Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools - <AUTHOR> http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002951918 <comment><USER3> In Japan, English is already mandatory, yet, English fluency sucks. Japan recognizes the problem, but doesn't know what to do about it. Basically, English education has yet to succeed. [1][2]

This is the thing about Japan. They can make these moves that are incredibly progressive and ambitious -- visionary even, yet, they really have no idea how to go about doing it.

As it stands, they don't have enough teachers that can program, so teachers from other subjects will be filling in picking up the material from textbooks as they go along.

From what I've witnessed from my school years, I guarantee you the smarter students will be correcting their teachers and making a mockery of them. It happens whenever there is an English native speaker in a Japanese English class (guilty as charged), and it will happen whenever there is a real programmer in one of these "programming" classes -- at least for the foreseeable future.

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[1] [http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/03/28/editorials/di...](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/03/28/editorials/disappointing- levels-english/)

[2] [http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/whats- wron...](http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/whats-wrong-with- english-education-in-japan-pull-up-a-chair)

<comment><USER4> >From what I've witnessed from my school years, I guarantee you the smarter students will be correcting their teachers and making a mockery of them.

As somebody who had programming classes (first Pascal and then Java) throughout all my highschool being taught by a Math teacher who never really programmed other than the basics and the textbook stuff... I can tell you that I'm still glad we had the chance. Since day one I already knew more than the material and arguably than our teacher (before Highschool I'd been dabbling with PHP and C programming for web-related stuff as a hobby and as I kept going I was also doing extra stuff on the side while going to school so I never stopped being ahead).

I spent most of my programming classes in Highschool helping my friends and my teacher with stuff they didn't understand, correcting her (my teacher) whenever she got something wrong, no mocking. This kind of experience really made me become a better programmer and mentor for my peers, helped them improve and really enjoy the material (being taught by an enthusiastic peer has a much more positive effect than being taught by a borderline incompetent adult).

Most likely this experience is an outlier case, however I wanted to point out that by simply introducing programming classes is a great starting point towards fostering a more positive environment for the skilled student to thrive and for the less-skilled students to at least pick up something.

<comment><USER5> When you are a "TA" \- which you basically were, according to your description - then of course _you_ learn a lot. I've been a TA myself, and that alone gives one a very big boost because you spend a lot of time researching and solving problems - and it's fun because you are _motivated_ like hell.

However, that says nothing - nothing at all - about the experience of everybody else in the course.

<comment><USER4> Keep in mind I really wasn't a TA. I was a normal student learning the material with the rest of the class and taking exams, doing projects and getting scolded by the teacher as was everyone else. Most of my extra "teaching" was from study groups with my peers and people simply asking me for help during lab sessions because I would simply finish my task in the first 10-20 minutes of class and then I'd either have fun online on flash games, work on my personal projects or simply laze around for the rest of the class (usually 2 hours lab classes) so.. might as well help if people need me. That's a big difference, a "TA" or authority figure usually is more intimidating and less relateable for young students, where an actual peer is more likely to keep them interested and have them learn.

But yeah this is as I said an outlier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This may not be a good idea. Code is one of those things that by itself sucks until you have a reason or purpose to use it. I started learning coding around age ~9 in 1996 or so. But what got me hooked was websites, because I could use the code to build fan sites or accomplish real, purposeful tasks. I feel like just shoving code at kids isn't going to do much unless they are also incentivized to use it somehow.

<comment><USER7> You can apply this logic to almost all subjects in school aside from the very basic ones (math, reading/writing) and even then you can argue school need not be teaching at a high level.

> I feel like just shoving code at kids isn't going to do much unless they are > also incentivized to use it somehow.

We shove kids into biology, chemistry, physics, literature, art, etc. The ones that like it will make it their career or college major. The ones that don't will forget and throw away their notes after the final. The same will happen with programming classes.

<comment><USER8> Or it could go the way of math, hated but all but the very most talented at it and generally considered boring. This has very real effects on the discipline, including a more exaggerated gender problem that CS has already inherited, and a number of extremely intelligent people are conditioned to never really give it a chance.

<comment><USER9> > including a more exaggerated gender problem that CS has

I'll need a citation for that, since last I checked, math had more females then CS and Physics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Math is such a wonderful and useful invention. Making people learn mathematics at school has made everyone love mathematics, take it up professionally, and become skilled mathematicians... You see my point. Most people hate math because of their experiences with it in school. I see the same thing happening with coding. It's gonna turn more people away from it than it ever turns onto it. May even do more net damage than good. (Anecdote: in my intro programming class, many people did not like it, even though they self selected to do it.)

<comment><USER11> Learning to program is a very very different thing. You can use programming to learn math and play games and mix the two.

My son loves learning programming. He isn't learning it like you and i learned math. He is playing it. Adjusting it, slowly understanding the concepts of loops, if/then etc. conceptually, later literally.

So at least I don't se your point :)

<comment><USER9> The point is that you can play and experiment with math. But compulsory education turns it into pointless shitty drills that make most students hate it.

<comment><USER11> That completely depends on how education of it is executed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am torn. Did we do this before? Was it necessary before? Did we try to teach everyone how internal combustion engines or transistors work when they came up? There are of course always a lot of interested hobbyists when something new comes up but it seems the solution was mostly to hide the complexity and have professional car mechanics instead of making everyone an expert in the new technology.

May programming be different? Because computers and software are so omnipresent? Maybe. But programming is also definitely pretty hard. Is it worth the time? Can you spent enough time learning to program so that it is actually useful in the end without negatively affecting other subjects? I mean in Germany we learn FizzBuzz-level programming in school (and that is what sent me down the software development route) but I don't think that has a lasting impact on many.

When I see what most people are struggling with when using their computers and phones, I would say they don't have to learn to program, they have to learn how those devices, operating systems and protocols work. DHCP or DNS not working? What's up with those drivers? Have you looked into the log file? Is the daemon running? But then again this looks a lot like those kinds of complexities that we used to hide from consumers and have professional mechanics for. We have already come a long way from MS-DOS with everyone using the command line and fiddling with autoexec.bat and config.sys to a Windows 10 tablet trying to bury all the ugly details under a shinny surface.

<comment><USER13> I think it's more a question of showing the kids that programming exists than making programmers.

In the same way, most people don't need to know how to structure an essay in their jobs, they don't need a foreign language, and they don't need to know algebra.

But it's a window into the richness of life. Show the kids a bunch of stuff, and they will be able to explore further themselves.

<comment><USER12> I agree with that but I don't think that is what people have in mind when they argue everyone should learn to program. As I mentioned in Germany we have this, for me it was maybe one lesson per week for a year or two. And this was more than two decades ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow, in 20 years Japan will be producing some amazing technology. I think people underestimate how transformative an understanding of programmatic problem solving can be. I'd put it only slightly under literacy.

<comment><USER15> Considering how long English has been mandatory and what the average level of English proficiency actually is, it might be a little too early to be overly optimistic. The potential is there, but it will depend mostly on the execution and based on current experience I wouldn't expect too much.

<comment><USER16> Why be optimistic at all? The more people are able to code, the less demand for it, the less salaries of the programmers.

<comment><USER17> Gotta be pedantic on this one...

Demand wouldn't decrease because of more developers being on the market. Supply would increase. Just because any one developer might be individually in less demand doesn't mean that demand for developers has decreased. Yes, this would still depress salaries for developers.

Having said that, there is no fixed amount demand for developers. If development resources are a bottleneck for development projects moving forward, there being more developers may actually increase demand. This comes about as projects that otherwise wouldn't be started do get started and may, themselves, not be able to be fully staffed even with the new blood. I don't know that this would actually happen... but then again I suspect the Japanese don't really know what will happen either.

You can't just look at the two values of current demand and current supply and extrapolate that into a vision of the future... there are many, many more variables than that.

<comment><USER16> Interesting. The situation when robots not only take the people jobs but because of the robots new jobs get created, comes to mind. Isn't it similar to that?

Yet, I think that robots don't create as many jobs as they take.

<comment><USER18> Right now a lack of robots is actually the problem. Otherwise we wouldn't even consider outsourcing manufacturing to asia.

<comment><USER16> problem for whom? how's that a problem that people is asia now are able to earn money?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a Japanese and a Programmer, I seriously worries about this move.

For one thing, almost all current teachers has no experience of programming. Other thing is the culture of teaching in Japan.

When you solve the problem by using a knowledge that isn't teached yet, the teacher said.

"You can't do that! You haven't been taught that yet!"

So, I can see the future where they say

"You can't use recursion! You haven't been taught that yet!"

Also, there is a seriously stupid culture in Japanese teaching.

Given a problem, "He went shopping and brought 6 candy bags which contains 3 candies each. How many candies does he have?"

The answer must be "6 * 3 = 18". not "3 * 6 = 18" The multiplication is not commutative. Because... I don't know. Some so called teaching expert who is the author of some textbook explicitly stated that.

(Actually, it must be 3 * 6 = 18 in original Japanese because, the word order of Japanese grammar requires to write like "he brought bag which contains 3 candies, 6." indicating this isn't even a math problem at all.)

That's why I worries about it.

As for Japanese isn't fluent in English even though we have mandatory English class, It's totally different reason.

School in Japan's English teaching is in fact bad. But that isn't the reason. If you're living in Japan, you have absolutely no reason to use English at all in your entire life. You can't improve language skill without actually using it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wish 'programming' included teaching our kids how to be proficient users of technology. How to effectively google, how to bring up a terminal, ssh to another machine, how to secure your privacy are the type of skills I hope are included in this definition. The architectural and process engineering aspects of programming are better left to learn in adulthood.

<comment><USER21> > How to effectively google

Sounds good

> how to bring up a terminal, ssh to another machine

Uhh, even as a developer I barely ever feel I need to do this (and frankly, I do this quite often).

Being able to ssh into another machine is extremely low on the list of things to learn before being proficient.

<comment><USER22> maybe. but text mode is pretty fundamental really. It could be powershell or anything I guess, as long as it had files and commands and was both interactive and scriptable

<comment><USER21> From your perspective maybe. My whole family use computers daily, some do it at work as well I guess and I would bet the number of times they have needed to go into a shell would be exactly zero.

I doubt they even know about terminals to be honest. Simply not needed.

<comment><USER23> It doesn't seem needed because you aren't used to what you can do with it. If you were good at it, you'd be horrified at the thought of not having that capability.

It's not just about launching programs and moving files around one by one.

A decent shell, like bash, is fully programmable. It lets you express yourself in ways that no GUI does, possibly excepting LabView or Scratch.

<comment><USER21> I just don't think most people will ever in their lives need to script their computers to batch rename files and automate tasks. Even if they do need it for something it seems more time efficient to find some GUI app to do it, or get help from someone who already know how to do it (a power user).

I also think that even if this was taught from the beginning - it'd remain a power user thing.

But I agree, I use automation/scripting/bash every day and would be horrified to loose this ability. But I also know other developer who doesn't use it at all.

<comment><USER4> >I just don't think most people will ever in their lives need to script their computers to batch rename files and automate tasks. Even if they do need it for something it seems more time efficient to find some GUI app to do it, or get help from someone who already know how to do it (a power user).

I agree with you but you couldn't have chosen a worse example. Mass renaming, tagging or formatting of files is one of the most performed operations of an everyday user and is a massive time sink for people who don't know how to programmatically do it.

Classification of downloaded music or movies is very common. Same goes for moving files around and renaming folders and mass-moving documents. I remember when I had to re-format around 1000 images for a friend of mine because he wanted a different size + format to create some photo album. Just a couple of imagemagick lines vs him and I manually spending a lot of hours doing it painstakingly picture by picture.

<comment><USER21> I know it is common, but I think they would still use some GUI tool or get help from a friend.

I am very comfortable in the terminal but I'd still /prefer/ a GUI tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Same with teaching French, Piano, Recorder, Photography. It will give people some exposure to something new. Most won't be interested, but a few would have discovered their passion.

<comment><USER18> I learned english as a third language by actually using it instead of just "learning" it and then get good grades for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Had obligatory programming classes in my eastern european science gymnasium (high school). We worked in Pascal and my younger sister goes to the same school now and works in Python.

Like any other class kids who were interested in it did good and most of them went to CS colleges, 90% who didn't care memorized it without thinking got a passing grade and never thought about it again, same with logic, psychology, sociology, philosophy, chemistry or any number of other obligatory classes we were forced to take.

</comment><comment><USER26> It should be taught in tandem with Mathematics, as a way to explore and apply the concepts they are learning.

America should start doing this as soon as possible, been saying it for years.

</comment><comment><USER27> Interesting point at the end:

> _How teachers can acquire the necessary knowledge and teaching expertise > will be the biggest hurdle for Japan to clear before computer programming > becomes a required subject at school._

Developing the skills in teachers is an issue.

I think all of this effort towards learning to program is great. Good learning resources like [FreeCodeCamp]([https://freecodecamp.com](https://freecodecamp.com)) are just going to keep getting better.

</comment><comment><USER28> Maybe they should also find something for those programmers to do as well, while they're at it. The job market for software engineering in Tokyo is equivalent to a Minneapolis or an Atlanta even with 20x the population - <USER2> even then I might be overselling it.

Look at the culture and the accomplishments of a place like Rakuten, and plot a way forward from that to a tech powerhouse. I don't see it.

<comment><USER23> Only 11% of Japan lives in Tokyo, so who cares? It's overpriced anyway.

Japan obviously can find a use for software developers. Japan launches spacecraft, has 2 of the 3 major video game console companies, is well-known as a major place for robotics, has major car companies, and has started to get back into military equipment.

Programming isn't all about web sites and phone apps.

<comment><USER28> Tokyo metro is like a quarter of the population of Japan. Japan basically _is_ Tokyo, to a degree that probably isn't matched by any other city / nation on Earth. Even if you insist on just looking at the 23 wards it's a big deal - 7% of the population lives in one of the 23 wards. That's like if 22 million people lived just within the one of the five boroughs of New York. (Comparing Tokyo metro with New York/Newark metro, imagine if 80 million people lived there, and how that would affect the influence of that area on the economy of the US.)

To suppose that Tokyo can go in one direction or stagnate while the rest of the country goes in another direction and prospers is just totally unrealistic.

<comment><USER29> London metro is greater than a quarter of English population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The value, I think, is that Japanese society as a whole will at least appreciate programming. Whether that appreciation is as a craft that is not always so easy, or as something that sometimes even approaches art, I do not know, but some of today's kids will be the ones who grow up to either approve or disapprove future projects. An understanding sown in youth and shared by a generation goes a long way.

<comment><USER31> Idont think it will make any difference at all. Do you think people have an appreciation for Geography or History even though they all had exposure to it during school? Most of the time it aint the case.

<comment><USER30> A generation or two down the line, history may record that this was an important event in Japanese history. And perhaps, as you imply, that sentence in a history book will be glossed over by generations even farther in the future. The populace may not even know how their society came to be what it is. But the government, I think, is envisioning a certain future, and planting the seeds to create that future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Ironically I was just lamenting the fact that my daughter won't get access to a computer in her Japanese elementary school until 5th grade.

And she goes to public magnet school.

While it's great that they are pushing forward to say that programming is important, I have little confidence that they'll be able to make it a reality.

</comment><comment><USER33> It will be interesting to see what kind of effect this will have on their society and industry. I know everyone has their anecdotal opinion as to whether this a good or bad idea, but we really won't know until a decade or so has passed.

I'm interested to see whether the gender ratio of programmers will change at all.

<comment><USER34> This. I would be very much curious too, whether if this can have a cultural impact. If not, I'd say it's largely uninteresting. Sure they'll make a couple of successful developers, but I'd rather want to live in a society where people have proper understanding/respect to tech jobs than the same old society with a few math/programming prodigies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If by programming they mean algorithms and really presented in a fun way then it is great. And next thing is to understand that the best algo one can learn as early as possible is the algo that allows you (teaches you) to learn when you want to do it.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's going to be butchered like English class to point of utter uselessness, no?

It's like learning Spanish and then totally and utterly forgetting it. What is then, the leftover value after one finish his secondary education?

<comment><USER37> I used to think English was useless too until I had to read other people's documentation. The world would be a better place if smart programmers were also competent at writing documentation and comments.

I've seen crazy things like punctuation placed in the _middle_ of a sentence. I had to ask, "Is this one sentence or two?" People not using appropriate paragraphs, no headings, rambling sentences etc ...

A little bit of proof reading, editing and formatting goes a long way.

<comment><USER36> I didn't say English is a useless language.

It's a very useful language, but I doubt a Japanese classroom is a good place to become a good English speaker and user.

<comment><USER37> Wait, are you talking about teaching English in Japan?

I read that as teaching an English class in an English speaking country!

<comment><USER18> If we didn't have an English class in an English speaking country nobody would know how to write.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> That's much better than just assuming people are too stupid to know how things work and using that as an excuse to force immutable defaults on them that are favorable to our business model.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the average Japanese elementary school student will spend a significant amount of time over the next 60-110 years using computers (approximately 99.8% of their waking hours.)

When I was 8 in 1984, they didn't think we were too dumb to learn BASIC and Logo. I wonder what happened to make kids so stupid since then?

</comment><comment><USER39> I guess they might be also worried about the low literacy on computer knowledge among their citizens.[1]

More mandatory programming courses could increase existence of desktop/laptop in households. The reference I included says that most people prefer smartphones than desktops/laptops, and programming could be a good enough reason to make them use them.

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11758933](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11758933)

</comment><comment><USER40> If this does go smoothly (and I hope it does), I imagine an issue being the bottleneck of higher education.

I go to school at a top CS university in America and the demand for CS classes has far surpassed the supply. Students are waitlisted in the 50s-100s for CS classes they need to take for the major. What is going to happen when the influx of CS students increases 2x, 5x..?

Hopefully higher-ed will figure it out before then.

</comment><comment><USER41> Well I do hope they bring back Prolog or aim for Agda or something symbolic, not byte crunching and MVC. Mainstream coding is a mental regression.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think it is OK to do this. When I was in elementary school, we also learned knitting. Why not programming, too? Some basic skill that could be useful at times.

However, seeing how abysmal general knowledge of mathematics is (in Western countries, don't know about Japan), I wouldn't expect huge numbers of skilled coders to emerge from school because of the inclusion of the subject.

</comment><comment><USER43> Just a little bit of programming can be powerful. If I were designing an elementary school course, it would focus on two things:

1) How to clean data. Real world data is always dirty. It mixes strings and ints, has commas and quotes where they shouldn't be, etc. Knowing how to think of data in terms of a standard format and having a plan for exceptions is very important.

2) How to manipulate data. Python, JS, or some other simple dynamic language. Teach how to do functional style programming such as list.forEach(<lambda>) to transform or analyze data.

It's easy to make homework and tests for something like this. And these are fundamental skills. It doesn't matter if Python or JS fades away. It doesn't matter if popular formats change from JSON to something else. It's about teaching how to think about data and how to get it in a form where it's easy and reliable to do analysis or transformations with it.

We don't need to make programming "fun". We need to treat it like algebra. A basic skill that all should learn. But that doesn't mean making web pages or mobile apps. And it also doesn't mean the theory focused CS topics like data structures and algorithms. Just start with learning how to think of data in a standard form like CSV or JSON. And how to use a programming language like JS/Python to do something with the data. After students master these skills, it can be integrated into science classes. Students will know how to write simple scripts to clean up the data from a lab test and analyze it.

<comment><USER44> If you treat it like alegbra, the average school kid will know about as much programming as they know algebra 1 year after graduating (i.e. nothing).

They can learn all the basics of programming by making a game of their choice (with some guidance to make sure they're not over-scoping it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Anyone have any thoughts as to why they would take the bottom up approach (ie, start with elementary and go up) rather than top down?

<comment><USER46> what do you mean top down?

<comment><USER47> Top down = start with high school

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I think personal finance would be far more valuable to students than programming.

</comment><comment><USER49> dont get me wrong, i will never go against any kind of improvement or expansion of basic education. However, seeing how i have invested quite a lot of time and money into my computer science degree (finishing up in about a year), i am a little concerned that soon programming is going be devalued as a profession because of programs like these. is that wrong? also they said that they have been doing this in isreal since 2000, anybody know how that turned out?

</comment><comment><USER50> i smell a fun jap/eng coding school startup idea in the making.</comment>


I actually have a project... How Zapier rode forum posts to 100m requests/month - <AUTHOR> http://blog.perfectaudience.com/2013/03/05/im-actually-working-on-a-project-how-zapier-rode-forum-posts-to-100m-api-requestsmonth/

<comment><USER2> Zapier has been really great for my service CallTrackingMetrics - they made it incredibly easy for us to provide integration with our service to all the services offered on Zapier. This is huge because one of the most time consuming efforts we focus on prior to integrating with Zapier was 3rd party integration. The integration isn't perfect, but it has been extremely valuable and their support team has been very responsive. I'm really excited to see how the team at Zapier evolves their platform. It's like a pipe that makes it very easy to connect web services.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We asked our writer to talk to the Zapier guys because we love their product. When reading the piece she came back with, I was struck by how "I actually have a project that..." is a bit of a meme on Hacker News and sites like Stack Exchange, but also how it's just good customer development. IAHAP-driven customer development might be a good topic for a future post. We've certainly gotten many of our smartest customers for our company by responding to openly posted pain points online.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is key: "He and co-founders Mike Knoop and Bryan Helmig identified a real problem and came up with a usable solution."

</comment><comment><USER4> _"Zapier... has grown to process 100 million API requests per month"_

How many unique user views is that per month? How many sales? How many customers?

For all we know, they could just have an incredibly inefficient system which makes 100 million API requrests for a single web page view.

<comment><USER5> > "well into the tens of thousands" customers.

We don't disclose exact numbers, but there are quite a few users.

<comment><USER4> Just out of curiosity, what's to stop companies about lying about numbers like these?

Obviously, it's very much in their interest to make themselves appear bigger and more successful than they are. After all, who would know? And, if they ultimately actually do become successful, who would care?

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure appearing bigger and more successful would actually lead to a company becoming bigger and more successful though.

A company lying would ultimately just be fooling themselves.

<comment><USER4> Most people want to do business with successful companies, because they're under the impression that a successful company is a competent company and can deliver on whatever it is they're promising.

Successful companies also usually tend to get favorable news coverage (this article being a case in point). And companies usually become bigger as they become more successful.

There's every incentive to appear more successful than you are, if you can do so without getting caught.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not to be a negative nancy, but I hate these bullshit statistics.

When you break it down, its only 35 requests a second. Not a big deal at all. Any website that is relatively popular will do above and beyond that.</comment>


Repetitiveness and compressibility analysis in song lyrics - <AUTHOR> https://pudding.cool/2017/05/song-repetition/ <comment><USER2> Great chart, unfortunate conclusion with some erroneous allusions. Bear with me here: Starting with ABBA, and fully blossomed in the form of Max Martin, Top 40 Pop has been dominated by Swedish composition techniques.

Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, NSYNC, Bieber, Katy Perry, Demi Lovato...Max Martin's fingerprints are all over the hits. He has a defined style as well. Balanced lines. It's brilliant. Thus, it's not about the performers if you want to study the composition - you have to go to the actual composer(s).

Just saying that this is a sound technique and approach but looking at the data set at the exclusion of pertinent considerations. Revised, it would make for an interesting story.

<comment><USER3> You could actually use this analysis technique to _fingerprint_ composers who've ghostwritten for bands, no? Bands pumping out music exactly as compressible are likely the same songwriter, whether they acknowledge that or not.

<comment><USER4> Composers' identities are rarely a secret, because there are separate royalty streams for performance and composition. OK, pop fans may lean towards the assumption that their idols' songs are always deep personal confessions but there isn't some grand conspiracy to conceal the facts of authorship from the public. Most people just don't think about it very much.

<comment><USER3> Rarely a _secret_ , yes. But it's not like there's a public database of composer:song mappings anywhere†, for you to easily feed your ML algorithm; you'd have to do a bunch of original research to build that dataset. If there's some statistical way to infer the data with nearly the same quality, so that you don't need to go to the effort of building the dataset yourself, that'd be nice.

† An assumption on my part—is there, in fact, a place where you can look up who gets each portion of the royalties for a given song?

<comment><USER4> I like to fact-check my assertions _prior_ to making them, unless I'm being metaphysical. Not snark; it's just a huge time saver.

There are a bunch of such datasets, some commercial but accessible for a small fee (like ASCAP), others freely available. I personally like the Discogs one best but some of the commercial offerings are better curated.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like interesting work, but the main chart doesn't work for me in Firefox or Chromium - it seems to be yoked to your scroll position (why?!) so by the time you've scrolled down to the '2014' paragraph, which makes it chart the full time-series, you can't even see the graph in the first place... Data viz run amok.

<comment><USER6> I worked on this project. Can you share your screen size, device, and browser version?

<comment><USER5> FF 53.0.2 (64-bit), Chromium Version 58.0.3029.96 Built on Ubuntu , running on Ubuntu 16.04 (64-bit); using a big Dell in portrait mode. Screenshots: [https://imgur.com/a/vFhNc](https://imgur.com/a/vFhNc) By the time I've scrolled down far enough to activate the animation, the graph has disappeared.

<comment><USER6> ah I think it's due to the high viewport height that we didn't account for (it's rare, but in your case, it broke the code). thanks!

<comment><USER7> Like @Asdfbla, I'm on 2560x1440 and have the same issue. The viewport is likely the issue =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Where'd they get the lyric data for this analysis? In my experience this data in bulk is all incredibly locked down!

</comment><comment><USER9> Next: lossy lyrics compression where using words that sound the same could yield higher ratios! I wonder how well that would work for Sting where nobody can understand anything anyways.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting analysis and great visual presentation. Would also be interested to see analysis on repetitiveness of intervals and rhythmic patterns used among popular songs. In many occasions people tend not to care about lyrics much in presence of addictive grooves/riffs, "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk being a good example.

</comment><comment><USER11> I like the use of compression to find out about repetitions.

There is some theory out there called Kolmogorov Complexity [0]. It says that something is as complex as how much information you need to express it. In your case, lyrics are as complex as how many symbols (letters? words? bytes?) you need to represent it.

And one good way to calculate it is as you done: compress it. If you're using the same compression method for all the lyrics, you'll find that the ones that are more simple (and more repetitive) are the ones that have a great reduction on their sizes. In that case, the choice of which compression method you use is somehow irrelevant. Had you used Bzip, PPMD, etc., the results probably would be similar.

In case you want to extend your research, for example, as 6stringmerc said, you might consider that the composer matters more than the actual artist.

And, for that, you can use Normalized Compression Distance (NCD) [1]. That way you can measure how two lyrics are similar. Basicaly, you compress those lyrics together. When they are similar, clues from one are used by the compression to also compress the second one, so similar lyrics get more compression than lyrics that aren't related.

And by doing that you can even discover who was the composer of the songs, i.e., the authorship of the lyrics, since each person usually has the same writing style... [2]

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

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

[2] [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-34475-...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-34475-6_76)

</comment><comment><USER12> The visualization animations as you scroll through this article are fantastic, and a great way to implement storytelling with data. Also, the content is pretty interesting too, I like the emphasis on aligning data metrics with intuition to really make the point.

</comment><comment><USER13> According to the main chart, songs in the top 10 are more likely to be repetitive, and that discrepancy has been growing. That raises the question, is there a causal link between being repetitive and reaching the top 10? If so, the answer to "Who's responsible for this madness?" is: the listeners.

<comment><USER12> I think this is partly true. However, there is a significant phenomenon where there is financial/political pressure to play songs (pay to play) which then creates demand for songs since they are then familiar to listeners. So companies/firms can pay stations to play otherwise unremarkable music (perhaps simple songs or those with the highest profit margins/potential available to stakeholders) and in a general sense this influences listeners to want to keep hearing those now familiar tunes. The whole pop-ephemerality of music-as-a- commodity feels like the new opiate of the masses - in general people are more content as long as they have a meaningless tune as the background soundtrack for their day-to-day repetitive tasks.

I wonder what the correlation is between acceptance of repetitive music and the repetitiveness of a listener's daily tasks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What was used to make these visualizations? These are beautiful.

<comment><USER6> D3!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would love to see the source code for how this post was created! (Or at least pointers for resources on how to create something similar.)

<comment><USER16> Ctrl-u

<comment><USER15> Oh right. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Some data messiness in that final chart. Maroon 5 versus Maroon5, Surfin' U.S.A but also Surfin' U.s.a

</comment><comment><USER18> Music itself is about repetition, without repetition is just noise..

</comment><comment><USER12> Any idea how to do the downres transition at the top? It's really cool.</comment>


Programming as Translation - <AUTHOR> https://increment.com/internationalization/programming-as-translation/ <comment><USER2> This is true. Almost all algorithms that you might realistically need have been implemented, maybe not for your language, platform or architecture. Programming then boils down to taking it from one context and translating it to another.

</comment><comment><USER3> In my mind Technicians translate. Programmers spend memory, organize abstractions and choreograph changes. I think the difference between the nature of programmer and technician work is not discussed often enough; where programming is a super-set of technician tasks with other, different, tasks specific to programming. One can get by as a technician, but the real magic of programming exists outside of technician work.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm somewhat curious how far we could take machine learning translation techniques to code, not just transpiling but perhaps to LLVM IR, beyond that, maybe in the backend? I want to write in any language with all my spelling errors and have it just work.

</comment><comment><USER5> semantic mapping is neat</comment>


How a former lobbyist became the broadband industry's worst nightmare - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/03/how-a-former-lobbyist-became-the-broadband-industrys-worst-nightmare/1/ <comment><USER2> I hope his work doesn't just get undone 12 months from now by whoever Hillary puts in there. She doesn't seem to be very tech savvy and is quite business friendly.

<comment><USER3> As a hard core liberal, I share these types of concerns. Many of the peeps I lobby are from the tech industry. Lots of face-palm moments.

It's a mistake to assume tech savviness. Much I love, respect, and admire most of their policy work. Hell, I cringe at my own prior views on privacy, intellectual property, open markets, and so forth. And I'm chin deep into this stuff.

I've come to embrace building relationships, incrementalism, taking the long view on big issues. My younger fire-brand self would be appalled.

So lobby, lobby, lobby. Build the trust, move the needle. Camp Wellstone and others provide great resources and training, for those who want to step up.

As one politician, David Cobb, I greatly admire is fond of saying "Whenever I feel the heat, I see the light!"

[http://www.wellstone.org/programs/camp- wellstone](http://www.wellstone.org/programs/camp-wellstone)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It all just seems too perfect to me. Maybe he's just throwing us a few bones to shut us up? It's just so hard for me to believe that someone who made a career pulling favors for those people would be able to just completely cut ties. I mean, what reason does he have to do that? The goodness of his heart? His sense of duty? Call me jaded, but those explanations make me want to laugh out loud when I think of all the billions of dollars in the mix.

<comment><USER5> The core of the issue here is that you can never really assume you understand a person's motivations just because your prejudices have served up a narrative you like

<comment><USER4> You're just as equally naive to trust someone with strong industry ties just because they do you a couple of favors in a couple of years. I'll be looking at his entire tenure in that position before I decide that he's the industry's worst nightmare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The cable companies might have once been the underdogs, but were they ever the good guys?

They seem to have succeeded in charging people for things that were free of charge. I heard originally that they claimed to be commercial free TV, but at some point, the cable channels decided to double dip with advertisements and rather than demand reductions in costs so cable bills would decline, the cable companies went along with it. They also enabled the rise of ESPN, which charges a fortune for things many would rather do without.

As far as I can tell, the broadcasters are the good guys ones.

</comment><comment><USER7> Some of the agencies work has been ok but I disagree with the FCC forcing the lock down of wifi routers [http://www.wired.com/2016/03/way-go-fcc-now- manufacturers-lo...](http://www.wired.com/2016/03/way-go-fcc-now- manufacturers-locking-routers/). This affects me in a different country while the stopping of a merger between American telcos or preventing hotel wifi blocking etc are more local concerns.

</comment><comment><USER8> I figure it this way, he knows what really is going on because of his insider experience and having fought to get competing systems access and market he knows how the game works.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if this report had any effect on how things are unfolding:

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

explained here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkjkQ- wCZ5A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkjkQ-wCZ5A)

</comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one on HN who actively avoids every political discussion or post as much as humanly possible? Or are there others like that out there too?

<comment><USER11> I was raised to think that politics and religion are not appropriate subjects for polite company; and even that raising either topic outside narrow situations is impolite. I have since grown to think the sentiment is wrong and destructive. Assuming others in your cohort feel similarly, It leaves those discussions to only those people who are willing to breach decorum, or you simply don't have them. The results are that we tend to hear more often from zealots than we do more moderate people, we also leave ourselves ill-equipped to discuss contentious subjects and resolve conflict amicably, and worst of all we make important decisions on matters that affect everyone using poor information and without the benefit of the perspectives of our peers.

<comment><USER10> In the past, when I myself was undecided on these two things, I'd agreed with you. Since then I've concluded that Catholicism is the correct religion, and that our current political systems are completely and hopelessly broken. At this point, there's nothing for me to change in these areas, and my job isn't to convince anyone else of my positions on either of these. (If they want to know more of why I believe what I believe in either area, I will gladly point them to some resources.) So it's absolutely useless for me to discuss them with anyone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The way I see it, after Obama lost the senate he felt the need to _seem_ relevant, which ended up with him forcing Wheeler's hand on the net neutrality issue (he publicly pressured him to support net neutrality). As a result, Wheeler burned his bridges with his telecom friends and now he just has nothing left to lose.

<comment><USER13> That theory seems unnecessarily convoluted compared to the straightforward explanation in the article.

<comment><USER14> It also implies that Obama has been irrelevant, which couldn't be further from the truth.

<comment><USER15> Not to mention the only-in-the-valley idea that he would try and improve his popularity with the American people as a whole through an issue that the vast majority of people neither understand nor care about.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CodeFightClub – Improving Code Through Fighting - <AUTHOR> http://code-fight.club/

<comment><USER2> I like the idea of discussing best and preferred practices by showing snippets of code.

Interesting idea.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. Just trying to get the initial uplift to start building a good community around it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting site, but needs options other than twitter for logging in.

</comment><comment><USER5> Um... isn't the first rule not to talk about CodeFightClub?

<comment><USER3> I'll let you talk about this one! :)</comment></comment>


Police blew up an innocent man's house Too bad, court rules - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/police-blew-up-an-innocent-mans-house-in-search-of-an-armed-shoplifter-too-bad-court-rules/ar-AAJzs8t <comment><USER2> Reading the details, it _sounds_ like the court ruled on fairly narrow grounds - that is, that the claim for compensation under "eminent domain" isn't applicable to this situation. This doesn't _necessarily_ mean that there isn't some other legal avenue open to claim compensation for this insanity. At least, I hope it doesn't.

<comment><USER3> Excessive force maybe? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to remove an armed individual who shoplifted from Walmart sounds a bit much. This is the kind of thing you see in movies where the hero gets chewed out in the captain's office because he destroyed a city block just to get a low level baddie.

That being said, I sure hope that Walmart got their shirt and two belts back. Reminds me of the time the Mesa AZ PD sent up a helicopter to locate a suspect in the area who fled a restaurant after breaking in and stealing...a pint of ice cream. They stated at the end of the news article that the ice cream was recovered.</comment></comment>


Teens can't tell the difference between Google ads and search results - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/20/9768350/google-ads-search-results-ofcom <comment><USER2> That's the whole point with the 'new ads'. They look like content, so you're fooled into following them up.</comment>


VHDL implementation of Hack computer from "Nand to Tetris" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rekahsoft.ca/#/posts/computer-from-scratch.html

<comment><USER2> " This site requires javascript!

If you insist on not using javascript we provide a simplified website here"

here leads here: [http://blog.rekahsoft.ca/nojs/index.html](http://blog.rekahsoft.ca/nojs/index.html)

At the time of posting this comment it was 404

<comment><USER3> The first thing I did was to remove the "/#" bit in the url, and it seems to have worked fine.

Could someone change the link to [http://blog.rekahsoft.ca/posts/computer- from-scratch.html](http://blog.rekahsoft.ca/posts/computer-from-scratch.html), since that is a actual webpage?

<comment><USER4> That's the location of the snippet to be inserted into the page. If you take a look at the file being downloaded its not a complete HTML page, just a snippet. Like I said I hope to remove the js requirement but it will take some time to refactor the code. Also if you use the link you mentioned the site navigation won't be on the page. Anyways thanks for reading.</comment></comment></comment>


An A-Z of modern office jargon - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/oct/22/a-z-modern-office-jargon

<comment><USER2> They forgot two of my favorites "Circle Back" and "Reach out"</comment>


MIT fiber could be woven into glasses-free 3D displays, and battle cancer - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122059-mit-fiber-could-be-woven-into-glasses-free-3d-displays-and-battle-cancer

<comment><USER2> This is funny. A few years ago I read somewhere that we were expected to accomplish the "minority report UI" before the cure for cancer and that the cure for cancer _should_ have been achievable in shorter time. Funny how hellbent we are on seeing it through as a society. Then I see this and I think, _have cake and eat it too?_.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know why _the team has only managed to squeeze one droplet of fluid into each fiber_?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I mean, the laser would always hit the first droplet, irrespective of how many droplets there are further down the fiber core.

I guess that's why the MIT write-up talks about oscillating the droplet, rather than somehow squeezing more in.

<comment><USER3> That's a very good observation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> sort of relevant: using a water droplet and a paper clip to turn a laser pointer into a microscope and projector:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aK_a-jr-tI>

</comment><comment><USER5> WARNING: this is an OnSwipe site that will crash mobile browsers.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite podcasts? - <AUTHOR> what are you listening to during work or any other time of the day? <comment><USER2> 1\. Hardcore History [0]. Even if you're not a fan of history, check it out because Dan really grips you with the story. I can't say enough good things about this podcast and look forward to each new episode. The episodes are LONG; they're more like audiobooks in a way. The series on World War I (Blueprint for Armageddon) [1] was six episodes and 24 hours long. Perfect for road trips, but the downside is there's only 2-4 a year.

2\. The British History Podcast [2]. Fills the gaps between Hardcore History releases. Jamie does a weekly, very deep dive into the whole of British history, starting from prehistory up through (currently) Alfred the Great. He's a bit more funny and sarcastic than Dan is, but you still end up learning a great deal.

3\. Escape Pod [3]. Science fiction short stories covering a wide range within the genre.

[0] [http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history- series/](http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/)

[1] [http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore- history-50-bluepri...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore- history-50-blueprint-for-armageddon-i/)

[2] [https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/](https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/)

[3] [http://escapepod.org/](http://escapepod.org/)

<comment><USER3> My fav thing about Escape Pod is their reviews of previous stories. Quite frank, and usually give an interesting perspective.

<comment><USER4> +1 for Hardcore History his world war 2 eastern front still haunts me

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Omega Tau.

Science and engineering topics in the form of interviews with domain experts (often on site). Some episodes in German language, many in English. If you want to spend 2h learning about fusion and plasma or how batteries work or how airbus builds planes or what goes into a radar satellite... this is for you.

\----

AB Testing.

Alex and Brent, 2 managers at Microsoft, discuss how not to lead teams and how not to do testing. By discuss, I mean rant along in a productive manner.

\----

Javascript Jabber.

Good podcast, has lost some steam for me lately, but many early episodes are good for people who are new to the show.

\----

Software Engineering Radio.

Has a great backlist of episodes on topics like architecture, type systems, database systems ... definitly one where it makes sense to look through the archive instead of just subscribing.

\----

Software Engineering Daily.

Used to subscribe, but lately the episodes feel more like infomercials where 50% of the time is spent by the guests pitching their product. Did enjoy the earlier episodes though.

<comment><USER6> Omega Tau is great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe this should be a monthly feature like Who is Hiring:

 _Podcasts to make you smarter_ (49 comments 10 days ago) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14737772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14737772)

 _Ask HN: What Podcasts are you listening right now and why?_ (77 comments 28 days ago) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14616998](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14616998)

 _Ask HN: What podcasts are you listening to?_ (62 comments 40 days ago) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529759)

</comment><comment><USER8> Accidental Tech Podcast - Apple and random tech discussion. Super fun listen. One of the hosts is also the author of Overcast, which is my favorite podcast app.

The Talk Show - Similar to ATP, but slightly more serious and with rotating guests

Pardon My Take - a humorous sports podcast. It's kind of juvenile, but it's growing on me.

Best of Mike and Mike - a semi-serious sports podcast. This one's about to end, unfortunately.

Stuff You Should Know - funny but informative info about random topics you never realized you wanted to know about

Hardcore History - super long and rarely released episodes, but he gives an amazing in depth look at various historical battles. WWI, the Persian Wars, the Cold War 1945-1965, and the Anabaptist uprising are free now, and are all awesome.

<comment><USER3> SYSK also has hilarious but terrible puns. I remember the episode they had on termites: "They Bore, but they aren't Boring" <\-- Elon would approve

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How I Built This by NPR

They interview founders of successful companies and talk about the very beginnings of their companies and how they started them. You hear about the humble beginnings of AirBnB, Mark Cuban, WeWork, Lyft. All really cool stories of starting businesses.

</comment><comment><USER10> In addition to the ones mentioned here, I like:

What Trump can teach us about con law (from Roman Mars of 99PI): [https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/trump-con- law](https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/trump-con-law)

50 Things that made the Modern Economy (Tim Harford): [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b1g3c/episodes/downloads](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b1g3c/episodes/downloads)

Internet History Podcast: [http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/](http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/)

You are not so smart: [https://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/](https://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/)

Unjustly Maligned: [https://www.theincomparable.com/ump/](https://www.theincomparable.com/ump/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Talk python to me - Patrick Kennedy's highly polished podcast on my favorite language The cppcast Syntax - web front end stuff Software engineering daily Mac OS ken Brent Ozar Office Hours -SQL server q and a Coder radio (and pretty much anything from Jupiter Broadcasting) - Linux and OSS oriented banter regarding development work

<comment><USER12> Talk Python to Me is actually Michael Kennedy, if you like that checkout Python Bytes. Less polished, greater breadth in less depth, much shorter.

<comment><USER11> Right I am going to fix my typo

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Council on Foreign Relations: The World Next Week, The President's Inbox

Financial Times: World Weekly, The Money Show, Alphachat

BBC: The World This Week, Analysis, In Our Time, Infinite Monkey Cage, The Public Philosopher, A History of Ideas

Philosophy: The Partially Examined Life, Philosophy Bites, The Philosopher's Zone, The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps

Others:

The Carnegie Podcast

Radio Atlantic

Guardian Books

Guardian Science Weekly

</comment><comment><USER14> ARRL The Doctor is in - [http://www.arrl.org/doctor](http://www.arrl.org/doctor)

No Agenda - [http://www.noagendashow.com/](http://www.noagendashow.com/)

The Dividing Line - [http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/webcast/](http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/webcast/)

The Adam Morgan Show - [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-adam-morgan- show/id1...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-adam-morgan- show/id1088616591)

The Briefing / Thinking in Public - [http://www.albertmohler.com/the- briefing/](http://www.albertmohler.com/the-briefing/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Indie Hackers [http://indiehackers.com](http://indiehackers.com) is my current favorite

The Startup Chat [https://thestartupchat.com/](https://thestartupchat.com/) is a close second.

Startup School by Seth Godin was a limited 15 episode production of a event he did, this is also really good.

</comment><comment><USER16> Uhh Yeah Dude, Chapo Trap House, Bodega Boys, Comedy Bang Bang, Cum Town, How Did This Get Made?, With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus

</comment><comment><USER17> I have never successfully found a software engineering podcast that I've liked, so this will be a bit different from most here:

A Cast of Kings -- Game of Thrones episode discussion

My Favorite Murder -- Semi-descriptive title, but they talk about their favorite murders

Not Alone Podcast -- Podcast about things going bump in the night

Startups for the Rest of Us -- A marketing podcast aimed at micropreneurs

Last Podcast on the Left -- Comedy/oddly well researched show about Aliens, Murder, and anything else macabre or strange

The Adventure Zone -- A podcast about 3 brothers and their dad playing DnD

Strange Matters -- Another "things that go bump in the night" sort-of podcast

I have about 30 podcasts that I follow, but some of them I won't listen to if the subject doesn't interest me. These, however, I will listen to every episode (I'm putting off the final episode of "The Adventure Zone...") as soon as they come out.

</comment><comment><USER18> Crime stuff: Accused, Someone Knows Something, Up and Vanished, Criminal, Sword and Scale, Convicted, Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

General: Radiolab, 99% Invisible, Revisionist History, Snap Judgement, This American Life

Amusing: No Such Thing as a Fish, RHLSTP, Adam Buxton Podcast

Listening to with my daughter: The Tumble, Brains On!

</comment><comment><USER19> _Coffee With Butterscotch_ \- A Game Dev Comedy Podcast. Super entertaining, and also interesting to hear from these brothers ( _Butterscotch Shenanigans_ ) who managed to build a Game of the Year winner[1] (Awarded by _Touch Arcade_ and others) using _Game Maker_ of all things! Very informative to hear them as they make business mistakes and learn from them, and occasionally make a decision that actually positively affects their bottom line. This is what _passion_ sounds like—the kind of dedicated passion that breeds success against all odds.

[1] The game? _Crashlands_ \- [https://www.crashlands.net](https://www.crashlands.net)

</comment><comment><USER20> The Magnus Archives is a great horror podcast. It's mostly-independent pieces of short fiction, but start at the beginning because there's definitely a meta-narrative.

Also good is The Bright Sessions, also fiction, about a psychologist for people with superpowers. Also start at the beginning of this one.

A new one that's quite interesting is Ear Hustle, produced by and about the inmates of San Quentin prison. It's a fascinating look into the reality of prison life.

And then I'll second the recommendations for Hardcore History (snag The Prophets of Doom episode while it's still free, it's great) and 99% Invisible.

</comment><comment><USER21> The Hilarious World Of Depression (THWOD) 99% Invisible Accidental Tech Podcast Reconcilable Differences Do By Friday Cortex Writer's Almanac Radiolab Note To Self MBMBAM The Incomparable (as topics interest me)

</comment><comment><USER22> Interview Format: EconTalk, Conversations with Tyler, The Ezra Klein Show

News or weekly roundup: Slate's Political Gabfest, Slate Money

Others: Two Dope Queens (comedy), History of Japan, Dan Carlin

<comment><USER23> EconTalk is awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Story Club - brief (often humorous) vignettes of Australian life

The Adventure Zone - funny people playing DnD

Song Exploder - bands rip apart their music and explain their process, often channel by channel

And ... Planet Money, Reply All, This American Life, More Perfect, What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law, Data Skeptic, Arms Control Wonk, The Mystery Show

</comment><comment><USER24> "no such thing as a fish", a podcast on four favourite facts of the week. Really fun to listen to :)

<comment><AUTHOR> it's my current favourite :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> NPR's Fresh Air. Terry Gross has a very soothing voice. She covers a wide range of topics, but my favorites are those relating to politics, history and science. She definitely does her research, and knows how to ask thoughtful questions.

</comment><comment><USER26> For the french speaking, Nouvelle Ecole is a very nice, humble podcast interviewing people with a non-standard path. Very nice and interesting!

[http://nouvelleecole.org/](http://nouvelleecole.org/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Data Skeptic (love this podcast)

Data Driven Discussions (new podcast)

Linear Digressions (good shorter discussions)

Pod Save America (awesome)

Coaching for Leaders (great interviews, the best soft skills podcast I've found)

Software Engineering Daily (a little hard to keep up, mostly listen to specific topics)

a16z (general trends)

</comment><comment><USER28> [http://packetpushers.net/](http://packetpushers.net/) \- great podcast for network-related industry news & opinion. Nice mix of useful information and personality bombast.

</comment><comment><USER29> ADB - Android Developers Backstage (it's actually the only podcast I listen to)

</comment><comment><USER30> Some of my favorites:

Planet Money - Current events and finance

Astronomy Cast - Long-running podcast with each episode about a topic in astronomy

Death Sex & Money - Human interest stories

On The Media - Current events

Love and Radio - Human interest stories

Welcome to Night Vale - Weird scifi-ish stories in a newscast format

</comment><comment><USER31> A niche offering: Slide, the avalanche podcast.

It may be too technical/specific for the general listener, but there's a lot there regarding risk management and personal awareness, which applies broadly.

Daily listening: Marketplace, Planet Money.

</comment><comment><USER32> Mixergy, How I Built This, Startup, Criminal, Savage Lovecast, Dear Sugars, On Being, James Altucher Show, Planet Money, Fresh Air, Just the Right Book, Masters of Scale, The Distance, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History

</comment><comment><USER33> Acquired - history of (mainly) tech mergers/acquisitions/IPOs

</comment><comment><USER34> econtalk - quite good, been going since 2006. two episodes with paul graham and sam altman from back in the day too

[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/08/graham_on_start.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/08/graham_on_start.html)

[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/07/sam_altman_on_s.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/07/sam_altman_on_s.html)

</comment><comment><USER35> The Bottom Line - Excellent business podcast

Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman

How I built this - Interviews with entrepreneurs

Freakonomics - Very good

The Tim Ferriss Show - Lots of interesting people come on the show

</comment><comment><USER36> No Agenda

</comment><comment><USER37> * Skeptic's Guide to the Universe: Science and Skeptiscism weekly Podcast

* Savage Lovecast: Frank Sex and Relationship Advice

* 99 Percent Invisible: Design

</comment><comment><USER38> This Week In Machine Learning - [https://twimlai.com](https://twimlai.com)

</comment><comment><USER39> ADV China, a talk show on two wheels. SerpentZA and C-Milk ride motorcycles through rural china while discussing China.

</comment><comment><USER38> The Tesla Show - [http://theteslashow.com](http://theteslashow.com)

</comment><comment><USER40> The DFJ Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar from Stanford eCorner, This American Life, and Democracy Now!

</comment><comment><USER41> Comedy Bang Bang, Monday morning podcast, Chapo Trap House, and Cum Town. I take it as a chance to shut off

</comment><comment><USER42> Dark Pixel Gaming podcast (and YT channel) - discussion on gaming news focused on JRPGs.

</comment><comment><USER23> Interview/Comedy: We Got the Jazz gotthejazz.com

EconTalk econtalk.org

So Money by FARNOOSH farnoosh.tv

</comment><comment><USER43> Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" is perhaps my favorite .

<comment><USER3> But it is so slow to come out with new episodes!

The WW1 series he made - amazing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Greater than Code - software development from a humanist perspective

</comment><comment><USER45> \- The Changelog Podcast \- Talk Python To Me \- Podcast.Init

</comment><comment><USER46> Chapo Trap House

<comment><USER47> Second this. Usually very good critique of both conservative and liberal politics, sometimes inane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Scale your code podcast is quite good.

</comment><comment><USER48> Planet Money

</comment><comment><USER49> Intercepted, Chapo Trap House

</comment><comment><USER50> Sam Harris - Waking up Podcast. Dan Carlin - Hard Core History Econtalk

</comment><comment><USER49> Intercepted

</comment><comment><USER51> Hollywood Handbook, Chapo Trap House, Your Kickstarter Sucks, No Goals, Cum Town

Pretty much all are comedy except Chapo, which is a leftist political show.</comment>


Fortran 202x Feature Suggestions (open until the end of January,2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7BTF5K8 <comment><AUTHOR> The original website is here

[https://wg5-fortran.org/](https://wg5-fortran.org/)

and the temporary survey result (as of 2017-10) can be downloaded here

[http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink?func=ll&objId=1929365...](http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink?func=ll&objId=19293653&objAction=Open)</comment>


Dr. Chrono sounds like a comic book super-villian Agree/Disagree? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I don't expect this topic to go very far, but for the record every time I read it I can't help but think it says _Dr. Chronic_. It's not Jay and Silent Bob (at least not the Dr. part) but I swear I've seen it in a movie or something. (googling just gives me a head shop in Amsterdam)

</comment><comment><USER3> If they published a comic series, I would read it.</comment>


1,250 Mile Motorway Connecting Hamburg with Shanghai Across Russia Going Ahead - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/russia-meridian-highway-motorway-china-belarus-europe-belt-road-travel-a8996286.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hamburg and Shanghai are at least 8,517 km apart (Great Circle Route), with this new 2,012 km (1,250 mile) portion just connecting the missing "Moscow bypass" across Russia. Currently the world's longest highways include the Pan American Highway at 48,000 km, Highway 1 circumnavigating Australia at 14,500 km, the Trans-Siberian Highway at 11,000 km and the Trans-Canada Highway at 7,821 km.</comment>


Ask HN: Where to get a data source for the current coronavirus pandemic stats? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a data source that's updated regularly with stats for the coronavirus pandemic broken down by country and other sub criteria (gender, age, positive cases, new cases per day, etc).
Does it exist?
Wanting to get my hand at this to do some data visualization stuff.
The ideal source would be an API. But a downloadable data set that's updated regularly is good enough. <comment><USER2> I just googled. I found this:

[https://github.com/soroushchehresa/awesome- coronavirus#api](https://github.com/soroushchehresa/awesome-coronavirus#api)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looks like this is what I was looking for:

[https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19](https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)</comment>


Steve Ballmer says Windows 7 sales are double its predecessor - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/19/microsoft-ceo-ballmer-says-windows-7-sales-are-double-its-predec/

<comment><USER2> How difficult is it to surpass the failure of Vista?

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't he say the same thing for Vista?</comment>


A Book by Its Cover: The strange history of books bound in human skin - <AUTHOR> http://laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/book-its-cover <comment><USER2> The Athenaeum in Boston has one of these: [http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/boston- athenaeum](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/boston-athenaeum)

</comment><comment><USER3> My university's library has one of those in the Special Collections sections that can be viewed if requested. Actually they're putting it up for display on Halloween.</comment>


MIT's Media Lab Hid Its Ties to Jeffrey Epstein - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/business/mit-media-lab-jeffrey-epstein-joichi-ito.html <comment><USER2> The title has been updated at 3:07pm to reflect breaking news: Joi Ito has resigned.

"Director of M.I.T.'s Media Lab Resigns After Outcry Over Jeffrey Epstein Ties"</comment>


CoreOS - Linux for the modern server - <AUTHOR> http://www.coreos.com/

<comment><USER2> This is next level stuff, from automatic security updates to automation REST API's built right into the OS. I think I have a new Vagrant Box :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, this looks really interesting! Who is behind this?</comment>


The Mappa Mundi - <AUTHOR> http://www.themappamundi.co.uk/

<comment><USER2> Wow! –that's one awful interface. Just let us look at the bloody thing, without trying to be all fancy with your pop-outs and animations, which just waste screen space and leave us squinting at a postage stamp sized section.

<comment><AUTHOR> uh. it's not mine. I didn't design it, just found it interesting and shared.

<comment><USER2> Never said you did, captain. I was just commenting on the useability

<comment><AUTHOR> sorry, I took the second person verbs as real second person verbs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


San Francisco, Seattle included in list of "at risk" cities for DTV transition - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/12/16/high-tech-cities-included-risk-list-dtv-transition

<comment><USER2> I'm amused at the phrase "at risk" being used to refer to people losing TV signal, akin to some disease, where I view it as completely the opposite.

<comment><USER3> Those poor people are "at risk" of escaping the mass mind control that our overlords expect to maintain.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. Downvoted because someone thinks that TV is a net positive for the people addicted to it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I require more data!

So San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland and Seattle/Tacoma is on the at risk list because: "relatively high numbers of residents who watch analog over-the-air television broadcasts and relatively low participation in the NTIA's TV Converter Box Coupon Program."

but how many of them don't need the converter box coupon? The Bay Area is home to Silicon Valley, would it be safe to say that a large number of them have purchased HDTVs and don't require a converter box?

<comment><USER5> In general, people with HDTVs also have cable or satellite and people with rabbit ears have old tube TVs.

<comment><USER6> I have a Sony Bravia HDTV plugged into my house antennae. No cable. The reception is better than cable, and I get an array of HD-only channels I never even knew existed.

For example, in the Bay Area, I can get a weather-only channel from ABC (7.3), a weird traffic channel that shows 4 camera views poised at different highways, and a multitude of PBS channels (9.1, 9.2, 9.3, etc.) all with a picture better than you would believe possible.

I don't need all the infomercial channels cable provides, nor the sensationalist "news" channels. Sure, I miss ESPN from time to time, but thanks to my father-in-law's Slingbox, I can get my fix when I need it.

You'd be surprised how easily it is to ween yourself off of cable TV. As long as I have my cable Internet connection, and my FREE HD channels - sorry, and Netflix - I'm good to go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am surprised that they were not in this list already!</comment>


Facebook Requires Social Fixer Browser Extension To Remove Key Features - <AUTHOR> http://socialfixer.com/blog/2013/10/05/facebook-requires-social-fixer-browser-extension-to-remove-key-features/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand why this isn't getting more traction. FB are effectively saying they should control what the browser is showing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Terrible news. Very upsetting.

</comment><comment><USER2> Do Facebook have any rights at all to dictate what browser extensions do?</comment>


For this metal, electricity flows, but not the heat - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/9788.html <comment><USER2> Because of the material's uniquely diametric state transitions and properties, it gives itself naturally to negative feedback (self-regulating systems) -- for example, as a coating in space windows that reflects more radiation as the temperature increases. Not to mention the regulation of heat/electrical conductivity which is the primary subject of the article, in which the material behaves like an exotic semiconductor:

"This material could be used to help stabilize temperature," said study co- lead author Fan Yang, a postdoctoral researcher at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry, a DOE Office of Science User Facility where some of the research was done. "By tuning its thermal conductivity, the material can efficiently and automatically dissipate heat in the hot summer because it will have high thermal conductivity, but prevent heat loss in the cold winter because of its low thermal conductivity at lower temperatures."

<comment><USER3> I don't think this would work for coatings. The dimension and geometry of the material matter a lot and this is evidenced by the fact that they know that VO2 has normal behavior in polycrystalline thin-films. The VO2 they studied is single crystal and shaped into a nanobeam, meaning that already by geometry there's a huge shape anisotropy that I'm sure influences the properties. The beam is essentially suspended as well so it's relatively free of strain. Honestly I don't think this is going to leave the lab, you're not gonna find this behavior in bulk, only in nanoscale constructions.

Also the title of this submission is wrong, heat does flow, just at a lesser magnitude than expected from the Wiedemann-Franz law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That... is the great breakthrough that many people were waiting for in thermoelectric generation.

Tell me it can be easily manufactured and we have a winner. This has the potential of making solid state thermal plants, where no moving parts would be required to transform heat into electricity.

<comment><USER5> Would it be possible to use such a thermo-electric generator as a heat sink for a chip?

<comment><USER4> Depends what you mean. If you want to use it for power generation then you can but it is probably a bad idea: it gives resistance to the heat flow.

However, the thermoelectric effect is used by overclockers but on reverse : they consume energy to move heat from the CPU to a radiator. It is called a Peltier cell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It might interesting to note that diamonds work the other way round, fantastic insulators of electricity but good conductors of heat.

<comment><USER7> Ceramics too.

<comment><USER8> I used to have to work with transistors backed with BeO (beryllium oxide) ceramic. A very scary material, inhaling the dust once can cause a lung condition for life. It is second behind diamond in terms of electrical insulator, thermal conductor.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> link: [http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2017/01/26/electricity-not-heat- fl...](http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2017/01/26/electricity-not-heat-flows-in- vanadium-dioxide/)

I wish they included some more numbers. The paper is paywalled: [http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2017/01/26/electricity-not-heat- fl...](http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2017/01/26/electricity-not-heat-flows-in- vanadium-dioxide/)

I think Fig 1 on page 3 applies: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.06246.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.06246.pdf) so it's 100ohms/cm vs 0.0001ohms/cm for the best example. Still looking for thermal conductivity.

</comment><comment><USER10> Those electrical properties sure stood out as being superconductorish.

</comment><comment><USER11> Could this be used in CPUs? And would the cost be affordable?

<comment><USER12> Why would you want a CPU that can't get rid of its heat?

<comment><USER13> Maybe I misunderstand.. but isn't it allowing electricity to flow without heating ?

<comment><USER14> No, the electricity flowing will still generate heat. Flipping bits may not take a lot of power, but it does take power, and some of that power is converted into heat regardless of what material you use. Except maybe superconductors, but I'm not sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Given some of the comments here I think it's important to note that the thermal properties of Vanadium are well known and the metal has been used for years in high-speed steel and alloys, such as Chrome Moly Vanadium, where heat is the enemy.

This discovery in regard to conductivity could be game changing, but it's not really a surprise.

</comment><comment><USER16> The way they describe the properties of it make it sound like a superconductor. Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER17> This is great, I wish I had it on my windows now.

<comment><USER18> If this could be applied to greenhouses in cold climates that would he amazing. A glass/polycarbonate coating that lets in the Sun's radiation but restricts heat from leaving.

<comment><USER19> Current greenhouse insulators already do that, and very well. I don't think this material would be worth it.

But for electricity generation things are very different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is basically unobtanium [1]

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_HhiU1mOwU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_HhiU1mOwU)</comment>