Chicago Police to Airbnb Host: No Whites in Black Neighborhoods, Please - <AUTHOR> http://www.launch.is/blog/chicago-police-to-airbnb-host-no-whites-in-black-neighborhoo.html <comment><USER2> Cops didn't say that.

Cops said don't embarrass city in front of international visitors and don't run business without a license, host suggested motivation was actually racism (but also had a few other good points).

<comment><USER3> Thank you. I read the entire transcript and not once did the police mention race.</comment></comment>


Ajit Pai calls California's net neutrality rules "illegal" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/ajit-pai-calls-californias-net-neutrality-rules-illegal <comment><USER2> From the transcript:

So in early August, we adopted a policy that would allow a single entity to do the requisite work on the utility pole—a policy commonly known as "one-touch make-ready." This policy could substantially lower the cost and shorten the time to deploy broadband on utility poles.

But according to [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/fcc-gives- google...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/fcc-gives-google-fiber- and-new-isps-faster-access-to-utility-poles):

Despite today's vote, the FCC hurt the cause of faster pole attachment when it deregulated the broadband industry last year, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Legislative Counsel Ernesto Falcon. The FCC's anti-net neutrality vote removed the classification of broadband as a common carrier service—that now-repealed classification "ensure[d] that every broadband provider has the legal right to gain access to many of the poles that run along our roads," the EFF wrote last year.

"I wonder if the anti-net neutrality crowd understands that Title II's regulation of poles and conduit is now limited to telephone/cable TV thanks to [the] Restoring Internet Freedom Order," Falcon tweeted today. "The ISPs that are broadband-only will not get the benefit, thus limiting its positive impact."

</comment><comment><USER3> Ah, the hypocrisy of the "States Rights" crowd: They're all for it, until they don't like what a state wants to do.

<comment><USER4> States' rights were first employed as an argument by New Englanders opposing the War of 1812. Their more famous Southern exponents were not troubled by the Fugitive Slave Law. I'd argue that there is nearly nobody who has a principled commitment to states' rights, rather than using it as an instrument to their true ends.

<comment><USER5> I'd like to go a step further and make each state fully autonomous, with a loosely coupled 'union' for a military force (albeit, MUCH smaller than it is currently) and intrastate issues like commerce/roads/etc. Each state would pay taxes to cover those things. State taxes would be > fed, and would cover Medicare, education, medicaid, and decide their own social programs, and legal laws.. This would give more freedom, if you can afford/want to live in a progressive place with universal healthcare move to a state with that, if not move to the deep south, where they no longer have separation of church and state, and everything else Republicans want.

<comment><USER4> Yes, and then the states can be confederated by some series of articles. Wonder why nobody thought of this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area"

Regulatory policy that apparently he wants to set - but specifically gave that ability to the FTC.

Seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too? Am I misunderstanding this?

<comment><USER7> He's trying to tie everything into a ball of legal twine that will take years to sort out. All the while, the ISPs will have free reign to do whatever they want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > After all, broadband is an interstate service; Internet traffic doesn't > recognize state lines.

Hum, it either recognizes both state and nation-state lines, or neither. Since the FCC can regulate ISPs, then it clearly recognizes nation-state lines, and thus state lines.

</comment><comment><USER9> > It follows that only the federal government can set regulatory policy in > this area. For if individual states like California regulate the Internet, > this will directly impact citizens in other states.

\-- Pai

Interesting argument. Could his reasoning be used to block attempts by states (NC, I'm looking at you!) to interfere with municipal broadband?

<comment><USER4> I mean it's an argument against a federal system in general, when you think about it. Any regulation California passes is going to affect what is sold all over the country, because businesses can't afford to ignore it and making a special California version is more complicated than just complying in the base product.

<comment><USER10> The "it's going to be too expensive and complicated" argument has been used by every group ever opposed to any new regulation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For Pai, it's only legal when it serves his monopolistic masters. When it serves the people, it must be illegal. The only thing it poses a risk to, is monopoly abuse by Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon and the like. Which is exactly the point.

And Pai lost all power to preempt anything, when he himself removed FCC from overseeing ISPs and pushed that to FTC.

</comment><comment><USER12> I believe the entire purpose of passing that law was for California to say "come at me bro" to the Federal government, and force a showdown on the issue. I doubt the California lawmakers ever expected it to actually go into effect, and not get blocked by lawsuits the moment the ink is dry.

<comment><USER13> There's another bill that ties net neutrality to state contracts. It would forbid the state from signing contracts with ISPs that don't follow net neutrality. They could also tack on taxes to non-compliance ISPs. The State will ultimately win the fight. It was very short-sighted for ISPs to make this federal issue because it would have just ended up with states.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've said it in the past, but I'm going to repeat myself: if anyone is willing to defend Pai's actions, would you like to do a friendly bet (proceeds to to a GiveWell charity) that as soon as he is legally allowed too he will be given a sinecure at Verizon/Comcast or an RNC friendly lobby shop?

<comment><USER15> This is not an interesting bet at all. Isn't that exactly what many people leaving government do?

<comment><USER16> Not only that, it's what people entering government _plan_ to do.

I had a conversation with a lead researcher at a pharmaceutical company (also a friend) where she discussed her plans to work at the FDA for a few years and then return to private industry. She was very explicit about her reasoning: companies pay a premium for researchers with FDA experience because such people are more adept at navigating funding and approval processes.

When I asked whether she considered that she would be participating in a corrupting (if not corrupt) process, she simply waved the notion away--this is how it works and what you need to do to advance your career. This person leans very liberal from a social and political perspective.

This is where we're at as a society. The machinery of the administrative state is consuming everything in its path. I'm not anti-government or anti- regulation. But the centralization of power is extremely problematic; not just conceptually, but literally.

Once upon a time the Federal government had an _explicit_ (if informal) policy of placing administrative offices across the country. This was, I believe, largely a matter of sharing the employment opportunities across the states. But it also had the effect of disincentivizing government work for highly ambitious people. (Moving to D.C. is far easier to justify than moving to Oklahoma City.) These administrative offices are increasingly centralized geographically around D.C. This has attracted industry. The phenomenon is one example of many that has promoted corrupting processes such as the revolving door between regulators and industry.

On the bright side, it means there are very concrete countermeasures that we could begin instituting. For example, instate an _explicit_ , _formal_ policy of locating administrative agencies--especially executive offices--far outside the Beltway. Yes, this will be costly in terms of administrative efficiency. But safeguarding democratic institutions is costly; if we're not prepared to pay the price then we deserve what we get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This guy will just say anything, won't he? I already knew he wasn't a constitutional scholar, but this is rich even coming from a shill with as little self respect as Pai.

 _The broader problem is that California 's micromanagement poses a risk to the rest of the country. After all, broadband is an interstate service; Internet traffic doesn't recognize state lines. It follows that only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area. For if individual states like California regulate the Internet, this will directly impact citizens in other states._

What?! I can't even begin to express how infuriating this is, the sheer hypocrisy and wanton dishonesty, from someone who is nominally in the position of protecting Americans' interests. Forget the interstate commerce clause, forget Republican's supposed respect for state's rights, forget giving people a necessary service, let's use a warped interpretation of the law as a hammer to empower crooked bureaucracy.

<comment><USER18> This fight is pot vs kettle.

CA doesn't think twice about making laws that contradict federal laws or are in direct violation of the constitution.

Pai is, charitably speaking, in the pocket of industry.

I think CA is within its rights this time around and wins this one fair and square though despite not having an awesome coffee mug.

<comment><USER19> >CA doesn't think twice about making laws that contradict federal laws

It's been my naive observation that state laws are, in some practical context, "allowed" to contradict federal laws, in the sense that perhaps they are simply given some de facto leeway. Am I totally off base? Does this reduce the hypocrisy?

<comment><USER20> They are only allowed to contradict state laws to the extent that the federal government may decide it's not worth it to try and enforce the rules in the state, especially states like CA where they state that they won't cooperate with enforcement of laws they don't agree with. Even if the state someone lives in has contradictory laws, you still have to follow the federal laws at any job that cares about that. For example, if you live in a state that has legalized recreational or medical marijuana, you still can't use it if you want to work a federal job or anything that requires a security clearance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Of course he does.

There would not be such a fight if Ajit were to actually regulate in the public interest.

I see someone already made the comment, "didn't he give all that to the FTC?"

Indeed.

</comment><comment><USER22> How long before they use the commerce clause as an excuse to kill California's law?

<comment><USER23> If they do that, can California rewrite the law to distinguish between last mile service and transit service and regulate only the last mile part?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Funny how nobody seems to understand the interstate commerce clause. I guess this is how they justify being able to do anything...

</comment><comment><USER25> It's quite interesting how much the Trump administration is copying from the Reagan administration (admittedly, I was not alive during the Regan times so my info is coming from textbooks). The Trump administration is doing is essentially its own form of Trump Reaganomics mixed with his own Starve the beast playbook [1]. Though I feel like this new strategy is more to protect the self interests of the few around President Trump rather than to cut down the big government.

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

</comment><comment><USER26> where does Ajit Pai hangout?

</comment><comment><USER27> but muh state's rights

</comment><comment><USER28> I hate this guy so much

<comment><USER29> Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> TBH it is hilarious we believe "net neutrality" exists in the first place. Peering agreements between ISP's at IPX's are rarely "fair or neuatral" as different ISP's have different carrying capacity, and will treat traffic from their own networks preferentially for technical reasons.

But since <5k people understand BGP routing configuration we pretend it is neutral.

<comment><USER19> It's been my experience that all definitions of net neutrality explicitly allow prioritization for technical reasons (e.g. streaming). Is this fuzzier than I thought?

<comment><USER30> "technical reasons" is an awesome weasel word in the hands of the right c-level or legal representative.

<comment><USER31> "technical reasons" should be limited to things like the speed of light, or in this case the necessity to drop packets if the presented load exceeds the output rate of a link for more than the finite buffer can store.

everything else is policy - which means there is a choice. that choice might be heavily driven by economics, or by some kind of business strategy. but its pretty indefensible to say 'the crew in white coats down in the basement told me we just had to do it that way (shrug)'

so in the absence of speed-of-light issues, 'technical reasons' in this case is just a planet-sized loophole.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Drone-detection systems – how do they work? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering about drone-detection systems. How do they work?
Is it too late to start thinking about building "advanced" drone-detection system? <comment><USER2> I have a short piece coming up on Ars Technica this weekend on this exact issue. Stay tuned. :-)</comment>


Hacker News RSS Feed Down? - <AUTHOR> Last entry on Feedly is from 13 hours ago. When navigating to news.ycombinator.com/rss it shows no entries. <comment><USER2> I tried [https://news.ycombinator.com/rss](https://news.ycombinator.com/rss) just now and I see entries. I can't swear that they're totally up to date, but at a quick glance it seems to at least roughly match the current front page. [https://news.ycombinator.com/bigrss](https://news.ycombinator.com/bigrss) also seems to be working.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like the bigrss feed is working normally in Feedly. The regular rss feed still isn't updating but bigrss will work for now. Thanks for the link!</comment></comment>


NY Times halves free views of news stories  - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/03/20/ny-times-halves-free-views-of-news-stories/

<comment><USER2> Wait. We do all realize that you can read the article just by removing the arguments from the address, right?

</comment><comment><USER3> In a related story, random internet user stock_toaster now reads fewer NY Times articles.

</comment><comment><USER4> If they halved their subscription fee I would sign up.</comment>


"Cold Tube" cooling system uses half the energy of an air conditioner - <AUTHOR> https://newatlas.com/energy/cold-tube-cooling-air-conditioner/ <comment><USER2> > The notoriously bad energy efficiency of air conditioners

Air conditioners are actually pretty fantastically efficient for what they do. The problem with air conditioners is that there's _no_ way to move a ton of heat without using a lot of energy. So, they do use a lot, but they make the most of it.

What's truly bad are our buildings that have the minimal insulation and sealing possible, leaking all that cold air right back out into the environment.

<comment><USER3> New buildings are rather efficient in US. The problem is old buildings that use 5X the energy for HVAC.

I echo that AC is quite efficient. Far more efficient than traditional heating. There's a misconception that hot areas are less environmentally friendly due to AC. The opposite is true.

Hot areas are only 25 freedom units hotter than humans prefer. Cold areas have months of 50+ temperature difference.

The misconception persists because heat uses gas, which is 5-10X less expensive per BTU of energy than electricity. So it might be cheaper to heat cold areas than run AC in hot ones, but its much more damaging to the environment. Plus, hot climates are using a lot of renewables these days which impacts the environmental friendliness of electric but not gas.

I expect migration to the sun belt to accelerate, at least in the US. It makes a lot of sense from environmental perspectives. In some southern cities there's already long stretches every summer where daytime AC use runs on 70%+ renewable energy.

<comment><USER4> It is amazing how tight we can make buildings today. I had to learn a lot about HVAC on a remodeling job a few years ago. I had no idea that the drywall can be sealed so tight that when the HVAC system is running it can be next to impossible to open a door without a pressure release duct. Also saw how the HVAC system had vents to bring in air from outside with baffles controlled by the system. Can't remember exact purpose something about helping help control humidity as well as regulation to bring in "fresh" air to mix with the "stale" air in the building.

So some parts of construction techniques and building materials have improved significantly. However, when comparing the framing lumber used today to what was used in the 60s, I'm shocked that new construction doesn't fall over the first time the wolf huffs and puffs.

<comment><USER2> The outdoor fresh air intakes are typically via ERVs (Energy recovery ventilation systems). These systems bring in fresh air, filter it, and typically run it through a heat exchanger to minimize energy losses as the fresh air comes and and the stale air goes out.

The purpose is to prevent buildup of harmful gasses and VOCs (everything from CO2 to CO to regular out-gassing of furnitures, etc) that can become dangerous if not cycled regularly.

<comment><USER5> 2020: "Poisonous stuff in our houses... Bad! Let's vent it to the environment!"

2120: The environment is all full of poisonous gasses from the people of 2020. Each house needs its own air purifier to make the outdoor air safe to breathe.

<comment><USER6> This is already a reality.

> the first Cordis hotel on mainland China boasts something that is genuinely > rare in big Chinese cities: clean indoor air.

[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/27/china- clean-a...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/27/china-clean-air- indoor-quality-shanghai-cordis-hongqiao-filters)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author doesn't really explain it well because his explanation breaks some physics laws, so it doesn't "suck" your body heat away.

Instead, it lowers the amount of heat radiating onto you from your environment by replacing hot walls with cold walls, which will lower the temperature of your skin.

It's efficient specifically because it _doesn 't_ cool by convection (like every other cooler). This allows the designers to insulate it so they only have to offset temperature gained by incoming heat radiation when keeping it cool. That also means it won't cool the air, just the objects near it.

<comment><USER8> Thermal radiative coupling is bidirectional. Sucking away is appropriate and important as you do actually have to displace the energy somewhere. It works the same way when sucking air.

A simpler non-radiating equivalent would be a reflective foil, or a polished metal - you could enclose yourself within it, get no radiating heat from environment, yet it wouldn't help cool you, because your radiation has no place to go.

<comment><USER9> > It works the same way when sucking air.

This is a good analogy because (being pedantic) you can't suck air either. You can only make a region of lower pressure, into which the higher-pressure air pushes itself.

<comment><USER8> May I then ask what can you suck, by your definition?

<comment><USER9> Good question! 'Sucking' here is a bit like 'centrifugal force' \- it's a real thing, but only in the right frame of reference.

In the case of centrifugal force, it's a real thing in a rotating reference frame, but doesn't exist in an inertial reference frame (because in that frame the acceleration is towards the center, ie. centripetal).

In the case of suction, it's a real thing when your zero-pressure reference point is above 'absolute zero' pressure, such as when you're measuring gauge pressure. In this case you can have an area of 'negative pressure' which is 'sucking' the surrounding fluid into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> An idea I was told about relatively recently that kind of blew my mind:

\- Space is cold (~3K)

\- The atmosphere is really quite transparent in the wavelegth 8-13 μm

\- If one can construct an optical filter (e.g. grating) which is highly reflective except for a bandpass at 8-13μm, it is possible to reflect most solar energy but still "see" the cold of deep space

\- It's possible to build a box with sufficiently low thermal conduction, and this 'magic mirror' on top, to effectively refrigerate its contents by radiation to space. This uses no power, and works in direct sunlight [^1].

So weird, probably not very practical (what about cloudy days?), but very cool!

[^1] in fact, if you put it in the shade then it would warm up because it could no longer radiate to space.

<comment><USER11> > [^1] in fact, if you put it in the shade then it would warm up because it > could no longer radiate to space.

If I understand correctly, this isn't quite right. If it's in the shade, then whatever is shading it is radiating more heat onto it (because the shading object is hotter than space) and possibly reflecting its own radiated heat back. If it's under a clear sky then it's receiving less heat, so what it loses by radiating has more effect. Does that sound right?

<comment><USER12> I agree with your description, OP possibly concised his words a little too much as to imply the wrong thing.

<comment><USER10> I agree too :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This sounds pretty neat, but their description of cold things sucking thermal radiation doesn't jive with my freshman-physics understanding of thermodynamics. AFAICT they've got cold water circulating in a moisture- repellent membrane, so they're able to absorb heat by chilling the water in the pipes instead of fussing with the humidity in the air like most AC does. So it sounds like trading inefficiency of standard AC units for an inefficient thermal interface -- you need to stand next to it to feel cooled?

<comment><USER14> It's the cooling equivalent of a radiant heater, and you need line-of-sight to the walls to feel cooled. The thermal interface is deliberately inefficient for convection (to avoid wasting power chilling the air), but efficient for radiation.

Radiation is proportional to absolute temperature T^4. So compared to a glowing radiant patio heater, I'd expect to need maybe (1000^4 - 300^4)/(300^4 - 270^4) ~ 350x the area for the same heat transfer in the opposite direction, thus their big tunnel instead of a little filament. Even with their cold source at absolute zero, they'd still need >100x.

<comment><USER2> _And_ you still have to pump the heat out to somewhere else.

The whole premise with this system is that you can keep the temperature higher so you have to pump less heat, which I'm extremely skeptical of, at least for indoor environments.

<comment><USER15> The biggest gain is that you don't have to pump out all of the heat of condensation of all of the moisture in the air. Condensing out a pound of water is 200x more energy-consuming than lowering the temperature of a kg of air by 10 degrees C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I saw a very promising AC technology at CES in january that people may find interesting: [https://www.oxicool.com/](https://www.oxicool.com/)

I don't have the material science or chemistry background to know how effective it is, but I hope everything they claim holds water, it sounds pretty good.

There's also a DIY water based AC with pipes and a cheap pump you can find widely on the internet, but I haven't done it yet. Here's an example [https://www.instructables.com/id/Hollis-homemade- AC/](https://www.instructables.com/id/Hollis-homemade-AC/) ... In the comments one poster suggested a toilet tank as a reservoir, that sounds promising.

<comment><USER17> That's neat and I'm going to keep an eye on it. The -15° F ambient differential somewhat limits its usefulness, and I'd like to see an induction- powered heater as an option instead of conduction-based heating. I'm guessing the 10-year lifespan is due to the fan bearings and the molecular sieve lifetime, and I'd like to see the overall system lifespan increased by 10X.

Would be interested in the papers behind this tech, as I think there are a lot of caveats they're glossing over.

[1] seems to be a paper on adjacent technology.

[2] seems to indicate the service lifetime of the molecular sieve is the controlling factor in the estimated lifecycle. 10 years sounds like the upper range.

[1] [https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.4822041?journalC...](https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.4822041?journalCode=rse)

[2] [http://www.yyindustry.com/news_show.asp?id=28](http://www.yyindustry.com/news_show.asp?id=28)

<comment><USER16> They're trying to get version 1 out the door. Hopefully there's a dramatic improvement and optimization curve still available given it's such early days still

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is just a regular hydronic radiant system which is very efficient because it doesn't need to heat the air. The thing is, hydronic systems have been around for 70 years or more but they typically are not used for cooling because of the humidity issues that arise which are damaging to the building. So this can only be implemented in buildings with materials resistant to water damage. Hydronic radiant systems are the best around it terms of heating efficiency but very expensive to install. This article seems like hype and bs.

<comment><USER18> It does say that there is a Novel membrane to prevent humidity build up, but there isn't a lot of information about the membrane and what conditions it will work in. For instance, Will it work in a wooden structure with drywall?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not sure why they are researching the mechanism, these systems are commonly installed in Germany and known as "Kühldecke" (cooling ceiling).

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BChldecke](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BChldecke)

<comment><USER20> Is this the same kind of thing? (english wikipedia)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm not an expert, if one is available please comment.

Human perception of temperature is mostly based on 5 things: Ambient air temperature, Radiant Heat (infrared radiation), humidity, direct conduction of heat, and air movement.

It seems like this addresses Radiant Heat. Another way to address this is to add more insulation, install low-emissivity windows, plant shade trees in your yard.

Half of my house feels much warmer in the afternoon because it lacks shade. I used a thermometer to see the difference between the ambient air temperature in the two halves; the hot side was only 2 degrees F hotter. I don't have an IR thermometer, but I imagine that the walls in the hot side are at least 10 degrees F hotter.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how costly it is to fill your walls entirely with water pipes.

Also, one currently ensures there is a stud or lack of electrical when putting nails in a wall. I guess you gotta hang things up differently.

<comment><USER2> There are some "radiant cooling" installations out there. Most use either the ceiling or the floor, for the reasons you point out.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, my brother used to work in a building that was cooled like this with a 'chilled beam' system - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilled_beam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilled_beam)

Apparently it works pretty well.

<comment><USER24> That uses a different mechanism. It cools the air and relies on convection. TFA specifically avoids cooling the air.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is pretty neat. It lets you (somewhat) decouple the temperature and humidity of the air from how cool it feels to be in the room, by only removing _radiative_ heat coming from inside the room. You could choose to exchange air with the outside more rapidly without losing efficiency because you aren't putting as much energy into conditioning the air itself. I wonder if there are any infrared-transparent wall paints.

</comment><comment><USER26> Circulating fan uses tenth the energy of an air conditioner.

The Revenge of the Circulating Fan [https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/09/circulating-fans- air...](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/09/circulating-fans-air- conditioning.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> This is just a geothermal unit with the evaporator built around the load and instead of air to air transfer through convection it is air to air transfer through radiation... nothing but smoke and mirrors. The problem with efficiency and A/C is the excess heat generated by the compression element of the Refrigeration Cycle. The closest thing to 100% efficiency is achieved through absorption chillers that utilize an internal chemical reaction based off of external heat to produce compression through a metered system... neat idea though. Heating systems that utilize the same process are different though - you can achieve greater than 100% efficiency with the use of flash gas bypass designs that will say for example produce 1.5 tons of heat in a 1 ton system.

</comment><comment><USER28> This sounds expensive to install. For it to work as well as regular AC, wouldn't this have to be built into basically all the walls in your home?

</comment><comment><USER29> This sounds promising. I wonder if such can be implemented in small dwellings.

</comment><comment><USER30> Description seems like a thing from a science fiction.

</comment><comment><USER31> This sounds like they reinvented a swamp cooler. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER32> There is absolutely nothing resembling a swamp cooler going on here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Pretty cool

(sorry)

</comment><comment><USER34> > .. as a person stands next to or beneath the panel, the body heat radiates > towards the chilled panels to create a cooling sensation ..

I'm not sure that is an accurate description of the physics. Maybe the air next to the panel is cooler, accounting for the cooling sensation.

<comment><USER35> This confused me for a bit. The point of the system is to prevent energy from being reflected or radiated from a surface. Systems like this have been around for a while ([https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/home-cooling- systems/radi...](https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/home-cooling- systems/radiant-cooling)), the news here is that this works with temperatures below the dew point because they have solved the condensation issues.</comment></comment>


Virus Aimed at Iran Infected Chevron Network - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324894104578107223667421796-lMyQjAxMTAyMDAwODEwNDgyWj.html?mod=wsj_valettop_email

<comment><USER2> One quote caught my eye:

        He said those employees need to understand malware and techniques for fighting it, such as deep-packet inspection, which involves a very detailed examination of traffic on a computer network.

        They must also have a deep knowledge of what network traffic should look like. "There are probably only 18 to 20 people in the [U.S.] who have those fundamental skills," Mr. Paller said.

His numbers seem WAY off to me. Can anyone support/refute this claim?

<comment><USER3> Well, the fact that he says "only 18 to 20 people in the [U.S.] who have those fundamental skills" seems bizarre. If only 18-20 people have them, they're not fundamental, they're exceptional. On the other hand, he's pretty vague about those skills specifically. I know a fair number (>> 20, and I'm a recluse) of people who I could imagine implementing some DPI, and knowing "what looks like normal internet traffic" isn't that hard. On the other hand, there aren't that many people doing automated analysis of targeted malware or 0day, in that context his numbers make more sense (but I would stil call them low). It all comes down to tradeoffs and skill levels. You can always set a bar of "having a set of skills" where the skill level is so high that only 20 people have them. But, most companies aren't doing the bare minimum, and security professionals are wiley so it might seem to some like there are only 20 people, because they're all quietly employed or enjoyably semi-employed.

<comment><USER4> The skills are "fundamental" because the skills are a necessary condition in order to complete the project.

fundamental :

adj. a necessary base or core; of central importance: _the protection of fundamental human rights; interpretation of evidence is fundamental to the historian's craft._

<Special Usage>

affecting or relating to the essential nature of something or the crucial point about an issue: _the fundamental problem remains that of the housing shortage._

<comment><USER3> So I see from your profile that you're an admitted contrarian, but I'll bite your troll-bait. I think if only 18-20 people have the skill, then it does not qualify as a "base or core" skill. The fact that a skill is necessary to complete a task does not, to me, imply that it is also "of central importance". Feel free to continue trolling on the matter by yourself.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Make Your Hosting Socially Responsible: 25% of Revenues Donated to Charity - <AUTHOR> http://bostinnovation.com/2011/01/07/make-your-hosting-socially-responsible-babson-students-launch-cloudjolt/

<comment><USER2> Cloudjolt is the company's name: <http://www.cloudjolt.com/></comment>


This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach - <AUTHOR> http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/08/this_is_why_the_american_dream.html <comment><USER2> Sigh, another blogger trotting out the tired, false cliche that college is useless. From the article: "Were you smarter at 21 post college than your Dad was at 21? And whatever the difference, was it worth the $50k-$200k he paid to get you it?"

Yes. Yes I was smarter. And I didn't pay 200k because I went to a state school. I graduated a wholly different person with a completely different world-view and a ton of applicable skills that landed me a high-paying software engineering job instead of doing the manual labor or trivial office tasks that I was qualified for before college.

If you go to a private school to get a history degree then sure, it was 4 years of expensive partying that doesn't leave you any more employable. Go get a science/engineering/JD/MD heck even an MBA and you damn well better be smarter at the end.

<comment><USER3> I'm rather bothered by all the people knocking liberal arts degrees, in this and other threads. I did go to a school with a reputation for having a hard liberal arts core education, and it turned out to be a great decision. (In retrospect, I now wish I had gone to a different school, but the one I chose wasn't bad at all.)

It's hard to explain why it's good to be able to think about these things, but it's hard to explain why it's valuable to be able to think about math and programming (especially to a math class full of skeptical kids). Essentially, a good liberal arts education transforms your world-view of those subjects the same way a good engineering education does. Just like you shouldn't condemn yourself to reinventing Quicksort when you can be capable of more advanced algorithms, nor should you find yourself reinventing Locke when thinking about politics. It is much better to build on the history of thought instead of being doomed to repeat it (and you'll only repeat it satisfactorily if you're a genius anyway).

OK, there are worthless liberal arts educations. But there are also worthless computer science educations, as anyone who's worked with other programmers has discovered.

<comment><USER4> As am I. A liberal arts education makes you better able to understand and explain the world around you. The notion that every moment of college must be teaching you a skill that you will directly apply in your future career is positively stifling.

<comment><USER5> Strawman. Very few people are saying that, not enough to worry about. The claim is not that 100% of college should be about teaching useful skills, the claim is that if you're going to be put into tens of thousands of dollars of debt that can not be removed by bankruptcy it should probably be the case that more than _zero_ percent of your college time should be spent on a directly- salable skill.

Many people are really misunderstanding the argument here. It is not that liberal arts are bad. It is that it is basically large-scale _fraud_ to sell a college degree as best way to a well-paying job and worth the massive undischargable-debt without explaining that the promise really only applies to practical degrees.

You are free to complain about how the market only values degrees that produce marketable skills (and I've deliberately phrased it a bit tautologically to make it obvious that it's not really a very compelling complaint), but I still say that if you want people to pursue impractical degrees you need to be doing it by telling them the truth about what they are doing. I will not deny anybody their right to go into tens of thousands of dollars of debt chasing their dream, I just want them to do it with eyes wide open.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great story. Parents encourage son to beat head against the closed doors of corporate america instead of encouraging him to becoming an entrepreneur.

The author's conclusion:

"I'm not here offering a solution for the 45 year old guy with three kids. I am offering encouragement to a crop of college kids infantilized by terrible advice from parents and TV who have the freedom and opportunity to try something; while simultaneously describing the only long term solution to America's economic problems: more businesses. Jobs programs and stimulus packages are debatably good or bad, but assuredly temporary. Remember "the children are or future?" How about encouraging them a little? Maybe someday they'll pay for your social security."

<comment><USER7> um not quite so black & white. Scott isn't trying to become an entrepreneur right now...he's not doing shit. He either needs to get a job (40k whatever, it pays the bills) or start a damn company.

edit: Or as one commenter said, get a corp job to save some $$$ while you work on something else on the side.

<comment><USER8> Right. The author is saying he _should_ become an entrepreneur, and that his family should be advising him to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "I get that [having a good network gives] you an advantage, of course, but does not having them mean a career in holes?"

Yes, obviously. If you aren't even well-networked enough to get a job then how the hell are you supposed to be an entrepreneur? Being well-networked is probably the single best predictor of entrepreneurial success, so criticizing the grandfather's advice while telling him to start a company makes no sense.

The one thing the kid is probably right about though is not taking the job. When I was a kid we used to talk about McJobs, i.e. jobs with no chances of any upward mobility. These days pretty much every job at a big company is a McJob, so you have to be really careful about working for someone else.

<comment><USER10> Are you arguing that it's easier to become "well-networked" by sitting at home? How do you think you would impress more people? By working or by being too arrogant to work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Overall I found this article disappointingly full of worthless generalisations.

 _There is absolutely no way that anyone who reads The Economist can have concluded that Europe has surpassed America in anything not involving riots, in the way that no one who reads Maxim can conclude that acne is in vogue._

I find this attitude deeply aggravating. Europe has simply chosen a different path to the US, and to pretend that the US is superior in every way is ridiculous.

Europe, on the whole, balances lower individual buying power and higher unemployment against taking substantially better care of its citizens, and much better class mobility. It's certainly arguable that the average citizen experiences a higher overall quality of life in (western) Europe than in the US. I can absolutely see how that style of life is not for everyone, so it's great that countries like the US exist, but personally, I prefer to live in a european model.

As for the value of a degree, when I went into my programme I was a decent enough (for my age) coder, with a serious weight problem and very limited social skills, and when I left I was a better coder with some good fundamental background knowledge, fit, and socially confident. My degree program did me the world of good - it's fine that it's not the route for everyone, but pretending that all degrees are worthless makes you look silly.

edit: It appears that my infrequent reading of The Economist has resulted in an unnecessary rant on my part. My apologies to the author!

<comment><USER12> "Europe, on the whole, balances lower individual buying power and higher unemployment against taking substantially better care of its citizens,"

"lower individual buying power" means much higher taxes and less freedom with your money.

Right now, the unemployment rate in most European countries is almost the same as it is in the US:

[http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&...](http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language=en&pcode=teilm020&tableSelection=1&plugin=1)

<comment><USER13> >>"lower individual buying power" means much higher taxes and less freedom with your money.

Higher taxes don't necessarily mean less freedom with your money; a collective good that a group largely (or even unanimously) in favor of purchasing might go unpurchased due to the free rider problem.

See Mancur Olson's "The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups"

<comment><USER12> "Higher taxes don't necessarily mean less freedom with your money; a collective good that a group largely (or even unanimously) in favor of purchasing might go unpurchased due to the free rider problem."

When you are taxed, that money may or may not go toward something you want to purchase (and many times, the people in the middle and upper classes are paying for programs that they will never use). That money is gone and you have that much less to spend, save, or invest.

You also don't really have a say in where it's spent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just out of curiosity, the article derides the fact that his job search begins and ends in the morning- when I read that, I thought "well, you could certainly use the rest of the day for self-improvement- fitness, projects relevant to the job you want, volunteer work..."

Is that a bad strategy, or when job hunting should you be pounding the pavement 24/7?

<comment><USER15> That was my thought, too. No matter how I feel about rejecting the insurance job, I can't deny that he's showing sufficient dedication to job hunting. The trouble is he doesn't seem to be showing any dedication to anything else. Why is he not tutoring or coaching little league? Why is he not learning something or building something?

<comment><USER16> I have to disagree that he is showing sufficient dedication to job hunting.

I recently moved away from a secure job that paid well to live closer to family. All my old friends asked me what I was going to do. I assured them I would have a job after my first day of looking.

I did. I worked serving fast food for three weeks before I found a job more in line with my previous employment. During those three weeks I worked serving food, I was emailing my resume out, making calls, and dropping to on local places. I worked my network and heard about an opportunity.

Having a college degree and working for 4 hours a day to find a job while mom and dad pay for your rent, food, and entertainment is a sign of utter failure.

I have been independent since I was 19, after my freshman year of school. I've said it before and will always say it. If I have to move back home after what I've accomplished thus far, I have failed.

<comment><USER17> _I worked serving fast food for three weeks before I found a job more in line with my previous employment._

Ah, and for those three weeks, what did you do about the crushing, crippling depression and feelings of doom as you wondered if you'd ever again find anything better than fast food?

What's that? You didn't feel that way? Some of us do. This was such a powerful effect for me, personally, that when the company I was working for folded in December 2008, I borrowed money for two months to pay rent rather than getting a "just for now" job that couldn't pay my bills anyway, but which certainly would suck up all my energy and send me immediately into depression (presumably not clinical depression; I'm using the word to mean just being depressed), in which state virtually anything I do would be hampered, including effectiveness at looking for a job.

<comment><USER16> It must be nice to have a life so luxurious you can't stomach working a dead end job for 2 months.

It is interesting to me the different notions of pride people have. I would lose all my pride if I had to take out loans to survive. It seems you would lose your pride if you ever had to take something less than you thought you were worth.

It has been impressed upon me my entire life that self sufficiency is the greatest thing you can achieve.

I am genuinely curious to know (you and the others that are cripplingly depressed when life doesnt go their way) -- Why would you be in a crippling state of depression?

This is eye opening and like a field course in psychology to me.

EDIT I'm not going to baby anyone. It's pathetic to skate by on loans rather than your own hard work. Grow some balls, stomach your problems, and power through it.

My goal in life is to be the rock of stability that people can cling to when times are difficult. If that means ignoring my fears like they aren't there, then that is what I will do. If that means serving french fries to people that are more rude than you can imagine - saying horrible things about you just because you work at mcdonalds - then that is what I will do.

But please do answer my above question. I learn more with every comment that is made. EDIT

<comment><USER17> _It must be nice to have a life so luxurious you can't stomach working a dead end job for 2 months._

Wow. This is exactly the opposite of what I meant to convey.

 _It seems you would lose your pride if you ever had to take something less than you thought you were worth._

What's pride got to do with this? It's not about pride, or self-respect, or honor, or any of that. It's about a pervasive feeling of helplessness, of feeling unable to crawl out of the hole that you've slipped back into, after struggling out once before with lots of hard work and luck, and noticing that all the people you knew back in the day are _still there_ , even though they're working about as hard as you did.

It's about fear. Once the fear has set in, that fear that you'll never succeed again, that it was all a fluke, that last year was the high point of your life rather than the latest step up on a generally progressing journey, everything becomes harder. It's harder to look for a job. It's harder to care about keeping up the non-job things you were doing. Coding for an open source project, playing a game or socializing with your friends, exercising, making reasonable-effort meals instead of nuking a frozen pizza, taking online courses -- these things start to seem pointless. Sending out resumes and calling recruiters becomes something you're doing because it's just what people do, rather than because you think that you'll actually get a new job that's better than the last one. Eventually you may stop doing that, because what's the point? You're exhausted, and you have to get up early to go to work and perform mindless activity with people you despise, because your fear and depression has poisoned your interactions with every new person you meet.

I've been down this road once before, in 2003, and I really didn't need to do that again. Instead, I looked for a job that could actually pay my lease (which was too high for a single minimum wage job, and I had 7 months to go) and other bills, and kept my spirits up by continuing to live life as though I were about to get a new job and therefore didn't need to shift into a lower gear (as it were), and that worked out much better. I did have to borrow for a coupla months rent (one after I already had a job, since I hadn't gotten a paycheck, yet), and I was out of work for 3-4 months, counting the months I didn't get paid for, but it all worked out.

In my life, every time I've shifted my aim lower because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do better, I've been right. Every time. What I've learned from this is that I should avoid spending my time and energy when it literally isn't worth it. It's better to keep my head up and my attitude cheerful, because without those things, I'll need a lot of luck to get back out of the rut again.

 _I am genuinely curious to know (you and the others that are cripplingly depressed when life doesnt go their way) -- Why would you be in a crippling state of depression?_

It's not just life not going my way. _That_ did happen in 2008, more than once (divorce, my business failed, then the company I started at when my wife and I split up _also_ failed), but while I was very, very upset over some of those things, they didn't drive me into the depression and ennui that I used to feel all the time in the early and mid 90s, when it seemed that there was no way out of my current situation. In situations like that, the solution has always been to _quit_ my job, rather than get a new one. In late 1997, I quit my refrigerator manufacturing job and bought a Novell Certification guide with the money I would otherwise have spent on gas to get to work that week, and by early 1998 I had a Novell network job (no previous tech jobs).

In 2008, I left Alabama and came to the DC metro, and had a good job within a coupla weeks. Only a few months before that, it had felt like I was trapped in Alabama with no future but working at $10/hr. This experience reminded me exactly what feeling to avoid, so that when that company failed in December (after not paying since mid-October), I knew exactly what I needed to do: I did all the job search stuff I could easily do for another programming job, and I avoided doing anything that I would do if I were planning to be out of a job for months. I played games. I watched a lot of TV. I did some Erlang and played with Java on my new G1. I invited a friend to come up to stay with me and look for a job here because the economy and job situation was so great around DC (!).

This sustained burst of optimism did the trick; I got a nice contract gig that turned into a permanent position, where I still am. If I had gone to get a gone to get a job at McDonald's, even assuming I'd immediately gotten a $10/hr, full time position, I would have been making less than my rent per month, after taxes. So, still borrowing money, but without the energy and optimism.

After reflecting on this and writing about it, I realize that part of the problem is that I'm very introverted and somewhat antisocial. Virtually every low-paying job is a service job, which means dealing with people all day. Much of the drained, depressed feeling I had for much of the 90s could probably be traced back to feeling forced to interact with people I would rather have avoided or ignored. Extroverts might well have the opposite reaction; I dunno.

<comment><USER16> I want to start by saying that what you wrote in the first paragraphs is very raw. I like it a lot. I was serious when I said I was interested to know.

I used to be extremely introverted. I thought I was smarter than everyone else (not saying you're like this), and pretty much was happy doing my own little thing. Then I got my first job. I had to go out and talk to a lot of people. Even though it was usually small talk, it had to happen. 2-400 people every day (I was a bank teller). That gave me some interpersonal skills and a shitload of confidence.

I like that you got the Novell book, studied, went after and got a job. That kind of thing takes heart.

But ultimately, that is what I don't understand. You have so much heart, but it seem like you don't want to recognize or apply it all the time. If one job at McDonald's wont pay the rent. Why aren't you getting a second job at Barnes and Noble? It sucks. It totally does, but there is a silver lining; You're in total control.

It is puzzling to me that you feel better about yourself living off of loans playing video games than working at a dead end job.

I've created a theory, rather unpopular among some of my friends. I think that people that believe in luck are more inclined to feel like you feel... You even specifically mentioned luck at the top of your comment. I don't believe in luck. As funny as it may sound "A real man makes his own luck" (Cal from Titanic, also quoted by Dwight Schrute) is what I subscribe to. Anything I get is because I worked my ass off to get there. I work hard, I produce results, life gets easier in the tough times... Believing this has made a significant change in my outlook on life.

<comment><USER17> _It is puzzling to me that you feel better about yourself living off of loans playing video games than working at a dead end job._

Oh, if I'd thought I was living off of loans, I'd have been doomed, sure. Instead, I was just temporarily borrowing some money until things improved. That turned out to be true, and those people got paid back. The whole point was to live as though I were about to get a job paying what I'd been making, which helped enormously in _believing_ that I was going to, which helped me stay optimistic over the months until I actually did, which meant I kept trying at an optimum sustained level, and that I could smile and joke when talking with recruiters and interviewers, rather than saying the minimum required to get off the phone in the expectation that it wouldn't matter anyway, etc.

But enough of my life history, eh? :)

<comment><USER16> I am very interested in your life history.

What I get from this post is that you have to delude yourself into thinking something that isn't true to not lose hope.

That is a very dangerous way to think. If you don't accept reality, you are losing out. Not just on what is actually happening, but it is how to build confidence in yourself. "I am in a terrible situation, but by my ability to think of my feet and provide for myself when I needed it, I am very capable." There are a lot of important self actualizations that occur when all hope is lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I find myself agreeing whole heartedly with the sentiment of the article. So much so in fact, that I am a bit nervous to share the link with my social network -- mainly because I know my dad will read it!

</comment><comment><USER19> Can anyone point me to the related post from a few weeks back, that concerned the change in the workforce from 'safe' corporate jobs to a more 'free-agent' based workforce?

Concerning the article, my wife pointed out that when she graduated with a Liberal Arts degree and started working as a tech-writer back in 2000, her starting salary was $42,000. A considerable more useful sum than $40k would be today.

The guy in the article seems pretty stupid not to have taken the $40k, seeing as he seems to have no other plan whatsoever. One revealing thing is his comment about his cell bill. You can be sure his parents are also paying for the house, for food, supplying a vehicle, paying insurance, buying him clothes, medical insurance.

My verdict: he's a sheltered little corporate would-be drone, with zero actual knowledge of the world.

</comment><comment><USER20> This can be summed up to the following "Be proactive, happen to life or life won't happen to you" .

</comment><comment><USER21> Gotta love how he's described as having "absolutely no chance of STDs".

</comment><comment><USER22> I propose an alternate question: Even if he got the "package" job he was looking for. Should he take it?

I'm currently in an argument with my parents about attempting a startup after I graduate vs getting a job and trying to start something on the side. Obviously the parents think it's too much risk, I think I've tried to "follow the rules" for too long and have nothing to lose.

Anyone else been in a similar situation?

<comment><USER23> I was in a similar situation a year ago. Had the same "follow the rules" arguments with my parents. For the first few months after school I found contract jobs, which payed well enough, and left me plenty of time for my own thing and reflection. I highly recommend this path if you can stand living on the cheap and not knowing when your next job will surface.

After a few contracts I wound up joining a cool startup as lead developer since I wanted to pay off student debt fast and get some experience before starting my own. In a year or two, I'll likely be finishing up with this startup I'm at now and will have saved enough money to pursue my own thing full time for a while. Who knows what will happen then ...

This all from someone who had some student loans to pay off and not much money saved.

Both contract jobs and longer term employment with a startup have been hugely valuable experiences that I am grateful to have had before starting my own. There is a huge continuum between working for a fortune 500 company and as an entrepreneur.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Contextual advertising fail - The ad showing up for me on that site is for Columbia college MBA.

</comment><comment><USER25> While there are people like Scott, I think that there are also many people that don't obey their parents advice to find a high-paying job. There are many people that go out and take loans that they might default on to peruse a dream. (I started my first business at 19 and had no guidance either way.)

I think, however, that there is a problem in school (even high school) that pushes students towards wanting to start off making decent money with no input as if they are entitled right off the bat. Scott says he expects his political science degree to entitle him to $75,000/year (more or less). I bet all of his teachers nursed him along with, "These are skills to get a high-paying job..." They did that crap through most of my normal HS and college.

So the question to ask yourself is what encouraged you to start a business? What made you take a risk on yourself? For me, it was oddly enough teachers at a college vocational school during HS that didn't express "finding a dream job" but rather learning for the betterment of oneself. We were encouraged to do good work and show off that work rather than grind our way through busywork and exams into a high paying job.

</comment><comment><USER26> As with everything else in life, college is a perfect example of "you get out of it what you put into it" or garbage in/garbage out.

</comment><comment><USER27> I am still a bit skeptical of the "american dream is fake" skeptics.

We cant hold higher education responsible for people making poor decisions. It isnt the college's fault that his lack of humility kept him unemployed. That is his own issue. I could be wrong, but I believe this is the only time in history that a typical 21 year old (presumably from any background) can come out of college and immediately enter the top 1% of wage earners (in finance and some engineering). Even looking beyond finance, look at what kids fresh out of law school and med school (even not top tier med schools) are making. Even teachers, who we typically view as underpaid, make considerably more now than they did in our parents generation if you take into account the 200 day work year and benefits.

</comment><comment><USER28> My understanding of the American Dream is that everyone has the opportunity to build themselves up from humble beginnings. This kid in the article thinks he is entitled to make more than 40k, instead of accepting reality and working hard to change his earning potential

</comment><comment><USER29> I think the fact that we're seeing a lot of articles, stories, and publications revolving around the thoughts of college becoming useless and the importance of starting businesses says something about the way our culture is changing, and perhaps waking up.

<comment><USER12> "I think the fact that we're seeing a lot of articles, stories, and publications revolving around the thoughts of college becoming useless and the importance of starting businesses says something about the way our culture is changing, and perhaps waking up."

When I was 19, 20, and 21, I didn't see the importance of college. Now that I'm 29 (with a bachelor's degree), I do. I suspect that many of these articles are written by students or people that don't have a lot of life experience.

<comment><USER30> I certainly think that education is important. I think the problem lately is people have been valuing formal education _over_ life experience. College is not the only life experience, nor in my opinion, is it the most important one.

Life is not a checklist!

<comment><USER12> "I certainly think that education is important. I think the problem lately is people have been valuing formal education over life experience. College is not the only life experience, nor in my opinion, is it the most important one."

College can't replace life experience. But, many of the articles I have seen go in the opposite direction and say that college is useless.

To some it may be useless, but you will only get something out of it if you put in the effort.

<comment><USER30> Effort is always important, and not the issue here. I think one of the things we need to get out of this discussion is a distinction between college as a single concept, vs various courses of study that have greater or lesser benefits for the student. I'm not going to argue that some courses of study are worthless, but I do believe that many do not provide benefits beyond their costs, (in all senses, not just financially.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> ""Scott has got to find somebody who knows someone," the grandfather said, "someone who can get him to the head of the line."

Is this Russia?"

Hah. Best quote from the article. Between the baby boom, rising life expectancies, and the 30-60% drop in boomers' retirement funds, people of Scott's age are facing a completely different scenario than the two generations before his. No shame in slacking by while society sorts itself out.

<comment><USER10> I think there is shame in slacking. It's not like Scott is forgoing a job to work on something he views as more important. He's doing nothing but consuming resources because of his own selfishness and arrogance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> One can also get a good education by reading the greatest books of all time. For example, The Success Manual, which contains summaries of 100+ greatest business and self-help books. <http://thesuccessmanual.bighow.com>

</comment><comment><USER33> Following on a recent magazine meme...what is the difference between an entrepreneur and a small business person?

Give each one $50K, what happens?

</comment><comment><USER34> I think within the context of globalization and internet, America should review, refine and rewrite its laws and destination.

</comment><comment><USER35> Or to put it succinctly: The Greatest Generation has given way to The Laziest Generation.

<comment><USER36> I assume by greatest generation you mean baby boomers. The article doesn't OP doesn't refer to them as the greatest generation. And by given way, I think you mean enabled, because the OP is making the point that Scotts parents have paid his whole way and still pay for him while he declines job offers.

I have issue with calling the baby boomers the greatest generation. They've saddled this country with an unimaginable debt burdon, creating a situation where their kids may be the first American generation who's quality of life may not exceed that of their parents, yet the baby boomers call their kids lazy for not wanting to pick up the tab and pay for their extravagances.

However, Scott from the OP is still a lazy sack of ...

<comment><USER37> "The Greatest Generation" refers to the parents of the baby boomers.

<comment><USER38> The "Greatest Generation" who guaranteed themselves the "Greatest Retirement" package. In the fairy tale, all the goods and services they consume will come from the magic money tree that the government fertilized somewhere with all the money they paid into social security.

Back in reality land, a smaller population of heavily taxed and badly paid members of the Gen X and Gen Y cohort will have to change grandma's bed pan and they better be damned productive given how long everyone's living.

<comment><USER37> Considering they were born between 1901 and 1924, the Greatest Generation is mostly dead.

<comment><USER39> But not _all_ dead! Mostly dead means slightly alive. All dead... well, there's only one thing you can do: go through their pockets and look for loose change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Discussing whether college education is worth it is an inherently controversial topic here on HN, I think, and here's why.

First, because most would agree that getting degrees in a technical field are more justified and warranted than non-technical fields. So you're going to get two totally opposite conclusions from the folks dissing $100k history degrees versus the folks praising $70k electrical engineering degrees.

Secondly, software and business degrees are probably among the two fields where you can arguably gain the exact same knowledge and skills outside of college, free or very close to it, and at your own pace, and be just as qualified to work in industry. Unlike say medicine or chemistry or physics, etc. But here on HN software and business are probably two of our top most interested fields among readers. So we know a lot about these fields in particular. And the readers here should be very aware how easy it is to access and use free and independent resources and techniques to teach themselves in the areas of software and business. But with software and business in particular we have two camps, each further split into sub-factions, and they are all essentially right when it comes to their positions. Yes, having college education is better than not. Yes, college is too expensive. Yes, you can learn most things on your own. Yes, having that piece of paper WILL help you in the long term. No, of course you don't actually need it (with exceptions like doctors, etc.) All of these positions _seem_ in conflict, but they're not, and that's where the controversy comes from. Because _everybody_ is right.

<comment><USER41> Your post should be in the HN submission guidelines. With the banishment of politics, religion and the other usual suspects, "formal education" has become HN's flame war topic.

It would be an interesting experiment for pg to list flame war topics when they emerge, link to a few insightful summaries (like yours) in the posting guidelines and then ask people to write about something else.

<comment><USER40> thank you for the compliment. agreed the site would possibly be improved if certain topics were banned or at least better moderated. it's hard to get rid of all the bathwater without getting rid of little painful parts of the baby though. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> So the writing in this is atrocious. There's no clear line of thought. I got 5 paragraphs in and could not figure out just what the hell the author was trying to tell me. LEARN TO WRITE.

<comment><USER43> What a shame that nobody has posted a pithy one-line summary for you. My big condolences.

I spent three minutes skimming this article and it's perfectly clear what the author's thesis is; that the millennial generation has been raised to expect a breed of safe, corporate job in their favorite fields which just don't exist in the quantity that young adults wish they did. He suggests that they had better relax their standards and take some risks if they want to get work.

The author may not be Hemingway, but it's hardly difficult to understand. Learn to fucking read.

<comment><USER44> > Learn to fucking read.

Is that necessary?

<comment><USER43> No, but if I didn't curse, my useless, content-free flamebait post would probably only have gotten +10, not +20.

Amazingly, rufius's comment was at +11 before I posted. My speech must have been very convincing.

I get the feeling that voting for comments on their merits here is a long lost cause.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


VPN User Arrested - <AUTHOR> http://fried.com/news/vpn-user-arrested/ <comment><USER2> If you are doing some sort of illegal activity, it's best to not use a service attached to your home IP address (there are plenty of free wifi hotspots around) or your credit card information.

No matter what a VPN provider says, there's always a way it will get tracked back to you</comment>


Tim O'Reilly on OccupyWallStreet - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/107033731246200681024/posts/Sy8Z2uWy655?hl=en

<comment><USER2> I don't know if these protests are going anywhere, but it's good to remember that movements can start very small.

In Egypt, half a year before Tahrir Square January-February 2011, they had the "silent stand"[1] -- which consisted of just showing up in public places en masse and saying nothing, in memory of a young man who'd been tortured to death by security services. I'm pretty sure I heard Wael Ghonim say that even he thought it was a slightly daft idea until it actually happened, and then it seemed that they'd found a catalyst for average people to join in a protest.

I too hope for some sort of movement that can bridge the artificial divide between Tea Partiers and scruffy leftist kids. Fundamentally, nobody is asking for particularly radical reforms here; so it should be possible to have widespread support.

[1] [http://www.demotix.com/news/394309/khaled-said-silent- stand-...](http://www.demotix.com/news/394309/khaled-said-silent-stand-cairo)

</comment><comment><USER3> Financial capital has always been at war with productive capital. Because it's more concentrated in power (and even geographically) it's easier for financial capital to be aware of its interests and work together towards them. Productive capital is dispersed and varied. Tim O'Reilly is the rare CEO who's smart enough to know what's going on and what side he's on. Good for him.

<comment><USER4> Is he the only multi-million CEO willing to speak out about this?

Or is the protest somehow in his realm that we're hearing about it?

Either way, there's little doubt that one $100 million CEO outweighs a lot of scruffy students. And in this case, amounts to something sadly futile. Even if he'd just got one friend CEO ... "and this is my friend Liz: she's a $150 million CEO, listen to what she thinks."

<comment><USER5> How hard would it be to organize a protest with a hundred $100M CEOs? I don't think it would be that hard to find 100 CEOs willing to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Occupy Wall Street", and their buddies "We are the 99" and "Days of Rage", dislike Wall Street because they dislike wealth. The Tea Party dislikes Wall Street because the wealth comes from implied government guarantees and regulatory barriers to competition. They could agree on cutting the Washington / New York interconnections.

But that's not actually in the interests the smart money actually funding the "Occupy Wall Street" types. The last Congress gave us "finance reform" that left us Too Big Too Fail and a bunch more regulatory levers. The pols got more scope for favors and campaign donations, the bankers got more regulatory barriers to competitive entry.

The chief author of that "reform"? Progressive Barney Frank.

The Tea Party is the GOP's reckoning for failing their principles. The Democrats has yet to come.

<comment><USER7> I think you misunderstand the left position. The left does not dislike wealth or the wealthy. Karl Marx himself acknowledges the importance of capitalism generating wealth like no system before it. The left has an issue with the unjust creation of wealth. In the case of _financial capital_ , the right and the left have a great deal in common - both right and left agree these financial methods by which people became wealthy during the housing bubble at the cost of others was unjust. The left would go a step further and say that there are some forms of _productive capital_ that result in the unjust creation of wealth, such as businesses that are heavily reliant on manual labor for ultra low wages.

For this reason, I think #OccupyWallStreet as a movement against unjust investment of financial capital really does have the capacity to unite elements of the left and right.

<comment><USER6> Marx recognizes the _material_ productivity of capitalism, while claiming that its _human_ consequences are so destructive of spirit and values that the material productivity is besides the point. That's what the "alienation of labor" is all about. Any form of bourgeois wealth, no matter how benign it may seem, necessarily dehumanizes and is thus unjust. And that's before we get into its perpetuation of a system that will lead necessarily to more openly malelovent wealth. His vision of "productive capital" occurs in a set of social arrangements lacking any feature which we might recognize as economic wealth.

The viability of those economic arrangements is hard to assess, as he himself couldn't actually specify them. (They would emerge, he claimed, upon destruction of the bourgeois framework that limits our imagination of other possibilities.) But whatever his merits as an economist (he cribbed heavily from Adam Smith) or a social theorist (cribbed from Rousseau), he was a lousy historian and completely missed the inevitable distortion of high-sounding ideals in service of the accumulation of power.

#OccupyWallStreet likely aren't Marxist, if only because they don't strike me as the sort to buckle down to "The German Ideology" never mind "Das Kapital". (And I don't conflate them with "the left", which comprises great variety, some of it considerably more thoughtful.) But phrases like "unjust creation of wealth" show an uncomfortable similarity to the Marxist technique. Such phrases are written to be undeniable -- geez, who is in favor of unjust creation of anything? But the power lies in adopting the vocabulary beneath them, the definitions of justice which turn out to reflect a particular agenda that is considerably more controversial than our common disgust at the unjust. It turns out that these organizational procedures create considerable power for those determining the language by which "just" and "unjust" shall be determined. The organized, having accepted the adoption of language as an organizational tool necessary for the correction of "injustice", lose the use of language for independent analysis -- and perhaps so deeply they don't even notice the loss. At that point, it becomes impossible for the organized to challenge the determinations of justice made by those controlling the organizational language.

The Tea Party types are necessarily unsophisticated. But they've noticed that they've gone along with a lot of fine-sounding language, only to find themselves with the short end of the stick. It's hardly to be wondered that they prefer to keep it simple, or that they find the #OccupyWallStreet types all too recognizable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> O'Reilly is wrong about the Tea Party-- the entire movement got started during the crisis in 2008. The Tea Party and conservative Republicans initially defeated the TARP bailout in the U.S. House. And the Tea Party and Ron Paul are the main reason that the Federal Reserve -- the kingpin of America's corrupt banking regime -- is under political fire.

The Tea Party doesn't have much presence in NYC and its leaders weren't involved in this particular protest, and "Occupying" is a sixties lefty word that's not going to turn out the Tea Party rank and file.

<comment><USER9> eh?... TARP was passed under bush, before the Tea Party was a thing. And has turned out to be a pretty solid investment.

<comment><USER10> There are a fair number of people who hated the Bush part too. They might not have had the name, but the split was there. I get the feeling if McCain had won the Tea Party would still be here. It's not like the policy would have changed.

I would really like to know what you would cite from TARP as a solid investment.

<comment><USER11> > I would really like to know what you would cite from TARP as a solid > investment.

TARP's purpose was to buy off various groups, which it did.

What? You thought that it was supposed to help the economy? What evidence is there for that proposition?

<comment><USER10> Well, sometimes reading the purpose / preamble in the bill that they voted on gives some insight to the purpose. So, the answer is no, it was not a solid investment.

<comment><USER11> > Well, sometimes reading the purpose / preamble in the bill that they voted > on gives some insight to the purpose.

Let me guess - you also think that the title also has something to do with the purpose.

I think that both are marketing fluff. I think that because neither one has any substantive effect. Given that, it's unclear why you'd think that they have meaning.

Instead, I think that the purpose is what the substantive provisions would be reasonably expected to accomplish.

The alternative is that comgress-critters are incompetent, and I'm pretty sure that they're not. They're just trying to do something other than what you and I might like, hence the preambles and the titles.

Note that "they're incompetent" isn't doesn't excuse what they do.

<comment><USER10> > Let me guess - you also think that the title also has something to do with > the purpose.

No, I don't believe that, and am kind of insulted you would suggest it. I do believe that some proposed purpose can be gotten from the introductory text in a bill. In some legislation they are incompetent, particularly when finance is concerned. Marketing it is, but even marketing gives an intent.

The actual provisions in a bill are just that, provisions. They don't tell actual intent or purpose for the most part unless they include funding for a study to prove results.

<comment><USER11> > I do believe that some proposed purpose can be gotten from the introductory > text in a bill.

How about some evidence supporting that belief?

Note that said evidence must somehow distinguish the preamble, which you think goes to purpose, from the title, which you think doesn't.

How about public statements by the authors?

> In some legislation they are incompetent, particularly when finance is > concerned.

How do you know? More to the point, why does it matter? What will you do differently if they're incompetent vs they're trying to do something other than what the fluff says?

Surely you're not going with "if they knew better, they'd behave differently"? After all, they keep doing the same things, so they've had ample opportunity to learn (and you wouldn't be the first to point out their "mistakes").

> Marketing it is, but even marketing gives an intent.

Marketing is nothing more than an attempt to send a message. Attempting to send the message "I want to cure cancer" does not imply that I actually want to cure cancer.

<comment><USER10> It is one thing to think everyone has an agenda, but expecting everyone to deceive with every word is really wrong. I knew some of the staffers in the 90's who wrote the bills for a certain senator and they always wrote the intro text to explain what they intended the bill to do. The titles were mush (they would admit that) and sometimes very funky so they could get a good acronym. They believed what they wrote.

I believe the incompetence comes from not actually having run a small business and pulling the levers of the economy in an attempt to fix things. Chaos will damage an economy in pretty short order.

<comment><USER11> > It is one thing to think everyone has an agenda, but expecting everyone to > deceive with every word is really wrong.

That's nice, but irrelevant because I'm not claiming that anyone is trying to "deceive with every word". I'm claiming that they're trying to accomplish what the substantive provisions would reasonably be expected to do and the other stuff is just marketing to get it passed.

> I believe the incompetence comes from not actually having run a small > business and pulling the levers of the economy in an attempt to fix things.

I'm not convinced that "having run a small business" is relevant because they're not just hosing small biz. However, it is sort of absurd to expect them to be experts in any of the fields in which they make decisions, let alone all of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't know if anyone here watches Suits. But basically the reason the Harvey character wins is the reason Wall Street has not been held accountable. A lot of people pay a lot of money and there is enough ingenious strategizing to protect assets for large Wall Street firms (and enough tangential interests among any large American investor), that it makes complete sense that Wall Street has not and will probably not be held accountable.

However, if you truly want to fix a problem like that, you have to out- strategize back. Which doesn't necessarily mean legal measures. E.g., no need to occupy Wall Street, as long as the lessons are learned and it's replaced by something better.

<comment><USER13> I haven't watched the Film you suggested.

What you seem to be saying is that somehow this will resolve itself. I honestly doubt that is even remotely possible. Investment banks and hedge funds are making huge amounts of money, why would they change their business model? If the investment bank model stops working smart money will move. Smart money already has moved, look at Goldman Sachs. Goldman has since the crash been playing new tricks and old games that worked to make money. Why would someone stop playing when the game they know is still helping them to win? There is no incentive to change. Devious practices continue in multiple institutions, the market is more volatile than ever and the profits are still increasing.

Change only comes from within because of some internal conflict or contradiction. There is no conflict of ideas in the banking industry, their goal is still making money with money. Their goals and methods are still closely aligned. That means that the change must come from outside. Either reform (legislation and government force), revolution (social force) or depression (economic force through a market collapse). Doing nothing just delays the inevitable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Since 1967, real median household income in the USA has risen from ~$40k to ~$49k, a growth of about 0.5% a year. ([http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/US_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2010.png/400px- US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2010.png))

Since 1967, real GDP of the USA rose from 4T to 13T, a 320% increase (2005 dollars), or a growth of about 2.8% a year. (<http://www.data360.org/dataset.aspx?Data_Set_Id=354>)

This would be my sign:

US household income growth: 0.5% a year since the 60s.

US GDP growth: 2.8% a year since the 60s.

Who is stealing our growth?

<comment><USER15> Extra people being born "steal" a lot of the growth, but they create a lot of it too. The GDP _per capita_ figure, according to the Wikipedia article linked to your graphic, grew by only 1.35% per year over the same period.

Typical household sizes have shrunk too, so your median household income might well be feeding 2 people rather than 3. <http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/hh4.csv>

<comment><USER14> Doh, you're right. I really didn't compare apples to apples ther.

Still:

1967 - 59,236k households, GDP 3.9T ~= 65k / household (2005 dollars).

2010 - 117,538k households, GDP 13T ~= 111k / household (2005 dollars).

That's something like 1.2% GDP growth per household, while median household income is going up at 0.5%.

On one hand, there might be less dependents per household, but on the other hand, there's a lot more women working. Despite all the housewives burning their bras, forgoing large families, putting their kids in childcare and getting a job, household income _still_ hasn't risen.

Maybe there's a lot of low-payed single women, dragging the median down. That doesn't convince me that everything is OK though.

Let's look at incomes of income-earning over 15s:

Between 1960 and 2004, the salaries of white males went up 0.068% a year. White women's salaries grew at 2%, probably because they were working much greater hours. Black men did well, and black women did even better. But overall, it was a 0.74% per year increase. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#Over_time_- _by_Race_.26_Sex)

People are better off, but mostly because the women are working longer hours, they don't have kids. Soon, they will also be working more years, as the boomer realize they can't retire. It's a lot better if you're black, but not because of productivity growth trickling down to median workers.

I could track down the numbers, to find how many workers over 15 there are (or maybe how many people there are over 15, or between 15 and 65), but I just don't think productivity growth is <1%, like median income growth. If productivity growth is <1%, then we have another problem altogether.

OK, here we go, real growth by percentile (1960 to 2007):

95th: 1.86% / year. 80th: 1.58% / year. 60th: 1.4% / year. 40th: 1.1% / year. 20th: 1.05% / year.

 _Arguably_ (as pg says), this is a good thing, because risk-takers and innovators are being rewarded, driving growth. But it's not as simple as high inequality = high growth, and that doesn't explain why inequality is growing. pg says it's because corporate structures are becoming more efficient, cutting out deadwood managers. Whatever. If this is the case, why isn't GDP growing at a higher rate than the 60s? Has our society simply reached the point where technology no longer drives growth? That's scarier than greedy executives, compliant governments, self-serving boards of directors looting society; but I don't think it's happened yet.

China had huge inequality in the from 1750 to 1950, and stagnent growth, low inequality and moderate growth from 1950 to 1990 (with a few hiccups, notably the Great Leap Forward, and Cultural Revolution, but communism worked a lot better than their previous system of capitalism + corrupt feudalism), then high inequality and high growth from 1990. While inequality might be a requirement for high growth, it's not always a good sign. It can just mean that the rich and powerful are screwing the poor, which makes it harder for a poor innovator to take their idea from rags to riches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why does every political argument resort to "tea party this" or "liberal that." Drives me nuts we can't have conversations without sweeping generalizations and broad attacks.

<comment><USER17> Problem is people have differing and conflicting axioms. "Hands off what's not yours" does not converse well with "spread the wealth, by force if necessary".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ironic isn't it that the people that are most effected by financial polices - the working class and poor - usually don't come out to these kind of things.

But I wouldn't give up on it yet, a core seems to be prepared for long-term occupation and it could grow.

<comment><USER19> This isn't ironic, it's completely expected. The people most effected _can't afford_ to come out to something like this. Their boss (or bosses for those that work multiple jobs) aren't going to give them any more time off than they must. If they even heard that an employee went to something like this they would fire them for sure.

<comment><USER18> Oh I agree, probably should've stated as such in my post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Silicon Valley should look itself in the mirror if it wants to throw stones at Wall Street.

Tim O'Reilly is posting to the site of a corporation that funnels money to Bermuda so that it only has to pay a 2.4% tax rate. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_Arrangement> [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate- sho...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows- how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html)

And O'Reilly probably has Eric Schmidt and Larry Page's phone numbers.

<comment><USER21> You have a problem with the laws, write your Congressmen. Otherwise you're just player-hating.

<comment><USER22> Lobbying gets the laws passed for those that enjoy them. The players help create the game, so it is perfectly appropriate to hate them.

<comment><USER21> A valid point, if Google or its founders had lobbied for the law that permits those particular tax havens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > There are a set of people who constructed a set of financial products with > intent to defraud. They took our country to the brink of ruin, then got off > scott free, even with multi-million dollar bonuses.

I have a feeling this movement would be much more effective if it could actually name names and link to evidence. "Read Taibbi" isn't enough. I've read all of Taibbi's pieces, and it's hard to see a real criminal case succeeding out of what he presents. Some of it might seem outrageous, but investors were aware of the risks in CDOs well before the bubble burst and wanted them anyway. Claiming a little marketing spin from Goldman Sachs is a criminal attempt to defraud doesn't pass the laugh test for me.

</comment><comment><USER24> loved one of the posters about the student loan crisis being the next housing crisis. i have a bachelors with three majors. i graduated in 2008. my education has been worth (45000) plus (5 years) plus an ability to recognize bullshit. yep, 45k. i thought i'd get a decent job. now i realize that i have to manufacture my own job.

edit: shame sallie mae loans can't be bankrupted anymore.

</comment><comment><USER25> Thanks Tim O'Reilly.

[http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/tahrir- moment-...](http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/tahrir-moment-wall- street.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> The Tim O'Reilly Factor?

In my only semi informed opinion, it seems that this sort of crime is so distributed and hard to prove that it likely is just too difficult to create a convincing case to a jury of folks who may or may not really grasp what really happened on wall street. I am not even sure that many of the fraudsters even knew the full consequence of their actions. I am by no means defending anyone here, I just think that the "crime" is too difficult to package up neatly.

<comment><USER27> Anytime there is money, there is always an extensive paper trail. Enforcing financial laws is possible to do if you apply the requisite resources. Unfortunately, we don't do that in this country.

But at the end of the day, if a financial product is so complicated that it can't be regulated, that's a good sign that it never should have been created in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> ... in which the Radar rises to face the Factor

</comment><comment><USER29> > The smirk on the face of the Fox News reporter who was interviewing various > participants said it all. "These people are easy to dismiss."

[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X-DagzpHhDU/TnevQadAJeI/A...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X-DagzpHhDU/TnevQadAJeI/AAAAAAABvkc/PF_J1aqzGQ0/s1024/IMG_20110919_135534.jpg) [https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Che5TfKQre8/TnevQT7sqZI/A...](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Che5TfKQre8/TnevQT7sqZI/AAAAAAABvkc/e9w2vqyrLKE/s800/IMG_20110919_135551.jpg)

<comment><USER19> Why would someone even bother talking to a reporter from Fox News? If the SNL fake news sent out an anchor would you participate in the mock interview or wait for a real reporter?

<comment><USER30> If those were my choices, I'd pick the SNL reporter.</comment></comment></comment>


Russian provocations on the rise: Is it a new Cold War? - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/world/russia-west/?hpt=hp_c1

<comment><USER2> NATO provocations on the rise: Is it a new Cold War?</comment>


How To Go From $0 To $1,000,000 In Two Years - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/04/how-to-go-from-0-to-1000000-in-two-years

<comment><USER2> This article was previously submitted and discussed earlier today: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5655838>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My apologies if this was a dupe - didn't see it. As far as the title, yea it's a little over the top, but still worth getting some free insight.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ugh, what's with posts like these?

"How to Go From $0 to $50 billion in 20 Years?"

"Do what Bill Gates did."</comment>


Let's stop pretending that hard work conquers all - Psychology - Salon.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/09/15/gene_lyons_talent_effort/index.html <comment><USER2> Orszag is referring to deliberate practice ([http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf)) and it's not hard _work_ , but "hard" _practice_ that makes people better. What that _practice_ should entail is not always obvious though and people will benefit from good tutors and starting early in life. Thus, the author is right that not everyone could become Mozart (or whatever), but that's because they weren't in the right place at the right time, not because of genetics (which I read him as implying, but I may be wrong). Genetics do of course matter (in particular in sports), but the research on deliberate practice seems to indicate they matter less than one might think.

Importantly, for things that are less competitive than world-class sports and music (most jobs say), even moderate amounts of deliberate practice are likely to have significant benefits. So, hard work may not conquer all, but deliberate practice will give things a run for their money at least.</comment>