Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS at 30+? - <AUTHOR> I have never been to college to study, but I self-learnt a bit about HTML,CSS, JAVASCRIPT. I tried to build websites using CSS framework bootstrap, zurb foundation, WordPress.
I don't have any job.
Do you think, it makes sense to study computer science at the age of 31? or is it too late? do you have some experience with that? or do you work at a human resources department and can tell me if there is a chance for those kind of people? <comment><USER2> It's very possible at 31. Many people in the early days were self-taught. There's so much information available freely online that you don't need to go to college to learn it (you go to college for other reasons).

The fact that you haven't done some really basic stuff on your own though, before coming here, tells me you are not much of a self-starter. So I have my doubts.

Python is easy to approach. Take the codeacademy python course, I think it's free. See if you take a liking to it. If so, find the syllabus for the first 2 years of a compsci program and learn those things. By 1 year into it, you should be able to make a useful nodejs program. Demo it here and go from there.

<comment><USER3> > The fact that you haven't done some really basic stuff on your own though, > before coming here, tells me you are not much of a self-starter. So I have > my doubts.

OP says himself that "...but I self-learnt a bit about HTML,CSS, JAVASCRIPT."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a Computer Scientist myself, allow me to share my story.

I'm currently 36 and I have 11 years of professional experience as a _generalist_, not a specialist in any way.

This means I can solve any problem of yours, but I'm not your guy for a specific niche your business is in.

Does this mean I'm not your guy for solving your issues? No, it means I am the guy who can help you _find multiple solution(s)_ to your existing problem(s), but...tell that to employers that want to hire x10 programmers.

This lack of specialization limits me from other candidates for so many reasons:

      * In tech industry, at the age of 36 I'm considered old, a.k.a useless anymore.
      * I know a bit of everything, whereas fresh grads come in the game as fresh, vibrant, energetic
        humanoids that bring with them their newly acquired knowledge with an attitude of
        "I do whatever my managers tell me for the sake of initial experience".
      * I work in a considerable "slow" pace, until I check everything it works as expected, in contrast to
        youngsters that "just ship, fix the chaos later".

That lack of expertise causes me nothing but trouble; an extra issue it had caused me is self-doubt.

I never had this type of issue before.

Now, what should you do? Should you study or should you continue with your own self-learning process?

My suggestion would be "yes" _if_ and only _IF_ you plan to get a masters or a PhD degree and you can work for academia or research.

If that's not the case, you don't need the degree.

You should continue with your self-learnt pace, dive in deep waters without the slightest fear, and don't be afraid to ask countless questions, no matter what kind of questions might be or how silly or goofy might sound!

Learn as many languages as possible that intrigue you.

Don't be afraid of learning languages that look obscure to you.

I used to afraid of Perl due to its cryptic nature until I started learning it myself; now it makes perfectly sense.

I hope this helped a bit.

</comment><comment><USER5> Totally possible, lots of people do it. [http://www.codenewbies.org/](http://www.codenewbies.org/) seem like supportive community; f[https://www.freecodecamp.org/](https://www.freecodecamp.org/) seems like a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> Committing to a lengthy (and probably pricey) universtity course is not something to take lightly. Do a couple of the CS courses on EdX/Coursera and see if it resonates.

Also remember that CS degrees arent just 4 years of programming, a lot of it is theoretical and maths-heavy and this isn't for everyone.</comment>


Free Art Books from the Metropolitan Museum of Art - <AUTHOR> http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/download-422-free-art-books-from-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art.html

<comment><USER2> I downloaded a book on Van Gogh's drawing, beautiful. [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Vincent_va...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Vincent_van_Gogh_The_Drawings?Tag=&title=&author=&pt=&tc=&dept=&fmt=#)

</comment><comment><USER3> The Met is really on top of their digital game. Their website is super informative, functional, and attractive. I didn't use their app but it seems very comprehensive. My only complaint is that it's iOS only, grumble grumble.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here are some that I found fascinating. These are all downloadable. Enjoy!

Canvas Matches in Vermeer: A Case Study in the Computer Analysis of Fabric Supports [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/search- pub...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/search-publication- results?searchType=C&Tag=computer&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=downloadpdf)

Art and Autoradiography: Insights into the Genesis of Paintings by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Vermeer [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Art_and_Au...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Art_and_Autoradiography_Insights_into_the_Genesis_of_Paintings_by_Rembrandt_Van_Dyck_and_Vermeer?Tag=photography&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852–1860 [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/All_the_Mi...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/All_the_Mighty_World_The_Photographs_of_Roger_Fenton_1852_1860?Tag=photography&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Photography Between the Wars: Selections from the Ford Motor Company Collection [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Photograph...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Photography_Between_the_Wars_Selections_from_the_Ford_Motor_Company_Collection_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_Bulletin_v_45_no_4_Spring_1988?Tag=world%20war&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825–1861 [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Art_and_th...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Art_and_the_Empire_City_New_York_1825_1861?Tag=photography&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Art and Anatomy in Renaissance Italy: Images from a Scientific Revolution [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Art_and_An...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Art_and_Anatomy_in_Renaissance_Italy_Images_from_a_Scientific_Revolution?Tag=leonardo&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomical Drawings [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Leonardo_d...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Leonardo_da_Vinci_Anatomical_Drawings_from_the_Royal_Library_Windsor_Castle?Tag=&title=leonardo&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0)

The Scepter of Egypt: A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 1 [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Scepte...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Scepter_of_Egypt_Vol_1_From_the_Earliest_Times_to_the_End_of_the_Middle_Kingdom?Tag=&title=&author=&pt=0&tc={55EACA16-D3BF-4D92-A5B0-CF41D661B79C}&dept=0&fmt=0)

Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Ancient_Eg...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Ancient_Egyptian_Calligraphy?Tag=Favorite%20Met%20titles&title=&author=&pt=&tc=&dept=&fmt=)

Chess: East and West, Past and Present [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Chess_East...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Chess_East_and_West_Past_and_Present_A_Selection_from_the_Gustavus_A_Pfeiffer_Collection?Tag=&title=&author=&pt=&tc=&dept=&fmt=)

American Musical Instruments in The Metropolitan Museum of Art [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/American_M...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/American_Musical_Instruments_in_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art?Tag=technology&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=0)

Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Helmets_an...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Helmets_and_Body_Armor_in_Modern_Warfare?Tag=world%20war&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Of Arms and Men: Arms and Armor at the Metropolitan [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Of_Arms_an...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Of_Arms_and_Men_Arms_and_Armor_at_the_Metropolitan_1912_2012?Tag=world%20war&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

The Art of Chivalry: European Arms and Armor from The Metropolitan Museum of Art [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Art_of...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Art_of_Chivalry_European_Arms_and_Armor_from_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art?Tag=weapons&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

European Helmets, 1450–1650 [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/European_H...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/European_Helmets_1450_1650_Treasures_from_the_Reserve_Collection?Tag=world%20war&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Wild_M...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Wild_Man_Medieval_Myth_and_Symbolism?Tag=albrecht&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Greek Art From Prehistoric to Classical [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Greek_Art_...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Greek_Art_From_Prehistoric_to_Classical?Tag=world%20war&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Along the Ancient Silk Routes: Central Asian Art [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Along_the_...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Along_the_Ancient_Silk_Routes_Central_Asian_Art_from_the_West_Berlin_State_Museums?Tag=photography&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Words and Images: Chinese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Words_and_...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Words_and_Images_Chinese_Poetry_Calligraphy_and_Painting?Tag=Favorite%20Met%20titles&title=&author=&pt=&tc=&dept=&fmt=)

Momoyama: Japanese Art in the Age of Grandeur [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Momoyama_J...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Momoyama_Japanese_Art_in_the_Age_of_Grandeur?Tag=world%20war&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Islamic Art and Geometric Design: Activities for Learning [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Islamic_Ar...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Islamic_Art_and_Geometric_Design_Activities_for_Learning?Tag=geometry&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Vincent_va...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Vincent_van_Gogh_The_Drawings?Tag=van%20gogh&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Picasso and Gertrude Stein [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Picasso_an...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Picasso_and_Gertrude_Stein?Tag=picasso&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

The Care and Handling of Art Objects: Practices in The Metropolitan Museum of Art [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Care_a...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Care_and_Handling_of_Art_Objects_Practices_in_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art?Tag=photography&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Masterpiec...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Masterpieces_of_the_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_2006?Tag=leonardo&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

Masterpieces of Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Masterpiec...](http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Masterpieces_of_Painting_in_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art?Tag=picasso&title=&author=&pt=0&tc=0&dept=0&fmt=Downloadpdf)

<comment><USER5> Nice list! Thanks for making it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can anyone recommend some specific books to look at? This seems like a great treasure trove but as a beginner to art appreciation I don't have much of an idea of where to start.

<comment><USER7> Just pick something that sounds interesting to you and start reading. There's no bad way to do it.

I wander at random through art history stuff, and I never regret it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ever met cool engineering problem while doing Internationalization? - <AUTHOR> I worked as a RoR and JS developer on several codebases that involved I18n, and my conclusion so far is that it is better to avoid such multi-lingual projects because there is nothing interesting to learn/meet from engineering point of view (unless there are other aspects unrelated to I18n). For a developer, I18n in codebase just means manual boring work that cannot be avoided or automatized. Occasionally, there are funny glitches, when people unfamiliar with the domain copy&paste translations via google translate, but that is all.
But maybe I am wrong and there are some interesting engineering problems other people have met and addressed while dealing with I18n? <comment><USER2> This is pretty interesting to me: [https://projectfluent.org/](https://projectfluent.org/)</comment>


Dynamic Drawing: Broadening Practice and Participation in Procedural Art (2017) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://web.media.mit.edu/~jacobsj/resources/jjacobs_dissertation_final_optimized.pdf <comment><USER2> Dr. Jacobs provides an excellent overview in this video of their dissertation defense: [https://www.media.mit.edu/events/jennifer-jacobs- dissertatio...](https://www.media.mit.edu/events/jennifer-jacobs-dissertation- defense/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I had missed this one. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I haven't had the chance to give this a really solid skim or do any background searches for the author or any related work, but given that, what do you like about this? Why do you post it, why do you think it is interesting, or what did you learn from it?

I intend to check it out, do you have any leads for me? Or suggested sections?

Thank you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe there is untapped creative potential in procedural art. It is an under-explored area because of lack of tooling imo.

Dr. Jacobs' work is the best manifestation of the idea of "composable tooling" in the context of procedural art.

This video explains the idea in a way that I found very accessible for myself: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKWraWSERlY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKWraWSERlY)

<comment><USER4> It's really good, thank you for sharing her work. I think there are many areas to continue exploring here. I've personally built interfaces that favor recording and repeating direct user input to vary brush parameters such as shape, rotation, position, offset and color, which makes for a very intuitive drawing experience. Towards the end of her paper she emphasizes both this aspect of unconventional interface design and fostering a new ecosystem of tools with different interface metaphors to help with expressivity, which is really vital from my experience as well. Most important to this domain is that we stop thinking about graphics tools as trinket chests of features and start designing them using a wholistic approach, as if they were musical instruments. ([https://youtu.be/ndz-co7Xpn8](https://youtu.be/ndz-co7Xpn8), [https://youtu.be/Up2-myTEviE](https://youtu.be/Up2-myTEviE))

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, these are very interesting. Thanks for sharing them here.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Fix the Baby Bust - <AUTHOR> https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/25/how-to-fix-the-baby-bust/ <comment><USER2> A topic I usually miss from the discussion: gynecology and obstetrics practices. Here in Germany they are the most shitty medical professions. Research seems to have been replaced with magical thinking and arguments like "you just have to trust you body", "we shouldn't make childbirth too easy for women", "caesarean section is against nature". In no other hospital department homeopathy "medication" is part of the standard treatment. A lot of birth departments are closing, the remaining ones often overcrowded with too few staff, the only mandatory staff during birth seem to be midwifes (with a chronic tendency to esoteric bullshittery), the examinations often more of a joke, like using using ultrasound for weight estimates of the unborn baby known as to imprecise for this purpose. We don't even have a central evaluation for injuries babys and mothers receive during birth (to kick the most dysfunctional hospitals a bit in the ass). As a result after giving birth, a lot of women suffer of traumas for being mistreatet by overworked staff or problems like incontinence, chronic panic and organ prolapse sometimes to a degree they can't work anymore. Often in silence out of shame, when they speak up, getting comments like "you wanted children you have to live with the results". For one of the most severe injuries avulsions of the musculus levator ani up to now there isn't even a working treatment. I guess, having a life with a job they like and a lot of activities some women just shy away from the risk or don't want to repeat an awful experience.

I'm looking forward to what the Chinese are doing at the moment: "The Born in Guangzhou Cohort Study" is one of biggest cohort studies ever done and hopefully it brings a bit more insight into pregnancy and birth and things others call "that's just nature".</comment>


The Official March Madness Predictive Analytics Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://blog.smellthedata.com/2010/03/official-march-madness-predictive.html

<comment><USER3> "must be based on historical data"... what about crowdsourced predictive analysis? Something like stocktwits for real-time investment ideas - <USER2> what people think about games for Twitter, although that would only work during each successive round and not for filling out a bracket at the very beginning. I could see that working since anyone who takes the time to tweet "team x over team y" is self-filtering for game predictive knowledge. Thoughts?

<comment><USER4> your idea sounds interesting, but i think it's getting at a different comparison. as presented, the contest is about who can design an algorithm to get the most out of a set (but large) quantity of data.

what you're suggesting is where to get the best data from. i think it's also an interesting question, but it would need to be in a separate category at the very least. also, wouldn't the best bet (pun intended) just be to go with the bookie odds? people who are putting money on the games presumably have better information than somebody just tweeting their prediction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I went to the effort of doing this I'd probably also find somewhere to bet real money on my picks.

<comment><USER4> You think you can build a model that is better than the bookies's?

<comment><USER5> Highly unlikely. I might be able to beat the local bar's betting circle though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome</comment>


Gloucestershire radio ham manages to contact International Space Station - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/gloucestershire-radio-ham-manages-to-contact-international-space-station-10441887.html <comment><USER2> ISS crew members make regular amateur radio contacts as part of the ARISS scheme. A proportion of these contacts are pre-arranged for school and youth groups, but many amateurs have made spontaneous contact.

Contacting the ISS doesn't require anything more sophisticated than a 2m/70cm transceiver and a handheld Yagi-Uda - the difficulty comes from the very short windows of opportunity and the substantial doppler shift.

[http://www.ariss.org/contact-the-iss.html](http://www.ariss.org/contact-the- iss.html)

Similarly, many amateurs have made earth-moon-earth contacts, using the moon as a reflector. UHF and VHF are most common, but some highly skilled amateurs have made EME contacts using millimetre-wave bands.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%E2%80%93Moon%E2%80%93Ear...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%E2%80%93Moon%E2%80%93Earth_communication)

</comment><comment><USER3> 200 miles isn't all that far for a ham radio signal. I'm not trying to diminish the achievement at all, however.

People interested in RTL-SDR (software defined radio on a USB TV dongle, basically) might like to know that ISS transmissions can be heard on 148.500MHz. Requires a little bit more effort, and a licence, to chat back.</comment>


The economics of unused gift cards - <AUTHOR> https://thehustle.co/what-happens-to-unused-gift-cards <comment><USER2> I hate getting gift cards. If someone feels the need to give me a gift but doesn't want to put thought into it, cash would be a much better choice.

When I do get a gift card, what I end up doing is giving it to someone else who would appreciate it more. Or, if I can't find such a person (it tends to be 50-50), then I sell it through a local classified ad site for 50% of the value it contains.

<comment><USER3> I'd rather get gift cards because I can't stop people from giving me more stuff. I don't want stuff, I don't need more things. At least gift cards don't take up room or are easy to gift to someone else who might need it.

<comment><USER4> I think his point is cash is always better than a gift card. It's a weird social norm that giving cash is lazy (which is arguably true), but what person doesn't like cash? Unless you're gifting $100 to a billionaire, there's no question of its utility and there's zero worry whether or not the recipient actually finds the gift useful.

<comment><USER5> I think gift cards have the implied context of "treat yourself". Ie I might give a gift card for your favorite restaurant. The cash might just be used at the gas pump or buying groceries.

<comment><USER2> > I might give a gift card for your favorite restaurant.

Wouldn't the much better gift be to take them out for a meal at their favorite restaurant?

> The cash might just be used at the gas pump or buying groceries.

If someone gives me some money and I spend it on gas or groceries, then I clearly need the gas or groceries the most at that time. I don't see the problem with that.

But my main point, really, is that both cash and gift cards are (generally speaking) terrible gifts because they don't have the one thing any great gift needs: to indicate that the person cares about you enough to put some thought into the gift. The actual gift isn't the thing itself, it's the time and attention put into the thing.

But between the two poor choices, I consider cash to be the better option.

<comment><USER6> > Wouldn't the much better gift be to take them out for a meal at their > favorite restaurant?

You're thinking of gifts for local friends/relatives. Think of your grandmother who lives 5000 miles away and has never been on a plane. Can she take you out to eat on a whim? No. But she _can_ connive to get you to take _yourself_ out to eat, and think of her as you do so, making you perhaps a little more likely to take a 5000-mile flight to visit _her_ one day. This is the use-case that gift-cards serve.

<comment><USER2> > This is the use-case that gift-cards serve.

That's a reasonable use case (although I still think there are much better options).

However, that's not the sort of use case that is usually involved when people give gift cards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like gift cards as long as it's for a store that I would normally shop at anyways.

But a few years ago, I was given a gift card to Macy's. I don't shop at Macy's and had a hard time finding something to get. Every single thing I looked at, I could get at half the price basically anywhere else. I ended up buying some kitchen stuff, but felt like the giver's money was wasted.

The _worst_ gift card in my experience is a Visa/MC/AmEx gift card. It is often a pain to deal with them if the balance on the card isn't enough to cover a purchase unless the business you're spending it at is capable to splitting a purchase over multiple credit cards _and_ the cashier knows how to do that.

<comment><USER8> I use the Visa gift cards for charitable contributions. The nice thing about charities, as opposed to random purchases, is you get to pick the amount.

<comment><USER7> Oh that's a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I only ever get Amazon gift cards. Don't know what I would do with something like a Red Lobster gift card.

It's easy to redeem them immediately and have that balance in my account forever.

<comment><USER10> If a company gives me a gift card (some thing at a tradeshow, filling out survey, etc.), Amazon's basically what I want. I enter it into my account and it's basically right there effectively like cash.

I don't give gift cards but I guess they're OK if the person knows I shop somewhere semi-regularly for fun type stuff. e.g. REI for me. Maybe it will lead me to buy something that catches my eye but I don't _need_ so I'd otherwise pass on.

Red Lobster I would be thinking "I didn't know you hated me so much." :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> At least in my family, we only do gift cards for restaurants. It still has the symbolism of a well-thought gift.

Otherwise, I just give my niece and nephews cash.

(Personally, I hate gift cards. They're usually at a place I'd never shop, so I end up buying something of marginal value.)

</comment><comment><USER6> For a while, I would receive gift cards as gifts from my mother. She isn't the type of person to buy gift cards for people. But, for a while, she worked at a large supermarket chain, which meant that she could buy gift-cards from the store she works in _below cost_ , i.e. that she could pay $90 to activate a $100 gift card.

This would probably be the one-and-only time that gift cards are really "better than cash."

</comment><comment><USER12> An economist one said "Socks and gift cards are the junk bonds of gifts"

[https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/788587668/the-efficient- chris...](https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/788587668/the-efficient-christmas- why-economists-hate-gifts?t=1578380529104)

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://www.giftbit.com/business-solutions/send-gift- cards-i...](https://www.giftbit.com/business-solutions/send-gift-cards-in- bulk/) Is trying to help close the gap so that you can get something back if it's unredeemed

</comment><comment><USER14> Does anybody know of any non-scammy ways to turn visa gift cards into cash/crypto? I'd love to do something irresponsible with mine, like gamble at a bitcoin casino or something.

<comment><USER15> Create two pay pall accounts, and send yourself an invoice from one to another, settle the funds into your bank account, assuming this would work via Stripe or other payment gateways. You'll obviously loose the CC processing fee

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I literally just toss them in the trash because I know I'll never use them.

<comment><USER17> Wow. You don't even bother to just give them to someone? A family member, a friend, a coworker?

I'm not shocked by a lot of things, but I guess I am kind of shocked that someone would have so much money that it's not even worth their time to keep it in their wallet until the next chance they have to give it to someone else who would appreciate it.

<comment><USER16> I used to but its more that I never remember them. A long time ago I would save them and tell myself to remember to use them and I never did. Then I would save them in my car for the next time I see a family member to give it to them, and I would never remember then. Just a hassle, in all aspects so its easier to toss them. Nothing gained nothing lost.

<comment><USER18> Why not just hand it to the next person you see? Or put it next to the coffee maker at work with a Post-It that says, "Take me"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm interested in the economics and law of when this is counted as income.

The article says that in the general case, the company only counts the card as income once it is redeemed. Until then it is counted as a liability.

This makes a little sense, since they still owe you goods and services, but (1) aren't the goods/services they are offering worth less _to them_ than the value on the card, and (2) aren't they generating interest off that?

Next, it says that under a 2009 law, the companies can start counting it as income sooner (6-24 months), and the accompanying article suggests that this is good for the companies' bottom line. But wouldn't it really be the opposite? Before they counted it as income, surely they had all the benefits of the money and it's not even being taxed as income yet? Wouldn't they want to hold off on counting it as income as long as possible?

<comment><USER20> All outstanding gift (and loyalty) card balance is counted as liability because they represent good/services (and in some cases money) that the business currently owes to customers. I worked in the gift/loyalty industry, and the article gets most things right, but the specifics depend a lot on the jurisdiction and the nature of the program.

In markets that don't regulate otherwise, a typical program will count unused balance as breakage 12 months after issue. The typical balance on such a card would amount to unspent change from a purchase. In regulated markets, they'll just follow whatever the regulation is, which sometimes requires charging an "account maintenance" fee, instead of just removing the balance.

What happens to the money before it is either redeemed or taken as breakage depends again on the specifics of the program and the jurisdiction. Sometimes it will be required to be held in a trust, or in some other form of escrow. Often this will preclude the possibility of earning interest.

Sometimes the gift card provider and the merchant are different parties. An example of this would be a mall that sells a gift card that you can use to redeem at any store in the mall, or a visa gift card. In this case, the program operator does not simply exchange the balance for stock, they have to settle cash with the merchant.

Loyalty liability is different again, because that's liability that you never received a direct payment for in the first place.

The one huge mistake that this article makes is that it claims the breakage income is 100% profit. This ignores the costs of operating the program, which is usually millions of dollars. Small retailers would receive trivial breakage income, and would not necessarily even cover program costs with it. Medium size retailers may or may not generate a profit on breakage, large retailers likely do, but their program expenses are also enormous. The real value to the business is customer acquisition.</comment></comment>


A Hidden Connection Between Digital Physics, Quantum Mechanics, and Relativity - <AUTHOR> https://scrollto.com/blog/2019/10/25/the-hidden-connection-between-quantum-mechanics-and-relativity/ <comment><USER2> > It is thought to be impossible to do continuous movement in any direction, > if having to take place on a discrete lattice..ie a chess board..a pixel > universe. The most famous example is Conway's Game Of Life.

Followed by an animation of Conway's Game of Life, which launches gliders, which proceed to continuously to the bottom right until they exit the scene. If the scene were bigger, the gliders would move until they exited that scene, too, because they move forever in the same direction. So... that didn't prove the point very well, did it?

[Edit: Or was the point that you can't do _continuous_ on a discrete lattice; that is, you can't move 0.1 pixel? Well, yeah, that's kind of trivially true, and also not very interesting.]

> Is this the connection between Digital Physics, Quantum Mechanics and > Relativity that we have been seeking?

No.

<comment><AUTHOR> > that's kind of trivially true

It actually isn't. Our universe appears to have equal speed of light in all directions and a full fidelity of directions, the continuum. Both QFT and GR rest on premise that spacetime is a continuum. However, even if it isn't a continuum, there are ways to make it seem as high fidelity as possible. These techniques may be at use in our own very universe, which may indeed be digital voxels. Everyone is always asking for a reason for QM, for the indeterministic randomness - here lies a potential answer.</comment></comment>


Will Amazon make a tablet? 'Stay tuned,' says Jeff Bezos - <AUTHOR> http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2011/05/will-amazon-make-a-tablet-stay-tuned-says-jeff-bezos.html <comment><USER2> The rumored manufacturer of the Amazon tablet is Samsung. The Skyhook/Google- android law suit is potentially related. Search the following for "amazon" to see why.

[http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook- la...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit- motorola-samsung/)

<comment><USER3> I don't think it's going to be an Android tablet. Amazon might have considered that but the way Honeycomb has been locked down clearly prevents that now. This will be a Mirasol-screen color Kindle using the same OS as Kindle but with a touch UI. Amazon already has gotten some Kindle app devs. More will follow when this color one comes out.

<comment><USER4> I think that is fanciful thinking. Mirasol is not ready for prime time. Also, Bezos says such a device would supplement rather than replace the Kindle. So it stands to reason we can expect something more like an iPad.

I think an Amazon branded Android tablet must be in the mix even without Honeycomb. The Nook Color is very successful proof you can launch an Android tablet without full Google compatibility. And Amazon has its own App Store already.

I would not be surprised if we got a Gingerbread tablet with a custom Amazon skin and the Amazon App Store for $100 more than a similarly sized Kindle.

<comment><USER3> >>>Mirasol is not ready for prime time.

Who says? And why do you think the tablet will arrive tomorrow? Fall. [http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2011/05/10/theres-good- new...](http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2011/05/10/theres-good-news-and-bad- news-about-mirasol/)

<comment><USER4> <http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100820PD215.html>

It doesn't sound like Mirasol will be produced in volume until 2012. Given the necessary lead time to stock components for a major device launch, devices that use Mirasol will be late 2012 at best, definitely not fall 2011. At least that's what it seems given the available information.

I do think Amazon will make a color Kindle eReader using Mirasol eventually. But they are obviously doing something strategic with Android and can make an LCD tablet without waiting on Mirasol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you , Jeff, for staying focused. I love my Kindle and wouldn't want anymore features and capabilities. I wouldn't want to be able to check my email on Kindle. I wouldn't want having full browser capability. Because all of that would distract me from reading.

I noticed that I can't read on iPad for more than 15 minutes. I always want to check my email or play a game.

</comment><comment><USER6> To me, the existing kindle is already quite a good tablet.

It might not have all the bells and whistles of an ipad, but there's an active app community, it's "tablet" sized, and is geared towards content consumption and not creation. For me, this is what signifies a tablet.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think it's been pretty clear for several months that Amazon is in the best position to take on the iPad with a tablet of its own. It's the only company that can rival Apple in the media distribution market, and it has tremendous momentum given the popularity of the Kindle.

I predict that we'll see a $299-399 tablet about the size of the Kindle DX along side a revamped $99 Kindle. Then it's game on.

</comment><comment><USER8> It seems pretty apparent that they're going to continue to develop the Kindle - especially with Apple making moves to the eBook market. Amazon's position in online retail would be the envy of pretty much any other company, giving them an nearly unparalleled ability to publicize their own products.

The fact that they're already starting an Android 'App Store' is interesting.</comment>


Show HN: Test Your Front End Skills with These JavaScript Interview Questions - <AUTHOR> https://algodaily.com/javascript-interview-questions <comment><USER2> For anyone wondering the lack of content on the page: at least AdBlock Plus blocks it.</comment>


The $200 Microhouse - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/garden/24tiny.html

<comment><USER2> In my day we called these sheds.

It does look cozy though. Too bad you can't buy a $200 plot to put one on.</comment>


Yarn vs. npm5 determinism - <AUTHOR> https://yarnpkg.com/blog/2017/05/31/determinism/ <comment><USER2> Can people please stop using 'lockfile' for things that aren't lockfiles?

Particularly if you're storing important data using the name of a file type that, for the last few decades, has been something any Linux or Unix user can delete without significant consequence.

<comment><USER3> I have the same problem with "tree shaking". Granted it's not a bastardization of an established term, but it's a reinvention and confounding of terms we already had.

I guess the one thing to take away from this is that js tool authors and c tool authors don't talk to each other enough.

<comment><USER4> As a curiosity, and I say this as someone who has a significant C background, what _would_ you call a similar concept in C? I know that it happens (having been burned by missing symbol errors due to incorrect link ordering), but I don't actually know what it's called.

<comment><USER5> Typically it would be called dead-code elimination. The creator of rollup who popularized the term tree-shaking disagrees that they are the same, but his argument is not super compelling (not that it really matters either way).

[https://medium.com/@Rich_Harris/tree-shaking-versus-dead- cod...](https://medium.com/@Rich_Harris/tree-shaking-versus-dead-code- elimination-d3765df85c80)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unfortunately, despite years of bug reports, neither NPM nor the new kid on the block are deterministic when invoked on multiple builds on the same machine simultaneously. It's almost like their developers never use continuous integration environments. Ironically, if they used an _actual_ lockfile in the traditional sense of the word and did that properly...

<comment><USER7> Yarn has a "\--mutex" option for exactly this purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I may be missing something, but it sounds like the only benefit to Yarn is that the lock file is less noisy, while NPM has better guarantees.

Who wants to deal with keeping absolutely every developer and every build/production system on exactly the same version of Yarn?

<comment><USER9> I mostly agree with you, but two points:

1\. The amount of noise in the lock file likely _does_ matter for teams of any modest size

2\. Yarn doesn't guarantee determinism for hoisting between different versions, but... in reality there's no reason to expect different behavior simply because there's a version difference.

The second point is pretty key, because it means yarn can deal with the issue through fairly standard means (like versioning, documentation, warnings, etc). Plus, most orgs already handle versioning and compatibility between tools in some form or other.

Finally, NPM 5 _doesn 't_ actually guarantee hoisting is deterministic between versions, they just have enough information that they COULD guarantee it. For all we know, NPM 6 will change the format of the file entirely... or perform new hoisting optimizations based on the lockfile that are incompatible with the logic in 5.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Where is the hoisting information in the npm lock file? The examples for yarn and npm look The same to me. Copied below:

has-flag@^1.0.0: version "1.0.0" resolved "[https://registry.yarnpkg.com/has- flag/-/has-flag-1.0.0.tgz#9...](https://registry.yarnpkg.com/has-flag/-/has- flag-1.0.0.tgz#9d9e793165ce017a00f00418c43f942a7b1d11fa")

supports-color@^3.2.3: version "3.2.3" resolved "[https://registry.yarnpkg.com/supports-color/-/supports- color...](https://registry.yarnpkg.com/supports-color/-/supports- color-3.2.3.tgz#65ac0504b3954171d8a64946b2ae3cbb8a5f54f6") dependencies: has- flag "^1.0.0"

{ "name": "react-example", "version": "1.0.0", "lockfileVersion": 1, "dependencies": { "has-flag": { "version": "1.0.0", "resolved": "[https://registry.npmjs.org/has-flag/-/has- flag-1.0.0.tgz"](https://registry.npmjs.org/has-flag/-/has-flag-1.0.0.tgz"), "integrity": "sha1-nZ55MWXOAXoA8AQYxD+UKnsdEfo=" }, "supports-color": { "version": "3.2.3", "resolved": "[https://registry.npmjs.org/supports- color/-/supports-color-3...](https://registry.npmjs.org/supports- color/-/supports-color-3.2.3.tgz"), "integrity": "sha1-ZawFBLOVQXHYpklGsq48u4pfVPY=" } } }

Yarn file seems to have more not less info.

</comment><comment><USER11> What's hoisting dependencies? I can't find a good description.

<comment><USER12> It's just about moving a dependency up a level of node_modules if they are compatible. So if for example 2 packages A and B have the same dependency on babel-core, instead of node_modules/A/node_modules/babel-core and node_modules/B/node_modules/babel-core you could just have node_modules/babel- core.

<comment><USER13> What's the benefit of this? Saving disk space?

<comment><USER14> Yes, and install speed too since you're writing the files once

<comment><USER3> Runtime speed also. Requiring only one copy means only one instance is parsed and optimized by the js engine. Which saves time and heats cache.

<comment><USER15> Yes, but only if you aren't already transpiring minifying code such as for front end frameworks

<comment><USER3> Which is most of the time, on the backend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Shrinkpack[1] allows npm to provide completely deterministic builds.

[1] [https://github.com/JamieMason/shrinkpack](https://github.com/JamieMason/shrinkpack)</comment>


Are We Getting Overly Reliant on GPS-intensive Systems? - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/aerospace/satellites/are-we-getting-overly-reliant-on-gps-systems

<comment><USER2> The Economist had an interesting story on GPS jammers. Apparently truck drivers use them so their employers can't track their movements, but they mess up anything nearby.

<http://www.economist.com/node/18304246>

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm dude, I think we're over-reliant on freekin' being connected all the time. GPS may fail once every X monts/days/whetever. Whatever the fail likelihood of GPS actually is, the likelihood of not being connected to the internet at any given location is far greater, yet we depend on it more and more.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Someone else submitted this, but now it's dead. I did put a comment pointing to the earlier, related article, and I hope they didn't delete this link because of that.

If so, you appear to have mis-understood my intention - sorry if I didn't make myself sufficiently clear.

Here's the comment I made: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386292>

Here's the earlier, related submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380668>

</comment><comment><USER4> It's encouraging that a number of other systems are being developed (EU, India, Russia, China). What is slightly discouraging is the time and delays it takes for them to launch.

Original date for the EU's Galileo was 2010. Now, it's going to be delayed until at least 2014. That much more time during which we're still dependent on GPS.

<comment><USER5> Why do you find this encouraging? For the average consumer, these other systems will have zero impact. The cell phones, handheld, and in car navigation systems available to them will probably still use GPS.

Given the cost of launching and maintaining these systems, I think the average consumer would be better off with a single standard rather than competing systems.

<comment><USER6> "I think the average consumer would be better off with a single standard rather than competing systems."

The history of technology so far makes it clear that competing standards lead to innovation and improvement; furthermore, purity of systems is weakness - one exploit, one flaw, is effective in 100% of cases.

<comment><USER5> The GPS system may be an exception to the purity argument.

The only GPS degredations that I'm aware of were intentional.

The US military is heavily dependent on the GPS system for everything from weapons delivery to route finding to station keeping, to .... The system is probably one of the most fault tolerant and well maintained systems in existence today.

<comment><USER7> "The only GPS degredations that I'm aware of were intentional."

Yes, it has to be intentionally spoofed or jammed. However, there are bad people in the world who intentionally do bad things. This can be done with surprisingly little knowledge and ability, and such devices are commercially available. The GPS system is fine; the problem is that anyone can flick a switch and mess with it. The US military does not have some kind of magic device to stop that happening.

"The GPS system may be an exception to the purity argument."

It is very definitely not. With one device I can mess with everyone's nav system, if everyone uses GPS. If there was a mix of systems being used; GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, the forthcoming COMPASS, the regional Beidou and other such regional systems, LORAN and eLORAN ground-based systems, inertial navigation systems (Which aren't brilliant but are getting better) and various other options, I will have a much, much harder time of messing with everyone's navigation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been asking a similar question that people often don't like to consider- Are we getting overly reliant on the Internet?

<comment><USER9> You could also ask "Are we getting overly reliant on technology"?

But the original question about GPS is already interesting. The GPS network is getting pretty old. What if a few satellites fail? Replacing them will take a while, won't it?

<comment><USER8> Technology is technology. The cotton gin is technology. The tomahawk is technology. I don't think that's the right question to ask.

We get into trouble when people conflate the Internet with technology. The Internet is is just ONE new development of tech, the way television was, or electricity, or woven textiles. It's not the end all, be all, and there is probably <0.01% of people in this world thinking about what happens when the Internet gets replaced by something else - or more to the point, what the opportunity cost is of spending so much time and effort on the Internet when there might be something better just around the corner.

<comment><USER9> With technology I meant "electronic technology". One big solar flare, and all our devices break down due to EM. I'm not so much worried about it, but it's still an interesting question what would happen to human civilization.

I'm not sure what you mean about the internet being "replaced". Unless we find an fundamentally different information unit to transfer (qubits?), the international packet-switched network is pretty much it.

Sure, protocols might change, mediums might change, formats might change, the scope could change from Earth to to the solar system, heck we might call it some other name and start sending direct neural impulses over it, but when is it "replaced"?

Hey, be optimistic, we're still using television, electricity and woven textiles :)

<comment><USER8> >With technology I meant "electronic technology". One big solar flare, and all our devices break down due to EM. I'm not so much worried about it, but it's still an interesting question what would happen to human civilization.

In that case I agree and it's an interesting question for sure.

>I'm not sure what you mean about the internet being "replaced". Unless we find an fundamentally different information unit to transfer (qubits?), the international packet-switched network is pretty much it.

See that's the attitude I'm talking about; so many people aren't willing to consider the possibility that there's a better way. "Replaced" was the wrong word to use- TV or the internet won't ever be replaced, but something else will come along that will divert some or all of our attention away from it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Updated Linode Plans / New Larger Linodes - <AUTHOR> https://blog.linode.com/2018/05/17/updated-linode-plans-new-larger-linodes/ <comment><USER2> Seems like these have been priced to compete with Digital Ocean.

</comment><comment><USER3> damn, still no Australian DC.

I'm stuck on Vultr still, since they're cheap and they have an Australian datacenter.

AU routing to JP is really bad (I get faster connections and better ping to TX-US servers on a lot of providers), and SG is like 120-160 ping which still kinda sucks.

</comment><comment><USER4> Are the cloud hosting services profitable at these very low prices or are they reducing the prices just to gain market share? If it is the latter, sooner or later they have to increase prices, no?

<comment><USER5> I would imagine most clouds will have to be pushing towards primitives (store, compute, network) being lost leaders. margins are on value-add services (software), deploy, monitor, scale etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> OVH, Scaleway, Online.net have less expensive options usually with better hardware or dedicated servers.

<comment><USER7> I swear Linode came up with an excuse to reboot my servers at least once a month.

<comment><USER8> I've had numerous VM's with Linode for several years. I am also on DO and Vultr. The only reboots I get are for hardware failures and the recent Spectre patches. I would say on average, 1 reboot every 2 years. I could be lucky though.

<comment><USER9> Same.

I've had a handful of nodes on their $20 tier for 10+ years, and I think I've had two or three unannounced reboots in that time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The lowest high-memory plans are odd. What can you really do with 24 GB,1 Core, 20 GB SSD?

<comment><USER11> Caching server for a webapp. Varnish, memcached, that sort of thing

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Still no word on renewable energy.

</comment><comment><USER13> In my experience as a non-American, non-European developer, Vultr still beats them all for accepting crypto currency payments.</comment>


Does Amazon hosting is good for dynamic adding / removing space/cpu with API? - <AUTHOR>

If I want to do build web service that charging users  Is this strategy will work for me ?
Suppose I want to build web service that will charge monthly, now each time user will sign up I will programmatically buy more hosting space and cpu . when the user will sign-out I will programmatically remove this space
Of course this is for the total hosting bill . can I do that with Amazon ? or do I need other web hosting ?
Thanks <comment><USER2> <http://phras.in/></comment>


Show HN: Our Bayes Impact Hackathon Project, MineData.org - <AUTHOR> http://www.minedata.org

<comment><USER2> 1\. Let me say that it's great to see more hackers work on issues of civic interest. The data from the government, like most things in life, is messy...but the more eyes we have on it, the better potential there is for public good to come from transparent.

2\. This seems like a textbook case of mapping things that don't need to be mapped. I understand this is a hackathon and showing off a simple table will cause you to lose...but the map is indecipherable...it's only because it's a commonly-used template that I can make an assumption what the zoomed-out numbers mean. But the major flaw is that the purportedly important number, the "lives-at-risk" score, is completely buried. There's no way to make an easy comparison ...I can't even tell how many mines are actually considered dangerous. I think if your aim is to shed light on what are the most dangerous mines, according to your analysis, you should at least put up a table of 50 mines, listed in descending order of "lives-at-risk"

3\. What alternative methodologies did you try, and how do they compare to your score? I would guess that a simple indexing of days-since-last-inspection and number of major violations (and some factoring in of type of mine) would also be a good indicator of how risky a mine currently is.

<comment><USER3> > _I understand this is a hackathon and showing off a simple table will cause > you to lose_

It should be noted that this particular hackathon is a data hackathon. If showing data at a data hackathon is not welcomed, that would be very ironic.

<comment><USER4> This was unfortunately truer than it should have been. I saw two cases where truly predictive models on cleaned data sets were beaten by less informative mappings of uncleaned data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Github link at the bottom of the page 404's for me. [https://github.com/tmsgost/Bayes_Imact](https://github.com/tmsgost/Bayes_Imact)

Seems to just be a misspelled "Impact": [https://github.com/tmsgost/Bayes_Impact](https://github.com/tmsgost/Bayes_Impact)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just pushed a fix. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am confused as to what data is being shown on the map. What do the numbers / colours indicate?

Is it merely plotting the number/location of mines, or does it show the "lives-at-risk" score?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's density of mines - plotting all 6000 doesn't provide useful information. Scroll in and the pins will expand. Clicking on them will give you a link to our analysis for that mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm getting NaN on their "Calculate Lives-At-Risk Score" form.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's working now!

</comment></comment><comment> ely-s How are you calculating the Lives-At-Risk Score?

<comment><AUTHOR> The IPython notebook for the calculation is now in the repo:

[https://github.com/tmsgost/Bayes_Impact/blob/master/explorat...](https://github.com/tmsgost/Bayes_Impact/blob/master/exploration.ipynb)

<comment><USER8> Here's the notebook on NBViewer: [http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/tmsgost/Bayes_Impact/blob...](http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/tmsgost/Bayes_Impact/blob/master/exploration.ipynb)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you want to tag a tweet about this with #bayeshack, there is a prize for most popular project on social.

</comment><comment><USER9> and here I thought it was about land mines.</comment>


Ask HN: What is one app you can't live without? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I live and breathe LoseIt! ([http://www.loseit.com](http://www.loseit.com))

I've been logging my caloric intake since 2009. Logging my food keeps me accountable for what I eat and forces me not to eat so mindlessly and without knowing what I put into my body. While I don't usually go back 3 months from now to figure out what I ate or whatever, in the long run, I am able to use the long-term data to understand my eating habits vs. my weight and BMI.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1Password (or other password managers)

<comment><USER4> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My own app! Responding to user feedback and hearing from people who like it reminds me that I've helped at least one person. It provides just enough sanity.

</comment><comment><USER6> Gmail and Google Maps. Everything else is cheesecake (not even a vitamin)

</comment><comment><USER7> ssh and a web browser. I know that's two.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I can't live without slack for sure.

</comment><comment><USER8> tmux is pretty handy for keeping a long-running session open on a server for development work.</comment>


Google's AlphaGo AI defeats team of five leading Go players - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/26/googles-alphago-ai-defeats-team-of-five-leading-go-players/ <comment><USER2> Is playing go as a team something that people do? It seems unintuitive. I'd expect a team of 5 experts to play worse than one expert.

<comment><USER3> It is common. The Chinese commentator Gu Li mentioned pair game and team game. But I cannot find an English page about it. Here is a Chinese Wikipedia page. [https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/团队围棋](https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh- hans/团队围棋)

FWIW, the five people team played with Ke Joe before the game and won (again, according to Gu Li.)

<comment><USER2> Thank you. This is interesting and I didn't expect it!

<comment><USER4> Playing go cooperatively is very different from chess or most other turn-based tactical games in that combinatorics make the gamespace astronomically large. Most pro players understand what impact this has on gameplay and how to adapt their risk management strategies to the game. Way back in the day, popular man v cpu strategies took into account the limitations of monte carlo simulations and would intentionally make moves that change the game state as much as possible to exploit how hard the computer would need to work in order to begin finding optimal moves.

I think alpha go has advanced to the point where its unlikely human players can reliably defeat it, but I think there are still opportunities for better algorithmic players to defeat it.

Anyways, certain moves can cut off game states by the quadrillions, so it's often pretty intuitive what an optimal response to a move is, given certain context of the board and sometimes the player. In that respect, I'm curious how pro level go is going to change after these alpha go games are studied, because it has a very peculiar, decidedly calculatorish style of play, but it's obviously very effective regardless. Go has prospered for so long because there's so much room to express yourself in a move, pro players really play with their whole soul, but computers are just taking advantage of the pure mathematical angles of the game

It's fascinating stuff. I really want to see the alpha go team write a starcraft ai or something like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To be fair, AlphaGo probably utilizes ensembles of networks in some form anyway. So, in a way, it's kind of been playing as a team this whole time :)

<comment><USER6> Well, what do you think your brain is? :)

<comment><USER7> a series of interconnecting drives, shafts, and levers?

<comment><USER8> it's like the internet, a series of tubes! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZC67wXUTs&ab_channel=super...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZC67wXUTs&ab_channel=superfunky59)

<comment><USER9> At Osi Layer 4/5 that's a great analogy, dunno why people laugh at it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is pretty amazing. It shows there is a level of intelligence that exists above what these 5 can achieve collectively. Scientists have effectively created life when something can make decisions for itself and outsmart humans.

Human intelligence has reached a ceiling and machines will get smarter and smarter. In hundreds or thousands of years, AI will be smart enough to control us. This Go game will manifest itself into reality - it will be a strategic game of humans vs machines.

<comment><USER11> I'd say human intelligence hasn't reached a ceiling, only that it doesn't grow as quickly as machine intelligence can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Algorithms are the new 10x developer.

I'm actually half serious: one can see how something that is _slightly_ better can have a massive multiplier, e.g. a team of inferior intelligences cannot 'scale' to beat a single superior intelligence in some regimes.

This does not apply to all fields, of course. But in many regions of abstraction it may.

<comment><USER13> With the caveat that it is a single, specific task. The team here of 5 is probably capable of more than playing Go :) That's not all bad, there are advantages to having something really good at one objective. But I wonder if there is a fundamental trade off.

<comment><USER14> IMO, you're comparing from the wrong things.

AlphaGo is good at playing Go specifically, sure. But AlphaGo was built by machine learning infra that is capable of doing more than just playing Go.

Google's ML capabilities as a whole are the 10x developer.

<comment><USER15> I've once read someone comparing the energy efficeincy of the human brain compared to all the CPUs used by one of these neural networks. The human brain turned out to be more efficient by many orders of magnitude.

Sadly I have no recollection of where I've read this.

<comment><USER16> Luckily deep learning computers can directly use electricity produced from sources that don't compete with human nutrition or we'd be in for a very dark future.

<comment><USER17> You say that now, but then it installs a Dyson sphere. Very dark indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Have they done a human and AlphaGo vs AlphaGo yet? As I understand it centaur teams of human and computer in chess are superior to computers or humans playing alone. It would be interesting to see if this holds with go as well.

<comment><USER19> Where did you find this information for chess? It sounds unintuitive that a superior player would benefit from a weak player's help.

<comment><USER18> I can't give you the source I got it from, as it is something I have read multiple times over the years from different sources. A quick search turns up a lot of articles on the subject, with the claim that centaur teams are better.[0]

I cannot follow you on the unintuitive part. If you have a chess program playing against itself, as long as it isn't capable of playing a perfect game every time, the program being supervised by a human should better, as the human will have a non-zero chance of spotting a mistake (or a better move) with enough plays. With low of the risk of mistakes from the weaker human, as she can confer with the judgement of the program. If the risk of human error is lower than the chance of human insight, the centaur team should have the edge on the lone computer.

After checking up on the subject again, it seems like the effect is no longer strong enough to topple the best chess computers though.[1]

[0][https://www.bloomreach.com/en/resources/blogs/2014/12/centau...](https://www.bloomreach.com/en/resources/blogs/2014/12/centaur- chess-brings-best-humans-machines.html;) [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike- cassidy/centaur-chess-sho...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike- cassidy/centaur-chess-shows-power_b_6383606.html;) [http://www.glassbeans.com/blog/why-centaurs-will-dominate- th...](http://www.glassbeans.com/blog/why-centaurs-will-dominate-the-future/)

[1][https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15772/how-do- the-b...](https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15772/how-do-the-best- centaurs-compare-to-the-best-computers)

<comment><USER19> I find it unintuitive when the strength difference between the two players is too high, and I think matter-of-fact statements like in the stackoverflow answer ("Of course, a human assisting a computer player will be stronger than the same computer player alone") need to be questioned.

Imagine a beginner receiving suggested moves from a grandmaster. I can't see how this beginner could be stronger than the grandmaster alone, and they would almost certainly be weaker if they override just one of the grandmaster's suggestions.

From what I read, chess AIs are this far above humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I thought this was supposed to be a few years away -- i.e beating Lee Sidol was impressive, but Lee wasn't nearly the top player in the world?

Wow, this must be what it feels like to be living on a parabolic curve...

<comment><USER17> Lee Sedol was near the top (#7). He wasn't the very top, that was Ke Jie. And now Ke Jie has been beaten 2/3, maybe 3/3 times.

Sedol was beaten soundly -- 4/5 games. So this is an improvement, but not an exponential one.

Go is definitely conquered like chess was 1-2 decades ago.

[https://www.goratings.org/en/](https://www.goratings.org/en/)

<comment><USER21> According to some information that the AlphaGo team released earlier in the week, the current version of AlphaGo can give a three-stone handicap to the version that played Lee Sedol: [http://www.usgo.org/news/2017/05/new-version- of-alphago-self...](http://www.usgo.org/news/2017/05/new-version-of-alphago- self-trained-and-much-more-efficient/).

I don't know if that qualifies as "exponential", but that's a _massive_ difference in skill at the game. If it's accurate at all, I think there's basically zero chance that a human will ever beat AlphaGo again.

<comment><USER22> Wow, hadn't seen that, that's terrifying.

<comment><USER21> Terrifying in some ways, but I think it's also inspiring. It's pretty amazing to have some evidence that there's still that much "room" left at the top of the game for players to continue improving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> An interesting thing to observe in the long run would be if humans playing against AI are able to improve their moves and beat the AI.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is going to make all the Go players out of job pretty soon. :)

<comment><USER25> No more than Deep Blue put pro chess players out of a job.

<comment><USER26> It should be interesting to see how a prevalence of stronger-than-human go bots will influence the next generation of players. Magnus Carlsen relies on Chess bots extensively for analysis and preparation (though not really as opponents since they're too good), how much stronger than Ke Jie is now will be the Go player of the future who comes of age using such tools? And for the existing pros already, will we soon see a large divide in those who embrace using such tools (and studying their games with each other / good humans as has already been done with the Master series) and those who dislike them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Machine vs human is never fair. That is like Usain Bolt vs a modern car.</comment>


Everything is a tech company now - <AUTHOR> https://themargins.substack.com/p/everything-is-a-tech-company-now <comment><USER2> And every company that actually is a tech company attempts to rebrand or specialize in another industry sector.</comment>


Has any startup with black founders been accepted into Y Combinator? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> There's no black people in Silicon Valley.</comment>


Aheui: Esoteric programming language designed for Hangul - <AUTHOR> https://aheui.github.io/specification.en <comment><USER3> I'm one of the initial contributors to the language and went too far with a self-interpreter for Aheui [1] recently. This one is quite old, we have actually had the 10th anniversary event [2] in 2015 (with more than 30 participants)! It surely is a kind of Brainfuck [3] for Koreans.

[1] [https://github.com/aheui/aheui.aheui/](https://github.com/aheui/aheui.aheui/)

[2] [https://aheui.github.io/aheuicon](https://aheui.github.io/aheuicon)

[3] I'm of course referring to [https://esolangs.org/wiki/Brainfuck](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Brainfuck)

</comment><comment><USER4> "about 2.6 billion people (36% of the world population) use the Latin alphabet, about 1.3 billion people (18%) use the Chinese script, about 1 billion people (14%) use the Devanagari script (India)"[1]

It'll be interesting to see how the Latin alphabet preference in computer languages changes over time. I'm sure whole different paradigms may be possible in different scripts.

And people complain about the differences between java and python now... Imagine python vs Aheui or similar lol

[1][http://www.worldstandards.eu/alphabets/](http://www.worldstandards.eu/alphabets/)

<comment><USER5> It won't change because of tremendous legacy inertia. Everything from assembly to scripting languages are in Latin-English. All kernels are Latin-English. CS is taught around the globe as a 100% English major usually. Our first humanoid AI will almost certainly think in 'English' and speak English.

<comment><USER6> The language of science has shifted before; I don't think it's reasonable to assume it won't again.

Then again, English might stay around as a, well, legacy language. I could imagine someone a few hundred years from now studying archaic english, in preparation for a dive into the kernel or whatever. Then again, computer translation will probably have gotten good enough that it won't be necessary.

<comment><USER7> _The language of science has shifted before; I don 't think it's reasonable to assume it won't again._

The language of diplomacy used to be french. Some of the cultural remnants of this still remain today, even though the role that french used to play is now played by english. If it were to happen how long would it take for english to lose favor as a language of computers?

I have tried to explain to my non-technical friends how strange it is that computer programming language == english proficiency (usually) - because it seems like the large majority of discussion around programming and computers happens in english (open source communities, bug reports, documentation) - <USER2> wonder how that will work as the field of computers matures into it's 1st and 2nd centuries- how much and to what level will programming and programming languages fragment? What kinds of things will remain in english/latin and what will transition- what kinds of programming related things will only be in chinese or devanagari (india) script?

Even the act of typing is predicated to the idea of a latin alphabet, I wonder to what degree the languages will continue to change to adapt to that and to what degree the technology will adapt to compensate for the language.

Once you start thinking (as a native english speaker) how much of the world of computers is naturally biased towards latin/english it kind of blows your mind.

<comment><USER8> Thing is, switching the "world language" becomes a more expensive endeavor as more content exists in it, and more speakers understand it. Last time that happened - when French was replaced by English - the numbers were very different. Sure, many educated people spoke French, but nowhere near as many as there are English speakers today, even in proportion to world's population. And it was not nearly as dominant for content: science was mostly done in national languages, and so were books.

Two things changed the landscape a lot. First, universal school education, which in most countries includes at least some rudimentary English, vastly expanded the number of people proficient with it to some extent. And second, the amount of cultural and scientific interchange has skyrocketed, with both effectively standardizing on English as the common language.

So, short of some kind of near-extinction event that would unwind our progress a couple hundred years back, I don't see a high likelihood for change. It seems that we're in the beginning of the "common language" era, and English - or whatever it evolves into over time, anyway - is going to be that language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel like the HN audience would really appreciate Korean and it's script, as it's said to be one of the most logical languages. You can read more about it here [http://asiasociety.org/education/world%E2%80%99s-most- incred...](http://asiasociety.org/education/world%E2%80%99s-most-incredible- alphabet)

<comment><USER3> Well, Korean the language is, like most other natural languages, horrible. Hangul is quite neat though.

<comment><USER10> Why is Korean horrible?

<comment><USER3> In general natural languages are horrible but nevertheless working messes. They always change and each language is subtly different from each others, if not massively different.

For example: Korean verb conjugations are massive [1] mainly because conjugations themselves are morphemes (or semi-words, if you don't know what it is) and not mutations or transformations thus the set of conjugations is essentially open. Native Korean speakers can probably easily list hundreds of different conjugations with different meanings.

[1] [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXakcsoUkAEMPaj.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXakcsoUkAEMPaj.jpg) for example.

<comment><USER11> How does it compare to Spanish? We don't have few conjugations either.

"To be": [http://www.conjugacion.es/del/verbo/haber.php](http://www.conjugacion.es/del/verbo/haber.php)

<comment><USER3> In many languages conjugations are defined by the fixed template (the template itself can be large). In Korean, Japanese and other agglutinative languages the template is virtually non-existent (Wikipedia seems to give a 7-part template [1] which looks quite absurd for native Koreans---it should be considered a "common" regularizable subset of what people actually say).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_verbs#Finite_verb_endin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_verbs#Finite_verb_endings)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are several programming languages using Hangul which are way more readable (hence not esoteric): 씨앗 (1993), 약속, etc.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English- based_programming_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English- based_programming_languages)

<comment><USER12> According to [2], there was 한베(Hanbae) which was developed in 1991.

[2] [http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=axes2024&logNo=110...](http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=axes2024&logNo=110120684979) (in Korean)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "This code prints 'Hello, world!'

      밤밣따빠밣밟따뿌
      빠맣파빨받밤뚜뭏
      돋밬탕빠맣붏두붇
      볻뫃박발뚷투뭏붖
      뫃도뫃희멓뭏뭏붘
      뫃봌토범더벌뿌뚜
      뽑뽀멓멓더벓뻐뚠
      뽀덩벐멓뻐덕더벅

"

<comment><USER14> As a Korean, I found this hilarious because it's complete gibberish yet you can totally read it out loud.

<comment><USER15> It sounds like the Korean equivalent of Charlie Brown adultspeak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If our field had settled on miminal syntaxes - such as the styles used by Forth, Lisp or even Smalltalk - it would be trivial to make programming languages for an audience that can't read or write English.

Can't rename "if" or "foreach" in C#, however.

</comment><comment><USER17> Aheui even has a JIT compiler implementation. I wrote it :D [https://github.com/aheui/rpaheui](https://github.com/aheui/rpaheui)

</comment><comment><USER18> You'll love this.

I pasted the hello world text to google translate and it did translate it to something VERY WEIRD :)

"I'm not sure what to do, but I do not know what to do. I do not know what to do."

Sounds like the AI behind the translate engine[1] got a bit depressed :)

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/magazine/the-great-ai- awa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/magazine/the-great-ai- awakening.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is cool but I feel like it would have been even more awesome if it actually used korean language as keywords (which would have made the code actually readable and usable) instead of just mixing together characters.

I realize this is just for fun but I hope someone builds a completely functional language written in their own language. That would be really cool to see where that goes. That would be not just a technological innovation but interesting socially.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm very curious about this but I cannot seem to figure out how it works (perhaps a little hungover?)

Could someone please explain how this prints 'Hello, world!' Is there a mapping from Hangul to latin alphabets that I missed out on in the doc?

" 밤밣따빠밣밟따뿌 빠맣파빨받밤뚜뭏 돋밬탕빠맣붏두붇 볻뫃박발뚷투뭏붖 뫃도뫃희멓뭏뭏붘 뫃봌토범더벌뿌뚜 뽑뽀멓멓더벓뻐뚠 뽀덩벐멓뻐덕더벅 "

<comment><USER21> The Hangul characters are the instructions, not string literals; in fact, the language has no string literals.

The code is building up the Unicode codepoints for "Hello, world!" as numbers in memory, and running instructions to print them.

<comment><USER20> thank you

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What makes it "esoteric"? It doesn't seem esoteric to want to program in your own language. I'm not saying it's not esoteric, I'm just curious what makes it so.

I've strongly considered writing a Spanish-based programming language--Spanish is spoken by more people than English, and Spanish is a first language a larger percentage of Spanish speakers, while for many English speakers it is their second language. It seems like a Spanish-based programming language could reduce cognitive barriers to entry to programming for a large portion of the world. Of course, if the tool chain isn't up to par it will eventually hold users back, but it's at least worth investigating.

<comment><USER11> This is my opinion as a native Spanish speaker.

I don't name my variables using Spanish and I wouldn't want to use a programming language where the keywords are Spanish-based. Spanish is a verbose, complicated language, which is why I think it's a poor fit for the task of programming. I surely prefer to use "userName" over "nombreDeUsuario", "database" over "baseDeDatos", "languageSelector" over "seleccionadorDeIdioma", "propertyToggle" over "conmutadorDePropiedad", and "wrapper" over..."envolvedor", I guess?

It gets worse with actions: "buttonClick" may, depending on who you ask, become one of these: "clickEnBotón", "clickEnBoton", "clickBoton", "botonClick"... (there isn't an obviously sensible choice, since all of them have their faults: 1 is tedious and long, 2 is slightly easier to type but incorrect, number 3 is incorrect Spanish, number 4 tries to mimic English and is thus incorrect too); "pageNavigationStarted" would be something like "navegaciónPáginaComenzó", which is long and incorrect according to this language (proper version would be "navegaciónEnPáginaComenzó", even longer).

You can't make verbs so easily, in English you can make a verb from any substantive, you can't do that as easily in Spanish.

In Spanish you have to use "filtrar", "filtra" and "filtro" (to filter, filter, filter), and to express "filterStarted" you'd have to choose between "filtradoComenzó", "filtradoComenzo", "filtroComenzó", "filtroComenzo", "filtrarComenzo", "filtrarComenzó".

Maybe I just don't like it.

<comment><USER23> > "buttonClick" may, depending on who you ask, become one of these: > "clickEnBotón", "clickEnBoton", "clickBoton", "botonClick"...

Technically, `clic` is a noun in Spanish, not a verb, so, if you are talking about an action, the correct name for the variable would be `hacerClickEnBotón`.

At the same time, although more verbose, it would be interesting to see how a language in Spanish would work, once sensible conventions are set.

As a person who loves thinking about names, in your filter example I see that, just by changing one letter, one can be more precise in the exact meaning of the variable or method name.

Anyway, I am not saying that people should use Spanish when programming. Having English as the common language for our profession is a great advantage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looking at the github repository there is nothing fundamentally earth shuttering here. It is mostly the normal way of interpreters/compilers representing everything with number codes and then mapping to characters.

For example: case 0: //ㄱ case 1: //ㄲ case 11: //ㅇ case 13: //ㅉ case 15: //ㅋ

If one goes back a good three decades plus and studies the source of Knuth's TeX, everything was represented by numbers and then all strings, even error messages resided in a TeX.Pool file.

</comment><comment><USER25> It would be interesting to see a programming language based on Hungarian or Finnish. With myriads of suffices which change the ways verbs apply to nouns, it'd be quite a challenge to program in it for anyone not familiar with agglutinative languages :)

</comment><comment><USER26> > Hangul is truly an alphabetic system, in which each symbol represents > separate phoneme, or sound.

Is this true, though? As far as I know ㅔ and ㅐ represent the same sounds.

<comment><USER27> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul#/media/File:Hangeul_let...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul#/media/File:Hangeul_letter_order.svg) suggests that ㅔ represents 'e' and 'ㅐ' represents 'ae'. The differences between these sounds may be difficult for someone who isn't accustom to the sounds to distinguish.

Compare the Japanese with the difficulty of 'l' vs 'r'. And an obligatory Babylon 5 scene with Zathras - [https://youtu.be/1j-76eLz1hc?t=1m40s](https://youtu.be/1j-76eLz1hc?t=1m40s)

<comment><USER28> > Compare the Japanese with the difficulty of 'l' vs 'r'.

This comparison is not apt. Japanese has neither l nor r; the sound commonly transliterated as "r" is a different sound.

<comment><USER27> It is a sound that lies between the two liquids in English. The words "flesh" and "fresh" sound the same t0 the ear that doesn't hear them.

By way of [http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/112384/do-all- native-...](http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/112384/do-all-native- english-speakers-actually-pronounce-the-th-sound)

> However, even before their first birthdays, babies begin to lose the ability > to hear the distinctions among phonemes in languages other than their own.

From [http://www.encyclopedia.com/media/encyclopedias-almanacs- tra...](http://www.encyclopedia.com/media/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts- and-maps/language-acquisition)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I like the idea of using non-latin programming languages for latin based programs, you have a clearer picture of what is data and what is code. assuming you can differentiate the non-latin characters.

</comment><comment><USER30> love it

</comment><comment><USER31> this isn't esoteric at all. We are discriminating against Korea when we do not accommodate their alphabet.

China and Japan obviously have to accommodate themselves as there is no possibility of having one key for each Kanji (or Chinese character). There was a nice documentary showing arcane Chinese characters or different descendants of the same Chinese characters.

Does this encode the font or merely the character (as an entity)?

<comment><USER16> Huh? It's very easy to input Han Characters on modern systems. Most people type it a phonetic alphabet (eg, romanizations like Hanyu Pinyin, or indigenous phonetic alphabets like Zhuyin) and a little program pops up, giving you a list of matching characters, and you select them. Googles ones are very good (they even know regional varions in mandarin pronunciation).

It's entirely conceivable for a programming language to be made with Han Characters - because it's a solved problem to input Han Characters on keyboards.

Or Have I missed the point of what you wrote entirely?

<comment><USER32> > It's entirely conceivable for a programming language to be made with Han > Characters

Not only is it conceivable, it has already been done:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_programming_la...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_programming_languages)</comment></comment></comment>


380k Guesses Dataset – Higher or Lower? - <AUTHOR> https://www.kaggle.com/sdobson46/higher-or-lower-game/ <comment><USER2> just off the top of my head, [https://database.lichess.org/](https://database.lichess.org/) has a larger gameplay dataset than what you're claiming

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks really cool and haven't seen this before - thanks for sharing. I've updated the description on Kaggle.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN. Over the last 4 months I have collected 380,000 attempts to guess a number on my Amazon Alexa Skill, and wanted to share with the community. Would love to see what you can do with the data!</comment>