:
[http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1899719/ed-
vaizey-s...](http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1899719/ed-vaizey-
support-net-neutrality-maybe)
I'm really amazed at the pure Orwellian doublespeak that goes on when
politicians discuss NN. "I don't support net neutrality, I think instead we
should [do exactly what net neutrality calls for]."
------
antihero
The web works unregulated because (other than people in some countries), it is
the client, the consumer who is utterly free to do what they want.
This model does not apply to the real world, for instance -- if someone online
sees a site and thinks that it is terrible, there is far less overhead to
setting up an alternative.
Banks, telecoms, energy -- all this has to be regulated because the markets
are there such that there are monopolies, people are locked in, and providing
an alternative can be exceptionally difficult.
__The market is only as free as the consumer. __
Net-neutrality ensures that freedom. If they were to allow companies to fast-
track their sites, that essentially makes the market _less_ free because it is
a barrier to competition, which gives way to monopolies.
Finally, the web isn't entirely unregulated, just the small bits of regulation
that there are, are very important in protecting the freedoms of the consumer.
~~~
maxharris
You have failed to distinguish between economic and political power.
Economic power is earned justly (by offering better/more efficient/lower
priced goods and services), and monopolies obtained and maintained this way
are desirable. They lose market share only when company stops being virtuous.
Political power, on the other hand, is always wielded unjustly. An example of
this is when someone tries to get the government to make a law that hurts
their competitors, but leaves them unscathed. _This happens all the time._
(And it explains why we license professionals, and support food cartels, etc.)
These kinds of laws are always sold to the public as measures designed to
protect them, when in reality they are just there to keep GE and the like in
power. Antitrust regulations fall on this side, too.
Entities with political power are protected by the government's (legitimate)
monopoly on the use of force. If they're not virtuous, the govenment is there
to maintain their unearned monopoly. Like any corruption, this harms living
standards and progress.
So that's why you have to distinguish between the two cases. If you don't,
you're implicitly advocating policies that punish the good for being the good.
The political solution is to separate the state and economics, just like we
separate the state and church.
~~~
stcredzero
_Economic power is earned justly (by offering better/more efficient/lower
priced goods and services),_
This often happens justly. It doesn't always happen justly. For example,
sometimes buying from merchant A is "more efficient" because merchant A has
defacto dictatorial power and a variety of ways of making your life miserable
if you buy from anyone else.
_and monopolies obtained and maintained this way are desirable._
I am dealing with a monopoly based on the political power of a certain local
music venue owner. If the free market were in operation in this case, amateur
musicians of a certain local music scene would play jam sessions at an
entirely different pub for a number of reasons. We are somewhat held hostage
at our current venue, because of our friendships with professional musicians.
None of us dare start a session inside the loop because of the political
fallout. So we put up with the barman who doesn't care for us, his turning the
stage lights on us until we sweat (it's not a paid gig, for heaven's sake!)
and the utter inattention, ignorance, and apathy of the crowd. Our particular
town's instance of this particular music scene suffers artistically for this,
as better musicians don't show up, and some talented out of town musicians
don't want to join in.
_They lose market share only when company stops being virtuous._
Sometimes a company stops being virtuous, and keeps market share.
~~~
maxharris
Hostage? You can't use that word in this context because it means that someone
is committing a crime. (And if that were the case, you would be talking to the
police about it!)
If you don't like what the owner of a certain venue is doing, you're free
(somewhat - the government collects taxes and does other immoral things that
limit everyone's freedom) to try to open a competing venue, where you make the
rules.
Also, to use the phrase "political fallout" when you're not talking about the
government is confusing as hell. Relationships with family and friends do not
qualify as political if we are to have a sensible discussion about this.
~~~
stcredzero
_Hostage? You can't use that word_
You're entitled to your opinion. It works like this: certain of our friends
are afraid that if we started another session, they'd never get another gig
again or soundboard job again, which would be a significant chunk of their
income.
_Also, to use the phrase "political fallout" when you're not talking about
the government is confusing as hell._
That's either crazy talk, or a deliberate troll. There's definitely workplace
politics in groups of musicians. Somehow, I am unconcerned about you in
particular being confused.
~~~
maxharris
_You're entitled to your opinion. It works like this: certain of our friends
are afraid that if we started another session, they'd never get another gig
again or soundboard job again, which would be a significant chunk of their
income._
Losing your current job is a lot less scary than losing your life.
~~~
antihero
It's a figure of speech.
------
WalterBright
The industries in the US that are in the deepest trouble are:
1\. financial 2\. health care 3\. education
Is it a coincidence that they are the ones with the heaviest regulation and
government involvement?
Contrast that with the computer industry, which is pretty much unregulated. We
have fantastic innovation, progress, price reductions, etc.
------
njharman
The lack of corporate influence / manipulation during it's birth. Which is
really saying same thing as lack of regulation since most regulation
originates with incumbent corporate interests trying to lock in
"cartels/monopolies", lock out any new competition, and gobble up as much
public money as possible.
------
brown9-2
A minor note, but is this accurate?
_In America, this is a massive issue, because there are only two main ISPs,
and so a lack of choice and competition._
Which two? I can name a handful of companies that provide internet access
(Time Warner, Cablevision, Cox, Verizon, etc) but perhaps they aren't "major".
~~~
jauer
I wouldn't call it accurate.
Generally there are two major providers in a area that have saturation
marketing.
Then you have CLECs and independent ISPs. They tend to focus on direct sales
to business so the public isn't as aware of their existence. Typically you'll
have 3-5 of these in a market.
After that you have the mobile data providers (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, Cricket,
Clearwire).
------
adestefan
I'd argue that the commercial Internet is too young to be regulated.
Regulation is a reactive force and there really hasn't been much to react to,
yet. Sure there's issues with spam and porn, but neither of those industries
are heavily regulated to begin with.
------
brlewis
On the flip side, the web has been hindered by software patents. Photo and
video compression would be much better. The dominant algorithm for general web
compression encoding, gzip, was chosen not because it compresses best, but
because it appears to have steered clear of patents.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
'Child-friendly' search engine Kiddle is promoting ignorance, not safety - tomkwok
http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2016/03/01/child-friendly-search-engine-kiddle-is-promoting-ignorance-not-safety/
======
paulddraper
> Well, it means your daughter won’t be able check if the cramps she has in
> her tummy might be her first period and your kids won’t be able to search
> for a clear definition of what it means to be gay or transsexual, so they
> might have to rely on what they hear in the playground.
No, they'll rely on my _parenting_. Linking them to the Wikipedia article on
sex doesn't count as as parent-to-child talk.
It's a big enough deal that I want to do this. I'm not going to just leave it
up to sex ed, the playground, or the internet. I do what I can.
------
gamechangr
>"I don’t have kids yet..."
Enough said.
> "Instead of blocking terms like LGBT and intercourse, Kiddle would be much
> better to help educate kids in an age-appropriate manner about these things,
> not adding to the stigma."
If you have installed a block for kids... I should hope that it blocks the
word "Intercourse"? Is this guy serious?
~~~
tresni
I have kids, 4 of them actually and I must say I agree with the author. The
problem with the Kiddle approach is that it doesn't help kids when they need
it. Additionally, telling them it's a "bad word" doesn't encourage them to
talk to their parents about it, but may have the exact opposite effect.
A better approach would be curated results for these terms vs no results. Or
maybe a banner that says "This is a great topic to talk to your parents
about." Who knows, may actually work. Probably not thought...
~~~
gamechangr
I have kids as well, 3 of them actually.
I appreciated your response. I get the idea of the "better approach" and I
liked that you admitted on the front side that .." who knows, may actually
work. Probably not though...".
I don't think that's what the author had in mind ("talk to your parents").
That wouldn't be that bad.
What's scary is when adults outsource their parenting role.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Social Music Startup Looking For Marketing Savvy Co-Founder - dglassan
Disrupt.fm offers musicians word of mouth music distribution through Facebook.<p>Musicians can leverage their fan base to help promote their brand by offering free music downloads in exchange for sharing the song on Facebook. I've seen some good traction since launching in early January but I'm looking for a marketing focused co-founder to handle the musician acquisitions while I focus on the technical aspects of improving the site.<p>I'm looking for a co-founder with proven marketing skills to engage with bands, managers, and record labels to introduce them to the benefits of Disrupt.fm. Experience with Copywriting and Email Marketing are a big plus. Experience or connections in the music industry is an even bigger plus.<p>Since chemistry between founders is essential, please provide your Skype username so that we can video chat if I think there's a good fit.<p>If interested, contact me at dave@disrupt.fm<p>http://www.disrupt.fm
======
mjspicolli
Just sent you an email. I'd like to know a little more about the site.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
DARPA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR): Topics - phugoid
http://www.acq.osd.mil/osbp/sbir/solicitations/sbir093/darpa093.htm
======
bravura
Don't forget to other funding agencies besides DARPA:
[http://www.acq.osd.mil/osbp/sbir/solicitations/sbir093/index...](http://www.acq.osd.mil/osbp/sbir/solicitations/sbir093/index.htm)
as well as the STTR program:
[http://www.acq.osd.mil/osbp/sbir/solicitations/sttr09B/index...](http://www.acq.osd.mil/osbp/sbir/solicitations/sttr09B/index.htm)
The SBIR grants money to small businesses, about $100K for Phaise I (six
months) and $750K for Phase II (two years). The STTR is for collaborations
between a small business and a research institution (e.g. university).
In this batch of solicitations, I have seen a solicitation for "Computational
Models of Leadership" as well as a STTR on GPU/CUDA computing.
During the pre-release period (i.e. now) you can communicate directly with the
topic authors. This is a technique you can use to establish rapport with the
topic authors, which makes them more comfortable funding someone they've never
funded before.
------
ivankirigin
SBIRs are like crack. It's easy money, but then you get on a government
delivery cycle and standards.
I wouldn't touch them at a startup.
~~~
calcnerd256
The company for which I work is currently in a situation where we make most of
our money from SBIRs. Any suggestions for breaking out of that cycle?
~~~
ivankirigin
Put all your resources into either selling something to someone besides the
government, or making something you can sell.
IRobot can sell their military robots to people like the police, and the
roomba side of course.
The alternative is going whole hog and getting more money from congress
outside the sbir process. Then you're a defense contractor.
------
lallysingh
Search for "SB093-004" to jump to the software-related stuff.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Beijing to Shut All Major Coal Power Plants to Cut Pollution - vincvinc
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-24/beijing-to-close-all-major-coal-power-plants-to-curb-pollution
======
kcorbitt
I really wish that articles like this would give more context for all the
numbers that inevitably get thrown around.
> China Huaneng Group Corp.’s 845-megawatt power plant
What percent of the city's electricity is that?
> Beijing plans to cut annual coal consumption by 13 million metric tons
How much less soot will actually be in the air? Will the city feel noticeably
cleaner?
> China planned to close more than 2,000 smaller coal mines from 2013 to the
> end of this year
How many coal mines does China have?
> The level of PM2.5, the small particles that pose the greatest risk to human
> health, averaged 85.9 micrograms per cubic meter last year in the capital,
> compared with the national standard of 35.
What is considered a safe level? What is considered acceptable in Europe/the
US?
I know that researching all that would take longer than just throwing up the
facts from the press release. But without that context, it's hard to know
whether this is really a big deal or just a normal retirement of older power
plants for newer, cleaner alternatives.
~~~
spenrose
"I really wish that articles like this would give more context for all the
numbers that inevitably get thrown around. > China Huaneng Group Corp.’s
845-megawatt power plant What percent of the city's electricity is that?"
Humanity uses about 17 terawatts of generated power (electricity plus
transportation plus …), about 15 from fossil fuels, of which coal generates
more GHG that all but the dirtiest oil and the leakiest NG facilities. That
plant is probably used about 80% of the time, so it represents about
675/17,000,000 of humanity's power use and something like twice that much of
our GHG generation.
We think we can generate about 500GT CO2e of GHG net before reaching 3°C
warming (but that involves a lot of guesses), which is a level that seems
civilization-destablizing to many observers (wild, but necessary guesses).
Coal creates about 1kg per kWh, so convert from 675MW … 60sec _60min_ 24h
_365d_ 675,000kW = 21,286,800,000,000 kg/yr, or ~21GT/yr, or 4% of that
budget.
~~~
elevensies
is the budget yearly?
~~~
spenrose
The 500GT budget is total. That plant is using roughly 4% of our let's-not-
wildly-destabilize-civilization GHG budget every year. We've got about 30
years to radically restructure our energy use. More here (among many places):
[http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/](http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/)
~~~
voodoomagicman
Are you sure this is right? There must exist more than 25 coal plants in the
world? Do we expect to hit this budget w/in a year? Is this coal plant much
bigger than most others?
~~~
spenrose
[Edit: an up-to-date piece focusing directly on the carbon budget:
[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/keep-it-in-the-
ground...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/keep-it-in-the-ground-
blog/2015/mar/25/what-numbers-tell-about-how-much-fossil-fuel-reserves-cant-
burn) ]
There are a lot more than 25 coal plants in the world, and we must stop using
them very very soon. Here's an EPA-citing source claiming 1 Gt coal -> 1.8 Gt
CO2e, and 3.5 Gt used by China in 2011, the latter amounting to ~6.5 Gt CO2e,
and ~20% of world emissions that year. [1] If Chinese coal use is now about
the same, and if we have 650 Gt left before some particular nasty tipping
point is reached, then China's coal is currently using that budget at a rate
of 1% a year. There's a lot of uncertainty in the rate measurements, and
significant uncertainty in the tipping points, but there is no uncertainty
that world will be like nothing humanity has ever seen at 500ppm CO2, and we
have no reason to think that, say, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh can adjust
smoothly to regular high temperatures of 54° with sporadic heat waves at 57°,
or that America and the US can smoothly adjust to most of the farmland that
currently feeds them becoming unusable and most of the fisheries collapsing.
Finally, note that we're not going to get to near carbon-neutrality in 30
years by dropping radically next year, continuing at a flat 1/30th of our
budget for 30 years, and then dropping to 0. Any plausible route will
accelerate GHG reductions something like linearly.
[1]
[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Existing_U.S._Coal_Plan...](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Existing_U.S._Coal_Plants)
~~~
spenrose
Oh, note that @voodoomagicman was right; 4% for one coal plant was off by a
factor of about 100, mostly b/c I overestimated how much coal it used.
~~~
elevensies
Ok, thanks for the info, now I have a better sense of proportion. So that
means that 25 years brings it to 1% globally. I see how breaking the cap might
not be totally inevitable but it doesn't seem very evitable either. I think we
could see a major food price increase in our lifetimes.
------
dejawu
If any country has a chance at implementing nuclear power on a widespread
scale, I think it's China. In America, the primary reason we don't use nuclear
power is driven primarily by the negative perception and fear of the word
"nuclear" (with a bit of help from the fossil fuel lobbies). One of the
advantages of the one-party state is if the party wants something done, that
thing will get done, no ifs, ands, or buts. China's rail network is an
excellent example of this (and that's another thing we've failed to implement
stateside due to political gridlock). Should China decide that nuclear is the
way to go, then it will be done.
~~~
not_that_noob
Yes, we all saw how well this worked at Chernobyl. Single party rule - no ifs,
ands, buts or coconuts.
There's no subsitute for democracy and people holding their governments
accountable.
~~~
steve-howard
We've learned a lot from and since Chernobyl. Chernobyl came about because the
people running the plant made a string of willfully stupid decisions to try
out a safety feature for the plant. This isn't to say that democracy isn't
superior to single-party rule, but that no one would invest in building a
modern nuclear reactor and play fast and loose with safety procedures.
~~~
guscost
Arguably the people who _built_ Chernobyl also made a willfully stupid
decision to leave out passive safety features:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety)
------
Florin_Andrei
Oh, just the _city_ of Beijing. For a moment there, I thought it's the whole
country. That would have been... very consequential.
~~~
borgia
Imagine the effect that would have on Australia.
~~~
jdmichal
That comparison seems slightly disingenuous, only for the fact that
Australia's size vs population is very disparate. The majority of the area
isn't even populated at all -- as in, not even rural sustenance farmers live
there. [0] Localized air particulate pollution is very much a matter of local
energy generation density, which is going to be closely related to local
population density.
[0]
[http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/1270....](http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/1270.0.55.007Main%20Features12011?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1270.0.55.007&issue=2011)
~~~
vacri
I think borgia is referring to our coal exports to China being lucrative, and
their removal would hurt.
We have a lot of coal. Here in Victoria, we have a ridiculous amount of low-
grade coal that's not good for exporting. One power company CEO once said in a
radio interview that if you want to convince him of a new technique to use
less coal for whatever reason, don't frame your argument around fuel price -
the coal is effectively free.
------
LiweiZ
The biggest challenge China is facing is its management structure. It's a
"一刀切" (decisions and executions are basically boolean-value-like things). The
lack of effective and elastic delegate mechanism makes the organization look
like an elephant that can not dance. It's easy to find examples from the time
zone management (all regions in China are using the same time zone) to recent
campaign of youth soccer. I know what I said here is off topic, but it might
add some context for this topic.
~~~
jdmichal
For others curious like me, Google translates "一刀切" as "one size fits all".
------
lispm
The article mixes a few things. CO2 emissions are climate change relevant, but
for pollution in Beijing there are other emissions from these coal power
plants responsible. Modern coal power plant have much lower emissions in
general, but not for CO2. Probably the coal power plants are so old, that it
is not effective to modernize them with modern filtering systems, higher
efficiency, etc.
~~~
khepin
Many of those plants are decades old, and poorly managed. But they're also ran
by state owned companies which means there's no market incentive towards
efficiency and a huge amount of politics regarding what you do. I worked
almost 10 years ago for a European company doing district heating in China. In
a smaller city in the north of China, they were able to replace the 19
existing coal plants with a single one.
------
peter303
China probably has more shale-gas than the USA, but has been slow to develop
it. Cheap shale gas in the US has cut US coal pollution in half. Shale gas
development is extremely expensive. This one area where China's hybrid state-
private enterprise system is not as nimble as the United States.
------
FreakyT
Excellent news, though I wonder if the hydroelectric/wind/solar replacements
they mentioned will be sufficient to meet the demand.
~~~
ukdm
from the article "The facilities will be replaced by four gas-fired stations
with capacity to supply 2.6 times more electricity than the coal plants."
------
brc
Catching up to London in the 1930s...or was it 1950s?
Burning lots of coal in dated power stations next to a city is a bad idea for
the residents health.
~~~
pjc50
Until 1983:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station)
Edit: I don't understand the downvotes; my point is that the last coal-fired
powerstation in London was closed a lot more recently than people might think.
~~~
arethuza
That was a pretty interesting link - I had no idea of the explanation as to
why Battersea power station was that shape!
There was a quite large coal fired power station operating close to Edinburgh
until very recently (2013):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockenzie_power_station](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockenzie_power_station)
~~~
pjc50
Yup, although that's not nearly as "in" the city as Battersea.
Every time someone mentions wind turbines "spoiling the view", I show them a
photo taken looking along Portobello beach. In the far distance a few white
single-pixel turbines are visible. In the medium distance is Cockenzie, which
is _on the seaside_ and visible from miles around.
------
auganov
Is it in response to that viral video [1] on air pollution that got banned a
couple of weeks ago? Nice move.
[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM)
------
nayuki
There was an interesting data synthesis piece of music this week:
[https://vimeo.com/122603843](https://vimeo.com/122603843) "Air Play - Smog
Music Created With Beijing Air Quality Data"
------
nakedrobot2
While China's pollution is among the worst you can get, the country does have
the advantage of being run like a corporation, and when they decide to clean
it up, they will do it very quickly. I guess, I hope, that within 30 years,
many parts of China that are currently "horribly polluted" will be as clean,
or cleaner, than cities in "the already developed places" such as Europe or N.
America which themselves had horrible pollution at one time.
~~~
seanmcdirmid
The government isn't really that efficient or centralized. The top bosses in
Beijing say X, and that gets filtered down and translated through 10-20
Confucian layers of beaurcracy, at the bottom, the emperor is far away, as
they say. And corruption...if everyone breaks the law, you are at a
disadvantage if you don't also, and will simply go out business. China will
have to improve their governance significantly if eg have any chance of
cleanup the air. Xi jinping is treating corruption and pollution as two sides
of the same coin at least.
LA in the 70s is nowhere near as bad as hebei/Beijing is today. Maybe London
in the early 50s....it's hard to say.
~~~
BurningFrog
The fact that the top bosses do breathe the Beijing air is the biggest reason
to be confident it will be cleaned up.
~~~
seanmcdirmid
They send their families to Europe and the US, becoming "naked officials." I
doubt many of them spend much time in Beijing these days; they all have
retreats where the air is clean, as well as very good air filters when they
are Beijing (official use was used as an advertising point until the CCP shut
that down).
------
roccaturi
Someone has been learning something from playing Cites: Skylines.
------
tootie
+1 for cutting coal burning, -1 for DDoS attack on GitHub. China is at par
today.
~~~
dmd
Right. Those are totally equivalent.
~~~
illumen
At least they didn't fly in heavily armed police to shut it down like the USA
did to Mega.
~~~
ceejayoz
The raid on Kim Dotcom was performed by NZ police, not American police.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Arrests_in_New_Zeala...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Arrests_in_New_Zealand)
~~~
bduerst
It's hyperbole to say the U.S. flew in people for the arrest, but it's also
splitting hairs to say it was just the NZ who arrested Mega.
------
PublicEnemy111
This seems very uncharacteristic of China. The residents of Beijing have been
told by the government for years that if you don't absolutely need to be
outside, then don't go outside. This is the first I've heard of China putting
anything before growth.
Unrelated, but this gives me hope that they might crack down on counterfeiting
soon.
~~~
ceejayoz
Growth requires citizens not dying of air pollution. I don't really see this
as putting something before growth.
~~~
teach-me
Weak citizens dying of air pollution quickly and being replaced by healthy
strong new recruits from the hundreds of millions living in the China
villages.
Very similar the recipe for big cities in Europe before the industrial
revolution. There was no canalization, food had to be brought on horse cars
without refrigerators from vast areas, making it decay. A dozen people per
room, resulting in fast spreading of viruses and bacteria.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
What It’s Like to Describe Porn for a Blind Audience - DemiGuru
https://slate.com/culture/2020/02/pornhub-audio-description-interview-accessibility.html
======
sgt
On a recent flight I decided to check what movies were available, and out of
curiosity I selected the "Audio Description" option for Avengers.
It basically means the movie's audio track is kept as is, while an additional
voice is added. The voice explains the scene, what the characters do, and the
general gist of what's happening. These guys have to be really creative and it
impressed me quite a bit.
In fact, it turns out the voice actor for Avengers is Christian Simpson and
he's also known for running his own YouTube show about retro computing called
Perifractic's Retro Recipes. Worth checking out if you're into that kind of
thing.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Body Is Not a Computer–Stop Thinking of It as One - DiabloD3
http://gizmodo.com/the-body-is-not-a-computer-stop-thinking-of-it-as-one-1795067037
======
conception
This article is terrible. Of course the body and brain are complicated. But
that doesn't mean they don't operate based on rules and systems and mechanics.
Just because we can't control how the machine works 100% doesn't mean we
currently aren't "Hacking" it today and won't be able to even more in the
future.
------
aibottle
Just skimmed the text and read the comments here TBH, but I can already see
were this is going. Of course the brain is complex and we don't understand it
and even if Elon might not succeed with Neuralink (in the decade to market
plan) it is still worth exploring. So stop hating gizmodo.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Year-End Report on Why Developers Love iOS - FluidDjango
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/20/distimos-year-end-report-shows-why-developers-love-ios-iphone-4x-android-revenue-ipad-2x/
======
saturdaysaint
Owning the high end has its advantages. I've long seen anyone with a
smartphone as an early adopter with a bit of disposable income but that's less
and less true as the mainstream adopts them - they're now "almost necessities"
and a lot of people have tight budgets after they pay rent, gas, food and
phone bill. So a marketplace with people with a lot of disposable income might
rake in a disproportionate amount of money, just as an upper crust mall
generates orders of magnitude more money per square foot than a more humble
middle class equivalent.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
IKEA’s Best-Selling Product Is Not a Piece of Furniture - Gedxx
https://medium.com/better-marketing/ikeas-best-selling-product-is-not-a-piece-of-furniture-bc8c30fcd378
======
ksaj
I can't tell: Are they referring to individual meatballs, the meatballs in one
plate at the restaurant, or one bag of meatballs from their store?
Comparing sales of individual Billy bookshelves to the sale of individual
meatballs is bizarre, but it still then leaves you to the individual plate, or
the frozen bag, which are completely different portion sizes.
Billy bookshelves come in a couple of sizes, so maybe they mean not individual
meatballs (since you can't buy a single meatball), but both the restaurant
plate servings and the bags as compared to sales of the large and small
bookshelves?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Release Open Source HTML5 Games on the Windows Store - CoryG89
http://coryg89.github.io/experiences/2013/06/11/release-open-source-html5-games-on-the-windows-store
======
duncan_bayne
Curious ... why would you write Free Software, then release it to a walled-
garden app store? If you're going to all that effort, why not support a truly
open platform?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Path of Exile's patch post mortem - antsam
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/659606
======
thristian
It's worth noting that Path of Exile is a free-to-play game that had an un-
scheduled 45-minute outage, and the resulting post-mortem is written with more
detail and attention than I've seen in cases involving pre-negotiated service-
level agreements.
Beaujolais to Grinding Gear Games!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.