Ketamine might help prevent suicide - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/opinion/sunday/suicide-ketamine-depression.html <comment><USER4> I want to warn folks that the quality of street ketamine wildly varies and is not a suitable alternative to these kinds of treatments.

I have had on and off issues with dependency on this substance mainly due to my issues with depression and anxiety.

If anything, it works _too_ well for these issues, and it's incredibly easy to get used to the relief from the constant onslaught of struggle that these types of illnesses cause, just as I imagine an opiate would be relieving for someone with chronic pain.

I would urge a sense of critical importance to the understanding that the exciting part of these treatments is that in combination with psychotherapy they could _cure_ , not _treat_ these issues.

Unlike someone with chronic pain, it can be used, along with certain other properly-applied psychedelics like LSD, to help train the psyche into functioning without it.

It's not, however, something for everyone, and while it worked for me, please excercise extreme caution in using this substance or recommending it to others.

I've had friends who did it for years and still killed themselves. Two of them.

So at the end of the day, I urge everyone with even the deepest-seated mental issues like this - this kind of change has to come from within, and any benefits an external tool provides should be for dedicated moments of healing and/or a focus on the mind, and, for lack of a better word, spirit.

I can create a throwaway email account to answer any questions anyone may have. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you, or anyone close to you has problems with this substance.

<comment><USER5> Very valid points. But keep in mind that ketamine therapy is generally considered a treatment of last resort, for refractory depression, often after even treatments like ECT have failed.

<comment><USER6> I find this argument interesting. Going through depression myself, waiting for an SSRI to be effective 6 - 8 weeks feels impossible if you want to end it all RIGHT NOW. That's kinda the point of suicide, is to end the pain ASAP.

Here's the thing, the SSRI didn't work out for me, now I'm going to try another medication, another 6 weeks before it's fully effective (It's not an SSRI though). I don't know if I can wait that long.

I still haven't gotten to other tiers of treatment in terms of medication - Antipsychotics, rMAOIs, etc.

Point is: I'm not sure a tiered approach for medication works well for everyone with depression, it's too time sensitive.

<comment><USER7> Yes indeed. 6 to 8 weeks is an eternity for someone who is deeply suffering. I personally think we are way too stingy with medicines these days. I also had a friend commit suicide while suffering from intense depression. He would no doubt be alive today if he had been giving what he needed right away, instead of being made to start with Prozac and then worked through a bunch of different "starter" antidepressants. Just give people what they need. There are worse outcomes than over-prescribing (death at one's own hand, for example).

<comment><USER8> Sadly, we don't know enough about the brain to have any idea which medications are going to work or what it is people need right away. While you certainly could sedate people to the point of utter apathy by giving every shmiel who walks through the clinic doors high powered anti-psychotics it would be akin to treating a broken toe with amputation.

First line treatments like sertraline and fluoxetine are used because they take time to work and have generally tolerable side-effect profiles. E.g. in the case of patients with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, you run a lower risk of triggering a manic episode.

<comment><USER9> Why shouldn't the person be allowed to make their own choice after being properly informed of their options and having received their doctor's suggestion?

<comment><USER10> It's unethical, just like if a patient demanded their leg be amputated for a broken toe.

<comment><USER11> If the broken toe was inside a concrete cast that no one could see into, and there was no such thing as an X-ray machine, CT scan, MRI, or any other machine that could be used to verify the toe being the part that's broken.

If the doctor didn't listen to, or at all believe at least half the the stuff the patient actually said, and didn't need to.

If others had leg amputation performed and the leg grew back and on top of it we had evidence that leg amputation caused long-term damage when performed for other reasons. (Ketamine has long been used as an anesthetic precisely _because_ the data we have suggests no long term damage from that dosage.)

If the patient had suicidal ideation and intent, because something hurt so much and we had no way of doing anything other than leg amputation, then why shouldn't we?

Until humanity manages to develop and deploy brain scanners that can actually see how much physical and emotional pain a person is _actually_ in, then the leg amputation analogy is lazy and unhelpful because we simply don't have the same tools to address mental health because it's largely invisible.

Most doctors are still humans who negatively judge patients who drink heavily, who frequently miss appointments, who can't manage to get lab work done, who self-medicate with street drugs; those patients are judged as degenerates, not deserving of their help because they can't manage to take a pill, that doesn't seem to work for 6-8 weeks.

I mean, it's great that a hospital's ethic's board has reviewed the situation and determined that the best course of action is for people to suffer because they don't want the liability of, in this analogy, leg amputation, but in the meanwhile, people are being discarded by the mental health profession.

<comment><USER5> But what treatment are you thinking of here? Ketamine? Maybe after more research, trials and long term tracking of patient outcomes it can become a front line treatment. For now there's a reason it's a treatment of last resort. It's use in this way is not as well understood as traditional drugs. Use as an anaesthetic is a one-off. As with most substances, chronic use carries more complications. There's potential for cardiovascular issues. Also cognitive issues like impairments in creating new memories, accessing old memories, verbal memory, forgetting words, names... It makes sense to attempt treatments with a lower risk profile first, not for legal liability but patient well being. In the meantime there already is an immediate treatment available for those at risk of self harm: short and medium term hospitalization, which allows for more rapid trials of different medications at higher doses because the patient is under regular monitoring. Yes it still sucks, it's a crappy experience, but it is effective in getting most people stable enough to wait for longer term treatments to reach peak effectiveness.

<comment><USER12> > It's use in this way is not as well understood as traditional drugs

Traditional drugs are often a crapshoot anyway, and there's been plenty of harm from them. In the end, it should be the patient's choice in what path to take.

<comment><USER5> Yep, traditional drugs have their pitfalls too, but have had the advantage of rigorous trials that something like ketamine has not yet undergone. I'm glad it's an option, but there's really not a strong enough body of research for it to make it a first-line option. Yet. I hope that changes.

And, in the end, it is the patient's choice, within a certain circumscribed set of options. A good doctor works with the patient's needs. But it would be a very poor doctor that jumped to riskier options and less proven options first. The level of patient choice you're suggesting implies a level of informed patient that is frequently not the case. I rigorously research every single treatment option, discuss each one with my doctor, and we arrive at a course of treatment. But my doctor has indicated that I am, unfortunately, in the small minority in this respect. Your level of patient choice would invite all sorts of bad prescriptions to patients ill informed and, often, self diagnosed incorrectly-- a frequent issue leading patients to skew their conversations with doctors towards that incorrect diagnosis. In theory, in a perfect world, what you propose is fine. But we don't live in that place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suffer from serious depression. I have tried to kill myself. It comes and goes in waves.

I was able to try an experimental ketamine treatment in the hospital.

3 doses administered via IV every-other day. (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)

The first and third were failures for me. Nurses talking in the OR completely distracted me and "stole" my awareness.

But the second one was perfect. I was able to feel nothing. I was able to shut off my mind and enjoy the single most peaceful moment of my life.

As time & work permit I plan on doing this again. Especially now that I know I need to be blindfolded and have ear-plugs in. (this sounds dramatic, but it's what works for me)

It hasn't cured my depression, but it has given me hope. And that's more then I have ever had.

<comment><USER14> I can't recommend The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk enough, I wish this book had been out 10 years ago before my mom took her life.

Nonetheless, it's been instrumental in helping me alleviate my anxiety and depression. I read it a year ago and I can't imagine going back to the way I felt then.

Specifically I've done two forms of therapy — EMDR and Somatic Experiencing — that were recommended (among many others) in the book.

<comment><USER15> Seems to have really good reviews. Is it something worth reading for somebody without a depression or a trauma? Any insight that stuck with you the most? I'm sorry about your mom.

<comment><USER14> I honestly read the book just because I consider myself an autodidact and student of human nature and it sounded interesting. While reading I realized that the traditional psychotherapy I'd done since my mother's suicide was mostly just a way to cope with the tragedy rather than to heal from it (coping is still better than nothing though IMO).

I'd say it's still worth reading to better understand the people around you who seem to act in almost objectively "illogical/irrational" ways, even when presented with better solutions. Even though such behavior is typically self- destructive, this book helped me to see the "logic" of it (Eg some obese women are obese because they were abused as children and they unconsciously overeat/eat junk food to make themselves fat and unattractive to potential abusers, so without resolving that issue no amount of healthy nutrition knowledge will help them, they'll always regress).

It's also given me more empathy for those around me, instead of feeling like they're doing things "to me" I've been able to keep the bigger picture in mind and realize that people mistreating you is typically just a sign that they have unresolved issues themselves (that doesn't mean you just let it happen without saying anything, but the increased empathy helps me handle the situation better).

<comment><USER16> > Eg some obese women are obese because they were abused as children and they > unconsciously overeat/eat junk food to make themselves fat and unattractive > to potential abusers ...

I'm not a big fan of these kind of "logic" explanations. I think the explanation can be a lot more straightforward, like by being treated worthless your whole childhood you've internalised this feeling and now continue to do the same to yourself.

But yes, it's really helpful to somehow understand or least get an idea why a person behaves in a certain way.

<comment><USER17> To my understanding, the logic is that there's a hormone called leptin which strongly guides your eating patterns, cravings, energy, etc. Stresses and traumas can affect your leptin levels, so particular stresses and traumas can cause you to eat more. This makes evolutionary sense, since if you're in a famine, or an ice age, you better stock up on as much food as you can. Move slowly, digest slowly, don't lose any of it, because you never know when you'll run out.

Sexual abuse traumas get interpreted by some bodies as the same kinds of stress signals as famine, raising leptin, causing overeating.

So I guess the broader point is that some of the "unconscious logic" going on inside us isn't just habits or odd personality traits, but actual chemical processes.

Note that I got all of this knowledge from reading a Pop Sci weight loss book. HN, let me know if you know better :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I was a ketamine user for a long time. My use turned into a problem but I'm realizing that my use patterns were basically: Use, wait until depression returned, crave a cure from my depression, use.

In a clinical setting I'm sure that it's very helpful but for me the "crave a cure" caused me to not getting around to dealing with my issues of depression until after I had issues with ketamine that required intervention and left me alone with depression again.

I hope other people never go down that path. She is a cruel seductress and the draw of the sudden emotional changes is a lot to put on someone's psyche. If they're suffering, and then suddenly they aren't and they feel happy for the first time in a long time it's easy to make the association to powder = happy and that's a very powerful association for an animal/human psyche to put together.

For most people, street ketamine would scare the shit out of them but for anyone else they might get drawn in to basically constant cycles of self medication.

<comment><USER19> How is a constant cycle of medication any different from using common antidepressants like SSRIs? Sure, it would be great if we could cure depression without drugs, but if that isn't possible, obviously medication is important for those people to be able to live good lives.

<comment><USER11> The illicit nature of street ketamine is what sets it apart from SSRIs, for mainstream society. A random primary care physician (PCP) isn't going to send a prescription for it over to the local CVS/Walgreens pharmacy for convenient pickup over lunch. Which often means resorting to desperate measures, at heavy markup, in order to procure any amount, with an unreliable supply.

Self-medication can be problematic because it's non-objective, but it can easily lead to (psychological) addiction. The brain optimizes/skips a step - not-being-depressed looks a lot like actually being happy when compared to being depressed, so then there emerges this belief that the user needs to be high on ketamine _constantly_ , which is when it becomes a problem.

GP post isn't arguing that no one should use ketamine, or any other medication that works. They are giving first-hand perspective that ketamine addiction is real, and having heard stories myself, I'm inclined to believe GP. It would be great if ketamine had to be prescribed by a doctor to avoid addiction, _and_ that such a requirement didn't end up excluding those outside of mainstream society (often because of mental problems like, say, depression).

FDA approval of ketamine for depression will go a long way to improving the situation but for now one choice is to pay some $1500/session (not covered by insurance), to a clinic run by medical professionals risking their license. (Each session uses less than $20 of ketamine, so it's quite the markup!)

The other option is to buy street ketamine, which is a move of desperation, but looks a lot better than committing suicide.

I don't understand the objection int the article about the possible necessity of "booster" treatments though.

<comment><USER20> > A random primary care physician (PCP) isn't going to send a prescription for > it over to the local CVS/Walgreens pharmacy for convenient pickup over > lunch.

Most GPs won't write you a scrip for ADHD medication on a whim, either, but I wouldn't describe Vyvanse as "illicit." They just "know what they don't know" and so don't trust their own evaluation of you and think you should get a professional evaluation by a specialist (i.e. a psychiatrist, in this case.)

They're usually perfectly willing to _continue_ prescribing after you've gotten a previous scrip from a psychiatrist, though. I suspect ketamine would be much the same, except that you'd need to get your scrip filled at the pharmacy of an inpatient hospital (since that's where they'd have it in stock), rather than the corner store.

It's the same story as, say, methamphetamine. _Scheduled_ drug—but that doesn't mean you can't just get a prescription and get it filled. It's a lot of work to _get_ that prescription (since methamphetamine is _also_ a last- line treatment), but once you have it, any hospital pharmacy should have some in stock.

<comment><USER11> Where a future hypothetical ketamine prescription could be filled from, I can't say, but clinics charging $1500/session have it in nasal sprays and lozenge form, I'm hopeful that a corner store would eventually be able to fill it easily once one of the pharmaceutical companies manage to package it up in a form they deem lucrative. (Which will involve patenting some part of it, possibly the delivery mechanism, since ketamine itself is past patentable date.)

Depression is an insidious disease, and being able to fill it at the corner store, rather than having to go all the way to hospital (which can be a scary and frustrating experience) might make the difference between having the medication, and not.

<comment><USER18> Ketamine is hugely psychologically addictive though. It is like saying that opioids should be available to everyone that is in any pain. The level of addiction caused may be different because the opioid user has to contend with the negative association with withdrawal as well as the allure of the high itself, whereas ketamine is only one of those two. Dependence and addiction are not the same and ketamine is powerfully re-enforcing. I don't mean to trash this - I'm just trying to show a counterpoint and another perspective because there WILL be misuse as soon as prescriptions become available, and people (doctors) will not understand the degrees to which it can draw people to misuse until much later. There is already a black market to supply to the demand. If droves of people start acclimatizing themselves to ketamine, the market demand will increase and the black market will be there to fill that new demand, just like it did with heroin/fentanyl when pain was over-treated with opioids and droves of mom's and yuppies suddenly thought heroin sounded like a pretty good idea because they had already lost their opioid naivety.

So in turn, I put forward that we should hope a discovery of the mechanism of action and a way to put it to use without ketamine. Ketamine's action itself is assumed to _not_ the primary mechanism of action but rather a metabolite is (the experience has a part of it I'm sure - it's pretty fairly a psychedelic but the yin to LSD's yang) and scientists are working to find a drug that will have the same effect without the psychedelic dissociative qualities of ketamine (and it's monstrous allure which some people notice and fall for - but many don't)

Seems to me that only certain personalities thirst for ketamine after experiencing it. But that will all come to view in time because the black market is ready to supply to an increase in demand and it will happen that way once people start diverting ketamine. The black market will compete in that market. It will offer a product of similar quality (most clandestine on the street is close to 100% purity) but will find its competitive advantage is price and availability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's very interesting that the most impactful and potentially revolutionary psychiatric drugs currently in trials are both illegal recreational drugs, MDMA and Ketamine.

I do wonder how many regular users of these drugs are (consciously or subconsciously) self-medicating, vs. purely using hedonistically. Although I can imagine the line is quite blurry.

Scott Alexander has talked about these drugs from a psychiatrist's perspective; his article on Ketamine gives a lot more technical speculation about its mode of action, plus links to academic papers, for anyone that's interested in digging more:

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/11/08/ketamine-an- update/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/11/08/ketamine-an-update/)

<comment><USER22> > It's very interesting that the most impactful and potentially revolutionary > psychiatric drugs currently in trials are both illegal recreational drugs

History will not be kind to the War on Drugs. Aside from the millions of lives it directly destroyed, it also set back several fields of science 50 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I suffer from depression and anxiety. I take medication for it but the one thing that has helped more than anything has been cannabis. Unfortunately it's also hindered me quite a bit. I'm intrigued by this study but also suspicious... It seems a lot of "illicit" substances are being touted as possible depression aides, such as shrooms and MDMA.

<comment><USER24> "I'm intrigued by this study but also suspicious... It seems a lot of "illicit" substances are being touted as possible depression aides, such as shrooms and MDMA."

I've done MDMA multiple times. I'm over 35. I did it recreationally with my spouse. I know the recreational doses and the theraputic doses are the same.

And boy, did it solve some stuff in my brain. All positive. I'm better equipped to deal with anxiety and depression than I was before. I was.. OK. With myself, with things, and so on. The next day and week or so after, it felt like by brain had been rinsed off, massaged, and gently put back in place. Now, this slowly lessened, but I was able to deal with stuff. It is really hard to explain: Like finally getting glasses and being amazed with how clear things were. I can only imagine how this would be in a clinical setting, with someone guiding your brain to deal with things you needed to deal with. Also, I found I like myself. That's not nothing.

Now, I've never done Ketamine, but I imagine results are similarly helpful for folks this is a good match with especially when you are in a clinical setting.

<comment><USER25> Yes it can really work wonders but it's also easy to use recreational. Had a friend who only does cocaine as he loves being in control and hated on mdma... he is also the most negative person I ever knew and would usally end up in a fight anytime he walked out the door... he blames his ptsd. One time we got him to do mdma anyway and he changed to the most positive guy over nite... sometimes accused us of being negative suddenly even though that used to be his middle name. It had that effect for 1-2 months untill he was back to his old self.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I hate providing any negative news for stuff that works for people butt... More and more trials are showing that if you block ampa, ketamine's acute depression curative properties are completely diminished. Aka, it might work, but it's probably not the right drug

[https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02911597](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02911597) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487269/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487269/)

<comment><USER20> IIRC (I forget where I read this), ketamine does one thing pharmacokinetically, but its main metabolites—norketamine and dehydronorketamine—have their own entirely-different pharmacokinetics (which aren't just less-potent versions of ketamine's.)

I don't know about "not the right drug"; but it might turn out to be considered a pro-drug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Weird factoid about Ketamine: it seems to require being paired with the smell of a male to work: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-matters-in- ex...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-matters-in-experiments- on-party-drug-mdash-in-mice/)

<comment><USER28> _In mice._

(Just pointing out that, as useful as rodent studies are, this isn't a result that can be generalized to people.)

<comment><USER27> Have you seen any tests of this with people? Or heard any first hand witnessing about ketamine and males? I hear it is considered a drug to take when going to clubs.

Which reminds me of another quirky result: caffeine promotes wakefulness in fruit flies: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2757164/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2757164/)

Without specific selective pressures, traits persist through species

<comment><USER28> No, but from the article you linked:

 _"Gould doubts that the sex of the person administering the drug affects how well it works in a depressed patient, but it 's never been tested."_

It seems to be related to stress response, which the mice were experiencing in the presence of male handlers. One would assume the same issue isn't present in humans unless they become anxious and stressed when men are around.

That said, it does have interesting implications for the drug's relationship with stress; e.g., it might have stronger subjective effects in folks with high stress or stimulation levels at the time of administration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This isn't a particularly good article. Psychiatrists in the UK are cautiously optimistic about ketamine, and things like TCMS, but they're worried about the widespread off-label prescribing in the US, especially when that's decoupled from other measures such as talking therapy or psycho-social interventions.

> The suicide rate has been rising in the United States since the beginning of > the century, [...] And yet no new classes of drugs have been developed to > treat depression (and by extension suicidality) in about 30 years, since the > advent of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac.

Lack of access to new drugs is common across countries, yet many countries have seen falling rates of suicide. What's different about the US?

> After her suicide attempt, Louise's psychiatrist suggested she try ketamine. > She agreed, and received an infusion intravenously. Within hours, her sense > of well-being improved. The hospital discharged her. Back home, she > discovered that going to the market was no longer a "herculean task." > Getting her car washed wasn't an insurmountable chore. "Life was better," > she said. "Life was doable."

This is _exactly_ the kind of thing that was being said about prozac - <USER2> are wonder drugs that make you better than well, and the current drug licencing rules are outdated because Prozac should be available to everyone not just ill people.

Ketamine will end up being moderately useful to some people. It will save a few lives. It's probably not a wonder drug.

The article makes no mention of the low risk paradox. Most people who die by suicide will have been assessed as low risk of death by suicide shortly before they died. I'm curious if these people would be given ketamine or not. And that's the people who were seen by MH professionals before they died.

> Here's a sobering fact: Some studies indicate that suicide risk peaks soon > after patients have been discharged from a medical facility.

This is a well known phenomena, which is why NCISH in the UK includes this in their ten ways to improve safety in MH services [https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/ncish/](https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/ncish/)

"Patients discharged from psychiatric in-patient care should be followed up by the service within two to three days of discharge. A care plan should be in place at the time of discharge."

<comment><USER20> > Lack of access to new drugs is common across countries

They didn't say "new drugs", they said "new _classes_ of drugs." The point they were trying to make was that innovation (by big-pharma researchers, at least) in the anti-depressant space has stalled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think the article is confusing someone who's at the tail end of their life, and no longer interesting in continuing, with depression among people who'd otherwise go on to live a radically different life.

The two are not the same and treating anyone who is done with living as depressed or needing psychiatric intervention is short sighted.

I'm all for helping people who want help. Some people don't want help - <USER3> just don't want to break the hearts of those who care about them.

Suicide is not some grave sin and there is no God watching over us. It'd help to realize some folks get dealt a hand they don't want to play out to the bitter end. The stigma around somebody choosing to act as they see fit, including suicide, really needs to be released. Not so much for the folks who go through with it, but for those around them, that feel guilt, shame and all kinds of negative emotions as a result.

I do wonder if normalizing suicide as an option would cause exploitation based systems to implode. Imagine those miserable sweatshop workers. If they said you know what - I'd rather die than live like this, they'd actually have leverage to significantly improve their living conditions.

</comment><comment><USER31> Great television programme, in Dutch, about using ketamine in the treatment of depression (and additionally, about using GHB in the treatment of narcolepsy): [https://www.npostart.nl/dokters-van- morgen/30-10-2018/AT_210...](https://www.npostart.nl/dokters-van- morgen/30-10-2018/AT_2103629)

</comment><comment><USER32> As a long-term treatment it's being considered as an alternative to electroconvulsive therapy, not SSRIs. It is still a dangerous drug with potential side effects, but that power to harm is exactly what doctors are exploiting to help.

For deeper dives into mechanisms, Mayo is doing interesting research into the biomarkers for ketamine responsive versus non-responsive patients: [https://www.mayoclinic.org/medical- professionals/psychiatry-...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/medical- professionals/psychiatry-psychology/news/ketamine-exploring-continuation- phase-treatment-for-depression/mac-20430307)

</comment><comment><USER33> I remember covering this topic in a poster presentation at medical school. It's a perennial news article that, despite popping up on an annual basis, is always presented as a crazy new idea.

The fact that ketamine is a street drug makes it a prime topic for click-bait articles. It's a case of the usual bad science in media.

NYT is no better a source to cite for medical topics than the Daily Mail is for Computer Science!

</comment><comment><USER34> IBT non-synthetic mescaline would prove to be a better choice. Medicinal on this continent for a thousand years.</comment>


Apple's Secret Employee Training Manual - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5938323/how-to-be-a-genius-this-is-apples-secret-employee-training-manual <comment><USER2> The reality distortion field is indeed real. Apple is training their employees in the art of customer manipulation.</comment>


Ask HN: How to pass my startup on to someone else? - <AUTHOR> Succinctly, I'm solo founder of a promising stealth startup with angel funding [1], but due to personal circumstances I need to take an extended amount of time off (likely a year or more). One option is to give the money back and kill the startup, letting go the one other fulltime team member. I would much prefer to transition the startup to others to take the reins, while I maintain a minimal supervisory role with a little equity [2]. Is there precedent for this? Am I crazy to think this is possible? Any examples?<p>There are people I'm confident can take the reins -- I've been recruiting them to join in December. How can I suggest this plan to them without showing weakness (in the company and myself)?<p>[1] The angels really invested in me, not so much the business, so I anticipate they will want their money back.<p>[2] Honestly don't care about keeping a massive amount of equity. I just want to see the tech deployed and help people. <comment><USER2> This may not be feasible or desirable but is there a competitor in this space that could benefit from an acquihire? Of course you're at risk of them exploiting that situation, so you might have to pursue multiple parties for several weeks to get a fair bid.

All the best with your personal circumstance

Edit: by acquihire I mean the other person you've hired.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Appreciate the advice and kind wishes.

For better or worse, I have been exploring acquihire for a few weeks already, with several interested parties. However those discussions have not included the current circumstance, where I personally would not be 100% involved post- acquisition. I imagine this could be a dealbreaker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would discuss the situation frankly with the most experienced angel investor you have. They'll hopefully have seen something like this before and can talk you through the particulars.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your technical interests? (tag-cloud of your interests) - <AUTHOR>

I think most of programmers use more than one programming language, framework, DBMS or interested in startups and entrepreneurship. So, it would be interesting to know what interests do hackers have?
Please, share with us your tag-cloud which you have in your mind.
Inspired by post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614034 <comment><USER2> <http://www.delicious.com/tags/richardjones>

</comment><comment><USER3> C#, JavaScript, ActionScript, SQL Server, MongoDB, casual games and game development.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My interests: python, pylons, postgresql, c#, javascript, linux, startup</comment>


OMG Myspace api omg!!! (reasons why myspace api will not happen) - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitalsoap.com/blog/2006/08/16/omg-myspace-api-omg/ <comment><USER2> ""friend" generators would become a lot more advanced"

There are friend generators? That's amazing...</comment>


Because bigger is better, right?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.hugeurl.com/

<comment><USER2> Watching N.YC become reddit is more painful than I thought it would be.

<comment><USER3> Yeah. It's happening slowly, but it's beginning to dilute.

Just recently, I saw the first attempt at a pun. It was up at 2 points, though it got voted down. And stories like this bring back memories of Reddit 2 years ago.

I think that Hacker News has one thing going for it: the restriction on up/down-voting. It encourages people to at least be slightly inducted into how the site works before they begin having an effect on ups and downs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another innovation that I wish I implemented first! :-(

<comment><USER5> Not to worry, the world still needs mediumsizedurl.com

It'd take any URL and convert it to something kinda medium-sized. 30 or 40 characters maybe, fill up a respectable chunk of the bar at the top of your browser window while leaving a nice bit of breathing room.

<comment><USER5> I hate to reply to myself, but... I was just thinking about that a bit more and I think it could actually be made quasi-useful.

If the hashing worked with dictionary words, you could use it to make unreadable, unmemorizable URLs both readable and memorizable. Each new url could be assigned three random dictionary words, e.g.:

mediumsizedurl.com/acute_recovery_cable

(Thanks to [http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/Random...](http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWordPlus.aspx) for the random words)

And that'll give you something that's both medium-sized and readable. Without going into obscure words we can easily get 20,000 of 'em, so that's 8e12 possible combinations of three words -- shouldn't be an issue.

<comment><USER3> That already exists. I forget the URL, but I've definitely seen that.

<comment><USER6> <http://decenturl.com/> in a way...

<comment> jim-greer TinyUrl lets you make up your own descriptive identifier now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of BroadVision's 3-page long URLs of dot com boom fashion.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this part of a new generation of pointless web apps? I don't see how this is useful?

<comment><USER9> I don't think its meant to be...

Somehow some guy thought creating this site was worth the price of the domain, the hosting, and his time...but there are easily worse sites with even stupider functionality out there.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if he makes much off Google Ads? This has been on Reddit a few times before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> edit: hugeurls don't work on HN.

</comment><comment><USER11> nice glider favicon

<comment><USER12> Feh. Looks chunky without anti-aliasing. Compare to this one: <http://foohack.com/favicon.ico>

<comment><USER13> If you rotate the favicon of HugeURL by 90 degrees to the left,you'll get the favicon of Foo Hack. Were they made by the same person?

<comment><USER11> <http://catb.org/hacker-emblem/>

The glider is an "animal" from conway's game of life and has been popularized as a "hacker" symbol for a while, though I don't think it ever caught on in a huge way.

<comment><USER14> Because ESR is a tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They probably picked up some 10+ million $ in VC money, were instantly covered by Techcrunch as the next big thing in URL production and will soon get bought by Yahoo.</comment>


Web Cryptography API Examples - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/diafygi/webcrypto-examples <comment><USER2> This demonstrates a big complaint with the WebCrypto API: it exposes a bunch of stuff you never want to be dealing with --- either directly or, in some cases, at all:

* Never use RSA PKCS1v15

* Avoid padding arbitrary data to RSA-OAEP encryption (you only ever want to encrypt keys)

* The "nonce" bits of the AES-CTR _must_ be random, but the API doesn't even make it obvious which bits those are. Screw that up and you get no security.

* Avoid AES-CBC.

* You can't securely use AES-CBC _or_ AES-CTR without a MAC.

* Never, ever use AES-CFB.

* Avoid multiplicative group DH (what WebCrypto calls "DH").

Out of all those examples, the only interfaces that approach "safe" are AES- GCM and AES-CMAC, and even the AES-GCM case makes it awfully easy to repeat the nonce, which is a devastating vulnerability.

As I understand it, whatever HN might want to believe this API is for, its real purpose is to make it possible to implement DRM without plugins. It's a compat interface, and it shows.

<comment><USER3> > The "nonce" bits of the AES-CTR _must_ be random

Huh? This is not an IV, the only hard requirement is that it be unique. What am I missing?

<comment><USER2> You're not missing anything; I wrote that comment in haste, as you can tell from the grammar errors. The CTR nonce doesn't need to be random.

The interface is still treacherous!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great stuff for plugins, but really bad stuff for scripts. Remember, if you can't trust the server with your secrets, you can't trust the server to send you a script which can decypher your secrets.

<comment><USER5> Can one stipulate that one _does_ trust a particular server (maybe it has a valid TLS cert?) and still derive some value from this API? E.g., it seems perfectly valid to me to do some work on the client in order to reduce data volumes or server loads?

<comment><USER4> Well, I'd never trust the server (and TLS certs are only a step or two above pure snake oil security), but if the server is willing to trust me, then I don't in principle mind decrypting data on its behalf.

<comment><USER5> Never trusting the server seems equivalent to never using an online service. This isn't helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am surprised to see Chrome failed most of the tests, whereas latest FireFox nightly passed most, since in terms of features, Chrome is usually ahead of FireFox.

<comment><USER7> Not so much anymore, from what I've seen, especially when it comes to standards. Chrome (and chromium) seem much more focused on experimental future features than current or near-future standards.

<comment><USER8> There is also the question of whether Chrome pays a "strategy tax" to Google. Where the interests of the parent company cause some features to be prioritized and others deemphasized.</comment></comment></comment>


Pakistan suspends mobile networks over fears of attacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20469493

<comment><USER2> Today is the fourth time in 2 months this has happened. At first it was hard to imagine the government would go through with it but they did.

It's strange, the first time any such news get floated (blocking FB, YouTube, phones or Supreme Court rulings) it comes as a shocker, people huddle and complain and with some passing of time expectations are lowered across the nation. Complete mobile network blackout doesn't feel like a big deal now that it has become a regular occurrence.

People have been making plans ahead of the scheduled outage and some are even happy to be offline and free of interruptions.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sure it would be nearly _impossible_ to use a garage door opener instead.

<comment><USER4> Long term, it can be worked around. Short term, it's extremely effective. Did you read that all the bomb detonated in the last 15 days used cell phones?

This will stop people from detonating their bombs until they can design a detonator that doesn't rely on cell phones. I doubt it's just a 5 minute switch to use a different detonator and just have the bombs work as effectively as they do now.

<comment><USER3> It probably is a five minute switch if you know in advance that phones aren't going to be working. Blacking out the cell phone network is a short term strategy that, if used repeatedly, will just lead to different methods being employed. Phones are just cheap and effective, plus not very suspicious.

The problem here is that you won't be able to phone in a bomb sighting. You're basically screwed if you see someone setting up one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And once again religion runs what science has built, and what people rely on.

Maybe instead of hurting those who are not violent, Pakistan should do something about the extremists?</comment>


Hey: A wildly opinionated new email service from BaseCamp - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/15/21286466/hey-email-basecamp-price-availability-platforms-launch <comment><USER2> Bigger thread (111 comments, 176 points) here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23527499](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23527499)

</comment><comment><USER3> Features that caught my attention.

1\. Clips - highlight text and add it to a clip board so you can search clips and not emails

2\. Merge - feel like two emails are really the same thing? Merge them

3\. Rename Threads - don't get stuck with other people's poor email hygiene, if someone can't title their emails properly it doesn't mean your own imbox has to suffer.

<comment><USER4> I feel like clips and rename threads are features competitors could easily add. Not sure if I'll sign up for Hey, but always happy to see more competition.

<comment><USER5> agreed. it's all the lockin of a non-IMAP service, but with a couple of UX things that seem nice (?) and others can easily add. Maybe google won't rip off quite as blatantly as facebook and snap but... something similar will show up as a gmail labs project or a mixmax / gmail UI add-on

[https://developers.google.com/gsuite/add- ons/gmail/extending...](https://developers.google.com/gsuite/add- ons/gmail/extending-message-ui)

Is there anything here that is unique and server side to justify cutting off email from being an open (messy but free) standard to a proprietary thing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Like Gmail but without standard IMAP/POP3 support and $99-a-year.

Who thought this was a good idea?

<comment><USER7> I got my gmail back when you needed an invitation to sign up. At that time, everyone was excited about the huge amount of free storage space they gave you.

This is so completely unlike gmail. I'd bet that it is intentionally expensive: no digital hoarders, nobody on the fence about it. You have to love the way it works to be willing to pay that much.

<comment><USER8> ...as much as I kinda like a lot about 37 Signals work, this sounds a lot like fishing for sunk cost: "I paid 99 bucks for that, I have to use it or I wasted money." It's not an uncommon practice, but it's shady.

The product sounds nice, especially the thread grouping. I might even go for it once they have personal domain support, though I'm rather wary of the difference between what they try to do, and how it will work in practice, and pricing it at double of, say, Fastmail, makes me feel like someone's trying to exploit me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just can't commit to changing my whole email address and be locked into a service that can increase charges at anytime with no export ability.

I'd much rather this be an app that sits on top of a standard mail server.

<comment><USER10> Look at what they did for the last 20 years for Basecamp and other product. It doesn't seem very likely that they randomly raise prices for existing customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it looks great.</comment>


Math is not linear, so why do we teach it like that? - <AUTHOR> http://prezi.com/aww2hjfyil0u/math-is-not-linear/

<comment><USER2> Most of my school's funding is and was not dependent on their student's skills, schools get funding for attendance. When I went to school they checked attendance 6 times every day (once for every class), and gave you 3 bathroom breaks/year/class. Taking attendance took about 5 mins/ class, every time you went to the bathroom a teacher had to sign a form verifying you had permission. This comes out to about* 340,000 HOURS of wasted time in ONE YEAR FOR ONE HIGHSCHOOL. This isn't even considering many, many fundamentally wrong things with how grades and classes are structured and credit is awarded. For every competent teacher teaching a useful subject there are 3-4 incompetents wasting people's time with sophistry and selectively blind adherence to stated rules.

Public high school education in this country is a net negative. High school "education" has nothing to do with teaching students skills, its there first to benefit the people running the school, and second to make people obedient for factory jobs.

Math & science people tend to be humble & introverted because they're usually wrong about the solution to whatever problem they're trying to solve, and they spend all their time doing math/science and not talking to people. This is a bad thing. Every hour spent on spiffy presentations is an hour not spent on telling people public school's are doing it wrong. The author wasted his/her time on this* * , it's not going to change anything. Math/Science people who want to improve the state of math/science education should spend their time politicking, not science'ing.

* (5mins/attendance * 6 classes * 10 mins bathroom break form filling/a day * 2000 students * 34 weeks/year / 60mins/hour = 340K)

* * It is pretty cool, though.

<comment><USER3> It's worth sanity checking statistics - 340000 hours is equal to nearly 39 years, which seems a bit on the high side for a single school in a single year...

<comment><USER4> Exactly. Attendence checking doesn't take 5 minutes _per student per class_ , yet that's what's being claimed by the math....

<comment><USER5> Actually if taking attendance takes 5 minutes of class time (which it easily can with a class size of 30), then all students are blocked from being taught while the teacher is busy so it does make sense to count that as (n+1) * 5 minutes where n is the number of students.

Fingerprint scanners for attendance would both speed up and parallelize this operation.

<comment><USER6> What could possibly go wrong with implementing a complicated biometric fingerprint scanner based system for our schools?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1221068>

<comment><USER5> Well card swipes are obviously unworkable. You could maybe link it to student's mobile phones...

But the real solution is to have decent schools with classes small enough that the teacher doesn't have to take roll call because they know everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> An interesting quote I came across today from Edward Tufte:

 _One more example. If you are teaching math, hand out the proofs on paper at the beginning of class to all the students; then work through the written-out proofs aloud in class, following the proofs on paper.

That way your students aren't merely making notes and recording your words; instead they are thinking. I believe that students should THINK in class, not take notes. So give the students your lecture notes and go through them carefully in class, trying to insure understanding of each part as you go. Your voice in effect annotates and explains the material on paper.

(Of course, these ideas apply widely, not just to teaching math.)_

[http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0...](http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=00001B&topic_id=1&topic=Ask+E.T). -- It's the last paragraph under "E.T. ON TECHNOLOGIES FOR MAKING PRESENTATIONS".

</comment><comment><USER8> We teach it like that because we learned it like that.

We also teach it like that because states have various standards with pretentious names and acronyms ("Essential Academic Learning Requirements" = EALRs [1]) that require students to have specific bits of knowledge at specific ages. This means that, instead of students exploring various mathematical subjects in parallel, they're stuck going through them in exactly the order presented.

I remember being in a room full of math profs and TAs discussing how to get more students interested in becoming math majors. I suggested a 100-level number theory course, with the rationale that it's simple, accessible, mathematically interesting, and makes it clear that there's more to mathematics than the "progressively-harder calculus-based classes" (up to DiffEq) most hard-science majors end up taking.

[1] 252 page, 8+ meg pdf: [http://www.k12.wa.us/Mathematics/Standards/K-12MathematicsSt...](http://www.k12.wa.us/Mathematics/Standards/K-12MathematicsStandards- July2008.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's time for a favorite quotation about mathematics again:

"What should every aspiring mathematician know? The answer for most of the 20th century has been: calculus. . . . Mathematics today is . . . much more than calculus; and the calculus now taught is, sadly, much less than it used to be. Little by little, calculus has been deprived of the algebra, geometry, and logic it needs to sustain it, until many institutions have had to put it on high-tech life-support systems. A subject struggling to survive is hardly a good introduction to the vigor of real mathematics.

". . . . In the current situation, we need to revive not only calculus, but also algebra, geometry, and the whole idea that mathematics is a rigorous, cumulative discipline in which each mathematician stands on the shoulders of giants.

"The best way to teach real mathematics, I believe, is to start deeper down, with the elementary ideas of number and space. Everyone concedes that these are fundamental, but they have been scandalously neglected, perhaps in the naive belief that anyone learning calculus has outgrown them. In fact, arithmetic, algebra, and geometry can never be outgrown, and the most rewarding path to higher mathematics sustains their development alongside the 'advanced' branches such as calculus. Also, by maintaining ties between these disciplines, it is possible to present a more unified view of mathematics, yet at the same time to include more spice and variety."

Stillwell demonstrates what he means about the interconnectedness and depth of "elementary" topics in the rest of his book, which is a delight to read and full of thought-provoking problems.

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387982892/>

<comment><USER10> Wasn't there an attempt to do this in the 1960s? They tried to give students a better mathematical foundation for more advanced maths that ended up backfiring politically? Namely they were teaching rudimentary set and number theory to K-5 kids. This came at the expense of kids ability to multiply and divide, and when the press caught wind of this, the program was quickly shut down.

It seems like any attempt to restructure the math curriculum will be met with massive resistance from parents who were eminently satisfied with their own (likely poor quality) math education, and want their children to have the same.

<comment><USER9> You are referring to "new math," which is the kind of math instruction I had when I was a child.

I am reading just now a very interesting book The Mathematics Pre-Service Teachers Need to Know

ftp://math.stanford.edu/pub/papers/milgram/FIE-book.pdf

(posted on

<http://hub.mspnet.org/index.cfm/13083>

which warns that it may be a slow download)

which describes improved university courses for students who plan to become elementary teachers. That is a big emphasis in the United States now-- international comparisons have shown that mathematics education of elementary pupils in the United States is lousy largely because the mathematical education of elementary teachers (at all levels) is lousy,

<http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf>

so United States mathematicians are trying to do something about that that is more effective than the 1960s attempt at "new math."

Yes, Stillwell's book, mostly aimed at mathematics students who will go on to be mathematicians rather than schoolteachers, is also an outcome of thinking about curriculum reform. He describes his motivation for writing his excellent book as attempting to understanding concepts of mathematics he still didn't understand after he earned his Ph.D. at MIT.

<comment><USER8> _"mathematics education of elementary pupils in the United States is lousy largely because the mathematical education of elementary teachers (at all levels) is lousy"_

This is something I've noticed in the time I spent working with teachers. It amazes me how many 4th-6th grade teachers don't understand fractions, but are trying to teach them to kids!

<comment><USER11> What do you mean when you say they don't understand fractions?

<comment><USER8> I mean, I have watched groups of elementary school teachers work on the same sort of problems they assign (fractions being one example) and struggle mightily. They understand the basic concept of what a fraction is, but many of them get bogged down in the algorithms because they don't really understand what the algorithms represent.

What is a "common denominator" beyond "the thing you put fractions over to be able to add them"? Many of the teachers I've worked with would struggle to explain this to students.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is the US high school mathematics curriculum really as linear as described here? Do you really work through, say, "geometry" in one go, and never revisit it?

My mathematical education was a bit more like advancing on several fronts at once. A chapter on geometry, then a chapter on basic algebra, then some more advanced geometry, then some more advanced algebra, then some basic trigonometry, which enabled you to understand some more advanced geometry, then...

<comment><USER10> Assuming you don't take any "advanced" math in college, yes, it is in fact that linear.

It's complicated by the fact that often you spend 2 weeks learning a concept and then have the teacher say "It's going to be on the test but you're not going to use it until halfway through next year so try and remember it!" Most everyone forgets it, so we waste another 2 weeks re-learning it next year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sorry, I couldn't finish the presentation because of that stupid animation.

<comment><USER14> The animation is awesome, it makes the logic connection much more clear and easier.

Prezi is really revolutionize traditional reading habits. It transforms chapter-by-chapter/slide-by-slide, liner reading, to a more hierarchical and intuitive way. It takes less effort to make sense, so you can focus more on digesting and re-thinking, not only comprehending.

<comment><USER15> Prezi is very nice and I've seen a couple of presentations which have benefited from the hierarchy and demonstration of relationships. However, this presentation seemed to be animation simply for the sake of animation. The spacial relationships seem to have almost no bearing on the logical relationships. I too was unable to finish the presentation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The most useful part of this link was finding prezi, which is awesome, and I hadn't heard of it before.

<comment><USER17> For some reason, over the past year or so it's become almost standard in the humanities (but not in science/engineering). I'm in CS but occasionally go to interdisciplinary conferences, where every CS person will have a PowerPoint, while every humanist who has a digital presentation at all will have a Prezi (to a close approximation).

<comment><USER18> How did LaTeX-presentations fare?

<comment><USER17> Ah, those happen too, though not as much at the type of interdisciplinary conferences where you'd also have a lot of humanities people--- seems to be mainly a thing for people who need equations in their presentation, esp. in cs-theory. I sort of prefer latex presentations myself, but just because I like editing source-code-like stuff rather than editing a presentation in a GUI tool.

<comment><USER18> > [...] seems to be mainly a thing for people who need equations in their > presentation, esp. in cs-theory.

Indeed. At the International Conference on Functional Programming last year LaTeX was the norm. I enjoyed the hand-written slides somebody had produced on their tablet pc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A delightful misuse of Prezi for zooming around with needless effects from place to place rather than moving within content.

<comment><USER20> I thought it was a little disorienting too, maybe just not having experienced it -- but after a bit I saw that it perfectly matched the actual content, and spirit, of her argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Alison Blank (the author) should write a math book instead of making this presentation. I think that would be a great way to prove her point (which I agree with).

<comment><USER22> I also agree, but how would you write a nonlinear book? "Choose your own adventure - Math" would be a tricky textbook to produce.

<comment><USER21> Well, I don't think any book/teaching method would entirely dismiss linearity, it would just make things less linear (as compared to the current way of teaching).

As a start, I suppose you could have a topic in algebra... then use that to discuss probability. From there, you can view something as geometry and teach some of that, etc...

Maybe that doesn't work. So maybe, you teach math by asking a question and exploring to find an answer. As you explore, you inspect different approaches to a problem. Later questions can use earlier points as analogies.

To be honest, I don't know quite enough math to even give a list of questions/topics. But, I imagine a good math teacher could do something of this sort.

Its probably best to start at the University level and move your way down as you learn lessons about teaching these things.

As for your idea, CYA-Math, I like it in some ways. "To see how this connects to this, go to page 34. To see an analogy to something else, go to page 54." I agree though very tough to build.

<comment><USER23> _though very tough to build_

A robust cross-reference system could keep the page numbers automatically up to date. I'd edit the textbook in a wiki style interface, then use some automated software to commit it to a specific order with page numbers.

This is one area where a digital textbook would be incredibly useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I hope my (little) daughter gets a math teacher with A. Blank's sense.

A similar point is true of all parts of knowledge, of course: I was convinced to send my daughter to a local hippy dippy lab school when I saw the teachers facing the "But what if my child is Gifted?" question from yuppie parents. The teachers vehemently rejecting separate 'tracks' for the 'gifted' in favor of the Blank plan: if some students master something early, you needn't move them on to the 'next' thing, since this is in some respects an illusion. Rather you get them working on something cool that is 'off to the side' from the point of view of the curriculum sequence, whereby _inter alia_ they learn the unlimited character of possible knowledge and might strike something that would really get them absorbed.

\--This horrified the linearize-their-way-to-Yale yuppies in the audience, but it seemed like genuine wisdom to me. (That they were really losing people with this also attracted me.)

We'll see how it works in practice. I have a feeling Blank's utopia would be too expensive given the significance attached to education in the present age.

<comment><USER24> I wouldn't count on your daughter having a wonderful math teacher. I suggest teaching her yourself in addition to what she learns in school. My daughter isn't old enough yet (7 months), but I plan on teaching her daily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Because high school curriculums are much easier to plan when they are linear. At my high school the curriculums for English and Social Studies were also linear. Only in science did we get to choose which order we took Chemistry, Biology and Physics in.

<comment><USER26> _Curricula_ , not _curriculums_...

<comment><USER12> Apparently Latin wasn't on the curriculum at that school. :(

<comment><USER25> Latin was part of the curriculum, an optional one that I did take. Luckily the lingua franca of this site is English.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> We teach math linearly, because we follow the child's brain development.

numbers are quite an abstract things, and proportion is even more so. the next step, the percentage, add relative point of views too. you just can't teach that to a child that literally can't tell his right from his left.

Well, you can, but he won't really understand it and it is effort down the drain.

So I know that here we all are CS/EE/whatever, and probably knew more math then our elementary school teachers, but there is a reason to these steps, even if the said teacher never know about it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Doesn't just apply to math. Applies to education in general. It's like someone one day decided that it's ludicrous someone might actually _want_ to learn something to _do something cool_ and decided to take the safer systematic approach to education. Only problem is that this systematic approach actually disadvantages those who want to learn, especially the ones with ADHD ('cause it's harder for them to shift focus to something they aren't immediately interested in).

</comment><comment><USER29> Because time is linear?

<comment><USER30> Or is it? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_time>

<comment><USER31> Imaginary time is a trick in quantum field theory; roughly: it goes away at the end of the calculation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Her rectangle problem is wrong. Here are four rectangles with the same area and perimeter:

x = 3, y = 6; x = 4, y = 4; x = 5, y = 10/3; x = 7, y = 14/5

The formula is fix x > 2 (one side), let y = 2x / (x-2) (other side). Derived from xy = 2x + 2y.

<comment><USER33> As I recall the problem was not "there aren't any" but "there aren't any more"

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I got dizzy reading that and gave up half way through. Stick to math and let someone else design your presentations :)

</comment><comment><USER35> the root of the problems in the education system lie in its prussian derived methodology.

<http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/>

compulsory schooling is stupid and wasteful, just like compulsory anything.

</comment><comment><USER36> I love everything about it. The message, the presentation. Ugh if only I was taught this way, makes me jealous. This is how my calculus teacher in college taught. It was incredible compared to anything before that.</comment>


Uber is launching Uber Rent, a rental car service with Getaround - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1250062/uber-is-launching-uber-rent-a-rental-car-service-with-getaround/ <comment><USER2> "Getaround sees its car rentals, . ..helping to move Americans away from private car ownership."

Except that it depends on private car ownership in order to have cars to rent. If you really want to get away from private car ownership, a service like Zipcar that maintains its own fleet would be a better way to go. But Getaround doesn't want the hassle of owning the cars either; it just wants to collect its cut and leave the hassle to others.

<comment><USER3> As far as I can tell, Zipcar was intentionally sabotaged after it was acquired by Avis Budget. Over the past few years the prices went up, the cars are dirty, often damaged, and the customer service got worse.

I may be an exception in that I can walk to several rental agencies from my apartment, but renting from an agency usually gets me a nicer car for 24 hours for the same price that I would get a zipcar for 3 hours. If I need a car for less than three hours usually it's cheaper with uber/lyft.

Edit: although they're still the most convenient for picking up furniture, as they have vans.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't be as quick to blame the downfall of Zipcar's quality on deliberate sabotage. I began using them in 2009 and even back then it was cheaper in a number of instances to rent a car for more than short periods.

Where ZipCar excelled (I haven't used it for a number of years) was being able to not own a car and effortlessly get one for an errand or quick trip.

These days I rent far more often, and even being part of elite programs and being very experienced with the process it is still far more of a hassle than simply approaching a car you've booked online, tapping your RFID card and driving away.

I think ZipCar theoretically still has utility for that type of use-case.

A big drawback also was the inability to select a one-way trip. Sometimes you want to _get_ somewhere and stay for a while, and it's simply not cost- effective (or efficient) to tie up a car for 3 or 8 hours vs. just driving there.

I believe this is a use case that Car2Go addresses, although I haven't yet used that.

<comment><USER5> > These days I rent far more often, and even being part of elite programs and > being very experienced with the process it is still far more of a hassle > than simply approaching a car you've booked online, tapping your RFID card > and driving away.

Really? The last time I rented a car in MIA, I showed up, was Enterprise Executive so I went and could choose any of a few dozen cars that had the keys already in the ignition. After that, I drove up to the exit at which point the person pulled up my reservation, scanned the car, and gave me the paperwork. I was out in less than 5 minutes from when I chose the car.

Return was just as easy, just pulled into the lot, someone scanned the car and sent me on my way.

Granted, it's not as easy as RFID and go, and I don't have that much experience with rentals because I don't use them often, but I wouldn't call it "far more" of a hassle, at least in my limited experience.

<comment><USER6> Jesus, limited experience indeed!

That's how bigger _airport_ car rentals work, you've obviously never rented a car outside an airport location. Non airport car rental locations usually take a lot longer to go through the whole process, no streamlined/staffless way to rent, and have limited hours and a much smaller staff. I think the one by my house is even closed on Sundays. If you have some jackoff in front of you who is fighting with the staff about being turned away for not having a credit card you end up having to wait for the staff to deal with that before they can process your rental[1]. I've also had to wait for the car to be cleaned in the past when they got unexpectedly busy.

On top of that airports are usually not located near where people live. The vast majority of people renting a Zipcar for a day trip are not going to want to go to an airport to pick up their car.

Airport rentals can get significantly backed up during busy times. I've gotten totally gridlocked in the rental car parking lot before.

[1] actually happened to me

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's pretty clear now that Uber's goal is to own the solution to "I need transportation", not just be a fancy taxi company. It's ambitious for sure.

I need transportation:

For 5 minutes, and cheap? Grab an Uber Scooter.

For 30 minutes, with sunshine? Grab an Uber Bike

For 30 minutes, quickly? Grab an UberX/UberPool/UberBlack, etc.

For a weekend? Grab an Uber Rent.

If you frame their goal in these terms, it gives you a pretty good idea what other sort of deals we'll see coming down the road (boats, aircraft, scooters, etc.)

<comment><USER8> Also, Uber Train, Uber Spaceship, Uber Rollerblades ondemand rental, Uber-Nike running shoe sharing, and of course the coveted Uber Slippers for those lazy Sunday afternoon trips to the kitchen...

I am still unsure how I fell about the Uber Sofa for the essential null-travel events.

<comment><USER9> I think the best thing about Uber Sofa is the ability to pay surge prices to get the best spot.

<comment><USER10> You guys laugh, but an Uber for snatching up a guaranteed last minute seat on demand at any event or queue would be amazing. I'd love it.

I feel Uber is not just about transportation, it's about private services, to make you feel part of a privileged elite with no time to waste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There seems to be a flurry of activity from Uber recently. I wonder if the failure of their self-driving tech as evidenced by the pedestrian death and the subsequent suspension of their self driving program spooked them. The HN take on Uber's valuation seems to be that their current model of paying people to drive does not justify their valuation, but becoming the dominant ride service with self driving cars does. With their crash and Tesla's crash, maybe people are questioning just how soon real, usable self driving cars will actually be available, and Uber is scrambling to try to jump into new markets to try to prop up their valuation.

<comment><USER12> They probably shut down the self-driving thing because they literally stole all of their code from Google.

<comment><USER13> You have no idea. This isn't Reddit. Please stop with the low effort speculative muck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This could potentially be crushing for Turo which seems to struggle to get noticed, maybe Zipcar as well.

<comment><USER15> zip car is crushing itself. they only recently started allowing rentals over 24 hours. most require round trips. or if not a round trip, return to a zip car parking spot. it's just slightly less inconvenient than a traditional rental car at a higher price. i have a really hard time imagining when zip car would be the best choice for any driving needs

<comment><USER16> This is not correct. Maybe this does not apply to every single city that Zipcar operates in, but they allow 4 or 5 day rentals (can't recall which) in both Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon. I have done this many times going back as far as 5 or so years.

I think you are also really down playing the convenience vs. traditional car rentals. Many car rental companies have moved to the model where they offer you a certain class of vehicle, and when you get there (which may mean traveling for 30-60 minutes to a place like the airport) to pick it up you are choosing from a random smattering of vehicles, which may be close to what you are expecting or not. I certainly don't appreciate when I get an "upgrade" to a giant SUV because they were out of the compact sedan that I really wanted. With Zipcar, if you live in a city, you can find a car in your neighborhood and know exactly what car you are getting, down to the color. You can also choose vehicles with other upgrades like roof rack or state parks pass. Zipcar also makes it easy to have multiple drivers use the car. Let's say I want to let my wife or brother drive during part of our trip. No problem, they are both Zipcar members as well, so they can just drive the car. They don't have to be there when I pick up the car to show their license and get added as drivers on that specific rental.

For me personally there is also a huge benefit to Zipcar offering cargo vans as a rental option. I'm a hobbyist woodworking and having quick access to a van to pickup lumber is great! None of the other Zipcar like services that are available to me offer this. I could of course get this from a traditional rental car company, but with the problems from the previous paragraph.

I think my point is really that Zipcar hits a sweet spot that no competitors seem to be addressing directly.

<comment><USER15> i tried to use zip car for a multi day rental in vancouver. i talked to people at zip car and they said that is not allowed this was 2015

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This kind of makes sense. If the car owners are at some random place in the city, Uber could drive them there for pick up and offer ride backs.

<comment><USER18> At least in SF, there are (were) tons of cars all around the city for rent with Getaround. I had 10-15 within easy walking distance from my last apt there. I even had my couple of favorites that I rented on a regular basis to take off for the weekend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So you can rent a car on Uber and then use that car to Uber people around?

<comment><USER20> Not quite. This article is about riders being able to rent cars for their own personal trips. There is a separate flow for partners to be able to rent a car from Getaround to drive for Uber [1], which has been around for about a year.

[1] [https://www.uber.com/newsroom/getaround/](https://www.uber.com/newsroom/getaround/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It seems that the value of Uber/Lyft is their names, and the setting up markets of drivers that have had some sort of verification, and providing a unified mobile hailing interface for customers to use. I don't see the part of their businesses that couldn't be done as well by some decentralized or non- profit entity, except perhaps the identification and verification of drivers and their vehicles.

<comment><USER22> App install, notifications and credit cards info are a huge part of their value along with their brand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hard to believe Uber did this without some sort of equity ownership in Getaround...

<comment><USER24> I don't know how popular Getaround is in other parts of the country, but I get the impression they are struggling in Chicago.

They definitely need Uber's support here

<comment><USER25> I'm a pretty frequent car renter (Turo) and haven't heard of Getaround at all.

<comment><USER26> Same. I'm a weekly renter, I've googled around for competing services, and have literally never heard of Getaround.

<comment><USER18> Just as a counterpoint - I've never heard of Turo but have used Getaround probably 30 times.

<comment><USER26> Touché.

I just tried Getaround but hasn't launched in my area yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I imagine most Getaround car owners didn't imagine that their cars would be rented for commercial purposes, ground to the absolute maximum usage and having potentially dozens of strangers enter per day.

Hopefully this feature is opt in, but given my experience working for and using Getaround, I know it probably isn't.

<comment><USER28> > I imagine most Getaround car owners didn't imagine that their cars would be > rented for commercial purposes

...but isn't this what Getaround is already? An app you can advertise your car for hire on? Uber just helps you get more of the hire-outs you were already looking for?

<comment><USER27> Renting your car to your neighbor for a weekend in Tahoe is different from renting your car to Yellow Cab.

The community/neighborly/collaborative consumption angle was heavily advertised by Getaround, and while this is technically still within the terms, I think it is disingenuous.

<comment><USER9> You could just delist your car if it's an issue

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Good, anything to kill Turo is welcomed. I dislike Turo being itself. Horrible customer service and user experience. With more players and competition, the consumer wins.

<comment><USER27> Hahaha you haven't used Getaround, have you

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Any guesses whether this means subsidized rentals, in accordance with their winner-take-all model, to price-out competitors like Zipcar?

On a related note, does anyone know about Zipcar's business model? Are they focused on unit economics / profitability instead of growth? I've been using it ever since they marketed on our college campus with student discounts 5 years ago, but there hasn't been much updates to the web UI. Maybe this is for the better.

<comment><USER31> Avis bought them and they've been much lower profile as a "hot hip company" since then. In retrospect, they were a fairly niche play and Uber/Lyft seems to have taken what wind there was in their sales largely out. Based on pricing that people have told me, it doesn't seem to be discounting for growth.

<comment><USER30> That's interesting because for my use-cases, ridesharing and on-demand car rentals are substitutable goods. Ever since I moved to SF where ridesharing is noticeably more cost effective, I've shifted my more towards ride sharing. If prices on car rentals goes down with this Uber deal, I see myself shifting back in the other direction.

<comment><USER32> It's not so much in a city: ridesharing is a superset of usecasses for me that eventually led me to cancel my zipcar, since they only served the road trip case that a proper car rental does just as well. Having to walk to the car and return it in the same place is a huge hassle, and then having to drive the thing and gas it up puts it much closer to competing with rentals to me.

<comment><USER30> One use case where I default to Zipcar is picking up furniture / big items. Also, I like hiking in Muir Woods but there is no cellphone signal there. You can book a trip to, but not a trip from. Another one is when I want some privacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> So Uber is a middleman car rental agency that outsources all risk to the real car owners, while taking a nice profit?

</comment><comment><USER34> As a non-car owner and an occasional renter, I find Zipcar is cheaper because it includes insurance. Regular rental companies charge about $20 per day ($10 each for liability and collision) extra.

Zipcar has a fixed mileage ceiling per day, so for long hauls regular rentals may be better.

<comment><USER35> Getaround also includes insurance

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> You never want to actually lend your car to randoms -- as anyone who has ever driven a loaner car (fleet), these cars are ruined. People drive like maniacs -- its not their car!

This is a sure way to get your car messed up.

</comment><comment><USER37> Will Uber allow their driver to rent a car and then serve users? this way drivers can avoid commission cut to Uber. I am sure Uber is not naive.

<comment><USER38> Uber already has rental programs for its drivers (see upthread). But how would this allow a driver to avoid commissions to uber?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think this is their answer to Turo?

</comment><comment><USER40> I enjoyed the response I saw from some wag on Twitter: "So when can I rent a train?" Soon, I would guess, as long as Uber gets its cut.

<comment><USER2> [https://www.amtrak.com/charter-your-private- train](https://www.amtrak.com/charter-your-private-train)

<comment><USER41> Amtrak just announced they were shuttering that program at the end of March: [http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/amtrak-will-no-longer- op...](http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/amtrak-will-no-longer-operate- charter-services-special- trains/article_d41dc911-d3a0-5890-a50b-ef18af95a98f.html)

<comment><USER2> Aw, poo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Sigh.

Yet another Rent-A-Car service that people won't use. I'm tired of these countless companies taking up reserved spots in parking lots.

Edit: I ride my bike to BART and use it to get into the city 90% of the time. However, it's been raining a lot in SF recently so I've been forced to drive a couple days. Literally half the available spots at my parking lot of choice are reserved for these services. Most of the time they are empty.</comment>


Ask HN: have Google search results worsened? - <AUTHOR> It seem like over the last 6 months to a year the quality of google search results has gone down significantly.
It's not really subtle either.  I'm coming across outright broken links on the first page of results fairly regularly.  Other times, the quality of the linked site is so bad that I can't even view the content (e.g. popups that obscure the entire view of the page that I have no way of closing, broken javascript that doesn't let me view the content, or forced subscriptions that prevent me from viewing the content).
Sometimes it's a little more subjective, but it's things like ranking spam, ad-riddled sites over official documentation when googling for exact API terms.
Has anyone else noticed this? <comment><USER2> I share the first and last name of the father of a well known celebrity. If I ego surf my name, even in quotes and including -<celeb-name>, it still very rapidly degrades to articles about that negated celebrity name.

A search of

> "myname commonlastname" -celebname

should _never_ return results for "celebname commonlastname" and the search pattern quite clearly forbids the connection of these two pieces of the search clauses in that way.

It has only been the case in recent years that I noticed "-" went from "minus" to "only for the first couple hits, then do the complete opposite." IMO it is a huge and annoying bug.

Also, for a while Google's results page used to show a pic of me and a link to my twitter account, but with celeb-father's personal data. That was weird.

</comment><comment> java-man Yes, they surely did. I've seen google return a few results to common programming topics. I've seen google return results where the first page contains not a single relevant link. I've seen google return results which contains none of the query keywords.

Get what you paid for, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER3> It became extremely hard-to-impossible to find non-commercially inflated opinions about places, products and pretty much anything else.

Pretty much first 1-10 pages of google are filled with ads disguised as "organic" results.

Many of these pages are coming from adwords "sponsors".

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes. The amount of times I've seen Google return results with one or more terms removed alone is proof of that. In the old days, they at least tried to find relevant results when your query had no quotation marks around it. Now any remotely specialised query leaving them off will find half the page filled with irrelevant results labelled 'missing [term you actually cared about]'.

Large sites certainly seem to be overrepresented in their results now too.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think this is real. In my niche, I've seen some sites that are obviously gaming Google and getting away with it, as well as Google being biased toward older (but aging) sites.

I don't think it's necessarily that Google's algorithm has become worse as much as it is just sites gaming Google a whole lot more. A lot of the most basic blackhat SEO techniques still seem to be working quite well. I think that problem leads Google toward trusting the older results more, which results in the second effect. I imagine it's a balancing act for them.

I think there will be a third wave of search engines some day. Google's approach has worked great until now, but I can't imagine it will continue to work well in 10 - 20 years from now.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this depends on what you're searching for. For anything with a consumer appeal this is probably true.

When searching for software-related information, however, the search result quality has largely stayed the same or got even better (from my personal point of view, at least).

Yes, there are ad-riddled sites with notification requests, popups, newsletter subscriptions and whatnot but for the most part the results still consist of Stack Overflow answers, trustworthy sites (such as Mkyong.com or Baeldung for Java-related information) and official documentation.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've noticed the search results get more and more centered around hot spot sites. My most hated is when xyz site is shown and it just runs a search on that site's internal search that shows 0 results. I just don't understand the idea of making it seem like that site had something when it totally didn't.

What is even weirder are the Chrome recommended pages. I have noticed more and more ads disguised as articles being recommended.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think its the case that the spammers have won the battle against google. If you read google's last earnings report, they list internet spam as a risk to their business. As far as I am concerned, google is already borderline useless, the search results are all generic articles that provide no value. I find myself using reddit for information much more often.

<comment><USER9> I think Google's utility took a huge drop when they removed the discussions filter.

I think their goal was to centralise internet discussion into Google+ but Reddit took it instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Google has moved to boost sites with high rank. This gives few 'bad' results, but leads to less authoritative and complete results from the long tail of internet sources. I think this is a response to Black Hat SEO.</comment>


HP Set to Battle Google Over Wireless Future in the Clouds - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/hp_set_to_battle_google_over_wireless_future_in_th.php <comment><USER2> Although I have never been a fan of HP or Palm. I really like webOS and hope they become a decent player in this market. We can use competition, especially with what looks like the death of Symbian.</comment>


Nano-enhanced textiles clean themselves with light - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2016-03-nano-enhanced-textiles.html <comment><USER2> "When the nanostructures are exposed to light, they receive an energy boost that creates "hot electrons". These "hot electrons" release a burst of energy that enables the nanostructures to degrade organic matter."

Organic matter, like our skin?

<comment><USER3> The article doesn't go into much detail, but it may be safe for scale reasons, like the oligodynamic effect where metals like silver kill bacteria but can be safely worn on the skin. The research paper [0] indicates that they coated cotton with copper and silver.

[0] [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/admi.201500632/ab...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/admi.201500632/abstract)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> May I recommend "The man in the white suit", a British comedy from the 50s that predicted this development.

      http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0044876/

It's fun, but also a time capsule of capital vs labor in the 1950s.

The evolution of the home clothes washer pretty much eliminated the half of the labor argument: people don't send most of their laundry out to be cleaned much anymore.

</comment><comment><USER5> This might lessen the need, but I don't think it will entirely eliminate the need for washing clothes. Not all substances that that soil clothes are organic. There's the mineral components of dirt, oils, other chemicals, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you feel about backchannel communications for engineering teams? - <AUTHOR> Hi!
On the teams I've worked on, I've usually always been part of a public Slack channel (with managers, product, designers, various stakeholders) and a private slack channel which is only engineers.
1.) I think the private channel makes people more likely to ask the "dumb questions", be more frank, and generally more communicative: do you agree?
2.) Should engineering managers be part of the private channel?
In general, I'm curious what HN thinks about this paradigm! <comment><USER2> I'm generally in favor of it. Whether to include your manager or not is up to the team dynamic. On our team, absolutely (she used to be a dev on the team, then the team lead, then the team manager).

What I've seen in our own "private" room is that the list of invitees has grown and now some folks with power but not context have gotten into the room. I feel that their confidence in our team has dropped due to them seeing "dumb" questions (things like, "hey, does anyone know how such-n-such-critical- component work?" with responses like, "doesn't it do blah?" "no, it does blah blah ... I think. Don't recall."

We previously had a public room and a private room for chat. But with the private room having some important folks now, I'm not sure we can just kick them out. We might need a private-private room.

Thanks for the question, it reminded me to have this conversation with my manager (as we would want her in the private-private room, but want her blessing and input - maybe she is fine telling the others to leave).

<comment><USER3> "folks with power but not context" is a great phrase!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having a dedicated channel for engineers seems like a necessity. And it's important to keep non-engineers out of it, due to points raised by /u/sethammons.

As an engineer I want to be comfortable asking questions that are too technical for the general audience. And to ask them without fear of the managers thinking I'm an idiot (and yes, managers/non-engineers do come to that conclusion if you ask a question that they feel that every engineer should know, even if they're nowhere near to being in a position to make that judgement).

Besides just factual knowledge-sharing, there needs to be a place where engineers can complain, celebrate, swear, and say whatever comes to their mind. The general/main channel doesn't allow for that.

And sure, engineering managers can be in the channel, so long as they don't throw their weight around and keep the tone informal. I.e., don't use something that an engineer said in that channel against him, or put anything in a negative light. Basically, the more informal the side channel, the better and healthier. If people can't shoot the shit freely, negativity will build up and toxic patterns WILL emerge.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's vital to have a "safe space" channel where people can ask questions without judgement, or worries about looking bad to management or people who have some say in their promotions, bonus, project assignments, etc.

Also important for "Widget X might be broken folks, do we have a problem?" triaging without inviting premature noise, especially given some such concerns will be false positives.

</comment><comment><USER5> With all due respect to the other answers in other threads, it sounds to me that there is a toxic company culture if employees feel they need a "private" slack channel where they can post work appropriate messages without reprisal. I understand that a single dev can't always fix the underlying problem and sometimes needs to focus on mitigating a symptom. But should the question really be "what can we do to fix the company culture"?

<comment><USER6> I'm surprised that people want private channels so much. Most teams I'm on have been public only, and it's never been an issue. Even private messages are frowned upon, better to have input from others. It's especially annoying if someone from another team is asking for help but the context is hidden behind a wall.

And outside of engineering they generally self select out of the channel. Or we trust that the people we work with to understand that they aren't the intended audience in those channels - they're still welcome but usually don't contribute.

<comment><USER5> Same here. We also have quiet offices with no more than 2 people per room for our devs. Maybe it's no surprise we have a strong company culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Make a private IRC channel. It's a pretty hardcore technical filter, but such are the times.

> [...] employers of the 1960s regarded programmers as unmanageable, citing > contemporary sources that branded programmers as "prima donnas" who were > "arrogant," "egocentric," and devoid of social skills.

> [...] a manager at IBM and Diebold bemoaned the fact that programmers' > labor-market power undermined "the normal employer-employee relationship, > which, in part, depends on the fear of termination or disciplinary action."

> Weinberg, who managed large software projects at IBM [...], argued that > software was produced most effectively in egalitarian teams that emphasized > open communication among members. [... He] contrasted his approach with what > he saw as the macho attitude of many managers: "Managers tend to select > themselves from the 'aggressive' component of society... They are especially > at a loss to understand the smooth functioning of a programming group based > on mutual respect for individual talent and cooperation in the common > cause."

Janet Abbate - Recoding Gender, p93-95

<comment><USER8> The "normal employer-employee relationship" still "in part, depends on the fear of termination...." What has changed?

<comment><USER9> The fear part most likely. Depending on what year the quote is from there's a chance that they literally couldn't find a replacement for a programmer. Or want to soak the costs of training one on the job.

Nowadays a lot of developers I know, myself included, work where they do because they like it and it pays somewhat better than the other guys. If I lose my job oh well. I'll throw out my resume, take a week off, and there's a good chance I'll have another job.

It isn't that it won't suck, but it's not going to cripple me or really interrupt my life. The question of "Are they going to fire me?" becomes kind of a joke.

<comment><USER8> In my experience, the "I'll just find a new job in a week " meme is overstated. It takes longer than a week to get to an onsite interview in my experience. Sometimes it's even longer.

<comment><USER9> Admittedly yes, especially in the current market but it does illustrate the reasoning behind the quote. The shift in labor-market power of developers is undeniable. Realistically it would take me closer to a month from search to first day if I was jumping at the first opportunity. I've certainly known people with a broad enough network and in-demand skills who could land one in a week or two however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> On my team we have a "dev" Slack channel which is public and a "dev_private" channel which is private. The former includes managers/stakeholders and is almost exclusively for providing status updates and raising critical issues that need manager input.

The latter is fairly locked down and limited to only the dev team, and it's where we troubleshoot together, ask dumb questions, and chat about work in general. Having it definitely makes working through certain issues feel much "safer" without risking looking like we don't know what we are doing to management (though whether or not I know what I'm doing is debatable).

</comment><comment><USER11> We had a project where we had a remote team of contractors doing some of the lower-level work. Our engineering manager finally said: Look, I need my own weekly call with their engineers. Managers can listen if they want to, but it's _our_ call. It was amazing how quickly things got solved when it was just engineers talking to engineers, without business people or politics.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd be up for no Slack channels at all, but I'm just old schoool. I find Slack quite distracting.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think it's fine to have a private channel for developers. If nothing else, it will give you a place to discuss technical problems without all the other noise.

</comment><comment><USER14> A lot of context can be lost in 1 to 1s, however it doesn't mean they can't exist. Often I'll say let's take this to #dev so a) stakeholders are involved b) it's not just a line item on an invoice. If we're just talking shit or having a moan then 1 to 1 is fine</comment>


Show HN: Trade – A mobile web app for trading stocks with virtual currency - <AUTHOR> http://trade.kevinbedi.com/

<comment><USER2> Do the prices change? This looks cool.

Also, are you going to open source it?

<comment><AUTHOR> The prices should update as they change in the real markets - it uses Yahoo Finance API for this. It's also already open source: [https://github.com/mashlol/trade](https://github.com/mashlol/trade)

<comment><USER2> You should use Yahoo data as a seed and then modify it so the user can see results (however fake) faster (or make it a togglable option)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It looks really nice. Can you talk about the technologies you used to build it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. The front-end is just plain old html/js/css. The back-end is Node.js, there's only two endpoints, one is searching for stocks, the other is for serving the index file. I also use the yahoo finance API to get stock prices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> very well done! love the UI! very responsive, has a very good native feel to it. well done!

</comment><comment><USER5> Why is it only mobile?

<comment><AUTHOR> I may add a web interface later, this was mostly a project I started to try to make a decent web app for mobile.</comment></comment>