The New Preschool Is Crushing Kids (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-new-preschool-is-crushing-kids/419139/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> The preschool my kids go to is starting to implement more school readiness content and I am adamantly opposed to it. Unfortunately, all the other parents are pro "learning" and want the changes.

Forcing young children to learn specific topics can only lead to one outcome: a destruction of man's natural desire to learn about the world through association of learning with pain.

Kids learn all the time at an incredible rate. One day, my daughter came home and said, "Daddy, look at this picture I made: a dog, a cat, a pig, a horse, a cow, a chicken! These are all animals that live on a farm!" Yet when I ask her "did you learn anything at school today," the answer, invariably, is "no."

To switch out this kind of early childhood education with a curriculum of forced learning intended to mold the child into a bureaucrats ill-conceived vision of a virtuous society is monstrous.

<comment><USER3> > Forcing young children to learn specific topics can only lead to one > outcome: a destruction of man's natural desire to learn about the world > through association of learning with pain.

Wow, op, please take a step back and relax. Every American spends 10+ years in a classroom, sitting at a desk for 6+ hours a day (post-kindergarten). Man's natural desire has yet to see this inevitable destruction. I thought the article was a bit fear monger-y, but you've stepped us up to pure clickbait.

<comment><USER4> You're wrong. Watch the two documentaries called 'High School' and 'High School 2'. The way schools are structured absolutely do kill, in almost all cases, any persons desire to learn, along with their general spirit and enjoyment of living. One of the documentaries, I honestly forget which, is of a school that decided to try instead centering every single class on critical thinking. Instead of teaching by fiat, the teachers gave the students the tools to question them and encountered them as intellectual equals, two thinking human beings one of whom simply had more knowledge in an arena than another. When they didn't know the answer to a question, they'd admit it and try to figure it out with the student. It took a poor Latino neighborhood school and created the class that set the record for number of students to go on to receive a college degree - across any school in the country.

But it's hard to teach if you have to treat the students like people, and teachers for the most part go into it because they were very good at manipulating the arbitrary meaningless systems of rules at schools when growing up, then got scared by the whole 'you have to have reasons' part of reality so fled back into the school system as teachers where no reason was needed. No hats indoors? Sure! It's law! No shorts? Or maybe mandatory shorts? Whatever, nothing matters, they're just kids you can restrict and regulate them all you want to make your own life easier, no one will stand up for them!

<comment><USER5> The purpose of school seems to be to crush your spirit in anticipation of the job you'll get after school, which will crush it even further. By the time you reach the workforce, you're hopefully zombified enough to "endure" it.

<comment><USER6> Except that everyone I know suffered a major or minor depressive episode upon graduating college/university and entering the workforce.

<comment><USER7> I think it's pretty common, but the good news is that it usually only lasts about 40 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Remember Citizen, your worth as a human being begins and ends at how much more measurable value you provide than average. If you can't do better than average, your existence was a mistake!"

This article kind of reminds me of the super-high-pressure environment of Japanese education, where test scores are the be-all-end-all until you (hopefully) become the appendage of some state-supported hypercorp.

I've heard somewhere (I can't remember and my search-fu is weak) that "People need bread, but they need roses too", where bread is what makes life possible, and roses are what makes life worth living (like art and such). We hyper- optimize for bread, and burn the roses to save on fuel.

This shit makes my blood run cold.

<comment><USER9> If you want to follow this idea further, I highly recommend Scott's "Seeing Like a State." It's an analysis of how states exert power by imposing legibility--insisting on having access and to measuring in certain ways. His thesis is that this legibility is actively corrosive to other properties that don't show up in the measurement. The book starts with an account of how 19th C European forestry managers imposed legibility on their forests in terms of lumber production, and ended up killing off everything but a monocrop, which then collapsed. Eventually he gets around to education, where it's pretty clear there are big externalities to the way we insist on measuring what happens in school. There are broader lessons here for the technocratically- inclined.

<comment><USER8> That's been on my reading list for years now, I should get around to reading it at some point. I've heard good things!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> None of this early academic education is necessary. In Finland, which consistently has top scores in reading and math, kids don't start school until they're seven, and at that point they're only expected to be able to turn text rightside up.

(And before anybody jumps to the "homogenous society" explanation, Finland used to have mediocre schools before they put a lot of effort and money into them in the 70s and 80s.)

<comment><USER11> Really appreciate the perspective. This is just one more on the huge pile of things where the US would be well served to just look around at how other countries are doing it better.

<comment><USER12> It's funny how a child shouting "me first!" will generally be scolded for being selfish, yet an entire nation shouting "America first!" is somehow considered virtuous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There seems to be a cycle for trends like these:

"New education alternative available to some children."

"Wealthy suburban parents begin turning to new education alternative."

"Public outcry over lack of education alternative available to middle and lower class children."

"New education alternative now being implemented in public schools."

"Wealthy suburban parents unhappy about options available in public schools, begin looking elsewhere."

...

I am very thankful that my parents ignored any of the hyped trends and just gave us both the most convenient education experience possible. Unfortunately, I think there is a spirit of constant, hand-on meddling that our generation has developed.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is why my wife and I chose a play-based co-op pre-school for our kids. They both were academically above average compared to their peers in kindergarten.

But everyone is different. Our kids learned well by being allowed to pick what they studied. That may not be suitable for all children, and some, perhaps even many or most, might need more structure and rigor earlier.

<comment><USER15> Appreciate the nuanced perspective. When we toured preschools, they touted the "play-based" foundations, but there were very few specifics. It was mostly in response to parent questions about "do you do anything with the alphabet, numbers, days of the week, etc.".

All of the messaging around play-based learning was in the negative — "no, we don't do that; it's play based!". They never said "we do play based learning, which means that the teachers do x, y, and z to facilitate outcomes 1, 2, and 3."

<comment><USER14> In our case the school was almost completely unstructured and "play-based" was quite literal. The teachers would organize projects at "stations", but the kids were free to completely ignore that and go outside and play on the playground the entire time if they wanted.

Of course teachers and parents played up the projects the teachers worked on, and encouraged learning through play (e.g. understanding why the sand fell the way it did or how the swings worked, etc.). But it was very indirect and light-touch.

What we found was most kids naturally gravitated to things out of curiosity. Most knew the alphabet, days of the week, numbers and the like by the time they went to kindergarten. Many could even read and do simple arithmetic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Last night at bedtime my 7yo son (2nd grade) said that he doesn't have enough time to play. Yesterday was a short day that he has once a week and he wished every day was a short day.

To be honest, it was really sad to hear him say that. He's a kid and doesn't understand the schedule being imposed upon him.

Without getting into a discussion about the right number of hours a 7yo should spend in class I wanted to ask another question.

What ideas have parents come up with to make it "feel" like there's more unstructured play time for kids during the school year?

<comment><USER11> Your concern is completely valid, ignore the haters. We struggle with the same thing. We try to give our daughter the final say in any and all "structured extra-curriculars" she's involved in, even quitting right after starting, on the hope that her feeling even a little in-control of her own schedule is more valuable than "learning to finish anything you start". But cutting down on those is the only other place I can see to allow more unstructured play. And even then, we try where we can to "assist" with making the unstructured time more valuable, by trying to be present, engaged, and willing to do pain-in- the-ass things (like go run in the hot park for an hour after a long day of work) if that's what she wants. We try to ask her, and suggest options "do you want to stay in and play or go to the park or xyz...". But who knows, there is a constant feeling that no matter what, we're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER16> Thanks. Making it more valuable is what I was getting at. I think more time spent with me or my wife doing what they want would help too.

Interesting point on finishing what you start in relation to a limited quantity of time. I'll have to see if that's something we do or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The most important thing my kids got out of preschool is mature immune systems.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not all preschools are like this, and I'm not sure how things are really trending. In my neck of the woods, the more highly sought after programs feature more talking, listening, and discovery. A slogan that our child's school uses is "Play is children's work." Unfortunately, many of these are private and may or may not be eligible for state funds.

See this link for more information on this approach to learning: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach)

</comment><comment><USER19> The more I read about the state of modern education, the more convinced I become that I dodged a bullet as an 80's kid. This is essentially child pageantry for the middle-upper class, with all of the associated pathologies.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was homeschooled up until high school, and more or less allowed to study whatever I found interesting. When I entered high school I tested well ahead of my peers academically in most areas- taught myself to program a computer when I was 8- but, I didn't do well at all in terms of grades because I was never able to get used to studying what I was told to study instead of whatever I found fascinating. To this day, my work is somewhat sloppy unless I find it personally interesting. The fact is that to do well in our society you need heavy, heavy doses of obedience and conformity- originality and passion are sharply discouraged.

I have a feeling I'm really not that special in this regard though- I think most people feel kind of crushed in their daily lives, whether they were homeschooled as children or not.

<comment> xkcd-sucks The flip side of this is really unfortunate, though.

Sometimes people don't feel passion about the fundamental underpinnings of something they feel passionate about, e.g. they want to build brain interfaces but throw a tantrum when you try to teach them about biochemistry. Eventually they do learn the underpinnings of their passion, but are left with gaps in their knowledge which means they simply don't see solutions. Human intelligence is just pattern matching, and you do better pattern matching when you memorize a bunch of stuff even if it's boring.

The other part is that sometimes stuff just sucks to learn/do and it must get done-- metaphorically, taking out the trash, cleaning etc. Somebody that does all the fun stuff and disappears when it's time do do the boring stuff is a liability.

Doing only stuff that one feels passion about is a privilege that very few people are skilled/fortunate abough to enjoy.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, I'll admit these are good points (I upvoted your answer). However, I'd propose that having a teacher who could sell other topics and make them interesting too might make the other stuff less boring- ultimately forcing your students to memorize material they find boring is a failure on some level or another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "mainly served as a safe social space for children to learn to get along with others"

That's exactly what pre-school is supposed to be.

Now it's "If you don't get into the right pre-school, you won't get into an Ivy League university, so you'll be a failure!".

<comment><USER22> This has got to be regional as my kids are in preschool and I've never heard anything remotely close.

<comment><USER21> Probably so. I just thought of an article I read about the hyper-competitive pre-school scene in NYC. The parents hired a coach for their 4 YO's pre-school admissions interview.

<comment><USER23> NYC has an exam for 4 year olds to get into 'gifted and talented' kindergarten classes. Of course there is a test prep industry and ridiculous numbers of preschoolers now qualify.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/nyregion/as-ranks-of- gifte...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/nyregion/as-ranks-of-gifted-soar- in-ny-fight-brews-for-kindergarten-slots.html)

<comment><USER24> The delta between a good school and whatever you get assigned seems to make this worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> You always have to be careful when drawing conclusions about causality from observational studies.

> New research sounds a particularly disquieting note. A major evaluation of > Tennessee's publicly funded preschool system, published in September, found > that although children who had attended preschool initially exhibited more > "school readiness" skills when they entered kindergarten than did their non- > preschool-attending peers, by the time they were in first grade their > attitudes toward school were deteriorating. And by second grade they > performed worse on tests measuring literacy, language, and math skills. _The > researchers told New York magazine that overreliance on direct instruction > and repetitive, poorly structured pedagogy were likely culprits;_ children > who'd been subjected to the same insipid tasks year after year after year > were understandably losing their enthusiasm for learning.

Without knowing more about this study, it seems vastly more likely that sociological differences between the preschool and non-preschool groups explain this difference.

<comment><USER4> Or the researchers were just generally guessing about the situation when talking about it one day and spitballing and a reporter wrote that up as 'researchers told... likely culprits'. That's seriously weak language, and when you account for reporters inflating things to make their work seem important, the reality was probably an off-hand comment with no backing or even significant thought behind it. Doesn't mean it's wrong, of course... just that if it DOES have actual factual support, that certainly doesn't give it to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Who on earth designs these things! Do they hate kids? Do they hate life? Are they doing this so there will be a plentiful market for antidepressants? Is the goal to program an unmotivated an unimaginative workforce of robots?

<comment><USER27> It's because the U.S. Department of Education got TDD religion -- Test Driven Didactics. Your child will not be allowed to grow and develop interests naturally; they will be refactored until they pass all the tests. Otherwise the school district loses money.

<comment><USER28> Ooh, that's a good word for it. They'll refactor your children!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is anyone else in their early twenties, who is still a ways off from having kids but intends to, considering the option of moving to Europe to raise your kids? Could any Europeans chime in on such a sentiment?

<comment><USER30> Europe is a big place with wildly different educational standards. Just like the US. If you are wanting to move due to the schools then you should be aware that many places in the US have better schools than most places in Europe. It's not cut and dry.

<comment><USER13> When most people refer to Europe as an example of well functioning, progressive social policies, they are most always referring to the small, wealthy, socially homogeneous Scandinavian countries.

<comment><USER31> The kindergardens that I've walked past in Portugal did not feature 4-year olds cooped for hours and force-fed the alphabet. Portugal is the antithesis of Northern Europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> There are still plenty of play-based preschools, you just have to look for them. They are more common in the Co-Op preschool community, where parents are present, and see the impact of play-based learning.

</comment><comment><USER33> Where do you draw the line between play-only and learning? My kids go to a preschool where they learn stuff. Writing their name and whatnot. They always have something to work on, but it's fun for them. I suppose if it ever ceases being fun or becomes stressful for them, I would pull them out.

</comment><comment><USER34> Here is what the arguments in the OP led up to but the OP omitted: Children from birth to age at least 5 need nearly all their time (A) with their mothers, (B) in play with their siblings and/or peers, (C) with other loving adults, and (D) active alone, in about this order.

With this, and with only a little deliberate effort, the children will naturally enough learn about emotions, language, communications with others, how to interact with others, and much more.

In one word, it's called motherhood.

Do I understand motherhood? Nope. Neither does anyone else, even including the mothers themselves. So, no one knows how to replace motherhood.

To replace motherhood, we need new laws from Congress, new Federal funding, lots of achievement tests and numerical measures, researchers in child development, educational theorists, educators with special training in pre- school, kindergarten, pre-school, No Child Left Behind, Common Core, some AI robots with life-like plastic skin? Nope!

</comment><comment><USER6> _It's illegal not to educate a child, so our control group will be hard to find. But perhaps the best bet will be the "unschooling" movement, a group of parents who think school is oppressive and damaging. They tell the government they're home-schooling their children but actually just let them do whatever they want. They may teach their kid something if the child wants to be taught, otherwise they will leave them pretty much alone._

 _And this is really hard to study, because they're a highly self-selected group and there aren't very many of them. The only study I could find on the movement only had n = 12, and although it tried as hard as it could to compare them to schoolchildren matched for race and family income level and parent education and all that good stuff I'm sure there's some weirdness that slipped through the cracks. Still, it's all we've got._

 _So, do these children do worse than their peers at public school?_

 _Yes, they do._

 _By one grade level._

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a- graduation-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation- speech/)

</comment><comment><USER35> I have one child in preschool and another that just entered second grade. They go to a progressive school that focuses on inquiry based learning, and the most important metric is that they seem engaged and enthusiastic about school every day.

The bigger picture is that not every kid is the same, and that's shaped by the child and also the parents. Our parenting style is a combination of firmness around core behaviors coupled with plenty of freedom beyond that.

It's obvious when interacting with other kids and parents that other people have very different styles. Some of the other things other kids do, like behaving crazily at the dinner table, we would shut down immediately. Other things, like putting their 2nd graders into "Kumon," a kind of cram school with lots of busy-worksheets, we avoid. Check out the messaging and branding here to get some idea: [https://www.kumon.com/](https://www.kumon.com/). Apparently on the first day of Kumon they show kids the logo and tell them that the kid isn't smiling because learning is not fun, it is supposed to be hard work. I found it horrifying that parents felt the need to push their kids into that kind of environment to "keep up".

On the other hand, the progressive school is definitely touchy-feely and there's a sense that there's less structured learning. Fortunately it seems there's a balanced approach as they get into higher grades where progressive units of inquiry are augmented with some book learning. It takes an act of faith to believe that this will ultimately pay off - that they are not "wasting their time" just playing all day. Who wants to gamble with their kid's future?

Outside of school, we try to think "anticipate and encourage" not "force feed".

For example, when we visited friends and our son always gravitated towards playing with the piano, we got him a keyboard and let him play with it at home. Soon enough he was asking "why don't I have a piano teacher?". So we got him one. He generally likes it, and practices largely on his own with just a few reminders.

On the other hand, we took him to play soccer and after two games where he refused to step foot on the green, he insisted "I don't like any games with balls. Except dodgeball." So we didn't force it, but we did have him go to martial arts, which he enjoys. Maybe we'll have him try out socceer or baseball in the future - but only if he shows an interest.

The same goes for reading. We put lots of books in the house and also spend our own time reading physical books, so they can see us. They get curious what we're doing when we're not paying attention to them. While they aren't as advanced as some of the other kids in class, they are enjoying reading every time they pick up a book. And that's all we want.

</comment><comment><USER36> About time North America adapted to this new reality: Kids in Countries like Pakistan (and I reckon in China and India) as young as 3 year old are being pushed into learning reading/writing and from age of 4 onwards, they are learning basic arithmetic.

If we North Americans want to compete with them, we have train for it accordingly.

<comment><USER37> If we want to adopt the Chinese and Indian methods of academic success, we should start teaching 4 year olds how to plagiarize--your average Chinese 7th grader is copying work at a level surpassing even a 12th grade American child!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Counterpoint: why do we insist that children and learning be so customized? Are we _really_ that different from one another?

Shouldn't we be demanding at least a certain amount of uniformity in our society to ensure we _are_ a society?</comment>


Bolt Riley - Co-designed by Quest for Glory creators - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soundguy/bolt-riley-a-reggae-adventure-game Check out Bolt Riley, the Kickstarter I launched a few days ago. http://bolt-riley.com/
It's a 2D point and click adventure game I designed myself along with legendary game designers Corey and Lori Cole who made Quest for Glory. It tells the story of the greatest Reggae musician that ever lived and deals with many important subjects like dealing with racism, bullying and oppression, it has themes of peace, love, and friendship. (And Reggae music) I've been pouring my life into this game since 2011.
I'm sure you're going to love it.
Oded <comment><USER2> The first Quest for Glory is a fantastic game. You can still buy them on GOG - [http://www.gog.com/game/quest_for_glory](http://www.gog.com/game/quest_for_glory)

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. If Watch the video, you can see one in the background. recognize which one?</comment></comment>


Supreme Court to hear arguments in case of student who resold books - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/26/justice/court-student-copyright/index.html?hpt=hp_t4 <comment><USER2> Whichever way they rule it is going to be interesting.

If they bless the sales, it legitimizes what is already a very active global gray market.

If they condemn the sales, they strike down the first sale doctrine and it is a massive blow to fundamental property rights. As commenters have already pointed out earlier this year regarding this case, since most electronic goods are made overseas, it would be officially illegal to resell them without permission. Criminalizing the resale of foreign made goods that contain an IP component. It would also provide a massive benefit to moving manufacturing of every kind overseas to obtain this special new protection.

<comment><USER3> > electronic goods

But this case is apparently about copyright, and hardware isn't usually subject to copyright. Though I suppose firmware, etc. might be.

Of course, I think it's ludicrous that anyone could be guilty of a copyright violation without having, by any imaginable definition, _made a copy_ of anything.

<comment><USER4> Copyright law governs both the creation of copies, and their distribution. This pairing is one of the law's longest-standing and must basic features. It's also the root of the conflict in this case.

<comment><USER5> > Copyright law governs both the creation of copies, and their distribution.

This is an interesting idea that I haven't heard before. In what ways has copyright law governed the distribution of objects when no copying is involved?

<comment><USER4> "This DVD is licensed only for private, non-commercial use."

That's backed up by copyright law. If you build a theater, charge people to enter, and program runs of classic movies, you will get sued for violating the commercial-distribution aspects of copyright law, even if you bought the DVD you were charging others to see.

<comment><USER5> "you will get sued for violating the commercial-distribution aspects of copyright law"

I think that's incorrect. I think this would be infringement due to it being considered a public performance, not commercial distribution. As the copyright act says, "A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication."

The MPAA also describes the situation as a public performance issue:

<http://www.mpaa.org/contentprotection/public-performance-law>

Do you know of any cases where a public performance was prosecuted as a commercial distribution case?

<comment><USER4> I'm a producer, not a lawyer, so I can't quote you legal chapter and verse. But as your own link makes clear

"But suppose you took the same movie or TV episode and showed it to patrons at a club or bar that you happen to manage. In that case, you have infringed the copyright in the video work."

Whether a public performance constitutes legal publication is, of course, a separate issue. The point I was making is that copyright law governs both duplication and distribution, not duplication only.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Wiley, _with the Justice Department in support_ , dismiss those scenarios, and say Congress would be in a position to ensure libraries in particular do not suffer from any high court ruling against them."

It's strange that the Justice Department would have a reason to have an opinion in this court case at all. And why would our executive branch be siding with the publishing business and against the average citizen on this case?

<comment><USER7> Why do you find it strange that the department in charge of enforcement of the laws of the United States would have an opinion on a case concerning the interpretation of one of those laws?

<comment><USER8> Because interpretation is a matter for the judiciary particularly, and a matter of policy to the rest of the department.

<comment><USER9> That's not always true. For instance, the US Code refers to the US Copyright Office for judgements about fair use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Economics 101: If your goods cost $C to produce, and person A will buy them for $C + $5, and person B will buy them for $C + $8, you will sell two copies at $C + $5 for a maximum profit of $10. (If you try raising your prices above this point, you'll make less because your sales volume will go down due to B leaving the market.)

But if you can price-discriminate -- figure out how much each customer is willing (or able) to pay and charge exactly that much -- you can set A's price at $C + $8 and set B's price at $C + $5 and make $13 instead.

The publisher's doing exactly this sort of price discrimination: American customers are much wealthier than Thai customers, and willing/able to pay more, so they charge more.

The crucial point of this analysis, however, is that _the seller is still able to make a profit at the lower price level_ ; it's just a smaller profit.

So a ruling against the publisher won't greatly harm them; they'll still be able to profitably sell their books. However, a ruling in favor of the publisher will make it much more complicated for people to determine the restrictions in effect on their property, make their books available to fewer people, and generally stifle economic activity.

<comment><USER11> Books don't cost $C/book to produce, they additionally cost $X to research, write, market, etc. And $X is much much larger than $C.

So to take your example, assuming X=12 and C=1, if I sell my books for $6 and $9, respectively, I make $1 profit, but if I'm forced to sell them both at $6 I lose $2.

Price discrimination is often a Good Thing, on balance. The takeaway from allowing price discrimination isn't (mainly) that Americans get gouged, it's that Thai students get access to textbooks they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford.

<comment><USER12> There are two sides to it: the Thai student gets the book at a lower price, and the US student gets it at a higher price, and the two may not balance out. In your example, a publisher might sell 2M copies of that X=12M book, 1M for $6 each in Thailand and 1M in the US for $100 each, making a huge margin of (106-12)/12=785%.

In a free market competition should decrease that margin. However, the markets for books isn't entirely a free one. For many books, competitors cannot make close enough clones to actually compete (Harry Potter and fifty shades of grey inspired 'clones' aren't really clones; a physics textbook may have the same content, but it cannot have the exact same presentation order, questions, etc)

The publishers argue that will be offset by other books that also cost them X=12M of which they sell, say, 10K in Thailand for $6 and 10K in the US for $100 at a huge loss. There probably is truth in that, but should one try and enforce that through regulation? If so, how? Prescribe that publishers can make at most x% on every dollar they spend at a printer every year? That would likely make them find more expensive printers for their US wares.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Any idea why this is in USA courts?

Surely the sale occurred in another country and the terms and condition of that sale are dictated in that country?

The transfer of ownership happened in the original country. If that breached the law it happened in the other country.

If Ownership of a book is a property that survives crossing international boundaries (that is it is not seized by the state) and ownership in that nation confers certain rights then so be it.

Don't sell something if you still want to own it. Don't give something to someone if you still want to keep it.

<comment><USER14> There's two sales which occur,the original purchase of the book which happens overseas, there's no dispute here.

The book is then resold in the US from a "distributor" in the US to US customers, thats why this becomes a US issue. Its the secondary sale which is questionable.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for that - I think I kind of get it.

And the second sale is questionable because of a limitation of the first sale?

<comment><USER15> There's a difference between personal first-sale and wholesale distribution. It sucks that information - There's no value in the paper, just the printing on it - can cost different amounts in different areas, but it's fairly easy to differentiate between "I bought 1-3 copies of this book in my home country, moved here, and brought them with me" and "I had my parents ship crates of books from my home country, which I resold at a profit". The gray area will remain "I personally bought something from foreign land, even though I do not reside there".

<comment><USER10> > There's a difference between personal first-sale and wholesale distribution.

I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know, legally, there isn't, and shouldn't be. You should be able to build a business or nonprofit to give away, sell or lend secondhand games, books, CD's, videos, etc.

<comment><USER16> I'm sure almost every manufacturer who wishes to remain in business would strongly disagree with you. Many have spent decades and millions of dollars building & supporting their sales channels.

The assertion that people should be able to do whatever they want with products on a scale large enough to damage a manufacturer's business is flawed. I propose that you to start and grow a manufacturing company and tell me if your perspective changes.

*Disclaimer, I work with manufacturers to solve these types of issues.

<comment><USER17> I'm sorry, but that's not an argument, that's just bias. In principle everyone is against policies that are damaging to one's life, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily bad.

<comment><USER16> It's an argument and a bias. I clearly stated the context of my relationship with manufacturers for a reason. There is plenty of evidence that shows the negative effects of gray markets on manufacturers. The long-term macroeconomic effects that these types of issues have on manufacturers can be devastating.

> In principle everyone is against policies that are damaging to one's life, > but that doesn't mean they're necessarily bad.

No doubt. But regulations exist in society for a reason...

<comment><USER17> _There is plenty of evidence that shows the negative effects of gray markets on manufacturers. The long-term macroeconomic effects that these types of issues have on manufacturers can be devastating._

Negative effects may or may not be compensated by the benefits accrued by consumers. Can you point me to the evidence that suggests that it would be devastating?

 _No doubt. But regulations exist in society for a reason..._

Sure; whether this specific one actually solves the problem -and without causing bigger ones- is a different matter, though. Losing first-sales rights seems a rather important problem to me.

<comment><USER16> I'm not advocating the repeal of the First-sale doctrine. It's the abuse of the doctrine that is troublesome. The doctrine should protect non-commercial isolated sales of goods by consumers. But when the sales transition into a larger scale business is when the problems only begin.

Gray markets can be devastating in an economic capacity (revenue, profitability, brand equity, sales channels, consumer satisfaction, warranty costs, r&d) and in a social capacity (consumer safety, environmental costs, tax revenue, organized crime)

Below is a very small sample of the negative impacts of gray markets:

[http://www.kpmg.com.hk/en/virtual_library/Information_Commun...](http://www.kpmg.com.hk/en/virtual_library/Information_Communications_Entertainment/The_grey_market0302.pdf)

Osawa & Co. v. B&H Photo

United States v. Hill

Fagan v. AmerisourceBergen Gorp.

Lynn v. Serono Inc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seems that corporations want to profit from globalization but they want to forbid private entities to do so. Kind of unfair, whatever the outcome of the court ruling will be.

The only control they might have is to produce completely different texts for each country - but to profit on global scale this would be inefficient. So they resort to lawyers and tarnishing of their name.

</comment><comment><USER19> This case is about what happens in the analog world; the interesting thing will be what unintended consequences obtain for the digital world based on this decision. The "law" in this situation is far from clear, and what will happen is that because of the size of the U.S. market, the international consequences of this decision will be severe. It will be interesting to see if any other country files, or attempts to file, an amicus brief.

</comment><comment><USER20> One thing most people haven't picked up on is how the 'terms' of the first sale typically include that the textbook can't be imported into the US without prior consent.

That could mean a way out without actually solving anything - ruling it an illegal importation or something similar. That would mean the problem would be when he imported the book, not when he resold it.

<comment><USER10> I believe that such sale conditions aren't binding in the US, except for software licenses. At the dawn of the recording era in the early 1900's, the music industry -- surprisingly similar to today -- tried printing on each record, "Not to be resold for less than five cents" or something similar. And this was struck down by the court system.</comment></comment>


Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime in California - <AUTHOR> http://www.nonexempt.org/california-exemptions/computer-software-engineers

<comment><AUTHOR> I make under $79,050, so I am not-exempt from overtime.</comment>


Ask HN: Where are we now with eye tracking? - <AUTHOR> Thanks to Windows Hello now many laptops basically pack a Kinect, infrared etc. I am wondering whether eye tracking using this hardware could be used to replace the mouse. <comment><USER2> I don't know about replace but most likely supplement.

I for one wouldn't want to be blinking at my computer all time. I imagine this would also be a boon for pop up ads as they could steal your focus right as you were about to blink or whatever, causing you to open an ad or take some other action you wouldn't want. But having UI elements appear when you want to see them and then disappear once you look away would be neat.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you about supplementing mouse with eye tracking. But I guess we will see something combining eye tracking and speech recognition.

For instance: If I am looking at an specific stock chart I could ask the computer to place an order. In this case eye tracking and voice would be used to match the kind of stock I want to trade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was actually working on a Deep Learning approach to this, using only a webcam. As a dev, I hate lifting my hands from the keyboard to use the mouse. Started working at a different startup, so it's a bit on the back burner right now :(</comment>


How to Make View-Independent Program Models - <AUTHOR> http://westoncb.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-to-make-view-independent-program.html <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I had a simple, generic idea for a way of structuring code editors that doesn't require parsing (even though the appearance can still be 100% text), and I've been trying to get feedback from folks who know more than myself on the limitations it might have which I don't see yet, before I go ahead and spend a ton of time building an instance of it.

I'd be happy to answer any questions and to hear your analyses!

Edit: also, if you are very familiar with this domain already, you can probably just look at the series of images depicting this scheme for constructing program models (as well as the sample program model '(2 2 0 1 3 0 0 3)'—and that will probably be sufficient.

<comment><USER2> Smalltalk in General and Scratch in particular take several steps in the same direction. There are clear advantages to not having to deal with the impedance mismatch, same as for dropping SQL and using database primitives. Depending on implementation choices (serialization format etc) you're trading more or less interoperability to get there.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think of Leanpub, Softcover, etc? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on a short technical book at the moment and I'm having a hard time picking the perfect approach to take.
Leanpub is one of the easiest to get started with.
Softcover provides a better interface for readers (and a lot of nifty features specifically for technical books).
But I'm also half-tempted to just go solo, publish the thing online for free and sell access to the PDF/screencasts via Gumroad.
Would love to hear people's opinions about the best way to go both in terms of the best way of writing, the best experience for readers, and also financial results — does being on Leanpub actually put you in front of a sizeable, willing-to-buy audience? Or do you still need to still give your book that initial marketing push?
Thanks.
:) <comment><USER2> For your sake, I hope this submission generates some discussion from people who know (I don't know but it would be interesting to read).

If not, HN Search (from algolia.com) should really be able to help you find both previous discussions and fellow authors who you might want to contact:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ebook](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ebook)

There are a lot of "How I made $X with my ebook" submissions as well as other interesting ebook related stuff. I don't have the answers for you but that's how I'd try to find them. Good Luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've had good results with Gumroad. They make it a lot of fun to use!

I think it's fair to say on any platform you'll need to give it the same marketing push.

Why not compare prices for each based on different levels of sales.

You could use something like [http://standtomake.com](http://standtomake.com) and get an idea of revenue numbers.</comment>


Show HN: Picture-driven web testing (~like Sikuli and Selenium inside the browser) - <AUTHOR> https://a9t9.com <comment><USER2> How resilient is this to an ever changing Web application?

Typically the maintenance of our selenium tests require upwards of triple the effort to create the page object model foe the application.

This looks like a solution that allows my team members with less programming skills to contribute to the Web automation effort.

<comment><USER3> I am using Sikuli extensively for UI and web test automation and think the image based approach is the future for test automation. In my next project, I will give the Kantu browser a try, the ability to run many tests at once would be a big help for us.</comment></comment>


New magnetic tape stores 220 terabytes in handheld cartridge - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmag.com/ibm-tape-storage-record/36931/

<comment><USER2> And it 6 months when you need to read a critical item from that tape it will be totally corrupt...</comment>


The Economics of Mad Max and Star Trek - <AUTHOR> https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/the-economics-of-mad-max-and-star-trek <comment><USER2> >Imagine a machine that creates gourmet meals out of thin air. It is solar powered, _cheap to use_ , can be manufactured for less than a plasma screen TV. ... Every restaurant in the world goes out of business. Chefs, waitresses, and dishwashers lose their jobs. The marginal cost of manufacturing goods falls to nearly zero, but if the technology for such a machine remains proprietary, then the replicator's food is only as free as its designer decides. Our Silicon Valley whizkid, free of competition, _charges as much for the food we now make in our kitchens as we might've once paid in a five star restaurant._

If the machine costs as much as a five star restaurant per meal then why the fuck did the all the restaurants in the world go out of business‽

Furthermore why are we assuming that no other company on Earth will think the food market might be profitable? Even if a design is propriety that doesn't prevent independent invention.

<comment><USER3> That bit also caught my eye, yet I think the point stills hold true given the following constraints.

Even though this food synthesiser is incredibly cheap to produce it needs some sort of source of molecules to produce its goods, think of it as a cartridge.

In the beginning to attain a sizeable market share the cartridge cost can be amortised. Once the goal is achieved the company can sell it for whatever it wants.

It's true that other companies could see an opportunity there, and develop competing synthesisers. But, they could be easily driven out of the market by legal costs when the original company uses its enormous corpus of meaningless patents to sue them.

These constraints can be seen today at play with devastating results for innovators and consumers.

<comment><USER4> TFA's scary scenario assumes a number of things that just aren't, and empirically won't be, true.

In no industry, ever, has an inventor with however many patents succeeded in permanently keeping substitutions away for more than a very short period of time. You mention cartridges with brings to mind famously uncompetitive coffee and printer toner parallels.

Yet, there is a rich market for third party toner cartridges that the incumbents has totally failed to shut down, and there's a rich market for different brands of printers, which even in the face of uncompetitive cartridges caps the price any one manufacturer can charge. Despite the popularity of printers, HP is NOT a healthy company.

Pretty much the same thing is true for the capsule-coffee-market. There are a ton of different kinds of cartridge/pad/pod/foo systems, and again, it's trivial to find third-party capsules. On top of that, the capsule-coffee- market is under pressure from the non-capsule coffee market: If you feel ripped off by capsules, you have a good number of options to brew beans direct.

The same thing will happen with the magic food machine - _people will just cook regular meals_. Sure, the 5 star restaurant experience might be hurt , and that's a real shame, but it's not like a silicon valley whizkid can just charge $INF because otherwise humanity starves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The only people who believe in infinite growth in a finite world are madmen and economists". Kenneth Boulding

I think the Max Max scenario is far more plausible.

"There is No Steady State Economy (except at a very basic level)" [http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady- stat...](http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-state- economy-except-at-a-very-basic-level/)

Limits to Growth–At our doorstep, but not recognized [http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-02-12/limits-to- growt...](http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-02-12/limits-to-growth-at- our-doorstep-but-not-recognized)

Wealth And Energy Consumption Are Inseparable [http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and- energy-...](http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and-energy- consumption-are-inseparable.html)

Galactic-Scale Energy [http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic- scale-e...](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale- energy/)

</comment><comment><USER4> The author doesn't even seem to agree with himself.

This line:

> "We have never yet failed to become richer; as a species, our lives have > always gotten better. You wouldn't know it from the headlines, but Greece > today is more affluent than the Germany of 1974. Even the least among us own > technology that would have been science fiction just a dozen years ago. Our > ancestors would be amazed at the splendor of our lives, and by this I mean > our grandparents, not cavemen."

is directly at odds with this:

> "What if the benefits of productivity gains are monopolized by the top one > percent, as they largely have been for most of the past 30 years?"

If the benefits had been large monopolised by the 1%, Germany in 1974 would be substantially the same (for the 99%, that is) as today, and there would be little splendor for our grandparents to be amazed at.

Sure, some amount of wealth seems to have accumulated at the top, and that's generally undesirable, but the fact that there has been huge leaps in quality of life _for all_ is so blatantly obvious that the author, despite trying to drive the opposite point, (accidentally?) uses it as a throwaway rhetorical device.

</comment><comment><USER5> Quote from the article : "There is a third option. It is likely and it is ugly.

Even a technological wonderland can create a pernicious society. Technological progress can create dystopia even if ecological disaster is avoided. What if the benefits of productivity gains are monopolized by the top one percent, as they largely have been for most of the past 30 years? This is the world of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, a terrifying, but familiar world of gated communities and genetic engineering, with generalized poverty for everyone outside the corporate elite."

That is an interesting idea but not likely to happen in the long run, but maybe during an intermediate state. Taking historic events as an indicator, the "upper 1%" see little incentive to try to prevent a coming collapse. It is not their children not getting jobs, only the children of the other 99% are not getting jobs and not getting opportunities. So the disaster will grow slowly through all ranks. The "top 1%" will fall last, but fall they will.

"Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies" [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615)

<comment><USER5> From the article I quoted: "In scenario 5.3.2, with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites. It is important to note that in both of these scenarios, the Elites – due to their wealth – do not suffer the detrimental effects of the environmental collapse untilmuch later than the Commoners. This buffer of wealth allows Elites to continue "business as usual" despite the impending catastrophe. It is likely that this is an important mechanism that would help explain howhistorical collapseswere allowed to occur by eliteswho appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases). This buffer effect is further reinforced by the long, apparently sustainable trajectory prior to the beginning of the collapse. While somemembers of societymight raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory "so far" in support of doing nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a world as depicted in Mad Max, people would probably choose to live in the mountains and near rivers, not in the middle of the desert.

<comment><USER2> Did you watch the latest movie? It is heavily implied that the rivers had all dried up or were poisoned. The people lived near an under ground aquifer controlled by the local warlord Immortal Joe.

<comment><USER7> I did not see the movie. But without rivers the mountains would still be a better option then ground level land: cooler and rainy because of the height.

<comment> saiya-jin well, movie (heck, all MM movies took place in Australia, which is anything but mountainous land.

and it goes on - if rivers are poisoned, rain is some sort of hardcore acid pouring down. you actually want to avoid that as much as possible. so no, even for people that would be able to travel far, mountains might be a worse choice. plus, they are so deep into apocalypse, that they don't know geography beyond what they can reach by cars

<comment><USER8> We have mountains in Australia, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this is a poorly written essay that has all sorts of interesting things to say. I say that because I feel about half the comments here seem to miss the point and are focusing on nitpicks.

I wish he had looked at the hamburger making machine that was being developed rather than "a machine that makes gourmet meals". When talking of that concept to friends and family, I realized for many people that caused them to think of the plight of minimum wage workers, and I literally found out who of my friends and family had Luddite reactions to that and argued they shouldn't be built and shouldn't be legal if they were to be, just for the sake of preserving jobs.

I also wish he spoke to the current state of music and/or video. We literally are in the Star Trek universe with music and video. I can open my computer and find enough music and movies that I couldn't watch or listen to them all in my lifetime. We can imagine a button on our stove that you could press (or voice activate) and it would duplicate an apple for you. Meanwhile we literally have a machine that will duplicate music for you, at near zero cost, and we've had many people do all sorts of things to restrict usage of them. The head of the MPAA compared the video cassette recorder to the Boston Strangler in terms of how much it would destroy society.

There have been many economists who have argued that people will find always find new jobs. After all, there is always something more to do, or at least at jobs I've worked at, although not always money or will to hire more people to do more stuff.

It might be worth exploring the ideas if those economists are wrong and we do end up in a world where you can have a computer make you a hot earl grey tea from nothingness, but few people can afford it, when the hardware is completely locked up under patent laws and the inventors insist on being compensated for creating such an impressive thing.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's so strange. First the article explains in Star Trek land most people don't need to work and don't need to buy things because production is essentially free. But in the end he argues that making production more and more free people won't be able to afford to buy them. What about the not buying part?

<comment><USER11> Because we have the wrong social structure. Humanity is sufficiently advanced that our problems are basically solved problems. But our methods of organization keep us from applying the solutions, except under heavy constraints.

For example, we could have access to every book and video ever published. The history of human thought. And creators could be compensated. But our systems do not allow this.

Underneath it all is violence; attempt to act as if it weren't the case. Openly share books and movies you've experienced. An armed bureaucrat will come after you.

<comment><USER12> If/when production is free you don't even need to compensate the creators. They can get whatever they want, like any other guy, and they'll create only when they feel like it and not (say) once per year to pay bills and buy stuff.

However there are goods that are scarce by definition. Example: that house on the beach you've been dreaming of. Even if you don't mind getting a different one (maybe in a different place) there will be only a finite number of houses on the beach all over the world. So, even in that kind of society we'll need something similar to money to get access to scarce goods. Hopefully that will be linked to the value or the social stand of a person. We almost always measured that as price times the number of sold items but there are zillions of other possible metrics, especially if the price is zero. It could be who has the biggest free gun but that's undesirable, so probably some form of police will be necessary.

<comment> norea-armozel "If/when production is free you don't even need to compensate the creators. They can get whatever they want, like any other guy, and they'll create only when they feel like it and not (say) once per year to pay bills and buy stuff."

If history is a guide, I'll say that the inventors themselves won't want to share with you or I. They want to be compensated in some fashion for their inventions. Be it money or power, they'll demand control of our use of their creations. So, I can see how an inventor in our current social structure would become like Immorten(sp?) Joe but without the nuclear wasteland.

<comment><USER12> The real answer is we wait and see but my belief is that with prices falling to zero the greedy kind of person is going to be at a disadvantage. Probably there is a threshold. If there is need of very little money then enough good content will be made available for free because authors will keep creating no matter what and there will be little money to pay them anyway. Then the ones who insist getting more than claps or a legion of followers (that's power) will get less and less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > What ecological pessimists forget is that so far scientists have always been > able to stay ahead of resource scarcity. They have always found better, less > toxic replacements for what we've lost.

Wrong. Very wrong. Humanity has been living over carrying capacity since the beginning of time. We _always_ produce more offspring than what the environment/society can sustain. It is only recently (last 50 years?) and in a very limited area (first-world) that we are living below carrying capacity (of that region). The world as a whole is very much living above carrying capacity.

And no, it does not matter that we are "wasting food" in the first world. For all intent and purposes, that food is not available to the rest of the world.

Until we are able to first feed and then procreate, keeping the demographic curve well behind the food production curve, we are doomed. But that will never happen: as soon as scarcity is not an issue, we tend to reproduce like rabbits.

We are very much a virus.

<comment><USER14> This makes no sense. The evidence (we still survive and population keeps growing) suggests that we a living well within the carrying capacity of the earth. Technology, invention, social adaptation all help to increase that carrying capacity, making more efficient use of available resources. That may not continue indefinitely, but also population growth may not continue indefinitely. We are not a virus.

<comment><USER15> There have been occurences mass starvation throughout history, so human ingenuity does not always find a way out. I think many Irish people live in the US today because of one of those starvation events not that long ago.

Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" lists several civilizations that only went down after hundreds of years, sometimes thousands.

Our current practices are in effect for less than 100 years, so we really have no idea yet how it will all play out.

Currently we reap the rewards of the "green revolution", but that is not a sustainable way of farming - it depends on extra energy sources. So we don't know how that will play out in the long run, either.

Meanwhile, as you know, world population has exploded. So if our current way of producing food might turn out to be unsustainable, even more people could die.

<comment><USER8> > Currently we reap the rewards of the "green revolution", but that is not a > sustainable way of farming - it depends on extra energy sources. [...]

If we were ever to hurt for cheap energy really badly, we could just opt for nuclear. At the moment politics prevents nuclear, but that's not an immutable fact of physics.

<comment><USER13> The balancing act that we have to pull whenever free energy (in the form of petrol) starts to show signs of depletion will have to be played not at the pre-industrial 1000 million people level, but at the current 8000 million. That is a very difficult act to pull - specially without the jackpot that petrol has meant for humankind.

Can you make the transition to nuclear or to another energy source? Maybe, but that's far from sure. We do not even know if nuclear (or any other energy source) is a good enough substitute for petrol at the global level, not even clear that it is an energy source (it has a much lower eroei than petrol, maybe even negative if you account for disposal costs).

Maybe everything plays out well and in some decades we are flying our tesla- jets with rechargeable batteries powered by clean australian uranium, but that seems far-fetched. And even then we might have not yet solved the demographics problem, meaning it has just been kicked down the road for another while.

<comment><USER8> Nuclear has ridiculously high eroei, if you ignore one-time capital costs to build the reactor. The capital costs to build the reactor are high at the moment, but they don't have to be. (Mostly political reasons.)

> Maybe everything plays out well and in some decades we are flying our tesla- > jets with rechargeable batteries powered by clean australian uranium, but > that seems far-fetched.

We can invest (nuclear) energy to make artificial petroleum, if that turns out to be the most energy-dense battery.

> And even then we might have not yet solved the demographics problem, meaning > it has just been kicked down the road for another while.

You mean the problem that lots of rich countries are aging rapidly? Population growth has pretty much ceased to be a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The economics of Mad Max echo those that followed the fall of the Roman > Empire. During the Dark Ages, precious resources became scarce, and men from > regions devastated by famine swarmed more prosperous lands.

Citation required.

<comment><USER16> No it isn't. I can't stand citation culture. My wife does courses as part of her Nursing practice and has to write papers full of citations in the modern style. You can't even say it was a sunny day without referencing an official weather report. The thing is, most of the references you see in books and articles are to sources no more authoritative than the one citing them. If you're dealing with research then yes, sources and standards of evidence are important, but in many cases it creates an illusion of authority.

This is an article on the Internet, not a historical thesis. If you doubt something it says, say so and say why you doubt it. If you think it's worth challenging, it should be worth some time checking for yourself or at least explaining why you doubt it. Just tossing two word over the fence is lazy and provocative without making any actual contribution to the conversation.

<comment><USER17> Sometimes I think it's worse even than that. As you say, providing a supporting citation gives a gloss of authority and acceptance, whether in an academic paper or on a chat forum. The reader should ideally appraise the cited source and decide if they agree. I doubt this happens in even 1% of cases.

Ideally I'd like to see citations that both support and disagree with the point being made. Then I could take a more balanced overview and decide my level of trust in the evidence.

However this would lead to a systematic review for every sentence written/read.

To my mind this is a major problem in the peer-review scientific process, and I don't know of a decent solution. This is where I'd like to see a really potent AI: systematic reviews.

<comment><USER18> Have a look at deepdive from Stanford.

[http://deepdive.stanford.edu/](http://deepdive.stanford.edu/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> saiya-jin the guy has some interesting points (hard to say valid ones since we are all just guessing how future will shape up), but constant mentioning of minimal guaranteed income as cure-it-all-for-our-bright-future is a bit too much to swallow (mentality of quite a few nations i know is, hand out anything, and you remove the only motivation for them do do anything positive or even neutral to society)

The last line of article says it all - Tom Streithorst has been a union member... - in my own personal experience, unions are plague, nothing to be proud of, but that's another topic altogether. This makes it automatically a left-wing-orientated article, which is OK by principle, but not in sync with my inner beliefs and all experiences in my whole life so far (and I've seen the world a bit here & there)

<comment><USER19> Unions are why we have the forty hour/five day work week.

Guaranteed income is probably the only sane way to move forward. Your description of "mentality of nations" make very little sense, and doesn't actually mesh with the many studies on what happens when you invest in people.

<comment> saiya-jin I don't have problem with concept of minimal income, likewise i don't have so many issues with theory of communism. It's this harsh reality we call life when these utopias fail so spectacularly, because of... so many things. World is fragmented, people have so vastly different mentalities and goals in life (if at all), and I cannot imagine one realistic way to enforce this globally. I am more interested into iterations striving for improvement of our lives, rather than massively under-planned revolutions which might look appealing at first glance.

And as for unions, another poster expressed it perfectly. The current political reality of them is pure shame, nothing I would ever, anywhere put into my signature as something to be proud of. So that tells you/me soemthign about author.

Btw, why unions left for example doctors out of that 40-hour work week? Or you think that having over-exhausted expert, who hadn't slept for a day or two, decide on your best treatment for some acute life threatening state, when you take your own medications, have your own allergies and set of other important conditions to consider?

<comment><USER19> Unions didn't "leave out" anyone. Doctors have a professional association, which as you point out isn't quite sane in what it allows in terms of overtime. But as a result becoming a doctor is a far more exclusive endeavor.

Doctors are also paid quite well, in large part because of that exclusivity.

Not trying to defend the worst of current union behavior, but even now unions are useful; thinking particularly about teachers' unions, which fight to get teachers decent pay. It doesn't work, unfortunately -- teachers are paid less than babysitters -- but they'd be paid even less without unions.

That said, teacher tenure is too well protected by unions; a teacher who is no longer trying should be able to be fired.

Not sure what a better alternative to union organization is. Probably workers earning equity in companies they join, as much as possible. And I'm not talking communism; there are companies today that practice this. But it could be that unions are like democracy: A terrible way to run things, but all the other options are worse.

<comment><USER20> _teachers are paid less than babysitters -- but they 'd be paid even less without unions._

Maybe in the median, but certainly not in the right tail. Lots of schools and their 'customers' are well aware of the value of great teachers, and freed from the 'fear' of being stuck with a bad tenured teachers combined with the competition to hire the best possible teachers will no doubt push their salary up.

The real down side I see is that once the salary gap between the best and worst teachers starts to widen, then the schools in poorer areas and with lower budgets won't have a chance to afford employing good teachers and will be stuck with the 'leftovers' to an even bigger degree than now.

<comment><USER19> Private schools that entirely lack unions (or protected tenure) actually have significantly lower teacher salaries than public schools, so your theory is incorrect. Add to that the fact that public schools in most states are terribly underfunded, and teacher salaries are pathetic across the board.

 _Administrator_ salaries, on the other hand, are often _way_ too high. A law (covering government-run public schools) that limited administrator salaries to 120% of the median teacher salary at that school would likely to more to raise teacher salaries than a union could, I think.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prophets of the Modern - <AUTHOR> https://isi.org/modern-age/prophets-of-the-modern/ <comment><USER2> I enjoyed this book review. Here is a passage,

'''

"The modernism Gabriel Josipovici advocates...a sort of artistic middle...way... One extreme his writing studiously avoids is...rote representation, or the notion that words correspond perfectly with numinous reality. [...] As Josipovici says of contemporary writers still laboring in the vein of nineteenth-century "naturalism," they confuse the reality-effect for reality. The end result is usually a doubling down on grittiness, as if exchanging love for lust or a whisper for a curse in the novel allows some fuller entry into the depths of life. [...]

At the other end of the spectrum, modernism seeks to avoid the jouissance of pure abstraction, a language game that denies the existence of transcendent truth altogether. [...] As clichéd as it might be to point out, this really amounts to a kind of nihilism dressed up in garish academic lingo. And morally defunct as a complete denial of transcendent truth might be, it also makes for boring art."

'''

This passage summarizes nicely the author's modernist ethos. It reminds me why film is fundamentally modernist at it's core--Show don't tell. With this reading two quotes leap out as movie criticism: 'confuse the reality-effect for reality', 'complete denial of transcendent truth...makes for boring art.' Makes me think of action movies with lots of guns, and movies with rambling scenes without an evident plot.</comment>


Ask HN: Trade your design skills for my technical skills? - <AUTHOR>

I am building a startup in Bangalore. I want some web UI design help with creating 4 reasonably simple screens. In return, I offer my time and technical skills.
I have designed and developed large and small scale distributed systems. I have worked on web based applications, unix systems in user land and in kernels and build & release systems. I can code in C, C++, java, javascript, python, and a little bit of erlang. I can help with algorithms, math, and even a little bit of SVMs. If there is something specific you want, just ask.
I want someone with skills in UI design, photoshop, html, and CSS to work with me for a week in Bangalore. We will develop 4 simple web pages that will work across all popular browsers. I think the pages are simple because none of the pages will have more than 5-6 UI elements.
So, does anyone or any startup want to trade skills for a week? Send me a email(in HN profile) and let us work out the details and logistics. <comment><USER2> I've done this before, but only when I knew the designer pretty well as there is a lot of trust that goes in to this type of arrangement.

"I have designed and developed large and small scale distributed systems. I have worked on web based applications, unix systems in user land and in kernels and build & release systems. I can code in C, C++, java, javascript, python, and a little bit of erlang. I can help with algorithms, math, and even a little bit of SVMs."

I would really love to talk to a designer that faces a problem in one of those areas!</comment>


eBaum's World Sells for $17.5 Million - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2007/08/02/ebaumsworld/

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I remember their office being vandalized and the war with another site (YTMND?). eBaum does have a lot of stolen content, but guess who got the last laugh?

</comment><comment><USER3> Good. I hope he retires and stops stealing other people's content now.

</comment><comment><USER4> eBaum's guy was the biggest thief on the internet :( Sad to see him rewarded.

<comment><USER5> Bigger than YouTube? ;-)</comment></comment>


Vine Launches Android Version, Forgets to Publish App - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.vine.android

<comment><USER2> > This app is compatible with all of your devices.

> Oops, we could not determine if this item is compatible with your device.

EDIT: Finally went through.

<comment><USER3> Got this exact same thing, tried it on the device (Nexus 4) play store, it lets me view the app, hit install, accept the permissions then says "The item that you were attempting to purchase could not be found" =/

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      >This app is incompatible with your T-Mobile Samsung SGH-T679.

<comment><USER5> <http://i.imgur.com/vVZfffX.png>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 18MB? Wow, what's in there?

<comment><USER7> Exactly what I was thinking, but Snapchat has arround 3.9 MB so I guess it's not that far appart? Maybe it has some HD graphics or it could be a PhoneGap app? Who knows, but for the size of it, I hope it makes my coffee in the morning :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I tried to watch a Vine but got bored half-way through.</comment>


TWRL - <AUTHOR> Would love feedback on our app. MVP launched, private chat app to share outfits, iphone only: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twrl/id1356736419 <comment><USER2> You can use the [https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show) category, just add 'Show HN' to the beginning of the submission title.</comment>


Raspberry Pi Now Shipping With RAM Upgraded To 512MB For The Same Price - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/15/raspberry-pi-mini-computer-now-shipping-with-ram-upgraded-to-512mb-from-256mb-same-tiny-35-price-tag

<comment><AUTHOR> Original news on HN from Raspberry blog: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4654251>

</comment><comment><USER2> that's great!</comment>


Currying in JavaScript ES6 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@adambene/currying-in-javascript-es6-540d2ad09400 <comment><USER2>
       //Translated to C
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #define CurriedMultiply(m) multiply(n,m)
       int multiply(int n,int m){return n*m;}
       int triple(int n){return CurriedMultiply(3);}
       int main(int argc,char**argv){
       printf("result:%d\n",triple(strtol(argv[1],NULL,10)));
       }

</comment><comment><USER3> Currying is also a means for adapting a function for memoization. I blogged about this a while back:

[https://taylodl.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/functional- javascri...](https://taylodl.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/functional-javascript- currying/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think any of these examples of "currying" are actually examples of currying.

<comment><USER5> Would you elaborate why you think so?

<comment><USER4> You should be able to curry any arbitrary function with an arbitrary number of arguments. Providing a value for the last argument should return the evaluated result of the curried function. If you're not using a JavaScript function's `.length` property to do currying, it's by definition not currying.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Angel List and fake profiles / investors - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
I recently added my startup on Angel List and I am getting pitches from some investors, which is all good.
However, those investors do not look very real. All of them (that contacted me so far), had a free email account (gmail, gmx or yahoo) and had some companies in their linkedin profiles / twitter profiles that do not look real. In a few of them it looks like a fake identity was created only to be used on Angel List.
Have you guys noticed it before?
Am I being too paranoid? <comment><USER2> How many followers do these said investors have on Twitter or connections in their linkedin profiles?

You should be able to find a decent amount of hits by simply googling their name and their respected companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> We did and they have few followers, few connections on them...

Should I post names here for people to take a look? I also noticed that thet were doing a bunch of introductions there.

<comment><USER3> Why don't you email me instead Tremt, and I will investigate. No point in launching a public witchhunt :-) I'm at naval at angel dot co.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> firstname.lastname@example.com if there are fake profiles, the team at angelist will want to know</comment>


Tesla introduces fee for owners who leave their cars at Supercharger stations - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/16/tesla-introduces-fee-for-lazy-owners-who-leave-their-cars-at-supercharger-stations/ <comment><USER2> Dupe.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13198752](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13198752)</comment>


Muster – A universal data layer for components and services - <AUTHOR> https://dwstech.github.io/muster/blog/2019/02/08/introducing-muster <comment><USER2> Relevant bit: This probably sounds similar to GraphQL, a wonderful tool for abstracting APIs behind a graph. Muster takes this a step further: by putting your operations in the graph, it gives you the power to apply functions to your data, filter and map it right back into a new node, ready to be used by your components.

</comment><comment><USER3> We're very happy to be releasing this to the open source community. Do check out the github repo for more - [https://github.com/dwstech/muster](https://github.com/dwstech/muster)</comment>