How Not to Hire - <AUTHOR> http://moron4hire.tumblr.com/post/60891800011/how-not-to-hire <comment><USER2> > That could be 15 years of hiding behind far more competent teammates at a > company that has a pathological problem with not firing under-performers

Funny that you mention that. It turns out it costs the company a pretty penny to replace "under-performers" so they just keep them around instead.

[http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/11/...](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/11/16/44464/there- are-significant-business-costs-to-replacing-employees/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This doesn't seem to account for anti-productivity at all, i.e. people who create more work by the end of the day than they complete. It's hard to quantify anti-productivity, let along get anyone reviewing work to admit that anti-productivity has occurred. Our work culture tends to value activity over all else, so the common sentiment is that a warm butt in the chair is better than nothing, even if that warm butt is making more work for everyone else.

I'm hoping that my method will actually ameliorate much of this. By starting the person part-time, perhaps their familiarity with the project builds "faster" over a unit-work-time than it would otherwise (I've personally found my comfort level with a project to be in some part a function of calendar time). In this way, I'm also not spending a lot on the candidate search itself.

The idea is to spend less time on much-higher-yield methods of finding people who are better suited to the job crossed with people who are happier with the environment of the job. It _is_ about avoiding turn-over, but not in this perverse way of "ignore the problem because the alternative is worse", but by trying to avoid the hiring of a bad worker in the first place.

In this system, you'll never see a job notice from me. You won't know I have a need for an employee unless I ask you to come work for/with me. You'll only ever get a job offer from me if A) I know you're not an idiot, and B) I know you're available. Yes, that means I have to know the person very well already. If I have an opening that needs to be filled and I don't currently know of someone that fills it, then it is likely to be a long time before it gets filled, if I do nothing.

But then again, it's not like sifting through resumes is providing quality applicants. The resume and job interview are so poor of a selection process that I'm willing to try just about anything else.

There is also an element of respect for the worker involved in what I'm doing. I don't think I have a right to monopolize a person's time. I think people should have the time to be engaged in many pursuits. I want it to be up to them to choose how much they work. I want them to have the ability to find other work as well. The idea being, people who are happier in their work-life balance will be more productive.

Of course, we'll see.

<comment><USER2> Great points, I definitely agree. Anti-productivity of one employee can become a plague and affect numerous employees and the resume and job interview process is indeed broken. Good luck with your system and look forward to hearing how it turns out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _" He will know exactly what I charge the client and what I give to him out > of that."_

In my experience this is exactly how traditional engineering firms work. It seems to work for them, I'm not sure why a software consultancy would work differently. Do they?

Regardless, if you give people the power to manage their work, to bill their clients appropriately, to take _ownership_ for the work, then the right people will thrive and the rest will find it far too transparent to hide behind.

<comment><USER4> I've worked as an employee of a consultancy a few different times, and I've never been informed about the rates at which I was billed to clients.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, neither have I. On a few occasions, I accidentally stumbled on the numbers and was quite shocked to see that it was whole-number multiples over what I earned. Large, whole-numbers. Especially on government contracts.

<comment><USER3> AFAIK 2.5% - 4% is about normal. A lot of that goes into marketing, bidding on projects, etc. It's not actually that shocking when you look at where the cost goes: it's not just "your time * multiplier", more like "how many hours of _other_ work are required to support one hour of actual work".

<comment><USER5> I'm assuming you mean 2.5 times, not a 2.5% margin. Even odesk takes more than 2.5%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm currently in the job hunting situation out of college and, along with sending out resumes, I'm working on a bunch of different side projects to try to show that I can a) actually execute, and b) learn new things.

Not sure if it's the best way to work on getting hired, but I don't want to practice "interview questions". I know I don't do as well in interview because of my lack of specific preparation, but I feel like I'd be a better candidate than someone who just prepares for an interview. Curious to see how that might affect potential employers.

<comment><USER7> You don't need to "show" that you can learn new things, you just need to learn new things. And keep doing it. At first you have to do it on your own, but eventually you'll get paid to do it.

The biggest trick to getting there is inspiration. You need to be excited about the possibilities. You'll get ten times farther in an interview if you can enthusiastically tell your interviewer how much fun you're having with Angular.js. Or that project that kept you up til 3am because you just couldn't put it down.

You need to stop looking at your career as some set of criteria you have to fill and start looking at it as the most fun you're going to have, like ever. Seriously, building shit is fun.

<comment><USER6> I think you have to show that you can learn new things. How else can someone justify hiring someone if they haven't demonstrated that they're capable of picking up a new piece of technology? I was trying to say that I wanted to show my value by producing actual things rather than being able to write code on paper.

It's also funny that you mentioned Angular since I wrote launched a little app using it today.

<comment><USER7> > How else can someone justify hiring someone if they haven't demonstrated > that they're capable of picking up a new piece of technology?

Demonstrations are nice, but you're generally not going to get the chance to. I interviewed four times in the past year for jobs and got three offers, and I'd have gotten an offer on the fourth if I'd shown more interest in the position.

The people interviewing me never took more than a glancing look at my portfolio website. I've never written code on paper. I've never had to live code. It's only very few pure-software shops that do things like that.

Chances are you'll be interviewing at banks, or marketing companies, or at any of the vast majority of coding jobs that aren't supporting businesses in the technology sector. The people that run these businesses don't care half as much about technical chops. They do want to know if you can do your job, but in the non-technology world, attitude is more important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Spot on. Job boards need to fail more than they successfully place people, so that employers and job seekers keep trying. Similarly it's not in the dating sites best interest if everybody finds their soul mate. They need losers. Losers with money to spend. Same is true with your personal trainer in the gym, she/he only wants you to keep training safely and continuously.

In all these examples the incentives with the primary actors and the middlemen doesn't align.

</comment><comment><USER9> > So we will see. This could be a complete failure...

There you go guarding yourself from a possible bad decision.

The trick in hiring is to trust your gut. Your gut might be wrong, but it is often better than everything else.

A simple up, down, or sideways (which is usually down) vote by the interviewers without having to give a reason is much better than trying to rationalize and enumerate the pros and cons. It isn't perfect, because an interviewer could be a racist, sexist, etc. but the cultural fit is much more important than what is on paper to hire and it is hard to judge much else during the interview, other than the ability to interview well.

I'm a big fan of the 90-day trial period. If the person coming in knows right away it is a bad fit, they'll be looking for a job right away to avoid being laid off on the 90th day.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can anyone else verify the '2 out of 600 applicants could actually do the job' statement. I've heard something like 1 in 100 but I just can't believe numbers like these.

<comment><USER5> Sadly, it's more true than you can probably imagine.

Realize though, that the pool of people actively applying to jobs is, on average, FAR worse than the total population. Even companies who are pretty bad at hiring can make some kind of selection for quality, and great engineers get fired way less than terrible engineers, so in theory, the very worst engineers in the world would continually apply for jobs and never be hired, or would be quickly fired.

My experience suggests that it's very rare to get a superstar from any passive method (that finds active job seekers). That pool is just to dilute with talent. To get the strong candidates, you have to be active (to have a shot at the passive candidates) or extremely lucky.

It's no surprise to find only 1 in 100 of unemployed engineers are truly good. If you just post openings, you're unlikely to interview even a representative sample of the population, let alone an above-average sample.

<comment><USER11> If that is true, I can relate the HR or hiring people. It must be bad when majority of applicants are not suitable to job at all.

~2 months ago I started searching for a new job. I only applied that actually suits to me and I am capable. I only applied 3 places and all interviewed me, in the end I got 2 offers (I am starting next week!). I guess that is just me.

<comment><USER12> I have the same experience as you. I really cherry pick what jobs I apply for and I almost always get an interview and an offer. There's only two times to my memory that I didn't get an offer and one was because I was lied to about what job I was applying for.

I really can't understand people who just blast their resume out for every job they're not qualified for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Top notch!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!</comment></comment>


Google Ventures Invests In Local Deals Site Signpost - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/20/signpost-local-deals/

<comment> brown9-2 Signpost was formerly known as Postabon, and was co-founded by one of our own (<http://searchyc.com/postabon>)</comment>


A Cornell Scientist's Downfall - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-cornell-scientists-downfall-1537915735 <comment><AUTHOR> Abusing statistics:

"Mr. Wansink's fall from grace began with a 2016 blog post in which he blithely confessed to using improper research techniques known as p-hacking and HARKing. P-hacking involves running statistical analyses until they produce a statistically significant result; HARKing stands for "hypothesizing after the results are known." The post prompted a small group of skeptics to take a hard look at Mr. Wansink's past scholarship. Their analysis, published in January 2017, turned up an astonishing variety and quantity of errors in his statistical procedures and data."

<comment><USER2> >The post prompted a small group of skeptics to take a hard look at Mr. Wansink's past scholarship

It's funny that this is basically the peer-review version of harking.

<comment><USER3> It's also pretty close to the Baysian approach. The difference being that in the Baysian approach one is "permitted" to revise the hypothesis as new data is acquired.

<comment><USER4> Correction: Bayesian, not Baysian.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We replace people who are curious about science with people who are good at getting grants.

Iron law of bureaucracy at work.

<comment><USER6> "If you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to work on a lower, or at any rate a different plane where he could be sure of getting year by year tangible results which would justify his salary. The position is this: You want one kind of research, but, if you pay a man to do it, it will drive him to research of a different kind. The only thing to do is to pay him for doing something else and give him enough leisure to do research for the love of it."

Quote attributed to J.J. Thompson via a previous HN comment [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14022158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14022158)

<comment><USER7> That quote is very profound. I know from my own doctoral research how difficult innovation is and how stressful that becomes. I want to also have a personal life outside of just working and what I saw at my university was unhealthy to the extreme. I got my doctorate, but I quit academia. You only get one life to live and I couldn't see why I should work endless hours for shit wages, worrying about obtaining funding year in and year out, dealing with the terrible communists who run US campuses these days, and so on. It was a completely undesirable lifestyle with only a few redeeming qualities.

Bottom line, for me it was less headache to become a software engineer and take longer vacations once in awhile. I would rather do hard research or R&D, but it is what it is.

<comment><USER8> Honest question: what do you mean by "communists who run US campuses these days"? Is this about bureaucracy, or particular leftist views being upheld, or something else entirely?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Starting to get mixed feelings about these cases. Impostors and fraudsters certainly need to be exposed. But publicly ripping apart few individuals who, together with their peer reviewers, in _some_ cases may simply not know better (e.g. because their whole field has low standards – nutrition science seems to be one of these fields –; or because they are inexperienced and their co- authors and supervisors don't care about details and correct science and just want to have their names on the paper) can not be the solution for an overall malfunctioning scientific communication and incentive system, or for bad methods that are used by entire fields.

The current situation also invites all sorts of abuse. Need to say that certain parts of the open science movement appear to be a bit angry, not to say sadistic. Wansinks case was one that was ripped apart on Twitter. Wansinks research has received lots of media attention before - would his statistical methods have been investigated and debunked without that? How many Wansinks are out there, still having their job, continuing to apply bad methods (while not committing active fraud), never to be called out for their mistakes? I've been in Japan during the Obokata stem cell case. Her public apology was broadcasted on national TV. In konbinis you could see various tabloid newspapers with her name and her crying face on the cover for weeks. There seemed to be different mechanisms at play than a genuine interest in correct science. One of Obokata's supervisors, Yoshiki Sasai, committed suicide as a consequence of the case.

<comment><USER10> These people ostracize and hassle those who try to do a honest job and point out the issues with their methods. They also drive the people trying to do a good job out of the field because they can't compete with the fake productivity people like Wansink enjoyed.

Also, the unnecessary suffering caused by this behavior is basically unimaginable. Who knows what advances we would have made if 90+% of resources dedicated to science during this golden era of cheap energy hadn't been wasted? We can't even estimate that.

But yea, Wansink is just the tip of the iceberg. I've been saying for awhile that future generations will need to double check _everything_ since about 1940, because the professional researchers have not been checking each others work, and have been using known incorrect methods to draw conclusions (NHST).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Also e.g. The Atlantic wrote about this 2 days ago:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/09/what- is-f...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/09/what-is-food- science/571105/)

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://archive.is/II8xf](http://archive.is/II8xf)

<comment><USER13> off topic, but does anyone know how the technology behind archive.is works and how they make money (assuming they do). it seem pretty impressive to me that it always gets the article right.

<comment><USER14> The site is a commercial enterprise, and as such can go kaputt at any given point, especially if it does not find a lucrative business model. Although it's not a strong indication of long-term issues; in October 2016 the site "made transparent" the server costs, and started to accept donations. A weekly crowdfunded target of $800[4] is set to maintain the site.

Prior to this, the site actively refused donations. A donation link took the user to an animal shelter donation page.

Stated in January 2017, through donations the site only receives "more than $1.50 every day, enough for a bowl of phở".

Src: [https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/Archive.is](https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/Archive.is)

<comment><USER15> I thought archive.is was part of the internet archive project which is a public library of California.

<comment><USER16> Nope, archive.org is a whole different organization. Also note that the "Wayback Machine" is only one project at the Internet Archive. They also have 78 RPM records, video games, tons of books, CD's, etc. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Internet_Archive%27s_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Internet_Archive%27s_collections) You can donate at [https://archive.org/donate](https://archive.org/donate)

Edit: Archive Team is also a separate group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> also relevant: [https://andrewgelman.com/2016/12/15/hark-hark-p-value- heaven...](https://andrewgelman.com/2016/12/15/hark-hark-p-value-heavens-gate- sings/)

</comment><comment><USER17> The guy has a BS in Business Administration, a MA In journalism and a PhD in Marketing. He is a professor of Marketing at Cornell's School of Economics.

In what universe would such a person be called a scientist and not a huckster doing what hucksters do?

<comment><USER18> "Social science". The term science has been appropriated by so many pseudosciences that it has lost any meaning. Because real science has such a good reputation, all the academic frauds have decided to link their field to science to enhance their own reputation. There is political "science", legal "science", economics, etc.

Here is richard feynmann's poignant take on the matter. BTW, it has gotten way worse since feynmann's interview.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWr39Q9vBgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWr39Q9vBgo)

<comment><USER19> See also "Harary's Law" <[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/26/not- science/>](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/26/not-science/>), which says that any field that has the word "science" in its name is guaranteed thereby not to be a science.

<comment><USER20> Computer science isn't a real science?

<comment><USER18> It isn't a science period. Computer science is mathematics, not science. Alonzo Church and Alan Turing ( the fathers of computer science ) were mathematicians. Algorithms is a mathematical/logical concept.

<comment><USER21> Theoretical computer science isn't science, it's maths, just like theoretical physics.

But there are plenty of empirical studies in computer science that are certainly science.

<comment><USER18> > Theoretical computer science isn't science, it's maths, just like > theoretical physics.

Yes. Theoretical physics is theoretical. But physics is not. Computer science is purely theoretical. It's math. Adding a theoretical designation to computer science is being redundant.

> But there are plenty of empirical studies in computer science that are > certainly science.

Plenty of "empirical studies" that you failed to name one? There are engineering tests for computers and algorithms. But there isn't a "science". What natural law is postulated within computer science?

You can use computer "science" like any other math to do science, but it isn't itself a science. It's a mathematical tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Eh, paywall.

<comment><USER23> Install this extension to use Outline.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/outline-read- witho...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/outline-read-without- clut/daoolpmoieinofbnddaofhkhmbagfmnj?hl=en-US)

<comment><USER24> You don't need the extension to get the benefit. Just go to [https://outline.com](https://outline.com)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: 32yr. old Healthcare Professional – Learn to Code or Pay Someone? - <AUTHOR>

I have decided to take the leap into the health startup world. The only thing holding me back is that I do not know how to code. It is something I have had on my list of things to learn for a while, but time never allowed it. Now that I do have time and a comfortable income, I am debating whether I should put in the years to learn how to program, or that my time would be better spent befriending and paying a talented programmer to help me in executing my ideas. Frankly, I do not know if it is realistic for me to begin learning at this age considering it will likely take me at least 5 years to reach a skill-level required to implement many of the technologies a modern healthcare startup would need (HIPAA encryption, interfacing with EMRs, etc).<p>I do not need to start a company this very instant, but I would like to within the next few years. Any advice on how best to concentrate my time and effort would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> Regardless, I think you should learn something about coding. The first two points in this blog posting are especially applicable, I think: [http://asifali.me/post/15394671439/startup-tech- entrepreneur...](http://asifali.me/post/15394671439/startup-tech- entrepreneurs-my-checklist)

 __The Founder / CEO is also the key product guy: __Every great startup needs a product guy for sure. But it is the entrepreneur who is the key product guy in most startups. The CEO / Entrepreneur needs to have a clearly defined vision of every product and must be able to participate in all stages of product design with good attention to details. The organization might have a dedicated product manager or a V.P. of Product but still I really think that it is the founder / CEO or the biz leader that needs to lead this effort providing overall product design, UI metaphor and getting that executed. Given that most startups don't immediately get to revenues, this would be the single most important thing.

 __The Tech CEO must know tech: __Most startup Founders assume that getting a rockstar tech co-founder alone is enough and the can take care of everything tech. Tech startups cannot do with CEOs or leaders that do not have the tech skills as this limits them from leveraging techology as a strategic advantage of their company. There are dozens of examples that I can mention from the industry where the founder is also the chief coder. While it is not required to be at that end of the spectrum, good knowledge of technology, limitations, applications and having good past experience as a technologist certainly helps.

<comment><USER2> And, by the way, 32 is not old! I'm 48 and I'm just starting to dive deep on Ruby on Rails (programming is not my profession, either).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Speaking as someone who's worked in 3 different healthcare software companies (2 large Co's and 1 startup), you'll be far ahead of your competition in the healthcare space if you know how to code.

Healthcare is full of Product Managers and CxO's who have never written code and I think it's one of the things that holds the industry back from adopting newer technologies, streamlining processes, and attracting talent.

The challenges you mentioned (EMRs, HIPAA) require a lot less understanding of coding and more understanding of how data is structured. Suffice to say if you can read a spreadsheet, you can understand (with a little mental ninjitsu) how a HIPPA or EMR is structured.

If I were a Healthcare product manager with CEO aspirations, I would learn the following:

* SQL (real SQL, not drag and drop queries in Access)

* Ruby or Python (High level and easy first languages rules)

* Java or C# (because the industry speaks these almost exclusively)

* HTML/CSS/Javascript (Healthcare didn't jump into the web with both feet like many industries, so you can learn these last).

</comment><comment><USER4> > Frankly, I do not know if it is realistic for me to begin learning at this > age considering it will likely take me at least 5 years to reach a skill- > level required to implement many of the technologies a modern healthcare > startup would need (HIPAA encryption, interfacing with EMRs, etc).

If you were going to do a drug startup, would you think that you had to know how to form pills, package them, run large scale synthesis?

You will benefit from knowing something, but no one knows all that stuff.

> that my time would be better spent befriending and paying a talented > programmer to help me in executing my ideas.

I don't know about other people, but the "befrending" terminology sounds vaguely exploitive. Would you use that term to describe how you'd go about working with another medical professional with different skills?

</comment><comment><USER5> I studied finance/economics in college and spent 5 years in banking. Eighteen months ago I quit my job and picked up a few computer science courses and simultaneously taught myself python/django. I now have a fully built web application with beta users. In 18 months you can be in a radically different place and if you combine your domain experience with the ability to code up your ideas, you'll achieve a unique position that will give you a leg up. You'll enjoy a product that more closely fits your vision, plus you'll get there faster since you'll be cutting out a lot of communication overhead. While your competitors are trying to bridge the business/technical divide, you'll be a straight up execution machine.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was a problem I was faced with, and I decided to just do both. So far it seems like the right step if only because I'm able to learn on the fly and there's a bit of a pressure for me to actually pick up some of these things. Though it does have it's flaws.

I'll be honest, when you try both, there will be times in that journey that you completely neglect the "code learning" process because other parts of the startup and life just require all of your time and energy. And as such it gets pushed to the backburner. But you have to keep going back, and make excuses for yourself to learn something outside your comfort zone. It gets harder, not easier because by the time you start learning how to crawl, you want to learn how to run and actually help out but this is a long long process. I truthfully fear I'll never get to the plateau I want to be at, and while those fears are justifiable, don't think about it as just being able to mash code into creating a project--think about it as being able to do your part of the puzzle better. With a growing understanding of the process and tech side you'll be able to contribute, communicate, and create much more efficiently. Chip in when you can, you'll be even more appreciated, but don't be hard on yourself if it never comes. Just keep trudging forward.

A lot of tech people seem to unfairly look down on non-tech founders looking for a counterpart, even if such as in your case you bring a lot to the table, and from the moment you start your endevour you'll always be judged and perhaps ridiculed for not being part of that circle. And that will fuel you to learn, but don't forget what got you to this place in life, and why you weren't a coder to begin with, you've gained and learned many things in your life--all of which will come in handy and bring a different and unique perspective and possible answers to the pains you wish to solve.

Never stop learning. And good luck!

</comment><comment><USER7> In your case, _domain knowledge_ beats software knowledge, hands down. I did a quick gig a few years ago hand holding the hospital staff for a new installation of a HIPPA compliant steaming-heap-of-deleted (Java AWT based) "system" in NYC.

I strongly recommend you negotiate with your candidate techie partner. There is no way in hell any geek can pick up the domain knowledge on his or her own. [Edit: not because it is rocket science; there is a lot of jargon, procedures, and other arcane matter that you learn by spending time in the health care field.]

</comment><comment><USER8> Learn how to code but hire a programmer.

Keep in mind there are wide differences in skill level.

Yes, 4-5 years and most people become OK programmers.

What about someone who did 4-5 years but has been hacking on computers since age 10? Can you expect, at age 32, to reach that same level of understanding? You're a radiologist---you can appreciate the difference in understanding that results in learning things at different ages. Programming in particular is directly related to language acquisition----you may be able to learn Mandarin at age 40 but you'll never get to the level of the 20 year old who knows 10 languages.

What about someone who has done those things but also spent 10 or 20 years writing major software in a more corporate environment?

What you need to avoid is someone who knows enough about programming to get the software done, but not enough to keep it from blowing up or turning into a maintenance disaster. This is because they know how to get a specific thing done but miss out on the larger implications of their code. Then you end up hiring a good programmer and the entire thing has to be scrapped and re- written, which can easily be the death of a startup.

I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm just saying, get a good programmer and do what you can now, but focus on your startup as a whole. You can become a "real" programmer later, when you're 40 and retired ;)

<comment><USER9> I've been at it on and off for something like 25 years and I still worry that I'm only an OK programmer.

Start learning now, but I wouldn't bet the startup on someone who's just now learning to code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's funny, I'm a 35 year old techie looking to partner with a health care professional on a startup.. If you want to bounce ideas back and forth, contact me at the email in my profile -- I'd definitely be interested in a chat with you.

Also, about programming -- I do think it's a worthy thing for you to learn. If you have some spare time, you can start working your way through the free lessons here: <http://learncodethehardway.org/>

I personally think that Ruby is a great language to start with, but Python is good too.

As for your expectation of it taking 5 years to reach a skill-level required to be competent in these technologies, well, I don't think it will take you that much time. However, the fact that you are even thinking this way puts you far ahead of most people who are trying to learn to program _fast_. I'm impressed by your attitude of taking a long-term view of things. As a programmer, I talk to a lot of people who have the mindset of "I have this great idea, I just need to find a techie to build it in a few days," and I can tell from your question that that's _not_ you, which I find very refreshing.

Anyway good luck!

</comment><comment><USER11> I agree with the comment about domain knowledge trumping technical knowledge here. It will only help for you to learn how to code, but you definitely do not need to do so. If you have your own capital or sources of funding, it would seem to me to be counterproductive to spend a lot of time becoming proficient in a craft when you could work with a partner on it. Your instinct to find a developer you can work with seems to me to be the correct direction to go in, while you spend some time familiarizing yourself with the development world.

</comment><comment><USER12> I guess it depends on what your startup idea is. Does it have a short window of opportunity for you to capitalize on it? If so, pay someone else to do the work so you can get a product out now, but still learn to code so you can actively participate in the process. Otherwise, take the time, learn and write the code yourself. Even if your startup never materializes, you will have taught yourself a valuable skill.

</comment><comment><USER13> Do both. Learn on your own and pay someone to do the heavy lifting, eventually you can help them while at the same time making real progress. Learning to code has made me a better designer, communicator, manager, thinker. You will not regret it if you learn.

</comment><comment><USER14> What specifically do you do in the healthcare field? Doctor? therapist?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am a radiologist.</comment></comment>


Apple's Tim Cook rejects idea of laptop-tablet hybrids - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17838180

<comment><USER2> Translation: "We want to sell two separate products, not one. We make more money that way."</comment>


Facebook unpopular in Japan - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/technology/10facebook.html

<comment><USER2> Facebook is actually starting to get popular in Japan, but it will have a slow start just like everything else has had recently.

For some reason Japan still has this image of being a technologically advanced nation. I guess regarding hardware and infrastructure they are still advanced, but when it comes to the web and software they are waaaaay behind. Both in what they build, and in what they use.

The iPhone didn't really take off until a full year after it went on sale here (2 years after the US), android phones are just now starting to be sold, Twitter blew up recently but that wasn't until it was already a household name in the rest of the world. Nearly all mobile websites here are written in a carrier proprietary subset of WAP/HTML. Most non-mobile sites are entirely flash. The most popular search engine is still Yahoo. Shift-JIS encoding is more widely used than the world standard UTF-8. The list goes on and on.

I've been living in Japan for 4 years so I can speak from first hand experience. Before I came here I had the same image of Japan, but after being here for a while I can tell you that your image of Japan is not how it really is.

The Nintendo and Walkman era has ended. I wish people outside of Japan would finally realize this and stop acting surprised when Japan doesn't seem to be following the latest tech trend.

<comment><USER3> > I guess regarding hardware and infrastructure they are still advanced

It depends. Your categorization is too coarse.

> Most non-mobile sites are entirely flash. The most popular search engine is > still Yahoo. Shift-JIS encoding is more widely used than the world standard > UTF-8.

I didn't know these 'facts'. Can you give me the details? Just out of curiosity, how did you know Shift-JIS is popular than UTF-8?

<comment><USER2> > It depends. Your categorization is too coarse.

Yes it is course b/c that is not my area of expertise. Feel free to inject any information here.

> I didn't know these 'facts'. Can you give me the details? Just out of > curiosity, how did you know Shift-JIS is popular than UTF-8?

Well I don't have any hard statistics to back up my statements. They are all simply personal observations.

However in Japan "moji-bake" (character encoding error) is an everyday phrase. Shift-JIS is mostly to blame. I think that's enough to show that it's still widely used.

<comment><USER4> My Japanese mobile phone would occasionally silently fail to display an email message (forwarded to the phone's Softbank address, naturally, since I couldn't get data access without a contract plan) because of the character encoding.

And then there's the fact that you can't get a prepaid SIM in Japan without buying a phone to go with it. And the fact that Softbank is the only prepaid provider. And the fact that I wasn't legally supposed to have a prepaid phone anyway, because I didn't have an Alien Registration Card but was lucky enough to find a discount store that would overlook that.

Japan is VERY technologically advanced, but they often do things in a way that lacks any consideration for the world outside of their islands. The mobile phone debacle is a perfect example of this, because it affects so few Japanese directly. "Open" platforms like Linux, the Internet, and even Windows are largely regarded as hobbyist items, while Docomo and Softbank's closed, curated networks are reality for most Japanese. The recent film "Summer Wars" is an excellent expression of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think I remember this story: [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/technology/internet/30goog...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/technology/internet/30google.html).

Oh wait: <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/technology/28yahoo.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> Japanese society is way more resistant to any changes where social relations are involved. Facebook-encouraged openness is too much for most japanese people. Maybe it's too much for the western society as well, but we took a bait already.

<comment><USER7> There's also a very prevalent and unfortunate number of perverts as well. It's no wonder women wouldn't want to show their identity. The fact that they have women-only cabins in the public transportation systems is telling enough.

<comment><USER8> The used schoolgirl panties vending machines probably do not help, either.

<http://www.snopes.com/risque/kinky/panties.asp>

<comment><USER9> I have never seen one of these machines and I couldn't tell you where to go to find them. There might be a few fake ones somewhere in Akihabara to appease the Japanophile weirdo crowd and I'm certain Snopes is correct about them being around ~20 years ago, but as near as I can tell these things no longer exist.

<comment><USER7> I can't comment on the vending machines, but the panties are sold in S&M stores still and it's quite disturbing. (Disclaimer: I noticed them as I was following a friend through den den town.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2087622> for the previous discussion of the same article.

</comment><comment><USER11> Based on the article, the Japanese social networks appear to address an entirely different set of social goals than Facebook. Real names are important on Facebook so that people who have lost track of each other over time can reconnect. And that's most of what people do on Facebook. Meeting new people online through Facebook is entirely secondary (and not really beneficial to the data collection upon which Facebook relies). On the other hand, anonymous user accounts require another channel of communication in order for people to reconnect (such as meeting at a party) and therefore they are oriented toward connecting online with people with whom one has recent real world connections, i.e.42 year old Rod Wingstead's high school sweetheart has no way of knowing that he is "winger471" without already being in contact some other way.

</comment><comment><USER12> Most Japanese dislike to join fb simply just because it is still English sns, as you don't feel good if you are in mixi, fully in Japanese. Then I'm curious, why we Japanese love Twitter...

<comment><USER13> Probably because Facebook decided to "invade" and set up office, whereas Twitter worked with Tokyo-based Digital Garage to localise Twitter for the Japanese market (and attempt to provide extended services geared for the Japanese market). Twitter also doesn't require your real name - all they care about is that impersonators specify that they are parody and not genuine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just release a new post analysing how Facebook's doping in japan, and from what I found: <http://blog.gmbhnews.com/how-facebook-is-winning-in-japan> , they are doing quite well and it's just a matter of time till the gain all the japanese market.

</comment><comment><USER15> Tumblr appears to be very popular over there. Instgrrm too.

Can anyone from Japan comment on these two?

</comment><comment><USER3> So how is Facebook accepted in other countries than US and Japan? Maybe US is the outlier and we may have to think why Facebook is popular in US.

That's just a speculation. But we need more data points anyway.

<comment><USER14> you should check this post to understand how facebook's doing in Japan: <http://blog.gmbhnews.com/how-facebook-is-winning-in-japan></comment></comment>


When The Drones Come Marching In - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/29/drones/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

<comment><USER3> That embedded video is the most delightful thing I've seen linked to from HN for months. I can see new robosports coming out of this. It has a lot of visual appeal, more so than Battlebots, which sometimes looked clumsy and sometimes would sometimes turn out to be endless trading of ineffectual bumps and taps.

By scaling down to tri and quad-rotors, one simultaneously gets the excitement of flight (and crashes) with the potential for more visually interesting weaponry.

<comment><USER4> I'm completely with you, and it could be a great way to get the public interested in (i.e. funding) technology. It reminds me of when auto racing actually led to improvements for street cars. I mean kids already love various robotic cartoons - who wouldn't love the same as a real-life game. Attendance could be a little dangerous though...

Let's hope UPenn's QuadRotor Lab is in the running. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM>

<comment><USER3> A complete enclosed plexiglass arena plus some weight limits and munitions regulations should be enough to keep it safe.

<comment><USER4> Yea - sounds right to me. Perhaps even kill targets on the vehicles to limit? I'd think we'd get to unkillable bots pretty quickly with aerial ones - <USER2> I'm wrong though. Reminds me of the spinning blade bots that seemed indestructible...

<comment><USER3> Only the well engineered spinning blade bots (like Ziggo) were nigh indestructible.

I think a lot of this could be addressed by adding ground targets to go after or protect. I can also imagine lots of munitions which would be hard to just shrug off or dodge, like nylon nets or lasers hitting photocells rigged as cutoff-switches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The thing that gets me is that the US is using these to assassinate people in Pakistan and Afghanistan, some by firring hellfire missiles at the targets.

Yet the same UAV have got to be useful to kill the president of the US (I do not have any desire to kill him, but I imagine there are people who do).

So, how the hell do you protect somebody against these kinds of weapons? The bullet-proof glass that is (almost certainly) installed in the oval office is properly enough to stop any kind of sniper bullet, but a missile? Heck the Iranians have anti-ship missiles that can fly at march 2.

How do you stop something like that? I have to guess that the Secret Service have tried, but I doubt it can be done.

<comment><USER6> They still have a radar signature. You stop them (in principle) the same way you stop all enemy aircraft.

<comment><USER7> Smaller UAVs might be hard to recognize among birds and other clutter. And you can probably apply some stealth technology to increase your chances of staying undetected.

As far as assasination machines go, an insect-sized UAV with a tiny dose of poison would be hard to beat.

<comment><USER3> One the size of a large bird could park itself on a glass window, then detonate a shaped charge that could send a jet of superhot plasma through the bulletproof glass and kill a person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For a while I've wondered how effective a swarm of drones would be against something like an F-16. With the idea that a bunch of cheap drones en masse would be more effective as a group. But I looked up the costs and realized the larger drones cost almost the same as an F-16.

Humans are surprisingly cheap and effective machines themselves.

<comment><USER9> Drones are much cheaper in a more important respect - human lives. When wars can be fought with machines, leaders don't need to pay as much attention to democratic will when choosing who to attack.

<comment><USER10> > Drones are much cheaper in a more important respect - human lives.

Typically drones are used against targets that are human, I don't see the drones causing less loss of life.

<comment><USER9> I don't think leaders think of their enemies as human. I don't think they could sleep at night if they did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Related story here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2155845>

I prefer the related story - it links directly to the project page for said awesome video. It skips the scatterbrained TC commentary and adds a few details, such as the mechanism (no spoiler here..) for igniting the fireworks!

Too bad much of the interesting discussion is already in this news item.

</comment><comment><USER12> My gf got me one of the AR.Drones for christmas, and I have to say that it is, by far, the best nerd toy I've ever had. Seriously, it's remarkable.

If you, at all, are thinking about getting one go for it. You'll love it.

<comment><USER13> How's the durability?

<comment><USER12> I've definitely rammed it into a wall or some other barrier a couple dozen times and it's still ok. I'm sure I'll end up having to replace a blade at some point but I hear this is relatively straight forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When we think about drones we talk a lot about military operations. Sometimes I hear stuff on rescue but the theme is usually "tasks dangerous for people." I thought it would be interesting to think 100 years in the future when drones permeate everyday life and are used for the routine and mundane also. What will drones be doing then? I'd like to hear some of HN's most clever, outrageous, imaginative, but mostly, entertaining ideas. :-)

</comment><comment><USER15> When the drones come marching _in_ we'll have domestic drones (like those agile quadropters). They'll live and charge up on the top shelf, periodically taking off to photograph our stuff so it can be recognised and indexed. Easier to find car keys and books.

And maybe we could use them outside to clear the guttering (that's got to be worth $100 a year).

<comment><USER3> There's already a gutter clearing robot.

[http://store.irobot.com/family/index.jsp?ab=CMS_IRBT_100909&...](http://store.irobot.com/family/index.jsp?ab=CMS_IRBT_100909&categoryId=2878870&s=D-StorePrice- IRBT)

A large quadrotor to deliver this to the gutter would be very useful, though.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have to say, when I first saw the embedded video I was sure I was looking at some augmented reality game for the iPhone. The video from the drone's perspective is close to mind-blowing. There is so many possibilities for drones like these...let's just hope we choose the applications wisely.

<comment><USER16> Yeah I know - probably little ARM chips are light enough and cheap enough to do the image processing shown, on-board, although whether that was actually done live or added after in the video, who knows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Don't miss the video at the bottom!

</comment><comment><USER17> This is the coolest tech video I have ever seen.</comment>


What Silicon Valley startups can learn from West African kidnappers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cubeofm.com/what-silicon-valley-startups-can-learn-from-w

<comment><USER2> This guy's a joke. His novelty is wearing off fast. His startup advice is stale and it seems like he's tryig too hard to build up his Internet persona.

<comment><USER3> That seems harsh. This post wasn't that great, but his others were pretty good. He's certainly working at building his online persona, but there's nothing wrong with that. Though with the mention of making "30k a month", I'm beginning to worry that his story might be fabricated for the sake of publicity. Regardless, I look forward to seeing more writing from Max.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> i didn't find any insights that were unique to West African kidnappers; the same comparisons could be made to any risky enterprise with an intense and tightly-knit team.

did anyone else find that article a bit creepy to read? i'm afraid of the slippery slope where people continue to push more and more absurd yet uninsightful analogies. i'm sure someone could've written a similar article entitled "What Silicon Valley startups can learn from Nazi commanders" and made those same points.

<comment><USER5> I found the bit about West African kidnappers interesting without the assortment of generic startup advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Re-echoing what someone above said, the analogy in the article is quite stale, without bearing fresh insight in relation to startups. It tries too much to cash in on tabloid like sensationalism ''Kidnappers'' while pretending to educate its readers. It is also wordy. There are a few writers on here who try to share insightful messages in fewer words (Sivers etc.,) and they are modest about the attention they get. Focusing the readers' attention on the amount of shareware money one earns is the equivalent of cyber bling: very suspect.

</comment><comment><USER3> Notice at the end: "Follow me on twitter. I make 30k a month selling shareware."

<comment><USER7> Has he disclosed some of the softwares that he sells yet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This made me laugh:

<http://twitter.com/maxklein/status/11417407961>

(from 2 days ago)

</comment><comment><USER9> Link didn't work for me? I wonder if Max regretted the "attention grabbing" title of this one...

<comment><USER10> There's a link on his twitter that still seems to work: <http://blog.cubeofm.com/private/miEcmBmtdd>

<comment><USER9> I've said it before and I'll say it again about his posts. I'm highly skeptical that the anecdote held much truth. His stuff would be a lot more interesting if he cut about 50% of each article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a link to an article about hemorrhoids.</comment>


UK could ban social media over suicide images, minister warns - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47019912 <comment><AUTHOR> Matt Hancock is largely pro-technology, and has put in place things to increase the use of technology within English health services. This includes requiring products to be interoperable and promotion of app-based alternatives to doctors.

Tech campanies who dismiss Hancock as someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, or as someone making a populist "think of the children" appeal, would be making a mistake. He is calm and considered, and if he's making these comments it's a clear warning to the industry: improve your self regulation, or face government imposed regulation.</comment>


No Gods or Kings: Objectivism and Ayn Rand in BioShock - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/354717/no-gods-or-kings-objectivism-in-bioshock <comment><USER2> The Economist actually used Bioshock as an analogy for one of its articles:

"IN "BIOSHOCK", a hit video game from last year that was heavily influenced by the libertarian philosophy of Ayn Rand, the main villain builds a fantastical city under the sea, where businesses can escape the stifling grasp of government. If you are an internationally minded entrepreneur looking to set up a small to medium-sized business, that is probably going a little far. But where should you set up shop?"

[http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=...](http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12208572)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not going to say that I don't find some of Ayn Rand's ideas interesting, but some of the comments attributed to Yaron Brook in that article are just plain scary.

 _"It seems to me that he's misrepresented what Ayn Rand believes and her ideals beyond objectivism," he said. "He's setting it up to fail. He believes , based on what I've read, that any system that is absolutist is ultimately going to lead to disastrous effect. Any system of black and white, any system of ultimate morality."_

I'm sure a system of "ultimate morality" would work just fine for me... if I was defining the "ultimate morality".

 _"I think its flawed logic in the sense that he thinks that people have to be flawed"

"I think there are great people and perfect people and I think we all should strive to be great and perfect."_

To strive for perfection is a worthy endeavour, to assume that I or anyone else has achieved it, is naive, limiting and possibly dangerous. I'd like to know who Yaron Brook's puts in this category of great and perfect. Ayn Rand, I suppose would be one.

<comment><USER4> I'd actually bet that most people who really believe in objectivism would NOT call Rand perfect, because she most certainly was not. She was flawed both in writing and in character. It's just that she happened to do a much better job with both than most other people do, and she created a set of principles that are greater than she was.

"Just plain scary?" A lot of people exaggerate like that. And what's the downside in thinking that people are capable of being perfect? What sort of a situation would have that leading to a downfall?

<comment><USER3> Call it exaggeration if you like, but actually I firmly believe exactly this. People are not capable of achieving perfection. Perfection is by definition not achievable.

What are the downsides? Well without writing a thesis on the subject, basically what I have already mentioned. If one believes ones self to be perfect, then logically, there is no reason to continue to strive for improvement is there? Again by definition, you can't improve on perfection.

If one believes ones self to be perfect, then ones opinions/decisions/actions must also be perfect (i.e., perfectly correct) and therefore beyond doubt or compromise. I see such an absolute and unquestionable position (particularly if that position is held by a person in any kind of leadership role) having the possibility to lead to all sorts of unfortunate social consequences. History is filled with examples of leaders who believed their point of view to be beyond question or compromise, usually with bad results.

So if it's not Ayn Rand, who's perfect then?

I stand by my original comment.

<comment><USER5> You've sort of side-stepped the point.

The idea of humans being "imperfect" is not in reference to a Webster's definition, but in comparison to the religious notion of the deity's perfection.

If one believes that Mankind is not some imperfect reflection of a perfect deity whom he must serve, then any notion of perfection must be realizable by humans. So in theory a man or woman could be perfect.

Rand writes about these larger than life types of people. Most of us only see shades of them in ourselves or people we know, but it sure beats the idea of guilt/imperfection as a birthright thanks to original sin!

I bring this up b/c western culture is so heavily influenced by Christianity that it pollutes even people's secular understanding of what perfection means.

As I recall someone got a 10 at the olympics this year.

<comment><USER3> You're putting words in my mouth (or at least attributing meaning to my words that I never intended) and trying to frame the debate. I am not Christian, nor do I count myself as a member of any organised religion. Such concepts as original sin and all that come with them hold no power for me and I certainly don't agree with them.

My concept of humans being inherently imperfect comes directly from and is directly in reference to the dictionary definition. I think I have already made my point about the attainment of perfection implicitly meaning that further improvement is impossible and how this can only be a bad thing for humanity. Who wants to live in a world where the best has already been?

If however, proponents of Objectivism wish to redefine and narrow the meaning of the words "perfect" and "imperfect" in order to make some point against certain misguided religious concepts, then that is their business. I could only suggest that perhaps they try using different words to avoid future confusion.

Someone got a 10 at the Olympics? Well done them. You may be interested in this story:

<http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/06/1214234>

But in any case, now it seems that you're switching back and arguing that the dictionary definition of "perfect" is attainable by a human. And it was a good argument too, untill it occurred to me that scores are assigned by imperfect human judges.

I don't see the human inability to attain perfection as a negative, quite the opposite actually. It keeps us growing.

<comment><USER4> I think that Rand and people who agree with her work see perfection as a relative thing. In her books, the "perfect protagonists" are the ones who always live life according to moral values without ever slipping, and who manage to persevere and create great things. That's perfection in her books: always doing your best, and your ACTUAL best rather than a measly excuse of a best. And when the guy mentions perfect people, I think that's what he's talking about.

<comment><USER3> Not being intimately familiar with her works, I can only take your word for this. If that is the case, then that seems logical and I have no problem with people being encouraged to do their best.

However, that is not the impression that I got from Brook's quotes. The word "perfect" has one meaning, it is not a relative thing. If you don't actually mean "perfect" then use another word.

I still see a strain of absolutism showing through when you say "the "perfect protagonists" are the ones who always live life according to moral values without ever slipping"... Where do these moral values come from? Who agreed that they are the values worthy of being adhered to? And they live life true to these values "Without ever slipping"? Sounds like we're looking at the dictionary definition of "perfect" again... If there's one place where this kind of perfection could be achieved, I guess it would have to be in a fictional book.

<comment><USER4> I answered you elsewhere: I think that "perfect" is not necessarily an absolute. It doesn't always mean "incapable of being better." It means "having all desirable traits." It's like if I call somebody unparalleled. It doesn't mean they CAN'T be paralleled, it just means they AREN'T.

Rand says in her works that moral values must come entirely from logic and reasoning, and that that's why her philosophy can be held as a moral absolute: because if it ISN'T logical, she encourages you to disagree with her. It's why people who agree with her seem to do so fanatically: because they're convinced by logic and nothing else that they are right.

And Rand admits from the start that her works portray ideals and nothing more. In her line of thinking if she portrayed only characters with flaws it would make her books subjective and less reliable as a philosophical guide. Nonetheless, there are people who try to live by her words, and many people who have succeeded immensely because of them.

<comment><USER3> But you've just made my point for me. If you, Rand, Brook and anyone else used the word "unparalleled" in place of "perfect" as it relates to this discussion, then at least the majority of our conversation probably wouldn't have taken place. It's not the same as "perfect". It's not even the same as "having all desirable traits" which is in fact identical to the actual meaning of "perfect". If one has "all desirable traits", "all" being an absolute term, then logically there are no more traits worth acquiring.

You started out asking me what possible downside there could be to a person believing they are capable of perfection. After I answered, you took the fallback position that perfection isn't actually perfection. You seem a bit all over the place justifying your argument.

Sorry I'm just not buying it. And I'm sure if you were going to buy my argument, you would have done so by now. so I think we will have to just agree to disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is truly fascinating. Having read Ayn Rand, and briefly taken by the stark ideology, it all falls into place. I suddenly have a deeper appreciation for the gameplay, the philosophy, and the artwork of Bioshock.

I love the commentary too -- it's both an homage and a cautionary tale. Bioshock starts as a utopia and de-evolves into an awful dystopia.

<comment><USER7> If it weren't terribly off topic and likely to lead to pointless flame wars, that might make for a fun poll. "At what age did you go through your Ayn Rand phase? How long did it last?"

<comment><USER8> 17, 6 months

I would be interested in knowing how many are still under the baleful Eye as well.

<comment><USER9> 17\. Being fourth generation progeny of critical thinking literary snobs, I was unable to make it through Atlas Shrugged.

Unfortunately, as it is difficult for Hollywood newcomers to avoid Scientology recruiters, a college freshman finds it difficult to avoid the Objectivist Club recruiters.

Thus, later in the same year I had a brush with Rand again. I tried reading "The Romantic Manifesto" and found it unintentionally hilarious, in the same way Sarah Palin's press conferences are hilarious.

<comment><USER5> You have too much taste for Atlas Shrugged because of your illustrious bloodline?

If reading Atlas Shrugged is too much work for your taste, then I think the actual ideas contained in it would surely be quite distasteful to you, but I guess the world will never know.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I do have too much taste to work through Atlas Shrugged, and I attribute this at least partially to good parenting. It always saddens me to read about good minds softened by the writings of Ayn Rand, and I shudder to think about the sorts of childhoods they must have had.

<comment><USER5> Were you forced by your parents to donate your allowance to the homeless amid tears that eventually turned into self-congratulation?

What sort of "good parenting" created such a visceral aversion to Rand's philosophy? Or is it her prose style that you object to?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> even afterpatching mine crashes and I can't figure out why. it only seems to happen when I am picking up money off a corpse.

<comment><USER11> Your game isn't crashing, it's protesting your strong-arm tactics toward taxation.

/tongue-in-cheek.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you have not played this game, you must. It is easily one of the best games I have ever played. The story is really that good.

<comment><USER13> I've heard this repeated a lot, but honestly I found the story trite, and the combat pretty generic after a few levels. Maybe I was hoping for too much though. YMMV, of course.

<comment><USER14> I think video games are held to a different (lower) standard than most other mediums with respect to storytelling. This is a shame, but there's a good reason: you can't embed a narrative inside emergent, non-formulaic gameplay. Either you tell a story with how you limit the player's actions, or you don't tell any story at all.

But even if you accept that as a fundamental limitation of the medium, most video games still have horrible stories. With the exception of Valve and a few others, it seems like no one's even trying. I don't think BioShock is the apex of video game development, but it's certainly a cut above almost everything else. That may not be much, but it's something.

<comment><USER15> I think we need to distinguish between two aspects of good storytelling: having a good story, and telling it well. In a game, I think the latter matters a lot more than the former.

People don't play games just because they want to see a story -- if they wanted that they'd just watch a movie and get a lot more story in a lot less time. In a game the main function of the story is to provide a reward for beating the last part of the game, and a motivation to beat the next part. Games can have quite simple, even cliched storylines (e.g. Prince of Persia Sands of Time, or the original Half Life) and still seem compelling.

On the other hand, a lot of games fall down in the quality of the storytelling. Bad dialogue, bargain-basement voice-acting, or just plain dull scenes can spoil a game pretty quickly. ("I fought a seven-headed monster for this?")

Bioshock may have a well-developed story for an interesting novel, but I'm not sure about the quality of the storytelling. I've only played the first couple of levels before getting bored, but so far most of the story has been pumped directly into my ear by some guy with a sepia-toned icon and a largely- incomprehensible monotonic brogue. Combine that with the fact that the levels and enemies so far have all looked pretty much the same, and I couldn't summon up the motivation to keep playing.

<comment><USER14> I think it's unreasonable to expect that even a masterpiece (which Bioshock is not) would appeal to everyone. Any creative work's impact is measured by its appeal to its core audience, who are often people who live and breath the medium or genre.

For instance, one of my favorite movies is _Kill!_ (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063186/>), which is a brilliant and quite funny re-imagining of the samurai flick. It's a pretty good movie in its own right, but what makes it truly masterful is how it subtly twists the norms and tropes of its genre. These little touches are not aimed at a broad audience, they're aimed at people who are predisposed to like samurai movies, and have already seen a few dozen samurai movies in their life. That's not cheating, either, it's just knowing your audience and giving them what they want.

As to the bad dialogue, voice-acting, etc. I think it's hard to break it down into anything so specific. A story is good if it allows you to suspend your disbelief. Bioshock didn't, but it wasn't necessarily because of any of the things you listed; you could just as easily have liked the game in spite of them. For instance, one of my favorite games of all time is Deus Ex, and it had absolutely laughable voice acting (check out <http://ispeeeelmydreeenk.ytmnd.com/>). Any great creative work is going to be more than the sum of its parts, and just because video games involve computers doesn't mean that they're somehow more quantifiable than painting or poetry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'll buy anything not published and DRM'd by EA.

<comment><USER17> Then I guess you'll buy Bioshock.

And you should, too. For those of us interested in videogames as an artistic medium, this is one of the most exciting games out there.

<comment><USER4> That's a slight exaggeration. I think it reveals an exciting trend, but the game itself fails artistically. Its gameplay is more or less generic, and its story has a great concept but poor execution.

Portal, on the other hand, or Half-Life 2... Those games seem to get dismissed by the "games are art" crowd, or at least not brought up. I've never understood that. And Psychonauts, Killer 7, Shadow of the Colossus... But I think that the real innovative games don't get the same level of heralding because people who find those games know that games have been artistic since at least the NES stage. Final Fantasy II/IV, anybody? Zelda?

<comment><USER17> It's not an exaggeration at all. I didn't say Portal, Psychonauts, Killer 7 (which I'm ashamed to say I haven't played), or Shadow of the Colossus aren't interesting or innovative, although your inclusion of Zelda, Final Fantasies, and Half-Life 2 makes me think that you're confusing "entertaining" and "artistically interesting." And I'm not looking down on games that are "just" entertaining.

Portal was an extremely fun and funny game. What does Portal say about the human condition and how does it use the mechanics of videogames to convey that meaning? In what way is this use of the mechanics new and exciting?

I'm not going to get into a full discussion of the ramifications of Bioshock here, but they're not hard to come by. The game is far from flawless, but that's not the point. The point is that it uses the medium in a way that is fundamentally more purposeful than most games that people consider to be "great."

 __* Herein, a reference is made to a MASSIVE Bioshock SPOILER __*

When Ryan reveals that the protagonist has been under Fontaine's control the entire time, and you look back at all the instances where your conditioning forced you to do something, it calls into question the very idea of freedom and choice in games. Because, while the game didn't compel you to perform those actions, the system (of the game rules and genre conventions) was set up so that you had to (unless you wanted to stop playing there, the meaning of which is the subject for another discussion). This forcing of your hand is itself a commentary on Objectivism and capitalist societies which put freedom first and foremost, but systematically pushes everyone to fill the economically "best" niche, a concept Ryan refers to as "the great chain." To reinforce this connection, you'll notice that the protagonist has a tattoo of the chain on his wrist. His wrists are literally chained by "the great chain" which in this case is a metaphor for the game's rules.

 __* SPOILERS over __*

Now, before anyone tells me to get a life: I have a life. I make videogames.

Before you tell me that the game designers didn't intend this and I'm reading too much into it: I don't care about authorial intention. Lots of people have made art that they themselves didn't understand. If you doubt that, look for homosexual undertones in Victorian literature.

Aside from that, I welcome responses.

<comment><USER4> Hopefully nobody here will tell you to get a life. We're on a site called Hacker News, discussing artistic merit in video games. So it's good.

I have a different view of art than you do. I don't think that art must necessarily illustrate the human condition. Do Bach's cello suites make any sort of commentary whatsoever? Not to the untrained eye. They're just expertly crafted pieces of music. That, to me, is the core of art: not necessarily a statement about humanity but the practice of honing your ability with a craft. You can have the best idea imaginable but if you can't tell it well then it's not art.

I'm certain that BioShock DOES mean to do what you think it does. It absolutely attempts those route literary devices and it does a pretty good job of that. However, I would not for an instant call BioShock art, because it is not a movie. Its purpose is not primarily to tell a story. Its main role is to be a good game. And at that, it fails. It's fairly monotonous and while it has great ambience, the gameplay doesn't distinguish itself much. The story doesn't tell itself WELL. There were a few interesting moments from what I've played but that was it.

In my mind, the primary method of art in a game is that of the game itself. The best artists are the ones making the most fun games. That doesn't necessarily mean greater themes: Zelda is very black-and-white, for instance, in terms of story. However, a game doesn't require a story if it does its job well. Zelda doesn't, and yet THAT is what I consider to be the highest art. It's a beautiful, memorable game.

Portal? That's as close to sublime as you get. It DOES have a story, and it has a good one. And no, it doesn't have themes, any more than A Midsummer Night's Dream does. Which is to say, you can see themes in it, because they're there in both of them, but the main thing about each one is that they're enjoyable without focusing on the themes. Shakespeare isn't great because he told themes: he's great because every line he wrote was beautiful and absolutely fit whatever he was writing. The components have to fit together. That's what makes a good game.

Half-Life 2 has a story, and it tells the story well. The story is incredibly well-written, too, and it's told in the game brilliantly. The gameplay is surprisingly emotional: you get very involved in the gunfighting because of how slowly it develops. You feel extremely in the game. That's art. That's what gaming is all about.

Final Fantasy? It always tries to tell a story. And the stories are usually very thematic. I think it's slightly going downhill, but the one I mentioned (II/IV) was sublime. The graphics, music, gameplay was all very simple, but it was beautiful. It was evocative. The soundtrack in particular is stunning. The story was not particularly complex, but it was emotional and told itself well. That's art at its best. When I played it at 8 or 9, it changed my life. It made me want to become a game designer.

You're in the mindset that all mechanics have been done, and so art is just doing an old thing in a new way. That's silly! We're at the phase in video games where NOTHING has been done. We're like cinematographers in the 20s. We can do ANYTHING and it's new, and so we don't have to worry about exhausting old ground. Portal is art because it created a new game mechanic! It's something that was never done before. And not only does it MAKE the mechanic, but it polishes it considerably. It's tight, it's exciting for the entire game, and it's new. Art.

And Nintendo? They're making the greatest art of them ALL. I look at them like I look at the early silent films: they don't use an involved story, because they're busy focusing on technique, style. Every Mario game adds new ideas. It keeps on redefining the platform genre, adding new things to do. That's art. Nintendo takes the craft that Miyamoto started as a boy and continues to refine and perfect it. It's why I'd argue that of my favorite games, Nintendo's made about half. A handful of Zeldas, a few Marios, even Animal Crossing, Wii Sports, and every Super Smash Bros. They're not "literary" but they don't have to be. They don't need symbols. They're all about incredibly fun and radical new game ideas, and they're all the highest form of art.

tl;dr - BioShock's story isn't good enough to be considered literature, and it has mediocre gameplay. I think art means making fun games above everything, and BioShock is a big fail for that, even if it is pretty.

<comment><USER17> Okay, first, I just want to thank you for your excellent response.

I'll admit, I don't think art must necessarily illustrate the human condition. I think good art often does, but it can also just be something that evokes an emotion. Of course, lots of things evoke emotions, so that's obviously necessary but not sufficient. I agree that the expert exercise of craft can be quite enjoyable, but that too is not sufficient to be artistically interesting or else all skilled workers would be artists (and if you feel that way, we really aren't talking about the same thing when we use the word "art"). This is already a debatably overly-limited definition of art, but my point was to unpack the idea that art does have various motives, goals, and effects on the viewer, as well as many ways to achieve them, and that is a fine thing.

However, I wasn't trying to debate what is artistic and what I not. I was saying that for those of us interested in games as art, Bioshock is an exciting game, and it's exciting because it does something new and it does it well.

I don't understand how you can get out of what I said that I think Bioshock's story is what makes it art. To say "ahh yes, but it's not a movie!" is to miss the entire point, (which may very well be the fault of my writing). The point is that it controlled me and I enjoyed it. The point is that it told me I was a slave AND IT WAS RIGHT. Because of things I DID. And it did it in a way that only a game could, not a movie or a book or a song.

I said Bioshock was interesting and I stand by that because it did something that none of the games you've cited do: the rules of the simulation and the rules of narrative played together to make meaning that as key to the game that couldn't be made in strictly simulation or narrative forms alone.

You say the "gameplay doesn't distinguish itself much," and if you mean the combat and other kinetic elements don't particularly stand out, I don't entirely disagree, but that's missing the point. When you say that Bioshock's story isn't well told, however, that's something I disagree with strongly.

I wish I had time to discuss each of the games you listed, because we agree on some points and disagree on others, but I don't, so I'll try to address some of the themes I saw.

You defend some Nintendo games for being something other than literary, and you and I are in agreement that that's not required to be interesting. Too many people think that a game has artistic merit if and only if it has a good story. There are a whole lot of good games without a story, or with a terrible story that they tell well (e.g. Half-Life 1). This isn't the point.

However, story and how it's told is important stuff in a lot of these games. But how do games tell stories? Like literature and movies, games have character development and pacing, but there are also aspects unique to each medium. Literature has the craft of writing, movies have framing and mise en scene. Games have other means of telling stories, and we're still figuring some of them out. Bioshock tells its story and evokes something in the player in a way I haven't seen before. That's why I said initially that it's one of the most exciting games out there. It's exciting because it's trail-blazing. It's exciting because it uses this to be an indictment of its own genre conventions.

Finally, you write, "I think art means making fun games above everything," a statement that honestly makes me rather sad. There are plenty of great things to do in terms of making fun games and finding new ways to make fun games. However, you make the analogy of games to film: do you think Citizen Kane was a fun movie? Should Kubrick have worried more about making Paths of Glory more fun? I don't think fun is bad, but to limit our definition of a good game to what is fun is to put on blinders.

tl;dr - Good literature isn't about plot and neither is BioShock. Good literature and BioShock, however, both use their medium well, and BioShock is exciting because it shows us a new way of doing things.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Japan's future? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-declining-japan-loses-its-once-hopeful-champions/2012/10/27/f2d90b2e-1cea-11e2-9cd5-b55c38388962_story.html

<comment><USER2> While it's certainly challenging times, it's nonsense to project even 5 years out. The article states the population is going to fall to a third by 2100? Ridiculous. You can't take a few points and draw a line, and claim it's a linear function. The birth rate is down because cost of living is so high, and the older generation has entrenched itself at the expense of the young. Similarly the economy is down because of massive de-leveraging - it won't be a straight line down forever. At some point both imbalances will be corrected. Maybe not in the next 10 years, but certainly by 2100.</comment>


Do Rich Kids Do Better In School? - <AUTHOR> http://allfuzzy.tumblr.com/post/19797077112/do-rich-kids-do-better-in-school-findings-based-on

<comment><USER2> My interpretation of the data is that wealthier households weight academic success as a higher importance and as such more support is given as well as an expectation of scholastic success. I can't say I'm surprised by the results of the study. After spending so many years in school I have to remind myself that there are plenty of people smarter than me that don't have the grades to 'prove' it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry to be a downer, but I'm sure what the point of this post is. The gap between kids from high and low SES families has been exhaustively documented (try going to Google scholar and searching, for example, "income achievement").

The only interesting bit, perhaps, would have been seeing the R code which generated the figures, which the author declined to post.

</comment><comment><USER4> Of course. Educated parents typically have educated kids. Wealth is positively correlated with education and IQ. This is a no brainer.</comment>


Show HN: DubDial – Automated calls with any YouTube audio clip to friends - <AUTHOR> https://dubdial.com <comment><USER2> Might I suggest adding an opt out form? A way to submit your own number so it can never be called with the service?

All similar prank call services have such a form, which I discovered when some HN troll decided to plague me for weeks upon end.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, will add it. We also set the caller-id to the user's number so you always know who called you. Will that help prevent such calls?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clever, and monetized. Wonder how the license holders of the content might feel about this, uh, approach? Time will tell, won't know until it gets tried, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> Couldn't I call them myself and hold the phone up to a speaker playing the YouTube video? At least then after I annoy them they can hear me laugh as they hang up and sigh at how juvenile I am, and wonder why they're still my friend.

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty cool, I am going to try it out. Your cvc field prevents Amex users. Just change the max length to 4 and everything should work ok.

<comment><USER6> I am afraid, the author has gone to sleep now. I see that an Amex credit card has made a success payment though.

I will let him know to increase the limit to 4.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would use if had anonymity. If I'm going to prank my friends I don't want them knowing it's me instantaneously.</comment>


TPM-JS: Interactive Intro to Trusted Platform Modules - <AUTHOR> https://google.github.io/tpm-js <comment><USER2> The TPM simulator is created by Google, which uses vTPMs in "Shielded VMs", [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/07/googl...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2018/07/google-launches-shielded-vms-to-protect-cloud-servers-from- rootkits-data-theft/)

 _> Shielded VMs use a combination of firmware-based UEFI Secure Boot and vTPM—a virtual Trusted Platform Module, which can generate and store "sealed" encryption keys. Those keys are used for Secure Boot, which ensures that the VM will only run authenticated software, and for Measured Boot, which checks against previous baselines of the virtual machine's configuration ... Both Secure Boot and Measured Boot can help defend against rootkits that might execute during the operating system startup, as well as kernel-level malware ... making it difficult if not impossible to gain access to the contents of a virtual machine's drives unless the operating system boots in a "known-good" state. If the VM's operating system, boot loader, or firmware image is compromised, the system won't reboot—so an attacker won't be able to decrypt the virtual disks._

Here's a talk by the author of the Intel TPM2 Software Stack (TSS) used in the simulator, [https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2018/speaker/tricca/](https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2018/speaker/tricca/)

 _> TPM 2.0 became an ISO standard in 2015, a Windows 10 security requirement in 2018 ... This talk will cover Intel's collaboration ... to create a set of usable APIs. Design and craftsmanship of APIs with intuitive, predictable behavior can increase developer adoption and the likelihood of critical infrastructure functioning as intended_</comment>