Reactive Programming is the New OOP - <AUTHOR> http://dataflowbook.com/cms/?p=836 <comment><USER2> ... having channels doesn't have anything to do with Reactive Programming ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_programming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_programming)). The implication that channels were added to Go to support it seems dishonest.

There is a very long thread on the Go list of a guy who is a fan of dataflow grumbling about how design decisions made in Go make it a poor fit for dataflow.

<comment><USER3> Sadly, 'reactive' \-- like OOP -- seems to be one of those words that gets reinterpreted to meaninglessness. The definition I'm most familiar with, from the Reactive Manifesto,[0] seems like it would fit Go's channels just fine... but anything that puts Go and Erlang and Node.js in the same box might be too broad to be useful.

[0] [http://www.reactivemanifesto.org/#reactive- applications](http://www.reactivemanifesto.org/#reactive-applications)

<comment><USER4> Maybe I'm missing something but that manifesto doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with reactive programming, except that maybe you could use reactive programming to help build "reactive applications".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This isn't even an article, just a guy saying the people complained about OOP back in the day.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't even say what kind or what reactive programming is - just throws out some random words ...

<comment><USER7> I wasn't a coder back in the day, but wasn't that kind of what the main criticism was in response the OOP movement back then as well?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8>
      It's funny how similar the arguments against OOP and
      Reactive Programming are.

It's funny how similar this argument in favor of Reactive programming is to the arguments used in favor of other purported paradigm shifting trends that never went anywhere. Aspect Oriented Programming anyone?

<comment> UK-AL Aspects are used quite a lot in Java and C#. Simply to get around the verbosity.

<comment><USER9> and in python they are function decorators.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can someone tell me the key differences between the actor model and reactive/dataflow programming? I haven't seen any references to erlang in conversations about Reactive programming, which seems odd to me as erlang's lack of shared state and message-passing seem like they fit the definition of reactive programming.

<comment><USER11> They're basically unrelated. The actor paradigm is basically imperative programming, with boundaries being put up between the actors, and the way you cross the boundary is with a message. If that sounds too foreign, bear in mind that while OO doesn't have to be an "Actor" and an actor doesn't have to be "OO", they share a certain structural similarity, in that one of the primary characteristics of working with an "object oriented" system is that you are creating imperative islands of code, and the way you cross the barriers are via method calls. Indeed back when OO was first being formulated you can see the terminology was not settled yet, and you'll see method calls being called "messages" even today in some OO communities.

The Actor model is basically OO, except that objects are given their own execution contexts, whereas in OO there's one execution context that drives the objects. You can do worse for your first design in Erlang than to break your task into core objects exactly as you would for a high-level OO design (don't put in all the little collection and iterator and other structure classes, stick to the "high level" design), and use that to drive your process design. It won't be perfect, but it's not a bad first pass. The profound differences between one execution context and multiple also has subsequent follow-on effects on the languages in question, and in what direction they evolve, so in practice they feel quite different despite the underlying similarities in the model.

Reactive programming is extremely different. There, values are defined as functions on other values, intrinsically, such that if A is B + C, future changes to B and C mean that A is automatically updated to the new B + C with no programmer interaction. This is no longer imperative design; instead of your program consisting of a huge set of instructions for the processor to directly execute (no matter how gussied up that is by the syntax and semantics of the local language), your program consists of a declaration of relationships between values and how they evolve over time. The fundamental operation of the programming language is no longer "Set value identified by X to Y", but "Attach value X to value Y with update function Z".

As is always the case in the world of Turing Completeness, this can be embedded into OO, or OO can be embedded into it, etc. all sorts of combinations are possible. But it is a fundamentally different underlying method for writing your program.

I would observe that A: this isn't new, which I say not because anyone is claiming that it is but because it means that we can in fact draw on past experience to examine it and B: our general experience with it up to this point is that it often makes small tasks easier, even _much_ easier, but that trying to create whole systems this way is often quite problematic. If you think laziness in Haskell is hard to understand, just wait until you're trying to understand a cyclic dependency graph in a data-binding environment (the usual OO manifestation) or a spreadsheet, with the local bizarre adaptations to try to make that sensible all interacting with each other in crazy complicated ways. It's a useful tool, and I don't mean that as a mere rhetorical sop, it really _is_ a useful tool to have in the belt, but I'm deeply skeptical of it as a proclaimed savior of programming, or the Next Big Paradigm. Our experiences with it up to this point have not been positive enough to justify that claim, IMHO, and I haven't seen that there's been any sort of big enough change in the landscape lately to justify that.

Compare to "functional programming", which has been the Next Big Paradigm for a few decades now, but IMHO modern Haskell of the past 3-5 years really _is_ a big enough advance to justify some examination on the topic. (I'm _not_ saying Haskell is guaranteed to be the Next Big Thing, I'm just saying that there's been enough action there to legitimately justify having a fresh look at the situation.)

If you can point me at the big advance for reactive programming in question, I'd love to have a look. I know the Haskell world has been fiddling with FRP but I'm still underwhelmed by the efforts.

<comment><USER12> > just wait until you're trying to understand a cyclic dependency graph in a > data-binding environment (the usual OO manifestation) or a spreadsheet, with > the local bizarre adaptations to try to make that sensible all interacting > with each other in crazy complicated ways.

I think that may be a significant, fundamental problem with reactive programming. The way these graphs are constructed is typically (necessarily?) buried within the reactive programming framework, giving the programmer poor visibility into what's actually happening. Maybe that problem can be solved, but I suspect it might be intrinsic to reactive programming.

> I know the Haskell world has been fiddling with FRP but I'm still > underwhelmed by the efforts.

I've test-driven some of those projects. Last I checked, the documentation was extremely sparse, and the only examples were trivial. I haven't yet seen an example of a useful Haskell app built with FRP. FRP has sometimes been described as the silver bullet for doing stateful apps in a pure FP way. Maybe it is, but for now, I'm sticking with pseudo-imperative Haskell for those purposes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Now OOP is taken for granted and assumed that all languages should be able > to produce objects.

Not really. There are OOP languages, there are multi-paradigm languages that include OOP stuff, and then there are languages that don't have OOP at all. That last category includes functional languages like Haskell and some Lisps.

 _Should_ every language support at least some OOP? Maybe. I think it's too soon to tell. We may eventually learn that pure functional languages are better for maintaining a sane codebase, in which case OOP will not be considered a mandatory language feature.

<comment><USER13> What Haskell lacks is hierarchies of subtyping. It certainly can be used for OOP. I've written object-oriented code in Haskell. It's not common, but it's not hard. And on rare occasions it's the best solution to a problem.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps we have different definitions of OOP. To me, it's not OOP without subclasses and private mutable state. What does OOP mean to you? I'm guessing you're thinking of Haskell's typeclasses as an analogue to Java's interfaces. Any other features?

<comment><USER14> You can implement private mutable state (and dynamic polymorphism behind an interface) with records of closures. Depending on what you mean by "subclasses" here, they may follow trivially. Haskell typeclasses are a poor match to OOP, as you say.

<comment><USER12> > with records of closures.

Interesting. Can you point me to an example?

<comment><USER15> [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ClosuresAndObjectsAreEquivalent](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ClosuresAndObjectsAreEquivalent)

[http://okmij.org/ftp/Scheme/oop-in-fp.txt](http://okmij.org/ftp/Scheme/oop- in-fp.txt)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2954642/methods-and- prope...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2954642/methods-and-properties- in-scheme-is-oop-possible-in-scheme)

[http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-20.html](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-20.html)

Some examples. The first is a discussion on it. The second and third have examples in scheme. I'd type more but I'm on my iPad. If I get time later I'll steal time on someone's computer to type up more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I looked up the Wikipedia article and I'm actually a huge fan of this. This article sucks though.

</comment><comment><USER17> Misunderstood, overrated and propagated by sophomores with a toy project, a blog and too much time?

</comment><comment><USER18> Does that mean we'll have 10 years of poorly written books about it?

<comment><USER19> More like blog posts.</comment></comment>


How To Use Lisp To Create Perl Scripts - <AUTHOR> http://www.hhdave.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

<comment><USER2> There is a similar language bridge in unofficial Arc: <http://awwx.ws/lang2>.

</comment><comment><USER3> Technically this is very cool but conceptually there are just so many things wrong here I don't know where to begin.

</comment><comment><USER4> Madness.

cool, though.</comment>


Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38793253 <comment><USER2> One thing learned from: Volkswagen,airbnb,google,amazon,uber,facebook is to CHEAT. Illegal hotels, copyright infringement, skipping sales tax, fake cabs,profiting on personal data.. and now, illegal emission testing.

<comment><USER3> This is the logical conclusion when you allow corporations to be 'people' without the consequences of being a person. How do you send a company to jail?

Its kinda of like that scene in fightclub where Edward Nortons character talks about the cost of doing a recall.

The emissions scandal should have ended VW.

Solution: Guillotine for corporate crime.

<comment><USER4> Many people look at emissions testing as an annoyance and I doubt that outside of environmental circles that very many people cared. And it was diesel car emissions -- a niche of the US market that's almost invisible anyway.

<comment><USER5> > I doubt that outside of environmental circles that very many people cared.

Do you have any basis for that? I think most people care about clean air and support laws and regulations to protect it. The laws did pass; there are regulatory agencies that are funded.

<comment><USER6> Most people care, unless it means they drive or fly less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For all the criticism about their cheating of metrics and rules, I recently hired a VW Polo Diesel for a month to drive around Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and France and found it to be a comfortable, performant, nimble and all-round decent car. It handled doing 160 down the Autobahn quite comfortably without steering judder or anything I'd expected at higher speeds. It accelerated surprisingly well (not even considering it's a diesel!) all the way up to 100 making entry onto roads and highways a breeze, it had great steering which helped parking in cramped spots and did well for fuel efficiency - I was getting about 750km to a (45L, if I recall) tank in a combination of highway and town driving.

All in all, I think I did something over 5000km in total and it did it everything I could have asked for. I was quite impressed by it. Compare that with the Vauxhall I had in England for a couple of days, which was utter horseshit and struggled to accelerate up a moderate incline at 80 in 4th gear (I had to put it down to 3rd, rev the hell out of it and even then it was losing speed up the hill) and I can only say good things about the VW Polo.

<comment><USER8> All that acceleration is enabled by it violating the environmental laws of every western country.

<comment><USER9> > violating the environmental laws of every western country.

European nations aren't "western"?

<comment><USER10> _European nations aren 't "western"?_

Actually European nations is what it originally meant. Western European.

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

 _The term originally had a literal geographic meaning. It contrasted Europe with the cultures and civilizations of the Middle East and North Africa, Sub- Saharan Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the remote Far East which early-modern Europeans saw as the East. In the contemporary cultural meaning, the phrase Western world includes Europe, as well as many countries of European colonial origin with substantial European ancestral populations in the Americas and Oceania._

<comment><USER9> Yes, I didn't realize Volkswagen violated European laws as well. So when he said "Every western nation", I was confused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Frankly this is a vanity metric anyways. Toyota's brake recall back around 2010 was directly related to its rapid global production expansion in an effort to become #1 in sales volume. Their QC and reliability/consistency across geographies suffered as a result.

Iirc the CEO himself was quoted saying the company lost sight of what should really matter -- making products that fulfill the needs and desires of their customers. (sorry, it's been many years so I can't really pull up the source)

When's the last time anyone's said "hey look at this #1 by sales volume car I just got"?

<comment><USER12> > Frankly this is a vanity metric anyways.

Not really. The German government (through the federal government, the state of Lower Saxony, and the investment bank of the council of states) owns a large share of VW, and so a lot of this money goes directly back into the tax budget.

<comment><USER13> I was sort of wondering why VW wasn't fined to the extent of the value of the company minus $1, or some similar scheme to effectively nationalize the company. I guess that wouldn't accomplish much…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Strategic law-breaking pays off more often than not.

In all seriousness, it shouldn't be much of a surprise given all the properties VW owns: Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley, SEAT, etc.

<comment><USER15> The number in question is vehicles sold, so the only relevant brands here are Volkswagen and Audi, really. Toyota also has Lexus and Scion.

<comment><USER16> The cheaper European brands like Skoda and SEAT also likely have significant volume. Skoda, for example, sold over a million vehicles—a non-trivial 10% of VW group's total.

Audi sold something like 1.8M, probably with better margins than Skoda, so it's certainly a more important brand, but SEAT and Skoda aren't trivial either.

Just in terms of car sales, SEAT + Skoda ≈ Audi.

<comment><USER17> Seat and skoda are only popular in handful of small European countries, vw is popular around the globe.

<comment><USER18> Skodas are quite popular in India

<comment><USER17> there aren't many cars in India compared to US or even some small European countries.

<comment><USER19> You are ignorant. [http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.A995](http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.A995)

India 159m, USA 265m registered vehicles. India is the 6th largest producer of vehicles.

<comment><USER17> Vast majority of those are 2 and 3 wheelers, we are not talking about those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess the whole 'cheating on the emissions tests' scandal didn't hurt them too bad. Here I thought it would destroy them. Silly me!

<comment><USER21> I'm honestly not sure the public really cared about this - was anyone really surprised that this was happening? Most people I spoke to at the time seemed to be of the opinion that all the other manufacturers would be found out next. My friend bought a Golf the week after the scandal broke; I've bought a Golf GTI and a Polo in the last six months. They're just, well, pretty decent cars.

<comment><USER22> Well in the US, Diesel isn't very popular so the impact won't be as big, but people in Europe at least are going to rethink about getting Diesel, and the governments there might reconsider the big tax break they give to diesel engine which are supposed to be cleaner than gasoline (making diesel cheaper at the pump than regular gasoline for consumers in Europe).

Now we discovered that it's not only VW, but many car makers, so people aren't mad at VW as much as they were at the beginning of the Diesel-gate scandal.

I would have boycotted VW for life if they were the only one doing it. I'm certainly boycotting their diesel engines.

<comment><USER4> I thought it was only the tyrannically strict California emissions tests that they cheated on? The cars met standard emissions limits, unless I'm mistaken. Was it even an issue in Europe? I thought their standards were even more relaxed.

<comment><USER23> You are mistaken on US regulation. They did not meet NOX emission limits in the US. Europe has stricter fuel regulation, less strict emission regulation so it was probably cool there. Every TDI model over there is usually tuned for better performance.

Oh well, my chariot of lies gets bought back in 2 days. Best investment ever in a car! Since I got my parents and 4 other friends to buy TDI's too when they saw the mileage I was getting, they are all ecstatic that the cars are getting bought back at well over market. Imma buy a Chevy Cruze Diesel once the standard hatchback gets released. Until then I'll find a pre-ban TDI or maybe some other beater to get me through the year.

Added bonus: They tried to cheat me out of repairing the cheater emission system that failed just outside of the federal emissions warranty at 60k miles. I told them if they could program it to cheat, they could program it to overheat the DPF and cause it to crack and fail. Got a free replacement from that :)

Added bonus #2: Since I also suggested my parents get one before the scandal broke, they tried to cheat them out of a AdBlue urea heater (piss tank heater) claiming it would not be repairable under federal emissions because it wasn't directly a part of the emissions. The company finally bowed to the massive number of complaints on tdiclub and related forums and covered that as well.

<comment><USER24> So... they screwed you and your family over three times, and you're a happy customer?

<comment><USER23> Don't get me wrong, the above was annoying. But they were forced to pay for it and I came out ahead. There's no doubt in my mind that my 2012 model still polluted less than my former 1998 model. There were many times before the scandal broke that I considered removal of the DPF component to further improve efficiency. This would not have affected the NOX output, but would have reduced weight, fuel consumption, and cosmetic appeal. I wasn't keen on having the car blow raw diesel into the exhaust to regenerate the filter every few hundred miles. Would have averaged 50mpg instead of mid-40's...

I put over 100k mi on the car and will have received approx $19k for it after the goodwill + buyback. Total cost of ownership for 4 years of about $6k excluding fuel which cost about half as much as a gasser (savings was anywhere between $3-6k). So yeah, pretty happy all things considered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There's a local dealer who sells VWs and Mazdas. The Mazdas outsell VW 2:1, but they have 4x as many VW technicians.

I had two VWs: a Jetta and a Passat. Both required an astonishing amount of maintenance compared to the Toyota Camry I had before. VW has really mastered the art of "this feels well-engineered" without actually being well- engineered.

My current car is a Ford Flex and frankly I love it. It's not a perfect car but so far so good. It has the same solid feel as the VWs did. I hope it turns out to be more true. I wish the rest of Ford's cars felt as good as the Flex. Maybe they do, but I didn't want to try a Fiesta or a Taurus.

<comment><USER26> VWs are very unreliable. Every year they end up below avarage in reliability tests (Honda and Toyota always share the top).

But I think people buy them because they look great.

I owned multiple VWs but never will buy a VW again. And because my Mazda keeps on going I think I will be a Mazda owner for a long time to come.

<comment><USER27> Not my experience - we've had 5 VW group cars in the last 15 year or so (VW, Skoda, Audi) and not one of them has required anything other than regular servicing.

Now when I had a BMW _that_ was never out of the dealers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I guess people got tired of driving boring cars with high resale value and luxury cars with missing front-ends. ;-)

<comment><USER29> Yup. I drive a Japanese four-door sedan. It's twelve years old. 156k miles. Runs great. Paid for. But, yeah, I'm bored.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Do VW's numbers include their self-registrations, which make up 30% of their "sales"? Explanation: [http://dailykanban.com/2014/05/that-car-filled-test- track-ac...](http://dailykanban.com/2014/05/that-car-filled-test-track- actually-was-empty-each-time-google-came-checking/) (towards the end).

</comment><comment><USER31> Something like half the sales are in China. They don't sell a diesel there. Across the rest of the world sales are way down.

They would be way ahead of Toyota if they didn't cheat.

The other thing to remember is that cars are engineered a few years out. It will be a while before they compromise quality to make up for the large fines.

Cheating doesn't mean you win.

<comment><USER32> > It will be a while before they compromise quality to make up for the large > fines.

That's not how business works. Absent an existential threat, their calculus regarding the quality level required for optimising profit is not influenced by the fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm well over 200,000 miles on my '98 Land Cruiser and looking for a replacement, but frankly, Toyota's current offerings aren't looking too hot...

The 200 series land cruiser is trending towards a suburb-mobile and is basically unsuited for offroad use, whereas the 70-, 80- and 100-series are awesome for offroading, even in stock off-the-lot configuration. The 4Runner is a decent offroad vehicle, but doesn't have the same legendary over- engineering as the Land Cruiser.

I might just try to keep my 100-series going for another few hundred thousand miles.

<comment><USER33> I am disappointed in Toyota's current offerings. Take a look at what is on the lot today and what was on the lot in 1997. 20 years ago you could pick up a world-class Supra or a proper Land Cruiser or a Tacoma or a Camry or Corolla that could practically be the last commuter car you ever need. All of them stubbornly reliable. many of the cars Toyota had on the lot in 1997 still sell for close to their retail price!

Today what do you get? I guess the Camry and Corolla are still good cars but I'm not convinced the reliability is still there. The Prius is "innovative" in some sense but it isn't the kind of vehicle the Supra and Land Cruiser were. There doesn't seem to be anything interesting or exciting on the lot from Toyota anymore.

<comment><USER34> > 20 years ago you could pick up a world-class Supra or a proper Land Cruiser > or a Tacoma or a Camry or Corolla that could practically be the last > commuter car you ever need. All of them stubbornly reliable. many of the > cars Toyota had on the lot in 1997 still sell for close to their retail > price!

The mid-90s to early 2000s were a golden era for Japanese cars. I dream of importing a Nissan Silvia S15[1] with the legendary SR20 engine. It's quite feasible, especially if you live in a left hand drive country (warning: it's complicated getting some of these cars into the US[2]). The Skylines of that era (e.g. the blue and silver one from the Fast and the Furious 2) still sell for insane money (around €35k-45k last time I checked, depending on the model and trim), they are really hot items to import from Japan. Also, the Hilux of the era is virtually indestructible. Top Gear famously demolished a building with a Hilux perched on top[3], and the engine still worked afterwards.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-bcPNJzwtA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-bcPNJzwtA)

[2] [https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/1627s5/iama_guy_who_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/1627s5/iama_guy_who_imports_cars_from_japan_to_canada_ama/)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk)

<comment><USER33> Exactly! In a past life I had purchased a 1973 S30 with the intention of swapping in an LS-1 from an old Camaro, GTO or Corvette. I quickly changed my mind on that and decided on an RB26DETT because it's still a Nissan motor and the price isn't much different.

Life happened and that project had to be abandoned but I would really like to give it a go one of these days. At this point I think the SR20DET is the ideal motor for an S30.

The RB26 still has a very strong appeal however...

e: If you have not already seen them you may find Doug DeMuro's Skyline exploits entertaining: [https://youtu.be/5eFA3cwfR3E](https://youtu.be/5eFA3cwfR3E)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I had a Volkswagen Scirocco. That car looks nice and had a reasonable price range.

But that car was the stuff of nightmares. Just google "scirocco dsg gearbox problems". I simply cannot imagine why a huge car manufacturer could produce such a faulty car.

Apparently, scirocco is not the only model to be affected by this.

<comment><USER36> > I simply cannot imagine why a huge car manufacturer could produce such a > faulty car.

Sadly, American Car companies create lots of faulty cars as well. Not sure why.

<comment><USER37> It might be a good idea to start hoarding Toyotas, if you are so inclined, before the tariff erases the savings on maintenance and repair.

<comment><USER38> Toyota makes an immense number of vehicles in the US, with American labor. They'll easily dodge most of the effect of any tariffs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm on my second Tacoma (sold my first to move overseas) and it has been the most reliable vehicle I've ever owned. My only VW experience has been a 71 bug that I'd have to fix on the side of the road once a month, so I can't "really" speak to VW reliability :)

<comment><USER40> Just to point out that this is purely anecdotal. If you bought the 71 bug in any other era except for the early 70s, you probably didn't buy it for exceptional reliability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is very puzzling for me. You know, volkswagen as volkswagen, they will do anything to increase profit, but how it's possible that people buy those? Because it's not that thet they produced more cars, someone buy it. I can't understand how company having such long miserable history of cheating it's own customers (one sample, manufacturing defected TFSI engines they refuse to repair under warranty), and society as a whole (poisoned by deadly particles that shouldn't be emitted), still is commonly desired.

I was searching for new in 2015, also considering VW, but they were overpriced, especially if you don't want basic version. After some research we decided to buy Toyota. They were maybe little delayed in terms of design and equipment, even slightly old-fashioned. But on the other hand they have long history of solid reliability. Of cource they have some bummers (like some d4-d engines), but at least Toyota always tried to fix them, even after warranty.

<comment><USER42> >> They are were maybe little delayed in terms of design and equipment, even slightly old-fashioned.

You answered yourself.

<comment><USER41> >>> You answered yourself.

True. But tought that more customers will choose more reliable cars, especially if future of VW after emission scandal was not so certain.

Last year they updated most models, new RAV4, Avensis, Corolla are much more suited to current trends. Looks like new C-HR will be popular in it's segment, so interesting how stats will look this year.

<comment><USER42> Asian cars, Japanese in particular, are generally less advanced. They do not use turbocharged gas engines, have less bells and whistles inside and have worse design for many European tastes. That's just it.

Of course, there are exceptions - Mazda is considered to look pretty cool across whole model range. Still, for my use, I much prefer my 1.4 TSI than whatever I saw available in Asian cars.

Volkswagen cheating was unacceptable and I'm pretty happy they got their asses handed to them over the issue. At the same time I'm aware that American diesel regulations are a way to protect your own brands, since Americans don't have the tech to make their own - you're more gas/hybrid/electric market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Can't help thinking/believing a fair number of people are going to encounter this headline in the media and think, "Too big to fail." As in, the fix is in, for such corporations.

Which will play right into the current political climate.

</comment><comment><USER44> Remember reading comments 3 months ago on HN about how VW will be bankrupt in 15 years and Tesla will be the world's biggest car manufacturer.</comment>


Google AMP Can Go To Hell (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.polemicdigital.com//google-amp-go-to-hell/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21703345](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21703345)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17920720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17920720)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> > AMP pages are fast to load (so fast to crawl), easy to understand (thanks to > mandatory structured data), and devoid of any unwanted clutter or mess (as > that breaks the standard).

Oh, how horrible it would be if the whole web were fast to load, easy to understand and devoid of unwanted clutter or mess.

I hate AMP because it makes my web experience slower and worse - lately it seems like Chrome on android has taken to loading broken "offline" versions of any suggested pages, making me refresh to read anything, and whenever a search takes me to reddit I have to edit the url to get a version that respects my page settings (and, strangely enough, loads a lot faster than the AMP version). But I don't see the chaos of the current web as inherently virtuous; encouraging web pages to load faster and be easier to read is absolutely something Google should be doing, and I'll certainly favour a search engine that prioritises fast, easy-to-read pages over one that doesn't.

<comment><USER4> My main annoyance with AMP is reddit because their version is especially shitty if you expect the logged in version. I've found the easiest way to get normal Reddit is to click the upvote button.

<comment><USER5> I've switched to their android app for this. Much faster and better experience.

<comment><USER6> Thats the idea. They cripple the web version so you use the app that can spam you with notifications. I use i.reddit.com which loads up a super fast version clearly designed to work well with an iphone 3.

<comment><USER7> I switched to Compact reddit a few years ago - much easier ride than the full site or needing a separate app.

[https://www.reddit.com/new/.compact](https://www.reddit.com/new/.compact)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> AMP is fundamentally broken.

I've said this before, I'll say it again: companies are not people. Once a company reaches a certain size, the rule is to _assume bad faith_. Always.

<comment><USER9> In the present case, the failure to provide an opt-out speaks volumes.

If AMP was a good faith attempt to improve UX, it would have been provided early on.

The faceless imposition of AMP is a clear signal of malign intent, IMO.

<comment><USER10> malign? I think the imposition of AMP was the only solution to a problem with 3 constraints:

1) make web pages fast, without shitty popups on mobile 2) make this happen for large coverage of heavily visited pages 3) make this happen quickly (OKRs are on quarter/annual cadence)

Imagine you owned Google Search and you were afraid for your life that everything was moving into native apps because the experience was better. As a search engine, you only control the front door and not the content. What do you do?

<comment><USER8> ...start punishing slow websites by de-ranking them? The same way they have punished poor content in the past? The same method that _worked every single time_ they've done it?

You seem to believe that they don't have any other options which is wrong. They have a lot of options at their disposal and they intentionally chose a very hostile one.

<comment><USER10> it isn't about slow web pages. It is about unwinding a shitty user experience that mobile magnified. How do you punish a shitty UX?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> On the one hand - yeah, AMP can go to hell. It's a massive overreach and, as pointed out, is getting awfully close to an actual attempt to rewrite the Web.

On the other hand, we probably wouldn't be in this situation if website owners didn't try to bog down their own websites with tens of MB of sheer garbage. Trimming the fat isn't a priority for website owners, so Google is trying to make it their priority. As long as sites think it's OK to lard up their sites with trackers, video ads, and all manner of nonsense, AMP will continue to be attractive to the end user.

<comment><USER12> Your second point comes up every time and you're right. The bloat is a problem. Also Google can fix this. They can simply add load times and page size to their ranking algorithm. Problem solved.

AMP is not the solution.

<comment><USER13> I want a useful search engine not a political one. If the most relevant result to my query is loaded with garbage web design I still want it at the top of my search results because I can decide if I want to return to that site for myself whereas I can't magically correct some unseen ranking parameter that I don't care about.

<comment><USER14> Taking page load times into account is not political in any way. Faster load times provide a better user experience.

<comment><USER15> Who is this mythical universal user for whom it provides a better experience? Your parent poster is a user and it seems his experience is better when he gets the most accurate results, not a subset that is fastest. I tend to agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Some browsers like Kiwi browser on android now give you the setting to redirect AMP websites to their normal URL. This is a very good feature that I always have enabled[1].

More browsers should add this feature to fight this non-sense. I think for FF, Chrome extensions like this must already exist.

[1] [https://kiwibrowser.com/features/](https://kiwibrowser.com/features/) [2] [https://kiwibrowser.com/wp- content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/...](https://kiwibrowser.com/wp- content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/Features-AMP- oe27675i2rt74nfeiknst6242i0tazqpow6qjdg6ww.png)

<comment><USER17> Is there some Android/iOS app or a simple web app that de-AMPs URLs? My process for just sharing an article these days is to find the tweet button if they embed one for the article, click through them, pray that it's not to tweet about the publication or the author but for the article itself, then get the normal non-AMP link from the tweet draft to share a normal URL instead of the AMP link.

<comment><USER18> There are Firefox addons that do that, I.E.: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/android/addon/amp2html/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/android/addon/amp2html/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I agree. What concrete steps can I — and other technical people like me — take to help hasten its demise?

<comment><USER20> Last paragraph in the article has a few suggestions:

 _Or you could fight back. You could tell them to stuff it, and find ways to undermine their dominance. Use a different search engine, and convince your friends and family to do the same. Write to your elected officials and ask them to investigate Google's monopoly. Stop using the Chrome browser. Ditch your Android phone. Turn off Google's tracking of your every move.

And, for goodness sake, disable AMP on your website._

<comment><USER21> So I read this as being a fight that only the web publishers can wage then.

A minuscule fraction of people are going to write to officials and change their browser / search engine. Even far less of that fraction are going to throw away an expensive flagship phone (And what are they going to buy? Apple? That's sure to go down well amongst the hackernews crowd).

<comment><USER22> Well if there were one big website aimed at developers that was out of reach of Google, that could be a start.

Imagine a service like stackoverflow, except it's (suddenly) not accessible through Google Search and Google Chrome. That could trigger a lot of developers to move away from Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What's going to happen to all the url's if Google ever decides to announce they are getting rid of AMP? So annoying that you copy the link and it grabs some google url, so it's a matter of time the internet gets littered with those redirecting urls.

<comment><USER24> It shouldn't be true that copying the link grabs a Google URL, right? At least in Safari, it copies the real website's URL.

<comment><USER25> On iPhone, if I search for "Webb space telescope" and switch to news tab, look for the ars technica link, and tap it, I navigate to this url (which I copy and pasted here). [https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2020/07...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/nasa- now-targeting-halloween-2021-for-launch-of-james-webb-telescope/%3famp=1)

<comment><USER24> I did the same on my iPhone but searched for "AMP website" then clicked the first result with the lightning bolt and copied this URL:

[https://amp.dev/about/websites/](https://amp.dev/about/websites/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This sounds like at least one rationale for an anti-trust case.

<comment><USER27> At least.

It'd be splendid if antitrust cases happened more often, Google must be due a dozen at least.

Also: Gmail's spam filters are one especially egregious abuse of power. Email is another technology Google hates and which deserves to survive without Google hamstringing it

<comment><USER28> Email spam filters seem non-functional right now. Before I added a "allow all" filter to Google, the majority of email got sent to spam.

Microsoft isn't better in this regard though: they don't have an "allow all" filter possibility, and will delete spam emails after two weeks. I've gotten invoices, personal email, and job offers deleted this way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> AMP solves problems that existed 10-20 years ago. Not today. Websites load fast enough (when using an ad blocker). Sure that Google doesn't like that.

</comment><comment><USER30> AMP messes up data science analytics too. Now we have a mix of the following formats,

       google.com/amp/s/...
       amp.domain.com/...
       domain.com/amp/...
       domain.com/.../amp

I guess it could even be a query parameter although I have not yet seen this. Does anyone know if there is an "AMP url normalizer" library or write-up?

</comment><comment><USER31> It seems a little weird that they are asking website operators to add the very same bloated functionality that AMP claims to try to eliminate

</comment><comment><USER32> I would like to know what the average user thinks of AMP. We techies are ok with a uncontrolled freewheeling web, but a lot of people have a problem with that and hate that experience.

<comment><USER33> I'm one of the less-technical and least techno-political, compared to most HN posters. I personally despise AMP for two reasons: the URLs are fugly when I send them to someone and take longer to parse when reading, and AMP hijacks my mobile browser's address bar and prevents me from accessing my tabs until I scroll all the way up the page. It's a thinly-veiled method of forcing me to look at the web page twice before closing it and I wish I could get my hands on the son of a bitch who thought it up.

<comment><USER34> > _I wish I could get my hands on the son of a bitch who thought it up._

Malte Ubl (@Cramforce) would like to have a word with you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Does the WebExtensions standard permit us to release extensions that bypass AMP URLs when they are visited by the browser?

Could someone please charge me money for that extension on the iOS and macOS App Stores?

I'm not expecting this to be maintained for free, I don't want to install a full-blown ad blocker, I just want a single-task de-AMP-er that just de-AMPs.

(Yes, I use Firefox, but I want to de-AMP _all_ iOS and macOS webviews, not just the ones that load in Firefox.)

<comment><USER36> Safari 14 will add support for the WebExtensions API but alas, on MacOS only (where presumably you will never see AMP pages anyway).

I have idly wondered if it's possible to use Safari content blockers to trick the page into redirecting to the real site by blocking certain JS bundles, but I would assume not.

<comment><USER35> Ugh, good point re macOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Just request the desktop site or use DuckDuckGo. Problem solved.

Luckily Google still serves the desktop site to my phone. Twitch won't do it even if I spoof my user agent because they want you to use their shitty app. So, I just stopped using Twitch on my phone or tablet. Problem solved again.

</comment><comment><USER38> I had never heard about it before reading the article, looked it up, and I agree with the article. This is yet another wretched idea like jsx. Kill it before it lays eggs!

<comment><USER39> JSX seems to work just fine for a whole bunch of people.

<comment><USER38> So does heroin from the perspective of even more people. That doesn't make it a good idea.

<comment><USER39> You're just getting caught up in a battle of ideological preferences and implementation methodologies. A lot of people disagree, a lot of people agree. Nobody gets hurt, different tools serve different purposes and audiences.

We can leave absurd drug parallels out of that conversation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Side question: is it still considered "cool" to work at Google?

I'm asking since the answer in case of Facebook seems to have shifted.

<comment><USER40> Depends on what you mean by "cool". The compensation is not the highest, but it seems to be the company with the widest variety of high-impact and technologically exciting projects.

And I wouldn't say that it's objectively "uncool" to work at Facebook. They have definitely taken a beating in terms of perspectives on their company's morals, but very few people are willing to go without using at least one Facebook product. And they continue to be known as the company that has a pretty good WLB with top tier pay, good career progression, and great benefits, relative to similar-sized companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I had to read read that quote 3 times before i got what was being said and by who...

</comment><comment><USER42> I never encounter AMP sites because I don't use google search anymore.

</comment><comment><USER43> Please add [2018] to the title.

</comment><comment><USER44> I agree that Amp can go to hell, but I'm very unsympathetic to these particular complaints:

> _"The canonical page allows users to view and add comments, but the AMP > article does not. This is often considered missing content by users."_

> _"The canonical URL allows users to share content directly to diverse social > media platforms. This feature is missing on the AMP page."_

> _"The canonical page contains a media carousel that is missing or broken in > the AMP version of the page."_

As far as I'm concerned, all that stuff is trash. I use ublock origin cosmetic filters to remove all that crap on every news site I read.

<comment><USER45> Exactly. "Canonical" content should be what the user wants to read, not what marketing hacks want to stuff the website with</comment></comment>


Inmates at California's San Quentin prison learn to code - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/how-18-inmates-at-californias-notorious-san-quentin-prison-learn-to-code/ <comment><USER2> _> While the goal of Code 7370 is laudable, faced with competition from younger programmers, many of whom have handled computers since they were toddlers, will it make any meaningful difference for inmates? For now, it's too soon to tell._

Of course it will make a meaningful difference for inmates (if only because in terms of all things one could do in jail, this is probably in the top 1% in terms of intellectual stimulation), and of course they could become high quality professionals after this. Especially given the fact that the training seems more intense to me than any of the bootcamps from which a lot of today's web devs come from ("four-day-per-week, eight-hour-per-day, six-month course" \- most bootcamps are a few weeks, or a few months at the maximum).

This sort of line of thought is so harmful. There's nothing magical about programming that makes it different from any other industry. You don't need to have been immersed in it your whole life to be an outstanding professional. It's not the case for chemical engineering, it's not the case for mechanical engineering, it's not the case for electrical engineering, why would it be true for computer engineering?

Especially given the fact that of all the subfields in computer engineering, there's nothing deeply complex about HTML/CSS/JS because it relies on so few prerequisites (if you're writing low level assembly, it requires a deep understanding of the machine's architecture; if you're writing graphics code, it requires a solid knowledge of linear algebra. But there are no such foundations for web development).

<comment><USER3> There are tons of college grads that either didn't study computer science at all, or studied computer science and didn't do very well (and don't like it enough to do it outside of school) that are getting high-paying jobs (relative to general populace) at lots of big tech companies.

The tech industry fancies itself a meritocracy/progressive -- programs like this will show just how much of that perception is real.

<comment><USER4> > There are tons of college grads that either didn't study computer science at > all, or studied computer science and didn't do very well (and don't like it > enough to do it outside of school) that are getting high-paying jobs > (relative to general populace) at lots of big tech companies.

This also flips the other way: I've interviewed PhDs with little ability to operate in an engineering environment. The industry is definitely more meritocratic than, say, the banking, consulting, and business world.

<comment><USER5> I've not seen any evidence that this industry is more or less meritocratic (in the positive sense meant here, that is, based on ability to perform programming tasks) than any other--including academia (whence I come, but from a science background, not CS/math).

On the other hand I've seen plenty of evidence that in certain geographic regions there is a particularly heavy (and, in my opinion, amusingly misplaced) emphasis on categorical errors, equivocation, and conflation of purely academic CS knowledge with practical ability (as you yourself allude to). These are all the CS-world equivalent of the supposedly very un- meritocratic things many who've never been outside of CS (professionally) assume occur in, oh, "banking, consulting, and [the] business world" as a matter of daily routine.

<comment><USER4> The difference with academia is that what qualifies as 'meritorious' is far less pragmatic. Many people get PhDs based on work that will never see engineering use. In this sense, they're very qualified at producing interesting, useless observations. The tech industry is less inclined towards this.

However, we are more inclined towards hype investing, leading to useless companies (snapchat) getting insane valuations, and people utterly without merit becoming rich overnight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is offered through a great program at San Quentin called The Last Mile. I got to know one Chrisfino Kenyatta a bit (a founding member of the program while he was an inmate) when our company was at RocketSpace, where he works.

One day shortly after he started at RocketSpace, he asked how I was doing and I said "eh, surviving". Not knowing his background, I was caught a bit off- guard when he told me he had recently got out of San Quentin after 19 years, and gently reminded me that I was doing a bit better than just surviving. He's a great, great guy.

He did a Tedx talk about his experience that is well worth watching. [http://www.tedxmarin.org/2014-speakers/chrisfino-kenyatta- le...](http://www.tedxmarin.org/2014-speakers/chrisfino-kenyatta-leal/)

Totally coincidentally (though thanks to Kenyatta for being such a great ambassador for the program) we are interviewing a Last Mile member for an operations position at our company, ePantry, later today.

<comment><USER7> I came here to talk about Kenyatta, too. For sure thought I'd see his name in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have an uncle that spent the better part of a decade in prison because of our idiotic drug laws. While he was in he learned coding (DBase if I recall-- it was still popular at the time). He never used it after he got out. Why not? He has a marketable skill now, right? Sure. But nobody wants to hire an ex-con regardless of their skill.

I think projects like this are great but we also need to address the problem of being able to find a job for these guys after they get out.

Or, you know; get rid of the drug laws that put him there in the first place.

<comment><USER9> >I think projects like this are great but we also need to address the problem of being able to find a job for these guys after they get out.

Amen. This is a huge problem and probably a huge part of why recidivism rates are so high. If you can't get a job out of prison and you're low on money it's really easy to get your old drug/weed guy to front goods for you to sell. Instant cash, work on your own time, no background checks, work that is probably more exciting and interesting.

Huge sentencing reform is needed and I encourage everyone to get active or at least put your ear to the ground about it. A great source of info is the Sentencing Project[0]. They send out e-mails regarding the status of reform in different states and other general current events and information.

[0] [http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/index.cfm](http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/index.cfm)

<comment><USER10> You'd not even need a sentencing reform to improve the chances of getting a job.

Cash incentives (e.g. state pays 50% of the income of the employee for a year or two) for employers can be a much better starting point. Or educating prisoners e.g. to become licensed electricians, plumbers, ... like in Germany and then helping them to start their own business when out of jail.

But the US system seems like focused 100% on punishment and generating revenue for private prisons, so I highly doubt this will ever be introduced - there's simply too much money at stake when former inmates actually rehabilitate.

<comment><USER11> Private prisons? That's a nice touch! Out of curiosity, how does a private prison work? I mean the _client_ is the state or say (if a con has money) I can do his time in private prison with a PS-4, regular medical examinations, internet access (probably monitored), etc.?

Not that it's bad to have _civilized_ prisons, but I'm curious how a private prison operates.

<comment><USER12> Yes, the client would be the US government or state. Private prisons hold about 8% of prisoners in the US, during 2013 the number of prisoners in private facilities declined by 3%.

Numbers from here:

[http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/p13.txt](http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/p13.txt)

There are some other problems with perverse incentives in the US incarceration system (businesses are allowed to employ prisoners at low wages), but the "it's all about private prisons" narrative isn't really backed up by the numbers.

If you look at the sort of crimes that people end up getting put into prison for, at least statistically, they aren't Myspace comments.

<comment><USER10> > If you look at the sort of crimes that people end up getting put into prison > for, at least statistically, they aren't Myspace comments.

Mostly drug-related stuff, especially victimless crimes such as pure possession without intent to distribute... while Myspace or other cyberbullying can certainly be jail-worthy, a shitload of US prisoners are in for drugs.

imho, the US and every other country in this world should end the "War on Drugs". It has undeniably failed, and costs taxpayers everywhere billions of dollars, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of lives lost alone in Mexico...

<comment><USER12> I don't see a handy possession vs distribution summary, but look here for the types of cases that get prosecuted for trafficking:

[http://isb.ussc.gov/content/pentaho- cdf/RenderXCDF?solution=...](http://isb.ussc.gov/content/pentaho- cdf/RenderXCDF?solution=Sourcebook&path=&action=table_xx.xcdf&template=mantle&table_num=Table42)

The typical federal marijuana trafficking prosecution involves possession of 10 kilos (the small number of cases involving less than that averaged 4 kilos). The numbers for crack and meth are smaller, but there is still a pretty clear line at 'dozens of doses'.

I'm not sure I understand it correctly, but this graph seems to say that the majority of people sentenced under drug guidelines are convicted of some other crime. So apparently they are committing other crimes while in possession of drugs:

[http://isb.ussc.gov/content/pentaho- cdf/RenderXCDF?solution=...](http://isb.ussc.gov/content/pentaho- cdf/RenderXCDF?solution=Sourcebook&path=&template=mantle&action=figure_xx.xcdf&table_num=Figure_I)

And then the majority of "pure drug cases" actually do involve trafficking, which the data above indicates usually involves substantial quantities.

Nothing I've said is an argument in favor of the war on drugs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hey yall -- I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor, which wrote the curriculum and is running the program from an instruction and student success standpoint. This is my baby and it's exciting to see it getting some attention this week -- I think that prisons should be schools by default and I hope that public perception changes. AMA if you're curious.

<comment><USER14> > _I think that prisons should be schools by default_

Indeed. Good work you're doing there.

Now, if we can make schools schools by default, then maybe we can skip the prison step altogether.

<comment><USER15> "Now, if we can make schools schools by default, then maybe we can skip the prison step altogether."

That's the best quote on HN I've read in a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone here know the people who are working with code 7370? I'd love to help in some way. I don't know if they're looking for code reviews or tutoring, or what I could provide, but I'd love to be of help.

It seems like providing the inmates access to something like [http://kapeli.com/dash](http://kapeli.com/dash) or mdn locally would be a godsend.

<comment><USER13> I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor -- we build the cirriculum and are running the daily events. Please contact me (email@example.com) with your interest.

We have local copies of MDN installed and are adding a dash equivalent over xmas. (Dash is osx only -- I forget the equivalent for linux, which is all the institution could afford.)

<comment><USER17> The free software version is Zeal ([http://zealdocs.org/](http://zealdocs.org/)).

<comment><USER18> Another alternative: [https://github.com/rgarcia/dochub](https://github.com/rgarcia/dochub) is a node application that can be installed locally which serves up a pile of relevant web development documentation.

Online/demo version of the app here: [http://dochub.io/](http://dochub.io/) but that's not loading for me at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> San Quentin prison seems to be doing a great job at engaging prisoners. The inmates write beautiful answers on Quora too.

<comment><USER20> I thought they weren't allowed internet access?

> _Of course, as the class is taught inside a prison, it has an extra > obstacle—inmates don 't have access to the Internet at all, and their only > time spent with a computer is inside the classroom._

<comment><USER13> They are given printed quora questions by Last Mile staff, then they write the answers longhand. It's old school.

<comment><USER19> Thats right. The answers come with a standard footer as well saying that they do not have internet access and that the prison staff was proofread the answer before posting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So now when I tell friends and relatives who can't get a job that pays more than $12 per hour that they should learn how to code in their spare time, I have more ammunition.

My favorite story to relay is an Indian woman whose husband came to the U.S. on an H1B visa. She came here on an unskilled visa. In her spare time at home while she was working as a maid, she taught herself programming. A year later she was making $60,000 per year. A few years later, making $80,000 per year.

Every time I relay a story like this - the person I'm trying to convince has an excuse as to why it won't work for them. "Oh, but that was a different time! There are no jobs today!"

I can't wait to hear the excuse as to why they can't learn to code even though prison inmates are now doing it.

<comment><USER22> > My favorite story to relay is an Indian woman whose husband came to the U.S. > on an H1B visa. She came here on an unskilled visa. In her spare time at > home while she was working as a maid, she taught herself programming. A year > later she was making $60,000 per year. A few years later, making $80,000 per > year.

As a counterpoint, have you thought that it might not be the "ability to code," but rather the "drive to learn" that causes these people to be successful? I think that even if everyone could code, they wouldn't necessarily be successful, whereas someone who had that drive to go out, learn, expose themselves to new ideas, etc. presumably also has the drive to sell themselves and keep pushing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> We were fortunate enough to get to partner with Last Mile [https://zip.kiva.org/trustees/186](https://zip.kiva.org/trustees/186) to fund Tulio: [https://thelastmile.org/meet-the-people/alumni/tulio-k- cardo...](https://thelastmile.org/meet-the-people/alumni/tulio-k-cardozo/)

He's now Lead Developer at Launch Podium: [https://launchpodium.com/company/](https://launchpodium.com/company/)

And his side project is looking pretty good now compared to the last time I looked at it: [http://collaborativebenefit.org/about-us/from-our- founder/](http://collaborativebenefit.org/about-us/from-our-founder/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Perhaps they should be allowed to work remotely after graduating? You would think having a 60-100k job in sight would reduce recidivism. No idea what the stats are though.

Society gets to continue punishing them for whatever they did, and the inmates gets something meaningful and productive to do.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is a really great project! I think caring about people in prisons is one of the best ways to show the strength of a society.

I know, the US/Californian prison system has many things to criticize and rant about (and people should!), but here is a great project to face some of those problems. It's really great, but I hope people keep pushing such projects. Prisons will probably never be empty, but setting that goal is always better than surrendering, cause huge costs, both financial and social ones.

I hope such projects set an example for other states and countries.

</comment><comment><USER26> There are many prisons where inmates are encouraged to study business. This is a good, positive thing and if anything, it reflects the permeation of computer science down to even the most fundamental infrastructures of society.

We still have a lot of work to do, but this is a very, very good sign.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's criminal that bad guys get the luxury of learning while innocent children around a majority of school districts don't. We also spend 5-6X more annually housing inmates. Really strange decisions.

</comment><comment><USER28> don't they know that the inmates will be able to launch missiles by whistling into the phone now?

</comment><comment><USER29> Hans Reiser is at San Quentin.

<comment><USER30> He appears to be at Pleasant Valley now: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Go Hack Reactor!!</comment>


What drives Yellowstone's elk migrations? - <AUTHOR> https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/06/14/what-drives-yellowstones-massive-elk-migrations/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised there wasn't anything mentioned about the effects of predation. They absolutely know when the regular human hunting seasons are and adjust their local migration accordingly - they'll be in high mountainous areas one day, then down in privately owned and farmed bottom land during the season, and back up the the elevations when that is over. I'd be more interested to see the effects of the wolf packs on their migration, which from my anecdotal experience affects their location far more acutely than the environmental conditions.

<comment><USER3> Yeah and the fact that thousands of wolves were artificially placed in Yellowstone.

<comment><USER4> I think you meant 41.

[https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolves.htm](https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolves.htm)</comment></comment></comment>


Laser pulse makes insulator conduct like a metal - <AUTHOR> http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/dec/07/laser-pulse-makes-insulator-conduct-like-a-metal

<comment><USER2> Aiming to build a circuit that switches on-off in a femtosecond. A femtosecond is a micronanosecond.</comment>


Quora - <AUTHOR> http://blog.samaltman.com/quora <comment><USER2> After having been a "Top Writer" for two years in a row, I stopped contributing to Quora a bit over a year ago. I had several reasons, but the two biggest were:

* A very opaque answer-ranking system which often promotes what I consider really crappy (e.g. factually incorrect or off-topic) answers over better ones. This is not just stupid people voting, BTW; simple ranking by vote count would be far better than what actually happens. This is something Quora themselves, or their algorithms, do.

* A cadre of popular writers who openly flaunt the rules (e.g. don't answer the question, fill posts with meme-y images). A significant subset of these "Slop Writers" are clearly there to peddle their own books with an annoying coda on every answer.

Those kind of things seriously degrade the reading experience there. I honestly don't get why Quora would allow, facilitate, and even seem to promote behavior which drives away both readers and writers. It would only make sense if people were actually paying them to have their answers ranked higher or to be allowed to break the rules, but that would be extremely hard for them to hide so I don't think that's really the case. Considering some of the other problems there, like the site generally being slow/flaky or the random addition/removal of features, I think they're just not thinking very hard about these issues.

I still go back there to read sometimes. So far, I keep finding that the same problems are still there and getting worse, so I don't expect I'll write there again.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps it's the personalisation, but the questions on Quora have become very trivial and click-baity in the past 12 months. ("Who is the most beautiful Indian female of all time?" "What's the most embarassing thing you have seen in a hotel room?")

</comment><comment><USER4> Stopped going there a long time ago. Hate the idea that I need an account to read.

<comment><USER5> Deleted my account there a year ago after it started sending me lots of questions of type "what are the first signs that you have illness X" where X varied from lyme disease to ebola. After finding that I match all the known diseases, I decided that this BS was not really worth an account there. SO is so much better in terms of content quality - the amount of BS stupid questions on Quora is just hitting over the roof

<comment><USER5> I also tried to find a way to delete these topics from my feed but there is just no such functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Quora is doing "extremely well", then why are they still seeking funding this many years in for a _second_ round with YC?</comment>