Why the "Learn to Code" Meme Is Toxic and Shouldn't Be Used - <AUTHOR> https://zeroequalsfalse.press/posts/why-learn-to-code-is-toxic/ <comment><USER2> So this meme didn't come from nowhere. Blue collar professions have been given this 'helpful advice' by journalists quite a bit over the years. It was tone deaf then, and still so now. I admit I don't yet see why it's verboten/'toxic' to parrot this same tone deaf advice to journalists now?

I admit I haven't wandered through the more dilapidated internet street corners lately, so perhaps it's become toxic due to the sheer volume of use where its no longer something to be seen in good fun, or perhaps we are running low on goodwill as a society to be able to enjoy a joke?

Setting that entire matter aside, the article has (to me) a somewhat tenuous argument that saying the tone deaf joke of 'learn to code' is disrespectful to programmers and the like. I'm not sure about that, but I don't have a coherent reason to articulate that just yet.

<comment><USER3> Did all the journalists being targeted by this actually tell blue collar workers to learn coding? I've searched on my own and found articles about "this company in west virginia that's training coal miners to code" or "jobs that will be automated in 10 years - is your's next?", but I don't specifically see or recall journalists telling displaced workers that coding would fix their problems. If anyone here can provide examples of that, I would appreciate it.

If this was a widespread thing that many journalists spouted, I understand the outcry. If only a few journalists spouted this nonsense, then I don't think it's fair to punish an entire industry over some bad apples.

What I suspect is that the "learn to code" push was more of a society-wide meme trafficked by politicians, economists, and tech CEOs. And I have to imagine that some journalists gave those people a platform. But perhaps I'm looking at the wrong evidence?

EDIT: dexen's post found maybe one example: A Buzzfeed quiz that suggests coding could become the next blue collar profession. That kind of fits the "learn to code" meme. The other articles dexen posted were actually counter to that - An article where Michael Bloomberg said learning to code is unrealistic for many displaced workers, and another article about coal miners proving him wrong.

Is that it? Or are there more examples?

<comment><USER4> Whether it was journalists pushing it, or "politicians, economists, and tech CEOs" pushing it, and journalists merely repeating it, I don't know.

But I definitely remember hearing that message in the media for the last 20 years, and I don't recall anyone calling it "trolling" until it was directed at journalists.

<comment><USER3> Well it's important to know what was actually said and who said it. If, by and large, journalists did not actually advocate for displaced workers to code their way out of unemployment, then harassing them with #learntocode is unjustified.

I've wasted the entire morning looking for sources of this by now. Like you, I sort of remembered hearing that message over the years. But now that I'm looking, I'm not actually finding many examples where news outlets are seriously suggesting this.

Have you ever thought you knew something, but end up misremembering it? There are lots of people who swear they remember a movie called Shazzam staring Sinbad as a genie, but there is no such movie. There was a movie called Kazaam staring Shaquille O'Neal, and Sinbad once dressed up in similar garb when hosting a movie showing. But people conflated the two things.

I think that's whats going on. And if so, we should not be harassing journalists who had nothing to do with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _> Currently (...)_

Way to start with a false premise. The meme died out by now[1].

 _> The phrase "Learn to Code" was initially posted on Twitter after the layoffs at BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post._

Way to continue with a false premise.

The phrase was used literally [2], and the subject was referenced [3] by numerous newspapers and other media outlets back when the economy was tanking, as a _helpful_ suggestion to laid off workers - miners, autoworkers, and so on. "Those jobs aren't coming back" and all that. The only concern back then was of practicality, and nobody in their right mind considered it to be a put down of the workes, or of programmers.

Yes, the phrase may seem insensitive from our, programmer's, POV. Nonetheless, there's a historical precedent to it, based off of much wider segment of society than just programmers.

I find it shameful that Twitter, in its infinite wisdom, decided to suppress the accompanying hashtag, and later on even went as far started penalizing the posters. It used to be understood as a good idea back then, it's still considered a good idea now-a-day. I think it was shot down only for the expediency of keeping the journalists a-buzz on Twitter.

\--

[1] [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&q=...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&q=%22learn%20to%20code%22)

[2] [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/should-...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/should- you-learn-to-code)

[3] [https://gigaom.com/2014/04/09/michael-bloomberg-you-cant- tea...](https://gigaom.com/2014/04/09/michael-bloomberg-you-cant-teach-a-coal- miner-to-code/) and [https://www.wired.com/2015/11/can-you-teach-a-coal-miner- to-...](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/can-you-teach-a-coal-miner-to-code/)

<comment><USER6> > Way to start with a false premise. The meme died out by now

Change the dates and look at the graph, I don't think you can say such a trend died by looking at the last 90 days.

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22learn...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22learn%20to%20code%22)

We still see articles about teaching kids to code, either at home or in school almost weekly on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The reason the learn to code meme is popular with 4chan is because some journalists were insinuating that coal miners and truck drivers will have to learn how to code in order to pay their bills.

Now that journalists are being told to learn how to code to pay their bills, it is controversial.

</comment><comment><USER8> The "Learn to Code" meme in its current evolution, i.e. as thrown back in the faces of journalists, is pointedly in defense of the value and difficulty of software development which the article espouses.

</comment><comment><USER9> We should be aware that the meme has origin on journalists themselves.

When blue collar workers faced job shortages due to environmental regulations (I am not arguing those were wrong of course, just putting it into perspective), journalists suggested those workers to "learn to code" in some very insensitive remarks.

Now, those words are being thrown back at journalists facing job shortages themselves.

<comment><USER3> Do you remember which journalists made those remarks? I'm trying to find the source of this.

<comment><USER9> The Know Your Meme article about it has quite a lot of info and some sources for the old articles: [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/learn-to- code?full=1](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/learn-to-code?full=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this author is a bit too easily offended. Software engineering is a good job but we're not better than anyone else.

</comment><comment><USER11> This author doesnt understand sarcasm - another reason I tend to ignore anyone who uses the word "toxic" outside of health and safety.

</comment><comment><USER12> Software engineer for 12 years, in IT for 18.

Not in the slightest bit offended by this. No one should be. It's a silly meme.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why do people think that software engineering is the ultimate job in the world ? Sure it pays well and is generally a good job but other jobs are important too. Our modern lifestyle isn't solely built by software engineers. The meme is that everyone should learn to code is as silly as saying everyone should be an astronaut.

<comment><USER14> My belief is that because people who don't know anything about writing software think it's easy and pays lots of money because you understand this arcane language that seems mystical to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure it's toxic. Ideas can't hurt people, not really.

That said, I don't think most people can code very effectively. It requires a person to be generally intelligent, and then to specialize in a narrow part of computer science. "Learn to Code" is great advice, but it should probably be understood that everyone who's being displaced won't become effective coders.

<comment><USER16> > I'm not sure it's toxic. Ideas can't hurt people, not really.

Jesus said "The truth will set you free."[1] The corollary is that lies make you a slave. Ideas can definitely hurt people - especially ideas that are believed.

In this context, the idea that I need to learn to code could be very harmful if I believe it, devote time and money into learning how to code, and find out that I can't code well enough to get a job (or that I hate it). Now I'm out a bunch of time and money that I could have spent learning how to do something else that fit me better.

Even worse is if I conclude that "coding = success, not being able to code = failure", and therefore that I am currently a failure, and a permanent failure if I fail to learn how to code. That can be massively harmful.

The meme itself isn't a big deal. Directing some smack talk at the media is completely fair game. If someone takes the meme seriously, however, it can definitely hurt people. (Don't take career advice from memes. Even more, don't take advice as to your identity or value as a human being from memes.) \-- [1] Actually, he said that if you followed his teaching, you would know the truth, and the truth would set you free - it was spiritual truth and spiritual freedom he was talking about. I'm taking his words more broadly than perhaps he meant them.

<comment><USER15> This is a great response.

I think I probably could have caveated a little better, and said something like:

"People are throwing around the word 'toxic' far too freely. I'm worried about over-sensitivity and censorship. Because of these concerns, I'm apt to push back on characterizations that words and ideas are harmful, even if the ideas themselves are flawed and open to criticism. Specifically, flawed ideas that deserve to be criticized can't really hurt you in the way that 'toxic' implies."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19336925](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19336925)

Tim Apple himself is saying that colleges are not doing enough to teach folks to code! Acknowledging this underlying reality, even in a somewhat provocative way, is hardly "toxic".

</comment><comment><USER18> It's supposed to be a jab at fired journalists and not serious career advice which is how the author appears to have taken it. The toxic part is not that learning to code is going to solve all their problems and be all "rainbows and unicorns" but that it is mocking people for being laid off, whoever they are.

</comment><comment><USER19> I disagree. Hearing this about a decade ago was the kick in the pants that I needed to get my life in shape. I realize it doesn't work out for everybody, but demystifying software development as something anybody can do is excellent.

What hurts our industry is the ninja/hero culture where devs burn the midnight oil for no overtime. If you want to be respected as professionals, behave like a lawyer. What would your lawyer say if you told him he needed to do a Saturday night deployment?

</comment><comment><USER20> Feels like he started with the conclusion and worked in a premise.

</comment><comment><USER21> Virtue signaling, much?</comment>


Benford's law, Zipf's law, and the Pareto distribution - <AUTHOR> http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/benfords-law-zipfs-law-and-the-pareto-distribution/ <comment><USER2> There are some very nice insights in here. (As usual from Terry Tao.) For instance (here I'm simplifying a bit; if you want a more accurate version, go read TT's article): if you've got two random variables X and Y, and X approximately obeys a power-law distribution, and Y is independent of X and has some other not-terribly-demanding properties, then XY also obeys a power- law distribution, to the same degree of accuracy or (often) better. So, things made out of products of random variables (e.g., because they arise from an exponential growth process applied to some starting random thing) tend to have this sort of distribution, which is where things like Benford's law (first digits of positive "random" numbers tend to occur unevenly, with k occuring log(1+1/k) of the time) come from.</comment>


Why Tumblr Sucks and Why it doesn't - <AUTHOR> http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/post/2361267063/why-tumblr-sucks-and-why-it-doesnt Why Tumblr Sucks and Why it doesn't! <comment><USER2> Grammer/spelling check needed but otherwise good analysis. basically to me, Tumblr does not suck if it will stay on all the time.</comment>


SSH Multiplexing & other OpenSSH Tricks - <AUTHOR> http://symkat.com/35/ssh-tips-and-tricks-you-need/

<comment><USER2> I do wish keepalive could be turned on/off more dynamically - most of the locations I connect from it's a disadvantage so I don't have it configured, and having to edit the config file when I'm in one where it's useful just annoys me.

I suppose I should just write a script that perl -pi -e 's/KeepAlive yes/KeepAlive no/' .ssh/config or similar, but it still seems ... annoying.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious why you would want multiple connections to the same host in the first place. Why not use a terminal multiplexer?

<comment><USER4> it's convenient if you want to pipe the output of a command on a remote machine into another command on a local machine

ssh server remotecommand | localcommand

<comment><USER4> And some reasons why you might want to do _that_ :

* set up a machine with all packages installed on some (debian/ubuntu) server: ssh server dpkg --get-selections| cut -f1 | xargs sudo apt-get install

* compare output of commands on two machines diff <(command) <(ssh server command)

* test/configure software on a local machine, plugging in its input from the roduction machine where it will be installed once ready

* avoid installing software on the server entirely; pull in the remote output and wrangle it locally (obv. not so good for high volumes)

* think a bug can be fixed by upgrading some software? try it on a test machine, pipe in the required input, and see

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there a way to do the reverse? That is, can I ensure a more stable connection by using one terminal to open multiple SSH TCP connections for faster speed and redundancy?

My workplace sometimes suffers from serious problems and because TCP allocates resources based on number of connections, I'm pretty sure I can improve the situation by establishing 2 tcp connections for the terminal.

<comment><USER6> TCP was designed to assume that packet loss was due to contention... so if you have random or other non-contention-related packet loss, your sessions will slow to a crawl. In this case multiplexing might make things worse than separate sessions... but you're probably just as screwed either way. What you really need to do is just get them to fix the random packet loss problem you probably have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> +1 just for the multiplex magic, But then, I /would/ say that =)

That TTL thing is handy too, I'm sure I had some understanding of it previously, but reading the article made me check my settings and made me realize my timeouts were ridiculously low so even short disconnections killed my session.

</comment><comment><USER8> For the proxy thing you may want to configure your applications to proxy DNS requests as well. Some do not do it by default and would leak the hostnames you're connecting to.

In firefox the about:config variable is "network.proxy.socks_remote_dns". Set it to true.

</comment><comment><USER9> autossh [http://www.debianadmin.com/autossh-automatically-restart- ssh...](http://www.debianadmin.com/autossh-automatically-restart-ssh-sessions- and-tunnels.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> I wish cygwin supported multiplexing. Emacs + TRAMP is noticeably slower for me when I'm running on Windows. Anyone have a good workaround or alternative?

</comment><comment><USER11> See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1536126>

</comment><comment><USER12> '-t' is also useful if you have machines behind a NAT you want to get to: ssh -t gateway.example.com ssh protected_machine

<comment><USER13> Or you could add the following to your ~/.ssh/config instead:

        Host protected_machine other_protected_machine
        ProxyCommand /usr/bin/ssh gateway.example.com /bin/nc -w 3700 %h %p

(Assumes you have /bin/nc installed on your gateway.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> just to be clear, multiplexing happens on the client side, right? What's the difference between multiplexing and ssh-proxy?

<comment><USER7> Multiplexing is multiplexing. That is, encoding multiple data streams across one channel. In our case, thats having a singular SSH connection from a to b, but having multiple streams of bidirectional data flowing across that singular connection. <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Multiplexing> So no, multiplexing is started on the client side, and then it happens on server side too. There has to be a multiplex ( many to 1 ) and demultiplex ( 1 to many ) in order for "multiplexing" to occur.</comment></comment>


Everything you need to know about Funding - Notes from FOWA talk by Ben Holmes of Index Ventures VC - <AUTHOR> http://www.freddestin.com/blog/2007/02/fowa_the_index_.html <comment><AUTHOR> The slides from this talk are now up on slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/cape/index-fowa/

</comment><comment><USER2> worth a read, yes. but everything? hmmmm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, "Everything you need to know" was the name of the original talk. These notes don't cover everything but I hoped people would find some of this useful. Perhaps I should have waited till the audio & slides were posted.

<comment><USER3> "I know everything there is to know about funding but it is too large to fit in this margin." ;)</comment></comment></comment>


137 economists supporting GOP tax reform bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/137-economists-support-gop-tax-reform-bill-in-open-letter-commentary.html <comment><USER2> A quick perusal of names from two universities I have been affiliated with, along with some of the organizations the signatories belong to, reveal that these are mostly emeritus business admin or finance professors.

Of course they're in favor of this, they don't have to worry about their graduate students anymore.

</comment><comment><USER3> Even though it is essentially funded by reducing social security

[https://theguardiansofdemocracy.com/sen-rubio-admits-gop- str...](https://theguardiansofdemocracy.com/sen-rubio-admits-gop-strategy- starve-social-security-medicare-benefits/)</comment>


A simple deployment pipeline for small scale Docker applications - <AUTHOR> If you're new to Docker and don't know how to deploy a container, or want to automate the manual work involved, I wrote a guide on setting up a simple deployment pipeline: https://maximorlov.com/automate-your-docker-deployments/
Docker adds extra steps to your deployment process that makes it tedious if you have to manually deploy each time you make changes to your code. It's much nicer if you could push to master and automatically see your changes appear live.
This guide will take you, step-by-step, through the process of setting up a deployment pipeline that's simple and straightforward to learn.
You'll end up with a setup that doesn't require extra infrastructure or having to deal with an orchestrator. Therefore, it's great for hobby projects and small-scale applications.
I hope this helps some folks out there that are dealing with this right now. Share your progress! <comment><USER2> Thanks will take a lookp

<comment><USER2> Question: why does the title not link to the resource?

<comment><AUTHOR> HN doesn't allow to have a url and text on HN posts. I had to choose one. Would an external link have been a better fit?

<comment><USER2> I'm used to clicking on heading and it takes me to external resource. This is not the case here.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Virtual Weimar: Hyperinflation in a Video Game World (Diablo 3) - <AUTHOR> http://petercearle.com/2013/05/diablo-hyperinflation-article/ <comment><AUTHOR> Site looks to be down at the moment.

Here is the same article: [http://mises.org/daily/6435/A-Virtual-Weimar- Hyperinflation-...](http://mises.org/daily/6435/A-Virtual-Weimar- Hyperinflation-in-a-Video-Game-World)</comment>


How GitLab Wants to Handle GDPR's Right to Be Forgotten - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/42972 <comment><USER2> It'd definitely be hard to revoke someone's identity from Git, but what about comments and the like? People's participation outside of the code itself likely should still be removed.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. The default position should be to remove the personal data where it is possible. But in instances where it the data is necessary for the stability and integrity of the codebase, it should remain.</comment></comment>


I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave  - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor <comment><USER3> This is the article where one of the author's warehouse colleagues is fired because he attends the birth of his son without giving seven days notice. Can't find the quote though - was it removed, or am I searching for the wrong thing?

Edit: thanks vhf. Here is the horrible quote I was looking for:

"Brian already went through this training, but then during his first week his lady had a baby, so he missed a day and he had to be fired."

Frightening.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I've worked in a few pretty bad places in the past (though not this bad).

Problem is that the main incentives for an employer to provide decent working conditions are so that A) They don't leave for a competitor and B) Make people happy and more productive.

A doesn't really apply, because if these people had options they wouldn't working there. Also it costs so little to train up a new hire and there is a constant pool of unskilled , unemployed people to pick from.

B doesn't really apply either, because these type of jobs suck almost by definition, there is also unlikely to be much difference between a more and less productive employee due to the repetitive nature of the job.

These people are also very unlikely to sue you for wrongful termination or whatever, so it means that it is worth it to get the small productivity increase you might get from being unreasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a depressing read. At some point robotic warehouses will be the norm. Until then there will be lots of places like this. Commerce often means that the lowest bidder gets to deliver the goods. What they don't tell you is how much the lowest bidder is squeezing their employees just so they can be the lowest bidder.

Don't end up like Brian, get yourself some marketable skills other than running around a warehouse to pick orders. Or you might very well find yourself fired just when you need your job the most - for instance when your wife has just delivered a baby (which with any normal company run by people with some heart would result in paid leave).

And when those robotic warehouses roll around these jobs will simply cease to exist.

<comment><USER6> Don't assume robots will always replace people. We have, after all, seen robot factories replaced by poorly paid humans in China.

If low skilled jobs keep being handed over to robots, eventually we get a lot of people with no valuable skills. These people will be poor and largely unemployed. If you take away welfare, collective bargaining, minimum wage, and a safety net then these people will work for literally crumbs (ocnsider people who live on garbage dumps in India). For many many roles these people will be cheaper than robots.

This is, incidentally, the lot of the poor before the welfare state was created, and it's what the Tea Party wants to recreate.

<comment><USER7> Just because it's a MoJo article doesn't mean this is the place to wax philosophic about your personal political beliefs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No, you have not been a slave. Slaves did not have the option to stay at home and get fired. They were not getting paid.

You just had a shitty job at a warehouse.

<comment><USER3> If you can stay at home and get in more debt, or work and have less debt (but still lose money month-on-month) does that make you a slave? Does it make you enslaved to your debt?

What if the wage earns you only enough to live on? Some slaves were provided with sustenance and not much else. What's the difference?

<comment><USER8> _This_ is why I criticize using the term "wage slave". People actually think the lives of people who _literally_ didn't have any human rights and were bought and sold as property are comparable to people who work under poor conditions.

The author mentions that she earned $60 a day after taxes.

<comment><USER3> > This is why I criticize using the term "wage slave".

But "slave" != "wage slave", as explained in the Wikipedia article linked above.

<comment><USER8> > But "slave" != "wage slave"

Exactly my point.

<comment><USER9> You have no point. The term wage slave has been around since the industrial revolution and has a very well understood meaning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Repost from half a year ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641184>

<comment><AUTHOR> Did not realize that, and the dupe-detector didn't catch it.

<comment><USER11> After a while, you can repost. "Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years" has been posted about a dozen times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a great read. I've been a call centre worker in the past (sitting through 400 automated number dials a day, half of which are straight to voicemail and I was targetted to sell to 2 a day. Horrible job) and this just reminds me that I'm lucky that I have skills and options.

</comment><comment><USER13> Foxconn sounds better than this...

<comment><USER14> The Chinese have it bad, but American factory workers don't have it all that much better. You're still dealing with a lot of easily-replaceable people who have little or no leverage to push back at unreasonable demands.

That's a recipe for unhappiness no matter where you live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> this sounds pretty bad - however i find it hard to have sympathy given past experiences.

the real problem here is that people feel they are entitled to things and don't have to earn them. if you lack the ability to get out of these kinds of situations (which is difficult a lot of the time) then you just have to suck it up and survive - and be grateful you are being paid money for a job instead of having to survive at even lower levels.

on the other hand, bravo for doing your bit to raise awareness of the poor quality of life that many people must endure to survive. a nice reminder that we are in the top 1% of the top 1%...

just my opinions as a former starving african child who once had to steal and find food to survive... actual survival where if you don't do it you die - <USER2> where things like law and society mean nothing because they are mere fabrications and reality is king.</comment>


SIPRI Arms Transfers Database - <AUTHOR> https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers <comment><USER2> Biggest supplier USA and biggest recipient Soudi arebia</comment>


Helsinki University MOOC on full stack web development in English is now open - <AUTHOR> https://fullstackopen-2019.github.io/en/ <comment><USER2> A comprehensive introduction to modern web application development with React and Node.js.

Participants are expected to have good programming skills and to know the basics of working with the Git version-control system.

</comment><comment><USER3> The course is very thorough and is a great tool for learning fs webdev.</comment>


Intel to invest billions in U.S. factories - <AUTHOR> http://www.financialpost.com/news/Intel+invest+billions+factories/3694381/story.html <comment><AUTHOR> I found that interesting as $8b of investments create 8K jobs. That makes $1M per employee, and man, this is construction, not hi-tech. Sure the material costs money. But the correlation of those two eights is interesting in my opinion.</comment>


In A Perfect World, This Is How Web Sites Would Handle Login Forms - <AUTHOR> http://www.woutersmet.com/2014/03/20/in-a-perfect-world-this-is-how-web-sites-would-handle-login-forms/

<comment><USER2> Whatever you do, DON'T follow this advice. It's utterly wrong.

Here's the professional way to do this:

"An application should respond with a generic error message regardless of whether the user ID or password was incorrect. It should also give no indication to the status of an existing account."

[https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Authentication_Cheat_Sheet](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Authentication_Cheat_Sheet)

<comment><USER3> Bare in mind that particular advice is from a group expressly interested in security. The article is talking about usability. There is often a balance to be struck.

<comment><USER4> There is a balance, and it swings heavily in the direction of never ever ever compromising security.

<comment><USER3> Your reply made me smile. You're quite right, but only up to a point. An emphasis on security that compromises usability can backfire and start to make things _less_ secure.

For example, enforcing a 32 character passphrase with at least 1 non- alphanumeric character would be incredibly secure, but users will start writing down their password on post-its near their terminals, and suddenly all that 'security' evaporates because you've introduced an artificial weak link.

In a small way better usability enhances security by making the user less likely to get things wrong.

<comment><USER5> Compromising the lock is different than choosing the type of lock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a terrible idea. At this rate, you're just handing out your data! It is a matter of practicality and security. When someone enters a username and password, you do not know who may be on the other end. Telling them that the username is correct but the password is wrong puts an attacker one step closer to gaining access.

<comment><USER7> Came to the comments to say this. Glad to see I'm not the only one thinking it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In my perfect world signing up to a service would only need my email address. I'd enter it and the service would email me a link. Clicking that link would log me in. No password necessary. My log in credentials would be available everywhere my email is available (which is everywhere), and if I accidentally delete the email then just filling in the "sign up" box with the same email address would email me a new one.

The downside is that if my email account is compromised then my account with the service is also compromised, but if that's the case then most 'forgotten password' systems would be equally broken.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is, as everybody noticed - HORRIBLE advice. Imagine this: You mind your own business on - let's say a man-to-man datings site. You don't appear to have a problem with homosexuality, but MAYBE your wife or your employer does. Like this, when they put in your private, personal email address and the website basically tells them: "Yep, you got it, that guy has an accout here". This "meta data" is quite sensitive information, if you ask me, not only from a security point of view, but from a privacy one. Holy moly, don't follow this advice.

</comment><comment><USER9> Everyone's already covered how this is absolutely wrong, but I wanted to add that a second query is not appropriate, either.

You'd want your query to be something like

SELECT password_hash = {password_hash} AS authenticated FROM accounts WHERE email = {email}

That way you'd be able to tell based on your result set whether the user exists, and if so if their password is valid. All with one query.

But, again, you shouldn't do this.

</comment><comment><USER10> There's a key question whether or not to do this that I haven't seen discussed: is the fact that a given login has an account private information? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

For example, on HN, it's trivial to find out whether a given username has an account -- just visit [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=zck](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=zck) , and you'll see whether zck is a registered account.

On services like that, I don't see the harm in distinguishing "password incorrect" errors from "no user" errors, since that _doesn 't give you private information_.

But on private sites, or if you're logging in via email? That's a different story.

</comment><comment><USER11> In a perfect world, you don't login at all because your device knows your identity and there are standardized identity federation protocols that applications and devices can participate in.

(Android already has this. Android developers: Please use AccountManager. I am highly unlikely to create an account with you.)

I can't count the number of times I've just "oh well, nevermind" when I couldn't remember the stupid credentials I used with some application, or couldn't be bothered to create new ones. Not to mention the well-documented security problems with asking users to manage passwords.

Blech I say. Blech. I'm sad that it's 2014 and this is still unsolved.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's a good UI, however if not done right it can be potentially dangerous. As you mention in the PS, people can abuse it in various different ways. Spam bots can go around websites that use this practice and check email validity, for example.

</comment><comment><USER13> No, in a perfect world, THIS is how web sites would handle login forms:

[https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm](https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> In a perfect world, username enumeration is everywhere?</comment>


Pizza for a user group meeting? Your attendees already hate you - <AUTHOR> http://kevgriffin.com/user-group-food/ <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks all for the comments. I've recently updated the post to reflect a couple points.

[http://kevgriffin.com/user-group-food/](http://kevgriffin.com/user-group- food/)

</comment><comment><USER2> > Don't get me wrong, pizza is awesome. Pizza is EXCESS is horrible. Be good > to your groups and don't buy pizza (or sandwiches). Look for creative > alternatives. Attendees will love you.

Can be said about any of the food listed

</comment><comment><USER3> I couldn't disagree more. Stock your meeting with food that the attendees will eat. Get pizza, and make sure you have safe options, like "cheese".

</comment><comment><USER4> Junk food is not memorable, really. All I can see in this list is just junk food.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Chick-Fil-A

I always pronounce that restaurant as "Gay hating Chick-Fil-A."

</comment><comment><USER5> I wouldn't expect anyone to spend a lot of money on an incidental.

</comment><comment><USER6> If it is awesome pizza, they will eat it and have a good experience. Bonus points for a nice salad and other simple options.

With groups, when food is appropriate, the food often determines a lot of their potential to enjoy the event and may frequently enhance value perception.

My best success with this is centered on local places that deliver kick ass catering. Even simple things, sandwiches, pizza, salad, cheeze, etc... can be really great treats.

It's all in the preparation and presentation. Compare a chain pizza to oven fired, olive oil infused, pizza with fresh, high grade ingredients. It's like night and day, and the difference in cost isn't s big deal given the value added.

Finding these places can be a fun networking task, and a meet n greet to sample makes great sense too. Get to know a few and be rewarded with great food experiences with low to no hassle.

Time and place matter too. Can it be an evening affair with light drinks? Knowing the user community matters as much as anything else does. Finding ways to message, educate, and encourage everyone to network and share experiences is worth the extra effort.

I think about whether I look forward to the event, or it being work. It is work in both cases, but having a good time and looking forward to that reward of good eats, friends, and high value information is almost not work.

Target that experience. You will pay a bit more, and you will work a bit more, but everyone involved gets enough to make it all worth it and they will be more inclined to bring others too.

For a number of years, I was part of a large, regional product user group. Helped organize the event, and I was a part of many technical things related to the community. I almost never had trouble presenting material, getting others to speak, etc... we served brown bag lunches in an auditorium, and over the years it got to be almost a family event. Repeat attendees had named bags with just the right stuff in there for them, and we always ordered a little extra for new people. Many were considerate and would give names and food preferences too.

Cost was something like $8 per, and the business generated as well as the closeness of the community really was something. Many of those people have kept in touch and have brought new opportunity and contacts long after that successful run.

A bulk catering would have been less. Maybe half.

I am sure we would not have has the same long term, resonant effects with a lesser venue and more general food. Worth every penny.

A similar meetup for creative worked best in a local tech building with beer and wine.

Both groups, with the former being engineering focused, responded to personal treatment in favorable ways: being positive advocates, referrals, presenters, friends, etc... while needing very different vibes and atmosphere to maximize it for them.

Some time spent really understanding this will almost always pay big dividends.

I understand some groups won't have the same value potential, but I also suspect the positive impact on staff and alphas in the community will still make details matter. No matter what, the staff and significant contributors are going to be there and a lot of how they present and the value perception on all of that is very likely worth some effort.

Unless the business is running ultra lean for necessary reasons, damn good events are worth more than more events in my experience.</comment>


New York is the greatest... and I don't care what Antonio Garcia-Martinez says - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hirehive.com/new-york-is-the-greatest-city-in-the-world-an

<comment><USER2> Somewhat depressed to see that the newest marketing strategy for YC companies is to imitate techniques rappers pioneered 15 years ago.

What are these guys thinking?

<comment><USER3> Indeed. Startups are great because it's a chance to stand on merits, on what you can do and have done. Why waste time dissing eachother?

Just make your city the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's why we plan on moving back. A little writing doesn't hurt though. I think a bit of pride and cheerleading can push New York to be better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Starting to wish for some articles about the iPhone/App Store or Erlang or something...

<comment><USER5> I think this is actually a fundamental problem with not having downvotes. Tribalist things that would normally get half upvotes and half downvotes now just get upvotes. It's the same thing with the iphone/android stories. With downvotes, we'd be reading a lot fewer of them.

<comment><USER6> But downvotes just as often (or more often, I'd argue) create exactly the tribalism you describe. Restrict users to only a positive input mechanism and you'll drastically reduce bullying and other gang behavior.

<comment><USER5> I guess if one camp is clearly more popular than the other then it will win out all the time, instead of both winning out all the time.

<comment><USER6> I guess I don't see this being a problem "all the time" the way you do. Sure, every so often you start seeing lots of articles about the same contentious debate happening in a pretty tight echo chamber (or sometimes you start seeing nothing but Erlang articles at PG's behest), but save for the occasional dud most of what rises to the top around here seems pretty well worth my time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > New York is the capital of food, fashion, music, finance, diplomacy, culture > and news

It's also full of humble and modest people ;-)

I appreciate the fine rantiness of the post (and the one it's responding to, for that matter), but I have one serious criticism:

> The big things (tm) in tech right now are social, mobile, and local. These > work best when you have a lot of people and a lot of stuff all mashed > together. It's not a coincidence that Foursquare is happening in New York > and not Palo Alto.

The problem here is that you're building stuff that _only_ works in super- dense urban areas like New York. We need local and social and mobile stuff that works for the rest of the world too. If Foursquare's ambitions are limited to NY that's legitimate, but your argument is sort of specious: that Palo Alto is inferior because they aren't building applications that don't actually work well in places like Palo Alto (let alone all the still-less dense parts of the country).

Oh, and New York's food carts have nothing on Portland. So there!

<comment><USER8> You are saying that NYC is an incubator for things that only work in super- dense urban areas, and Palo Alto is a very different environment where density-driven things don't work?

I have an impression that most of the rest of the world (that has discretionary spending you might salivate over) lives in cities that resemble NYC density much more than they resemble Silicon Valley endless low-density sprawl. Let's find some numbers.

I compiled the following list of the world's 20 richest cities as of 2005 (1) and next to each I have listed its population density rank and people/sqkm.

Tokyo 50 4750, New York 114 2050, Los Angeles 90 2750, Chicago 126 1500, Paris 69 3550, London 43 5100, Osaka 38 6400, Mexico City 27 8400, Philadelphia 155 1100, DC 250+, Boston 176 900, Dallas 148 1150, Buenos Aires 46 4950, Hong Kong ~36 (not listed in same data sheet as it is a "country") 6349, San Francisco/Oakland 104 2350, Atlanta 203 700, Houston 149 1150, Miami 121 1700, Sao Paulo 25 9000, Seoul 6 16700,

(edit: couldn't get these lines to break no matter what, so just comma- delimited them)

As of 2000, Mountain View had a density of 2264/sqkm, placing it actually HIGHER than New York. What? You would spend half your life on Caltrans in Mountain View with no car. In NYC you would spend half your life looking for a parking place. I don't get it.

Does anyone have more meaningful numbers?

1: [http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/richest- cities-2005.htm...](http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/richest- cities-2005.html)

<comment><USER7> It's a bad habit, but people (including me) often say "New York" when they mean "Manhattan". The population density of Manhattan is 70,951/sq mi (27,394.3/km2) according to Wikipedia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't necessarily agree with all the points, but this was definitely an amusing post to read.

I think your feelings towards NYC are very similar with mine towards Toronto. Both cities are very similar, holding for the density ratio (NYC is at least x4 larger). I have complete faith in the Toronto startup community, though I don't imagine it'll reach the Silicon Valley scale anytime soon. Despite that, Silicon Valley's incredible density and concentration could be a disadvantage for some as much as New York's and Toronto's diversity could be an advantage.

I imagine the startup scene and tech industry will continue growing proportionally in hubs all over the world. Hopefully soon Silicon Valley wont be the only place where you can raise money on a crazy idea from useful investors with reasonable terms.

I also plan to resume my residence in Toronto someday.

</comment><comment><USER10> The guy was an investment banker who had some sort of existential crisis when he realized that he wanted to work for a startup.

Let's get over it.

<comment><USER11> That's basically it.

<comment><USER10> A lot of your points sounded more like i-banking culture vs startup culture to me, but those are two very separate worlds.

An opinion piece from someone who's actually worked in the NY startup scene would have been a lot more enlightening.

But best of luck either way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hirehive, and the guys starting it, is pretty cool but I'm not sure why this post was upvoted so high. It didn't really make (or attempt to make) a good rebuttal to most of the points in Antonio's post. It's not like Antonio was saying "NY sucks for everything". He was just saying it wasn't the ideal environment for tech start ups, which is true imo.

The only two things I partially disagreed with Antonio on were on food and cost of living. It's not impossible to find a cheap place to live with roommates in NY, and people in NY take food seriously. I knew a lot of people who cooked well; just as good as SF and the Bay Area or better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well his words were a bit stronger than New York isn't "the ideal environment for tech start ups" ;).

I think the real advantage that the valley has right now is mindshare. This won't change without some prodding. The argument has to be made strongly for New York if this is ever going to change.

<comment><USER12> I disagree. It's more than mindshare. New York does have a lot of good things going for it, but it has one main weakness tech-wise: pragmatism.

"That's a dumb idea"

"Why build Z when X already exists?"

"How does this make money now or ever?"

Yes NY is less likely to have major disasters like web van, but for the same reason it's also less likely to have a google. Only tech cultures that are as crazy or crazier than SV can hope to beat it.

People in NY may be very open to stuff like fashion, but imo they're very close minded when it comes to tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> NYC Resistor is invite-only. I used to go to TechShop in Menlo Park, which had CNC mills, 2 laser cutters, rapid prototyper, multiple shop bots, welding, aluminum casting, a 3-D foam cutter, CNC vinyl cutter, industrial sewing machines. and so forth. AFAIK, there is no equivalent in NYC (I am already a 3rd ward member... does not come close).

Does anyone know of a place in NYC like TechShop? I've heard SVA has a fab lab, but it seems like you have to be an MFA student to get access.

<comment><USER14> It doesn't quite fit the bill of replacing TechShop, but you should check out Alpha One Labs (<http://www.alphaonelabs.com/>). It's a community hackerspace in Brooklyn that follows radical inclusivity – anyone is welcome to join, and as soon as they outgrow their current space they find a bigger one.

It's just getting off the ground, but there's a interesting group of people there. Drop in for one of the weekly meetings, tuesdays at 7.

And they just got a laser cutter (which they'll also let you use it just for asking!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seriously, who cares ? :)

</comment><comment><USER16> You can keep both NYC and Los Angeles. There's a much bigger world out there than just two geographic area.

If I were single, I would be a digital bedouin so I could work in both New York, LA and anywhere else on the planet.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you are trying to do a life style start up, New York is probably a good place. (i don't have anything against life style business). But you're trying to do anything more ambitious, silicon vally is still the place to go.

</comment><comment><USER6> Whatta week! Like the startup gods put out an RFC for the SF/NYC rivalry!

</comment><comment><USER18> > Nick was living in 81 square feet in a 3 bedroom in a beautiful brownstone > in Park Slope for under $800. Living out here is costing him more money.

Yes, but at least you get more than 81 square feet!

</comment><comment><USER19> Well said. The absurdity of saying "most New Yorkers couldn't fry an egg if their lives depended on it" is what set me off. Also, the fact that I'm a living contradiction to nearly all of Antonio's points.

</comment><comment><USER20> Newest holy war in tech circles....

</comment><comment><USER21> nice rebuttal, i'll grant you that!</comment>


Etch-A-SDR: Odroid C1, Teensy 3.1 and RTL-SDR - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/devnulling/etch-a-sdr <comment><USER2> The Teensy boards[0] are the work of a single, dedicated engineer. While their design is proprietary, they are compatible with the Arduino IDE, to which Paul Stoffregen (PJ from PJRC) contributes substantially[1]. Unlike both Arduino entities[2, 3], his track record is clear from ethical shenanigans.

\---

0\. [https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/index.html](https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/index.html)

1\. [http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/arduino_contrib.html](http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/arduino_contrib.html)

2\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11212021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11212021)

3\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9231708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9231708)

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks cool, hate to look a gift horse in a mouth. Can I get a part list/build plans for the HW side. This might be what actually gets me into playing with SDR. :)

<comment><USER4> Hi, I made the Etch-A-SDR. Found this thread after seeing the stars on the Github project jump (Thanks HN!).

The hardware used is:

\- Acrylic sheet

\- Odroid C1 (There are more powerful Odroids now, either the C2 [0] or XU4 [1])

\- RTL-SDR

\- GY-521 6DOF

\- Teensy 3.1

\- Rotary Encoders (adafruit)

\- Push buttons (adafruit)

\- 10.1" TFT screen with speakers (adafruit)

\- Ethernet / USB bulkheads (adafruit)

\- MCX to SMA bulkhead (ebay)

\- misc parts ( screws, stand-offs, etc from home depot)

\- Knobs from a real Etch-a-Sketch

I presented this at the monthly Cyberspectrum SDR Meetup [2] in San Francisco, the slides, which include pictures of inside the Etch-A-SDR, and an overview of the hardware/software can be seen here [3], and a live stream recording here [4].

If you're just getting started with SDR, I would suggest setting it up on regular computer vs starting with running it on an ARM type board, SDR is very resource hungry, and runs better on a normal machine. There is a big community over at the r/rtlsdr [5] subreddit. SDR is a lot of fun, and opens up the huge world of RF, and it is very inexpensive to get started.

[0] - [http://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-c2](http://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-c2)

[1] - [http://ameridroid.com/products/odroid- xu4](http://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-xu4)

[2] - [http://www.meetup.com/Cyberspectrum/](http://www.meetup.com/Cyberspectrum/)

[3] - [https://github.com/devnulling/etch-a-sdr- presentation](https://github.com/devnulling/etch-a-sdr-presentation)

[4] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG70c3Zadek](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG70c3Zadek)

[5] - [https://www.reddit.com/r/rtlsdr](https://www.reddit.com/r/rtlsdr)</comment></comment>


Under-Investigated Fields - <AUTHOR> https://matthewmcateer.me/blog/under-investigated-fields/ <comment><USER2> I think it's weird to suggest that programming languages are under- investigated, and the discussion he gives of it makes me question his conclusions about other fields. There are vastly different paradigms completely orthogonal to the hierarchy in that image the author uses. I don't think getting people to stop using assembly/C/fortran/cobol/php/whatever is a research problem.

<comment> semi-extrinsic > makes me question his conclusions about other fields

I think this list makes no sense unless it is made into a wiki of some sort with community contributions from hundreds of people.

Under "Physics", he has a sub-heading "Increasing Iteration Speed of Experimental Physics". This section mentions one random startup. Yet CERN has hundreds of people actively working on this topic for decades.

They invented, built and implemented the world's first capacitive touch screen control system in the period 1972-1976 _specifically to answer this need_. That's just one example off the top of my head.

<comment><USER3> > in the period 1972-1976

Did you mean "for decades", or "decades ago"? I'm not sure any notable result from half a century ago qualifies any of the list he's creating for modern research (without regard to the quality of that list).

<comment> semi-extrinsic I'm trying to say they didn't stop doing it. They've done it for decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _While it's easy to point to areas in computer science that might be over- > researched (after all, Machine Learning conferences often get more papers > than they can effectively review), there are still areas that are neglected > with respect to their potential benefit._

It would be worth considering what drives people towards researching particular areas, even if it might seem kinda obvious. I.e. it might be tempting that it's visions of fame, loot & prizes, but I think to most people it is obvious on some level that they personally won't get any prominent position in these fields. I think it's partly a question of discoverability (say I'm a student, how do I learn about these topics, and that there are practical ways to work on them?), partly perceived prestige.

Also, getting into a _particular_ PhD or similar currently means thinking years in advance -- I'm not talking learning/studying here, but connections, bureaucracy and applications, having paper "proofs" you know something etc. You notice some interesting area towards the end of your studies. It's too late to move even not that much from what you're doing (e.g. move from cognitive science to computational neuroscience) without wasting additional precious years. And that for entering not particularly rosy world of academia.

Myself (not academically nowadays), I see myself searching for a middle ground between overcrowded fields (where I will probably do relative "grunt work" at best) and fields that are so obscure as to be not viable. The fear of having no steady income is too real.

</comment><comment> bra-ket life-long learning - worth mentioning the work by well known CMU researchers:

Tom Mitchell, Never-ending learning (2015): [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom/pubs/NELL_aaai15.pdf](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom/pubs/NELL_aaai15.pdf)

Sebastian Thrun, Life-long learning (1995) [https://www.ri.cmu.edu/pub_files/pub1/thrun_sebastian_1995_1...](https://www.ri.cmu.edu/pub_files/pub1/thrun_sebastian_1995_1/thrun_sebastian_1995_1.pdf)

Also this seminar at Stanford on Lifelong Machine Learning(2013): [https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~eeaton/AAAI- SSS13-LML/#Schedule](https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~eeaton/AAAI- SSS13-LML/#Schedule)

</comment><comment><USER5> Applied category theory and uncertainty logic could be added to math.

</comment><comment><USER6> Usually things are be under-investigated because they're hard.

<comment><USER7> or useless.

or naive.

<comment><USER8> Or heterodox.

<comment><USER7> Nothing on this CS list is even close to heterodox... In fact, exactly the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is sort of a ridiculous list. There are, possibly by definition, and infinitude of under-investigated fields. A more useful list might be a list of OVER investigated fields, such as PvNP, Deep Learning, Consciousness, fMRI, ...

</comment><comment><USER10> What makes a language "more productive"? I feel like this term first appeared in the age of Ruby on Rails, but I've yet to see any sort of study. Now when i see the term, it immediately raises suspicions and has the opposite effect that the writer intended. Obviously the best tool for the job is the one you know how to use proficiently, but is there a magical computer language that can turn average programmers into high-performing ones?

</comment><comment><USER11> Transfer learning is no longer under-investigated. Just look at how the NLP and CV communities get state of the art results

<comment><USER12> Transfer learning is absolutely under-investigated. The current results in CV are awesome but they only pertain to CV. There's little underlying theory that helps you apply it to other areas. Mine, for instance, which is robotics manipulation.

<comment><USER7> There's a huge difference between "under-investigated" and "doesn't live up to the initial hope/hype".

It's possible for something to be over-investigated and also not produce results. See also: the build up to AI winters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Coincidentally, I ran in this paper just now, on latin squares (one of the mentioned fields): [https://malmskog.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/revised-math- ma...](https://malmskog.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/revised-math-magazine- may-1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone know if there's been research into terraforming via asteroid/comet impacts and trying to simulate that?

<comment><USER14> PBS Space Time covered the idea a bit in a recent video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshtPsOTCP4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshtPsOTCP4). They had some numbers but I don't think they referenced any formal research in that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> That is NOT under-investigated, you just didn't find who is investigating that.

</comment><comment><USER16> > _Computer Science: Existential risks posed by technical debt_

The term "technical debt" has always rubbed me the wrong way.

Most technical decisions were sound... at the time!

I agree, people from 1999 didn't predict what would be happening in 2019. But why is that considered to be some sort of debt?

<comment><USER17> true tech debt occurs when a business under-invests in their core technology over a long period of time, or deal with concept drift in its business. I know of multiple fortune 500's that are reliant on bespoke emulation of hardware and operating systems that haven't existed in decades, even worse the source code for the software they're running may no longer exist in any usable form.

In many modern web companies a given project has a useful life of ~3-5 years, if its still running by year 8 with a team that's been on KTLO a few things are probably true.

A: No one knows how to productively add features.

B: The business need for the project was much larger than the KTLO funding would imply.

Odds are at this point there are a long list of user complaints, year+ old feature requests, and excuses being made to the board for why some initiative is facing yet another delay.

Perhaps we should be talking about software depreciation rather than tech debt?

<comment><USER18> Let's also talk about why LTS is a dangerous idea: It provides an excuse not to update.

Many tech debt traps start with relying on an LTS version of OS or libraries. The philosophy behin that is, that software behaves like a chair: You buy it once, and then you sit can sit on it until it is no longer needed.

A much better analogy is a horse: You need to feed and take care of it daily, and you need to be ready for it do die when you still need it.</comment></comment></comment>


Every Bootsrap Website Ever - <AUTHOR> http://adventurega.me/bootstrap/ <comment><USER2> Okay, this is funny.

I didn't see a link or blurb about who made this and why they have such disdain for crappy, overdone website templates.</comment>


The US will lose a war with China - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/think-we-have-military-primacy-over-china-think-again/2020/05/12/268e1bba-948b-11ea-9f5e-56d8239bf9ad_story.html <comment><USER2> Yeah, let's throw another trillion dollars at the defense industry.

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't matter what weapons you start with, what matters is what weapons you end with.

Can you replace your losses of weaponry? You need lots and lots of manufacturing capacity for that. Did you know that Japan started WW2 with three times as many aircraft-carriers as the US? How many carriers did Japan and the US have in September 1945? Why was that?

Do you have enough men of military age? In 1945, Germany was reduced to using teenagers and old men as soldiers. Meanwhile both the US and the Soviets had plenty of military-age manpower left.

High technology is a help, but not the be-all and end-all most people think it is. The Germans had the most advanced weaponry in WW2 (jet aircraft, advanced rocket missiles, etc), but they were swamped by both the US and the Soviets producing overwhelming amounts of "good-enough" weapons. (It's no use having a plane that has a 100:1 kill-ratio if the enemy can throw 101 planes at it.)

A last point to ponder. The next war will be the West against the Rest. China BY ITSELF has more man-power and more manufacturing capacity than ALL OF THE WEST COMBINED (US+Europe).

</comment><comment><USER4> I think China faces a larger threat of its people revolting against authoritarianism than war with the US. Predictions like these are pretty useless in any event.

</comment><comment><USER5> What do people here think the actual chance of a war with China is, in the next 10-15 years?

I have no idea personally, but the thought of it scares the shit out of me.

<comment><USER2> A hot war with cruise missiles and carriers like this piece is fantasizing about? Extremely low.

<comment><USER5> Okay, yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Trade wars, a cold war, economic war, proxy wars all seem plausible, but the type of war this article seems to be going on about doesn't seem to make sense. How would a war like that even happen without devolving into nuclear warfare, which surely neither country wants?

I have to admit I'm pretty naive about geopolitics, though.</comment></comment></comment>


Economy Class Seating On A Pan Am 747 In The Late 1960's - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/852xQDM

<comment><USER2> As pointed out in the comments, this is just a mock-up. [http://i.imgur.com/U17Js1V.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/U17Js1V.jpg)

<comment><USER3> The original 747-100 /was/ spacious on international flights, the upper deck had a lounge and a piano. This wasn't due to some bygone era where passengers weren't treated like cattle, it was due to the underpowered JT9D-3A engines.

Without sufficient power, the airlines lowered the amount of allowed weight on allowed on international flights and thus the seats had better spacing. Later models starting form the -200 model had more powerful engines so they crammed in more passengers - both in coach and in first class.</comment></comment>


In New York City, Fewer Murders on Rainy Days - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/nyregion/03murder.html?hp

<comment><USER2> Summary: rain reduces the probability of interaction with people. Interaction with people correlates with homicides. So rain inversely correlates with homicides.

<comment><USER3> I have a buddy who lived in NYC for a decade. I was there for a visit a few years ago and asked him if he ever had any trouble, getting mugged or hassled, because he walked everywhere at every time of day.

He replied with, "Meh. Criminals are lazy. They don't want the effort of earning something they can simply take, so they don't have jobs. I'm six feet and I walk fast. I'm like the strong wildebeests at the front of the herd. The criminals will wait for a weak one to fall behind. Easier."

By his logic, lazy murderers probably prefer to get their murder on without getting wet.

<comment><USER4> I walk a _lot_ , too. An interesting anecdote, which dovetails with your "wildebeest" analogy.

I'm 6'2". I have gray hair and beard, but normally am clean shaven (head and face). I walk through a somewhat tough area, and no one ever bothers me. Yes, I walk fast and with purpose.

I was having razor issues and ended up growing a (white) beard for a while. I was completely floored by the amount of crap I got from random people. It was aggressive stares, and in some cases aggressive behavior. On a single day I came close to an altercation with _two_ people.

It was pretty obvious to me that I looked much older, so I shaved the beard and head. The next day, people were back to ignoring me.

<comment><USER5> Have you considered a straight razor (the old kind they used to have in barber shops)? A good one is a little expensive (a couple hundred bucks for a brand like DOVO) but will last you for decades if you take care of it. I've heard they're good for people who get razor burn or ingrown hairs from normal safety razors (since they are way sharper).

<comment><USER4> Actually, I was being generic with the "razor" term. I actually use an electric shaver. I never had much luck with razors, though I never tried a straight razor. (The issue I had was that once it grows past a certain length, I have to let it grow out for a week and whack it with a beard trimmer before I can use the electric razor. Otherwise, it _hurts_.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Relatedly, our crime rate here in Minnesota dives every winter. Even the criminals know when it's too cold to bother going out.

[http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2009/04/minneapol...](http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2009/04/minneapolis_crime_rates_contin.php) (check out the fun graph)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think people are so excited about the upcoming rainbows that they forget about all bad things. Searching Twitter for rainbow just brought up a ton of results from people in New York going "Awwww" and "dancing under the rainbow"... quod erat demonstrandum?

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe with the open data push they could plot suicide rates against national holidays. Snopes says it is false, but I have always personally felt that there is a corrolation. <http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/suicide.asp>

</comment><comment><USER9> The rain wave going on in the Northeast raises the question - is the reduction in crime on rainy days a temporary phenomenon, or is it something more fundamental? In other words, would an extremely rainy decade see a reduction in crime due to the rain? I'm guessing it would be a reduction, but not as great as the daily ones seen. After all, people adapt, with umbrellas and such.

A similar phenomenon to look at is the increased birth rate observed nine months after blackouts. Blackouts probably cause some births that would have occurred in close proximity to the nine-months-later period to move to that time period, as well as causing others to occur that would not have otherwise (accidents).

<comment><USER10> <http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/blackout.asp>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Given that it's been soaking wet all summer long so far (and looks to remain so), I guess it'll be a safe summer in New York.</comment>


Ghost in the Shell remains our most challenging film about technology - noir-york http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2016/02/ghost-shell-over-two-decades-old-remains-our-most-challenging-film-about <comment><AUTHOR> In fact, I would argue that Ghost in the Shell's entire franchise remains the most intriguing and exciting science fiction media about networked technology.

If you have never seen the 2-season TV series (and 3 additional films), "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Alon...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Alone_Complex)), it is by far the best contemporary outlook on near-future internet technology still. Black Mirror is up there, but I think that Ghost in the Shell: SAC presents this cultural criticism in a much stronger (ie., less unhappy) tone.

<comment><USER2> Do you have any other recommendations along the same vein? Literature, tv, mobies - I'm interested in absorbing more "near future" sci fi, particularly those that focus on identity issues. I had a lot of fun reading Stross's Accelerando and Vinge's Deepness series.

<comment><USER3> \- Psycho Pass[1] (just providing a link, I know it's been said)

\- Space Brothers[2] (It's a bit like a soap opera but scifi)

\- Serial Experiments Lain[3]

\- Texhnolyze[4] (The tone doesn't change and it can be difficult to watch)

\- Dennou Coil[5] (No streaming sites found, so MAL link. Watch it if you can find it)

[1] [http://www.funimation.com/shows/psycho- pass/home](http://www.funimation.com/shows/psycho-pass/home)

[2] [http://www.crunchyroll.com/space- brothers](http://www.crunchyroll.com/space-brothers)

[3] [http://www.funimation.com/shows/serial-experiments- lain/home](http://www.funimation.com/shows/serial-experiments-lain/home)

[4] [http://www.funimation.com/shows/texhnolyze/home](http://www.funimation.com/shows/texhnolyze/home)

[5] [http://myanimelist.net/anime/2164/Dennou_Coil/](http://myanimelist.net/anime/2164/Dennou_Coil/)

<comment><USER4> Dennou Coil has been licensed by Maiden Japan.

[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-02-23/maiden- japan...](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-02-23/maiden-japan- licenses-den-noh-coil-anime/.99009)

It's coming out on Blu-Ray and DVD on June 28th. It's possible it might become available for streaming at some point after that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A warning for those thinking of re-watching (or watching for the first time!) Ghost in the Shell:

Avoid the "Ghost in the Shell 2.0" edition of this film, which was released on Bluray a few years back. For this version, it was decided to "upgrade" the original film with new CG elements, very much in the same mindset as George Lucas and Star Wars. You might think it reasonable for someone to go back, identify weaker scenes in the original, and then attempt to fix the results of budget and time limitations. This is what Lucas did, and even that was divisive for fans. However, that's not what happened in the case of "Ghost in the Shell". Instead, they redid the same big, expensive, gloriously detailed moments that the original splurged on. The result is that some of the film's best shots are replaced with poor quality CG that is jarringly out of place. On the whole, "Ghost in the Shell 2.0" makes George Lucas look restrained, respectful, and subtle.

Oh, and for some reason they ripped out the U2 credits song too. If you liked that track you might miss it.

The 25th anniversary version that recently came out is apparently the theatrical version, so that would be a better bet, although I cannot guarantee it's good personally (I haven't seen it yet).

<comment><USER6> Totally agree, mentioned that too. The 3D stuff is horrible, just try to watch the original version....

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> GitS is undoubtedly one of the best hard sci-fi universes ever conceived. The series Stand Alone Complex is in my opinion the high point of it all. It tackles such a large variety of deep societal issues that do not yet exist in a very effective way.

One thing that makes the series top-notch for me is the original soundtrack, composed by the great Yoko Kanno. I mean, wow, some of songs are gems, with lyrics that are deeper than most songs I've heard.

Be Human: [https://youtu.be/fDtLpCzKqkQ](https://youtu.be/fDtLpCzKqkQ)

Living Inside the Shell: [https://youtu.be/YSj91yopjDg](https://youtu.be/YSj91yopjDg)

If you're a fan of sci-fi, be sure to watch the series at least.

</comment><comment><USER8> Except this GITS movie and Ex Machina, there are no other movie who really has a good, serious talk about AI. Matrix don't even come close to that in that regard.

The whole "What is human intelligence if it can live inside a machine? What if AI can actually be smarter than us? And by the way, how to define and measure intelligence ?" questions is really fascinating.

The GITS movie will always my ultimate favorite movie, not only because it's brilliantly directed, but because that seems to exactly be what AI scientists are trying to do. It also raises good question of psychology: how does a brain work, and can we heal mental illnesses? We might never know and we might wait 300 years or more to figure it out.

<comment><USER9> > Except this GITS movie and Ex Machina, there are no other movie who really > has a good, serious talk about AI.

The movie "Her" has a different take on what it is like with being an AI, and I liked it.

<comment> atom-morgan I agree. Throughout the entire movie I kept thinking, "Damn. I'd have feelings for that girl really quick." And it was just a voice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's also the original manga _Ghost in the Shell_ by Masamune Shirow (first published back in 1991), and it's two sequels _Vol 2. Man-Machine Interface_ and _Vol 1.5. Human-Error Processor_, published in 2001 and 2003 (years later in the US). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_%28manga%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_%28manga%29)

Like a lot of GitS media, they're unique and don't mesh perfectly with the others, but if you like SAC, you'll probably like them. A lot of scenes are echoed between the various OAVs and the manga, especially the first.

</comment><comment><USER11> Puppet Master: It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So, man is an individual only because of his intangible memory... and memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind. The advent of computers, and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data has given rise to a new system of memory and thought parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization.

Edit: Just a quote, to show my fellow HN-ers that these are must-watch movies.

<comment><USER12> No offence but this quote seems a bit trite? I watched this movie years ago but I don't really remember it. Did it predict smartphones? That's kind of a litmus test.

<comment><USER13> The main characters are mostly cyborgs. They speak to each other remotely through telepathy-style wireless SSL-of-the-future. Remote exploits of people's heads are rare in the world canon, but are a focus of the story. So, they are a frequent topic of the series.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As much as I love GITS, I feel like so much of Minority Report is prescient to much of what we are seeing now or starting to see, from pre-crime to the personalized advertising. And that is scary.

<comment><USER15> > I feel like so much of Minority Report is prescient

That was a shallow movie if I ever remember one. How could a whole society idea of justice depend on just a set of 3 freaks detained in a kind of underground lab. This just does not make any sense, because it does not scale and it depends way too much on the human factor.

I'd wager that if such a thing ever exist in the future, it will be a matter of computers calculating probabilities based on a huge dataset they are constantly mining to detect abnormalities. But even if that were the case, it would probably fail to work unless you have a direct feed into everyone's private lives and way of thinking (and i don't mean just internet spying, it would need to go way further than that).

<comment><USER16> This shallowness is my biggest pet peeve about science fiction. It irks me especially in novels, because in that format the author has room to flesh things out.

I find older science fiction especially to seem to be made from cardboard cutouts. I couldn't make it through the first book of Asimov's Foundation series for that reason. A masterpiece in the estimation of many, but unbearably simplistic and shallow to me. A story stretching across a galaxy and hundreds of years, and nothing seems to be happening in that galaxy except the minor events driving the main characters forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I liked the GITS SAC series a lot because of how well they balanced the action plot points with discussion about technology, security, politics and philosophy. Overall I'd struggle to think of another series which strikes that balance so well.

</comment><comment><USER6> I watched the original in 1995. It is a masterpiece, have rewatched many many times, always great. The remastered version with 3D is horrible though. The Stand Alone Complex is way more pop-corn material, also easier to digest, didn't really like it very much. The original film's pace is closer to a Tarkovsky film... Slower, more profound, poetic at times.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you're going to watch the film for the first time, which you should as its awesome, don't watch the dubbed version. Make sure you watch it with subtitles.

<comment><USER19> That pretty much goes for any movie or anime, I would say.

One exception would be the English version of the childrens show "Magic Roundabout" which I believe was originally a French political satire. The English version just watched the show and then made up a story to go along with what was happening on screen.

I presume Zebedee was meant to be a caricature of de Gaulle but if I am mistaken I am sure somebody will correct me. :-)

<comment><USER20> > That pretty much goes for any movie or anime, I would say.

The _possible_ exception would be _Steins;Gate_ ; I contend that the mad- scientist ranting sounds better in your native tongue.

(I am aware of the position that it's somewhat less authentic and will concede that the English version of Mayuuri's tu-tu-ruu is of lower quality.)

<comment><USER21> I'm generally not too bothered about sub. v. dub, but for some reason I find Steins;Gate in English to be really jarring. Not sure why, but I feel like the voices don't really fit the characters in the dubbed version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I saw two of the series and liked the plot, action, setting, etc.

That said, I didn't appreciate the title conceit and thought the stories got weak whenever they approached it.

There is no ghost in the shell, not in the real world. A person's thoughts, character, and emotions come from neurons, hormones, and sensory input. There's no way to take a person's unique consciousness out of their body, keep it in a jar, and move it somewhere else.

At best it might be possible to emulate someone's brain, but that's not what they did in Ghost in the Shell.

<comment><USER23> That was the whole point of the series, though.

Is the Major the same Major as she was at the beginning of the film?

<comment><USER24> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Good write-up on it. Probably one of its lasting effects was partial inspiration for The Matrix: the first, mainstream, "thinking-man's," action movie. It had audiences leaving with questions about themselves instead of just flat quotes from a movie. Had plenty of them, too. ;)

Always wanted to see more of this genre. I know they're doing a live action Ghost in the Shell. Have mixed feelings about that. Nonetheless, I'd like to see more movies that have enough tropes and cultural tie-ins to be successful but throw in those GitS or Matrix-style element to really get people thinking.

Most recent in get you thinking, but not mainstream, movies is Ex Machina. Whole movie, minus a few things, is essentially built on the acting and esp dialogue that questions reality. Kind of a budget film but I thought it was great. Just watch the movie not the trailers as there might be some spoilers in there.

</comment><comment><USER26> I read ghost in the shell and was in the same moment reminded to Wamdue Project - King of my castle. The music video was done with Ghost in the Shell scenes.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwdlqquJDK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwdlqquJDK4)

<comment><USER27> Well that's not actually the original video, just a YouTube user's creation. This is the original one: [http://youtu.be/DXSyQjppqG0](http://youtu.be/DXSyQjppqG0)

<comment><USER28> I remember the gits version being shown on TV all the time. I've never seen the version you've just posted.

EDIT: This is not the GITS version shown on tv. The TV video only had footage of the tank scene.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you like series about technology, try out 'Black Mirror' on netflix... It has some interesting approaches...

Eg. What could happen if there exists a chip that stores all your memories. Is it good or bad? :-)

<comment><USER9> I would caution against Black Mirror. I felt it was mostly about tabloid style shock value and not about technology. Especially the first episode was just awful - e.g. the pig fucking scene.

<comment><USER30> I watched the first three episodes. Every single one had a primary focus of intense sexual shame or violation, and they all ended in just about the most miserable way possible. It was extremely well done, but some of us have enough negativity in our lives without piling more on in our rest & relaxation time.

I might have gone on if they were alternating the pattern or something, it was simply too much of one ugly core theme for me.

<comment><USER31> There is one consistent theme throughout Black Mirror, and that is _' we are so close to this being the world we live in, given one or two missteps'_.

The series was never intended to be positive in any way. It's supposed to be a kind of terrifying warning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just finished up watching almost all of Ghost in the Shell, from the original movie to Stand Alone Complex; I still need to re-watch Innocence. Originally I'd gotten into it back when I was a wee teen in the early/mid 2000s, and I hadn't completely understood the topics and commentary then. It was just cool action sequences with intriguing characters and an engaging story. All I can say now is, wow; the series is on-point. It's top tier sci- fi, up there with the likes of Neuromancer and Blade Runner. SAC is awesome and I liked it the most, since it has some really nice side episodes that expand on the world, like the one where the one Tachikoma's (a Tachikoma being this spider like mech with a nascent AI) neural net starts to develop beyond its parameters due to some "natural oils", but the whole series is amazing.

Just don't watch the original video animation things (OVA), which are basically two movies that each are amalgamations of Stand Alone Complex's two seasons. Not only is Batou's voice different, they don't do SAC any justice. Those things should be banned.

<comment><USER33> Oh dear. I watched Innocence with a friend when it came out, and to this I don't have any idea of what it was trying to say. I liked GitS very much, as well as the first season of SAC, despite the oversexualization of the main character (ugh fan service).

<comment><USER34> Yeah, I consider Innocence to be the most visually interesting (some of the scenes are just gorgeous), but it was kind of a mess in terms of story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I personally believe Transcendence has the most realistic future (if you exclude humanity at the very end of it).

</comment><comment><USER36> On a side note, a manga that also takes up this subject but is set more far in the future is Battle Angel Alita , that is about a cyborg with a human brain

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

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm very surprised by the responses. GitS made no sense to me whatsoever. I did not understand the plot or the world. Now I'm wondering whether I perhaps saw some 'wrong' version that indeed did not make sense.

<comment><USER38> I was also thrown off by this movie. I remember watching it in college. It seemed very disjointed, throwing around a bunch of dialogue, vocab, characters, politics, etc. at me that seemed badly translated and only poorly if ever explained or described. Sure, plenty of eye candy and then some somewhat intriguing AI stuff at the end. Recently, I tried watching a couple episodes of SAC, and while it was easier to follow, it felt again like I was only understanding about half the dialogue.

I am also told that it can be a little off-putting or disorienting to some because it is more concept-driven than plot-driven, which, in addition to being an awkward mashing together of the beginning and the end of the manga (manga wrangling seems in some form or other a common source of awkwardness in anime- e.g. Akira), is probably why it was hard for me to follow. To each his own, I suppose, but I think it's cool when you have both a well-told story AND intriguing concepts (e.g. Neuromancer, Gattaca, Blade Runner, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> "In the near future - corporate networks reach out to the stars. Electrons and light flow throughout the universe. The advance of computerisation, however, has not yet wiped out nations and ethnic groups."

</comment><comment><USER40> If you are interested in GiTS and also are an occasional gamer, I would strongly recommend to give Deus Ex a try. The story of the first game deals with similar themes as GiTS.

<comment><USER31> Best game ever made. No question in my mind.

</comment></comment><comment> noir-york I'm glad to see that GiTS has inspired such a discussion and so many comments. Its a masterpiece of story telling, futurism and the challenges facing society, not just robotics/AI but also demographics (Solid State Society).

I still get goose bumps every time I watch this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsIQ_kA77b4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsIQ_kA77b4)

<comment><USER41> Have you watched all of it? I want to get into it but am not sure where to start. If you had to choose 1-2 seasons of TV and a few films, which ones would you watch?

<comment> noir-york Yes of course! I've indeed watched all of them.

For the purest GiTS experience I would just watch the first three films GiTS (1995), Innocence, and Stand Alone Complex.

GiTS 2.0, in an attempt at improving the graphics, ruined the original feel. I watched the TV series - not bad, but not the masterpieces of story telling that the 3 films are.

But who cares what I think - what them all, and form your own conclusions :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> To SAC fans __* MAJOR SPOILERS __*

check out this fan theory on identity of laughing man. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Ghost_in_the_Shell/comments/2j9p8j/...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ghost_in_the_Shell/comments/2j9p8j/theory_on_the_laughing_man/)

</comment><comment><USER43> Ghost in the Shell, the mangas, the two movies, SAC... are the kind of media that every home should have a copy of. Its not just prophetic, but really accessible and satisfactory from just a sheer nerdiness perspective, the same way Star Trek must have been to everyone in the 1960s.

</comment><comment><USER44> It's been some time since I read anything on this site but I have to ask: did they decide on the hero graphic, _and then_ also decide they had to code up a method to keep that nipple covered unless the reader _really_ wanted to see it? That's too funny.

</comment><comment><USER45> Serial Experiments Lain wasn't too bad either.

</comment><comment><USER41> I want to get into it but am not sure where to start. If you had to choose 1-2 seasons of TV and a few films, which ones would you watch?

</comment><comment><USER46> side topic and NSFW: [https://vimeo.com/96621373](https://vimeo.com/96621373) is a interesting attempt to do the front sequence in a live action video. They do a good job, and it is as NSFW as the original.

I do wonder how the hollywood version will mess up this movie.

</comment><comment><USER47> I've never been an anime fan, but GITS remains one of my favorite movies of all time. Dat soundtrack tho.</comment>


Let's Talk More About Imposter Syndrome - ersin-y https://ersin-yilmaz.com/realities-of-imposter-syndrome/ <comment> ersin-y An estimated 60% of people experience impostor feelings at top tech companies but very little is done about it.</comment>


Swift News - <AUTHOR> http://www.sososwift.com/blog/swift_news

<comment><AUTHOR> We now have support for the posting of any Swift language related link. Previously, our policy was to remove links that didn't point directly to a tutorial. Now we have a new section '/news' which houses all the non-tutorial links.</comment>


Open Sketch Search Engine - <AUTHOR>

http://www.opensse.com <comment><USER2> This is great. Can't it be extended to find images in general ?

<comment><AUTHOR> No,It can.</comment></comment>


"How can I read and parse CSV files in C++?" - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1120140/how-can-i-read-and-parse-csv-files-in-c/ <comment><USER2> If you have any choice in the matter, don't use commas as a separator. In some languages (German for example), commas are used where a decimal point would be used in English.

Example: PI = 3,1415

Tabs are a good choice if you want to import a file into Excel.</comment>


Ask HN: How many hours do you spend coding per day? - <AUTHOR>

How many hours do you spend, writing/thinking about code? Any advice on how often a beginner programmer should  code? <comment><USER2> My answer to the second question would be to spend as much time on it as you find enjoyable. If you don't find any amount of time programming enjoyable then you're going into the wrong field.

As an example when I was first starting out I would spend 8+ hours a day programming because I found it to be a lot of fun (this was when I was in middle school, after being in school for a full day)

Currently I'm 23 and work at an early stage healthcare IT startup and I still get the same feeling from programming as I did when I first started, and I can spend hours working to solve all the problems that popup throughout product development. Sometimes I get so wrapped up into solving a problem that I have a hard time falling to sleep because my mind is constantly thinking about how to solve it, and I actually do tend to come up with a lot of my solutions during the 10-15 minutes before I finally get to sleep.

I might be predisposed to programming though because my grandpa was a programmer for over 25 years and I was always fascinated by his stories on the job

<comment><AUTHOR> I do enjoy programming a lot! Most often though, I find myself solving random problems, I begin to feel that my programming isn't really going anywhere, for example, how do you start writing application software? I mean, it's certainly interesting, but I can never get myself to actually write such a disciplined piece of code, partly because I don't know how.

<comment><USER3> The problem that stops a lot of people is that they see something cool and they want to do it too. The problem is that you can't just start off writing a GUI app from nothing. You have to get the basics down first.

For software you first have to understand the basics of procedural programming and write simple programs that run in the terminal. When I learned C++ I first learned simple 'cout >> "whatever"' programs with if statements. Knowing this kept me from being frustrated because I understood I had to climb the proverbial "ladder".

I'm a web guy and I'm able to make some pretty cool interactive stuff now but as a beginner I had trouble changing background colors and floating elements in a row.

That's the thing that stops people. They're frustrated because there's no easy way to learn how to do the things they see and want to copy without learning the absolute basics first. Patience is a serious virtue when you're a programmer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I've written a few simple applications, but what I can't really get is how to actually start on a big application? I mean, do you just have to break it down into little pieces and then put them into a whole? Isn't this a very frustrating method of doing so? Is there a better method? Or is this a necessary vice you'll have to overcome?

<comment><USER4> Modularization is a good thing, not a bad thing. With a large project its better to think of it as a set of components rather than one whole. At my current job we are stuck with a large monolithic legacy application and everyone is in agreement to break it into modules, which we are currently working on. Try to pick out the core "units" of a project that can be relatively self contained and work on those first. You should learn not to worry about starting with the UI, the UI shouldn't necessarily drive a software development project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 12-13 on some days - I work full-time and then spend a few hours working on an open source project. I don't intend to always do this but right now I have a reason I'm working on the open source project (Specific goal) so am doing it for now. When I first started I would literally spend 15 hours some days because I was trying to cram a lot of learning into a small period of time.

The personal project time is much more productive, the 8 hours of work, I guess, is questionable as to whether its "Writing code" as a lot is wasted wrangling with the legacy app I have to deal with, debugging old legacy code, etc but even though its writing less code I find it far more stressful than working on my own project where I am mainly writing code.

I don't advocate anyone work for an employer by spending more than 8 hours a day working unless you're being paid really well but when you work full time and want to get stuff done outside of work its inevitable that you have to spend extra time coding.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've never been reliably productive for more than 4ish hours of code per day.

When stuff is exciting or trivial it's easy to get list and spend longer, but in general I consider it a good day of I wrote for 4 legitimate hours.

<comment><USER6> I'm the same. In fact, I track my hours but only productive hours. It usually comes out to about 4 hours per day. There are those great days when it could be as high as 6 or 7 but those are rare. In fact, I've found that if I try to push myself and do more than 25 hours per week, I tend to get sick much easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Three or four years ago, maybe 10-12 hours spent on thinking about programming, probably no more than half that spent actually writing code.

Today, I'm burnt out and have written only a single line of code in the last month, for recreational purposes. Took about two hours of work. Ugh.

</comment><comment><USER8> I program in spurts of 15-20 minutes throughout the day for a total of about 4-5 hours. If you're not employed in a traditional sense I find it best to write your code when you're in a super motivated, super stoked frame of mind because you'll write better code and have more fun doing it.

</comment><comment><USER9> At the moment I'm in a busy phase so it's higher than usual, but I'd probably say 5 or 6 hours coding. At least the same on top in thinking/planning. I'm not as productive this way but right now I have near constant phone calls for updates and any perceived slacking is unacceptable :(

</comment><comment><USER10> Just writing code? I spend several minutes a day.

Just thinking about it? Oh, a good 8 hours a day.

How much do I actually get done? Nothing, and I am such a horrible programmer.

</comment><comment> kung-fu-master From 2 to 4 hours. Everyday.

</comment><comment><USER3> All day... At least that's how it seems. I often work a 12 hour day but not all that time is actually spent writing code. Like others have said, being in the right frame of mind is key. Coding isn't like other things where you just have to force yourself and practice. When you code and you're not in "the zone" it often feels like you never sat down to write code at all.

That said, there are times you will have to force yourself anyway. As a beginner I would tackle a project you think is really interesting and work on it until it turns out as you'd imagined. Copying things others have already done is a great way to learn if you don't cheat and just copy/paste their code and call it yours.

</comment><comment><USER11> It alternates between 5-ish hours per day, and 12-ish depending greatly on the project, how focused the work is, and my mental state (how burned out I am).

I work as much as I feel I can, and no further.</comment>