Is Web 2.0 Really About the Users? ( Some Truemors Bashing Involved) - <AUTHOR> http://wisdump.com/web/is-web-20-really-about-the-user/ <comment><AUTHOR> I was actually going to post a discussion prior to reading this article.

I have been reading the headlines that have come from Truemors via RSS on iGoogle. Anyways, when I added it, I thought that maybe I could figure it out. I started off confused and have remained confused.

I don't feel anything about the site at this time. I am neutral as I can be, though for some reason, the concept interests me. Anybody else?</comment>


I Tried Breadfacing – Now I Understand - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/01/i-rubbed-my-face-on-wonder-bread-saw-a-vision.html <comment><USER2> Mainstream media is trying too hard.</comment>


What is the mystery "entertainment device" Google is testing? - <AUTHOR> https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=current&application_seq=50336&RequestTimeout=1000

<comment><USER2> And why do they have so many signigicant digits in the latitude and longitude of their locations?

<comment><USER3> EarthNav-IPv6

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Google bought SageTV last summer, and I think they are planning to roll it out as GoogleTV.

Ive used SageTV for years and its a pretty solid product, I think it will help GoogleTV quite a bit.

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, whatever it is, it supports 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi, at least, so that's a plus.

> and use Bluetooth to connect to other home electronics equipment.

Signifies a link with an Android phone, I assume. If it was a SageTV, it wouldn't need BT.

</comment><comment><USER5> I bet that it's the Android@home home automation introduced one year ago. Or a console which will bring Android Apps to your TV.

<comment><USER6> "Or a console which will bring Android Apps to your TV."

That's GoogleTV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If I had a prediction its Kindlefire competitor with full Google cloud</comment>


Show HN: Emacs org-mode that works like a normal text editor - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/publicus/emacs-org-mode-for-the-laity <comment><AUTHOR> I posted about this earlier this year, but I've recently made some updates that I'm excited about, and so want to share them! This is a configuration file for Emacs that causes it to work as closely to a "normal" text editor as possible. I created it to make it easier to introduce others to org-mode, but think now that it could also be used for easing into learning Emacs more generally.

Why would someone want to replace Emacs' normal keybindings with ones that match more basic programs such as TextEdit and NotePad (in a way that goes beyond "CUA Mode")? In my mind, this is useful because the M-x menu is still available (and made more user-friendly with the Ivy package); thus, users can start using Emacs (and org-mode) more quickly, and can learn functions as they need them _by name_ (rather than by keybinding). This approach would have saved me time when I first started using Emacs, I think.

I welcome ideas and Pull Requests for this project!</comment>


Ask HN: What place should "branding" have at a tech startup? - <AUTHOR>

This story is part self-serving rant, part curiosity about HN's perspectives on this.
A while ago I worked for a startup that built mobile apps in the edtech space. Our apps had decent traction for the market we were in, but it didn't look like this was going to become a "venture scale" business anytime soon. We had just received a bridge loan to keep us afloat when the CEO decided that what the company lacked was branding and better "storytelling".
So instead of the normal avenues for app promotion: reaching out to communities, building an email campaign, advertising, etc., the company spent $30,000 (a large chunk of our remaining runway) for a "brand" consultant to teach us copywriting. At the same time, we were holding meetings with an advisor who spent time putting together indecipherable brand decks where he talked about "using spiral imagery to indicate upward progress for students"—it felt like a scene out of "Mad Men".
Throughout this period, I was making the argument to the rest of the team that we needed someone with digital marketing experience who knew what an A/B test was, and that these other efforts were ineffective and wasteful. I wasn't winning the argument and growing increasingly frustrated at the money being hemorrhaged on "branding" and left the company.
So I guess my question is this: was my antipathy towards the emphasis on branding efforts justified? or is there still a place for mad-men style advertising at the tech startup? what evidence is there on this question, in either direction? <comment><USER2> My thoughts, in random order:

-As long as humans still respond to storytelling -- something we've been doing for as long as we've been around -- branding will have a role.

-Nothing is more central to a brand than having a good product that people want. No amount of storytelling can replace this.

-$30K to spend on a consultant at this point in the startups life seems silly. It might have been better to just get all your employees together and engaged in brainstorming with some kind of framework to guide you, like this one [1].

-A/B testing and branding should work together. The most important thing you can test is your offer, the basic way you convey yourself to your clients and prospects. Focus on optimizing the copy first, not the color of the buttons.[2] A great way to do this is by listening to how your existing customers describe their problem, your product and how the two relate. Use their words.

[1] [http://www.cezary.co/post/79977288955/marketing- fundamentals...](http://www.cezary.co/post/79977288955/marketing-fundamentals- canvas)

[2] [http://www.groovehq.com/blog/long-form-landing- page](http://www.groovehq.com/blog/long-form-landing-page)

<comment><USER3> Read this one, not my drivel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We sell. Branding is a short cut to remind people to whom we are selling, the reasons, the story, the emotions of our product or service.

 _Consistency_ of branding in the digital age should be trivial. Starting a brand from scratch always was and always will be a vast undertaking.

If I have any advice, its to run away from brand consultants and get the founders to a therapist - the best brand for a start up is the raw honest and open drivers behind the founders. That may not be an attractive brand, but it will always be a genuine one.

As for A/B tests - they are great to find out which form of your story people respond best to, but again are not a way to discover your own personal story.

Mine? Still looking :-)

<comment><USER3> I know it's bad form to ask, but could someone let me know the reason for the downvotes, - it seems sensible advice and i am close to following it myself !</comment></comment>


Why Microsoft Hasn't Yet Chosen a New CEO - T-A http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304361604579289103040059722

<comment><AUTHOR> James Mickens ?</comment>


Ask HN: Are there tech jobs in oil and gas?  - <AUTHOR>

What are some of the more interesting roles? <comment><USER2> Yes, there are oil and gas jobs for CS majors / tech people. I went to school at UT Austin, which as you might imagine, has a nontrivial number of these companies recruiting. However, my takeaways from these companies:

\- You'll most likely be working in Houston / San Antonio (probably not where you want to be working)

\- They pay well by general, non-tech, new grad standards, but don't expect the "standard" 100K salary + 50K signing bonus + 30K/year stock that's become standard fare in the Valley. That said, the cost of living in Texas is significantly lower than the Valley (plus, no state income tax!), so you might come out ahead here.

\- Not a ton of startups in the space, due to the large amount of capital required. You're basically working for the big guys. This means that there isn't much upside. WYSIWYG, you aren't going to become an overnight millionaire.

\- Culture is much more corporate than Valley companies. So don't expect free food / drink / laundry / massages / gym memberships / rail passes. And you may have to wear clothing other than jeans + flipflops to work.

Major companies in this space recruiting CS people: Valero, Schlumberger, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66.

All the above said, there are some pretty cool technical challenges that these companies face. Where do you drill? How do you analyze seismic data to figure out on a macro level where to explore? What about when you start drilling and find oil, what's the best way to extract it? These companies have massive quantities of data gathered from sensors as they're drilling / exploring, and they need to crunch through it to minimize waste and maximize the possibility of hitting large amounts of easily extractable oil. The oil/gas space is definitely gratifying from a solving-real-problems-instead-of-social-media-BS perspective.

<comment><USER3> Just want to second the culture part. From what I've seen and experiences related to me from friends the culture at these guys is very rigid and 'corporate'. For example I've heard that at Valero in San Antonio men can't have facial hair of any sort.

<comment><USER4> I'm based in San Antonio and have never heard that of Valero employees. Culture isn't very strict there from what I've heard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> When I graduated in 2010 from a school down in Texas with a BS in Comp Sci, I was constantly being solicited for interviews with the big guys...Valero, Chevron etc.. These companies also had a very large recruiting presence at all the career fairs.

So at least at that time I know there was a need for development positions in this field. Just like most large companies there are plenty of internal tools that need maintenance and development.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, I guess what I want to avoid is maintenance of some sort of reporting tool and make sure the role helps me learn about how a particular area of the industry works, to allow for some upward movement. I guess that's why I'm partial to data mining

<comment><USER3> Just out of curiosity are you only interested in Oil/Gas or are you open to other fields as well? If yes how come? (purely out of curiosity, not judging either way)

<comment><AUTHOR> Mainly because I know so many people in oil and gas though their roles are not technical, and because of my proximity to Houston.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a lot of friends who graduated in electrical engineering or a similar degree and got jobs in the oil field. Most of them work as rig engineers and work 6 days a week, travel constantly, on call 24/7, ready to drive 5+ hours on a whim, etc. They make a lot of money, but most of them hate it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure what you are looking to find out about without further elaboration. There are all the usual tech roles you'd expect in any other industry as well as some specialist roles.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I've poked around through some different listings, roles, etc, and I'm a bit surprised that there are so few data mining roles at various oil and gas firms. One would think seismic data mining would be a huge area. I'm quite interested in data mining and software dev.

I've found quite a number of SCADA roles but, this isn't unique to the industry, and I don't know exactly how interesting the role would be.

<comment><USER5> I have a few old contacts in the industry working for some of Europe's largest O&G firms. I'll drop them an email to see if there are any blog posts floating about that elaborate on the topic a bit further.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate that. Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm also very interested in this...with a degree in Chemical Engineering and a huge interest in programming, I'd love to hear about any opportunities.</comment>


Linux-insides: Queued spinlocks in the Linux kernel - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/0xAX/linux-insides/blob/master/SyncPrim/sync-2.md <comment><USER2> I really enjoy this series. As someone who has begun writing kernel code somewhat recently, it's been immensely helpful. I hope that the author continues to writes these, and I'm looking forward to the coverage of the RCU.

<comment><USER3> I also started writing Linux kernel code a while ago and the one thing that I found really hard to follow was the locking hierarchies. It's not completely clear what protects what, and especially when you have two mutually exclusive locks (like a global lock and a lock for a specific variable) and you have to make sure you only grab one. RCU was much simpler to use. But my main worry with series like these is that they'll get out of date very quickly, but I mainly read them to understand the context of "how does this code differ in execution context to userspace code?". This series is very helpful in this regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've tried to read several entries in this series, but the typos, grammatical errors, and generally poor visual styling turn me off each time. :(

It's a shame, because there's obviously oodles of great content here, but I just can't get past the presentation.

I suppose I should do some editing and send PRs, but that's not my idea of a fun Sunday anymore. _shrug_

<comment><USER5> There are some pretty glaring factual errors too. Found this one (extra "not") just glancing through, although someone not familiar with the idea might get mislead:

 _So if the first thread started to execute this instruction, second thread will wait until the first processor will not finish._

<comment><USER6> Submit a PR, maybe? :)</comment></comment></comment>


Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963) - <AUTHOR> http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

<comment><USER2> _I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro 's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection._

<comment><USER3> This letter exposes an eternal struggle that man always had; a fight between individual morality and group conformity. Morals are usually sought on an individual basis, while groups tend to be more immoral to outsiders, or at best, seek to maintain the status quo.</comment></comment>


What Are Federal Law Enforcement Officers Doing in Portland? - <AUTHOR> https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-heck-are-federal-law-enforcement-officers-doing-portland <comment><USER2> This is a dry run.

"The goal of such operations would be to increase the fear and stress levels in big cities with significant minority populations that overwhelmingly vote Democratic to depress turnout"

[https://www.balloon-juice.com/2020/07/17/the-federal- police-...](https://www.balloon-juice.com/2020/07/17/the-federal-police- operations-will-not-stay-in-portland/)

[https://www.balloon-juice.com/author/adam-silverman/](https://www.balloon- juice.com/author/adam-silverman/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm, they cite a tweet which cites a clip from the News-Political complex.

Is this where research in journalism had sunk to?</comment>


Guidelines for Edtech Products - <AUTHOR> http://www.ycombinator.com/guidelines-for-edtech-products/ <comment><USER2> As someone whose career has revolved around education, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with these guidelines. The focus is entirely on formal _schooling_ as opposed to education.

The problem is that "widely accepted standards", especially in the US are sub- optimal in terms of educational outcome. Even if Common Core were great (which is not the case), continuing to improve pedagogy and curriculum should be ongoing goals. Similarly, why push people to use a closed system such as Lexile® for rating the difficulty of reading material instead of something open?

On an even more basic level, should edtech offerings be limited to children living in the US at all? I would say no. Most Americans aren't children and most humans aren't Americans.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. And I would even go a step further. Most often ed (tech) companies focus on education as opposed to learning. It is all about efficiency, organization, administration, and improving conventional education or schooling processes rather than improving the learning processes of the student.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a fantastic list, but having experienced many interactions with districts and schools that wanted free pilots over the last 15 years, I would strongly encourage any company to insist on some fee associated with the pilot, even if discounted (assuming you are not doing a freemium model). Pilots don't succeed unless district and school staff are committed and provide the necessary implementation support. In Edtech, your success is critically dependent on effectively engaging with the people using your technology. In many cases, there are people you need to engage who were not part of the decision making process and may even be annoyed that they have to squeeze in yet another one of a zillion initiatives on their plate (perhaps true in any B2B but 10X true in Education). Charging money increases the likelihood that district staff will take your product seriously and put the resources and time behind it that will greatly increase the odds of success. Free pilots are especially tempting in the early days when you are trying to prove yourself, but if your product is truly valuable, a couple successful reference implementations will far outweigh a bunch of fizzled pilots with ambiguous outcomes. Charging for the pilot also helps you weed out schools and districts that are not really serious about solving the problem you solve. Especially in the early days, you want to find those evangelists that will go to bat for you within their bureaucracy and with their more risk averse peers in the market. The serious ones will find the money if you're product is the real deal. Just my two cents based on what I've seen. Never had a single free pilot turn into a school or district sale. For my company, a strong full-price implementation at one or two schools in the district laid solid groundwork for a full-price district deal down the road.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm CTO of an edtech company and I'm quite excited to see this list- outside of specialist VCs like Reach and Learn Capital, the typical level of understanding of these nuances by investors is shallow. This will up the game.

However there is one glaring absence: I don't see a recommendation to show provable academic results. You could follow all of these snd still have an ineffective product that doesn't actually advance student learning. Hopefully that will change as schools demand more data driven results from their vendors.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I was surprised when I talked with the CTO of a large (raised tens of millions) edtech company and learned that they had done zero work on measuring efficacy for their adaptive learning solution. They literally had no evidence that their platform increased student learning in any way.

To their credit, they were thinking about creating a team to look into this.

<comment><USER7> I've seen something like this in the marketing industry. I think it happens when success of a company depends not on the efficacy of their solution, but their ability to _convince_ people it works. When customers can't tell whether the solution works or not (or when they can't tell if the metrics you present them are reliable or relevant in any way), efficacy stops being a variable in the business.

<comment><USER6> Exactly, and I think people view any educational system that is adaptive as necessarily effective. It may be that this is often true, but of course it depends on the specifics and the way it's used in the classroom.

I think this company's strategy was to grab market share with a free product, then start charging for more and more features. By the time people go to pay, they forget that they never actually checked to see if the free product was actually effective in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This doesn't really seem to cover products aimed at homeschoolers or independent learners at all -- are those considered a separate field from "edtech"? And/or are these things YC aren't terribly interested in?

<comment><USER9> That market is small to non-existent. If you're creating a startup that doesn't seem like the audience you want to focus on, at least not at first.

<comment><USER8> Government stats [1] suggest well over a million homeschooled children in the US. This is towards the low end of various estimates out there. Certainly not non-existent. It varies a lot from country to country, but the YC guidelines are clearly US-centric, and I don't think you can write homeschooling off there.

[1] [https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_206.10.a...](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_206.10.asp?current=yes)

<comment><USER9> This is still not that many compared to the children going to school. Additionally that's a very heterogenous group, homeschooling their children for a variety of different reasons, using different approaches following different curricula.

There is certainly space for companies who want to sell educational products and there are companies already doing so. What that means though is that you already have quite a bit of competition in a market that you're not going to completely capture. If this is your target audience you have a relatively low ceiling and you won't be able to push past it.

Additionally you can't scale to different countries or even states that easily. You need different materials to account for different languages, cultures and curricula. You need to account for regulation and a sales teams to approach the various homeschooling groups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Weird, I don't see any mention of accessibility.

<comment><USER6> Yep, even well-known (and extraordinarily well-funded) edtech companies have zero accessibility features in their products. For example, there is a popular ELA app that offer a single (small) font size, and that ignores the iOS accessibility setting for increased font size.

In many cases, I think the devs figure they'll rely on whatever accessibility features are enabled by the device (TTS, zoom, etc.), but in many cases these features are not sufficient—or don't even work in the app/platform.

<comment><USER11> Do you think this is caused by selling directly to institutions, rather than the consumers of the application?

I know there are a few products oriented around specific accessibility features that would be sold directly to the people who need them (e.g. tty devices), but it seems the only progress I've seen in this area in software projects was for §508 compliance.

<comment><USER6> This was a product that is sold largely to institutions, so that could be the issue. Big companies go after big markets, and they tend to view accessibility as niche (and therefore not worth their time). While a particular need might be niche (blindness = .1% of children), when you add up all accessibility needs, it's actually a large chunk of the student population (at least 20%) that gets left out.

I think some edtech companies improperly equate accessibility with special education and write it off as a separate (smaller) market. But the point of accommodations, in many cases, is that many kids can be taught alongside their peers in general ed classes—if they get the right accommodations.

For example, a kid with bad eyesight has an accessibility need (glasses, or if he can't afford them large text). He is not someone who needs to go to a separate special education class. Unfortunately, the lack of accessibility in popular edtech solutions means that kids like this are not able to be served in a gen-ed classroom. This leads to stigmatization and lower achievement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _When exporting grade level data, denote kindergarten with a number 0 (zero), not a letter K, and denote transitional kindergarten with -1 (negative one)._

What. What on earth is this set of "guidelines". Is there a color scheme recommendation somewhere in here, too?

</comment><comment><USER13> As to data privacy, if one of your customers is on a reservation then you really should check to see what the data rules are for that reservation. Making an assumption that only the state and/or federal rules are in effect could be costly.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems like there is an opportunity for a company to be the certification layer verifying companies do these things and do them in a consistent way.

</comment><comment><USER11> Are products used by public libraries considered "edtech", or is there a separate set of terminology?

<comment><USER6> There's overlap, at least in CA. My company has a license with the CA public library system, which includes some educational libraries. Libraries also perform educational functions—our tools are used by literacy tutors in libraries, in much the same way that they are used by teachers/students in classrooms. So for some products, these guidelines are probably relevant, but for other (e.g., infrastructure) products they're probably much less relevant.

<comment><USER11> That helps, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is fantastic. But this sounds like it's mostly intended for startups at an early/mid stage. What I mean is companies who already run a monopoly are more likely, in my opinion, to overlook these guidelines.

<comment><USER16> Those companies are likely not applying to YC.

<comment><USER15> Does it matter? The purpose of these guidelines IMO is to improve the standards of EdTech products and perhaps the value they create for education as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> To be honest, I'm extremely disappointed in these guidelines, given that this is coming from YC. Why? They divert focus away from doing whatever it takes to make something incredible for users: underserved students in a failing system that's becoming exponentially costly and disconnected from our modern society. Even if that means challenging convention and breaking some rules. Think of where Airbnb, Uber and Bitcoin would be if they had stuck to standards, to name a few big examples. This post goes completely against the "naughtiness" YC (PG) has always looked for in founders. For some reason edtech to date has been an exception to this rule.

 _Disclaimer: I just submitted a YC W2017 nonprofit application as the solo- founder of Bloom, a new education system powered by software. I 'm not sure if this comment will help or hurt me if I get responses, but I think something needs to be said. I put my app up on Dropbox for you to check out if interested. Still searching for a great cofounder. If this is an issue you really care about, feel free to DM me on Twitter. I'll fly out anywhere. Bloom YC W2017 application: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/1szvs6o4qs15djj/KD%20%26%20Bloom%2...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/1szvs6o4qs15djj/KD%20%26%20Bloom%20profiles.pdf?dl=0) _

The cost efficiencies of conventional public and private education today are abysmal. Teachers don't scale. Campuses don't either and are physically isolating. And Common Core, courses, grades, tests, and degrees are arbitrary practices that could by replaced by something completely different, something designed for the digital age. Something not only better than public schools, the most prestigious private prep schools and the Harvards and Stanfords, but something that could scale to everyone in the best and worst of areas of the world. Education is a lifelong right that everyone clearly needs and deserves as technology continues to advance exponentially.

Yet for some reason, edtech hasn't been able to look beyond the current state of things and build something completely new. There isn't an "Uber" or "Bitcoin" of edtech. And I believe the reason why is solely because of posts like this: advice that places too much importance on working with inefficient systems, industry best practices, laws and trying to fix a broken system instead of ignoring all of that unimportant stuff to just focus on users and build a new one from scratch through software. As a result, current edtech solutions are fragmented, inflexible, slow, general and boring, just like physical schools.

So what will education look like in the future? In my opinion, it will be a cohesive system that's modular, peer-to-peer and mobile. That's the only way an edtech platform can both scale to ->7.5 billion users and support arbitrary specializations adaptable to the future.

I think a good parallel to the approach I'm talking about is what Urbit has been trying to do to re-decentralize the Internet. Instead of trying to solve each problem one at a time, they've built a cohesive system from scratch on top of the old, broken Internet, which solves all of its problems in one go. This is the approach I think edtech needs to take, and ignore everything else.

Yes, clear product vision and implementation ease are important for edtech startups. But you could say the same about Uber and Airbnb. Yes, viral current content is important. But you could say the same about Netflix and Twitch. Yes, flexible, optimized pricing is important. But that can be solved in other creative ways. Yes, exceptional customer support, respect for privacy and organization transparency are vital, but that's expected of any great YC startup.

I'm just shocked software hasn't eaten the education system yet, because ultimately the quality of kids' entire lives are on the line. I would know.

<comment><USER18> Keaton, you make it incredibly clear that you have no understanding about how education works. It's really sad that you criticize YC and our excellent educator community. Your neglect and lack of respect for teachers and traditional schooling is appalling and disturbing.

The saddest part is that a large number of young techies (you are 19) feel like you. Nevertheless, I want to empathize with you, and suggest that you step away from your computer and spend just any small amount of time within our public education system to see the challenges and complexities of serving our students. It is a complex problem and you are grossly understating and trivializing the importance and purpose of existing institutions. The founders of Uber and Bitcoin and Airbnb got nothing on education. Serve even 10 underserved students and drive them to prolonged success, and then come back and talk.

I don't take offense as much as someone running an edtech company, as much as I take for being a part of an outstanding community of people improving education.

<comment><USER19> But the mean in education isn't all that great, is it? There's issues that stem from assumptions about education that were correct in the 14th century but have since become a bit dated. You can improve a system built on the wrong premises, but you can't fix it.

It's a system that works through sheer force of will, and squanders the efforts of educators and students alike. The ambition of education technology shouldn't be to rehabilitate 10 underserved students, no matter how noble of a goal that is. It should be to make sure they aren't ever underserved. The current system can't do that period.

By the time you have fixed the issues that prevent it from doing that, you've ripped out and replaced 90% of it. The way class progression works. Automating lecture components. The testing components. How responsibility over students is handed from teacher to teacher. Assuring best practices are used, both by students and teachers. The curricula and how they feed into each other. Tracking student progress. Negotiation of homework quantity between teachers. Enabling broad collaboration between teachers in matters of teaching materials. Quality assurance.

The rage is not against the fact that there is an education system. It's that it could be so much better. It's against the waste of youth. A class of 30 with only half of it engaged wastes 180 childyears over their K-12s. That's 2 long lifetimes, in the years when their minds are the most malleable.

<comment><USER17> I've been incredibly inspired by YC and only mean for my criticism to be constructive. But by naming their edtech initiative "Imagine K12", they've already lost.

I care as much about solving education as they do. I think the basis of my argument is factually correct. Just look at the data.

Why not treat education like any other disruptable industry?

<comment><USER19> Thinking about similar things, wanna chat?

<comment><USER17> Sounds good. Shoot me an email at email@example.com. Other social media info is in my HN profile page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would love to see similar for corporate side of learning and development, rather than just academic side.</comment>


Pioneer Hackathon with Sarah Austin - <AUTHOR> http://pop17.com/join-sarah-austin-at-appradio-hackathon-presented-by-pioneer-electronics/#.UImsVWl24Ts The first ever AppRadio Hackathon is in Las Vegas at the 2012 Specialty Equipment Manufactures Association (SEMA) Show. The Hackathon is presented by Pioneer Electronics from October 30th to November 2nd. Over $50,000 in Cash and Prizes for First, second and third place winners will be awarded in three app categories, Voice Interface SNS application, Location Based Services application, and SEMA Member automotive accessory application and Sarah Austin will be there to present. <comment><AUTHOR> Sign up. It's a little empty right now. There is a good chance you can get your hotel, food, and entry for 100% free. That excludes travel though.</comment>


HTTP-dl MIT – A pure C library and client for reliable HTTP downloading - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/andrewhodel/http-dl <comment><AUTHOR> For when curl and wget just can't get the job done.

Bad connection, getting resets, downloads failing?</comment>


GitHub welcomes all CI tools - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/2463-github-welcomes-all-ci-tools <comment><USER2> Is this a response to Gitlab's attempt to build an end to end CI/CD system?

I still use GitHub and haven't switched mostly because gitlab was slow two years ago. I know they've made huge strides since, but the integrated workflow is a compelling reason to switch back.

<comment><USER3> If you self-host Gitlab most of the problems magically disappear (sadly)

<comment><USER4> To be fair, that's not because they're aiming to push you towards the self- hosted product, it's just far easier to be fast at small scale than at gitlab's public scale.

<comment><USER3> That is true. With the paid plans that are being phased in, pushing you to self-hosted makes them loose money

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd love to see the CI usage chart for private repos.

<comment><USER6> Why?

<comment><USER5> Someone might use this chart to make decisions for their team, and the usage patterns for open source is likely very different from someone using CI for internal development and deployment. (For instance, Travis CI is very popular, but when I've looked at it in the past, it was pricey relative to options like Codeship and CircleCI for private workloads)</comment></comment></comment>


Arm-swinging riddle is answered - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/sciencearmsoffbeat <comment><USER2> The only problem I have with this experiment is that there is no control for muscle memory.

If you compared the metabolic rate of a piano player playing piano vs. someone who's never touched one before, intuitively the skilled player would outperform the unskilled player. (There are certainly better examples.)

How much experience arm-swinging did those in the arm-swinging group have?

How much experience opposite-swinging did those in the opposite-swinging group have?

How much experience keeping their arms still while walking did those in the still-armed group have?

<comment><USER3> And is there a certain amount of swing that is most efficient?

<comment><USER2> I think you misunderstand.

Imagine I wanted to see which arm is better for throwing a ball: right or left.

I choose 1000 subjects and ask 500 of them to throw lefty and 500 to throw righty.

Do you see the issue with this experimental method?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always claimed that the arm-swing counters the angular momentum of the legs. Without that you have to expend more energy to prevent your body from twisting. If you walk with your arms constrained that seems to require a "twist" effect from somewhere else.

This could be complete nonsense, of course, but my personal experiments suggest and support it.

<comment><USER5> > _But a trio of specialists from the United States and the Netherlands have > put the question to rigorous tests._

This trio clearly did not take Physics 101 at their specialist training location. What you described is a conventional explanation for the arm swinging as I heard it back in high-school over 20 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a post a couple of weeks ago on HN, I commented on the difficulty of redesigning the human body. In many contexts, people often suggest "obvious" improvements to the human body, the classic being "let's just get rid of the appendix". But I've get to see a redesign that I can guarantee is actually a good idea.

Here's another example, where some people considered it "common sense" that we'd be better off not swinging our arms around, but, when actually _investigated_ , it turns out that what the human body is actually doing is done for a reason (in the sense that not doing it is less optimal for the body, not in the "intention" sense), and those who thought there was a trivial improvement were wrong.

Just something I thought I'd point out, since this is such a perfect example.

<comment><USER7> The appendix a popular target just because people aren't entirely sure what it is there for, or weren't for a long time. In recent years we have found more evidence that it has a function in the immune system and in the health and homeostasis of the intestine.

Of course, the relative health of people who have had their appendix removed reinforces this, but the same could be said of a few teeth and kidneys.

We really know very little about the actual purpose and processes of the body. It's an incredibly complex machine. In fact, it is so complex that we currently lack the ability to intelligently design a better one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How much arm-swinging do speed / race walkers do? Since they compete over long distances and durations, saving energy would be a competitive advantage.

</comment><comment><USER9> Arm Swing Challenged [http://www.funnyassblog.com/random-funny/arm-swing- challenge...](http://www.funnyassblog.com/random-funny/arm-swing-challenged/)

</comment><comment><USER10> _The study, headed by Steven Collins at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, says we should give the thumb's-up to arm swinging._

In our easy-calorie society, shouldn't we now give the _thumbs-down_ to arm swinging? (And start telling people _to_ run in corridors)

</comment><comment><USER11> I learned this from my body work and martial arts studies. Good to have scientific validation...</comment>


Being anti-depressed: My experience taking setraline - <AUTHOR> http://journeyisreturn.tumblr.com/post/41956941317/being-anti-depressed-my-experience-taking-setraline

<comment><USER2> I took sertraline for about 7 years. 50mg daily.

The first analogy I used to describe it is that it put a floor under my mood. A baseline of satisfaction that I couldn't drop below. A safety net.

I think a better analogy is that it's like a rubber band. The further you move down, the harder it pulls you back.

I didn't feel the alienation that's described in this article. If anything it was easier to keep close to my friends because I wasn't crippled by the depression.

I got the side effect of suppressed libido, but I'm sufficiently terrible at romance that I just didn't notice that for a while. If it's a problem, a good psychiatrist can trial you on different drugs.

Now that I've come off sertraline, the main thing I miss is calmness in the face of aggravation. I notice this in particular when driving; I'm more aggressive and irritable than I used to be.</comment>


I Was a Gopher at an Illegal AirBnB Hotel - <AUTHOR> http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/02/that-one-time-i-was-a-gopher/page/view-all

<comment><USER2> The hands-off approach of AirBnB is perfect for people running accommodation by remote control like this. AirBnB takes care of payment, reviews and marketing, and they also prevent authorities from getting the contact info of the owners.

One of the pain points, lost keys, could be solved possibly by smart door locks which would use an app to unlock the door.</comment>


Kid's awesome marble run around the outside of his room. - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTxmTTisThY

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, and apparently, it's on Instructables: [http://www.instructables.com/id/Kinetic-Marble-Track- Around-...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Kinetic-Marble-Track-Around-The- Top-Of-A-Room/%EF%BB%BF)

</comment><comment><USER2> kinda lame, I would not want this in my room.</comment>


Google humans.txt - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/humans.txt <comment><USER2> I was expecting something like

      Hi! Thanks for visiting us.

      Feel free to look around in:
         /accounts/o8/id
         /ads/preferences/html/
         /ads/preferences/plugin
         /alerts/manage
         /books/about
         /booksrightsholders
         /globalmarketfinder/*.html

         [snip]

      Please stay out of:
         /accounts/o8
         /aclk
         /addurl/image?
         /ads/preferences/
         /advanced_blog_search
         /advanced_group_search
         /adwordsresellers
         /alerts/
         /analytics/admin/

         [snip]

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://humanstxt.org/>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2131692>

<comment><USER4> Very cool, I've never heard of this before but really like the idea. Kind of a tech secret to find out who's behind a site.

<comment><USER5> I guess it was seen first time here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2131692>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://www.bing.com/humans.txt> should be there in about 2 weeks

</comment><comment><USER7> Damn, I was hoping they'd implemented the humans.txt captcha to keep out humans: <http://www.mrspeaker.net/2010/07/15/humans-txt/>

</comment><comment><USER8> no linebreaks? it's not animals.txt

gentlemen stay within 79 characters of the start of a line

</comment><comment><USER9> The HTML5 boilerplate provides a boilerplate humans.txt

[https://github.com/paulirish/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/h...](https://github.com/paulirish/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/humans.txt)

</comment><comment><USER10> Gmail has one too, I noticed the other day: <https://mail.google.com/humans.txt>

<comment><USER11> How did you notice it?

<comment><USER10> With this Chrome extension: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocdghmbbodjiclgin...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocdghmbbodjiclginddlaimdaholhfk)

<comment><USER12> Extension author here. This is great to hear - @RussenReaktor, who originally spotted it, also discovered it with the extension [1].

There's also a Firefox extension [2] and the opportunity is there for someone to make extensions for the other browsers.

[1] [http://twitter.com/#!/russenreaktor/statuses/659089801862307...](http://twitter.com/#!/russenreaktor/statuses/65908980186230784)

[2] <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/humanstxt/>

<comment><USER13> Thanks for informing us. Unfortunately, Firefox extension doesn't work for Firefox <4.0

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just for the fun factor: <http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/robots.txt>

(also, the comments in the source of the root page, <http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/>)

</comment><comment><USER15> "Google is built by a large team of engineers, designers, researchers, robots ..."

Wait, does that say "robots"? This is how it starts people, with a robot creating a humans.txt text file, posing as a friendly Googler. Bill Joy must feel so vindicated now.

<comment><USER16> The Google motto is: "Robots scale, humans don't". Or otherwise, the resource constraints and reproduction rates are not good enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here is a google query that lets you find people's human.txt files [http://www.google.com/search?q=filetype%3Atxt+inurl%3Ahumans...](http://www.google.com/search?q=filetype%3Atxt+inurl%3Ahumans.txt)

</comment><comment><USER18> I think humans.txt is great, but it would be even better if the "standard" was to use a human/machine-readable format like YAML. The example on the website is really close to that.

Yes, I know it's an ironic request.

<comment><USER19> Even at google we were debating how to structure a humans.txt.. and to make it machine readable, etc.

Personally I say fuck it.. While machine-parseable would be nice, that's not the point of this file.

More creativity without some sort of YAML constraint. In the HTML5 Boilerplate ours has effing stars, bro: [https://github.com/paulirish/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/h...](https://github.com/paulirish/html5-boilerplate/blob/master/humans.txt)

<comment><USER20> How about some literate programming? You could even start the file with a sentence like:

"Paul Irish last updated this text on May 6, 2011 using the Standard Grammar."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> <http://news.ycombinator.com/humans.txt>

Unknown.

\---- Awww... :(

</comment><comment><USER22> [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=192...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=1139&q=filetype:txt+humans.txt&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw).

<comment><USER11> How is <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/humans.txt> the 4th result? Google fail..

<comment><USER23> There was actually a question there. I wrote it. I asked whether or not humans.txt is speciesist, and narrow minded. It's a reflection on our current understanding of who our peers are. I felt that future generations would look back on humans.txt with contempt. What might AI, aliens, or other hereto undiscovered sentient organisms think? There are groups working on genetically modifying dolphins to make them more intelligent. I wouldn't want them to feel like they are second class citizens. I proposed people.txt.

Stackoverflow was probably not the right place for the question so it got closed with extreme prejudice.

Probably should've tried LessWrong

<comment><USER24> Once we get to the point of AIs approaching sapience and/or aliens surfing our internet, we can change it to people.txt.

Toaster jokes aside, I doubt AIs will identify more with primitive search engines than other sapients.

<comment><USER23> I'm sure that's true, but I don't see why it would be unreasonable to use more inclusive language from the beginning.

<comment><USER24> Reasonable and pursuable - on a site you run, you could make humans.txt redirect to people.txt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> <http://flickr.com/humans.txt>

<comment><USER26> I cry foul, unicorns and pandas are not humans.

<comment><USER25> Unfortunately there's no pandas.txt or unicorns.txt

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why is this the top article on HN? Is it really that relevant to talk about this?

<comment><USER28> It's an idea that was discussed here recently, and its adoption by Google is a sign that it's got some traction in high-profile places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> So basically, Google has too many people for them to be able to list them all. Or Google didn't want to try and list them, thinking they might miss someone, or subject them to poaching.

That seems to be a fundamental problem with humans.txt: The bigger, more interesting a project gets, it creates several reasons why it will only vaguely be able to lost anything, out of a conflict of interest, rather than give full credit to the team behind the site.

</comment><comment><USER30> <http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl%3Ahumans.txt>

<comment><USER31> better: "inurl:humans txt" filetype:txt

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not too much interesting in the headers. ;)

      x-content-type-options: nosniff

      Server: sffe [1]

[1] <http://code.google.com/p/sffe/> ?

<comment><USER33> I doubt those are the same sffe.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, you're probably right. Am not seeing any reasonable references to it in a quick search.

<http://www.google.com/notaurl> \- is also served via sffe.

[http://josephscott.org/archives/2010/11/user-agent- sniffing-...](http://josephscott.org/archives/2010/11/user-agent-sniffing-at- google-libraries-cdn/) \- as are the js libraries they serve.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2280319> \- @dmaz seems to think it's google's static resource server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Which reminds me of Google Code Jam ... which starts in 2hrs. I'm not really expecting anything but i'll try the problems.

</comment><comment><USER35> The irony of the words contrasted with naming the file human.txt is not lost on me.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is a pleasant surprise. Will also install the chrome ext. kudos

</comment><comment><USER37> Apparently, Facebook does not have any humans.

</comment><comment><USER38> Clever

</comment><comment><USER39> what is this for?

<comment><USER40> <http://humanstxt.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Don't believe this, people. It's obviously planted evidence. We are not alone ...

</comment><comment><USER42> Why aren't programmers mentioned explicitly? :/</comment>


Parsers and Combinators - <AUTHOR> http://alexicalmistake.com/2008/06/parsers-and-combinators/ <comment><USER2> This is interesting to me. I recently wrote an interpreter for a parsing language (similar to the one in the article) in common lisp and also a recursive descent parser generator for an almost identical language (to my previous one).

I went back a few articles and found this: [http://alexicalmistake.com/2008/06/scheme-parser- combinators...](http://alexicalmistake.com/2008/06/scheme-parser- combinators/), to which I've concluded that I _might_ be using combinators in my interpreted parsing language because every operator (such as 'repeat' or 'find-next') returns a function that performs the operations, but I am still a bit unclear.

If anyone is interested, I wrote a bit about them and gave an example of the parse tree created here: [http://ioreader.com/2009/01/01/common-lisp- recursive-descent...](http://ioreader.com/2009/01/01/common-lisp-recursive- descent-parser-int) As I am new to common lisp (reading ANSI CL, actually, although I've been playing with things not yet mentioned in the book!), the code leaves a lot to be desired.

Otherwise, very interesting article. These are the subjects that interest me most and approachable articles like these help me a lot.</comment>


Justice in Brooklyn. - <AUTHOR> http://www.whatever-whenever.net/blog/2010/08/justice-in-brooklyn/ <comment><USER2> Good story. Surprised you got to ride home with the evidence.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good for the poster.</comment>