Apple to discontinue iPod Nano and Shuffle - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/40749706/apple-to-discontinue-ipod-nano-and-shuffle <comment><USER2> IMHO The iPod nano is more interesting to keep around than the iPod touch. The nano has a much more convenient form factor for things like the gym and exercise. I don't see why people would choose the touch over a low-end iPhone. It's basically the same device without cellular network capabilities.

Speaking of cellular network capabilities, I'm still amazed that Macbook Pros still don't have the option of adding a sim-card. I know I can tether to a phone or pocket wifi, but I don't understand why depending on another device is still the status quo.

<comment><USER3> > _I don 't see why people would choose the touch over a low-end iPhone. It's > basically the same device without cellular network capabilities._

Because it has no ongoing cost associated with it, like a cellular contract does. And it appears to be a _lot_ cheaper. The iPod Touch has the same CPU and GPU as the iPhone 6 (albeit a smaller display; it's 4" while iPhone 6 is 4.7"). An iPhone 6 starts at $549 (without financing). An iPod Touch with 128GB of storage is $299.

<comment><USER4> It's great for integrated/specialist apps that only communicate via wifi or something (i.e. Plane ticket scanners and hundreds of other applications). My bet is that iPod touches are for industry. I deploy on them in some instances, they are perfect for limited location use where you can bridge connectivity by a non cellular means

<comment><USER5> > My bet is that iPod touches are for industry.

My understanding is that they're for children, to help get them hooked into the ecosystem when they're young.

<comment><USER6> Maybe that was the case years ago, but I feel like now there's plenty of hand- me-down iPhones or iPads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sad. The Shuffle has been my best electronic device investment in terms of price/value. Solid and reliable with a neat design. Such a great product. Been washed out several times and using for 5 years still with its original battery.

</comment><comment><USER8> I personally hate that the Shuffle is dead. It was a prime example of a device that did one thing only and did it well. No love for minimalism these days, I suppose.

<comment><USER9> Apple Watch + Bluetooth headphones is the replacement.

<comment><USER10> I thought this required the iPhone to actually store and play the music?

If the watch itself can store it, hell I'll buy one today. Anything to avoid lugging the phone on a run.

<comment><USER11> You need an iPhone to activate and sync data to an Apple Watch, but the watch retains many capabilities when disconnected from the phone. It will pair with headphones, join wifi to fetch emails, and play music.

I use an Apple Watch Series 2 for running and cycling. The S2 has GPS, so Strava works without the iPhone. I love it, but I have two gripes:

1\. Only one playlist (up to 2GB) can be synced to the watch at any time. This is an annoying artificial limitation.

2\. The heart rate monitor can be spotty. Around 10% of the time, it picks up my cadence instead of my pulse. I've tried every possible combination of orientation and band tightness.

For exercise, I much prefer the watch to a phone + armband. It's less weight. It's far easier to glance at. And it's waterproof, so I don't have to worry about damage from rain or sweat.

If you're interested, you might want to wait before buying one. It's been almost a year since the last update. Apple will likely release new hardware before the holidays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ah, the last device to allow me to listen to terrestrial radio and MP3s without using data or my limited phone battery is now gone.

I know, who still does that? Well, actually many of us in the NYC area who listen to NPR in the morning... because the data drops out and our phone batteries are dead from the frantic early morning emails we all do.

Sure, we all love our spotify downloads and our podcasts, but the MP3s I've collected, and the simple OTA radio just worked, in many places were data didn't.

And I'm even sadder that they never went to digital or "HD" radio. Sometimes we think we are so clever with our streaming stuff, when we are literally suffering with a crummmy stream when we could just get it free OTA. Compressed, staticky, and annoying, sure, but free!

So RIP, my iPod friends. From hard drives to SSD, you faithfully carried books and music for me across the world and at every hour of the day, something I can't say of my phones, and you did it well.

<comment><USER13> This seems a little dramatic. I mean you can still choose from dozens of other mp3 players.

On the low end this is 14 bucks and seems to meet your needs: [http://www.tmart.com/8GB-MP3-Player-with-FM-Function- Red_p13...](http://www.tmart.com/8GB-MP3-Player-with-FM-Function- Red_p139437.html)

On the higher end the Sony Walkman is now an mp3 player: [https://www.sony.com/electronics/walkman-digital-music- playe...](https://www.sony.com/electronics/walkman-digital-music- players/t/walkman)

It's probably not worth Apple's time to focus on such a niche market, but there are still plenty of other players in the space.

<comment><USER14> _On the low end this is 14 bucks and seems to meet your needs_

FYI that is an S1, a design that has amazingly been in production for over a decade: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1_MP3_player](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1_MP3_player)

Seeing those brings back some good memories for me... and they're still being sold! I don't think any other chaep consumer electronics has remained in production for this long. They take a single (replaceable) AAA battery and don't require any special software, just USB mass storage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've always loved iPod with buttons. The color display ipod nanos (4th gen) and iPod classic was good as it got. They still had physical buttons but allowed you to see album covers.

It was a great balance.

The iPod touches, by comparison, are not as good. What took a second to do, now took at least 3 seconds to do because you have to swipe to get into the interface, open up the music app, and then change the song.

</comment><comment><USER16> Meanwhile, I just got something to switch my iPod Classic to flash storage, expanding the storage up to half a terabyte or so.

I got the largest capacity iPhone a year ago and I still have to manage space on it.

<comment><USER17> Probably my favorite project I've done in the past few years. I managed to snag a mint condition 5th generation iPod (later called "Classic") and put 4 x 128GB microSD cards in it, with an expanded battery. Perfect for flights. Once the price of 256gb cards goes down I'll make another to get close to 1TB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > I don't see why people would choose the touch over a low-end iPhone.

You can let children play with them without worrying they'll call emergency services.

</comment><comment><USER19> A couple of great products have now come to pass.

That said, the Nano and Shuffle no longer belong in the Apple ecosystem. An Apple Watch and a pair of AirPods replace them. Both totaling $428 USD minimum.

It's no wonder they discontinued the shuffle and nano. They're have a larger margin, and can boost sales of the apple watch in one fell swoop. Kind of a bummer but an interesting move.

<comment><USER20> The margins from streaming are probably even better.

[https://www.recode.net/2016/12/7/13864776/apple- spotify-60-m...](https://www.recode.net/2016/12/7/13864776/apple- spotify-60-million-subscribers-7-billion-revenue)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If they wanted to continue the iPod nano line, Apple should probably use watchOS. It's perfect for a device that size.

Basically such an iPod nano would be a vertically elongated Apple Watch with a scroll wheel instead of the "digital crown" (that tiny wheel on the side of the Watch), and a Lightning connector instead of wireless charging.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if this is a step toward killing iTunes. Now they no longer sell any devices that require syncing over USB.

<comment><USER23> Do you want to help me make a replacement?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's really nice to have a small, dedicated device that just plays music and does it well even if you're in an area with poor reception.

Luckily, there seems to be a viable replacement for a small fraction of the cost: [https://goo.gl/176cos](https://goo.gl/176cos).

</comment><comment><USER25> If they could figure out a way that doesn't take 5 hours to load music onto an Apple Watch, I'd consider one again (mainly so I can use Bluetooth headphones while running) over a shuffle (I understand the price difference).

Though ideally a sweat / water resistance Bluetooth iPod shuffle would be perfect.

</comment><comment><USER26> Fun fact, there is a very healthy after-market for the iPod shuffle among swimmers.

The device can be easily and robustly waterproofed and is small enough to clip to your goggles. I expect many of these 3rd party companies will be buying up remaining shuffle lots.

<comment><USER27> But what sort of earphones can you wear while swimming that don't fall out?

<comment><USER28> I think IEMs that have a waterproof shell would work. They create an air-tight seal with your ear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Shuffle was great for things like jogging and other outside activity (for those of us that don't care about Endomondo, and letting the whole world know that you jogged). Nano is much easier to let go.

</comment><comment><USER30> Discontinuing the Shuffle makes sense. But I'm surprised that they don't just update the Nano to support their current services. It does have a screen.

<comment><USER31> I would sooner buy a Shuffle than a Nano (I have neither). For the exercise use case, Shuffle is a third the weight of Nano, a third the price, smaller form factor and has a clip for your clothes. If all you want to do is shuffle your playlist while you run for an hour, it's perfect. I never understood the people who run with a half-pound smartphone strapped to their arm.

<comment><USER32> I'm guessing the apple watch is the replacement. It tracks cardio and can independently play music stored on it via bluetooth.

<comment><USER30> Ah, discontinuing the Nano because it competes with the watch _does_ seem likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> A cellular based iPod shuffle with Siri and the ability to tether with the Watch would be really great! Kinda like Apple's version of what Pebble's Core was going to be. It would be really cool to just leave the phone at home and take something really small to play Spotify while I run, and still have access to emergency calls.

</comment><comment><USER34> I loved the 6th get iPod Nano so much. Small, clips on you, has a screen and all of the goodies. Favorite iPod of all time.

This product change makes me wonder if they're considering a small player based on the Apple Watch. Similar form factor to the 6th get nano, clips on you, has most of the goodies of the Watch.

I can dream, I guess.

<comment><USER35> Me too. That iPod Nano was the first Apple product that I ever owned, and it was great. Actually a first product with a capacitive touch screen I had. It was so tiny and functional and worked so well, I remember those cool multi- touch rotations, distance tracking for running, awesome clip. It seemed to me like a miracle of engineering when it was released. Really magical experience for me to use it. I loved it so much that the next phone I bought had to be an iPhone.

These days I'm used to running with a phone because I like to use Spotify and GPS tracking. But it's so bulky and heavy. I miss the days of the Nano.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm still sore over the complete extinction of the gen-1 shuffle. Such a perfect design. So minimal, so clean. And it had its USB plug built in. Too beautiful to live.

<comment><USER14> The Chinese have been producing clones of those, and likely will continue doing so for the forseeable future. Here's one company I found from a quick search of "USB drive MP3 player":

[http://challengeusb.com/product.asp?classid=22](http://challengeusb.com/product.asp?classid=22)

(The bonus is that these don't require iTunes or other proprietary software --- they're standard USB drives.)

In fact this might be why Apple discontinued that model --- the underlying components and design have become so easy to replicate and also public-domain that Apple doesn't feel it provides any differentiation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The iPod Touch never made sense to me.

It is the same form factor as a phone. So why would anyone carry it instead of, or in addition to, their actual phone?

<comment><USER38> It has always been cheaper than an iPhone with equivalent storage. It's niche is use cases where you want a pocket computer, but don't need telephony functionality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The nano is great for the gym, small, and no worries about sweating my regular phone to an early death. Sad to see it go.

</comment><comment><USER40> Cannot beat the iPod shuffle for activities that include water, such as winter sports. RIP an amazing product.

<comment><USER23> RIPod.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I've noticed apple cutting under-performing products over the years to boost their stock price. It works but think it leads to a poorer ecosystem in the long run. A shame.

For example I was a big fan of their wifi express, and purchased several, but they have been dropped too. So one day I'll have to go back to a clunky linksys or belkin and their insecure attempts at ease of use.

<comment><USER42> > I've noticed apple cutting under-performing products over the years to boost > their stock price.

I suspect you're wrong about the motivation. Steve Jobs was ruthless about cutting products that under-performed and/or stretched resources in directions that he didn't feel were strategic.

And Steve Jobs didn't really care much about stock price.

Apple made wifi products when the available options mostly sucked. Now that there are some pretty interesting mesh products out there, and Apple would have to do a lot of development work to match them, I can understand why they've stopped active development. Opportunity cost is a very real thing.

I don't like it, but I don't for a minute believe it has anything to do with their stock price.

<comment><USER41> You don't believe for a minute that financial decisions have any weight? Their stock split of a few years back shows Jobs' unconventional financial ideas were only followed as long as he was around.

I don't know of any other tiny, strong, so easy to use access points with style like the express from a company with a known track record. Doesn't need any more features, maintenance could be done on a shoestring, guess that's too boring though.

<comment><USER42> And yes, financial decisions are financial. But to tie the decision to stop improving a minor product line to "we must appease Wall Street" is quite the stretch.

<comment><USER41> Growth has plateaued, how do you expect that financials are improving? Through cutting costs. If you don't believe it, well you don't know much about large corps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> In other news, Apple still sold the iPod Nano and Shuffle</comment>


Ask HN: Node.js or ASP.Net core - <AUTHOR> I'm going to try to get into web application development freelancing, and I'm trying to decide what new technology to learn. I have previous experience with Node.js, but I'm not very fond of the JS community nor the language itself. I've been wanting to get into C# for a while, but I'm not sure if the tooling and community is quite developed yet. <comment><USER2> > but I'm not very fond of the JS community nor the language itself. I've been > wanting to get into C# for a while, but I'm not sure if the tooling and > community is quite developed yet.

You got your answer, learn core

I'm not sure if asp.net core is production ready, I wouldn't use it right now for my projects and I also doubt ( someone correct me if this is wrong ) that established companies are looking for asp.net core devs, it might be quite hard to find freelancing jobs.

So it's probably a better idea to use node for freelancing.

Now combined, you actually don't like node, asp.net core is not production ready and companies are not using it (yet), what else could you do ? asp.net mvc, lots of jobs, solid mature framework and C#.

Edit: I also think that it won't be hard to switch from asp.net mvc to asp.net core.

<comment><USER3> > I'm not sure if asp.net core is production ready, I wouldn't use it right > now for my projects and I also doubt ( someone correct me if this is wrong ) > that established companies are looking for asp.net core devs, it might be > quite hard to find freelancing jobs.

I'd agree that major companies are probably not using .NET Core (aside from Microsoft I'd imagine). As far as it being production ready, I believe it's near or at that point. 1.0 shipped in June. My employer is starting the transition from .NET to .NET Core and we're pretty confident that it's ready. Having said that, we don't have anything currently in production so I don't really have much data to back up that statement.

<comment><USER2> > My employer is starting the transition from .NET to .NET Core and we're > pretty confident that it's ready.

What's the reason for the switch ?

For us ( the company where I work ) it would be very difficult to rewrite our applications to core, so we decided to only introduce core to new in-house projects.

<comment><USER3> > What's the reason for the switch ?

We're pushing for it primarily for cross-platform reasons. Currently our developers have the choice between MacBooks and Windows machines. .NET developers who choose MacBooks need to run Windows in a virtual machine which can be painful to do constantly. In addition, our application servers are currently Windows which means higher costs due to licensing.

We're moving to .NET Core and basically moving into the Docker ecosystem so that developers can run the operating system of their preference without requiring a virtual machine for development and so that we can use Docker containers on Linux hosts for running the services.

<comment><USER4> That's interesting. I wonder what Microsoft would think if more companies were doing that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The tooling and community for c# are very well developed. Remember, .net core is not a new language, just some minor restrictions on an existing, very successful one. If you're on windows, visual studio 2015 is just about the best ide anyone could hope for. If you're not, visual studio code is excellent, and getting better all the time.

If you already have experience with node then that's yet another reason to go with c#. Learn something new!

I like both languages, and I don't challenge the fact that JavaScript is dominating right now, but I have a feeling 2017 will see a .net core explosion. It's easier to code, better performing, multithreaded and you don't have to install a thousand packages to do simple things like you often do with node (I shudder every time I look in that node modules folder)

</comment><comment><USER6> The C# community is developed and mature, but that shouldn't really matter if it's just for learning purposes. I found that learning to code in a language like c#, Java etc. really made me a better programmer. Especially for understanding OOP (even though es6 has some kind of implementation of that now).

<comment><USER7> TypeScript is a lot better than pure ES6 since it has modifiers, accessors, abstract classes, interfaces, etc.

[http://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/classes.html](http://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/classes.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> C# is like 100x better than Javascript.</comment>


Tell HN: Freelancers -- Watch FU Pay Me by Mike Monteiro - <AUTHOR>

In reading the comments of "The Great Lie - Lorem Ipsum" in regards to the necessity writing copy for the web, a large chunk of the comments mentioned that clients are often late with copy, would often bad copy, and often would passive aggressively force the designer to write copy.
Context (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3013196)
Don't let this happen to you. These are contract and pricing issues. It's not OK to let a client push you around, force you to do copy if you don't want to, or pay you less than they should for a service.
A strong contract is in place to protect both parties from either scope creep or excessive charges. If there's a pain point in your day-to-day work cycle, put it in the contract and have the client compensate you for it.
The video "FU Pay Me" by Mike Monteiro of Mule Design explains this better than I can, and comes from the experience of 10 years in business.
You can find it here (http://www.doobybrain.com/2011/04/07/fuck-you-pay-me-mike-monteiro-on-how-to-get-clients-to-pay-you/). <comment><AUTHOR> Link here:

[http://www.doobybrain.com/2011/04/07/fuck-you-pay-me-mike- mo...](http://www.doobybrain.com/2011/04/07/fuck-you-pay-me-mike-monteiro-on- how-to-get-clients-to-pay-you/)</comment>


A Layoff in the Smith Family Ripples Through Town  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123319134864127065.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

<comment><USER2> This is something I just do not understand:

Mr. Smith had earned about $90,000 at Metrostudy. His wife, Kimberly, earns about the same at a retail marketing firm.

If the money in the checking account wasn't enough to cover it, well, that's what credit cards were for. They accumulated more than $25,000 in credit-card debt.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good article. One thing that struck me, though, was the nature of the jobs both workers in the Smith family had:

"Metrostudy, the housing market research firm where he worked as a staff consultant"

"His wife, Kimberly, earns about the same at a retail marketing firm"

In other words, they both had these kind of meta-jobs which don't actually do much of anything productive, just kind of massage the system. This kind of job just doesn't seem like it has much of a reason to exist long term, to me at least - they're both kind of dependent on trying to influence/predict imperfect markets. Well, those markets are rapidly becoming more perfect, information-wise anyway - we see the beginnings of this process in Amazon reviews.

Market research is important, don't get me wrong - even if (when?) advertising is completely ineffective, companies still need to know what customers want. But it just seems to me that in the long term, these kind of jobs are against the technological tide.

<comment><USER4> Job titles rarely delineate what the job actually entails. When I worked at the 2nd largest hotel chain, they only had 8 guys in market research and about 12 in database marketing. These 20 people determined what hotel customers wanted, what franchise owners wanted, how much cash to keep liquid for priority club reward points, which customers to contact during direct mail campaigns, and wielded technology & math like you wouldn't believe.

I never thought these marketing guys did anything productive either until I worked side by side with them. These guys eat & sleep statistics and dream of k-means clustering and p-values all day long. My boss coauthored a paper about lifetime value of an average hotel customer with a university professor. Sometimes it's hard to judge a marketing job title until you've actually experienced the real thing.

I was hired to automate their data scrubbing and SAS models. They had 3 full- time programmers to help marketing research with the 30 terabytes of customer data they had collected over the last 10 years or so.</comment></comment>


The global gag on free speech is tightening - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/international/2019/08/15/the-global-gag-on-free-speech-is-tightening <comment><USER2> Speaking of censorship, here's a full text of the article so you can actually read it:

[http://archive.is/27LV3](http://archive.is/27LV3)

</comment><comment><USER3> I always wonder why discussion about this issue does not state the obvious: the internet is the perfect tool for radicalization, even inadvertantly. This is why authoritarian governments control/limit access to the internet and why free countries see so much violence, conflict, and polarity that ironically appears to be curtailing free speech.

Theres a reason the information revolution is a "revolution". The days of typical mass media are over, and society is going to take a few years or decades to learn how to function smoothly again.

<comment><USER4> Because this conclusion is not only far from "obvious" it likely is not the case at all. The majority of the US population was internet connected by just after year 2000. 2/3rds by 2005. By comparison crime is at 50 year lows, and contrary to the public narrative the percent of the population that approves of immigration is at its highest levels [1]. We aren't seeing "so much violence", that's just counterfactual.

For the most part, I see allegations of internet radicalization coming from groups like traditional media and TV that have a conflict of interest with online platforms and have a vested interest in portraying them as harmful.

1\. [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/us/immigration-polls- dona...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/us/immigration-polls-donald- trump.html)

<comment><USER3> > contrary to the public narrative the percent of the population that approves > of immigration is at its highest levels

I'm not sure how that's relevant.

I can agree perhaps it's not as obvious to those who spend less time on the internet or in different circles, but here's some examples I've seen of internet radicalization:

\- Person sharing an image on Facebook that states it is your patriotic duty to shoot the Clintons on sight (shared after the Epstein suicide, not in 2016)

\- A Facebook group about train memes and urbanism became viral, and now every week there's an anti landlord thread where people repeatedly share images of guillotines and make jokes about how Mao was right to murder landlords

\- /r/the_donald is a perfect example. In the early debates before the primary began it was a very lighthearted subreddit mostly making fun of Jeb Bush. By the time Trump won the nomination it became a vile and conspiratorial cesspool.

-subreddits associated with following WikiLeaks and such that essentially became broadcast channels for various conspiracy theories (deep state, Clintons, that sort of thing)

\- The top comments on just about any popular politicians Twitter will just be the opposing group accusing the politician of being corrupt, incompetent, etc etc

\- open comments sections on news articles. Need I say more?

\- Facebook comments sections on news articles shared by mainstream news. Need I say more?

\- The YouTube recommended video death spiral. I've seen a relative go from looking up and watching videos of sermons + Bible discussion, to watching and sharing "here's proof the rapture is happening in 2019", to sharing QAnon conspiracies, in a matter of months. It's fucking depressing seeing that happen to somebody you care about.

To me these are all radicalization. They don't all result in Mass violence (maybe none of them do), but it pushes people's opinions very effectively outside of what's mainstream and otherwise "acceptable" in society, hence why I call it radicalization.

<comment><USER4> And when Bush was president, people were spreading conspiracies that he arranged the 9/11 attacks to start wars in the Middle East. Heck, some of my high school teachers said Bush fraudulently won th 2000 election. Comment sections online have been shitshows since... forever? Similarly, rapture claims have been around since long before the internet even came into existence.

In order to demonstrate that the internet causes radicalization, you actually have to show at least a correlation between internet use and radicalization. And it takes even more to demonstrate a casual relationship. And we don't even have a clear correlation between the internet and "radicalization". In fact, the relationship we do have is an inverse correlation.

> but it pushes people's opinions very effectively outside of what's > mainstream and otherwise "acceptable" in society, hence why I call it > radicalization.

Has it? What unacceptable opinions have seen an increase? Over the last couple decades, support for immigration has grown. Opposition to gay marriage has waned. These are just a few examples.

I frequently find that those who point to "radicalization" online actually have a much narrower view view of what is socially acceptable than the broader society. Hence, why most of the allegedly "radical" views being spread online are not what the general populace considers radical.

<comment><USER3> > And when Bush was president, people were spreading conspiracies that he > arranged the 9/11 attacks to start wars in the middle East. Comment sections > online have been shitshows since... forever?

I'm not sure how this helps your case. 9/11 conspiracies flourished on the internet.

> Similarly, rapture claims have been around since long before the internet > even came into existence.

Sure, but the internet enables it to spread to people who weren't previously involved in those communities. Maybe it just becomes more real when you see it happen to someone you care about.

> What unacceptable opinions have seen an increase?

Well, according to the original post, we've seen an increase in support for suppression of objectionable speech ("cancel culture"). We've seen an increase in support for violence against those with differing opinions (antifa, etc), and more to the point the black-and-white labeling of opposition that would lead you to feel a bunch of idiot far-right trolls count as nazis and thus deserve to be punched.

If you don't think the internet aided the rise of these opinions, you probably don't spend much time on lefty internet.

> Hence, why most of the allegedly "radical" views being spread online are > pretty mainstream.

Well, perhaps you're right that the word "radical" is wrong. What we're seeing maybe could be described as an expansion of the overton window in all directions, which makes total sense given the nature of the internet vs the nature of mass media.

I mean apparently even being a flat earther is now a viable mainstream opinion

<comment><USER4> I can't really see what you're trying to convey. Much of your comment is internally contradictory. For example:

> Well, according to the original post, we've seen an increase in support for > suppression of objectionable speech ("cancel culture"). We've seen an > increase in support for violence against those with differing opinions > (antifa, etc), and more to the point the black-and-white labeling of > opposition that would lead you to feel a bunch of idiot far-right trolls > count as nazis and thus deserve to be punched.

> If you don't think the internet aided the rise of these opinions, you > probably don't spend much time on lefty internet.

Here you're saying that the spectrum of allowed views is narrowing, and there are greater objections to otherwise acceptable ideas.

> Well, perhaps you're right that the word "radical" is wrong. What we're > seeing maybe could be described as an expansion of the overton window in all > directions, which makes total sense given the nature of the internet vs the > nature of mass media.

> I mean apparently even being a flat earther is now a viable mainstream > opinion

And in the subsequent section here, you're saying that the range of acceptable ideas is actually expanding in all directions. I'm really not sure what it is you're trying to say, since this directly contradicts the previous section.

The point I'm making is that much of the "radical" ideas seen online are not radical at all - or at least aren't new or unprecedented. People are seeing outlandish views on the internet and concluding, "look! The internet is making this movement spread!". In reality people with those views already existed, and there's no evidence to say that the internet increases the prevalence of those views. You have anti-vaxxers today, and back in the 90s you had faith healers and other denial of modern medicine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Paywall, so I can't read the full article. But I'm curious if they mention corporations gagging free speech in the digital town squares of Twitter, Facebook, etc. And more broadly with deplatforming running amok.

<comment><USER6> > corporations gagging free speech in the digital town squares of Twitter

See the other comment for the full text without pay well. They mention a few times how Twitter is a town square where 'mobs' of people denounce individuals for saying the Wrong Thing. Corporations though? Nope.

<comment><USER4> Largely because the corporations are just following public opinion. The article does cover how more and more people think that content they find offensive should be refused by platforms. Corporations aren't the cause of this loss of ability to speak in my view. It's the shift in public opinion, and corporations respond to shifts in public opinion akin to a sailor responding to changes in the wind.</comment></comment></comment>


Is College Really Worth It?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/infographic-day-college-really-worth-it <comment><USER2> I dropped out this year and feel awful about it, despite being way better off.

During that time, I've quadrupled sales in my ISV and have made a full-time living of it, and I now have no debt and decent savings. I'm no Mark Zuckerburg, but it's not a bad start.

But I still kinda feel like a loser without a degree, even if I don't think I'll need it. Especially since I paid so much for the first couple years. I applied to another school (public this time) to transfer, just in case I come to my senses.

I think there's credit bubble in education just like the one in housing. Lots of easily available, subsidized money for student loans, even if the rates aren't great. Plus it's a platitude that there's no sacrifice too big you (or your family) can make to get a college education. So even reasonable, well- meaning institutions have totally wacky prices, just as a reaction to market forces and a desire to stay "competitive" building fancy new stuff.

This sounds really crazy and tin-foil-hat-ish, but sometimes I think that there's kind of a "educational industrial complex" if you will that's benefiting from this weird (hopefully temporary) situation, and I feel icky supporting it just because I'm afraid someone will judge me wrong without the piece of paper some day. One of the reasons I quit my job after I quit school was because I hate that feeling of knowing you're being fucked over a little bit each day because you don't have the balls or resources to do anything about it. I feel like school is that kinda situation now, and it shouldn't be, because there's a ton of good things about college and I want to finish.

<comment><USER3> Your post is all about why dropping out was great for you, yet you feel bad and you are trying to apply to get back in "in case you come to your senses". What is your motivation for going back to school, after proving to yourself that you don't need it?

<comment><USER2> I dunno. I think it's just the stigma of being a dropout. Also, I think it's generally a good thing to go to college for the intrinsic value, and nothing I'm doing is so critical that it can't wait.

I actually had a 3.8 GPA before my last semester. Going back immediately after dealing with a brain tumor/surgery kinda screwed things up, though I should have been theoretically unaffected by it.

A friend of mine who is far more successful than I'll ever be and shouldn't even be using "go back" and "school" in the same sentence, just went back, and after a semester, he's done again. So I dunno.

I think there have been some pretty big changes with how companies, jobs, and credentials work ("High Res Society" kinda stuff), and the culture will lag behind 10-20 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So, I'm not certain that college is really worth it, but there're a lot of misleading statistics in the infographic:

1\. The cost of attending a private vs. public university does not include financial aid. For many middle-income kids, the _actual_ price of attending a private university is often less than that of attending a state school, because the private university may give you a full ride based on need, while the state school has much less resources to spend on financial aid.

2\. The "17 years to make up the difference" figure is based on starting salaries, but it doesn't account for raises that occur soon afterwards. Many of college friends went into financial, software or consulting businesses at around $55K/year - 4 years later, they're now making well over 6 figures. Many of my high school friends went into local or boutique businesses at around $50k/year - 4 years later, they are still making $50k/year, or worse, they've lost their jobs because of the economic crash.

3\. "1 out of 2 students fail to correctly analyze prose" - ironic, because of the inaccuracies in the infographic...

The numbers spent partying/drinking/videogaming seem about right though. I think it's pretty likely that college is a bubble, but I don't like to see some of the financial myths repeated. If you get into Yale and you get decent financial aid, you should probably go, because that degree is worth a lot more than one from UConn, and the people who write for FastCompany often have no idea about the inner workings of the financial aid system.

<comment><USER5> The financial aid available at top-tier schools is very generous, because so few low-income students make up the undergraduate body. If I recall correctly, at the top 120 colleges in the United States, only 3% of the student body come from families in the bottom quintile of household income.

As a result, schools such as Harvard[1] and Stanford[2] pay for all tuition for students with a household income of less than $60,000.

[1]: [http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/financial_aid/inde...](http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/financial_aid/index.html)

[2]: <http://www.stanford.edu/dept/finaid/undergrad/>

<comment><USER4> Right. Which means that if you are a lower-income student with the academic chops to make it into Harvard or Stanford, it very much behooves you to go. You get a fully subsidized education, _and_ it probably makes much more of a difference to your bottom-line earnings than if you were a child of upper- income parents that's always figured you were going to Harvard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not if you're smart and motivated it's not.

I went to High School with a guy named Chris. He dropped out of college to do programming work, and I stayed on, eventually going to grad school.

Now he's the founder of GitHub and I'm some no-name programmer working for a financial company nobody's ever heard of.

<comment><USER7> In defense of the average guy, not everyone can go out and do great things, otherwise those things wouldn't be considered great anymore.

<comment><USER8> > In defense of the average guy, not everyone can go out and do great things, > otherwise those things wouldn't be considered great anymore.

I incredibly, firmly disagree with this. The average person actualizes maybe - _maybe_ 3% of their potential. It's possible for almost anyone to reach high level domain mastery in at least 2-3 fields in their lifetime, and make a at least a couple profound contributions in those fields. There's some hard tradeoffs involved, but it's something that almost anyone is capable of if they want it.

<comment><USER7> Ok let me restate that, because that was not what I meant to say.

What I meant to say was that if everyone went out and achieved 100% of their potential, it wouldn't be impressive anymore.

We all have the _potential_ to achieve roughly equal results, but what stops most of us is desire and persistance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's going to sound condescending but I'll say it anyway: if you enjoy hanging out on HN (and you do since you are reading this), then you'll enjoy attending college because it's the only place on earth where everyone is college-level smart.

Obvious of course, but kind of true. Everywhere else (except maybe at Google), you have to deal with the uneducated masses :-)

<comment><USER8> > ... because it's the only place on earth where everyone is college-level > smart.

Not true - there's plenty of places where most of the people you'll meet are quite intelligent, and not everyone in college are college-level smart. If you go to Harvard, sure, it's all fairly smart people. The average state school? Not so much.

As for places with lots of smart people, it's _very_ worth it to go get coffee at the Ritz Carlton sometimes. It's $10 for a pot of coffee that'll serve 2-3 people, so it's only like $5 to go if you go with a friend or the girlfriend, and it's good coffee. There'll be smart people there from out of town, often having a quick bite to eat alone while reading a newspaper. Contrary to popular belief, wealthy people tend to be very friendly and approachable if you're polite, complimentary, and interested in striking up a chat - I've met a fair few intelligent people while having coffee at a nice hotel or ex-pat bar or other place like that.

If you're willing to try to charm a little bit too, you can probably talk your way into the business class/first class lounges with decent success when you're flying, and people inside tend to be a smart, a bit bored, and quite receptive to having a conversation.

There's lots of places to meet smart people. University is good for some smart people, but not all. I enjoyed some of the business and technical classes I took, but absolutely went nuts with the "general requirements" and the rote busywork it entailed.

So there's lots of places to meet smart people besides university. And seriously, I'd recommend anyone who isn't comfortable in "wealthy places" to go have a pot of coffee at the Ritz Carlton. It's $10, cheaper than a mid-end restaurant lunch. Strike up a conversation with someone. Might change your life, but at the very least you get more comfortable in the environment.

<comment><USER10> Want to share more about talking your way into the lounges?

<comment><USER8> Sure.

Before I do, let me share the general theory about life - most people are decent people and want to help you if you're nice and a decent person. They don't want to get in trouble though, so you want to make it as easy as possible for the person. So, if there's multiple people there, you have much lower odds. People want to help out, but no one wants to get reprimanded obviously.

But let's say it's one guy or girl there. You walk up, smile, greet them, ask how their day/night is going. They say good, good, maybe you smalltalk for a moment. Be as personable, friendly, and courteous as possible.

They ask for your boarding pass. You have two choices now - hand them your boarding pass and just SMILE huge, or, say something along the lines of - "Well, I'm flying Jet Blue today, but they don't have a lounge, and I always take British Airways internationally - I'd just like to grab a cup of coffee for like 20 minutes before my flight if that's cool, and I'd really appreciate it."

Which to use? Kind of a judgment call. Handing them the pass with a big, guilty smile actually works. "Go right ahead" - oh my God, I love that, I feel like James Bond if I pull that off. But I did the Jet Blue thing flying out of San Francisco - I forget what airline lounge I got into, but it was legitimately one I flew a lot. Either British Air or something Star Alliance, Jet Blue didn't have a lounge, so I just told them that and asked nicely, the girl there waived me in.

Don't take it as a given, be friendly, and remember you're asking for a favor. You're not entitled, so don't be a jerk or demanding or act like you're royalty. Helps if you're dressed well, groomed well, and speak generally upper class English - nothing snobby, stay casual, just "Good morning", "Good evening", things like that - they want it to be a nice ambiance inside, so looking like you're not going to cause problems is critical. Again, most people want to help you, but you need to make it easy for them to do so.

So, be incredibly polite and friendly, and there's a decent chance of things working out. I usually try it if I'm an hour+ early, and I don't know what my success rate is - maybe 50%? Maybe more or less. It all comes down to the individual person at the counter, how their day is going, and how full/crazy the place is. If it's not very full, they're a nice person, and having a nice day, you've got a decent shot. Can't hurt to ask, at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Excellent question. For coders trying to maximize their probability of getting rich enough not to worry about money by the time they are 25 or 30, I'm sure going to college is an awful bet, especially in the US, where college education is expensive. And the more education you get, the worse of a bet it is (I have a PhD from an Ivy League school, BTW, as does pg, I think)

However, some important work and innovation absolutely requires higher education. For example, you are extremely unlikely to learn linear algebra and matrix theory "on the job", while running a startup, or even if you are just relaxing at home with nothing else to do for a few years.

        tl;dr: don't go to college, but expect to have your
        horizons limited

<comment><USER12> > you are extremely unlikely to learn linear algebra and matrix theory "on the > job"

Why? All of the information is available in books and on Wikipedia. Nowadays you can learn nearly _anything_ for free with just an internet connection and some dedication. The biggest potential impediment is be a self-defeating attitude that prevents you from trying.

On the other hand, don't expect learning "on the job" to mean that you'll get paid to learn.

<comment><USER11> > Nowadays you can learn nearly anything for free with just an internet > connection and some dedication

It's no different from the situation before the internet, since books are cheap (compared to your time) and usually are still a better source of information on such structured subjects anyway.

In fact, when I was in college, I mostly read textbooks anyway instead of attending lectures (it's easier for me to learn this way).

This however is not the whole story. Even if you are motivated ("I'd like to learn math"), you are probably not motivated enough for some feats of cognition. If you know people who stayed home and studied math on their own for a few years, full-time, at college level (I don't), they are probably very rare.

<comment><USER12> No, the situation is very different now with the internet since you can now study subjects in any arbitrary order, as long as you diligently identify and follow the dependencies (i.e. prerequisites). Prescribed curricula and structured courses were much more important in the pre-internet days since it was much harder to use the dependency-order learning approach.

I've learned a decent amount of mathematical stuff on my own without traditional books, and I'm pretty sure this will become more and more common over time. I'm a member of the earliest generation (b. 1985) for which this was really possible, and I just fell into it by accident, but in the coming decades I expect we'll see a lot more people who are almost entirely self- educated through the internet. I'm sure it'll still be a relatively uncommon phenomenon, but at least the people who learn best in this way now have access to the information and tools they need.

<comment><USER11> Learning math from Wikipedia is like learning foreign languages from a dictionary. It seems that you are intent on believing what you chose to believe, though, so good luck with that.

<comment><USER13> I'd be seriously impressed by anyone who could actually learn math or physics from wikipedia. Those articles are so poorly written and jargon heavy that I rarely learn anything from them.

Happily the computer science articles tend to make at least a little sense. But then I already have a degree in the field.

<comment><USER14> The articles are in fact extremely well written, but they are encyclopedaic. They are not written as a textbook, but as a reference work. Most articles assume you're nearly there and need the details.

There are people who can learn from encyclopedias, but most people need well- paced, linearly(ish) arranged material.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love these types of posts. There seems to be "a ton" of them lately.

I'll say one thing... college is definitely worth it if you're planning on working in the Medical field. I think hospitals only hire people with a formal education now-a-days ;) The same probably goes for sending people to the moon, building nuclear reactors, etc. There is a reason for colleges to exist, as sometimes the human race "needs" to make sure you know your @#$%.

</comment><comment><USER16> Seeing this question really bothers me.

Because it's a impossible question to answer, it's too broad and there are so many factors.

The Major and the school. Each and every one is so different, I don't really see if it makes any sense to even average them together.

Personal need and motivation? Are you there to learn and challenge your self, or for the social experience, or just to do the lowest possible to get a piece of paper that says Degree.

Indirect opportunities. For example meeting great researchers and professors and working side by side with them in some cases. Internship opportunities. Social networking and meeting people.

Causation vs. Correlation. Are people who go to college more successful because of college, or are those people bound to be successful anyway, they just happen to go to college.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hi,

Small tech company founder, still the guy who hires and manages the engineers. Just some background.

I used to think that Google's desire for graduate degrees was sort of elitist and not necessary. I've changed my mind, and here's why.

I work in a woodshop as a way to relax and have found an analogy for the education thing. I've come to believe that a well educated mind is sort of like a well organized shop; a self educated mind is like a messy shop.

There is no judgement intended, both neat and messy shops can produce excellent work, just as a self-educated person can produce just as good work as a formally educated person.

The difference is speed. At the risk of stretching the analogy, in a neat shop you can find tools quickly and make things quickly. A formally educated person uses the education to quickly make choices about how to solve problems whereas a self-educated person has to rederive a lot of those choices.

I've personally witnessed this in engineers that have worked for me and I'm moving towards wanting formally educated people. If you want to do well in the tech industry, I'd strongly urge you to get a formal education and cover the basics. If you have a CS degree and pointers bother you, you got a crappy degree. Ditto for basic language design, compiler design, OS design.

Just my two cents and you should probably ignore it because while I have a masters in CS, I also have a messy shop :)

</comment><comment><USER18> The only value I have received from college is knowing that I don't need it to succeed. I dropped out and went back to finish in between startups. If you do go, enjoy your time there, drop in on interesting classes, and most importantly meet as many interesting people as possible.

</comment><comment><USER19> College doesn't pass the smell test to me. During the housing boom everyone was saying, hey, easy money, housing is a sure thing. That just doesn't smell right, and sure enough, the system was being temporarily propped up. College is the same way. If everyone is taking out 80k to get shit faced for 5 years it just doesn't smell right. Like housing, the system is being propped up in large part due to low interest rate loans among other things. Certain professions that have government backed monopolies (medicine, law) might be alright. But just like your housing deed, most every other degree won't hardly be worth the paper it's written on.

<comment><USER20> The loans aren't low interest rate, and the costs of education keep rising. Unfortunately, rising tuition rates aren't going to the professors.

Straight (no banks -- direct lending) department of education loans are 6.8% and 7.9% for the most common loans.

I'll pay over $95,000 in interest over 10 years on department of education student loans. I don't own a car or a house. I have no credit card debt. I came out of undergrad with $0 in debt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You could probably actually buy two Ferrari F430s once you take into account all of the student loan interest.

<comment><USER22> This kills me -- I've seen so many financial illustrations about the miracle of compound interest and the true cost of a loan. But these lessons are never applied to paying off an onerous student loan until middle age.

This unexamined attitude of education as an unqualified good has already led a lot of young people overpaying for professional education of questionable benefit, and now to even more taking on unreasonable debt in pursuit of a bachelor's degree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I just feel like the view espoused in this article is unbelievably cliche. Most of the response are pretty cliche as well. The consensus seems to be that college is essentially pointless, a social gathering at best.Then there's also the the typical "colleges will be obsolete soon; we'll all be crowdsourcing our own learning" blah blah blah type nonsense. It's all just rather naive to me.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Worth it"? Depends on what "it" is. There was a time when college wasn't about vocational education ...

Is it worth spending 4 years learning about the history of your country and culture? Seeing a lot of great movies or concerts? Hanging out and enjoying life without lots of burdens before joining the rat race? Having the time to explore a lot of options to find out what you're really good at, or maybe discover some field or some country or some culture that you didn't know existed that changes your whole life?

College is what you make of it. It can be more than being trained like a lab rat. Some people even find friends who hire them later on!

</comment><comment><USER25> _One out of two students fail to correctly analyze prose like a newspaper editorial_

Okay, I don't know the source, but this statistic seems reasonable to me. In fact, I'd venture to add a couple more (based purely on my anecdotal experience):

\- One out of two students can't structure a well-reasoned argument.

\- One out of two students are unable to write a readable essay.

\- One out of two students do not know how to prepare for and deliver a speech.

My problem is not the state of State Colleges. The problem is the state of highschools in America (although we are not unique with respect to some of these problems). These are all skills that can and should be learnt before college.

</comment><comment><USER22> Talking about "college" as a mere experience, drained of its knowledge value, reduces its significance to being a social club of sorts. You make friends, you signify some kind of status to potential superiors, and so on.

I don't think many people take this kind of mercenary view of college outside of the Bush family, and maybe it's a more realistic view, but that's the perspective that seems to be in play when the question is whether it's "worth it."

<comment><USER26> _"you signify some kind of status to potential superiors"_

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I think this is why the vast majority of people go to college.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> wait; has anyone considered this: college is fun.

<comment><USER28> It's educational and gives you a place you could meet future co-founders as well. I feel like people look at college from a purely educational perspective, which isn't exactly correct. If you're going to college just for the education, you're in the wrong place, if you ask me.

<comment><USER7> Then again then college isn't the _only_ way you can do those things. Perhaps if college didn't exist, there could be something filling the void that's not only more efficient at educating, but at fulfilling those things too.

<comment><USER28> This is very true. However, just because college does exist doesn't mean something better can't show up. It seems to me college is the best place to get all of these things in the same place quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I went to college, didn't take it as seriously as I should have (dotcom daytrading era) and joined the Army afterwards. I really would have gotten more out of college if I'd gone into the Army first. Saw a lot of young 18 year olds who did it right and are now in college... Grad school was a far better experience for me...

</comment><comment><USER30> Winemaking is a perfectly reasonable major, unless you want to close down all the A&Ms in the country. UIUC, the University of Maryland, no doubt many other schools have excellent computer science departments within smelling distance of barns.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm fairly convinced that college will be obsolete by the time my children are old enough to attend. World shrinking fast, and don't forget about smart siblings.

</comment><comment><USER32> Statistically there is so much wrong with this infographic.

<comment><USER5> For curiosity's sake, could you provide some examples?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> College is totally worthless. Everyone is the very smart entrepreneurial type like we all of course are, and already posses the vast majority of skills that they'll ever need in life. Indeed, college for them would be nothing more than nights spent alone in their dorm room working on their next failed startup and leaving comments around the Internet about how much more successful they'd be if they stayed out of college. Man, now if only they could get invited to a party or talk to a girl.</comment>


2045: A New Era for Humanity [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01hbkh4hXEk

<comment><USER2> As a city planner/RE developer turned software developer, I am dismayed by how little attention is paid to basic innovations that would have great impact and, yet, are never or barely mentioned in these future-tomorrow vids. I won't dive into a major diatribe, but consider this one technology that has seen trivial improvements over a period of 100-plus years - the home.

I will pick on one thing: plumbing. Without being tethered to a wastewater system, we could seriously challenge development patterns and housing/urban design. I am all for what's to come in, say, bioengineering mitochondria to end aging but damn if it wouldn't be cool to recycle toilet water in a closed system and use your own feces for your lawn (planters if you live in an urban area) -- TODAY!</comment>


I played around with Google Cloud, expecting it to be terrible. It wasn't - <AUTHOR> https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/i-played-around-with-google-cloud-expecting-it-to-be-terrible-it-wasnt/ <comment><USER2> It's the best, there's just lingering stigmatism</comment>


MongoDB: 8m ops/s on 25 servers (320k per server) - <AUTHOR> http://www.snailinaturtleneck.com/blog/2010/05/05/with-a-name-like-mongo-it-has-to-be-good/

<comment><USER2> That would be very impressive if it was a real world installation. That it's an entirely artificial benchmark makes it almost entirely meaningless.

They should be bragging about the most impressive real world MongoDB setups, even if the numbers are smaller.

<comment><USER3> This was at a talk on the state of mongodb's sharding features which are still a work in progress. The demo was a preview of what's to come rather than simple bragging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's an "operation" in this context? Reading a boolean value? Incrementing a counter? Loading a 100kb document?

<comment><USER5> That question is spot on.

We knew already that mongo is quite fast, so why throw this useless figure into the room without any context?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> WritingToAFileDB: 300M ops/s on my netbook with an SSD.

(Where op == appending a byte.)

</comment><comment><USER7> Not that I run a site that's anywhere close to Reddit, but I was a bit scared to hear one of their admins mention MongoDB "suffered more than one bout of catastrophic data loss in my brief testing": [http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/c2spc/reddits...](http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/c2spc/reddits_may_2010_state_of_the_servers_report_or/c0ptcaz)

</comment><comment><USER8> 320k per machine per second sounds really high, even granting high-end machines, since the non-10gen ops/s numbers I've seen have been in the 2k to 10k per second range (e.g., [http://prajwal- tuladhar.net.np/2009/11/15/500/mongodbs-perfo...](http://prajwal- tuladhar.net.np/2009/11/15/500/mongodbs-performance-as-compared-to-others-esp- couchdb/)).

<comment><USER9> To be fair - this benchmark is from 6 months ago. There have been a lot of improvements in Mongo since then.

I also question his statement of "Slower than DB" - I have been in production w/ MongoDB since August '09 and it was a huge performance improvement over MySQL. Since then there have been incremental improvements in performance w/ each release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some more info: \- 25 x-large ec2 instances \- each instance ran mongos, mongod and java loading program \- system averaged 5M "ops" per second over many hours

Average ops per server: \- 3000 inserts \- 25000 updates \- 150000 queries \- 1500 deletes \- 50 getMore \- 25000 command (getLastError)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Although the numbers are not possible to read from the end of the video talk[1], it looks similar to the mongostat tool[2] (albeit a web version). If that is indeed the case, then the total operations will be the sum of all inserts, queries, updates, deletes, getmores and commands per second.

Would need the 10gen guys to confirm though.

[1] <http://blip.tv/file/3597247> [2] <http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/mongostat>

<comment><USER11> Wouldn't you say the nature of the benchmark is probably the most important detail, yet it is the one that is omitted from this blog post?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is a link to the video from the sharding talk at MongoSF

<http://blip.tv/file/3597247>

</comment><comment><USER13> i don't need 8m ops/s, but the single server durability <http://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-980>

</comment><comment><USER14> Videos from MongoSF: <http://www.10gen.com/event_mongosf_10apr30>

</comment><comment><USER15> were the ops sequential or random?</comment>


Ask HN: Teaching Entrepreneurship – Where Would You Begin? - <AUTHOR>

::Problem:: I have six students who are extremely interested in learning "how to be and entrepreneur". Given the premise (assume) that building a company is more a science than an art and is teachable. What would be the very first lectures in a class that teaches entrepreneurship look like?<p>::About the Situation:: Assume I am qualified to teach entrepreneurship. Assume I am successful. Assume I am here looking for others opinions on how they would solve the problem. Assume these students are extremely gifted, passionate, driven, able to learn, but lack the tools and knowledge to launch a company. Assume the students currently have no idea's for a startup.<p>::Ideal Solution/Responses:: Ideally, HN will help me figure out where to begin, what to teach first, and why to teach that first. Also, HN will ideally suggest entrepreneurial tools to teach them, specific skill sets, theory/theories, etc. <comment><USER2> This is a great question. I'll be quick but a lot about teaching entrepreneurship isnt teaching at all; at least not in the traditional sense. "Teaching" entrepreneurship is really teaching innovation and thinking divergently. Listing problems, figuring out solutions, finding users, selling, and yada yada yada. The important thing is to start something. A close second is to fail... A lot.

As a teacher you should focus on developing the innovator as opposed to the innovation. This happens by building self confidence in a person, something I will iterate over and over is paramount in innovation: taking risks, learning from failure, seeing opportunity in difficulty. These are the traits to have. It starts by having your 6 students start something. Right now.

I'll recommend two resources I've personally used. One is the Founders Journey class at MIT taught by Ken Zolot. I TAed this class after taking it. In a nutshell: bringing in guest speakers to talk about their experience in the context if a theme (raising rounds, pivoting, etc). <http://founders.mit.edu>

The other resource is Start Labs, a non profit I cofounded over a year ago to "develop the next generation of technical entrepreneurs." We had hack nights, hackathons, pitch nights, career fairs and the "bread and butter": a 4 week accelerator called Concept to Company which took 7 teams with ideas, gave them space, a small bit of money, mentor ship, and the networks of the SF, NYC, and Boston ecosystem. It was definitely a structured program because unlike YC or TechStars we wanted to develop the people and that was our focus. We built a lot of curriculum for MIT and expanding leisurely over to Harvard as well. In any case great program tackling exactly your question. <http://startlabs.org/>

To close, teaching entrepreneurship really is about taking down the curtain of this world by having experienced guest speakers and a culture supporting you as well as starting something. Just do it! Fail often, fail fast. Out failure rises new ideas, thoughts, and opportunities. Finally, through building and doing, you become more confident in yourself - a necessity... Dream Big. Think Limitlessly. Do Fearlessly. Start Something.

<comment><USER2> I forgot to point out that there are infinite resources for teaching entrepreneurship like Stanfords E- corner, etc etc. the two I mentioned were there because of the large amount of time and focus spent developing and building them...</comment></comment>


How viable is a service based on easily renting technical lab environments - <AUTHOR> https://www.bigthinkingapplied.com/labs <comment><AUTHOR> Hello Everyone,

This is a new project I am about to launch that is a service designed around the concept of renting pre-configured cloud based labs for Linux, Unix and programming environments that go along with the tutorials written on the blog.

Please give me feedback on whether this is a viable market and additionally if it would be a useful and relevant service.

regards, Nneko from Big Thinking Applied</comment>


What are the mysterious light sources on light pollution maps? - <AUTHOR> https://altairspace.com/2020/03/02/mysterious-light-sources/ <comment><USER2> Ah yeah, in the post's first "unknown light pollution" example, I figured it must be a greenhouse. I was driving through a relatively small town one time and was a bit freaked out by this ominous yellow glow off in the distance. Like, the whole sky was glowing [0]. I ended up driving out to try to find the source, and discovered it was a huge greenhouse/farm. Luckily not an extraterrestrial landing zone or so on ;)

[0] looked like this [https://i.cbc.ca/1.4925044.1543460834!/fileImage/httpImage/i...](https://i.cbc.ca/1.4925044.1543460834!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/original_1180/night- sky.JPG)

<comment><USER3> Yellow glow is understandable, but check out this purple one

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/not-northern- lights-g...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/not-northern-lights- greenhouse-glows-1.4924468)

<comment><USER4> Photo caption says LED. That color is common for them, or even a mix of blue and red. When going LED they only use ones with the wavelengths the plants actually use. You also see this in articles covering vertical farming prototypes. And when i think about it, this is nothing new, because i remember people growing exotic plants in their windows in not so exotic germany, often had 'plant-lights' with that purple sheen to support growth. That was decades ago, done with flourescent tubes. Nowadays it looks like this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LED_panel_and_plants.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LED_panel_and_plants.jpg) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Led_grown_lights_useful.j...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Led_grown_lights_useful.jpg)

<comment><USER5> I bought some of these dedicated wave length LED grow lights once winter. The color is so off-putting that I built a grow tent around them. Event the cats quit using that part of the house before I made the tent. However, the plants sure loved them. I had a couple of potted citrus trees that started blossoming after a couple of weeks inside under these lights. The house smelled amazing. Wasn't worth the loss of square footage in the house though.

<comment><USER6> I would have changed the lights.

<comment><USER5> There you go again using logic. Besides, I had to at least let the lights work long enough to see if they worked. In the end they did. They're just not friendly for home living aesthetics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I flew through the night to Singapore once. I remember two very striking light sources.

Firstly, oil well flares in the Middle East. The oil fields are in the middle of nowhere, so they're these huge orange-red blooms set in utter darkness.

Secondly, Delhi. The city is brightly lit with streetlights. But there's a suburb (?) to the south, Faridabad, that's as brightly lit, but with a different, whiter, kind of lights. So you had these two huge blotches of yellow and blue light projecting into each other. There are also some extremely bright areas to the south of the city - after some investigation, I decided they were probably rock-crushing plants.

<comment><USER8> Chicago has been slowly replacing its yellow sodium streetlamps with efficient LEDs that project down instead of up. They've been working block-by-block in a systematic way that you can see when you fly into the city at night. It's quite dramatic.

<comment><USER9> My town replaced the sodium light across the street with a LED. A lot more light comes in the windows now. It sucks.

<comment><USER10> You can't use blackout curtains?

<comment><USER9> Not the point. The light is far enough away from the windows that there is zero reason for it to shining on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As someone working in the greenhouse lighting industry, I might have some insight on this:

1\. there is an existing technology called energy screen/curtain, with the primary function of retaining heat, but can also reduce light pollution by an order of magnitude.

2\. light that escapes is essentially money lost, however it alone does not justify the use of energy screens.

3\. as long as farmers have access to (relatively) cheap heat and electricity, they won't invest into this technology.

4\. for the time being, it's a regulatory issue, just like water use (a single plant use 2-2.5 l/day), supplemental co2 use and nitrate recirculation from runoff water.

<comment><USER12> > 4\. for the time being, it's a regulatory issue, just like water use (a > single plant use 2-2.5 l/day)

Is the 'plant' there a, say, tree or is it referring to the whole building?

<comment><USER11> that's per a single tomato plant, summer time. I guess it's the same for any greenhouse crop, see the reasoning here:

water use is necessary to manage internal climate. the greenhouse was designed to keep heat inside. the plants have to cool themselves (hence the environment) by evaporation. the farmer manages evaporation rate by watering, temperature and humidity. there are many feedback loops, both negative and positive, balancing it is a non-trivial task.

btw. there's an average of 1.2-1.3 plant/m2 in most tomato greenhouses I've seen.

<comment><USER12> Ah, thanks for the clarification. I was shocked at how large a number it seemed, but I only factored in how much water the plant itself displaces in its structure, not the maintenance water to maintain humidity, temperature, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You'd think they'd do better at containing the light from the grow houses, so more ends up on the plants and less making it to space. Like, foil or something?

<comment><USER14> Since these are greenhouses they have to be clear to let the light in during the day, I assume.

Anything that's going to reflect light to prevent it from leaving at night will also block the sun from hitting the leaves during the day, unless it's a complicated mechanical system that can be folded up during the daytime.

I'm guessing such a reliable mechnical system together with maintenance is much more expensive than the light leakage.

<comment><USER15> There are systems on the market that are not too complicated. We have an iGrow system for instance for our greenhouse.

But yes, the covers do tend to snag and such when rolling up and that can be problematic and require maintenance. Definitely though the industry does not seem to have yet embraced automation much.

<comment><USER16> Greenhouses are early adopters of automation. But they only automate the stuff that actually works reliably. This means watering schedule, fertilizer and light. There are few things mechanical that can go wrong with them, especially the light part. They don't have a hord of maintenance people that have time to fix everything that goes wrong. They might have one person that is doing that beside other things.

I live close to one of the bigger ones in north Sweden. They run some accelerated daytime schedule in the darkess of the polar winter so at least part of the nights has a yellow sky in the whole area. You see it for 10 km on the way to the village nighttime. Could almost believe it's a 100 k town but no :-)

<comment><USER15> Yes, good to note my perspective is on greenhouses in the US, I think greenhouses in Europe are definitely more automated, especially in Amsterdam!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was looking at light pollution maps just the other day, trying to find places to do astro-photography, and was blown away by how much light pollution there is. Really sucks, because I'd have to drive about 90 minutes out to get into a dark zone.

<comment><USER18> Only 90 minutes? For me it's at least 3 hours to get to Class 4 on the Bortle scale. Class 2 is probably more than 5 hours. Only alternative is the sea.

I'm planning to take a trip to a Class 1 this summer, it'll be hard to find a place that dark that is reasonably reachable though.

<comment><USER19> Exactly, this almost sounds like humblebragging (I know it's not, but still...) I mean, in the whole EU you literally couldn't find a place with Class 1 _at all_ , unless going far-far North into Finland national parks or Norwegian mountains. Makes you hate civilization.

<comment> bjelkeman-again According to Darksitefinder northern Sweden seems better. There are som great places to go up there in the winter that is well worth trying.

<comment><USER16> Yes, every time we go visit my mother we stop on the road and look up, it's beautiful. No villages for 15 km and only darkness around. And a car passing by with ten headlights blinding you every now and then...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> On [https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/](https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/) there is a big pollution area in Russia, North of Khazakstan. There doesn't seem to be a city. Is this an oil field? One of the patches is at 67 degrees 42' N, 83 degree 47' E.

<comment><USER21> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vankor_Field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vankor_Field)

<comment><USER20> Mystery solved. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A lot of fracking sites near me have exceptionally bright lights at night when they're being actively worked on. I suspect the brightness shown might be regular old electric lights, not just gas flares.

<comment><USER5> Car parks are notorious light polluters as well. These are large parking lots where car manufacturers off load cars by rail for their "last mile" delivery to the area dealerships. The lights are meant to keep the thief away. On top of the horrendous light pollution, they also cause massive* traffic headaches where the trains can come to a complete park for 20-30 minutes while the train cars with autos are connected/disconnected.

*The one I lived near was in a pretty small town, so the traffic might have been only 10-15 cars on either side of the tracks. Massive is directly proportional to your direct involvement of being stuck.

<comment><USER23> You mean loading cars on to trains? Surely they have sidings?

<comment><USER5> I don't know how they remove the automobiles from the train cars. This isn't what makes the train stop. It is the disconnect of the train cars with automobiles from the train so they can be moved to another set of rails that lead into the car park.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> One thing I'd like to see is a light-pollution map of the US overlaid with a map of all US federal land. To answer the question: what's the brightest thing the federal government is doing?

<comment><USER25> I'm not sure that's a way to find the answer you're looking for.

I expect that a lot of the brightest spots on federal land will be mining operations conducted by private companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Several years ago I noticed that the northern edge of Alaska was lit up like Vegas on one of these light pollution maps.

I was very curious what the heck this was and took to Google Maps. Found that it was oil fields as well. I'd personally assumed lighting for workers however and not gas flares.

\- [https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=5&lat=10294175&lon=...](https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=5&lat=10294175&lon=-16288830&layers=B0FFFFFTFFFFFFFF)

</comment><comment><USER27> You absolutely can (or could) see the Kīlauea's glow from Mauna Kea, especially if there were clouds for it to refract through, as you can see from the first photo in this article: [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/science/hawaii-thirty- met...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/science/hawaii-thirty-meter- telescope-mauna-kea.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> The map of the United States raises an interesting question. There is a pretty distinct line down the middle, with nearly opposite light/dark patterns on different sides of the line.

To the east, it is mostly bright areas with islands of dark. To the west, it is mostly dark areas with islands of bright.

If you look at a regular map, nothing really stands out to explain the difference. It is not like there is, say, a mountain range or difficult to cross river or something running down the boundary that made travel or settlement westward much more difficult at that point.

So why did patterns change there?

I asked about this once before, and received a few answers. I'm not sure if any of them are the actual explanation or not, though [1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345439)

<comment><USER29> My guess would be that the land is not as conducive to farming west of that line, both in terms of soil and weather. So early settlements didn't occur there, and thus cities did not emerge from those areas.

The cities that did evolve in the West were based on different resources: ports around the ocean, mining, oil, railroad stops etc.

<comment><USER30> That's correct, the US population density correlates fairly closely with the average annual rainfall: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_rainfall_climato...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_rainfall_climatology#/media/File:Average_precipitation_in_the_lower_48_states_of_the_USA.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > _Kiluaea_ (sic?), _as an active volcano, regularly has literal glowing lava > occupying the caldera._

Not anymore, sadly: [https://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/lava2.htm](https://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/lava2.htm)

> _Beginning in May, 2018, the lava lake that existed inside Halema'uma'u > crater disappeared and lava flows from Puʻu ʻŌʻō crater have ceased. There > is no molten lava or lava glow to see anywhere in or out of the park._

(I would still recommend visiting: the road that encircles the volcano is destroyed, and parts of it are hike-able, and the destruction is fun. And the caldera is even bigger now, and the sulfur vents are interesting, and the landscape is beautiful. And Hawaiʻi is just breathtaking.)

<comment><USER19> I wonder if there are some other places in the world I could visit reasonably expecting to see molten lava and all that dramatic looking stuff.

<comment><USER32> Iceland is your best bet.

<comment><USER33> The list of permanent lava lakes posted by and onychomys includes none in Iceland. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_lake](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_lake)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Fascinating article!

Constellations of fishing boats can also be a significant source of light when viewed from space. Here are examples from NASA of fishing boats off the coasts of Argentina [1] and Thailand [2].

[1]: [https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Malvinas](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Malvinas)

[2]: [https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/92152/fishing-in- gr...](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/92152/fishing-in-green-living- in-yellow)

</comment><comment><USER35> We drive 2.5 - 3 hours to Abu Dhabi deserts to watch milky way.

It is nearly impossible to enjoy dark sky in Dubai.

<comment><USER34> I live on the other side of Earth but can fully sympathize with your long drive. It's a shame that the Milky Way is so difficult to see in most cities around the world. It is truly majestic: not only visually stunning but also awe-inspiring when you realize you're gazing across the void at the next arm of our galaxy.

<comment><USER16> And I complain about having to drive 20-30 minutes to get real darkness, puts some perspective in there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Light analysis is surprisingly noisy.If you want to do it right, you have to screen out or control for cloud cover, reflections, moon light, oil well fires, and also account for satellite position and the local time at night the image was originally taken. The first four, particularly the first, are easier said than done (e.g., still waiting for NASA to publicly release VNP46A2).

</comment><comment><USER37> > _At the time it wasn't labeled on google maps_

That's exactly what OpenStreetMap is good for, at least where I am.

</comment><comment><USER38> Here in Canada, many tomato greenhouses have been converted to cannabis greenhouses. Some areas have lost their night sky because of this, as they have all grown quickly and use the same kinds of light arrays discussed in this article.

</comment><comment><USER39> Since no one has mentioned them yet: a shout out to The International Dark-Sky Association: [https://www.darksky.org](https://www.darksky.org)

</comment><comment><USER40> It's a bit like this satellite image of Australia:

[https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/80000/800...](https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/80000/80030/australia_night_201204-10.jpg)

Some of what they have labelled as fires could be from mining but there is literally nothing out there as far as human population.

</comment><comment><USER41> > with an enormous array of yellow lamps

Do they really need yellow? Plants do not really need green light (that's why leaves usually reflect green they don't need), so they'd probably be ok with red/blue lamps only. So why yellow?

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

<comment><USER42> I guess they use sodium-vapor lamps because they're common and quite efficient, which happen to be yellow?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> My favorite mysterious light sources is a triplet off the coast of Newfoundland: [https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=6&lat=5798060&lon=-...](https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=6&lat=5798060&lon=-5275970&layers=B0FFFFFTFFFFFFFF)

I assume it's some sort of offshore rig.

</comment><comment><USER44> I can't figure out one light pollution source in Poland in Sluchowo (54.77550N, 17.94972E). The map from 2015 shows some factory of sorts, but it disappears on the map from 2020, all you can see is an outline what it was. I really wonder what kind of place this was and why it emitted relatively a lot of light.

<comment><USER45> Most likely some kind of military operation. It could be a storage site, guarded 24/7 where light is important so the guards can see everything clearly.

<comment><USER23> Is this just tradition? Surely a computer system can see/hear, maybe using night-vision (lidar? radar?), way better than guards can. Then lights can activate and guards can shoot at anyone unwanted who crossed the perimeter .. surely enough incentive?

<comment><USER46> I think that being well lit will help to deter intruders.

<comment><USER23> How? Won't getting shot my soldiers be a deterrent?

<comment><USER46> How will they know if there are soldiers if they aren't lit?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I've been dealing with heatmaps on a personal pet project of mine:

[https://www.wingswatch.net/heat-map/2019](https://www.wingswatch.net/heat- map/2019)

We are swimming in data these days, articles like this are fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER48> Darvaza Gas Crater:

[https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=8.363333333333332&l...](https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=8.363333333333332&lat=4902271&lon=6483116&layers=B0FFFFFTFFFFFFFF)

</comment><comment><USER49> Used to be a huge bright spot _way_ the hell north in Canada, on one of the islands. I finally IDed it as an enormous open-pit lead mine. The site was finally mined out after producing millions of tons of lead.

</comment><comment><USER50> What are all the light sources in the ocean between Taiwan and South Korea? I'd assume shipping, but what about the other shipping lanes, those don't look so obvious compared to that piece of ocean

<comment><USER51> Squid fishing maybe?

"Fishing trials using LEDs (9 kW) and different numbers of MHs were carried out in August and September 2009" from [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256998066_Catch_per...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256998066_Catch_performance_of_coastal_squid_jigging_boats_using_LED_panels_in_combination_with_metal_halide_lamps)

<comment><USER50> Perhaps, that's a vast area for that though.. interesting.

( It's most obvious using the viirs 2019 overlay on lightpollutionmap.info )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Cool, it seems that US tomato farms produce as much light as North Korea.

</comment><comment><USER53> Some of it is burning off natural gas in oil-producing regions.</comment>


Backtracking a Facebook hacker - <AUTHOR> https://arcolife.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/a-little-probe-into-a-facebook-spam-add-plugin-to-update-your-browser/

<comment><USER2> ORIGIN : The FB spam link redirects to the website which hosts the spyware.

The link says its a browser update & an add-on, gives instructions on how to install it. If successful, then it modifies the browser and uses cookies to gain access into FB accounts & starts spamming & tagging friends. This is nothing but a digital ads money making formula. But I was curious & furious, so decided to chase the details.

The update button actually points to a spyware.

I started digging deep. I download the spyware & read the code, looked for dependencies and usernames, parsed few more links and found his profile. That, and I also found a link containing a lot of sensitive Bank user details (which he had hacked earlier and put into a doc) Also found links to currently hacked websites.

I wish to discuss my findings, since this is my first probe of such kind. (and the fact that i found some things, has got me excited ! ) Please visit the blog (linked to the news header line) and look for further details on my blog.</comment>