What intelligent machines need to incorporate from the neocortex - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/what-intelligent-machines-need-to-learn-from-the-neocortex <comment><USER2> Recently Matt Taylor from numenta had a reddit AMA ([https://www.reddit.com/r/artificial/comments/6beeqj/5182017_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/artificial/comments/6beeqj/5182017_1200_pm_pst_iama_with_matt_taylor_numenta/)). I was disappointed to find out that numenta does not really have collaborations with neuroscientists to test or adapt their theories. Their theories in general are not well known to computational neuroscientists either. In that sense, i m not even sure about the authority of numenta on neocortical theories.

For example, the article mentions the ability of clustered synapses to act independently, but , on the one hand, it has been shown independent dendrites can be approximated as an extra neural network layer (so they ARE covered by today's ANN approximation) , and OTOH there s a number of papers showing that synaptic clustering does not exist in sensory areas. And learning by rewiring is basically the introduction of random connections which persist only if their weight increases enough (roughly corresponds the continuous formation of filopodia and the fact that large spines persist longer).

Machine learning at the moment is an empirical science that has made great strides without consulting neuroscience for it. I think that has been a good thing: without having to bend towars some biological plausibility researchers have been more exploratory and creative, which has led to the creation of an empirical body of knowledge from which neuroscience could benefit in the future. OTOH, having watched the field of computational neuroscience there has not been a lot of progress since , basically the 80s. So i believe it would be best to leave each of the two fields go their own way.

<comment><USER3> > OTOH, having watched the field of computational neuroscience there has not > been a lot of progress since , basically the 80s. So i believe it would be > best to leave each of the two fields go their own way.

I wouldn't really say that. There's a lot of progress being made in using and understanding biological processes for useful tasks. Not surprisingly, the biological mechanisms are surprisingly complex and rich and vary a lot through the brain (like you mentioned with the dendrites. Dendrites also work like coincidence detection mechanisms sometimes in some layers of the cortex [1] for instance)

[2] gives a very nice overview of what is needed from both machine learning and computational neuroscience to solve the entire problem of understanding the human brain.

There was the liquid state computing paper [3] in 2002 which showed that random networks of spiking neurons can perform some computations and have memory even in the absence of special learning rules.

There has also been quite some work on understanding e.g. the role of assemblies of neurons (groups of neurons firing), assembly sequences, plasticity rules, theory formulating neural activity in a probabilistic manner, a better understanding of the role of inhibition, dendrites etc.

And lastly, there have been huge advances in neuromorphic computing, both digital and analog. In some cases, the performance on these chips (that use spiking neurons) approaches that of state of the art machine learning. e.g. [4]

[1] [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166223612...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166223612002032)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5021692/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5021692/)

[3] [http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/089976602760...](http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/089976602760407955)

[4] [http://www.pnas.org/content/113/41/11441.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/113/41/11441.abstract)

<comment><USER4> Nice references! I have some criticism of "Toward an Integration of Deep Learning and Neuroscience" which I've talked to the authors about. I felt like they downplayed the importance of integration between neuroscience and machine learning [1], while over-playing the biological plausibility of Deep Learning [2]. I'm also uncomfortable with the characterization of Neuromorphic computing as "Deep Learning on a Chip", as this dismisses the possibility of online learning and neural dynamic systems [3], which I think are necessary for truly intelligent systems.

As for Liquid State Machines, those evolved into Reservoir Computing and Echo State Machines. If you want to read more about them, I would recommend this paper comparing them to the Neural Engineering Framework [4] (with code!) to get a good idea of the state of the field.

[1] [https://medium.com/@seanaubin/deep-learning-is-almost-the- br...](https://medium.com/@seanaubin/deep-learning-is-almost-the- brain-3aaecd924f3d)

[2] [https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/16269/4397](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/16269/4397)

[3] [https://medium.com/@seanaubin/a-way-around-the-coming- perfor...](https://medium.com/@seanaubin/a-way-around-the-coming-performance- walls-neuromorphic-hardware-with-spiking-neurons-facd4291b201)

[4] [https://github.com/arvoelke/delay2017/blob/master/delay2017....](https://github.com/arvoelke/delay2017/blob/master/delay2017.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For those interested, Jeff Hawkins wrote a book called On Intelligence and he is largely the guy behind: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_temporal_memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_temporal_memory)

Deep learning proponents focus on solving specific problems using mathematical models inspired by biology, whereas HTM proponents argue that biology is important and it should play a more central role. Deep learning folks are more geared towards applied AI, whereas HTM's are way more ambitious and are trying to solve the problem of intelligence/AGI.

Numenta, the company behind HTM's has a platform called NuPic for "intelligent computing": [https://github.com/numenta/nupic](https://github.com/numenta/nupic)

But as far as I know HTM's have never been applied to anything non-trivial successfully.

<comment><USER6> I recently read On Intelligence, very interesting take on the core principles of the brain. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can comment on this, but it feels like deep recurrent networks do a pretty good job of capturing the concepts that Jeff Hawkins considers really important: hierarchy/invariance and sequences/prediction. Plus they're really effective in practice!

<comment><USER5> The concept Hawkins considers really important above all else is the biology. He rejects deep learning as being a fundamentally different form of computation than the one the brain performs. There are are no parallels to be drawn between RNN and HTM's, really. Apples and oranges. HTM's goal is literally to try and emulate the neocortex.

<comment><USER7> "Emulate the neocortex" is at best a metaphoric shorthand that will be misunderstood by many, and quite likely the wrong way of thinking about it. It is certainly not to be taken literally.

There are plenty of things going on in a real neocortex that are not essential to intelligence and Numenta was working hard from the start to pick out the important ones at an appropriate level of modeling. This distinction becomes especially important in contrast to things like Henry Markram's projects, where people seem to be happily spending major-multi-million-euro sums of public funds to run poorly understood simulations with insufficient detail on a really big computation cluster.

RNN:s are crude compared to the HTM as well as to the more recent CLA model, but they do share for instance the formulation as a dynamical system with recurrence. Some of publications coming from people at Numenta have made direct comparison between the CLA to for instance LSTM-based networks, and in my opinion they are entirely reasonable to do that. They are all suited to sequence modelling.

Having said that, I agree the comparison to RNN:s isn't to be made without understanding some of what goes into the HTM or CLA, and I agree that Hawkins emphasizes biological intelligence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> And perhaps what the neocortex needs to incorporate from intelligent machines: backpropagation?

I mean, so far we have no biological evidence of backpropagation, and it seems pretty useful.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have followed Hawkin's theory from its inception ca. 2005, since then they have been through multiple evolutions: from hierarchical bayesian models (with then collaborator Dileep George) and now an Sparse representation with Subutai. However, they have struggled with a "killer app". Barring some toy examples, very little by way of real-world use-cases.

</comment><comment><USER10> Strongly believe that if anyone is going to solve human level intelligence in our lifetime, it's going to be Numenta.

'But we can't even figure out worms!' \- Worms are made up of neurons but they perform a different function from what the neocortex does so studying them is not like studying a simpler problem, it's studying an entirely different one.

'But ML can do X better!' \- Unlike industry or academia, Numenta's primary goal is to figure out how the neocortex works, it's not about profit or publications.

'Biology contains details we don't need!' \- Numenta's approach is not biologically inspired, it's more like biologically constrained. They avoid implementations that are _functionally_ different from how the neocortex works.

I would highly suggest reading On Intelligence to learn more.

<comment><USER11> >Worms are made up of neurons but they perform a different function from what the neocortex does so studying them is not like studying a simpler problem, it's studying an entirely different one.

Huh? Take your pick of creatures that display highly intelligent behaviour and have less complex nervous systems than humans. Insect navigation would be a good example. If we can't figure out the biological basis of that -- when in many cases we already have a good idea of what calculations are being performed -- then our chance of "solving human level intelligence" is zero.

<comment><USER10> The problem is in defining intelligence by behavior. What we see as intelligence in insects most likely originates from an entirely different process.

Jeff talks about this exact issue in this speech he gave, 10 years go. He mentions it around the 11 min mark but the whole video is a great intro to what this is all about. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6CVj5IQkzk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6CVj5IQkzk)

<comment><USER11> > What we see as intelligence in insects most likely originates from an > entirely different process.

That is pure speculation.

As far as I can tell, what you're suggesting is that it might possibly be easier to figure out how human intelligence works than it would be to figure out how an insect performs a few calculations, in cases where we know almost exactly which calculations are being performed (see e.g. [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/312/5782/1965](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/312/5782/1965)).

I don't see any reason to think that this is true other than wild optimism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How would one go about self-studying neuroscience to the level of say, a second year grad student not yet specializing in anything? That is to say, familiar with the basic concepts and able to make sense of current research given enough time.

<comment> bra-ket [https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Science-Fifth- Kande...](https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Science-Fifth- Kandel/dp/0071390111)

<comment><USER2> That and Larry Squire's Fundamental [https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental- Neuroscience-Fourth-Squir...](https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Neuroscience- Fourth-Squire/dp/0123858704) are the bibles. Don't be intimidated by the size of the books they are actually easy to read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Machines won't become intelligent unless they incorporate certain features of the human brain."

How arrogant! The features they list aren't unique to humans, or even to mammals. They're all present in the nidopallium of birds as well. Machines won't become intelligent unless they incorporate certain features of intelligent life.

</comment><comment><USER14> >"Intelligent machines don't have to model all the complexity of biological neurons, but the capabilities enabled by dendrites and learning by rewiring are essential. These capabilities will need to be in future AI systems."

This is the fundamental challenge that we face. Our ability to build AI that can emulate human thought is not limited by a poor understanding of the brain. Our current theoretical understanding of how human cognition arises from neural processes is probably close to a level sufficient to build human level AI. What limits our progress is the staggering computational demand of simulating a massive network of highly dynamic units.

Shortcuts, simplifications and clever algorithms will only get us so far. At this point, processing power rather than theoretical understanding is the limiting factor.

<comment><USER15> >Our current theoretical understanding of how human cognition arises from neural processes is probably close to a level sufficient to build human level AI.

This is not true at all.

The brain of C. elegans (roundworm) has been mapped exactly (connectome is known) and we know it's 302 neurons and 8000 synapses well (it has just 959 cells total) but we still can't fully understand how its primitive brain works. It don't even have spiking neurons and it's still a mystery. It would be relatively straight forward to simulate. There is even software for doing it.

To fully understand how even simple brain works, we must understand gene expression inside brain cells, role of somatic brain mosaicism inside brain, brain chemistry, neural connectome, how cortical columns work, neural coding, etc.

When you get all this right, you need to fine tune it. Hyperparameter optimization for human level AI so that it's not epileptic, autistic, schizophrenic, manic, idiot or AI equivalent of these and million other things must be really hard process.

\---

[http://www.openworm.org/](http://www.openworm.org/)

[http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/page-52741-en.html](http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/page-52741-en.html)

[http://cajalbbp.cesvima.upm.es/](http://cajalbbp.cesvima.upm.es/)

<comment><USER16> Thanks for reminding us of openworm. The fact that scientists are still working on simulating an animal with barely a thousand cells surely relativizes claims about simulating a mammalian brain, let alone a human one.

Frankly, it's even kind of discouraging.

<comment><USER17> Meh, evolution is known to write utterly incomprehensible spaghetti code. It's really not surprising that reverse engineering it is so hard.

Write a very simple genetic algorithm to evolve artificial neural networks or computer code. Often it can solve simple tasks in creative ways. But trying to understand the output is usually a nightmare. It usually comes up with ridiculously convoluted and insane ways of doing things. E.g; [https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of- circuits/](https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/)

>The plucky chip was utilizing only thirty-seven of its one hundred logic gates, and most of them were arranged in a curious collection of feedback loops. Five individual logic cells were functionally disconnected from the rest— with no pathways that would allow them to influence the output— yet when the researcher disabled any one of them the chip lost its ability to discriminate the tones. Furthermore, the final program did not work reliably when it was loaded onto other FPGAs of the same type.

Now imagine a system many times larger and more sophisticated than that, that evolution has been hacking on for hundreds of millions of years.

Doesn't mean we aren't close to human level AI though. We didn't completely reverse engineer birds before building airplanes, or horses before building cars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> numenta makes my kook sense tingle... but Jeff Hawkins did found the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience (now part of HWNI), and for that I am grateful.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, the ratio of bold statements to demonstrated effectiveness seems a little high. And after all their talk about embodied sensorimotor whatnots, HTM doesn't seem that good for, well, actually _doing_ things, compared with mainstream deep learning (eg. AI Gym stuff.)

Also I don't get why their method cares about sampling rate. It just seems weird.

> A data sampling rate from once per minute to once per hour, with the "sweet > spot" being between once per minute and once every five minutes (faster > velocity data can be aggregated or sampled as well)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "The question of whether Machines Can Think... is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim." \--Dijkstra (1984) The threats to computing science (EWD898).

</comment><comment><USER21> Some professor asks students on the first day of neuroscience, if all there is to know about the brain is a mile long, how far have we gotten so far?

Students guess a few yards, a hundred feet, ten feet...the professor says no no, not even 3 inches.

</comment><comment> gene-h >Our discovery is that every region of the neocortex learns 3D models of objects much like a CAD program. Citation needed. If this was the case, certainly we'd have some experiments that show this? Especially since every part of the neocortex is supposed to be doing it.

Now if we can make artificial neural networks that work with 3D data, learning such things as 3D data to value, 3D data to 3D data mappings that would be damn useful. IE, estimating how much it would cost to make something from a CAD model or how aerodynamic a thing is without running costly CFD.

I'd also argue that we don't need 'truly intelligent machines' to "build structures, mine resources, and independently solve complex problems"

Ants and termites are capable of doing similar tasks and I'm doubtful the author considers them 'truly intelligent'.

>it should be possible to design intelligent machines that sense and act at the molecular scale. >These machines would think about protein folding and gene expression in the same way you and I think about computers and staplers. >They could think and act a million times as fast as a human. So if the author means in simulated environments, we are quite slow at simulating molecules. For molecular simulation, we need something like femtosecond(10^-15 s) time steps whereas each time step is on the order of milliseconds. We are trillions of times slower than realtime. This is for completely classical systems, if we take into account quantum effects, it's much longer. Oh and our simulation methods for such things are terrible. Intelligence would help here, but it's not going to be millions of times faster than a human.

Now if they mean videoing what's happening with a microscope and learning from that, well the problem is we don't have a perfect microscope for seeing such things at the nanoscale. So in order to figure out what's going on we have to get creative and make tests for each thing we're trying to analyze.

Now if the author means nanorobots inside cells doing learning and what not, just having such machines would be useful in and of itself. Heck if we could make such things, we wouldn't need to worry about problems such as gene expression or protein folding because we'd be able to make our own damn proteins or our own damn cells for that matter. Even with drexlerian tech doing this sort of machine learning at this scale is pretty ridiculous. Current nanobot designs require something on the order of kilobytes of memory[1]. In addition, gene expression, protein synthesis and folding are slow processes. Average protein synthesis time for eukaryotes is 2 minutes[1](eons as far as simulating these things is concerned!). So getting this data can't happen much faster than a human can think.

[0][http://people.umass.edu/bioch623/623/Second.Section/7.%20CoT...](http://people.umass.edu/bioch623/623/Second.Section/7.%20CoT.Web.2.08.pdf) [1][http://www.rfreitas.com/Nano/Microbivores.htm](http://www.rfreitas.com/Nano/Microbivores.htm)</comment>


A Tenacious Explorer of Abstract Surfaces - <AUTHOR> http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-tenacious-explorer-of-abstract-surfaces/ <comment><USER2> A minor point, the article says that Hypatia of Alexandria was killed by Christian Zealots which is true except it was for non-religious reasons but rather political and it was in a city and time where public political executions were common. Maybe some women have had difficulty with their math, not in my experience but maybe elsewhere, but not Hypatia, she was not killed for her mathematics.[1]

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia#Death](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia#Death)

<comment><USER3> After reading the wikipedia article, I'm not convinced that her scholarly life had nothing to do with her murder. In fact, it seems to have played a pretty crucial role.

e.g. we can ask "why Hypatia?" given that there were plenty of worthy targets of public outrage, and Hypatia probably wasn't even the post powerful.

<comment><USER2> Well, the wikipedia article suggested that it was because they believed she was responsible for Orestes's "unwillingness to reconcile with Cyril". That suggests they were provoked by the content of whatever she was saying to Orestes so if it had been for anything mathematical or philosophical, it was not recorded that way but I don't think there is a lot of evidence to go that route.

Here is a blog post by a historian about a movie that dealt with the subject, if you have the patience to read through it all. [http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/05/agora-and- hypatia...](http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia- hollywood-strikes.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The big speculation was whether it would be Mirzakhani or Sophie Morel, in number theory (Langlands program etc). So now we can start betting on the next round of Fields medals: will Morel be next?

</comment><comment><USER5> Another thread with very remarkable discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8169367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8169367)

<comment><USER6> Also also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8170640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8170640)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Correlation does not equal causation but the first thing that stands out to me among these two articles today about Mathematicians who've won Field Medals is their tenacious appetites for literature of all sorts as children.

I think it's incredibly important to note the diversity of subjects consumed and the importance of literature in these children's upbringing.

<comment><USER8> I think Stanford's undergrad college admission's essay prompt asking about "intellectual vitality" says it best.

I'd generalize your point to these mathematicians having such intellectual vitality from an early age and demonstrating it or pursuing it in some way or another. This is distinct from developing this vitality later in their childhood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My girls enjoyed my reading this article to them :)

</comment><comment><USER10> for those interested to see the kind of language that is used to develop her ideas ... here's a taste

[http://arxiv.org/pdf/0811.2362.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/0811.2362.pdf), Counting closed geodesics in Moduli space (PDF)

</comment><comment><USER11> A fine explanation of her work and trajectory for the intelligent nonspecialist: [http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-tenacious-...](http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-tenacious- explorer-of-abstract-surfaces/)

<comment><USER12> Thanks. Since the posted URL ([http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/08/13...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/08/13/a-woman-wins-nobel-prize-of-math-for-the-first-time/)) is news that was prominent on HN yesterday, we've changed the url to this much more substantive article, which wasn't.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a much better link. I posted the original with the the thought that there was some irony that all of the top news articles on the subject (as rated by google news) were completely without substance as to Maryam's accomplishments and only were pointing out that she was a women that does some stuff with curved surfaces. I thought the conversation might follow my observations.

I have to say that I admire Maryam very much. I love her tenacity and abstract approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why not call it the Fields Medal?

<comment><USER11> This is a quirk of HN posting policy: to use the original article title.

<comment><USER12> Except when it's misleading or linkbait. That one was arguably misleading, though with the quotes not so much.

Edit: the title was "A woman wins 'Nobel Prize of math' for the first time". We changed the article to the more substantive simonsfoundation.org piece about Mirzakhani.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why does the WaPo use different colored fonts for different sentences within certain paragraphs?

</comment><comment><USER15> It's about time. There seems to be hard evidence that girls are better at math than boys, on average. Hence, all other things being equal, more than half of world-class mathematicians should be female. I wonder how that applies to programming.

<comment><USER16> The winners are on the edge of the bell curve. Averages are meaningless.

<comment><USER15> That's an interesting observation and I do see your point.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Jason – A new JSON Library for Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/antonholmquist/jason

<comment><USER2> This looks like a good approach to dealing with heterogeneous JSON! (ie, JSON that has an unknown and/or variable structure.) I've always found encoding/json a little clunky for this.

Shameless but relevant plug - if you _do_ know the structure of your JSON in advance, I wrote a tool for automatically generating the appropriate struct definition for it: [https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/gojson](https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/gojson)

(I see these as complimentary tools, rather than conflicting or competing, since they would have two different use cases).

<comment><USER3> (Another plug here) I did too! Except it runs in the browser: [https://mholt.github.io/json-to-go](https://mholt.github.io/json-to-go)

And I agree with you about the complementary aspect. Sometimes you can't control the fact that your JSON will have a widely varying structure... but when you can, these generators are nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems very handy! Thank you

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would say the most idiomatic way is having defined structs and using encoding/json. Even when you don't know the json schema in advance you can still parse it into an interface{}.

Here's an example: [http://play.golang.org/p/jrqBcPuQei](http://play.golang.org/p/jrqBcPuQei)

<comment><USER5> It's definitely safer, but it's a living hell having to define a class for each possible json structure in Java with gson.

<comment><USER4> Not sure where Java came into the conversation but I found a service[1] which I find really helpful for generating Golang structs from JSON. There is also a CLI tool[2] that does the same.

[1][http://mholt.github.io/json-to-go/](http://mholt.github.io/json-to-go/)

[2][https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/gojson](https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/gojson)

<comment><USER6> Another one.

[https://github.com/str1ngs/jflect](https://github.com/str1ngs/jflect)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone wondering why this is necessary, as some others in this thread have mentioned, the standard go way to deserialize json is to pass a pointer to a struct, and the system will "fill" it with the json. There is no easy way to sort of "parse" json piece by piece, which is what this library provides

<comment><USER8> >For anyone wondering why this is necessary, as some others in this thread have mentioned, the standard go way to deserialize json is to pass a pointer to a struct

I sometimes have trouble understanding Go. It kind of seems to retain a lot of the bad parts of C in terms of developer-friendliness, while still being relatively slower than C and garbage-collected.

<comment><USER9> What are you having trouble with in this instance? Pointers and structs? Both are very simple, well understood concepts. Their implementation in Go is also more syntactically clear than in C.

<comment><USER8> I understand pointers and structs just fine, it's just that you would think a modern language like Go would avoid use of pointers to structs and "bring- your-own-buffer" type calling conventions except wherever possible. It makes for ugly developer APIs, in my opinion.

That is, in a "friendly" language I expect to generate JSON like this (in pseudocode):

        HashMap parsed = JSON::parse("{1: 2}");

not

        JSONObj obj;
        JSON::populate(&obj, "{1: 2}");

<comment><USER9> The former is how it might work in a dynamically typed language. In a statically typed language, like Go, there are great benefits to decoding into the fields of struct with fields of known types.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would stray away from making the library name too similar in phonetic sound to the data it's meant to process. There was already enough confusion in an office I worked at with a non-developer whose name was "Jason"

<comment><USER11> I pronounce JSON as "jay-sawn" to avoid the confusion with the name. I've heard "jiss-on" and various other mutations used as well.

<comment><USER12> American? The North American accent pronounces "Python" similarly, as "py- THAWN" instead of "PIE-thn".

<comment><USER13> I usually pronounce it that way as well, I'm American, and it does rhyme with Python that way for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> this looks quite familiar: [https://github.com/likexian/simplejson- go](https://github.com/likexian/simplejson-go)

if anyone is interested i did some slight modifications to the project above which are keep in my personal fork: [https://github.com/W4RH4WK/simplejson](https://github.com/W4RH4WK/simplejson)

</comment><comment><USER15> The name is a little "unfortunate", give that there's a JSON editor for Mac OS X with the exact same name.

<comment><USER16> Fortunately the go community has long experience with ignoring naming conflicts.</comment></comment>


Kadira Shutting Down - <AUTHOR> https://voice.kadira.io/kadira-shutting-down-7d35994db85d#.qsgijoypd <comment><USER2> Sounds like one of the least painful startup shutdowns out there.

1\. Still possible to run the software. 2\. Data transfer is being handled. 3\. Other resources will still be available.

And from the sound of it, it was profitable to the owners while they ran it, if not as much as they wanted. So in the end, everyone made out, the community still has the benefit of everything Kadira created.

Given how many startup creations and collapses seem like an economic waste in retrospect, I have to say this at least sounds like one of the most effective projects, economically, that I've seen "fail".

Maybe the only think missing to top off this cake would be slapping an open source license on that self-hosted version so people can continue to improve it and run with it.</comment>


The Truth About Aaron Swartz's "Crime" - <AUTHOR> http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartzs-crime/ <comment><USER2> I wasn't aware the closet was unlocked. And apparently used by a homeless guy to store his stuff. So, even the _bare_ minimum real crime that I thought he was guilty of (Breaking into a closet) which is a crime serviceable by community service in this context - turns out not to have occurred.

I've been sad all morning. Reading this article just makes me angry.

<comment><USER3> Not only that but the _actual_ trespassing charge was dropped. So it wasn't even part of the case!

<comment><USER4> I didn't even realize that. The most salacious and unsympathetic of the allegations is how Swartz got physical access...othherwise, how different is what he did than what people who go to Starbucks and torrent illegally? Just magnitude?

<comment><USER5> Starbucks torrenters generally don't cause a community of 20,000 scholars to lose access to a major journal archive for days at a time. And they generally don't require university staff to burn hours trying to hunt down hidden machines that are disrupting their network.

<comment><USER6> Apparently, the MIT and/or JSTOR staff took down the service themselves when they detected the mass downloads. It was not Aaron's "attack" that brought down the access.

<comment><USER5> So what? Aaron violated MIT's policies and JSTOR's policies and the result was that a large community of scholars lost access. Those scholars would have had access if Aaron hadn't done what he did.

<comment><USER7> The only harm was manufactured by the "victims". Were it not for the "victims" manufacturing this harm, they would not be called victims at all. They essentially bootstrapped their own victim-hood. If you don't see why that is relevant in an ethical consideration of his actions, then I cannot help you.

<comment><USER5> This is taking victim blaming to new heights. Is it now the victim's fault they don't acquiesce to a lawbreakers' demands? Doesn't MIT have the right to decide who is allowed to use their network and in what manner?

Can I break into your home and use your internet connection as I see fit without your complaint?

<comment><USER7> Is it similarly victim blaming when people call shit on the RIAA for claiming thousands of dollars of damages per mp3? Give me a break, and knock it off with the emotionally charged language. MIT isn't the victim of domestic abuse or sexual assault.

> _Can I break into your home and use your internet connection as I see fit > without your complaint?_

They dropped the trespassing charges, the only charges that had merit.

<comment><USER5> But if I broke into your house and used your internet connection, the only harm would come from you, the "victim", objecting to my behavior. You'd be bootstrapping your own victimhood, right?

<comment><USER7> If I were choosing to object to you on the grounds that you trespassed, then no.

If I were to _drop the trespassing charges_ and choose to object on the grounds that I had to throw out my router because you used it, then I would indeed be manufacturing victomhood.

I'll repeat myself. _They dropped the trespassing charges._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To people wondering if prosecutors have a choice, they absolutely do. I was recipient of an NSF check of over $10,000 from a guy with a history of writing bad checks(a criminal offense). It is a clear cut case with ample proof and victims. Yet the DA's office in neither NYC or San Francisco has taken action against him for over a year.

Meanwhile the guy continues to scam more and more people, pushing one woman to brink of shutting down her business. I know because I made a site(<http://cliffkaplanfraud.com>) and the stories that trickle in are gut wrenching and infuriating.

So yes, the DA's office seems to have a lot of power to pursue someone unlike what some people here suggest.

<comment><USER9> 1) A bad check is a state level offense, not a federal offense, and the discretion afforded to state and local prosecutors is far greater than the discretion afforded federal prosecutors (though federal prosecutors have broader powers).

2) They may have prioritized murders and rapes over crimes, such as bad-check- passing, that can be remedied in a civil courtroom. That's generally what happens when state and local budgets get cut. For example, in 2009 and 2010, San Bernardino and Riverside counties simply did not enforce drug possession charges for meth or marijuana for quantities below the dealer amount because they didn't have the prosecutorial resources to handle those cases after prioritizing violent crimes.

3) HIRE A LAWYER. Winning a case against him in civil court for passing a bad check is pretty much guaranteed to spawn a criminal case because you'll have handed the prosecutors their case; they won't have to redirect many resources away from serious crimes.

<comment><USER10> Please stop posting this misinformation about federal prosecutors lacking discretion. It is a completely false statement.

"The USA [US Attorney] is invested by statute and delegation from the Attorney General with the broadest discretion in the exercise of such authority."

[http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/tit...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/2mcrm.htm)

      The United States Attorney, within his/her district, has
      plenary authority with regard to federal criminal matters.
      This authority is exercised under the supervision and
      direction of the Attorney General and his/her delegates.

      The statutory duty to prosecute for all offenses against
      the United States (28 U.S.C. § 547) carries with it the
      authority necessary to perform this duty. The USA is
      invested by statute and delegation from the Attorney
      General with the broadest discretion in the exercise of
      such authority.

      The authority, discretionary power, and responsibilities of
      the United States Attorney with relation to criminal
      matters encompass without limitation by enumeration the
      following:

      Investigating suspected or alleged offenses against the
      United States, see USAM 9-2.010;

      Causing investigations to be conducted by the appropriate
      federal law enforcement agencies, see USAM 9-2.010;

      Declining prosecution, see USAM 9-2.020;

      Authorizing prosecution, see USAM 9-2.030;

      Determining the manner of prosecuting and deciding trial
      related questions;

      Recommending whether to appeal or not to appeal from an
      adverse ruling or decision, see USAM 9-2.170;

      Dismissing prosecutions, see USAM 9-2.050; and

      Handling civil matters related thereto which are under the
      supervision of the Criminal Division.

<comment><USER9> It is necessary for you to actually _read_ the citations referred to by that page (which is just a general summation, not an authoritive declaration on the authority of federal prosecutors), since federal criminal statutes generally _do not_ give "plenary discretion" to federal prosecutors. See ISAM 9-2.020 (The United States Attorney is authorized to decline prosecution in any case referred directly to him/her by an agency unless a statute provides otherwise.)

This is why the law is complicated: you cannot read a law in a vacuum; you must read it in conjunction with all other laws bearing upon the same issue.

<comment><USER10> You said in many different posts that federal prosecutors _in general_ lack discretion, that their hands are tied. This was a false claim. And you may be the only person in the world who holds this view; I don't think anyone else (Democrat, Republican, prosecutor, or defender) would make this claim.

Now you are arguing that the specific statute at issue did not allow Ortiz and Heymann to decline prosecution. That is a completely different contention, thought it is also false, as it is hard to think of something more subject to prosecutorial discretion than the 1984 CFAA:

[http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ninth-circuit-scales- back-c...](http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ninth-circuit-scales-back-cfaa- applicati-06513/)

      The Nosal opinion expresses grave concern that the broad
      reading advocated by the government could criminalize much
      innocuous activity. In particular, the Court notes that
      the phrase "exceeds authorized access" appears in another
      section of the CFAA, § 1030(a)(2)(C), which has no
      requirement of fraudulent purpose, and requires only that
      the person who "exceeds authorized access" has "obtain[ed]
      . . . information from any protected computer" (i.e. any
      computer that can connect to the Internet). The
      government's view, the Court feared, could "make every
      violation of a private computer use policy a federal
      crime."

Obviously most such cases are not being prosecuted by US Attorneys (discretion!). Yet this is exactly the interpretation that is being relied upon in the Swartz case, that violation of JSTOR's policy was a federal crime. Moreover, general opinion is that CFAA is due for Supreme Court review due to the circuit splits in interpretation. Any federal prosecutor who doesn't want to be overturned by the Supreme Court had plenty of excuses for dropping this prosecution, over and above the obviously unjust nature of the case. Ortiz and Heymann decided nevertheless to take that risk to append a "cybercriminal" conviction to their CVs.

In short, you are just factually wrong here that the federal prosecutors have no discretion in general (your first claim), or that they had no discretion with respects to the statutes at issue here (your second claim).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The only conclusion I can draw from his life and the events leading up to his demise is that he must have upset someone deeply entrenched in the circles of power. Otherwise the witch-hunt just doesn't make any sense. After all ask yourself what motive did the prosecutor possess for going after him like that?

<comment><USER9> No conspiracy, guys.

The prosecutor was just doing her job. A simple case like Aaron's probably took up less than 1% of her week. It may have been a big case to Aaron, but compared to their normal cases, it was a relative vacation for the prosecutors working on it.

The problem was not that Aaron "upset someone deeply entranched." The problem is that Aaron's activities fall into the definition of a particular form of electronic crime which may be overbroad. _Federal_ prosecutors don't get to decide if laws are overbroad or unconstitutional and choose not to enforce the law (because this discretion was historically used to excuse many white defendants accused of lynching black men in the South). They enforce all of the laws on the books unless someone with legal discretion (i.e. ,the head of the DOJ or the president) issues an order telling them not to enforce a particular (set of) law(s).

<comment><USER12> So you're an up and coming prosecutor and handed the punk kid that took all those federal court documents and gave your colleagues a big middle finger when they tried to stop him.

Then JSTOR tells you to knock it off, but you proceed anyway.

And all this happens without Ortiz having any idea? Come on.

No one is saying Obama would know about this, but a bureaucrat on Ortiz's level does because its her job.

<comment><USER13> Ortiz not only knew about it, but was rather zealously in favor of prosecuting Aaron (see the NYT article for more details).

She's _at least_ as guilty as the actual prosecutors on the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I very seriously considered MIT for my undergrad work, including doing the requisite alumni interview. I eventually decided the nation's 16th ranked computer science program was good enough, especially since they wanted to pay for me.

This whole time, I've had a piece of me that wished I'd done it (a very small piece, since 1/2 of my kids were born in that timeframe). Today is the first day when I can honestly say I'm glad I'm in no way associated with MIT.

</comment><comment><USER15> Of all the great stories and memories on Aaron that have been shared all day today, I believe this story is the one that the general public should really read. Until yesterday, most Aaron vs USA stories had a negative angle on Aaron, and this one really shines a light on the ridiculous witch-hunt lead by the US Attorney.

</comment><comment><USER16> "I know a criminal hack when I see it, and Aaron's downloading of journal articles from an unlocked closet is not an offense worth 35 years in jail."

Prosecutors regularly ask for outrageous sentences which from my observation are rarely granted.

Here is the case of Mark Drier. Government asked for 150 years, he got 20 years:

[http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/07/13/breaking-marc-dreier- sen...](http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/07/13/breaking-marc-dreier-sentenced- to-20-years-in-prison/)

Michael Miliken theoretically could have faced 520 years:

[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/30/business/junk-bond- leader-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/30/business/junk-bond-leader-is- indicted-by-us-in-criminal-action.html)

This is what happened (he got 10 and that was reduced):

[http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/06/business/milken-s- sentence...](http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/06/business/milken-s-sentence- reduced-by-judge-7-months-are-left.html)

<comment><USER12> So in a best case scenario, let me repeat that - best case scenario, here we're going to take a delicate genius and put him into jail where there's a 7% chance of being sexually assaulted for about 5-10 years?

Look, you can judge him how you please, but don't tell me about about how horribly Turing was oppressed if you won't accept guys like Swartz got the same treatment.

Can you imagine working on a startup, clearing a couple mil, spending your life fighting for your ideals to only have EVERYTHING taken away by some overzealous prosecutor? Can you imagine watching your 2 million dollar nest egg go to lawyers who tell you that you probably will need to serve time? Can you imagine waking up and knowing that in 6 months you'll be telling everyone you know that you will be going away for 10 years? That all you've done will be taken from you? Or how utterly demoralizing it must be to realize that Ortiz cannot be stopped because of how powerful the federal government is? The level of defeat here and the stakes involved? That your reputation and the reputation of everyone and everything you touched will be destroyed the day you take the plea bargain? Knowing the coming storm will hit you soon and there's nothing you can do to stop it?

If there's any justfiable reason for suicide in this crazy world its being railroaded by a government with infinite resources and knowing that by the time you get out of prison you'll be 10 years older, never allowed to touch a computer, be seen as a horrible felon on par with Charles Manson, and come out deeply in debt and completely dead inside.

<comment><USER17> I really don't like this argument. Being a delicate genius. , or head of a startup, doesn't mean you get a "get out of jail free" card. It should be completely irrelevant.

Now, I don't think the laws Swartz broke are fair. But you seem to be implying he should of hot special treatment because he was special. That is not how the law should work.

<comment><USER18> Apparently he broke very minor laws, though, that don't even imply any jail time.

<comment> daniel-cussen The prosecutor was seeking jail time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can't remember a specific incident, but I'm fairly certain I've done things more "inconsiderate" than this.

Cripes, this reads like something Larry and Sergey would have done in the early days of Backrub (later Google), not something that you get prosecuted for and face the possibility of 35 years in jail for.

</comment><comment><USER20> The 9th circuit, followed by the 4th, has been limiting the CFAA's scope precisely due to the concern about prosecutorial abuse and criminalizing simple unauthorized system access. I wonder if this case would have moved forward if the alleged events happened in San Francisco.

From US v. Nosal, 676 F. 3d 854 (9th Cir.):

"The government assures us that, whatever the scope of the CFAA, it won't prosecute minor violations. But we shouldn't have to live at the mercy of our local prosecutor. Cf. United States v. Stevens, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 1577, 1591, 176 L.Ed.2d 435 (2010) ("We would not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the Government promised to use it responsibly."). And it's not clear we can trust the government when a tempting target comes along. Take the case of the mom who posed as a 17-year-old boy and cyber-bullied her daughter's classmate. The Justice Department prosecuted her under 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C) for violating MySpace's terms of service, which prohibited lying about identifying information, including age. See United States v. Drew, 259 F.R.D. 449 (C.D.Cal.2009). Lying on social media websites is common: People shave years off their age, add inches to their height and drop pounds from their weight. The difference between puffery and prosecution may depend on whether you happen to be someone an AUSA has reason to go after.

In United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931, 108 S.Ct. 2751, 101 L.Ed.2d 788 (1988), the Supreme Court refused to adopt the government's broad interpretation of a statute because it would "criminalize a broad range of day-to-day activity." Id. at 949, 108 S.Ct. 2751. Applying the rule of lenity, the Court warned that the broader statutory interpretation would "delegate to prosecutors and juries the inherently legislative task of determining what type of ... activities are so morally reprehensible that they should be punished as crimes" and would "subject individuals to the risk of arbitrary or discriminatory prosecution and conviction." Id. By giving that much power to prosecutors, we're inviting discriminatory and arbitrary enforcement."

*disclaimer: I am not a lawyer

</comment><comment><USER21> It's even lower than what I expected. I remember having read one time there was allegedly a copied cookie involved (which already wasn't what I would call a hack), but it seems that's not even the case. I'm astonished how such a small offense could bring such huge charges.

<comment><USER22> Agreed, if that article is accurate those charges are ludicrous. There are plugins for every major browser that basically do the exact same thing, which any average layperson can use. What's next, claiming that AdBlock is inspecting and subverting Internet traffic, and hence a crime under the Wiretap Act?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The other stories were sad, but this one is disgusting. I hope that Aaron's death actually changes things.

</comment><comment><USER24> Many people have wondered who to point the finger at within MIT. I find it incredibly enlightening that he chooses to point a finger by linking to MIT's Office of the General Counsel.

</comment><comment><USER25> The United States are broken beyond repair, this is just the beginning of the shitstorm of corruption that has been building up since the end of the 19th century.

</comment><comment><USER26> This article misses the main point. Even if he did break locks and crack authentication, what he did would still be morally right.

</comment><comment><USER27> Did Aaron release the articles, or just download them? If he released them, using what medium?

<comment><USER13> He returned all of the articles he downloaded to JSTOR when he was asked to. He did not distribute them.

UPDATE: Here's JSTOR's confirmation of the above: <http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz>

<comment><USER28> How do you return something that was downloaded?

<comment><USER29> Since I have slightly trollish inclinations, I emailed JSTOR's customer service after they made that weird announcement about wanting files "returned", expressing my worry over which content was "missing", and when they expected it to be returned and available again. I got a short response claiming the media had misreported the situation:

 _Thank you for your message. Some of the media details about this incident have been a bit misleading. I can confirm that no content is missing from JSTOR as a result of the recent misuse case. Copies of the files were downloaded from the site, no content is unavailable as a result._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is this the reason why he committed suicide? As far as I understand, there really was no crime at all. Hell, by these standards, Mark Zuckerberg should get 70 years in prison for downloading some pictures. It's hard to believe he was persecuted for years because of _that_. Still, a part of me believes there had to be a stronger reason to commit suicide. I mean, we're not talking about a random stranger.. it's Aaron. He's fought all his life for things and menaces way bigger than that. This is odd.

<comment><USER31> I thought it was odd too, then I read his 2007 short story post "A Moment Before Dying" where he originally had the character's name as Aaron before changing it to Alex after concerned friends flooded in. It's a bizarre and quite frankly terrible piece where he repeats more than once the line "The day Aaron killed himself...".

It won't win any literary awards, but it indicates he could get himself caught in a dark place given circumstances. It's actually one of the more blatant "hey everyone I'm suicidal" messages I've heard of outside of actual self-harm from failed suicide attempts.

As always, friends can't be babysitting each other 24/7. He felt he should check out early, ok, well not easy to prevent people doing that if they're set in their ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> >> The JSTOR application lacked even the most basic controls to prevent what they might consider abusive behavior

Was he allowed to download the documents? It doesn't matter what controls were in place. The question is basic, did he get something he was not authorized to take?

</comment><comment><USER33> I remember reading about this 'hack' at the time.

I just can't believe that it ended in Aaron taking his own life. I'm sure anyone paying attention to this will be very angry and sad.</comment>


Disqus comments adding third-party ad-tracking - <AUTHOR> https://notes.ayushsharma.in/2017/09/im-killing-disqus-comments-on-my-blog-heres-why <comment><USER2> Shameless plug : As someone who was fed up with Disqus, I decided to build my own commenting platform ( [https://hostedcomments.com/](https://hostedcomments.com/) ) with a focus on privacy : no ads, no tracking scripts. Having come across numerous instances of people complaining about Disqus and some even willing to pay for an alternative, I realized that this could potentially be turned into a SaaS. You can see the commenting system in action here : [https://www.ploggingdev.com/2017/08/building-a-disqus- altern...](https://www.ploggingdev.com/2017/08/building-a-disqus-alternative- part-1--research/)

Any feedback is welcome.

Edit : If you're interested, you can register and add comments to your website. Currently there are no limitations on user accounts and there is no payment processing built in to the signup flow, so no CC required.

<comment><USER3> Is this open source and can be self-hosted? If not, it's just another Disqus.

<comment><USER2> It's closed source.

> it's just another Disqus.

The main difference is the privacy aspect since I don't track users or serve ads. Disqus' business model depends on collecting user data and monetizing it, unlike mine where I directly charge website owners to embed comments.

<comment><USER4> Closed source means users unable to verify your marketing claims about tracking. Privacy conscious users like myself would prefer an open-source commenting platform, even one with tracking, since we could verify how it worked (and also take it a step further and circumvent tracking by examining the source).

Also, what's to prevent a provider from double-dipping? If you can sell the product _plus your users data_ you can presumably generate even more income. For example, mobile phone carriers sell monthly plans to users and some sell users location and usage data (usually "anonymised") to advertisers.

I don't mean to imply that you are doing these things, or that you ever would, but without independent verification by a trusted third-party, all the users have to go on are your marketing claims. What's your plan for dealing with sceptical users?

<comment><USER2> I guess I'll have to earn trust the long, hard way :

* clear policies on how user data is handled

* explicit commitment to never sell user data to third parties

* transparency about any specific concerns users might have

* no dark patterns to trick users or website owners

* a track record of good decision making and staying true to the commitment to privacy

And for people who find me through forums (including HN) or via my blog, I think my privacy + no bullsh*t leanings are pretty clear.

Since I'm solo and bootstrapped, I don't know what options I have regarding independent verification of my claims, but if I get to a point where I can explore such options, I'm all for third party verification of my claims.

<comment><USER5> Could you tell why you choose to make it closed source?

<comment><USER6> Not op, but here is an obvious and valid one: Because it is easier to monetize that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You lose virtually nothing if you just block Disqus wholesale with an ad blocker. I'll admit it's quite nice for replying to comments on blogs, but there's no reason that a) needs to happen in a public comment and b) that you cannot provide an email for people to reach you at. In any case, almost all the good conversation is in a secondary place—reddit, hacker news, social media.

I'm far more likely to send you an email than I am to sign into an unaffiliated third party and trust their cookies.

<comment><USER8>
        there's no reason that a) needs to happen in a public
        comment and b) that you cannot provide an email for
        people to reach you at

I blog a decent amount, and I don't like getting emails about my posts. I'd much rather have the discussion publicly. When we talk in the open other people can contribute to and learn from the discussion. Putting lots of effort in a careful back and forth conversation with a reader is much less worth it if it's a private 1:1.

(If I wanted to talk about things where people couldn't be honest in public it would be different)

<comment><USER7> I mean this is fine, so long as you realize a lot of people prefer any other method of communication and you're likely missing out on feedback.

<comment><USER8> The feedback I was getting when I explicitly invited people to send me email wasn't generally that good, plus was a lot more hassle to respond to for less benefit. People can still find my email on my contact page, but pushing people to comment publicly has definitely been better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think this article is correct.

As the blog owner you opt into ads on your blog in disqus. If you don't want the ads go check the settings in the disqus control panel and all 3rd party requests disappear.

checking my own blogs using disqus I see no 3rd party requests at all with my ad blocks off

<comment><USER10> Tracking is turned on by default, but it's pretty simple to turn it off as the site owner. It's clearly marked in the administration section. As you said, with ad tracking turned off there are no such requests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for the reminder to install ublock origin. [https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#installation](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#installation)

<comment><USER12> I've never made it more than 30 seconds on fresh browser install without getting several harsh reminders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Time and time again we see "free" companies on the internet have three Lorenz attractors that they evolve towards: 1) users being heavily limited in features without paying a large enough sum of subscription money to subsidize others, 2) sell everyone's data and continue to operate, or 3) disappear.

<comment><USER14> The tracking ad bubble is one of my favorite topics right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Use Talk, part of the Coral Project by Mozilla ([http://coralproject.net/products/talk.html](http://coralproject.net/products/talk.html)) instead of Disqus. It is open source and respects your privacy.

</comment><comment><USER16> I only recently created a disqus account to post a comment somewhere. Thanks for the heads up. I won't be making any more comments through their platform. I'll also block them using NoScript.

</comment><comment><USER17> One of the best alternatives I've found is [https://intensedebate.com/](https://intensedebate.com/) from WordPress.

Copy a line of JavaScript onto your page and you can host comments. Commenters can sign in with various SNS, or email. Easy to manage and filter. Email alerts.

Only one problem - WordPress have abandoned it. It still works, but there are no updates. So some of the icons look dated. And who knows what security holes are present :-/

</comment><comment><USER18> Any alternatives to Disqus for personal blogs?

<comment><USER19> Let me be silly: go back to the nineties.

Provide your email address as an image, receive the comments in your inbox, append the really interesting ones to your blog article.

You really want to remove the spam and will have to do some moderation in order to keep your comments feed clean and interesting anyway. Making it a bit more difficult for your readers to comment has the advantageous effect that they'll think twice before writing. Moreover it also changes the way they write, because now they are addressing to a specific person instead of talking to everyone.

For sure it will probably drastically reduce the number of comments you get, but which one do you prefer: quantity or quality?

<comment><USER20> Putting your email in an image is a hassle for the user. A better option is to wrap a link in javascript that "constructs" your email from an encoded string and sets the link's href to the appropriate mailto on hover. This is user friendly but incredibly hard to harvest in an automated fashion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> One note as to the doubleclick ad server. That's coming from Google Analytics where your page view tags require the demographics add on (the name of which escapes me at the moment).

GA uses the double click network to give you those age, gender, and interest category information.

</comment><comment><USER22> While at it, OP might also get rid of CloudFlare, Google Analytics, Google Fonts, and the social buttons as they all track users for ad purpose (ok maybe not cloudflare but it is still a smart move to get rid of them)

</comment><comment><USER23> A few years ago I migrated my company's dynamic site with blogs, articles and marketing info to a static site generator (Pelikan? Nikola? I don't remember). Part of that was moving our commetns all over to Disqus, and converting a few small marketing functions to Javascript (showing testimonials).

Disqus was pretty cool at the time, including their presentations to Pycon and their design. I wondered how the funding would go but was a pretty big fan.

Switching to a static site generator was the right choice, since 2-3 new blog posts have been written since I left. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER24> I am using WPDiscuz: [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpdiscuz/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpdiscuz/)

The free version is good enough for casual blogging. No ads, no tracking, visually appealing.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is Viglink from Disqus as well? They overwrite links to turn them into affiliate links. Would not be surprised if this was happening in Disqus comments.

</comment><comment><USER26> I removed Disqus from my static blog when I realized how much it downloads JavaScript to work.</comment>


Ask HN: Exercises to overcome learned helplessness? - <AUTHOR>

I had a very controlled childhood.  I coped, but my old habits are hurting me as an adult.  How can I overcome the phenomenon of "learned helplessness" and use my will again? <comment><USER2> [http://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Your- Mind/dp/1...](http://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Your- Mind/dp/1400078393/ref=pd_sim_b_2)

</comment><comment><USER3> I just read the book "Way of the Peaceful Warrior". It was a good read. But for your issue, I would take a piece of paper, write down your old habits, then to the very right of them, right down the NEW habits that you wish to overwrite the old habits that you have now. Don't give into your old habits, replace them with new ones.

Then, only focus on the new habits. Don't think back to the past of your old habits. Even more than that, just focus on PRACTICING these new habits. By doing this, you will reinforce your new habits until you essentially forget how to perform those old ones.

In sports, good coaches fix problems with technique (since all of it is habitual motions) by telling their students to do something NEW. They don't tell them to fix this or that. Telling their student to do something new is more constructive than trying to tell them to fix something that already has some flaws to it.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> Learning and practicing mindfulness in the framework of a cognitive therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT for short) has been the most useful approach that I have found so far. What it teaches you is that while you may not have complete control over your thoughts and feelings, you do have control over how you respond to them. A good starting place is the book "The Happiness Trap" by Dr. Russ Harris.

</comment><comment><USER5> Get an accountability partner. I'll help you.

</comment><comment><USER6> 1) Set goals.

2) When you aren't getting there (or not in a timely manner or what not), analyze why.

3) If possible, find a good sounding board,* someone who will listen to you but not try to fix your shit for you, instead will ask you things like "now what are you gonna do about it?"

4) Use that as a means to figure out the next step and take it.

5) Iterate.

*Sounding board: Someone who will listen and help you think things through and get clarity. They shouldn't be too touchy-feely sympathetic. You don't need a shoulder to cry on. That is not their role. You need constructive feedback from someone who doesn't care if it hurts but also isn't intentionally cruel, just blunt and lets the chips fall where they may.

</comment><comment><USER7> An article on what learned blankness (or helplessness) is about: <http://lesswrong.com/lw/5a9/learned_blankness/></comment>


An Unconscious Patient with a DNR Tattoo - <AUTHOR> http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1713344?af=R&rss=currentIssue& <comment><USER2> One of the references is amusing: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445694/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445694/)

>When asked why his tattoo conflicted with his wishes to be resuscitated, he explained that he had lost a bet playing poker with fellow ancillary hospital staffers while inebriated in his younger years; the loser had to tattoo "D.N.R." across his chest. [...] It was suggested that he consider tattoo removal to circumvent future confusion about his code status. He stated he did not think anyone would take his tattoo seriously and declined tattoo removal.

</comment><comment><USER3> In EMS it is made extremely clear that the only valid DNR is papework signed by a physician and the patient. Anything else is ignored.</comment>


Ask HN: What frustrating things do you wish someone would solve? - <AUTHOR>

What frustrates you about your day-to-day development process that you would like someone to solve?<p>What tools or processes get in your way instead of making life easier? <comment><USER2> What gets in my way...I think "Xcode 4" sums it up. Almost everything Apple did to that once-great IDE has created endless frustration and slowed me down considerably (not to mention making my 2nd display practically useless). It was apparently designed by someone who doesn't do much programming, or at least someone who doesn't know how to multitask.

I can still use Xcode 3.x and Interface Builder for now, but I'm sure their days are numbered. So what I need (again) is a decent set of high-level Mac development tools. If I could open-source Xcode 3.x and start from that, I would.

Note that I've never used an IDE exclusively (I use makefiles and terminal- based text editing for instance), but basically Xcode is no longer suitable for the things that an IDE was useful for.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's really interesting. I haven't done any mac development (I'm almost entirely *nix or web dev), so I'm not aware of the difficulties with Xcode. I'm generally only using vim, but I've struggled through Eclipse (and its roughly weekly crash cycle) when doing java development to know the kind of problems IDEs can introduce.

I've been meaning to do some iPhone & OSX development, so I will check out Xcode with a toy application and see what gets in my way.

Thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Quickbooks. Integrating an online store with quickbooks can be a nightmare. And their pay structure (single user, multi user) is extremely frustrating. I really wish someone could make a good web solution with a nice API that destroys this massive headache.

</comment><comment><USER4> Paypal's IPN (Instant Payment Notification) api just about had me in tears last night.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh jeez. It's been years since I've dealt with paypal, but if it's still as bad as it was then there's a ton of room for improvement. I've heard great things about stripe & fee fighters but I haven't checked them out yet. Maybe they've missed something...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Crappy documentation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I feel you. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to tackle this without a fundamental shift in the development community. Self-documenting code is practically a fallacy, and people forget that we're supposed to write code primary for other humans to read, and only incidentally for computers to execute.

I wonder if a marketplace for documentation development would help the problem. This might not work, however, since writing documentation requires a good amount of familiarity with the code base.</comment></comment>


VCs are suing the US for delay of immigration program - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2017/9/19/16332666/national-venture-capitalist-association-international-entrepreneur-rule-immigration-trump <comment><USER3> Silicon Valley needs to stop harping on the Visa program and simply pay people what they want to receive. It is amazing that an idea can bring in $50 million in investment and they're still splitting hairs on individual salaries. There is plenty of talent stateside - stop bitching about the costs and just fucking pay it.

These cost minimization assholes need to be swept away. Companies are sitting on larger stockpiles of cash than ever before, owing to years of White House uncertainty; they have the money and simply need to spend it. On one hand you hear about how SV is just sooooooo flush with cash and then in the other hand entrepreneurs complain that talent is too expensive. Every single one of those clowns is a fraud.

<comment><USER4> I think you have it backwards. This is to help bring in people who will start companies in the US and hire people in the US.

The major VCs mentioned in the article (such as Accel) already have VC arms overseas, funding companies which employ foreigners in their home countries.

If you want more of the latter (using US capital to build companies, jobs, products etc) then go ahead, recind this visa.

<comment><USER5> Please excuse this more radical point, but part of me is ok with rescinding the visas to force some investment back into the domestic population. (Out of necessity.)

We have a large enough population that there's no reason we should be hurting for talent, and part of me wonders how much of that disinvestment has been enabled by importing instead of breeding our needs. We're exploiting poor conditions in other countries in order to attract their best, as well as creating poor conditions here for natural born citizens to suppress their demands from resource owners.

<comment><USER4> > rescinding the visas to force some investment back into the domestic > population. (Out of necessity.)

But it won't, the US investment dollars will simply be spent in the entrepreneur's home country, which won't create any US jobs and in fact will help dilute the power and influence of Silicon Valley.

> We're exploiting poor conditions in other countries in order to attract > their best, as well as creating poor conditions here for natural born > citizens to suppress their demands from resource owners.

Well you could see it that way; in my case it is a quality of life sacrifice to work in the US in exchange for significantly more interesting work environment; on the other hand my wife couldn't deal with the lower quality of life here (worse and more expensive medical system, worse food, schools, etc).

I suppose if you have a zero-sum model and don't believe Adam Smith and David Ricardo on the benefits of free trade your position would make sense.

<comment><USER6> > But it won't, the US investment dollars will simply be spent in the > entrepreneur's home country, which won't create any US jobs and in fact will > help dilute the power and influence of Silicon Valley.

This is a benefit. It would spread wealth and enable more people to be tech/entrepreneurial.

> in my case it is a quality of life sacrifice to work in the US in exchange > for significantly more interesting work environment

... which should not be exclusive to silicon valley.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reading these comments it seems like where you land depends on whether you believe there are lots of Americans who have the drive/willingness to found their own company. If so then constraining the visa makes sense because VCs already have a large supply of business. Similar to the H1B debate where we recognize that companies don't really care about immigration, they just want better employees for cheaper, this debate's core is that VCs just want to be able to fund better companies for cheaper. I'd say I'm fine with Trump tossing this Visa in the trash. Silicon Valley is an American creation so I don't mind if its benefits go to Americans.

<comment><USER8> About 50% of the biggest Silicon Valley companies were created by immigrants, so I'd be careful before claiming that Silicon Valley is an "American" invention and that the value should accrue to "Americans," unless your definition of "American" includes immigrants.

If an immigrant comes here and starts a company or helps make a company successful even the native-born Americans are better off. IMO that's the most American thing that can possibly happen, and if we should be terrified at the thought of it happening somewhere else instead.

<comment><USER9> What percentage were created by H1Bs? I think you're conflating "immigrant" with "H1B visa holder". The two are not the same. Many of us who are critical of H1B and similar visa programs are very much in support of immigration in general.

<comment><USER10> > What percentage were created by H1Bs?

Well H-1Bs are generally prohibited from doing any paid work outside their current employer. So it would be a miracle if that number was non-zero. But it's still not. Zenefits co-founder Laks Srini had to be hired as a database administrator on an H-1B so that he could leave his previous employer [1].

It seems unfair to say people on visa programs don't become entrepreneurs when, in most cases, they legally aren't allowed to.

1\. [https://www.computerworld.com/article/2852250/it- outsourcing...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2852250/it- outsourcing/silicon-valleys-h-1b-immigration-position-has-some-holes.html)

<comment><USER11> People complaining about H1B visa aren't (generally) complaining about the people on the visas themselves, they are complaining about the system of H1B visas itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think it's pretty dirty. Recent contributions that impress me the most typically come from western europeans / canadians who got solid educations on the taxpayer's dime back home. SV wants their know-how without having to foot the tax bill for it.

Meanwhile, the rest of the US is littered with marginal state and private institutions that leave local kids with big debts for small skills.

This is a typical SV f __*-everybody move though. Europeans get screwed by paying for an education that benefits the US. Americans get screwed for paying megabucks all these years for the military-industrial complex that SV grew out of, but the jobs are reserved for the anointed of the earth, and the profits are stockpiled in Ireland /Netherlands/Bermuda.

</comment><comment><USER13> For what it's worth, the program doesn't provide a substantial advantage over existing visas, due to the requirement of $250k+ in funding.

Immigration lawyers I've discussed this with have noted that if someone has $250k+ in funding, they are generally able to get an O-1 visa, anyway.

So while this process would likely be easier, it won't help many people who couldn't get a visa via another path.

If the requirement was changed to benefit people pre-funding and give them 2-4 years to show promise, then this would be an extremely beneficial rule.

<comment><USER14> In general the visa program is designed for employees and executives. It's so much easier to move to the US as one of the two instead of a founder. An "international manager" for example qualifies for the fastest Green Card process. A founder, whereby no one can fire but yourself, can't get into any of the existing visa criterion. To clarify, for both H1B and O1 you need to have a manager (I presume a co-founder would somehow qualify) to be able to fire you. It's a core criteria.

<comment><USER15> Your O1 information is incorrect. You can self apply for O1 or apply with a manager. It's often used for creative careers, eg actors (and amusingly porn stars according to my attorney), where the concept of a manager doesn't make sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Regardless of politics, this is one Visa category that's unequivocally beneficial the US. These entrepreneurs are creating jobs & pumping money into the economy

<comment><USER17> If they're creating jobs and then bemoaning the lack of developers and the need to import more foreign talent to fill those roles,then no,they aren't creating jobs.

<comment><USER18> Even if this were true, the jobs they create are now subject to US taxes.

<comment><USER19> I would like to see proof that these jobs could not be created by US citizens who don't need to be imported from other countries.

Because you _say_ you can't obtain the labor and skills locally doesn't not make its so.

EDIT: @maxerickson (cause of those darn HN throttling limits)

Because I want to see US citizens employed before importing labor for jobs that supposedly have no candidates in country, if we're building policy.

<comment><USER20> I'd love to know how can you provide such proof or what you would expect as proof. We've advertised for a senior programmer position for months and had very little local(national) uptake. Almost nothing. Then we hired someone from abroad, but 99% because they were one of few people who actually applied.

Does that mean that we could never ever fill this position with a local person? How do you prove that?

What makes it more complicated is that it's extremely easy for someone to say "just offer 2x the salary and someone will come" \- and that's probably true, but it's extremely ignorant of other market factors in the area.

<comment><USER19> > We've advertised for a senior programmer position for months and had very > little local(national) uptake. Almost nothing. Then we hired someone from > abroad, but 99% because they were one of few people who actually applied.

What pay are you offering for the role?

> What makes it more complicated is that it's extremely easy for someone to > say "just offer 2x the salary and someone will come" \- and that's probably > true, but it's extremely ignorant of other market factors in the area.

It is easy to say that when labor law isn't favorable to importing labor from other countries, which as a US citizen I am in favor of. If your business can't support a wage that attracts talent without importing someone from another country, perhaps that's a problem with the business fundamentals.

As a citizen of my country, my fellow citizens are my primary concern, not someone's business. We all have our ideals that have been shaped by our life experiences.

<comment><USER21> Tongue in cheek; Masters required, Ph.D. preferred, 10 years experience in Rust, must be willing to relocate, 7 years experience with Windows 10 required, generous salary starting at $60,000/year.

Not too long ago, I was helping a friend find a job and was a bit startled by some of the requirements. One that really stuck out was needing a few years of experience in a Java version that was still in the beta phase. (I think it was 8.)

I don't know if it's an HR issue, a communications issue, or what... I'd speculate that it is intentional, so that they can claim they can't find local talent and justify hiring from abroad. Call it a hunch...

I'm not sure why companies are so against training, but I suppose that's a topic for another thread.

<comment><USER22> The aversion of modern tech companies, and companies in many industries besides, to training new hires is mind-boggling. I suppose in the startup world the lack of resources to do so is in part justifiable. So resources end up being poured bidding for the few qualified senior engineers instead. Or lobbying to continue to be able to hire from abroad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Once again, we see high-powered liberals trying to circumvent the democratic process by Suing to enact political change. Everyone should be held to the same rulebook. The courts are not there to subvert the political process.

<comment><USER24> The courts have a defined role within the political process - <USER2> interpretation of the law - which they are following here. Both conservative and liberal activists have a long history of suing to enact political change. It is important that these issues are worked out in court precisely so that the rulebook is applied with more fairness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why don't they open offices in a more immigration friendly country?

<comment><USER26> Because US markets are worth doing business in.

<comment><USER25> I understand, but if the US doesn't want immigrants then why not open up in Canada or some other place that have freer immigration law. Or is America the only place you can be successful?

<comment><USER16> That's a fair question, and a real trend. In the short term it doesn't seem detrimental to the US economy. I believe that the US will gain pole position in the future by encouraging immigration of high skilled, entrepreneurial individuals. And data suggests a similar benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's amazing VCs have standing. Very unfortunate that we need executive action to allow entrepreneurs to make America their base of operations - not to get too CATO-y here, but it'd be excellent if the right to earn a living was identified as a Constitutional right.

Beyond the program proposed, I think anyone in America should be allowed to start a company and should be allowed to stay in America contingent upon their company growing - automatic citizenship for anyone who started and owns >50% of a company that has at least a million /yr in payroll for Americans.

<comment><USER28> 50% equity in a million payroll company? Sure, who will not sign up for it. But what we are talking is people getting checks in 250K range and them being able to be in USA to raise capital. We already know tech sector does not employ that many people at least not until Series A. This is not about creating lots of jobs either, the most successful one would be lucky to have a thousand direct hires.

Selling tech entrepreneur-ship as jobs program is a joke. This is giving more power to VCs just like their corporate brothers to import talent. Good or bad, I am not sure, but the winners are certainly the 1% not the 99%.

<comment><USER27> _50% equity in a million payroll company?_

And started it - i.e had their name on the articles of incorporation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> A quick summary of the article: [https://summarybrew.com/p/top-venture- capitalists-are-suing-...](https://summarybrew.com/p/top-venture-capitalists- are-suing-the-trump-administration-after-it-delayed-a-key-immigration-program)

</comment><comment><USER30> The really ironic part of this is that while VCs will claim "America First" is exclusionary(it is), their practice of "Silicon Valley First" is accepted as a normal fact of life.

Opportunity in America is not equal. Many smart, working class kids would love to be an entrepreneur, and it's not lack of ambition or talent holding them back. It's simple economics and lack of mentorship or investment available.

I'm all for bringing more entrepeneurs into the US. But I wish VCs were half as interested in growing talent here, at public universities across the nation and in cities not as hip as SFO.

<comment><USER31> Could you explain what you mean by the "economics" holding them back? Someone living here starts off in a much better position than any foreign entrepreneur. If they can't figure out how to get the attention of an investor then they probably wouldn't be a great entrepreneur.

<comment><USER32> " Someone living here starts off in a much better position than any foreign entrepreneur. "

I don't think you can make a blanket statement like that. I come from Ireland where I received a 4 year degree in CS for free. Most of the Americans I worked with over the years are saddled with huge amounts of college debt. This is a massive advantage in my favor.

Having to spend 4-6 years waiting for a green card so I can start my own company is a massive disadvantage. Having to deal with the annoying vagaries of the US immigration system just to get a job is also a massive disadvantage.

Coming from a country that has good free high school education is a massive advantage compared to most places in the USA.

Having parents who are financially well off and can support you while you are in school is a massive advantage. Having parents who went to university and can tell you the difference between schools or guide you through the byzantine application processes are massive advantages.

<comment><USER31> Many students here receive financial aid - 69% of Stanford undergraduates [1].

[1] [http://news.stanford.edu/2016/02/25/tuition-financial- aid-02...](http://news.stanford.edu/2016/02/25/tuition-financial-aid-022516/)

<comment><USER32> Sure, Stanford, Harvard & many top tier universities provide financial aid. I think that's awesome and to be encouraged. Getting into those institutions or being even aware of them is another matter. The disadvantages that many American's face start way downstream in high school, etc.

If you don't have parents who have gone to college before or go to a school with good teachers, you probably won't even know to apply to a top tier school.

A common theme that I have seen amongst my friends who have gone to Stanford/Berkeley/etc is that their parents had them doing extracurricular activities from a very young age to pad their entrance letters. Poorer families, have less resources and hence less time to engage in activities like this.

Just getting into Stanford or a top US college requires an incredible amount of work above and beyond good grades.

I have a very good friend who charge's $200 an hour to put together college application letters for top schools.

Income inequality in the USA is a huge disadvantage that many Americans face.

I'm not saying that income inequality is not an issue many immigrants don't face. I'm just particularly aware of it coming from a country (Ireland) that has good social benefits, like free healthcare, educations, etc. I think these things put me at an advantage compared to what many of my American peers had to go through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash I imagine a legal victory for the VCs will be spun by the administration as example of "liberal elites" and "activist judges" subverting the democratically elected government.

A legal victory won't change many minds, but it could at least prevent some unnecessary economic self-harm.

</comment><comment><USER33> Why not move to Canada?

<comment><USER34> Money and opportunity to work on interesting stuff.

I've been thinking about moving back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> "the Trump administration violated federal rulemaking laws"

"The court challenge concerns the International Entrepreneur Rule, a program instituted under former President Barack Obama"

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

"this rule does not need to be approved by Congress."

It seems like VCs were unable to get a law passed, so they tried to use their influence over the president to slip one past the democratic process. That seems dishonest. I'm glad to see president Trump standing up to that sort of intimidation. If they want a law, they need to participate in the democratic process like everyone else.

<comment><USER36> No actually, a lot of immigration is administrative (as opposed to legislative). The congress has delegated wide authority in this to the executive branch. However, for the executive to exercise this authority there is a whole body of procedure that all administrative agencies have to follow so that it isn't capricious rules that change with the executive's mood. Not following the administrative procedures is what's a subversion of the democratic process (i.e. the executive is exceeding the authority granted to it by our representatives.)

<comment><USER35> >rules that change with the executive's mood

That seems like a mis-characterization of the situation. Trump's mood hasn't changed. Making major changes to immigration policy and trade deals was the foundation of Trump's presidential campaign.

<comment><USER36> The law, that Trump and every other president is sworn to uphold, says the administrative regulations are supposed to be created only following the legislatively mandated rule making process. While Trump's appointees are free to initiate a new rule making process--as for example his FCC commissioner is doing to the chagrin of most HN commenters on net neutrality--he's not free to just decide to change administrative regulations absent the appropriate procedures and evidence even if he campaigned on that rule change. If the case is as the NVCA claims--where the administrative procedures act wasn't followed, I hope they win.

<comment><USER35> >the administrative regulations are supposed to be created only following the legislatively mandated rule making process.

The administration hasn't created new rules. They've delayed rules that have not yet taken effect.

>While Trump's appointees are free to initiate a new rule making process--as for example his FCC commissioner is doing to the chagrin of most HN commenters on net neutrality

Which the FCC did by blocking rules before they were to take effect. Sounds like the same strategy to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> If you're big on America First, why wouldn't you want the best foreign entrepreneurs to come and found great companies that generate American jobs, American taxes, and American products?

<comment><USER38> Because many of Trump's base are low-educated rural people who see the American jobs being generated by the best foreign entrepreneurs as requiring higher education and skills than they possess.

<comment><USER39> I'm a high-income, highly educated immigrant. I grew up among similar people, and witnessed the extreme derision directed at "low-educated rural people." Given that, it's a bit difficult for me to blame Trump's base for not wanting more of us here.

<comment><USER40> Eh, I don't blame them, but I also don't blame the high-income highly-educated immigrants for feeling derisive toward people whose only asset is that they're American. I think Tom Lehrer's 1967 observations are still remarkably on- point:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIlJ8ZCs4jY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIlJ8ZCs4jY)

<comment><USER39> I think it's pretty hypocritical. India and China certainly don't subscribe to the "credo nation" concept that American elites have embraced. In Bangladesh, when we speak about other Bangladeshis we identify precisely where in the country their families are from. (It'd be like making it a point to note that someone was from Texas or Virginia.) But when we speak of people from outside the country, we call everyone "bideshi" ("foreigner"), regardless of nationality. An American could move to Bangladesh as a young child and live there her whole life, but she'd always be "bideshi."

<comment><USER41> Do people from West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, who speak Bengali count as bideshi?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I don't get how hn can be behind this and question how this goes against America first when y'all always whine about "muh mentorship". Y'all know the value of mentorship and incubation and the cost involved in incubating talent. Talent needs to be developed and cultivated right? So why bring in 'founders' from abroad based on very speculative certia with investment levels below the amount to employ a few Americans to compete at least initially within the American domestic market? Why not throw those resources to create firms in America, even if in the spirit of sino-inspired copyism,to create not just work opportunities but founder opportunities for Americans?

<comment><USER43> I always ask the same question about huge American tech companies. They have almost unfathomable amounts of cash, but complain about the lack of qualified American talent. If there really is a shortage of qualified American talent, then American tech companies should use some of the cash to train American citizens.

H1B and similar really are about labor arbitrage. It's amazing that anyone thinks the best paid jobs in America should go to hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals. (There are hundreds of thousands of H1B workers in America right now doing jobs that Americans are imminently qualified to perform.)

Not to mention, non-profits are exempt from the annual cap on H1B. This includes virtually all hospitals and universities. If Democrats are serious about the middle class, then they really should do something about this.

<comment><USER44> > They have almost unfathomable amounts of cash, but complain about the lack > of qualified American talent. If there really is a shortage of qualified > American talent, then American tech companies should use some of the cash to > train American citizens.

You believe that anyone can be trained to be an effective programmer. If that's true, then there's some truth to your argument: why not invest in education and training to meet the high demand for programmers?

But I disagree with that premise. I think "ability to be a great programmer" is generally something you're born with, or at least something that's been determined by the time you're ~18. Therefore it makes perfect sense to import programmers to meet the demand. The US population is just not big enough to meet the demand for programmers and it would be insane/damaging to the economy to refuse to employ non-Americans.

I think the reason for H1B workers is supply and demand. The demand for developers far, far exceeds the supply.

<comment><USER22> > But I disagree with that premise. I think "ability to be a great programmer" > is generally something you're born with, or at least something that's been > determined by the time you're ~18.

That's your opinion, but it's far from a majority one. It flies in the face with the continuous education/MOOCs/coder bootcamp industries and the "anyone can be a coder" mantra of the current age. Either you're right, or all of those programs and institutions are hucksters.

Not to mention, "great programmer" is hyperbolic when many many coding jobs these days are really just about fixing broken JavaScript and gluing together APIs. Software has eaten the world, and Sturgeon's law applies to software as much as anything else.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: RoughJS – Create hand-drawn graphics now supports both SVG and Canvas - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pshihn/rough <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I launched Rough.js a month ago ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16571827](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16571827)) and was overwhelmed by all the love.

Now Rough.js renders SVG nodes as well. This would be great for creating more interactive graphics. [http://roughjs.com/](http://roughjs.com/)</comment>