Ask HN: Startup uses pirated/warez software, what should I do? - <AUTHOR> throwaway account
the startup I recently joined uses a lot of warez software and i'm really uncomfortable about it. i use eclipse which is open-source of course but I was given photoshop, illustrator, ms office, etc to install on my computer by the company which are all warez copies.  the windows boxes we use for qa seem to be warez too and it seems as though a lot of the ide's and other tools other guys are using are warez. im not sure any software has been purchased by the company other than what came on the apple machines.
i asked a coworker about it and he seemed to think i was mad for raising it, and pointed out adobe cs is $1000+ (apparently true). the company is angel funded and not profitable so funds are tight. it is a small startup you have probably heard of which is why im using a throwaway account.
i'd like to raise it with the founders but i can't see how it can turn out positive and as much as i'd like to advocate open-source tools, software like The GIMP isn't really up to par with photoshop. building slide decks is still best done in keynote (or powerpoint I guess) etc rather than google docs.
it's not something i'm prepared to quit my job over but i'm really uncomfortable about it. what should i do? <comment><USER2> Without making a comment on the rights/wrongs of it, this is very common, _especially_ in smaller businesses. If you haven't encountered it before, you've been lucky.

But the crux of your post is what to do. You either 1) get over it, 2) quit, or 3) assuage your discomfort by only using legal software yourself. What you are willing to tolerate is a personal issue and one no-one can judge you for. I'd put up with it, because I've worked with people who've done far worse than copyright violation but I'm not a judgmental kinda guy.

P.S. Actually, there's a #4. Try and convert the company into using legally purchased, lower cost apps. If you're on the Mac, both Pixelmator and Acorn are great Photoshop alternatives (within a range of tasks). Problem is, it sounds like you have Windows _and_ Mac gear and lots of people involved.. so it'd be an uphill battle for little direct win.

</comment><comment><USER3> Commercial piracy of software at companies is one case where I think it is completely inexcusable. As a company you are using the software to make money, so it is simply a cost of business. If Adobe CS will provide your company more than $1000 of value, it is a good investment, so they should buy it.

Furthermore, it seems unlikely you need all the software they are giving you. Assuming you are a software developer, you should be able to make do with open source alternatives.

<comment><AUTHOR> i use foss where i can anyway, but as i said gimp (the only real foss image editor out there) isn't a replacement to photoshop and illustrator.

i am a developer but i still need to do some gfx work for product flows etc

as a small angel round funded company not making any money there just isn't the budget, is my guess.

<comment><USER4> I'd say that Photoshop and Illustrator are the wrong tools for doing product flows. dot, omnigraffle or a sharpie are all better suited to the task.

I guess if you have some in-house artists using Photoshop they should have a copy, I guess. But they could probably get by with Paint.NET[1] on Windows. petercooper mentioned two good mac image editing programs. Inkscape[2] is very capable for vector graphics. Sure Paint.NET and Inkscape aren't as good as photoshop, but people are using them to make amazing art so.

coffeenut/Locke1689 mentioned BizSpark, which includes MS expression studio. Really if you're working in a start up using Windows that isn't using BizSpark that's more than just a little odd.

I find it a little hard to believe that Keynote and/or Powerpoint are necessary. OO.o Impress[3] works just fine for everything I've ever thrown at it, including shoehorning it into making posters. Even google docs presentations are generally sufficient. But I also don't use the typewriter animation with the sound effect.

You mentioned Office, to which I would have two questions. The first being "Why?" And the second being "Why is OO.o inadequate?" I mean, are you writing .docx files, converting them to .doc, printing them to pdf, zipping them and then mailing them about for documentation? And even if you are, OpenOffice would probably work fine. It works especially well when you set the default to save as .doc/.docx (etc).

Finally, if it makes you uncomfortable I think you have to bring it up. Not because it's evil or incompetent or anything, but because it clearly bothers you. If it bothers you, your work output will decrease, you'll hate working, start eating bacon mushroom bacon cheddar bacon burgers for lunch and dinner to make yourself feel better and then have a massive myocardial infarction. All because of a little software piracy.

[1] <http://www.getpaint.net/> [2] <http://inkscape.org/> [3] <http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I often buy my own licenses of software if I feel like it's going to be an issue asking for the company to do so.

Textmate, Propane, LittleSnapper, Things, are all software I use for work that I own the licenses to.

I use google docs over MS Office.

Photoshop is the elephant in every room though. $1000 for creative suite. Lots of people in the development cycle use it but not as a primary tool. Buying it for every seat in your office is expensive as hell.

If it were my company and we were bootstrapping, I'd probably pirate photoshop, use google docs as much as possible, buy keynote, pirate windows for the QA boxes (damn you IE!).

I think there's a line crossed if the company wont buy any software. If there's no respect for software developers, there won't be respect for you.

<comment><USER6> There's no need to pirate windows for QA. Microsoft offers free virtual machines loaded with different versions of IE specifically for QA purposes, see [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=...](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&displaylang=en).

<comment><USER7> but you actually need to own a copy of some form of windows to run these.

these are windows virtual pc [1] images

 _Supported Operating Systems:Windows 7;Windows Server 2003;Windows Vista;Windows XP_

[1] <http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx>

<comment><USER6> Sure, a single windows license isn't cost prohibitive. You can easily find them in the < $100 range on Newegg, SoftwareMedia, etc, not to mention the numerous promotions they run which can bring a license down to the $50 - $70 range. Someone else mentioned BizSpark, which can help defray even these minor costs. In either case you only need one license and then you can just remote into the machine and pick your VM whenever you want to QA.

<comment><USER8> Microsoft has a startup program called BizSpark that gives you access to nearly all of their software for free.

<http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/>

Overview of the software packages included [http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/5/4/15454442-CF17-4...](http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/5/4/15454442-CF17-47B9-A65D-DF84EF88511B/Products_by_Benefit_Level.xlsx)

I believe last time I checked it was $99 and you could use it for 3 years before having to upgrade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I personally think its a chicken and egg problem. I've been on both sides of this...

A small team of us took over a company that was failing a while back, we spent enormous amounts of time using 'warez'd software to get things rolling. We always had on our road map - "get legal - software compliance"... Guess what, we did. One year in, profits were up and we made the purchases to get everything legit. I think you could rest easier if you asked to have it put on the road map, and worked towards getting it paid off as a goal.

ALSO - when its on the road map, you start questioning if everyone really needs the software. At one point, all the Customer Support Reps had Microsoft Office. The reality is they didn't need it. We offered up openoffice if they really needed to create doc files but didn't support it (typically they would use software for "personal" things on the job) ...

Disclaimer: Company is 3rd to 5th largest in niche, 20m a year revenues, 100+ employees.

<comment><USER10> Yep, that is kind of the untold story in the polarized positions on the subject. There are a lot of large volume purchases who would not exist today had they not relied on pirated software early on. It would be nice if there was a program by the major software vendors that a small company just starting out could get a 2yr grace period on licensing and then pay a small overage when the time was up. The reality for most of the small shops 2 years is going to weed out the ones that could not survive and most that do could cover the cost of licensing by then.

I was with a company that did the same and went on to become a very large Adobe product purchaser. Adobe made millions of the fact that this company pirated software to get off the ground. We also had an agreement that we make it right ASAP. I agree that when that is in the charter people become more aware of the tradeoffs because when it comes time to make it right they want that number to be as small as possible.

Personally I am torn on the subject, small start-up are using the money to put it into developers pockets and pay the bills, in doing so they can grow to revenues that allow them to purchase the licences. Usually more seats than they would have got up front because the company has now grown. So in the end the software companies are getting revenue that would not have existed in the first place had they not relied on pirated software. On the other hand there are some shops that never plan to make it right and that is just not cool. As with everything in life when you peel back the onion it's never black and white. For me personally, if they had plans to make it right when revenue supports it then I would be cool with it. As well, as a software vendor, I would be cool with a company doing this (I would never put it in writing). If they become profitable everyone wins, if they don't well then the software vendor would have never seen that revenue anyways.

<comment><USER11> > There are a lot of large volume purchases who would not exist today had they > not relied on pirated software early on.

Or they would have made do with less expensive alternatives--Pixelmator on Mac instead of Photoshop on Mac, say. And with enough companies buying those cheaper alternatives, there would have been enough competition in these areas for a wide range of, say, Photoshop alternatives to develop.

This is an often overlooked consequence of piracy. Yes, someone who just can't afford a $1000 package is not a lost sale for that package. But there probably IS some price point they could afford, and their piracy does represent a lost sale to whoever would have provided that less expensive alternative.

<comment><USER10> If they where never viewed as an alternative, (whether legitimately or not). Then it does not represent a lost sale. That is the problem with the lost sale doctrine, it supposes someones mind and intentions without any relevance to their perceptions. If the company or persons never saw the alternative as a legitimate choice then it was not a lost sale for the alternative vendor.

While Pixelmator is a great tool, and I recommend it all the time as the best alternative to PS, it has not always existed. I think it hit the market around 07, meanwhile Photoshop was 82. There was a pretty long spread of pay or pirate between those dates because before Pixelmator there was no realistic alternative to Photoshop. As well there are still people that do not see it as an alternative.

I want to be really clear on this though, I do not in any way condone piracy, I do not think it is justified. I was merely pointing out that some software piracy does lead to revenue for the Software vendor. And in some cases it is revenue that they would not have seen without the piracy and sometimes more than what they would have seen had the company paid for licenses up front.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> microsoft BizSpark has a program where startups get an MSDN Premium subscription for free. All you OS's, all your servers, including SQL Server. for free for 3 years. Hell, you can even get Office 2011 Mac through it.

Using warez is frankly ridiculous for startups running Windows software.

</comment><comment><USER13> I used to work with a few companies that use warez software.

Let's just say that the situation weren't great in those companies.

While I'm not trying to judge people with their morality and all that stuff, there might be something that link between founders/owners that use pirated software and the quality or how their work, attitude, and behavior.

It feels like it is inline to the example of: your past performance might be a reflection of your work ethic kind of thing.

It is probably related to integrity of the owner.

</comment><comment><USER14> It _is_ something you should be willing to quit your job over. Learn from your experience, act now and keep your head high.

Or, compromise, say nothing, feel bad for years, and lose your self-esteem.

It's stolen goods, period. If a CEO is willing to behave like that, what else will they do? Trust me, it will only get worse.

<comment><USER15> I disagree. It might be a reason to look for employment elsewhere, but jumping ship right off the bat would be pretty unwise, especially if you have responsibilities to think about (family, bills, eating, that kind of thing).

<comment><USER16> This is the same as any moral argument, whereby you advise someone not to intervene in a situation where they could help, because of a possible danger.

There is right, and then there is smart.

It's difficult to say that action would be noticed or appreciated and the danger may not be realized but can't be ignored.

But heros do dumb things because they're right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Unfortunately, this is common. It's also something for which there doesn't appear to be a gray area. You either see a mature (in the 'attitude' sense, not 'age'), professional company that legally obtains licenses, or you see people using cracked licenses for just about anything. Not just the 'expensive' licenses, but all the way down to WinZip.

</comment><comment><USER18> Replace the soft word "warez" in your description above with "stolen property" and it might help make the issue less morally ambiguous. It's theft, plain and simple.

Why would you want to work for them? If they believe this is ok, it's only a matter of time before you're screwed over too. If it is an oversight on their part, you breaching the subject is much better than them eventually realizing they have an employee who is fine with dishonest business practices.

You should be able to broach the subject in a professional way; if you're dismissed because of it you have grounds for a lawsuit.

Incidentally Microsoft (and probably other companies) has a great program called BizSpark to help startups get over initially prohibitive software costs. You might want to bring this up to the founders as a solution for them to make sure they're legal.

<comment><USER19> But actually, the proper replacement is "unauthorized use of copyrighted works", which is not the same thing as theft.

The rest of your argument still applies just as well, but does not conjure up images of poor hungry mouths going unfed because someone is illegally downloading Photoshop. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would refuse to work with the software, then state that there are alternatives that could be used instead.

You say that Gimp isn't an alternative to Photoshop, but I used it for exactly that. It's probably not as efficient, but it definitely gets the job done. If you've really managed to get into a situation where only Photoshop will do the job, then they really, really need to shell out the money as they would have to be raking some in to have that need.

The only thing that I think you couldn't use an open source replacement for would be a copy of Windows for product testing. And possibly OSX, depending on your market.

<comment><USER21> GIMP might be an alternative, but it might not be a realistic or cheaper alternative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Run away. If they'll screw Adobe, they'll screw you.

</comment><comment><USER23> As others have said, you should try to fix it.

1\. Convert things you can to open source alternatives. Google Docs/Open- office should replace ms-office. The QA can happen on Linux, if it's a web- based company.

2\. Make sure your founders understand this as part of the cost of running the company and know that they can't do it for ever. It must be in their roadmap to move to legal copies when they have funds.

If you find the attitude too casual and you are looked down upon on raising the issue, quit. Period.

</comment><comment><USER24> So the tech startup hasn't properly taken technical costs into consideration in their valuation - that could say something about the organisation itself.

It is something you should be willing to quit over, but raise the issue appropriately and politely, and see what managemt's actual word is on things. THen make your decision. (They stand more to lose than you)

</comment><comment><USER25> If you're not comfortable just start looking for a new job then. It's that simple. If I where you I'd bring it up with the most highest up person I can and if it fell on dead ears, I'd immediately ask for a termination of the employment agreement.

</comment><comment><USER26> Interesting… I wonder if, say, Y Combinator could obtain site licenses — or some similar volume deal — on software like Photoshop for use in Y Combinator- funded startups. Seems like a useful, valuable service an incubator could provide.

<comment><USER16> I think the root of the problem is very much the attitude that people need Photoshop and Illustrator for any startup that isn't a professional photography studio or a professional design agency. That calibre of software is completely overkill for anything but those purposes and it's sad that people use it instead of Pixlr and Inkscape out of laziness. Instead of finding the right solution for their purpose they steal the right tool for a million uses. Adobe doesn't charge $1000 because they want to screw people or push them to pirate, they charge that because it's Ferrari software for professional studios that charge $1000 an hour that use it as their primary tool. It sucks that all software isn't that good but not all cars are Ferraris, and for good reason.

As far as YC is concerned, I think they can do a lot better than blowing money on Photoshop for web developers.

<comment><USER26> That's a good point. There is a lot of software that can often fill the role of Photoshop in a startup: Opacity.app, Acorn, Paint.net, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I really hate the 'everyone needs Photoshop' argument but in reality if you're using it for a startup to edit some buttons and close crop some photos it's 'less wrong' than actually using it as your primary tool for making money. Photographers, designers and artists need to buy it. Everyone else should use less sophisticated software, Photoshop is overkill for anything you need to do for the web.

</comment><comment><USER27> What are the indications that the software you mention are 'warez.'

<comment><AUTHOR> the adobe one has a keygen thing, the rest are network file shares with license in a txt file.

<comment><USER27> Thanks. Even though my original comment was terse, I was honestly curious.

My company is going through the hiring process for the first time now, so we're trying to establish a procedure for managing licenses.

It's pretty clear that when you're given a keygen something isn't legit, but for installed software it's probably not so easy to tell.

As a small business owner I can definitely see the temptation to do this. For someone not involved in software production, it may appear to be a victimless crime.

On the flip side I know first hand that some people just don't get it. A software license is a foreign concept to them. It's complicated by the various types of licenses: user licenses, sites licenses, family licenses, etc. Some licenses permit a desktop and laptop install. Some don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Legal question: if you install it, can you be held liable?

</comment><comment><USER29> Well it's like this. This is a common thing seen in a lot of places. For the moment deal with it. Just so you know, where I come from some of the biggest companies use pirated copies of Windows. But once they get to a level where they can shift over then they inform, say Microsoft, and begin the transition slowly.

I think you should wait for your company to reach a level where they can do that before you really make a move. But you can also ask yourself. How much longer till you hit that kind of profit to even begin transitioning slowly. Too long for you to be comfortable? Well you aren't willing to quit. So search for alternatives to be used at whatever point possible.

Here's a start. Prezi for replacing traditional slides? (You don't have to build it all funky like the examples. You could still build it in a powerpoint-ish style.)

Before you suggest anything make sure you have an answer for when they look you in the eye and say "well what would you do then?"

<comment><AUTHOR> the company doesn't even have revenue let alone profit, it is a 5 person early stage startup. that 'transition' is far far away. i guess im just used to doing the right thing regardless of circumstance.

as i said i have thought about what i would suggest instead but there are few options for photoshop. fortunately i dont have to make slide decks i was just giving that as a wider example in the company.

<comment><USER5> That's a tough call. Is spending $10'000 to legitimize their software use the difference between success and failure?

When you're building a company on a knife's edge.. how do you know if $1 you spent today that you didn't need to will bite you in the ass tomorrow.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      Is spending $10'000 to legitimize their software use the difference between success and failure?

yes, im sure there isn't $10k in budget to spend on photoshop for everyone etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Find a student with an educational discount or an online sale. Photoshop is NOT $1000. Get it for like $200-300.

<comment><USER31> Using an educational license for commercial purposes is still copyright infringement.</comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Do you use online accounting software? - <AUTHOR>

I absolutely hate quickbooks, but it's mostly my own fault as I just don't put forth the effort of doing my books on a monthly basis.  I think it would be less painful for me if, I didn't have to fire up my PC and use the horrible UI either, and rather just imported my bank statements and do everything online.
So I'm curious what others use.  I have looked at IAC-EZ which seems like a good solution, however if I've learned anything its that there's usually something better that I just haven't heard before.
The only features that I would want beyond QB is to sync with bank account and have online access...and to suck less.
The business I'd use this for is a very simple consulting side business.
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> No, I would never put critical financial information online, I just about trust my bank not to mess up with my account information but that's as far as it goes.

But that really is my only reason 'against', on the other side of the ledger (pun intended) there are plenty of 'pros', such as the ability to stay current with the tax rules without upgrading your software.

If you use an online accounting service make sure they allow you to export your data in some common format so that you can back it up yourself. Most of these companies will of course do their very best to make sure that you don't lose your data (one should assume) but if anything should happen then you, not they, are responsible as far as the IRS is concerned.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great points, thanks for the reply. I will likely ask my accountant what his opinion is, of course I'm pretty sure I'll know what he has to say, but it'll be interesting to hear his reasoning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You might look into various bank's online software. Some banks have a "business account" that has a really simple accounting system built in, that is a double-entry system with 4 accounts. I think Wells Fargo is one such bank.

Another thing you might look into is installing and configuring SQL-Ledger or LedgerSMB. Setting that up turned out to be too much of a time sink for me, given what I expected to get out of it. That was several years ago however, and since then I have picked up more common sense bookkeeping and the code has progressed a lot.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been using freshbooks.com and I'm loving it

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked at this and think I'll use this for timetracking/invoicing, but from everything I've read it doesn't handle accounting tasks. One of the reasons I'd like a full accounting application is to have it estimate my quarterly taxes (so I wouldn't have to pay my accountant).</comment></comment>


OSC Investigative Report on Quadriga Crypto Exchange - <AUTHOR> https://www.osc.gov.on.ca/quadrigacxreport/ <comment><USER2> "Staff determined that Quadriga collapsed due to a fraud committed by Cotten. Cotten opened accounts under aliases and credited himself with fictitious currency and crypto asset balances, which he traded with unsuspecting Quadriga clients. Cotten sustained real losses when the price of crypto assets changed, thereby creating a shortfall in assets available to satisfy client withdrawals. Cotten covered this shortfall with other clients' deposits – in effect, operating a Ponzi scheme. Staff calculated that the bulk of the $169 million in client losses – approximately $115 million – arose from Cotten's fraudulent trading."</comment>


Ask HN: Is there an ultimate guide to healthy food diet? - <AUTHOR> I grew up on eating a balanced diet (at least that's what I think) until I moved from home for college and jobs. Like many of us, I occasionally cook at home due to ease of restaurants or food delivery services like Freshly etc. here in the Bay Area. Now that I have started getting shoulder and back pain, mostly due to poor sitting habits, I'm thinking to change my habits and learn to live and eat better. I found some good exercises online but didn't find any curated list of food that is good for the body. What I'm more interested in is how to have a balanced diet. For example, in one of the YouTube videos on shoulder pain, the doctor linked it with a possible dysfunction of the liver/gallbladder and recommends eating beetroot tops and other cruciferous leaves. I was wondering if there's this ultimate guide which talks about good eating habits and links it with the improvements of the body organs. Does anyone know about this kind of guide or like an app? <comment><USER2> Very little is known to be good, general advice about food. The science is very difficult and expensive:

[https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10760622/nutrition-science- com...](https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10760622/nutrition-science-complicated)

Michael Pollan has some good advice, though. His book, The Eater's Manual, is not "a diet", but rather an expansion on his rules for eating:

[https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules- for...](https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating)

<comment><USER3> This is false. There's plenty we know about nutrition. Special interest groups introduce doubt

<comment><USER2> Can you cite anything? I cited something that demonstrates the uncertainty and explains why it exists (difficulty of studying it, extreme variation among individuals).

There is no single, hard rule for nutrition yet. We don't even know how healthy milk and fish oil are. Vitamin D supplements were just shown to have no benefit for bone health. Exercise and amount of food play a huge role in whether a diet works.

<comment><USER3> You cited a magazine article. Just look at the recommendations that nutrition organizations give, WHO, etc, people that are experts in the field. If you think it's bs then there's not much I can do about that

[https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/dietetic- associations](https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/dietetic-associations)

My 2c to your response: there is _some_ variation among individuals, I think it's intentionally exaggerated. Milk isn't a health product, but it's nutritious and useful for those that don't have much appetite to eat. Agree about fish oil unless you're deficient in omega 3. The amount of calories you can eat plays a huge preventative role in having any deficiencies. Most people have some kind of deficiency. Most people don't, or can't due to age or health issue, exercise so much that their metabolic rate is high enough (1.5-2x higher) to see those gains, which is why nutrition advice matters. If you ignore everything about nutrition, you can get the most benefit by avoiding added sugar and oils. It goes a very very long way

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're getting shoulder and back pain from poor sitting habits, you should address that directly. Fix your posture, your spine should be slightly curved when you sit with your shoulders upright. You can also get a standing desk, and start weight training or doing calisthenics

The general dietary advice these days is:

\- avoid added sugars and oils

\- eat a (primarily or complete) plant-based whole foods diet

\- people are also experiencing some benefits from fasting, which can be divided into 3 categories:

      1. intermittent fasting
      2. a water fasting session, usually 1-3 days long
      3. going into ketosis for prolonged period of time</comment>


U.S. Issues Sweeping Plan to Loosen Rules for Internet Providers - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/technology/net-neutrality.html <comment><USER2> Will this allow providers to simply block website traffic or not allow it? Say, Comcast says "nope, you can't access Google" because Google refused to pay Comcast a premium. Is that possible?

<comment><USER3> Comcast could, but they wouldn't stay in business long.

<comment><USER4> Given that most of their markets are places where they hold a significant monopoly, I'd say it's not crazy to think they could do this and win a few battles...

<comment><USER5> I think it much more likely they will be moving to packaging the web like they package cable television. This way they can charge both ends of the transaction, the company providing the service and the customer of that service.

<comment><USER4> This is assuming data and the way we all receive it is continually treated the same as content delivery over a single pipe. Hint hint.. it's not and a bigger hint is look at what ALL the major ISP's are doing with their spare change at the moment.

The internet is migrating to the edge and ISP's are going to go away.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best language for finance? - <AUTHOR>

I was hoping someone with personal experience could give me some insight on what programming language(s) would be best applied to stock market analysis and/or automated trading. <comment><USER2> I can't speak for best, but:

Ocaml is used and praised by Jane Street [1]

Python has a nice suite of financial tools available [2]

It may be that the best tool for analysis and for trading are different. For the former you want visualization tools and interactive exploration, but for the latter, you may need raw speed or relative safety of the code.

[1] <https://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/61> [2] [http://wiki.quantsoftware.org/index.php?title=QuantSoftware_...](http://wiki.quantsoftware.org/index.php?title=QuantSoftware_ToolKit)

<comment><USER3> I agree with MetaJack that analysis and execution are two different disciplines. "Quants" use tools like R and Excel, while the models and trading engines are most likely C++ or Java.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Python is gathering momentum now that pandas has brought a proper dataframe object to the language. Python is multi-paradigm, so you can write functional code when you need, objects when you want them, or scripts if it is convenient. Most people I know who are not using python complain of needing 3 or 4 languages to cover their needs (perl for data munging, R/Matlab for research, C/C++/C#/Java for production.

We build nearly everything in python at <https://www.quantopian.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't have any personal experience but perhaps you could trawl through some job boards or wherever the kind of job you would like is advertised. Look for what languages they mention.

</comment><comment><USER6> Excel/VBA and C++</comment>


Have laptops killed the desktop? (Dell closing factory in Austin) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/040108dnbusdell.1be6ad8c.html Dell is closing a plant in Austin as its desktop business continues to wane.  DMN may require login (sorry) but it's an interesting story.  Basically, Dell is closing an Austin computer factory, and lay off thousands worldwide. <comment><USER2> I think that, in the future, the idea of reserving special places in homes and offices to use computers will seem quaint, like the way we think of reserving whole rooms for giant mainframes. No doubt people will still want reserved working-places, but the computing arrangements will be much more flexible and integrated.

<comment><USER3> I still don't get why people by HDTVs and not just an HD projector for the same price or cheapter

<comment><USER4> Because projectors require a few things that TVs do not.

1\. A dark room

2\. Nobody getting in between the projector and the surface it is displaying on

3\. Extra space

Don't get me wrong, projectors are cool, but there is a reason they aren't as popular as regular TVs.

<comment><USER3> this is a hacker crowd -- I imagine most people here have a ton of content already on a computer, which using a projector makes it much easier to watch.

1\. agreed on dark room.

2\. if the projector is mounted high (as it should be) this is not an issue

3.I was in military barracks half the size of a normal bed room and my projector still had a very tight 4-5 foot screen on a bare wall -- oh and it was $600 OTB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article has nothing to do with the death of desktop machines. It is just a simple reflection that it is cheaper to make them in places other than Austin. I am in fact surprised that they haven't already closed all of their US-based manufacturing.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's disappointing that people aren't interested in optimal productivity when carrying out knowledge-work tasks like programming and editing photos (most laptop users don't hook up a big monitor to get high resolution).

Macbook Pro + 30" cinema screen is what I'd buy if money were not an object.

</comment><comment><USER7> I totally think so. Why should I be tied to a desk, when I can take my laptop anywhere.

<comment><USER5> Desktops are going to be around for a long time...

\- Gamers have an insatiable need for power, and the fastest computers are always going to not be laptops.

\- A lot of people are very price sensitive, and desktops are always going to be less expensive.

<comment><USER4> Don't be so sure either of those are that important.

You can get a laptop with comparable power to some of the more expensive desktops now for about the same price. Look at the Gateway p-6831.

Also more and more power will continue to be fit into laptops, and I think it is only a matter of time before a desktop tower is a waste of space for even most gamers.

<comment><USER5> Extrapolating trends is of course dangerous, but isn't it reasonable to say that people want as much screen real estate for screens?

<http://www.pibmug.com/files/wideview.jpg>

That people will want ever more realistic graphics, with ever more realistic physics engines?

<comment><USER4> I don't think so. Most people don't want massive screens and don't know how to effectively use more than one anyway.

Game developers are already having problems with the expense and time required to push out the artwork for today's games. There will come a point, and it might even be here with games like Spore, where the industry will focus more on gameplay than having the most advanced games possible. Regardless, there are quite a few laptops that can play Crysis without problem. I linked to one earlier, and it costs under $1300.

/And/ with more people playing games on consoles, the need for high end PCs just to play games is less important. I think there are many factors that are coming together to make desktops less useful.

Of course there will always be those hardcore fanatics that just need the speed that only a big desktop tower can push out, but those numbers are decreasing by the month I bet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't think they killed it, but average Joes will be buying laptops instead of desktops for the foreseeable future. They have all the power needed for the basics.

I definitely see desktops becoming how laptops were years ago: a niche market. If you need a specific feature: i.e. lots of power or high-end gaming, you go with a desktop. Years ago people only got laptops if they had a specific need for mobility. The default option has already changed from desktop to laptop.

</comment><comment><USER9> Laptops and servers are the future (present?), I think.

The laptop is your way of interfacing with data. Ergonomics (such as easy portability) are very important here. Hook up large display and maybe more comfortable keyboard/mouse when appropriate. iPhone provides another set of ergonomic trade-offs (even more portable, interface options even more constrained). Non-volatile storage in these devices become more of a caching mechanism over time; more and more of our data will reside on a server somewhere we never physically see.

Then the universe of large scale processing power and data storage is The Network. Amazon S3/EC2 and the like. Most people on the planet will never physically see this hardware at all. But we use these resources constantly as we browse, interact, communicate, and work on the web.

So, two directions for the future of computing. Ergonomics is King for consumer devices (Apple is thriving in this market), and economies of scale (Google the poster child here, interesting in that they do not design or develop hardware at all, but write software to make commodity hardware scale in amazing ways).

<comment><USER10> Computing started off with mainframes and terminals. Then we got to workstations. Now with the web and your prediction, we're going back to the server/thin-client model.

Isn't progress cool?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Could be it has something to do with Dell's position in the market for desktops and laptops. I'd rather buy a white box desktop and take the savings, but for something where service is more important, having a brand like Dell is more meaningful. Or maybe not... I'd definitely rather have a laptop. I wonder what the difference between price/performance in laptops and desktops looks like over time?

</comment><comment><USER12> I asked that question a while ago and quite a few people responded: [http://paulstamatiou.com/2007/12/21/are-desktop-computers- dy...](http://paulstamatiou.com/2007/12/21/are-desktop-computers-dying)

</comment><comment><USER13> Last time I used a desktop was in 2004 I think. Try using a desktop in the bath or sofa or toilet :/

Also desktop keyboards still just don't work.

<comment><USER14> I know it's fairly unlikely, but remind me to NEVER use your laptop if we should ever meet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> my problem with laptops is that when i'm at home, i want to hook up external mouse and keyboard, and put it on some books on a desk to get the display at the right height (or plug it into an external display). if you're doing all that, a desktop makes some sense.

laptop using all the built in stuff is bad ergonomics.

<comment><USER16> My workplace:

\- MacBook

\- Apple USB Keyboard

\- Logitech Mouse

\- Apple Cinema Display HD 23"

Plus, I can carry all my work environment anywhere I go. If I want to be with my family and I don't need a lot of concentration I can take the MacBook to any room.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Get sued for trademark infringement over Github repo name? - <AUTHOR>

A few months ago I built a network security tool with a few friends at a hackathon. We won 1st place and I put the code up on Github under some throwaway name that we came up with while hacking. We didn't bother to check if the name was used by anyone else, because it's just the name of my own personal Github repo, right?
A week later, the developer of an open source project with the same name asked me to remove or rename my repo. He doesn't have a registered trademark, but he's been using the same name for a few years so he claims a "common law" right to it, which seems legit. But, I can't believe that someone would care about the name of someone else's repo.
He messaged me and my friends several more times. We ignored him since we had no intention to turn the code into a real product.
But today, he had an attorney send us this:
"...under the rights afforded to him under 1125(a) of the Lanham Act, Mr. ____ requests that you either rename or remove your project from Github, as well as any other places which use the trademark _____ to describe the project. Having another piece of open source software use this term creates unnecessary confusion in marketplace with Mr. _____'s prior use."
It's not like we can get sued for the name of our Github repo, can we? <comment><USER2> Take the past of least resistance. It doesn't sound like you have a dog in the fight, so you should change it.

IANAL - Can he sue you? Anyone can sue anybody, for anything. Whether his claim is legit, or whether or not he would win, there's only one way to find out.

Scary lawyer letter is the first step any attorney would take. It's a shot across the bow. But, at this point, you don't know if that's all they got or not. The only thing worse than the feeling you get when you get a nasty-gram from a lawyer, is the feeling you get when you are named in an lawsuit.

You could do some game theory to figure out how much he might be willing to pay you to change the name, but that assumes he's a rational actor. Which could be a big assumption.

<comment><USER3> The OP's tone, seems more of a search for clarification on the legal basis, rather than genuine interest in defending the repo.

The legal base (non-existing trademark, so therefore unclear - only based on previous usage) seems foggy and would have to be decided in court. So either you get into an out-of-court agreement, or go to civil court and stand your case.

If there's any interest in keeping the name, you should probably just contact a lawyer and clarify with him.

But if you don't care, to the point where you can just rename the repo and let the other guy have it (which I'm assuming is the whole point of the letter...)

My move would be to keep save your project to a new repo, and just leave and empty readme to keep the name in-use. Even if you don't reply a number of times, that lawyering up (at least to me) looks like a dick scare tactics move...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

</comment><comment><USER5> > It's not like we can get sued for the name of our Github repo, can we?

Why would you think you can't be sued for the name of your Github repo?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because I'm not trying to compete with the other project or even release a product. I just want to be able to call my Github repo whatever I want to call it.

<comment><USER5> All that matters is a likelihood of confusion as to the origin or affiliation of your project. It doesn't matter if your tool competes with or is similar to the other project.

\--

15 USC § 1125 (Lanham Act):

(a) Civil action

(1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which—

(A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person ...

shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.

\--

You can't call things whatever you want to call them. That's what trademarks protect against. You can't name your new stuffed animal Microsoft Furry even though Microsoft doesn't make stuffed animals, as it's likely to cause confusion that Microsoft created or sponsored them.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, let me get this straight. It's legal for me to blog about Microsoft (to rant, complain, commentate, etc.). It's also legal for me to compare my competing product to a Microsoft product on a webpage (2x faster than X, etc.). It's even legal for me to write "microsoft" a million times in a row on an otherwise blank webpage.

But you're saying that it's illegal to both post code on a personal webpage (with authorship clearly marked) AND to include the word "microsoft" somewhere on the page?

Are there people stupid enough to actually mistake this code for Microsoft Windows?

<comment><USER5> You could include the word "microsoft" somewhere in the page. But not somewhere that might mislead people to think Microsoft created, sponsored, approved of or is affiliated with whatever the code is. Like the project name, for example. By doing so, you benefit from a perceived association that doesn't exist; you're trading on their good name. You have the text of the law right there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice, everyone. Decided to rename the project.</comment>


Is talent the only consideration while recruiting a candidate for a job? - <AUTHOR> I've attended n number of interviews for SDE role and have come across too many factors like,
i)   Female candidate - to be highly unpreferable. ii)  Longevity - should not opt for higher studies iii) Should be from a moderate background iv)  Preference to referrals or relatives
After seeing these many factors I really have a doubt that is "talent" considered the top or the only thing during recruiting a candidate?
If NO why? And what are the other discriminating factor you find during job interviews? <comment><USER2> To be blunt, you appear to only be considering your own experience and are assuming you're a perfect candidate for every position you've interviewed for.

If you have been applying for positions in the US first I'd point out that your post has several grammatical errors. If you make the same in applications it's not an immediate disqualification but it's less desirable than a similar candidate with better writing skills.

Soft skills, communication, cultural fit, and humility are very important to me as a person who has performed hiring for several years in different roles. Technical skills, except for some niche areas, can be taught. Being a good human is harder to learn on the job.

If I encountered a female candidate and a male candidate that were equal in all aspects I'd likely take the female candidate first because, in general, females are under represented and having more diversity helps product teams IMO.

In short, "talent" is definitely not the top reason to hire someone outside of highly specialized fields. At least that's how I would hire.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great opinion mneil. Thanks a lot for sharing it.

>>assuming you're a perfect candidate for every position you've interviewed for

I'm really sorry if it sounded that way. I agree I may not fit for the role for which I was interviewed for. But I really wish to know whether such factors really exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's not clear to me what ii and iii mean. Can you explain using different wording?

<comment><AUTHOR> ii) The candidate must work for the organisation in long turn. iii) From a moderate family background.

<comment><USER2> ii) definitely not true, but it doesn't hurt. Many corporations have policies requiring internal job postings for certain lengths of time before being able to hire someone from outside. The idea here is to promote internal, upward, growth with the hope that most people will be hired at the bottom and "work their way up". Smaller companies / startups tend to not have these policies and / or are not large enough for that to work so already having a job there doesn't necessarily benefit you.

iii) this has 0 impact in my experience. I do not know, or care, where you're from or your personal background and nobody should ask you this and you should not reveal it. What matters is; are you qualified? Do you have the experience and can you show me you work well with others and know what you're doing. At an entry position it's more about personality than skill. Although skill is still very important.</comment></comment></comment>


Losing Confidence in Quality: Unspoken Evolution of Computer Vision Services - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.07328 <comment><USER2> I have worked in industrial machine vision for the last 18 years, and this summary (I didn't read the paper) reflects my comments to management every time they bring up the topic of AI or ML. Our inspection systems operate at anywhere from 300 parts per minute to 3000 parts per minute. AI/ML has way too high of a false reject rate (or even worse, a false accept rate!) The worst scenario I explain to my managers is if we implement a AI/ML system and for some reason it starts rejecting 50% of the customers product at 3am on a Sunday, then there is no practical way to analyze the results to determine a difinitive cause for the reject, and what the corrective action needs to be. The final gut punch is then we would have to tell the customer that it could be several hours to retrain the model(and that's only after we figure out what needs to be represented in the good and bad image sets to account for the new failure mode).

<comment><USER3> So what are your inspection systems based on?

<comment><USER4> Vision systems in controlled environments like factories that need to be fast and stupidly reliable are often based on "classical" (non-ML) computer vision techniques.

The ML hype train has led to a frustrating amount of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, where people who should know better decide to use ML for more things than is reasonable (something something "end-to-end").

Ideally, ML should be used for a few _very_ specific tasks, and then classical machine vision / geometric analysis / plain old logic should be doing the rest. If you don't do it this way, you eventually end up with the problems described in this paper, where performance is inconsistent and impossible to debug, and nobody can tell you what's going on or why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This paper shows measured results of using "popular image recognition services" .. that include Azure, AWS, Google, IBM and other current commercial offerings.. (the implication right away is that the tested services are using some DeepLearning system on the server side). The paper specifically says "from the point of view of a software developer".. and spends quite a bit of effort to question the assumptions of a user of these services, and identify potential pitfalls from a mis-match of user assumptions, including consistency over time, consistency between services themselves, and employing a machine that produces deterministic outcomes versus probabilistic ones. The paper looks at the behavior of a Vision-as-Service use from a Software Quality Assurance (SQA) point of view - is the result -of commercial services on the web- reliable over time. Liability within safety-critical environments is questioned.

The comments here (so far) address "does DeepLearning image analysis work" .. which is a broader question than what is being addressed in the paper.. Importantly, other kinds of image analysis methods, including other ML approaches, are not being compared..

The authors seem to be raising a bit of an alarm about services like these, reflected in the paper title (weakly):

[RH1] Computer vision services do not respond with consistent outputs between services, given the same input image.

[RH2] The responses from computer vision services are non-deterministic and evolving, and the same service can change its top-most response over time given the same input image.

[RH3] Computer vision services do not effectively communicate this evolution and instability, introducing risk into engineering these systems

To a non-specialist, this seems like detailed description of a useful real- world investigation, like a lab. The authors' skepticism is healthy, and the paper overall looks good. On the negative side, the discussion of labels in Computer Vision seems to be insufficiently distinguishing between fundamental problems in taxonomy and classification, problems with data grouping in general, and then specifically problems associated with this kind of DeepLearning image identification.

<comment><USER6> One thing to keep in mind is that any neural net based ML system is essentially just a mathematical function imitator. The observations in this paper are spot on in the sense that many mathematical functions can have the same subset of results (success within your training data set), but can have wildly varying behavior in the general case.

This is known as overfitting, and its one of the main things that should cast doubt on any ML system's capability to reliably produce results outside of a training set.

In a way, these outcomes are to a point predictable (in the sense of "the possibility exists" as opposed to "this set of weights yields these generalizability results") if you take the whole "neural network" thing a bit more straight than many academics are comfortable with you doing. The human brain, or any collection of biological neurons, is in a state of constant flux, creating different networks in order to react to stimuli in the environment and implement actions that bring us closer to achieving $goals.

Who hasn't experienced an off day where the gears of your mind just aren't producing what you darn well know they should be? It's just a fundamental change in the primary set of neural tools you've got to work with that day. When the weights change, so too does the output, and the function modeled. The cerebellum if I recall correctly, actually acts as a QA like functionality built into our own minds.

There's nothing magic about simulating neural networks in silicon that suddenly gets you to a more "free-of-mistakes" state besides being able to condense way more dimensions of data into the networks "sensory space" as it were. Even then though, the possibility of suboptimal functions being imitated is inescapable.

Try explaining that to someone that wants to save millions on workforce, or automate safety-critical tasks without concern for the consequences though. It's amazing the cognitive barriers we can build.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I feel like you can infer these services are stochastic and not deterministic based on the documentation.

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive- services/cu...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive- services/custom-vision-service/getting-started-improving-your-classifier)

"The quality of your classifier depends on the amount, quality, and variety of the labeled data you provide it and how balanced the overall dataset is. "

</comment><comment><USER8> Good analysis for a real-world problem that software developers face. Customer expectations definitely do not align with the realistic capabilities of the technology.</comment>


Why Canadian Tech Entrepreneurs Need to Man/Woman Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.myplanetdigital.com/digital_strategy/blog/why-canadian-tech-entrepreneurs-need-manwoman A little manifesto I wrote to remind my fellow Canadian tech entrepreneurs that we have a lot of work to do. <comment><USER2> This certainly makes you re-focus on the goal rather than be consumed by a get rich quick scheme. It provides an opportunity to stand out - the next step is coming up with a startup idea that could actually flourish. From the sounds of it, Myplanet already has something in the works...</comment>


Ask HN: What features would you like to see in a social news aggregator? - <AUTHOR>

We are gearing up for the launch of our social news aggregator and alerts platform, Snippee.com. Any feedback would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> Zero spam ?

HN does pretty good but even there sometimes there are more than 4 flagged but not 'dead' spam on the new page.

Tough job!</comment>


Real-time emotional voices with D.A.V.I.D - <AUTHOR> http://cream.ircam.fr/?p=44 <comment><USER2> The concept seems quite interesting. I can hear slight differences between the different versions, but I honestly can't hear those differences as conveying any particular emotion. If you mixed them up and asked me which one sounded most "happy" or most "scared" or most "sad", I'd be stumped.

<comment><USER3> Nor can I very well. After some googling, I see that apparently this would be called "auditory affective agnosia" (if it were at the level of neuropsychological pathology). I wonder if this software could be used diagnostically in disorders that are associated with deficits in empathy or emotional identification -- autism, Antisocial or Narcissistic Personality Disorders, etc.

Perhaps it could also be used as a therapeutic tool. One could train with it in order to reduce the affective threshold at which one detects emotion.

<comment><USER2> > One could train with it in order to reduce the affective threshold at which > one detects emotion.

Interesting idea. If software like this can smoothly adjust intensity, you could find the threshold at which you can reliably detect it, and attempt to push that downward to pick up more subtlety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> OMG. A TV channel used it (or a very similar technique) here in Spain to manipulate some video footage.

[http://iniciativadebate.org/2016/01/22/por-que-solo-en- video...](http://iniciativadebate.org/2016/01/22/por-que-solo-en-video- antena-3-suena-temblorosa-la-voz-de-anna-gabriel/)

In the first video (at around 0:33) you can see the voice as if it was applied the "scared" filter too much, and cutting only the section where she says "yes, we met with X" out of context to make it sound like a shameful confession instead of the firm statement of known information that it is (0:41 of second video).

</comment><comment><USER5> Amazing. Imagine combining this with facial emotion detection algorithms like those in Microsoft Kinect and making an AI that can automatically empathize with users. When you're happy, the AI is happy. When you hate the world it hates the world. Maybe you could even optimize the UI so that certain offers like buying things or rating apps would only be shown when the user is in a good mood.

<comment><USER6> This is going to be used in propaganda if not already.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Hacker Uses This - <AUTHOR> https://hackerusesthis.com/

<comment><USER2> Interesting. What algorithm is this using to make recommendations?

If you're not already, you should consider an algorithm that places less weight on more commonly used tools; right now, a huge number of people add "git", for instance, so it shouldn't carry much weight when looking for similar people and recommended tools.

This could also use a "not interested" or "actively don't like/want this", to filter out unwanted recommendations.

Looks like there are two copies of "Google Chrome".

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm already planning to add a button to "remove" recommendations.

The recommendations algorithm is based on some heuristics to detect how similar are two users. Nothing "generic". I'll describe it in detail if you are interested.

Now I'm trying to get information about why the HN submission is invisible...

EDIT. The submission was flagged by users. Weird.

Two Chromes - one is in Desktop category and the other is in Mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> I noticed that the recommendations are probably equal to the union of fuzzy intersections of a tool set of the "logged in" user and every other user's tool sets, where the "fuzzy membership" function is an assignment of importance scores to tools.

By "fuzzy" operations I mean the mathematical theory [0]

I see that many people didn't change default importance score from 5, looks like UI is bad for this.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_set](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_set)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Been playing around with it for a while. Surprised that I was the first person to add Vagrant to my toolset.

EDIT - Forgot to say, great job. With some polish it'll definitely make a fun tool discovery service. Thanks for this

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'm planning to make a few changes mainly to allow excluding common tools from recommendations. Maybe I'll also add user following functionality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Uh no they don't. Developers do.

</comment><comment><USER5> You might wanna re-submit this. HN went down shortly after this was posted.</comment>


The long history of parents complaining about their kids' homework - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/10/parents-complaining-about-homework-history.html <comment><USER2> Describing it as parents "complaining" about homework trivializes our role as the ultimate arbiters of our kids' best interests.

Evidence is sparse that _anything_ works in education, once you control for social and personal characteristics of the parents.

<comment><USER3> This is, perhaps, the worst thing about teacher training programs. I'm a teacher myself, high school math and science, and the classes I'm taking for my masters are absolute bullcrap. Just lots of busy-work with ideas that have been tested once, on a small group with demographics extremely different from my school, and taken as gospel.

Not to mention that the classes are all geared towards elementary school teachers and so are of absolutely no help at all to me. Then couple that with elementary school teachers being generalists and often _hating_ math, yet they're the ones we rely on to give these kids a good grounding in the foundational stuff they'll need later on! No wonder most kids are incompetent at it and can barely add/subtract/multiply/divide without a calculator.

Really, I think education should be an apprenticeship program, rather than an educational one. Make it be like several years of student teaching, which would get more results than anything else from new teachers. They can see how experienced teachers work and really discuss it with them over the course of a few years, not just pay to get told useless stuff and observe a semester.

<comment><USER2> Now you've experienced what school is like for bright kids. ;-)

For better or worse, the pay scale in most districts in the US guarantee a salary bump for having a higher degree. As a result, there are degree programs tailored to this need, that are practically degree mills. Why didn't you study math, or science?

<comment><USER3> I dunno if it's as applicable, honestly. I was one of those bright kids that never had to study in high school (or college, really), but I always felt like there was at least some purpose to what I was learning, whether it was math/science concepts or how to write better, etc. And it always at least felt on solid grounding; education training is just a load of bullcrap that supports what the teacher wants to hear and busywork. Hell, I even have one masters class that has exit slips! In a _masters_ level course!

As for why I didn't study math or science -- I did. My actual undergraduate degree is in physics; just due to various issues I ended up teaching (which I admit I enjoy, even if I'm starting to get burnt out). Dunno if I'll stay another year, at least where I'm currently at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The biggest piece of data that speaks to me against hours of homework being generally necessary for learning and academic success is homeschooling (at least secular homeschooling). Many homeschooled children, especially pre- middle school, have academic periods that last for a maximum of a couple of hours. Yet, these children are able to integrate academically back into traditional schools and excel.

I'm one of these kids: I was homeschooled for several grades due to my family traveling, completed my lessons in just a couple of hours per day (sometimes doing two lessons in one day so I could take the next day off). I successfully transitioned to a regular high school (with plenty of homework), did great, and went to one of the top and most difficult universities in the country where I also did quite well. Even though I had hours of homework in high school, I didn't seem to suffer from not having spent 10 hours a day in middle school doing school plus homework. I wasn't "unprepared" or otherwise unable to handle the suddenly significantly higher workload.

Of course, this isn't very scientific and this also doesn't prove that homework isn't necessary in a traditional school, but it does suggest that something is very wrong in traditional early education if hours of daily homework are necessary on top of 8 hours of lessons to achieve similar results.

<comment><USER5> Very small class sizes make a huge difference. Homeschooling (usually) involves a very small effective class size. Lessons can be very carefully tailored, the teacher can change the course of a lesson entirely on a dime if the kid or small set of kids need them to, the pace is better tuned for each student, and so on.

AFAIK most prestigious private schools have much smaller class sizes than public schools, and that's not for no reason. 18-25 kids in a class means you can only give each kid maybe two minutes of individual attention an hour, and maybe less. Practically every single thing is harder for the teacher (except getting kids to participate in discussion, but that's likely a socialization/norms thing—I doubt kids used to small classes clam up the way kids used to 20+ kid classrooms do when they happen to be in a small class for some reason) and worse for the kids.

<comment><USER4> Homeschooling is a small effective class size, but my parents were by no means wonderful teachers (even though they are wonderful people). For homeschooling during 6th and 7th grades, I mostly used the purchased curriculum books myself without significant involvement from them. On a typical day, I probably received less instruction from my parents than a student in a regular classroom (sometimes no instruction).

It seems crazy to me that I was able to complete an entire days worth of lessons this way in the amount of time most 6th and 7th graders spend on homework alone.

Regardless, suppose studies were to show that adding hours of homework was necessary for students to be successful academically (and as far as I know they don't show this). Rather than deciding to destroy our children's free and unstructured time with homework, why don't we figure out how to change school so that this homework isn't necessary? It's clearly _possible_ to generate well-educated and competitive children with significantly fewer hours of education per day. The homework is just a bandaid for something that isn't working (and probably not even as effective as a bandaid).

<comment><USER5> If you're self-pacing then you don't have to waste time covering material you've already mastered or banging your head against material you're not ready for yet because you're missing fundamentals. If you're much ahead of or behind average then that can be _a ton_ of time—most of your day, even—lost to waste there. Not productively repeating material to attain mastery, I mean, but stuff like taking four weeks to cover a math concept or technique that you could easily have completely understood and internalized in the first week, then moved on to using it in more complex work, if it'd all been presented to you that quickly.

Probably 10% of the school day's moving around or preparing to move around or settling down from having moved around, or recess or otherwise not-learning (not to shit on recess—I wish they'd give kids more time for it in lower grades). Another 10-15% is stuff you might not consider part of your "school day" if you're homeschooling (PE, music, library visits, "specials") or nonsense you don't have to worry about (assemblies). So there's maybe a quarter of the day accounted for with _no_ allowances for faster and/or better-tuned pacing or more personalized instruction—poof, 90ish minutes of your day back, 180ish days a year, for 13 years, like magic. Self-pacing you fit it all that remains in 2 or 2.5 hrs, don't need more than minimal breaks so there's minimal padding to that time, and the rest of the day's yours.

Public school's _alarmingly_ wasteful of children's time, but saves parents a ton of time, collectively, in exchange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I was in college I would zone out in lecture and wait till I got home to do the homework because I was being graded on homework and exams, not how well I paid attention in class. Now I zone out in meetings because I don't think they're important and pine for the moment when I can go back to my desk and do my individual work. Homework trained me to behave disconnected, I don't known if it has stuck with me because I've been able to get away with it or because paying attention in meetings is unnecessary.

<comment><USER7> I have to give the "flipped classroom" model some credit: doing the "homework" IN "lecture", collaboratively and interactively, and having free time at home sure feels better than the conventional model.

The conventional one always seemed absurd to me: I have to go to school and then _continue_ being in school, mentally, AFTER school? Disassociation aside, it seems like that's training you for a 16-hour workday. How oppressive.

Maybe the flipped model can only support a lower cognitive ceiling though; I've never seen it applied to, say, calculus courses. Maybe hard enough material _does_ require constant, oppressive grinding. D: (Not that young kids should be doing that though.)

<comment><USER8> I had an incredible calc 1 and 3 teacher who would start the class with a problem that we'd work on for 20ish minutes. usually it was something just out of reach with where we were topically, or something that required us to use like basic geometry (which many of us were rusty on), and then we'd talk about it, ask questions, and he'd segue into a lecture where he'd connect the dots with what we were studying. I vaguely remember one was essentially to prove herons rule which we only had the tools to do from vanilla geometry, then he showed how it could be done with calculus.

Lectures were almost Socratic. We were only graded based on exams and participation, which I think he kind of arbitrarily awarded based on how engaged he thought you were.

Brilliant guy, loved his classes. He'd studied under a couple members of the Bourbaki group and headed the math department at one of the top math schools in Latin America.

Anyway, I had a great experience with this approach and I really think it's the best way to teach math.

<comment><USER9> I currently teach high school math and have been trying a similar approach, and received push back from every experienced educator I've encountered, but have been receiving great reviews from students (especially ones that have low math confidence). This post was really encouraging to me, thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER10> The best math teacher I ever had throughout all my schooling structured lessons that way. There'd be an introduction to a new topic, with problems we'd get a chance to work through alone then aftwards we'd all go through them together. That was pretty much the extent of the lecture part. Then we'd get an exercise to work on for the last half of the class that covered what we learned. The teacher was always extremely patient and would help everyone who needed it. Sometimes explaining the same thing over and over to different people without ever becoming frustrated. There was optional(but highly encouraged) homework if we wanted more practice. The teacher would be available for an additional tutoring session to work on the optional homework if people wanted it. We weren't graded on it. All our marks came from exams.

That class was really the first time a lot of concepts actually started to make sense for me and I went from being a pretty below average math student to having some of the highest marks in the class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know, I'm in a very international neighborhood and kids of immigrants are all spending extra time doing extra homework, and they have a near monopoly on the top scorers. So it obviously pays off. I don't know whether the argument against homework then is that it doesn't pay off in the long run (losing interest -- which my workplace is also very international and I see no indication of lost interest in learning), or that _assigned_ homework doesn't help but maybe private after-school classes do, or what, but I don't see any way you can make an argument that "just school" is enough if you want your kids to keep up.

<comment><USER12> Part of my job is hiring out for high performing teams. What I've noticed from 100s of candidates is that the high achieving kids of immigrants do well in university as well as school. However when faced with real world challenges, the more well rounded candidates (of which a large portion are the immigrants kids for sure) definitely produce the highest value in their work (orthogonal problem solving and communication). Hard to be well rounded when you're just doing a narrow set of training exercises after school. After school is for life

<comment><USER13> One problem with that is a well rounded candidates who dont get the best scores wont get entry into the best universities so will always be disadvantaged.

<comment><USER14> There are hundreds if not thousands of schools where a well rounded student can get a great education. Some parents and high schoolers fret about attending the top ten or so name brand universities far in excess of any plausible difference in educational or life outcomes.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I was about to say that too. I went to a no-name state school in the south. Now the young guys from cmu and other top schools work for me, I'm an engineering director. Certainly cmu is training top grads, but ... so are most state schools too. Certainly I was lucky and worked hard, but other than a star by your name if you went to a posh school, once you have a few years of experience it's not that valuable to be from cmu. What you do with yourself is far more important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Homework (and education in general) is a classic arms race, which produces an enormous waste of time and resources. Teachers hate it too.

Humans are not meant to be happy, but to survive. Only the paranoid do. We have to fight back when others are prepared to destroy their lives to compete. There will be no respite until the demographics change, and there is an educational economy of abundant opportunity, not scarcity and existential threat. Ironically, the emancipation and education of women is the only way to achieve this outcome.

When I was young (11-18) I did an insane amount of studying and other activities: private school, 6-day school week, Sat am lessons, 1hr each-way commute, 2-3hr homework per night, Tue pm military cadets, Mon&Thur sports training, Wed&Sat pm school sports matches, Sun county/region sport; school holidays included homework assignments, exam revision, military camps, expeditions, then pre-season sports camps; summer holidays would include part- time jobs, some retail and delivery gigs, but mostly farming and harvesting.

If you live in some parts of Asia, there are no school-age children to be seen on the streets, or in the shopping malls - they are all busy doing something all the time. There are education-malls filled with small outlets providing tutoring and lessons for every subject, from English, to math and piano.

I was recently looking at some business analysis for a traffic management project, including patterns of congestion. One comment was _"... the school buses start to build-up at 04:30-05:00 ..."_.

Luckily, kids are very resilient.

<comment><USER17> I don't see how "the emancipation and education of women" will work towards "abundant opportunity, not scarcity and existential threat".

If anything, the entry of women on the job market decades ago increased the supply side of the equation and competition. And whereas before one working adult could provide for a family, now it takes both of the adults working to provide for the same family.

<comment><USER16> I agree with your comment about women entering the workforce (note that I said _ironically_ ). It's another good example of an arms race. The equilibrium with just men working was unstable. As soon as some women start to work, the cost of property in particular starts to rise, then other women are forced to work to afford a mortgage.

(Property is often the constrained resource in the system, which means it captures most of the value from any beneficial change in the economy - e.g. _SV startups are ways for geeks to work hard transferring money from VCs to landlords_ ).

However, liberation of women from the home is a goal in itself, and part of the long run solution. When women are emancipated, legally and socially, with access to contraception and education, in a society with a base level of utilities and appliances in the home (or village), and just enough of a welfare system to ensure that children are not seen as a pension policy, then progress can be made towards the sunlit uplands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Feelings about homework might have non-obvious broader impacts.

Science education content is wretched. Current reform efforts like Common Core and NGSS barely scratch the surface. But still there's a lot of community opposition. Years ago, I had a long conversation with an anti-Core activist, exploring their perspective. It seemed their root cause was their child had found some Core-ish class too hard, and notably here, its homework. And thus a movement gained an activist, trying to prevent other children from suffering similarly. With science education reform as collateral damage.

Which isn't to say that current homework isn't as wretched as the underlying content and pedagogy.

</comment><comment><USER19> The Truth About Homework Needless Assignments Persist Because of Widespread Misconceptions About Learning By Alfie Kohn [https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/truth- homework/](https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/truth-homework/)

Research-Based Guidelines for Homework [https://effectiveforall.blogspot.com/2019/06/4-research- base...](https://effectiveforall.blogspot.com/2019/06/4-research-based- guidelines-for-homework.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> While parents whining about homework isn't new, what _is_ new is research beginning to pile up that homework doesn't help below a certain age.

I am, quite rightly I think, skeptical about most educational "research" (remember "new math"\--aka set theory?). However, educational research has gotten much better. And there are starting to be consensus answers that conventional psychological research seems to bear out that educational systems simply ignore.

What worked to create human inputs to an assembly line may be quite suboptimal for creating humans capable of functioning in a knowledge-based economy.

<comment><USER21> I do think homework helps but it should be once a week (maybe it is) and it should be something assigned on say Monday and due the next Monday so you have the weekend if you need it. You should also have opportunities in school to actually do the homework.. maybe homeroom was supposed to be where this was done? I also had kids in homeroom who had no interest in doing homework so it was more of a social hour. Or a zero period which doesn't necessarily have to be in the morning. Or there should be opportunities to do the homework in class. Homework should be more like work.. project based..

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I complained.

My kids would come home with multiple worksheets to do every night starting in 1st grade. Potentially a good hour or more of work depending on the child.

My understanding is the type of work they send home has not shown to be beneficial based on my wife's graduate work in early childhood education.

Fortunately the school district saw it that way too and such homework was no longer counted as far as grading goes in the early grades.

</comment><comment><USER23> I just didn't do my homework and teachers didn't care because my grades were excellent and I was active in class.

<comment><USER24> How did you manage to keep your grades excellent without doing your homework?!

<comment><USER25> I had several teachers in high school and college who would do things like homework could give you about a 10% boost in your grade (eg, from a C to a B), or you could just take your test scores. One class I vividly remember after every quiz/test the teacher would say something like "OK people, I'd like to tell you that you need to do your homework, so you can do well on the quizes, but [toast0] got the best score in the class, and didn't turn in any homework, so I can't; the rest of you, should do your homework though." That was high school chem; I did read the assigned texts, but I didn't bother to do most of the homework, because it was very repetitive, and I was doing just fine as-is; I can't remember if I would turn in the couple of problems I did do, or not even bother to write them down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There needs to be distinction between different types of homework. Most people probably envision worksheets, problem sets, and book summaries. These sorts of "busy work" are rightfully derided by activists and commenters in this thread.

However, my experience has been that more open-ended project-based learning is quite different. Things like science fair projects, making videos, and independently implementing math from class on programmable calculators engage students differently. Most students don't connect with every project, but it's a good way to feel out people's passions and harness them. When the student has agency in setting a concrete goal and deciding the specifics of how they spend their time, the material they are learning becomes a valued tool that saves them time and effort, rather than something being shoved down their throat.

I used to despise everything related to math because the curriculum kept it segregated from other disciplines, thus hiding it's utility. It wasn't until I was playing around with 3D modeling software for an art project that I really understood how useful trigonometry is. There is something psychological at play that makes it easier to learn something when it isn't the main focus of the activity, but a supporting element needed to achieve a self-defined goal.

<comment><USER11> Everybody is different. I never cared for rote but never cared for project oriented learning either. For me the preferable thing would be to skip all the busy work problems and go straight for the challenge problems. But most of my teachers graded such that challenge problems only counted if you did well enough on the busy work as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> As a parent from an educated family, whose own parents surely never complained about my or my siblings' homework, I was surprised to see how much other parents complain about homework.

It is a hard subject even to discuss because it is always approached as if homework requirements are, and should be, the same for students of all ages, even though nobody really expects it to be so. Nobody (in the USA anyway) expects children attending pre-school programs to get homework. At the same time, it's preposterous to think that university students would learn everything inside the classroom. So, sometime between pre-school and university, students should probably start getting homework. One possibility would be to start with a little and gradually increase the amount of outside work required. Then, however, you open the door to questions of how much and how soon, and everyone will have a different opinion.

One of the problems is that many people seem to conceive of education of children like filling a vessel: the students sit passively while the teacher fills their minds with knowledge through their eyes and ears. In fact, the most important things kids learn in school are skills, and the process is not unlike learning to play a sport or a musical instrument. As with all skill learning, practice is _required_. The important basic skills (e.g. "reading, writing, and arithmetic") especially need practice, and so do meta-skills like "how do I track and prioritize tasks that may not be due for days or weeks?" Also, work like reading, writing papers, and solving math problems can be done without the teacher present, so it's not a particularly good use of limited resources to ask the students to do that work when the teacher is present.

I find it ironic that many of the parents I know who complain about their students' homework load would blink not an eye at sending their kids to football, soccer, swimming, gymnastics, cheerleading, or whatever sports practice for hours every week, knowing that the kids have to practice "if they're gonna be any good."

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if the fifteen year cycle is impacted by students of the past generation rejecting what they faced moving on to positions of influence.

<comment><AUTHOR> You've just proposed something very much like the Strauss-Howe generational theory: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory)

<comment><USER28> The only real similarity is that both involve cycles. I'm guessing that both parents and educators routinely hated school as children, so pushed strongly in the other direction as adults. The timing is similar to the fifteen year period described.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Homework is crap. Let learning stay at school. Families are busy, have things to do. The complaints are obvious.</comment>


How Elite Business Recruiting Really Works - <AUTHOR> http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/285160/how-elite-business-recruiting-really-works-jim-manzi

<comment><USER2> Well there you go. That's why I'm not interested in finance/consulting.</comment>


Diving into Radare2 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.devit.co/diving-into-radare2/ <comment><USER2> radare2: The ed of reverse engineering.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would recommend that for posts like this you provide a simple one paragraph intro to radare2, since as someone who has never heard of it, I couldn't pick up its purpose from the article.

<comment><USER4> The first paragraph mentions he's going to use radare2 to reverse some shellcode and provides links to the official website and a comprehensive guidebook. You can lead a horse to water...

<comment><USER5> FYI, the link to the official site in the article is broken; it should be: [http://www.radare.org/](http://www.radare.org/)

A brief introduction usually prefaced with something along the lines of "In case you're not familiar with ..." or something like that is always appreciated!

(Also, since the author is asking for feedback [even though not specifically regarding this issue] I believe OP's comment is even more appropriate and helpful.)

<comment><USER6> Hey, I'm the author of the post (just found out someone linked it here). I've fixed the link to radare2.org now.. Can't believe I hadn't noticed that to be honest.

When I get home from work tonight I will add a short intro to r2, cheers for the feedback.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask PG: Is there a way to see "Ask" submissions over a certain number of points? - <AUTHOR>

For example, is there something like: http://news.ycombinator.com/ask/over?points=100
If not, would you be open to making that url work?
Thanks for everything. <comment><USER2> [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22ask+hn%2...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22ask+hn%22&sortby=points+desc)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>