My Little Sister Taught Me How to "Snapchat Like the Teens" - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/benrosen/how-to-snapchat-like-the-teens <comment><USER3> I am the very proud father of a 14yo girl whom I have turned into an teenaged IT guru over the years.

She learned to read at age 3 using the very well done "Cat In The Hat" desktop program, and since then I have turned her on to everything from Gmail at age 6 to Ableton at 12.

I've decided that Snapchat is where it ends for me/us last year...she needs something to be hers and her friends alone, without "Dad" poking is old-ass nose into things.

I think she really appreciates that I haven't bugged her about connecting and sharing on that platform, and I know deep down it was time.

But boy...do I sometimes miss that 6yo angel sending me cryptic "i luvu" via Gmail.

<comment><USER4> man this is scary for me, I'm about to have a baby girl (she already has a Gmail account), I know I'm far from the "dad doesn't get 'it'" phase, but it is still scary.

Do you have any tips to make this transition easy?

<comment><USER5> I have four kids...two in college now...the other two are on track to be in a few years...I get compliments on them all the time...

The number one piece of advice I can give you is to suspend any preconceptions you have, consciously or unconsciously, about the kind of person they will be...don't force them into some mold you have in mind for them...they will be separate and distinct beings from birth...treat them as such with as much love and guidance as you can muster...let them breathe...

Also: Expose them to as many things as possible, and let them choose the things that they want to follow up on...

Model good behavior, so they will see what good behavior looks like...point out good behavior to them as opportunities arise...

And hope luck is with you...

<comment><USER4> Thank you very much, and congratulations on raising great kids. I'm really looking forward to the time ahead, the first few years are really fun - <USER2> is the time when you as a parent (or uncle/aunt) are a superhero to the child, you can do no wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a video game for her. She doesn't look at the photos in the morning, she just responds to keep the chain going. It's like grinding. She has a score, tries to improve it, get trophies, new equipment (I mean filters), etc.

<comment><USER7> Yet Another Skinner Box.

EDIT: At least SpaceX and Tesla won the Crunchies instead of junk like Snapchat.

<comment><USER8> I'll stick with Neko Atsume.

<comment><USER9> Mm. Such a fun game. Gotta get all the cats...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's product placement. He namedrops "Treller" and "VSCO". The article isn't "How to upgrade your style", it "How to become a Snapchat user." Even his conclusion is "I'll try more", just like you tell yur teacher when you've failed and you know you'll fail again. I don't doubt the person is authentic, but I wonder how much he has worked with BuzzFeed to tune the article.

Still, 1. Snapchat's design is _remarkable_ for its hidden features that you discover by social-networking, and 2. it's a much more interesting, funny, interactive press release _presenting the features of a product_ than any other start-up I've seen. Next product video I make, I'll make it this way.

<comment><USER11> VSCO is definitely a phenomenon amongst teenagers, regardless of the product placement possibilities in the article. I'd actually have rather seen an article on that, because I find it fascinating that a service _without_ any of the Skinner-box gratification buttons ("like" "retweet" "share" "comment") has taken off in such a big way.

<comment><USER12> VSCO has a rather large following among the prosumer crowd, most of the Apple "Shot on the iPhone 6" ads mention VSCO and a photographer friend of mine uses it on his iPad with his 5D on the go. While I haven't used it myself, its certainly been name checked quite a bit and its success is largely due to it being a more empowered Instagram on the photography side.

<comment><USER13> I know pro photographers who use VSCO to edit their iPhone shots to upload to Instagram, as the tools are so much more powerful than IG's own. It's a great app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's amazing that at age 22 I've already seemingly "aged-out" of being an early adopter/power user of new social media (not that Snapchat is new, but I use it maybe once or twice a day and I've never even heard of "Triller" and "VSCO"). My 15 year old sister is always rolling her eyes telling me how to "correctly" use my existing social media apps and I've never heard of most of the new apps she's into.

<comment><USER15> I didn't know how to use Facebook when I was 18, so don't feel too bad. We grew up on IRC and PHPBB, social networks of fundamentally different make than the ones in use now.

Plus, you are (were) one of the dorks and your sister is one of the cool kids. The two groups have noticeably different modes of socialising.

<comment><USER16> There was for a brief period what I like to call the "wild west" of the web. All just shitty phpBB and whatnot boards for every topic. There was no concept of social media. I genuinely got to know the people, mods, smods, gmods, admins, superadmins (the list of "positions" was always comically long and induced great drama on most communities). I visited many of those people I formed connections with online, in person. I feel like social media has swallowed the people from these communities and created large "highways" instead of communities.

Facebook groups just aren't the same. There's something comforting knowing it was "just some fucking guy" hosting the website for fun.

<comment><USER17> I think that kind of cultural expression is something we need to protect and keep alive.

A future when all of our communities, all of our social interactions, are routed two a small amount of services hosted by great companies is one I don't look forward to.

That kind of thing - just setting something up for the hell of it, and slowly building a community, or a group of friends that way - to me it's very special.

<comment><USER18> I remember when I first encountered BBSes (mid to late 80s). Dialing into a slew of local systems and enlarging my social circle. Then there was the Internet and many of my former BBS social circle were deriding it, saying it didn't have that community feel.

I remember when I first encountered USENET (early 90s). Reading scores of USENET groups and enlarging my social circle, even going to far as to go to a yearly meeting one group held for several years. Then there was the World Wide Web that everything was being funneled in to. Most of the USENET crowd I was with were deriding it, saying it didn't have that community feel.

I remember when I first encountered Slashdot (late 90s). Reading score of comments on trending topics and again, enlarging my social circle. Then there was Digg and many on Slashdot were deriding that, saying it didn't have that community feel ...

<comment><USER16> That's all well and good but we've hit the top. Neither of those were billion dollar corporations.

<comment><USER18> I also remember when no one could get fired for buying IBM, and when no one could get fired for buying Microsoft. Both were also (and still are) billion dollar corporations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm in Seattle, so maybe I'm biased -- but many of my friends and I from 20s to 30s all enjoy Snapchat. The moments are real, time-limited, don't require a reply, aren't faked by filters, and aren't a popularity contest. That makes it a huge improvement over every other social network we use.

It's by far the easiest way to share a picture or moment with friends -- a photo is worth 1000 words and the location/time/velocity overlays add a lot of context. In many ways it's actually one of the most mature popular social networks -- it clearly learned from earlier social network attempts. I don't have to be "cool" to anyone but the relevant people to whom I send a snap.

It feels private enough -- hot girls like to use it and that will get anyone on any platform/club/bar/social location. Sorry to all of you who are using other slower, more ad-ridden networks and missing out.

<comment><USER12> Maybe I'm living in a bubble, but since when has SMS been a painful experience for messaging? If I'm texting whoever, whenever, I can send a snap and I have the bonus of not having to take a picture for every text I send. Plus in the days of modern texting, I use Messages from my computer which makes life even more pleasant as at work I'm able to keep in touch with friends/family without even glancing at my phone. I never have to worry if they're on a network with SMS.

<comment><USER19> MMS for picture messaging:

* picture quality sucks

* not ephemeral

* requires multiple clicks (snapchat is just one button)

* difficult to BCC (snapchat sending is ALL bcc, which is _awesome_ )

* doesn't work well from country to country (if at all -- but getting snaps from my international friends is really really cool and works the same as local)

* no easy way to send video

* expects a reply

* is awkward to send in the middle of the night (snapchat is 100% non-emergency and just flashes the notification light)

* can't be sure anyone ever got it (snapchat forces read receipts)

*... the list is long.

<comment><USER20> Half of those are not true on iOS

<comment><USER21> That's because it isn't MMS. It's Apple's proprietary messaging system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I consider myself an early-adopter. I always try to at least test out new technology, especially if it's what "the kids" are using. But with Snapchat I had a strong reaction of "this is dumb, screw this, I'm too old for this". Plus, no one I knew used it. I guess that makes me old now.

<comment><USER23> I didn't get it until literally this past Sunday. I've always had it installed on my phone, and have maybe ~10 friends on it, but I never actually sent anything. I would occasionally receive a snapchat from my friend, I would chuckle, and that was the end of it.

This Sunday my wife took my phone and just took a silly picture of ourselves during the Super Bowl and sent it to everyone on my list. Within minutes, I was getting a response from pretty much everyone, some people I haven't even talked to in months, and it was fun and made us laugh! I had the dumbest epiphany of my life. It's really just a fast, dumb way to communicate. That's it. Maybe I'll actually use it more now

<comment><USER24> I tried to use it, but I realized a core component was taking out my phone and snapping a pic in public. Using my phone in public makes me socially anxious (feel like I'm "part of the problem"), so I don't see a world where I can really snapchat.

<comment><USER25> Ah, social anxiety.

Nobody cares what you do in public.

<comment><USER24> I do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What in holy blazes, 60 gigabytes in a month just for one fucking stupid app?

1) what carrier does that girl have? And at what cost? With German internet prices, we'd look at a 500€ per month alone for data, not to mention other data using apps, calls, SMSes...

2) what the fuck, I use Netflix at home quite regularly and rarely exceed 50 GByte (I'm on a 50/5 VDSL so it isn't a lack of speed) of traffic. How many billions of crappy front cam selfies can be shared in 60 GB of data?

<comment><USER27> > 60 gigabytes in a month just for one fucking stupid app?

And they don't even look at the pictures!

<comment><USER28> maybe snapchat should take note and send a 100byte version first with progressive improvement if the image is visible for more than 0.8 seconds (or whatever the threshold is).

<comment><USER29> Facebook does this for cover photos [https://code.facebook.com/posts/991252547593574/the- technolo...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/991252547593574/the-technology- behind-preview-photos/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's interesting to hear everyone saying 'ah, I'm too old for Snapchat'. At face value I feel that way too, but I think there's something more going on here.

Snapchat strikes me as a really unique modality. It's not really a message type that we can draw some kind of lineage back to PARC or Bell Labs or whatever. Slack follows a familiar pattern of 'oh yeah, that's just like IRC and they had those running on Altos a million years ago'. SMS, yeah that's just chat. And so on...

Was there a Snapchat equivalent back in the dark ages of networked computers? Not that I'm familiar with (although I'd love to see an example). I think that fact points to a meaningful difference between the computer that's in your hand or your pocket all the time and the 'workstation' that's on your desk. A computer that's always with you can deliver different kinds of messages and project different kinds of presence from other people you know. I hope Snapchat is just the beginning of this.

Snapchat doesn't have some kind of physical equivalency like a book or a note on the fridge. I don't think appreciating that is necessarily pegged to age, but more to openness. Snapchat is just legitimately unfamiliar and unusual. From afar, I think that's great.

<comment><USER31> Seems kind of like Zwrite: text-only, ephemeral messages. It was just text that appeared in your terminal session. My friends and I used it in (engineering) grad school in the late 90's.

Good god, there's still a manual online: [http://web.stanford.edu/group/privacyproject/currentStateUni...](http://web.stanford.edu/group/privacyproject/currentStateUnixAndZephyr.html)

"They have no control over what text the message replaces, but can always press the key combination control-L to restore their screen."

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> My close friend in her mid-20s is teaching a journalism class to high school students, using SnapChat. I've been fascinated by the student's perspective. They all use Snapchat.

One of the most interesting responses I heard what that Snapchat was what they used to connect with people they didnt know too well, but wanted to stay in touch with. For example, if they meet someone, but dont know them too well, they would exchange Snapchat information. It is literally like Facebook was for the last generation.

<comment><USER33> Because facebook is full of companies and old people.

Snapchat is not about snapchat, it is about having a space to themselves.

<comment><USER34> And ten years from now, the kids are going to want to have a space for themselves, after all the companies and old people are on Snapchat.

<comment><USER35> It looks like anyone can create new myspace, facebook, snapchat, twitter, instagram, ... as long as they time it right with the previous one running out of steam and make it faster to interact with. I'm not sure what can be faster than snapchat though - live stream?

<comment><USER36> Has to be something that lets you fix it up and present your "best self"; looking cooler then you really are in a critical component of any social network.

<comment><USER37> Maybe, but sharing your intimate, ugly, unrefined, front-camera-self seems to have appeal on Snapchat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> These young people are addicted to their phones and snapchat.

Later on in life, when they 'grow out' of snapchat, they will replace the addiction with something else - some other app, but also food, drugs or sex.

Whatever thing they will find interesting, they will pursue it with the same pattern that they learn with these apps / games.

This future generation will have to find a way to live with all this addictive technology and survive in the real world.

Might well be that Snapchat (and others) will be looked at as we're now looking at cigarettes.

<comment><USER39> We're all addicted to a million things (by this definition of addiction)

It's only negative when that becomes a problem somehow in your life.

It's not even clear to me that we'd be better off with a fully mindful approach to every pleasure and activity.

What is unhealthy though, is disparaging everything other people enjoy. Especially when you don't have the courage to say "I don't like it" but couch your disapproval in terms of concern for their "addictions"

<comment><USER40> it sounds to me from reading that article that her use of it is somewhat problematic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The more things change the more things stay the same...reading this tip:

> _BROOKE: Don't Snapchat boys that you like first — wait until they Snapchat > you._

Reminded me of the movie All About Eve (1950), when Bill says: "What I go after, I want to go after. I don't want it to come after me. Don't cry. Just score it as an incomplete forward pass."

...and of course, everything else in past and modern Western culture that advises women to be the chased.

[1] [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/All_About_Eve](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/All_About_Eve)

</comment><comment><USER42> I think our distaste for this obvious misdirection of human attention goes beyond mere "kids these days" prejudice. SV startups,"social," "interconnectedness," this nonsense is creating an asinine, infantilized generation: easily manipulated, desperate for social acceptance, incapable of independent thought, and entirely beholden to the whims of mainstream society. This cutesy "adult finds himself going with the flow" motif just further normalizes this endless, pathetic pattern of adults emulating children. Barack Obama and Matt Lauer are taking selfies!? Enough.

<comment><USER43> I think no generation has really seen their criticism of the new generation as "kids these days" prejudice. If they did think that, they wouldn't say the words with such conviction. But, that is kinda what it looks like, right?

<comment><USER42> Perhaps this line of thinking is why many adults of today let the kids run rampage while matters of immediate importance to them go unattended. It is often difficult for a thinking person to admit to a sense of certainty, but at the risk of seeming to exclude myself from that group, I have to say that I believe this is a sheer waste of time, and almost certainly an intellectually destructive one. It is not necessarily that the kids ought to find another form of leisure, but that the amount of time and energy dedicated to this activity is unreasonable. And unlike some forms of leisure, this one bears no fruit. In the years to come, I think there will be few able to say that much of their time devoted to SnapChat and other such platforms was well spent.

<comment><USER44> "And unlike some forms of leisure, this one bears no fruit."

Increased connection with peers, for one. It's incredibly easy to network now. I'm young, and wasn't around for what you're looking back on as the good old days, but I disagree that there is no value to being able to send a one off "look what I'm doing" to a friend.

<comment><USER45> "Increased connection with peers, for one. It's incredibly easy to network now."

Is it, really? The girl in this article basically doesn't even _LOOK_ at the pictures. The "conversation" is effectively: "Look at what I'm doing" "I don't care what you're doing" "Look at what I'm doing" "I don't care what you're doing" That doesn't seem like "increased connection".

But, this is also what I expect from a 13 year old.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> It's amazing how much our priorities change as we move through life.

Once we've experienced quantity, quality gains importance. Simultaneously, our need for social acceptance might not diminish, but it becomes far more refined.

Enlightening article.

</comment><comment><USER47> Youth is wasted on the young.

I've loved video games since I was about 7. I've made a good living off of video games.

In my thirties, I never once thought "Man, I wish I'd spent _more_ time playing video games in my twenties."

Now, as I turn 40, I wonder how different my life would have been if I'd spent more time doing other things, instead of playing video games.

The process of aging is impossible to convey fully, but it's fascinating to be on the other side, having lived the transition.

<comment><USER48> > Now, as I turn 40, I wonder how different my life would have been if I'd > spent more time doing other things, instead of playing video games.

Do you mind sharing what these other things are, specifically? Thanks!

<comment><USER47> 1\. Playing fewer video games in university, and focusing more on studying so that I didn't fail my final year. I started university three years early, which has opened doors, but having a degree would have opened more. Also, paying more attention to electromagnetics and thermodynamics.

2\. Continuing to train for Tennis. You really can get too old to do this at an elite level. I love training, and I love being in the zone: perceiving / acting / crushing the opposition. Sport is a natural fit for my attention, physicality, and aggression, whereas long-term projects are more of an uphill battle.

3\. More travel, although I'm not really that interested in individual people, so perhaps it would have been wasted. To the extent that I'm interested in other people now, it's to figure out what they know that I don't know and how they acquired that knowledge or experience.

Don't get me wrong. My life is pretty sweet, but I do have regrets. It's more that I'm realizing the difference between turning 30 and turning 40. At 30 you can pretty much do everything you could do in your twenties. At 40, doors are closing, esp. regarding physical injuries and recuperation.

I just kind of always assumed that I'd have a PhD by 25, be a concert pianist, a professional tennis player, and a software millionaire. I've had brushes with each, but so far no completion. Boo fucking hoo, right? Unrealistic expectations.

<comment><USER48> Thanks so much for sharing. At 25, I've been feeling a teeny tiny version of that (I had a lot of free time in my teenage years that I frittered away, and wish I had spent it developing skills). But I realize that 10, 20 years from now I'm going to look at today the same way, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'm laughing at all the people that "feel old". This kid is 13! Literally a child. If you're in your late 20's or 30's, you're not old, you're just not a child anymore. Snapchat is nothing that new. It's just communicating with your friends in a different way that before was not possible. It's like texting on steroids. I don't see the big deal, and I definitely don't like the fact that you can't save them. What's the point of data if you can't save it? What if you capture a truly awesome moment? I'm sure they'll come around at some point and add the option to save snaps within a certain timeframe.

<comment><USER44> "What's the point of data if you can't save it? What if you capture a truly awesome moment?"

You can download your own snaps from the app within 24 hours if you posted it to your story (which you probably did).

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> "Parents don't understand. It's about being there in the moment."

In WHAT moment? That moment when someone snapchats a snapchat for the sake of snapchatting?

Hey, I have a 14yo son who texts like a maniac and never takes his earbuds out of his ears. He has hundreds of thousands of views on his G+ profile, which is the thing him and his friends are all over. But lately they've moved to Facebook because they follow their favorite Bands' pages.

It's so confusing.

If our parents wanted to know what was going on in our lives, they quietly picked up the other phone on the land-line in the house and eavesdropped.

Now, we have to snoop and lurk on our kids' social profiles, or try to sneak a peak at their texts when their phones buzz.

<comment><USER51> "being there in the moment" = dopamine squirts

<comment><USER52> being there in the moment = social pressure to fit in and participate in shared rituals

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> There's a school of thought that says that people use apps like this not to follow the pleasure principal, but that these platforms provide a brief escape from the neurotransmitters asdociated with anxiety that make us feel bad (1). This actually okay Buzzfeed article (who knew?) pretty much confirms that, only the thesis is distorted by the sample group being excitable teenage girls.

Seeing the film Boyhood reminded me of how fluid your identity is at this age. I think these teens will discard Snapchat forms of communication in a few years, as you change so much in this window. (1) [http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features- issue-...](http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue- sections/15708/addicting-apps-mobile-technology-health/)

</comment><comment><USER54> I actually caught a glimpse of this behavior a few weeks ago. I was sitting next to a kid who was maybe around 16 years old snapchatting to his friends that our flight was about to depart. He must have taken around 20 selfies, each with a series of seemingly nonsensical emoji's in the span of 3 minutes.

I was staring dumbfoundedly the entire time. It blew my mind, and made me realize how out of touch I am in my 27 years of age.

<comment><USER55> Hm. If you are 27 like myself, you were around for MySpace which was just as bad selfie-wise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is pretty stupid. Teens aren't the trendsetters, they're the early adopters. Teens follow their older siblings who are the true trend setters. There's no way a 13 year old determines whats popular, it is older 18-30 cool people who are the true trend setters. Rappers and pop icons for the most part, there are no 13 year old pop icons.

<comment><USER57> This was my thought the whole way through.. He's treating this teen like he needs to be more like her. It sounds like she's wasting her life while simultaneously wasting her friends' lives. There's no gain to this..

<comment><USER58> > It sounds like she's wasting her life while simultaneously wasting her > friends' lives.

It sounds like you spent more time writing this comment than she did to respond to all of her friend's snaps from the night before. Heroin is a waste of a life; Snapchat is just a distraction, and a minor one at that.

<comment><USER59> A distraction where continued use is necessary for your friendships to remain in place. That mediates social status among young people. While they learn how to interact with other people in social situations.

So ... no, not just a distraction. Just a new thing we haven't seen the outcome of yet (besides some evidence of a large increase in narcissism and a drop in empathy).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Best buzzfeed article I've ever read. Might even be the best UX user story I've ever read. Talk about finding an evangelist of your product to talk about what they like/don't like.

</comment><comment><USER61> Eyes opening. How I felt old in my 20s just by reading an article :(

<comment><USER62> Snapchat is the first (and likely not the last) mobile app that I (as someone in my late 20's) just "don't get".

There have been plenty of apps that I've tried and aren't for me so I've uninstalled them, but I always seem to understand their purpose and what makes them unique and _desirable_ to use for someone who isn't me. Snapchat on the other hand...is a mystery.

<comment><USER63> I'm in my mid-20's now, and I got it at first, though I didn't use it. Thr point a few years ago was it was a "secure" and "private" place to share with your friends, thanks to the ephemeral nature.

But over the last 18 months they've pushed towards a more broad social graph and more public nature and I just don't understand it. It's Instagram with some time-limit's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Just to make clear, most teens are NOT this active. Being one and being that most of my friends are still in high school, I'd estimate 1 in 10 are as active as this girl is with snapchat. As far as texting goes, yeah about 1 out of 2 are constantly texting including myself, but it's all to fight boredom. Boredom in school, boredom watching TV. It's like ADD but everyone has it.

But for snapchat, most people are in the 20,000-40,000 range, with some up to 200,000 and some down to 2,000, haven't seen any above or below that.

</comment><comment><USER65> > BROOKE: OMG!! 30?? Only NARPs have less than 150. > ME: What the hell is a > NARP? > BROOKE: Nonathletic Regular Person. NARP.

Wow, I feel old.

<comment><USER66> Checking urban dictionary, seems to be mostly language of the jock/lacrosse crowd (or at least originated there). Perhaps reflects more on his sister's particular social circle than the view of teens in general. Wouldn't know, I'm "old" too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> On an semi-related note:

Some of this sounds exactly like Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story".

The way the girls talk to themselves and about other people, it's incredible a 40-year-old Russian male to capture female American teenagers so well.

</comment><comment><USER68> I feel even older. Here I thought people used snapchat just for sending naked photos. The headline for this article made me cringe.

</comment><comment><USER35> So what they're saying is that there are people uploading 60GB data of faces of the same person every month? How does snapchat not have the best face recognition algorithm by now? Even facebook doesn't have so many samples.

<comment><USER69> Well they kind-of do.

If you have ever used snapchat, they have these strange face-tracking filters, for example one of the most known is the "barf rainbows", where if it detects you've opened your mouth, it aligns rainbows coming out of it, and enlarges your eyes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I never really understood how snapchat works. I don't know anyone on it, how do I add people? The only snaps I got were from the Snapchat Team itself.

<comment><USER71> \- Add people from your contacts: swipe down from the main screen -> add friends

\- Add people by username: celebrities often post their username on other social networks, you can find aggregate lists

\- Add people by "snapcode": hold the camera over someone else's phone while they display their snapcode, your snapcode is the yellow QR code thing you see when you swipe down from the main screen

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> It felt nice when you had to physically meet a person to exchange the latest meme. The physical vicinity adds so much quality to the social experience. I cannot talk to friends the same way over char or even the phone than in person, it just feels weird.

<comment><USER73> _Is that how it was before the Internet, grandpa?_

> It felt nice when you had to...

Said every aging generation ever, I mean, the last part of that sentence could be any of (read a book|sit down and listen to the radio|watch broadcast television) and someone out there reminisces fondly of the better, simpler times.

<comment><USER74> Characteristically, Brooks in the `Mythical Man Month' has no nostalgia for bringing your program in punch cards to the data center, and sees timesharing as an unalloyed good.

(I think it's because the bad old days were still very fresh in memory when he wrote the essays.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Obligatory:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0wTtiJygY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0wTtiJygY)

I am definitely having this moment right now.

</comment><comment><USER76> I feel like these days teens are less tech savvy than people my age (30s). My siblings in law 14-16and they can't craft effective google searches to save their lives.

</comment><comment><USER77> The thing that stuck out to me was the girl that used 60GB of mobile data, and that even the girl he was interviewing said that bandwidth was a major issue. Depending on her friend's parents' data plan, 60GB could easily result in a bill of over $1,000. It makes me wonder a) if Snapchat is compressing as aggressively as they should, and b) if an in-app mobile bandwidth meter might make simiar apps more competitive.

<comment><USER78> Thought about that too, but then, as the girl in the article suggests, its not the excessive bandwidth use that is the problem ... teh real prob is that parents just dont understand, its all about living in the moment.

Im sure that silly old Daddy, once he got his head around that simple concept, could just appreciate it for what it is, and stop stressing out over some stupid bill. He is just missing the whole point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Good lord, why would you want to?

I actually have a snapchat account that I set up to see what was going on at the college near me (public curated "college" story that was being locally advertised for a while), and I have been known to poke around on Minecraft servers on slow evenings when I don't want to think.

That said, the very thought of interacting with any teens actively using snapchat gives me the heebie jeebies in a huge and ugly way. It'd be hard to overstate my desire to not interact with anyone that age on snapchat or really anything else that involves video or photos.

Even without the concerns about avoiding anything that can be even perceived as skeevy, I have absolutely nothing except some demographic elements (country, race, have been known to play stupid video games) in common with snapchatters, and aside from adding in the family element it sounds like neither does the writer. So, unless I'm trying to market to them (which has its own skeeviness factor) it's like wrestling a greased pig - lots of annoyance and nobody's having any fun there.

</comment><comment><USER80> 40 replies in a minute? The app is so slow it takes like 3 to 5 seconds to even display each snap, and this is on a top-of-the-line phone.

</comment><comment><USER81> This is terrifying.

</comment><comment><USER82> I am now 40. Reading this article, I felt like an anthropologist observing an alien civilization. So many questions.

</comment><comment><USER83> I wish people wouldn't make all these age-based assumptions. When I was 12, I was already disgusted at the indulgent addictions to superficial social shit that my peers did. I'm sure if I were 20 years younger today, my feelings about this nonsense wouldn't be any different.

<comment><USER84> But you weren't part of the majority of your peers. The generalization is about the majority.

<comment><USER83> Right, but I'm not part of the majority now either. The majority of older adults are still into superficial crap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Snapchat is a surprisingly great platform. I'm 23 so I guess I'm pushing the target audience, but all my friends and I use it, and it's probably made keeping in touch with them about 1000x easier.

It's just so simple. It takes sending photos down to its very base level.

</comment><comment><USER86> I wish I had snapchat when I was growing up instead of just AIM! It's one of the new messaging platforms that I am excited about because it introduces a new (mostly visual) means of communication.

</comment><comment><USER87> "This is a personal, non-sponsored post by a member of BuzzFeed's ad content team."

Um, so it's an ad for SnapChat that SnapChat didn't pay for...or not an ad by a guy on the "ad content team"? If it's the latter why mention it at all (or simply say "this is not an advertisement"). The convoluted language makes me think it is an ad. Anyway...

Yes, tweens are very prolific social media users...they're practically born with the skills in their blood. Ten-year olds are skilfully filming, producing and editing videos, and uploading them to YouTube, that leave people in their 30s and up speechless.

The generations that came of age before about 1998 to 2000ish, when the Internet and digital technology started becoming ubiquitous and taught in schools, are still somewhat baffled by even basic technology. Example...during a dinner in 2014 that included my sister and her boyfriend (who are both in their mid-30s) he notices the customized icon arrangement and screen flip effects on my phone (iPhone, jailbroken) and asks if he can do that on his phone. I ask him if he'd bought an iPhone (I remembered him having a Windows phone) and he says no, pulls out his Lumia and starts fiddling with it. After a moment he asks "so what do I have to do to get that effect?" and I say "that's a Windows phone, isn't it?"..."I think so, but I can jailbreak it, right?"..."jailbreaking is an iPhone thing, I don't think there's a Windows phone equivalent..."oh, it won't work if it's Windows?"..."um, no, you need an iPhone but if you have an Android device you can root it and install customs ROMs which is sort of like jailbreaking"...."cool so I can install Android on this phone (Lumia), right?"... _facepalm_

Later that evening my sister (who is much more tech savvy than her boyfriend and an advanced social media user) notices that my headphones are cordless. "I never noticed those headphones before, I hate tangled cords etc. "..."yeah Bluetooth is pretty handy"..."is it included with your plan?"..."is what included?"..."the Bluetooth service"..."it's built into the device and...wait, you thought there was an extra charge for using Bluetooth?" "no, um, I was just wondering" _facepalm_

They are both educated, fairly worldly, middle-class. She has a Masters (arts) and worked at a law firm and he was finishing his PhD (arts). Oh, and they were both surprised to learn they can listen to mp3s on their Windows and Android devices.

I've met other "older" people who are absolutely clueless about basic features and options on their computers and devices (e.g. getting rid of the annoying bloatware that comes pre-installed on off-the-shelf Windows machines, blocking browser ads, connecting and configuring peripherals) but their level of ignorance really surprised me.

I've since noticed a sharp contrast in tech literacy between people who graduated or left high school before the Internet exploded and those who were introduced to it in school. For so-called digital natives like the author's sister, and my 14 year-old cousin, the line between what used to be called real life and social media has dissolved and fully integrating social media into their day-to-day lives comes almost naturally. It's not a new thing...it just is and they use it at an intuitive level...and expect new platforms to emerge and features to continually evolve.

Interesting times for the human animal...

</comment><comment><USER88> Justin Kan made a post a month ago on the virtues of Snapchat's complexity: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859860](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859860)

I'll echo the comment I made there that I am concerned that the teenage-focus will be the lesson startups take away from Snapchat, and that might lead to usability regression for apps as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER89> I read a lot of "I'm feeling old now." Interesting, because you should be feeling like the fucking Indiana Jones compared to the little drones parents are raising today. This is just very very sad. I'd love to actually comment something constructive about this article but it absolutely blows my mind that parents are OK with all of this.

<comment><USER90> Get off this guy's lawn, you guys!

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> I don't understand why anyone would want to be "good at Snapchat". We, as adults, must agree this thing is stupid.

</comment><comment><USER92> NPR did a segment on Instagram that sounds an awful lot like this. See Act One of "Status Update": [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/573/s...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/573/status-update)

</comment><comment><USER93> Fortunate are the parents who can live around these new creatures that consume data without actually assimilating anything. I remember I used to feel really guilty when I played nintendo for hours and hours, discovering levels and fighting bosses. Today, I compare it to this...and I feel a little smarter.

<comment><USER94> That a bit elitist. But I bet our parents felt the same way about us in front of our video screens and their newspapers.

<comment><USER93> They might have yes. But tell me with honesty which of the two activities is emptier.

<comment><USER95> Well, IMHO, when you are playing Nintendo you are just consuming and Snapchat involves creating, so...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> Is this the behavior of the average snapchat user or that of a power user? That's the key question.

<comment><USER97> Judging from the article, I'd lean heavily toward the latter. Nobody I've seen uses it this much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Well, that was eye-opening. I honestly thought Snapchat was only used to sext off pics of naughty bits.

<comment><USER99> That's what I thought, too. I thought the core feature was 'self destructing messages/photos'.

I also presumed that a dedicated power user could preserve said photos forever, so I immediately wrote the whole thing off.

<comment><USER84> > I also presumed that a dedicated power user could preserve said photos > forever, so I immediately wrote the whole thing off.

Same here. One of the girls also describes how to screenshot the app without the other user being notified. It's doubtful that most teens sexting using the app are unaware of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> This is crazy. Just crazy. 60gb. SIXTY. I probably send one snap once a week and I'm 26 so not really old.

Is this really the new generation? Wasting data usage for pictures you don't really look at?

</comment><comment><USER101> Being a teen seems like a lot more work than it used to be :(

</comment><comment><USER102> One of the better things I've read on BuzzFeed before...if not the best. I can finally wrap my head around what is Snapchat.

<comment><USER103> :) That was funny, you made my day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> The super evil thing is how the feds or whomever has a ridiculously rich facial recognition dataset being served on a silver platter

</comment><comment><USER105> This makes me feel old, but I really can't understand Snapchat's interface.

</comment><comment><USER106> I'm so terribly worried this might not be satire.

</comment><comment><USER107> Does Snapchat have any revenue? If so, how?

<comment><USER108> [http://www.businessinsider.com.au/snapchat-is-on-track-to- ge...](http://www.businessinsider.com.au/snapchat-is-on-track-to- generate-100-million-in-revenue-2015-10) is pretty insightful. Ads, sponsored filters, and users can now purchase filters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> Damn, I'm 20 and I already feel old.

</comment><comment><USER110> So snapchat is their email.

</comment><comment><USER111> Mayfly comes to mind...

</comment><comment><USER112> holy shit i'm thankful that i barely missed being that generation.

</comment><comment><USER113> I spend all time online and don't even know what is snapchat...

</comment><comment><USER114> A Buzzfeed article? On Hacker News? I never thought I'd see the day.

</comment><comment><USER115> I am thinking about community managers and how they would be able to engage anyone who just collects snap at lightspeed...

</comment><comment><USER116> Wow. Buzzfeed on HN.

This article is quite interesting to read, but I still hate to use Snapchat.

</comment><comment><USER117> This article is totes orthogonal in awesomeness to the usual stuff on this site. Enjoyed it a lot.

</comment><comment><USER118> The most damning thing about Snapchat:

ME: I've seen how fast you do these responses… How are you able to take in all that information so quickly?

BROOKE: I don't really see what they send. I tap through so fast. It's rapid fire.

I closed the tab at that moment. That alone proved Snapchat has no relevancy to anyone, and is a waste of time and money.

<comment><USER119> 99% of people don't use Snapchat this way, at least from my experience

<comment><USER120> Can confirm. Score of > 30k.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER121> I'm going to say this. This is fucking dumb, and a huge waste of time. It's orders of magnitude dumber than watching funny cat pictures for hours.

There are so many interesting things around us. If you want to be creative, you have options. If you want to connect with people and have a meaningful conversation, you have options. If you want something funny, you have options. Etc, etc, etc.

These teenagers are literally wasting their life on bullshit.

/rant over

</comment><comment><USER122> This probably isn't the best place for this response and I sincerely apologize in advanced for my crude response but... BuzzFeed and this type of social media can fucking kill itself, I believe there is no place for this on HN.</comment>


Pandora Files To Go Public - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/11/pandora-files-to-go-public/ <comment><USER2> I think Pandora is a good company to buy because they have superior technology. I pay the $30 or so for the annual subscription to get unlimited listening and no ads. I have tried other services like this but I always come back to Pandora. I have read several articles that talk about the techniques they use to define a "station" and I think it is pretty solid.

It is my understanding that they have hired musicians to listen to each of the songs they stream then rate each one according to dozens of factors. The factors include things like "acoustic guitar", "strong melody", "high studio production values", "gritty vocals", etc etc. Then they are able to do some kind of cluster analysis on that dataset. So that if you put in "Stone Roses" you hear music from that band but then others that have a similar sound.

I find about 2 or 3 new bands that I really like every week. I have actually started buying CDs again.

<comment><USER3> They actually train their people in music theory, because they pull the music apart and list a few hundred features. Depending on the genre, there are different lists of musical features that might differentiate the songs.

This is what makes Pandora unique from Last.fm, or Ping, or other "social" music discovery sites. Instead of recommending songs according who likes them, it learns what kind of music you like. It looks across genres and artists to the actual musical features of each song.

<comment><USER4> I don't know whether this has changed, but years ago when I worked there, the music analyst jobs required that you already know some music theory. (The training is to learn their system.) It's a good day job for musicians.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This company is almost entirely investor owned. Geez.

It's been saved from the brink of death so many times, the actual employees and founders really aren't going to get a tremendous windfall for their efforts.

<comment><USER6> At least they will get something which is better than if they didn't let investors save it. A quick look seemed to reveal they had pretty high salaries though so it's not all bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't get Pandora in Canada (unless I use a proxy), so I don't really know how it works. I was struck when I read:

"About 86 percent of Pandora's revenues ($78 million) comes from advertising, the rest ($12 million) comes from subscriptions."

which made me think, wow, Pandora is kind of like a newspaper, magazine, or cable TV network!

<comment><USER8> Pandora commands higher than average ad rates. Remnant (which is bargin basement inventory) is somewhere around $5cpm and I don't think they sell to networks for display to keep demand high. It's actually hard to get inventory there unless you are a premium buyer. For those of you who don't know or care much about online ads, all this basically means is that almost every other publisher (Huffpost, whatever) would kill to Pandora's rates. The fact that they aren't incredibly profitable shows how tough the business is. God knows how Grooveshark makes any money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't know much about the market/strategy behind IPOs. Is it a good idea to IPO if you just lost ~$325k?

I assume they have intelligent reasons behind the IPO - can someone explain the rationale?

<comment><USER10> The article states they lost $328k on revenues of $90M for the first 9 months of the year. The $328k loss is not really material (either as a proportion of revenue, or absolutely versus the size of the business) they are essentially breaking even. If you look at the numbers (image in the article) The $328k loss also includes some exceptional charges, they made an operating profit of $1.15M in the period.

Their revenues in the same 9 months of last year were $31m, so they have tripled their revenues year on year. Over the same period their costs less than doubled.

If one were to extrapolate this growth rate forward by just one year (a bit crude, but makes a point), they'd end up with $270m revenue, on $170m costs so $100m profit.

They are now breaking even - which is a simple metric of a sane business/proven model, doing significant revenue and growing very quickly. So now they are in an attractive state for the markets.

In terms of strategy, Techcrunch shows their first VC round was back in 2000, with significant further rounds in 2004 and 2005. One could safely assuming the overriding factor is that VCs will be looking for an exit.

An IPO will also provide the company with significant injection of operating cash, along with liquid paper (stock) with which they can use in further acquisitions

<comment><USER11> Still seems weird seeing a company that's not even profitable yet go public. I don't expect the initial demand for their stock will be that high, despite the growth.

<comment><USER12> Plenty of companies go public before becoming profitable, it's a way to raise capital. Tesla Motors comes to mind for a recent example. Same for Clear.

<comment><USER11> Tesla was nowhere near profitability when they went public. Pandora just has to wait a few more quarters before getting access to a natural flow of cash. That's what I found strange.

<comment><USER10> Their VCs from 2000, 04 and 05 will all be hungry for an exit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh, I read "files" as a noun there, as in they were going to let people see inside their database of music-quantification. Was very disappointed on learning what it actually meant...

</comment><comment><USER14> You know something's screwed up when you can buy a company's stock, but not their product. Canadian music and copyright laws are terrible.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think Pandora will go back into heavy losses if they raise money. I love Pandora as a service, but it's a far cry from being a Netflix. ( a long time paying customer of both )

Pandora's revenue is threatened by so much, RIAA contracts, pirating, advertisings race to zero ( via google ), etc...

They know this, and they will need to reinvent themselves to be worth anything. As a result I predict they will blow the 100 million on radically new business methods. Considering the success rate of music companies... I am worried.

<comment><USER16> I hope they spend it on advertising. Their product rocks, i think they just need wider exposure. They also claim exclusive providence to being able to authentically post jobs in the bay area looking for "rock stars" to help out their company ;)

<comment><USER8> That would be a pretty bad sign. I sure as hell wouldn't invest in a company that's going to turn around and spend the money they raise on ads. They should be building a war chest and their biz dev and legal teams to get some leverage on the labels. Regular radio pays $0 of their revenue to labels, Pandora pays $.50 of every $1.

<comment><USER16> Radio stations pay annual fees for the license of broadcasting music, which is why stations have to report every song they play (this data is sampled to divvy up royalty payments to labels and artists.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It allows their investors to sell stock and get their money out.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if they pay lower royalties on live music and that's why they try to jam it into my playlists all the time. In the last year or so I've felt there like there was something just a little off about it some of the song choices and I'd be curious to know if different artists/labels/genres command different rates and if that impacts the song choice.

</comment><comment><USER18> The number one reason I love Pandora is that it offers an ad free paid version with higher quality. Its dead simple and does exactly what you want it to without tacked on social networking.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you're not from the US and want to use pandora, I've got some scripts bundled together to get it running over TOR (it's not as slow as it sounds because only the control interface is using TOR and the stream goes through your 'normal' internet connection):

<https://github.com/jsz/PanTORa>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> And the IPO frenzy starts heating up... like it's '97

<comment><USER5> Not really.

Go find a company from '97 that had $70 million in revenue and was breaking even.*

If there is a company, it might have had absurdly inflated ad-based revenue when CPMs were like $30.

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, maybe more like 95... Netscape had $80mil in revenues and was close to break even (made a profit in '96) <http://www.secinfo.com/dRqWm.8Ae8.htm#49o5>

<comment><USER5> Netscape absolutely deserved to go public based on any metric. The future could not be predicted based on their inaction and Microsoft's dominance.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


12-core Mac pro goes on sale Dec 19th, starting at $2999 - <AUTHOR> http://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/apples-12-core-mac-pro-on-sale-dec.-19-starting-at-2999.html <comment><USER2> This pricing reminds me somewhat of the poptarts:

[http://i.imgur.com/2PEDR.png](http://i.imgur.com/2PEDR.png)

<comment><USER3> That's pretty funny!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> An open question... How long will selling computers based on increasing processing power make sense for anything but a very-niche audience?

My thinking is that at some point, it should be transparent where the computations take place. So rather than sell us 12 cores, it would be more efficient for Apple to sell us "5 years of access to 12 cores", or whatever the expected lifetime is, and we wouldn't know where the processing power comes from.

Right now accessing remote computing power takes a little bit of thought (AWS) but if anyone can make it easy enough for Grandma, it's Apple.

They may always be cases of having this power local (a place with bad internet access?) but that seems like a niche.

<comment><USER5> For most tasks that you really want to throw 12 cores at (e.g. video rendering), the latency of sending everything over the Internet will be extremely noticeable. If you don't care about that sort of thing, you probably don't care about having access to 12 cores.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking that 12 cores would be to cut a compile time from hours to minutes, or shorten a scientific calculation, no? Or pricing a complicated bond.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That headline is distinctly average. And I can't find pricing for anything other than the quad and 6 core model on the apple site (but am on a phone, so it may be that I'm missing it).

<comment><USER7> Average, or just wrong? I believe the quoted price is for the low end model, not the 12 core.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In other news, lian-li announces this nifty little aluminum m-itx pc case for $149 for [http://anandtech.com/show/7595/lian-li-release- pcv358-chassi...](http://anandtech.com/show/7595/lian-li-release- pcv358-chassis-for-microatx-builds) And you can even chose from and upgrade to many different CPUs, GPUs, and internal storage options. See also bitfenix etc.

<comment><USER9> The market for Apple built workstations running Mac OS probably doesn't have a great deal of overlap with the market for home built PCs.

<comment><USER10> Two things to consider:

1\. home built PC market is probably larger than the entire Mac market. I don't have any figures to back this up but based on Windows' market share and my experience, 20% of PC's I've seen over the years are home built.

2\. Those "home built" PCs are also built and sold by PC shops as complete computers, not necessarily home builders. My father ran a business that built OEM white box PCs for 15 years. He sold over 200,000 units.

There is going to be some overlap. Particularly as most of the killer apps are entirely cross platform.

<comment><USER9> _home built PC market is probably larger than the entire Mac market. I don 't have any figures to back this up but based on Windows' market share and my experience, 20% of PC's I've seen over the years are home built._

As (presumably) a home PC builder, 20% of the PC's you seen over the being home built doesn't imply much about the rest of the world...

The reason why there isn't much overlap is that workstations are often used in a professional setting by designers, where spending $3000 on a computer isn't considered a great deal. Home built PCs are rarer in this context.

<comment><USER10> Actually I use a ThinkPad and an HP Z820.

I work in financial services sector and we serve desktop and web apps. Bar large businesses, we see a LOT of home built and OEM PCs.

I was involved in the family business OEM sector for the best part of 20 years as well from a hardware perspective. There are two types of professional: careless and obsessive. The latter build their own. The distribution I saw was about 40% OEM/home built to 60% big manufacturer.

<comment><USER9> Do you have any non-anecdotal numbers? I had a quick search and couldn't find any.

I wouldn't class a professional who builds her own PC as obsessive, I would just classify her as someone for whom the time/money divide is biased towards available time. When I used to home build in the 90s I was in the same bracket. Nowadays it would make no more sense to me than doing my own plumbing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> obligatory: [http://tubelor.neocities.org/](http://tubelor.neocities.org/)

<comment><USER12> Wait, are you implying...</comment></comment>


Improved WSGI script for Django (by mod-wsgi author) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dscpl.com.au/2010/03/improved-wsgi-script-for-use-with.html

<comment><USER2> I always enjoy seeing posts like this. Project leaders know more about the code than anyone -- it's like seeing a lecture on a PhD thesis: this person knows more about this topic than anyone, anywhere. Feels good.</comment>


Hubble finds best evidence for elusive mid-sized black hole - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-03-hubble-evidence-elusive-mid-sized-black.html <comment><USER2> OK, so this is less than 1% the size of supermassive black holes:

> Weighing in at about 50,000 times the mass of our Sun, the black hole is > smaller than the supermassive black holes (at millions or billions of solar > masses) that lie at the cores of large galaxies, but larger than stellar- > mass black holes formed by the collapse of a massive star.

And then about this question ...

> Does a supermassive black hole grow from an IMBH?

It'd take at least hundreds of mergers to get even small supermassive black holes. So does that mean that mergers mainly occurred when stuff was closer together?

<comment><USER3> Yes, mergers were more common at earlier times.

But in fact, even with mergers, it's exceedingly difficult to get supermassive black holes to merge in the first place. Because they are tiny compared to the sizes of the galaxies they inhabit, they have to somehow be pushed close enough that they start orbiting each other and radiate away orbital energy in the form of gravitational waves. Only then can they hope to merge into a single black hole.

It's actually so difficult that one popular explanation for the existence of supermassive black holes is that they are the peaks of the primordial density perturbations that collapsed into supermassive black holes in the very early universe.

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

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Merging did seem improbable.

I do recall the hypothesis about primordial density perturbations. There's a great animation about that in Takashi Miike's _God 's Puzzle_.</comment></comment></comment>


Your Life Doesn't Really Matter (3/365) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@msuworld/your-life-doesnt-really-matter-3-365-945a114ff2c8#.kkmvl9yiy <comment><USER2> I am still in college as an undergrad studying CS and have for a long time wanted my life to mean something. After a failed startup that I thought would "change the world" (mobile payments platform for microfinacne institutions in dev nations) I was left thinking that I would sadly live the rest of my life as just a (this sounds egotistical and self-aggrandizing to assume this wasn't going to be the case) normal non universe denting person.

I [un]fortunately had a little baby girl recently and thought my life was truly over as I did not want the responsiblity. however in just the few months she has been around I realized that I was her whole world. I could do nothing more than just be there for her and I would put a dent in her universe. This may seem small, but for me it is enough [for the time being].

Everything I know and think can be left in a legacy in her.

<comment><USER3> In no way is caring for/parenting/raising a child "small". Its huge. Its huge- er than huge. Do a good job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sorry dude, this is mother fucking bull shit. You don't have to dent the universe for your life to matter. Do 1 kind thing for someone else, you've mattered. Recalibrate this shit.</comment>


Hong Kong's Startup Office Spaces - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2013/10/30/hong-kongs-startup-office-spaces/

<comment><USER2> Nice report. There has been so much growth in workspace in Hong Kong. From no choice to lots of choices just in the last year. I lived there 2012 - 2013 and used to run AcceleratorHK out of The Good Lab (great space, by the way).</comment>


Show HN: Desk – lightweight workspace management for the shell - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jamesob/desk <comment><USER2> zaw's[1] history widget on Ctrl-R is so much better than the regular backward history search that it's difficult to imagine using a shell without it anymore.

1: [https://github.com/zsh-users/zaw](https://github.com/zsh-users/zaw)

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks useful!

I've also been working on tools to make user context switching easier on the terminal (such as a project of mine called prm[0]), and I'm currently working on bringing this sort of functionality to the desktop environment.

If you (or anyone else) wants to talk about these sorts of things, or know of any good relevant research, please drop me a line here or at eivind dot arvesen at gmail dot com.

[0]: [https://github.com/eivind88/prm](https://github.com/eivind88/prm)

</comment><comment><USER4> On the surface, Desk workspaces seem very similar to tmux sessions. I'm curious why one would choose Desk over tmux to manage multiple workspaces in the shell? [https://robots.thoughtbot.com/a-tmux-crash- course](https://robots.thoughtbot.com/a-tmux-crash-course)

<comment><USER5> From what I saw they're rather dissimilar.

Desk reminds me more of Python's virtualenv.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be cool if this functionality could be hooked into cd like rvm does.

<comment><USER7> No it would not. I cannot begin to count the hours I've lost debugging ruby script based tools implicitly dependent on this behaviour. Just no. rbenv is better, particularly due to totally not doing that sort of "magic".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't understand this concept at all. How this can help me?

</comment><comment><USER9> The main feature seems to be that you're letting me use the same command in different environments, to do different things?

</comment><comment><USER10> I like the concept.</comment>


Famed Mexican rescue dog Frida retires after nine years' duty - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48753764 <comment><AUTHOR> That's 63 human-years, right?</comment>


Do charter schools work? A new study of Boston schools says yes. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_dismal_science/2013/05/do_charter_schools_work_a_new_study_of_boston_schools_says_yes.single.html <comment><USER3> My problem with the charter school discussion is that it is frequently framed in the context of "this charter school is better than this public school." Frankly, these comparisons are bullshit. Public schools are given a task that charter schools would never have to even imagine. Public schools must educate ALL children in their districts. Charter schools have the luxury of choosing who attends their schools and who stays after they have been admitted. It is an apples to oranges comparison.

Take any single "successful" or "highly rated" charter school in the country and then tell them they must educate all of the kids in the public school district in which their school resides and I doubt we would see the same results. To get into charter schools parents must fill out applications. Right off the bat you have created a pool of potential students who at the very least have parents at home who are active in their children's education. Children like that typically perform better in school regardless of the type of school.

So yeah charters can work. But they work not because they schools are better. They work because the students going to them are better.

<comment><USER4> If educating the masses at a public school is so much more difficult, then why do we even try that?

Shouldn't we work to break up the student population into smaller, more manageable chunks? That way you can target the specific needs of a smaller group and work to make each succeed rather than doing a mediocre job of trying to meet the incredibly diverse needs of a much larger group.

<comment><USER5> "If educating the masses at a public school is so much more difficult, then why do we even try that?"

We do not want to have a society where an elite, educated aristocracy rules over an uneducated serf class. That means we need to educate _everyone_ , including people who have less potential.

"Shouldn't we work to break up the student population into smaller, more manageable chunks?"

1\. Who is going to pay for it? You will need more teachers, and you will need to pay for a system for dividing students.

2\. Politics will come into play. The moment you divide students by anything other than their age, you face accusations of bias. Education is highly political; here is an example that should resonate with the HN crowd:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/nyregion/software- enginee...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/nyregion/software-engineering- school-was-teachers-idea-but-its-been-done-citys-way.html?pagewanted=all)

<comment><USER6> _We do not want to have a society where an elite, educated aristocracy rules over an uneducated serf class. That means we need to educate everyone, including people who have less potential._

I agree with that goal. And that is why I support public policies that allow more learner choice in education, so that everyone can shop for a good fit, and all providers of education are on notice that they can lose revenue if they don't meet learner needs.

My basis of knowledge: I have lived in more than one country, and see that learner power to shop is an important incentive to improved education. I live in the state of the United States that had charter schools the earliest,

[http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Chance-Passage-Pioneering- Charter...](http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Chance-Passage-Pioneering- Charter/dp/1592984762/)

and that had statewide open enrollment first,

[http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/EnrollChoice/index.h...](http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/EnrollChoice/index.html)

so I have a direct experience base with living in a state with a moderate degree of learner choice, and that is not harmful to learners.

<comment><USER5> "all providers of education are on notice that they can lose revenue if they don't meet learner needs."

By which you mean, "If they don't meet the expectations of parents, school board members, and politicians." By what criteria will schools be judged?

Right now, we have a serious problem in education in America: we focus on standardized tests. Schools do "better" if students get high test scores; they do "worse" if students get low test scores. Nobody is asking, "Can the students think for themselves? Can they solve problems they have not seen before?" Is that what you want schools to do -- to just train students to score high on tests?

Politicians love tests, because they are single-dimensional numbers that are easy to point to. Parents like tests because that is what colleges use to filter applicants. School boards like tests because they can point to them when they need to ask the government for money. _Nobody cares_ if students are learning anything other than test taking skills, except for dedicated teachers who actually want to teach. There are exceptions, but such people are, well, exceptional.

The real issue here is that the results of education are long-term, but these "market based" or "accountability based" approaches to school focus entirely on the short-term. You need to look at what the graduates of a particular school are doing 10 or 20 years later. Are they curing cancer? Did they overthrow a corrupt government? Are they working an honest job? Test scores do not tell you these things. It makes sense to shut down a school whose graduates are more likely to wind up in prison than to live a good life. It does not make sense to shut down a school based on standardized tests or college admissions (which is not independent from standardized test scores).

It is not an easy problem. It means taking risks. Yet right now, we are not even trying; we just point to test scores, talk about how terrible unions are, and continue to pretend that "the market" will find a good answer for us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My twin children spent seven years in Minnesota charter schools - one at one school, six at another, ultimately graduating high school. Overall, the experience was extremely positive. The reason is obvious to me... there is no single "right" way to educate a child. Every child is different, and has different needs. Techniques that work well for one student can work poorly for another, or even be counterproductive. Charters allow more technique flexibility and focus than mainstream schools.

The first charter my kids attended, in sixth grade, was awful for them. They were miserable and got bad grades. Does that mean it was a bad school? No, it's a great school! But it was a bad school _for my children_. The rigid, Catholic-like environment of that first school is great for regular kids who could use a more disciplined environment, but for neuroatypicals, it sucked.

The second school we tried was absolutely wonderful. It followed a project- based learning curriculum that gave children a lot of control over their own learning, but also demanded a lot of responsibility. My oddball children (and the herd of aspies, ADD cases, and queers that accompanied them) thrived in this environment. But frankly, I think it would be a bad school for most kids. It's too demanding.

Charters are in part about experimentation. And some experiments will fail. It's not a good idea to conduct large-scale, risky educational experiments on involuntary subjects - mainstream schools. But for parents and kids who CHOOSE to try new things, the opportunities are fantastic.

Sadly, most people's opinions of charters are knee-jerk political reflex, rationalized with "results" that have nothing to do with how parents or kids feel about their education.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are there other possible confounding factors?

They picked 6 schools that were known to have done well by other measures, and then analyzed a new statistic over the same time period. But the fact that they had done well by other measures could be explained if they had been lucky in the students they got in the lottery, which would also explain their doing well by a new measure.

The simplest way to solve this is to select schools by how well they did with one cohort, and analyze them by how well they do with another. For instance you can select them based on performance during people who entered in even years on one exam, then analyze them by people who entered in odd years on the other exam. Yes, this cuts your sample size in half. But it avoids this particular bias.

(This does not, unfortunately, avoid the possible bias from getting lucky with who they hired as teachers. Yes, the school may work. But was it by design or chance? The school will always think by design, but unless some charter school can start pumping out successful franchisees, it will be hard to find proof.)

<comment><USER7> Charter schools that have a specific educational approach will attract a certain kind of teacher. At the charter my kids attended, teachers would either come and be gone in a year (they didn't get it), or they would become totally devoted to the cause, to the point where it would be difficult for another school to lure them away even if they tried.

Moreover, charters with a clearly-defined academic approach attract a certain kind of student, and a certain kind of parent. So you're not getting a flat, level field of either teachers or students (what I call a "perfectly spherical cow"). You're getting a selective subset of both teachers and students, which will bias the results right there.

<comment><USER8> Only looking at schools with lotteries can let you control for the student bias.

But you have an excellent point that a certain charter may be an excellent fit for some subset of teachers/parents, but not be appropriate for the broader population.

<comment><USER7> That gets into state-by-state law. In Minnesota, all charters have lotteries (and those that can't "sell out" and completely fill their classrooms will probably have financial problems).

States that allow charters to be selective are on a bad path, imho. Like public schools, charters should be required to accept any students who apply and get through the lottery.

<comment><USER9> What's wrong with creating schools that serve one group of students well, and don't serve other students? It seems like a win for some, and neutral for everyone else.

Market segmentation is a good thing. Lenovo builds great laptops for me and other linux geeks. Apple builds great laptops for hipsters and their moms. And both Apple and Lenovo (together with their customers) can segment the market. Does that mean the computer industry is on a "bad path"?

<comment><USER7> Allow the students and parents to be selective, not the schools. This supports market segmentation (a good way to look at it), but doesn't introduce actual unfairness.

What you're talking about is more like the case of Abercrombie and Fitch refusing to make clothes for people that they don't find attractive size-wise. That's fine for private business, but not appropriate for publicly-funded systems like schools.

<comment><USER9> The publicly-funded system doesn't segment the market. Individual pieces of it do. The public schools will continue to service all segments, but some segments will have other options.

How is this not a pareto win (for students)?

<comment><USER8> If you're satisfied with a pareto win, why don't we go back to an absolute monarchy? After all no other system could be better for the monarch!

Back in the real world, when you create one system for relatively well-off people and another for the rest, the tendency is to see the privileged system constantly improved and the fallback languish into a horrible state. This has certainly happened in education. If you create charter schools and allow them to choose who can attend, it is inevitable that successful ones will cherrypick children who start with intellectual abilities and the financial/educational family background to back that up. This creates the kind of two-tiered system that has lead to problems in the past.

That result may be pareto optimal, but it is a social injustice of the kind that many don't on principle want supported by tax dollars. (Of course in practice, if you're personally benefitting, protests tend to be much more muted...)

<comment><USER9> If a monarchy were better for the monarch and equally good for everyone else, I would favor a monarchy.

 _...the tendency is to see the privileged system constantly improved and the fallback languish into a horrible state._

I'm don't understand - how does the existence of alternatives prevent improvement? Could you clarify this point?

If Lenovo's customers were superior (in any relevant sense) to Apple's customers, would that cause apple to "languish into a horrible state"?

<comment><USER8> _I'm don't understand - how does the existence of alternatives prevent improvement? Could you clarify this point?_

It is very simple. If there are two somewhat separable programs, but one is much more heavily used by the constituents that politicians care about, the privileged one will consistently enjoy an advantage in resource allocation decisions. This eventually will cause them to be very unequal alternatives.

Also schools are in the habit of raising money from parents in a variety of ways. If all of the well-off parents go to one school, then that school will naturally enjoy a significant funding advantage. If this is what the parents want to do, then fine. But that should be a private school, rather than a charter school that received public funds on top.

<comment><USER9> Sweden has solved this problem. Resources are equal and follow the student.

<comment><USER8> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Sweden#Free_school...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Sweden#Free_schools) says that Swedish free schools (the equivalent of charter schools) are not allowed to discriminate among students, or require any sort of admission exam. How does this fit with what you were saying?

Furthermore while the amount of state money that follows students may be the same, when schools raise money from parents, having parents with money helps a lot.

<comment><USER9> What I'm saying is that allowing money to follow students (which Sweden does) prevents politically favored schools from being allocated a disproportionate amount of resources.

Thus, your first concern "the privileged one will consistently enjoy an advantage in resource allocation decisions" is invalid with this simple system.

As for your second concern, it seems as if you want to prevent people from investing in their own children's education. Should children who attend publicly funded schools also be prevented from attending Kumon, and should the hiring of private tutors by their parents be banned? If not, why not?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Toward the end, there is an interesting passage--maybe questions like "do charter schools work" or "are charter schools better" are missing the point. Maybe the existence of charter schools is about freedom to choose.

 _Charter schools can be set up for any purpose. Some focus on the arts, others emphasize cultural heritage (there are multiple Hmong charter schools in the Twin Cities alone); some are vocational, others rigorously academic. As Rockoff puts it, asking whether a particular school is good based on test scores or college placement is in many cases the wrong question: "To extend the restaurant metaphor, some people like Italian, others like Thai food. Similarly, many [charter] schools focus on tested subjects, while others might emphasize creative writing or the arts." Not every charter school is right for every kid._

</comment><comment><USER11> As we fight to improve the quality of education in urban areas, it is critical that we pay attention to the results we're getting. That is the point, after all.

That said, this article fails to mention one of the most salient arguments in favor of charter schools: If education is the primary path for upward social mobility, then every parent should have some choice in where their child goes to school. And that choice should not be wholly dependent on current socioeconomic status.

Some schools may not do better according to traditional measurements, but creating a system where schools more transparently market their strengths and weaknesses to parents doesn't just give them more decision making power, over time it also creates a more informed parent class. Eventually leading to even better schools.

<comment><USER12> > If education is the primary path for upward social mobility, then every > parent should have some choice in where their child goes to school.

I don't see how this follows.

<comment><USER11> Access to quality education is not a right in this country, but attendance is required for a variety of reasons. Most of them related to creating and maintaining a functioning society. The more lofty goals of compulsory public education are about giving every child the skills to have a chance at a decent life.

So, if the government is going to force people to send their children to school, but isn't going to MANDATE a minimum quality level, they should at least give people a choice in deciding what's best for their kids. Because as it is now, the government is forcing people to send their kids to schools we all know are terrible.

<comment><USER13> I generally agree with your point.

However, I live in a small Texas town and my wife's business deals with two private school. If these schools are typical, it is entirely possible for parents to put their children into a worse-by-design school that teaches young-earth creationism and inculcates habits and an anti-social orientation and which breeds awkward, dysfunctional people.

On one hand, the state and local governing bodies do mandate a level of quality that can be avoided by parochial schools and on the other hand it is entirely possible for people to actively choose standards poorer than the public ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Test scores and college-acceptance rates seem like odd metrics for judging the success of K-12 education - surely the goal is loftier than just slotting kids into a college. You can optimize a process for "winning" college admissions much more easily than you can optimize a process for developing a basic intellectual toolkit and the organizational skills and self-discipline required to apply it.

Maybe charter schools haven't been widely operating long enough for this, but is anyone aware of any studies - either completed or in progress - <USER2> compare charter/standard public/private school student life-outcomes on a longer time-scale?

</comment><comment><USER15> I can't help but view charter schools as a means to further the social and class stratification of America.

I certainly agree that the same shoe can't fit every person, but systems that allow self-selection and the stranding of the downtrodden in hopeless and ineffective environments can't be good for the health of a nation which relies on elections and by proxy the ability of each citizen to think and reason their way through the ballot box.

I tend to think that forcing everyone to use public education would coerce the parents who send their kids to charter and private schools to instead push for improvements in public education that all students would benefit from, rather than being able to ignore large segments of society and having strong incentives to make public education worse at the expense of the country as a whole.

<comment><USER16> "Warren Buffett framed the problem for me once in a way that clarified how basic our most stubborn obstacles are. He said it would be easy to solve today's problems in urban education. 'Make private schools illegal,' he said, 'and assign every child to a public school by random lottery.' "

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A good word to inject into article titles like these is "some."

Do some charter schools work? A new study of Boston schools says yes.

</comment><comment><USER5> Another "better test scores!" result...

</comment><comment><USER6> I have seen some examples of helpful reforms where I live. Minnesota, where I now live and where I grew up, has had largely equal per-capita funding for public school pupils statewide since the 1970s. The state law change that made most school funding come from general state appropriations rather than from local property taxes was called the "Minnesota miracle."

[http://www.mnhs.org/library/tips/history_topics/18public.htm...](http://www.mnhs.org/library/tips/history_topics/18public.html)

Today most funding for schools is distributed by the state government on a per-pupil enrollment basis.

<http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/mnschfin.pdf>

<http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/SchSup/SchFin/index.html>

The funding reform in the 1970s was followed up by two further reforms in the 1980s. First, the former compulsory instruction statute in Minnesota was ruled unconstitutional in a court case involving a homeschooling family, and a new compulsory instruction statute explicitly allows more nonpublic school alternatives for families who seek those. Second, the Legislature, pushed by the then Governor, set up statewide open enrollment

[http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/EnrollChoice/index.h...](http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/EnrollChoice/index.html)

and the opportunity for advanced learners to attend up to two years of college while still high school students on the state's dime.

[http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/CollReadi/PSEO/index...](http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/CollReadi/PSEO/index.html)

And Minnesota also has the oldest charter school statute in the United States.

[http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Chance-Passage-Pioneering- Charter...](http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Chance-Passage-Pioneering- Charter/dp/1592984762/)

Parents in Minnesota now have more power to shop than parents in most states. That gets closer to the ideal of detect the optimum education environment for each student (by parents observing what works for each of their differing children) and give it to them by open-enrolling in another school district (my school district has inbound open-enrollment students from forty-one other school districts of residence) or by homeschooling, or by postsecondary study at high school age, or by exercising other choices.

The educational results of Minnesota schools are well above the meager results of most United States schools, and almost competitive (but not fully competitive) with the better schools in the newly industrialized countries of east Asia and southeast Asia. It's a start. More choices would be even better.

</comment><comment><USER18> Who funded the study? Is it some organization that would benefit from more charter schools existing? $10 says it is.

<comment><USER19> The article states that the study was released by The Boston Foundation [1] and MIT's School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative [2].

That said, your comment basically amounts to an ad hominem attack against an article and related study that you clearly didn't even read, as the information you were asking for was provided in the article. Your post does nothing to further intelligent discussion. It's bad, and you should feel bad.

[1]: <http://www.tbf.org/> [2]: <http://seii.mit.edu/>

<comment><USER18> I don't feel bad because I did read the article and I did see who funded it, and I still don't know the answer to my question. What does "The Boston Foundation" actually do?

<comment> boston-tm The Boston Foundation is a community foundation, so they basically fund a lot of nonprofits in health, education, housing and other areas. They actually fund a lot of good nonprofits in the community and do a number of projects working with the public schools - their CEO argues that charters provide an external source of pressure to improve all schools.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What the hell is going on? - <AUTHOR> http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/05/what-in-the-hell-is-going-on.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29 <comment><USER2> _> a feminized culture allergic to most forms of violence_

Since when is Hillary Clinton allergic to most forms of violence? She supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 for example. Angela Merkel in Germany leads a party that wants the German military to wage more wars overseas. And the leaders of the right-wing parties AfD (Germany) and Front National (France) are Frauke Petry and Marine LePen, respectively. Two women.

 _> no one talks about the "Bernie sisters,"_

Which doesn't mean they don't exist.

 _> What percentage of men are brutes anyway? Let's hope we don't find out._

I disagree. I _want_ to find out, because facts are always better than prejudices.

Also what's with the gender essentialism ("feminized culture")?

<comment><USER3> Anyone care to explain why this is being downvoted?

<comment><USER4> Too much uncomfortable truth. Many people here dislike viewing alternate reality's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Or we could simply make it easier for people to actually prosper, by clawing back the world and it's economy from the one percent, and men wouldn't have nearly as much going wrong in their lives, and they wouldn't miss the 'good old days'.

Their reaction is to the state of their whole world, not just some mild social disenfranchisement. Given, there are many people who don't actually realize this.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice narrative, shame about the facts.</comment>