Myths of Color Contrast Accessibility - <AUTHOR> https://uxmovement.com/buttons/the-myths-of-color-contrast-accessibility/ <comment><USER2> > If the majority of your user base is 70 or older, meeting the AAA > requirement is beneficial.

Discriminating against people with impaired vision is OK if you do it because you tried to discriminate based on age.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article is recklessly ill-informed about color blindness. It is not remotely true that red and green are the only commonly confused colors among people with the common forms of colorblindness.

For more detail, see for this link for example. [https://www.color- blindness.com/2009/01/19/colorblind-colors...](https://www.color- blindness.com/2009/01/19/colorblind-colors-of-confusion/)

If you are using only hue to differentiate colors, you're making a mistake. Use text, a pattern, hover text, anything else.

<comment><USER4> I've never understood if there are really people who commonly confuse red and green, or if others are making that assumption because it's commonly called "red green color blindness", but that assumption seems so ubiquitous, it makes me feel like _I 'm_ misunderstanding something. I'm red-green insensitive, and in reality that's exactly how it manifests, _not_ as the inability to distinguish red from green. It's what you'd expect: Purples look more blue, greens look more yellow. That's (mostly) it.

<comment><USER5> Yep, they exist. I'm one of them.

When you see either red or green in isolation, does it take you longer than usual to tell which it is? It does for me. It's pretty rare that I simply can't tell at all, but it does happen, and it's common that it takes me multiple seconds to figure out which it is. The little red/green leds that the sibling comment mentioned can indeed be particularly shit.

The purple thing sounds familiar to me. If you take blue and add red or green, it can be very difficult for me to tell which it is. That was my earliest issue with colors, I got in trouble in school for mixing up bluegreen and purple.

There do exist some pretty detailed tests for exactly which type of colorblindness you have if you're curious, though I'm not sure if they can be done reliably on a non-calibrated monitor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The reason the contrast ratios failed with the white text is that it has > high brightness and is on a background with high brightness. Bright text on > a bright background is rendered low contrast computationally. Your design is > supposed to satisfy what people see, not computational algorithms. It's why > the designer's eye should always play a part in the equation.

This is so stupid it hurts. It doesn't pass contrast guidelines because bright things on bright things are hard to distinguish for low-vision individuals! It doesn't matter what you think looks better.

The correct solution for the designer is to use a darker orange or blue then put white text on it. Get correct contrast AND something that subjectively feels better. The correct answer for a designer is never to go "eh, I like my version better, I'll ignore these rules."

<comment><USER7> Are you suggesting that the black text on blue background in the article is easier to read for certain low-vision individuals, while the white text on blue background version is easier to read for normal vision individuals?

I have no data about this. It seems plausible, but it feels unlikely according to my intuition. To me it seems more likely that their naive algorithm for contrast ratio (which is based on their formula for relative luminance) doesn't match human perception in some cases. Color perception is complicated.

[https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#contrast- rat...](https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#contrast-ratiodef)

[https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC- WCAG20-20081211/#relativelumi...](https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC- WCAG20-20081211/#relativeluminancedef)

<comment><USER8> The black definitely is easier to read for me. I don't mean which 'looks better' to me but in fact which is easier to read. You can test what someone with lower vision would prefer by looking at that example and closing a laptop screen to 40* or so. Which one can you still read?

<comment><USER7> I'm not talking about aesthetics. I'm very nearsighted, and when I take my glasses off I can definitely read the white text from a further distance than the black text. But I know there are different types of vision issues, and I don't question that the black text may work better for some. I would just question an algorithm that claims that the black text is better in general than the white.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> First example can be misleading. It fails to account for low-dpi displays where your nice and crisp font may render with one or two pixel width. Colors easily bleed-in in those cases.

</comment><comment><USER10> The most important is text size. Bigger text is easier to read. Make sure the user can resize the text. eg. no text inside bitmap images. You will probably hate me, but leave the text color and background to the default eg. don't set it. Let the user set it. Ok, so now you basically got black text on white background. But you can still play with spacing! And you can play with text size. So instead of using contrast, use text size and spacing!

</comment><comment><USER11> The very first example is wrong. It tries to debunk a WCAG standard for text contrast using a survey of normal people. The point of the WCAG standard is to accommodate non-normal people, so any survey of normals is entirely meaningless to the discussion.

<comment><USER12> It's not wrong. It seems right to me. The survey also included those with colorblindness.

<comment><USER11> The second example did... but not all colorblindness is equal. What you want is something readable by as many people as possible. The goal is not to make the most people happiest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Adding icons to color coded information helps with identification, but it is not a good source of notification. If the status icons are a field of green blobs with white checkmarks and there is one red blob with a white X, it is much less likely to be noticed by people with red-green colorblindness. I tend to use blue instead of green, because it is at the opposite end of the human- visible spectrum from red.

I also try to make the visual weight of the notification proportional to its meaning. The correctness of a single field in a form is relatively unimportant. An error in a single field is much more important. In the given example I would either get rid of the check marks or make the icon green with no background to reduce its visual weight.

<comment><USER14> This! I'm always amused when people go to great lengths to announce how they made their color palette accessible, only to showcase some graphs labeled red and green right after :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Your design is supposed to satisfy what people see, not computational algorithms. It's why the designer's eye should always play a part in the equation."

Or....fix the algorithm.

Their example seems like a perfect example of a broken algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER16> Do the Chrome/Firefox developer tools have any easy way to simulate forms of color blindness and levels + types of vision loss? I'd love to see such tools front-and-center so that devs are always aware of the need to accomodate for it. My vision isn't that bad, but it's always bothersome to come across pages that don't support black-on-white text for prose. Yes, black-on-white doesn't look as svelte as a hint of gray, but it's so much easier to read.

<comment><USER17> Not that I've found, but you may find Color Oracle[1] to be a helpful arrow in your quiver.

[1] [http://colororacle.org/](http://colororacle.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Depending on the markup, the second example in "myth 6" is flat out wrong as the author ignores one of the failure modes for color only - unless there is an accessible name on those success/failure dots, screen reader users are SOL.</comment>


Far from Boring: Meet the Most Interesting Tunnel Boring Machines - <AUTHOR> http://www.cat-bus.com/2018/01/far-from-boringmeet-the-most-interesting-tunnel-boring-machines/ <comment><USER2> He talks that stations for subways are the more expensive part. But what Musk wants to do there are no station per say, just the tunnel.

So if he wants to do costs, he should model it on highway tunnels not subways.</comment>


America's severe trucker shortage could undermine the prosperous economy - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/americas-severe-trucker-shortage-could-undermine-the-prosperous-economy/2018/06/28/61c19e12-7595-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html <comment><USER2> I know a ton of people who would love to have a good job right now. To end the trucker shortage, stop screwing over truckers so they actually want to be truckers. Then they will recommend it to friends, etc...

It's not like some jobs where only specific people can do it. The potential labor pool is huge. Just the compensation and working conditions are abominable.

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel like I read the same story in 2007.</comment>


Show HN: Daily Checklist - <AUTHOR> http://daily.herokuapp.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't want to log in with Facebook, you can see a screenshot here: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/nn263vixavwve2o/Screen%20Shot%2020...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/nn263vixavwve2o/Screen%20Shot%202015-03-31%20at%2017.06.44.png?dl=0)

It's pretty straightforward. Put your to-dos that should be done everyday (routines). When it's done, mark it. The page gets cleared after midnight. Your history is recorded but not shown yet (future plan). It's possible to set the timezone.

<comment><USER2> It looks super cool. I actually just started working on a similar app. What did you use to make it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! PHP on the server-side, jQuery on the client-side. I used Twitter Bootstrap for the interface.</comment></comment></comment>


Are you capable of pink box testing? - <AUTHOR> http://neilbowers.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/pink-box-testing/ <comment><USER2> It's a good idea, seeding job reqs with nonsense requirements (I'd do something more believable, though). A much better idea: never using recruiters. You will get luckier on Craigslist.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I would apply for a job with nonsense requirements in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> most body shops don't add value

Yet companies still insist on using them. I don't understand why. At one company, I was a contractor. I was leaving for another job, and they needed someone with my skillset. Well, I had a guy who was suitable working for me at the time, and I offered to rent out my employee at a below market rate. They refused. Well, I moved to my new gig and my side business slowed down, so when the recruiter who got me this contract gig called me asking for recommendations, I referred the guy who was working for me (I wasn't exactly paying him a fair wage, and even at the poor wages I was giving him I didn't have many hours of work for him) Anyhow, the company hired my guy through the headhunter (and liked him for more than a year) - but they paid twice as much to go through the body shop they liked rather than going through my corporation. It wasn't like the body shop was big... it was some guy running the operation out of his front room, just like my corp.

</comment><comment><USER5> When I first read the headline I thought the article would talk about phreaking because they have a bunch "some color" boxes.

<http://www.aboutphone.info/lib/phreak/boxes-2.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if that's common of consulting agencies. That would explain the triumvirate of crappy consultants that we had at work. I guess a way to combat it would be to publicize consulting agencies that are guilty of that sort of thing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes but my wife frowns upon it.

<comment><USER8> Can you not? Please?

I'd prefer YC's comments not go the way of Digg or Reddit.

<comment><USER7> Yeah. Sorry about that. I generally revise my comments if they're too confrontational, negative, or inane. That one was set up perfectly, though. I fully expected to come back to my computer to find my first net-negative comment.

FWIW, this was my second highest comment and second most replied-to comment since I joined. In both dimensions this comment lost to my first comment which 1) was a reply to PG, 2) invoked the "hi i just registered here" sympathy upmod and 3) invoked "boo reddit/digg" sentiment in this parenthetical comment:

 _(I'm a recent reddit lurker, and as reddit continues to become digg my clicks seem to be heading elsewhere)_

So, I agree with you fundamentally, but it looks like that's not how things are going to play out, if my first lets-be-a-jackass comment scored so well.

Perhaps there's some middle ground?

Everyone has their limit, but I'm not offended by a little risque humour (obviously), and it doesn't seem inappropriate for the site so long as it's not explicit or vulgar. My primary beef with reddit is that as an "all things to all people" site the front page is filled O LOOK A LOL CAT ITS A CAT WITH FUNNY WORDS [pic], and the comment threads are filled with semi-predictable reply chain puns.

I'd love to read consensus (esp PG comments) for style guidelines for this site. I'm a geek and a trendy comp-sci field dabbler, but I'm not building a startup, despite my desire to be an entrepreneur, and I'm definitely not in Y Combinator, so I have a pretty good idea where my opinion lays in the grand scheme of things here.

All articles being about tech/hacker interest seems 100%+ sensible. If the style guidelines are "No empty humor comments, period. Startups are Serious Business." Then perhaps I haven't found the right community fit for myself (hey look a startup idea!).

<comment><USER9> Eh, don't sweat it, he just likes to play neighborhood watchman here apparently. Some people aren't content to just vote, they have to impose their will on others.

There's nothing wrong with mixing in a little humor. It's been awhile since I read PG's guidelines, but I don't remember a ban on it. I don't think your joke broke the bounds of civility. It's a little blue for sure, but not NSFW.

A joke here and there (even an off-color one) is FAR from turning this site into Reddit or Digg. I started surfing those for the first time a week or two ago just to see why everyone here complains about them, and wow is this site worlds apart (in a good way). I was actually shocked at how Reddit links are often so editorialized that I can't even guess what will be there when I click through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> body shops offer a degree of protection from contractors who later decide to sue for employee status, but I don't think that makes them worth it. I mean, your liability there is usually less than 50% of what you paid for the guy (if the government thinks you were paying an employee as a contractor, you have to pay the employer portion of SSI and unemployment insurance and other benifits, for the entire time the guy worked for you.) It's bad, but that's about what most body shops charge, and it's fairly rare for a contractor to come back and sue for employee status- but even if you had to pay those fees for every employee, I think you are still coming out ahead doing it yourself over paying the body shop.

I've not met one headhunter who was capable of distinguishing between someone who is technically good and someone who is not. Granted, it's a hard problem- but it also requires a whole lot of domain specific knowledge. Knowledge that headhunters usually don't have.

</comment><comment><USER10> Someone should also write a post about the stupid but real requirements that get put into job postings

</comment><comment><USER11> link is dead/site is down. just says "not site admin" or some such.

</comment><comment><USER12> I should point out that not _all_ contracting agencies are like that. Quite a few of them don't fabricate candidate's CV and some even have their own technical screening procedures.

</comment><comment><USER13> I did pink box testing and, boy, it's exhausting.

<http://www.pinkboxjapan.com/> [NSFW] (sorry)

<comment><USER14> NSFW - four little letters that make life a lot easier for everyone else.</comment></comment>


Norton Ghost discontinued - <AUTHOR> http://www.ruchirablog.com/norton-ghost-discontinued/

<comment><USER2> "And SSR said to bring many advantages _suck_ as Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 , 64bit , UEFI secure boot support and USB recovery disk support."

Dude, that's a hell of a typo. Umm.. I agree? Heh.

Its a shame though. Man I loved Ghost back in the day. I remember that magic boot floppy and the double-headed LPT/Serial "ghost cable"(1). Good times.

(1) Technically I think the cable came with an overpriced utility called "Laplink".

<comment><USER3> Laplink. Now there's some memories right there. :)

<comment><USER4> I think it came with a giant yellow parallel port cable, right?

<comment><USER5> And a blue serial one. Or the other way around.

Lacking networking it was the best/only way to pump data from one box to the other.

<comment><USER6> The old DOS-based LapLink was awesome. I recovered many people's files with that when I was first learning how to do this whole computery thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shame, one of the few Symantec products that didn't come with an accompanying _sigh_ with use.

Can't say I'm surprised, iirc development was halted in 2010 with the firing/reallocation of the team behind it.

<comment><USER8> Couldn't agree more... the one product that wasn't inherently horrible...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use Drive Snapshot, <http://www.drivesnapshot.de> .

Tweakhound recommends Acronis True Image, <http://www.tweakhound.com/acronis- true-image/> .

I have noticed that Symantec (the owner of the Norton brand) often buys good software from other companies and after the acquisition the quality declines. Ghost was bought by Symantec from Binary Research, a New Zealand startup, in 1998.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting story.

So ghost has been around for a while, its a filesystem aware dump and restore utility. Its very useful and can do differential dumps. It no doubt needs relatively small amounts of development/support.

One might guess this would be like 'free' money for a company like Semantic. And yet they can't recover the cost of an automated email support system and a fractional engineer.

What does that say about their overhead as a software company? Google is (in)famous for 'support by peer group' types of things. Might work here.

So this is a way in which open source can 'win' in the Windows world as well I think as a way of lowering costs and getting the fractional engineer out of the volunteers that maintain it and the perhaps run the faq. I find those to be interesting business questions.

<comment><USER11> It tells me that SYMANTEC is no longer making a decent enough profit margin to justify the operational and support systems expenses for the product.

Google's support by peer group plays towards online tools and web services. If you've every done ANY large client-side, windows based software development while trying to support aging versions of OS and application distributions it is no SMALL task.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "It allows users to create a block level disk backups and restore it with ease"

Nitpick: I distinctly remember Ghost having mentioned specific files while it was backing up or recovering, hence it's not (entirely) a block-level backup. Also it could detect free space on the filesystem and not put that in the image.

<comment><USER13> >Nitpick: I distinctly remember Ghost having mentioned specific files while it was backing up or recovering, hence it's not (entirely) a block-level backup. Also it could detect free space on the filesystem and not put that in the image.

Block level backups are optional in Ghost, they take a longer time to do, and are less efficient, the option isn't enabled by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Would love to hear ideas on the best replacement from other HNers.

<comment><USER15> Open-source utilities running from livecd.

       dd if=/dev/sda bs=16777216 | gzip -c9 > /path/to/sda.img.gz

If you have the pv utility installed, you can get progress bars:

       dd if=/dev/sda bs=16777216 | pv -c -W | gzip -c9 | pv -c -W > /path/to/sda.img.gz

To restore (WARNING: THE FOLLOWING COMMAND IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, USE IT ONLY IF YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE DOING):

       pv -c -W /path/to/sda.img.gz | gzip -cd | pv -c -W | dd bs=16777216 of=/dev/sdx

Of course, you can use your favorite compression program instead of gzip; on Debian-like systems, bzip2 or xz should be drop-in replacements available by default.

If you want a compressed image which you can mount read-only without uncompressing (e.g. if you want to be able to reach into the backup and pull out a single file or directory), you can pipe the dump to a FIFO and then use the pseudo-file feature of mksquashfs [1]. E.g. something like this (commands not tested, there may be typos):

        mkfifo sda.fifo
        echo 'sda.img f 444 root root cat sda.fifo' > sda.pf
        dd if=/dev/sda bs=16777216 > sda.fifo &
        mkdir empty
        mksquashfs empty sda.squashfs -pf sda.pf
        mount -o ro,loop sda.squashfs /mnt

You then have an uncompressed image visible. If it's a whole-disk image (/dev/sda instead of /dev/sda1), you need to use a program called kpartx to make device nodes for each partition.

I recommend reading the man pages and playing around with these utilities in a Virtualbox VM with a small disk.

Of course, this approach doesn't pay any attention to filesystems. Which means it works with Windows partitions (unlike LVM or btrfs snapshots). But there are limitations; it reads and stores "empty" space not occupied by files (I recommend making a large file full of zeroes beforehand to make the empty space compress better), restoring to a smaller disk is difficult if not impossible, restoring to a larger disk requires you to resize manually afterwards if you want to use the extra space.

[1] It's a little easier conceptually to make a squashfs directly from an image file, but that approach requires you to store the image file, which requires temp space equal to the size of the disk you're backing up. The pseudo-file approach has a benefit of not needing temporary space equal to the size of the disk being backed up, you just need enough space for the compressed result.

<comment><USER16> That misses much of what Ghost does. Ghost is file-system-aware, so it's not a byte-for-byte cloner. It can copy one volume to a large volume, and vice versa.

You can accomplish the same thing in Linux, of course, but it requires a lot more than just "dd".

<comment><USER17> <http://clonezilla.org> supports <http://partclone.org/> , <http://www.partimage.org/> , dd, and ntfsclone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Another (And better) alternative.. <http://www.fogproject.org>

<comment><USER19> Elaborate on "better"?

<comment><USER18> Free? (Does not make it better but it's a good start.)

Some high points:

-Records and inventories all systems it contacts -Has a windows client piece capable of domain joining/restarts/running 'snap-ins' or executables deployed from the FOG server up to 8M -Very supportive and helpful community

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Image for Windows is a good replacement. Also available for Linux.

<http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm>

</comment><comment><USER21> It bugs me when someone uses software in a singular form: "Norton Ghost is a software which makes life easier" it reminds me of: "Kettle is a cookware for boiling water"

It just seems strange to me.

</comment><comment><USER22> <http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/>

</comment><comment><USER23> I interpret that as Ghost is being renamed to SSR with a few new OSs supported.

</comment><comment><USER24> Thought this was a motorcycle...

</comment><comment><USER25> What's the advantage of Norton Ghost over rsync?</comment>


How to get an mba from Eminem - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/how-to-get-an-mba-from-eminem/

<comment><USER2> This is a few years old. IMO it's very worthwhile reading. Altucher is a gifted author.

The tl;dr version is Altucher discusses a scene (perhaps the climax, I don't know I didn't see the movie) from the Eminem movie 8 Mile. It's about how Eminem quickly wins a crowd over by contrasting himself with another rapper.

Altucher ends his article thusly:

       Doesn't it seem silly to analyze a rap song
       for ideas how to be better at sales and
       communicating? I don't know. You tell me.</comment>


A Canticle for Leibowitz - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz <comment><USER2> This is one of my favorite books, and more people should be exposed to it.

I'm still not exactly sure of the relevance to the broader HN audience though.

Was there commentary intended?

</comment><comment><USER3> I find mixing Catholicism and Sci-Fi a quirky but heady mix. Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow is another, where Jesuits pilot an interplanetary mission.

</comment><comment><USER4> Walter Miller wrote some interesting stories in interesting times: Vengeance for Nikolai (1957) had a vulnerable female Russian protagonist taking on mighty American invaders! (Recall that the early 50s were the era of McCarthy's purges against Communists in the US.)</comment>


CMU Researchers Claim To Have Created Messaging App Even NSA Can't Crack - <AUTHOR> http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/10/08/cmu-researchers-claim-to-have-created-messaging-app-even-nsa-cant-crack/ <comment><USER2> Making an uncrackable service isn't hard, Lavabit did this. The hard part is when the NSA or any other such agency makes demands, set's NSL's and such....</comment>


The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/

<comment><USER2> _Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people._

That's a common enough platitude, but I'm not convinced that it's true.

Or rather, it's the sort of thing we like to pretend is true for the sake of a functioning society (since nobody likes to discuss exactly _who_ is worth more than whom) and everybody goes along with it. We'll admit extreme cases (like Beethoven is worth more than some bum on a street corner) but shy away from discussing it in any further detail lest we wind up obliged to cut that bum up to give his organs to someone else.

I don't have a problem with this as a thing we all pretend is true, but I do have a problem with the assertion that it's genuinely true.

(Unfortunately in order to even have this discussion I have to put on my Nietzsche moustache and step outside the boundaries of polite society.)

<comment><USER3> I believe the "platitude" is in all senses practical in that assigning worth is only easy and fully accurate posthumously. Also, no person is so one- dimensional that they can be accurately summed up by the singular adjectives "stupid", "talentless", or "lazy" -- that's just not a realistic situation. A lot of famous people throughout history were in fact poor bums on the street, and are now held in very high regard by all social classes (perhaps it can even be argued that the elite place more worth on them than the lower classes, ironically).

<comment><USER4> You mean like Diogenes? :)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A childhood friend who had gone to Harvard invited me to hang out with some Harvard grads in SF two weeks ago. It was strange--as an outsider--to listen to their college stories; they would talk about how they'd drive down to Yale and scream "Harvard, Harvard!" and it was then, I realized, how little I had in common with these grads.

I tried to talk to one of the Harvard grads, and asked him what he was doing. Apparently he's working at the Sierra Club, and from his job description, his role amounted to essentially a receptionist. And from talking to him, he seemed disillusioned that his degree _didn't_ offer him all the benefits that he believed he was entitled.

The Harvard elitism that come out a bit, if not intentionally. My friend was trying to help out the bloke who couldn't understand why he couldn't get a decent paying job as a _Harvard grad_ , and was telling him to do lucrative tutoring jobs. He coached, "You're a _Harvard_ grad! Parents will fork a lot of money to have a Harvard grad tutor their kids, hoping that their kids can also attend Harvard!"

Maybe I'm oversensitive as an outsider, but I didn't feel much warmth or feel that these Harvard educated fellows were very interested in talking to me. And maybe they're blessed to have such camaraderie. After all, I am just one who went to Arizona State/AFROTC with a vocational degree in CSE instead of a liberal arts education.

It's not difficult for me to talk to grads of schools from "regular" institutions, such as UCLA, Berkeley, USC, UC Irvine, et al, even with a liberal arts education. But when trying to talk to grads of an "elite education," I have found it considerably more awkward, and struggle to level common ground. Usually it ends up in a lack of interest by both parties to talk to each other, or smalltalk, waiting for the first opportunity to escape from discomfort such as a convenient phone call or errand to run.

It's possible that this is just a typical case of in-group vs. out-group happening, but I've never found myself so lost at words that I pretty much conversed smalltalk the entire time.

<comment><USER6> _they would talk about how they'd drive down to Yale and scream "Harvard, Harvard!" and it was then, I realized, how little I had in common with these grads._

that in itself isn't necessarily a sign of 'ivy league' elitism ... it might just be school spirit, like what college students in sports-focused colleges do when there are games against rival colleges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I read this article a while ago, and I had a reaction that I think has gelled a little more since then. I think I take issue with the notion that elite = ivy league (or similar institutions). It's true that ivies dominate the top spots of the us news and world report undergraduate college rankings (where no public university cracks the top 20) and tend to do well on rankings of top professional school programs (especially mba and law), but interestingly, they don't dominate the list of top graduate schools to the same extent (where public universities do quite well), and they show up even less often on rankings of top engineering schools.

In short, I think it's time we redefined what an elite college really is. The question the writer poses is a very interesting one: are students at elite colleges out of touch with the rest of society? But I'd like to see the same question asked about the graduates of UC Berkeley, UCLA, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, CMU, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and other universities with top engineering schools.

It's an open question, I'll admit. There probably is a reasonable case to be made that the large public research institutions that have such excellent engineering programs just aren't elite by the standards of the US (this isn't China or France, after all). And I suppose you could also say that graduates of these schools are every bit as out of touch (and as snobby as the author implies) as grads of the top ivies...

<comment><USER8> The author doesn't mean Elite in the sense of "good" or "high quality". The Elite he's referring to is the Upper Class.

The culture at the top Ivies is nothing like that at any of the schools that you listed. State and tech schools have a lot more class diversity, and while Stanford isn't state or tech, it seems to value diversity more than the Ivies.

. . . so the author isn't saying you get a better education (almost the opposite) at an Elite University, just that you'll be surrounded by entitled children of the wealthy, and coddled as such.

<comment><USER7> You're absolutely right that elite = ivy when you're talking about social class, which clearly is what is going on here. What I'm trying to do is put in a claim on the word.

Ever read Henry James's "The American"? It's a story from the late 1800s about a wealthy American in Paris who, at one point, seeks to marry a young woman from an aristocratic French family. The brother (I think) informs him that there is a problem - "you are not noble". His reply (sorry, paraphrasing) is "the devil I am not!" The brother becomes more serious and says "oh, I didn't know that you had a title." The American says he doesn't have a title, but he's putting in a claim on this whole "noble" thing...

I guess that's what I'm doing. I won't concede the term "elite" to a parasitic upper class, any more than I'd give away the term "best and brightest" (oh, you see, I'm _defining_ "best and brightest" to mean ivy league, hewh hewh").

I think that graduates of these schools should absolutely put in a claim on the word "elite". We may come off as a little comical, like Henry James's American... but in the long run, well look what happened to the French aristocracy ;)

Oh, one quick thing - I agree with you that you're more likely to encounter real economic diversity at the large state schools (even the top ones) than at the ivies, but I still want to make sure I point out that it would be extremely very unfair to suggest that ivy leaguers are a uniformly "parasitic upper class" group. Hell, it would have probably even been _somewhat_ unfair in 1958. It's definitely not fair now.

That said, there really is something about engineering - probably it's history as more of a middle-class profession. I read that John Nash was deeply disappointed to get a faculty appointment at MIT rather than Harvard out of his PhD program (at Princeton, I think it was). The author of the biography had to take an aside to explain to 21st century readers that at the time, the math dept at MIT was still viewed somewhat as place where middle class engineers learned their calculus, though it was in the midst of transitioning into the elite school it is now (John Nash was the sort of acquisition MIT was starting to make).

<comment><USER9> As 2x UC Berkeley dropout and Columbia alum who financed his education by working as a paramedic in the Bronx, I can unambiguously say that I know EXACTLY what the author is talking about.

The Ivies offer you access to power in a way that even the best state schools never can or will. There is a sense of entitlement, a "welcome to the ruling class" sensibility that permeates the place. The Old Boys Club, indeed.

My experience is mainly New York, but the elite mentality runs deep.

And since switching coasts, I've left that behind. It feels great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What a great article. While I certainly don't agree with everything Deresiewicz tries to say, I will echo one bit I found to be true at least in my time at MIT (which is, incidentally, the only experience I have with an 'elite' university): there were far too many students with a myopic view of where they were and what they wanted to accomplish.

Many of the students (and friends) with whom I interacted saw MIT as their "final step" in a long life of achievements and accomplishments. After this, they were "set for life." They just had to get through it. Then came the high- paying consulting jobs, the fun research, the exciting leadership opportunities, etc. It was all right there for them. Until it wasn't, because the economy sank.

Many of those same people now took "less important" jobs just to get through the economic slump. So few people thought about venturing out on their own, it actually kind of disheartened me.

Don't get me wrong, there were still a ton of people trying to start their own projects, think on their own, and whom looked at MIT as but a stepping stone to propel them to be able to affect the world. Unfortunately, a lot of the students also seemed to only care about making their money and living comfortably.

On the other hand, I think this is a problem with our educational system in general; not just the elite schools. I consider myself almost lucky to have come from a fairly non-affluent family, since I grew up around one "class" of people (mostly not-well-off immigrants) and got to experience interacting with another at school.

MIT is probably not the worst offender in terms of not having any sort of socioeconomic diversity, since admissions are all done need-blind and there really are a lot of immigrants and no legacy or sports admissions, but the issue still exists. I can only imagine that at schools where that is not the case, this problem manifests itself in a much worse way.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a wealthy guy who spends all of his time with other wealthy people. He shouldn't blame the college he went to for him being unable to communicate with working class people. He wouldn't be any more skilled at this if he'd gone to a middle-tier school; most Americans don't go to college.

(- Ivy alum)

<comment><USER12> Yep. I went to a non-ivy league college but nonetheless I didn't know how to communicate with working class people either until I did a working class _job_ following graduation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author got a lot of things right, but I'm suspect of his main thesis - that you can't relate to the lower class if you go to a private school. There are few to no downsides to going to an elite school, other than cost.

That said, the benefits of top private schools are overstated.

The main benefit goes to those of average intelligence who would get annihilated at a large state school - what the author refers to as an "endless string of second chances."

You also make a lot more connections with people who will ultimately end up in power positions, which makes life easier as you rise up the ranks.

If you're smart enough to be a top student at an Ivy League school, it really doesn't matter much where you go.

<comment><USER13> That's not his main thesis, that's his opening anecdote. His main point is that the experience of elite education can shape one's values and expectations in a way that are negative for the individual and for society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've felt for years that school was run by those who were, when young, good at school. Its inbred and to a certain degree, pointless.

There was nowhere in my life more bounded by ceremony and tradition. And now that I'm out of it, and know for a certainty that precious little of it did me the slightest good, I recommend to all young people who will listen: "You are paying for schooling. Get out of it exactly what you find valuable, ignore the rest. An ounce of passion is worth oceans of rote work"

</comment><comment><USER15> Ironically it took my many years of schooling simply to digest that very long winded article. Knowing what bits to skip, to skim, to read carefully, to remember etc.

</comment><comment><USER16> As a student in MIT, I agree with the author that all the "accomplishments" (such as SAT scores, A's) people at top-rated achieve make it harder to not think of oneself as somebody better than the others. Because of the environment and the admiration of many outside people I often times feel intellectually superior to other people, even though I know very well I am not.

I've observed many times that my friends who do not study in top universities might react better in many real-life scenarios than me and many of my MIT classmates.

Also, in one semester off from MIT I learned more things about life than in 4 years at college (where I learned about pressing buttons on a keyboard in order to change what appears on the monitor).

My question to HN is: How "not to take myself so seriously"? I want to be able to enjoy simple things in life without feeling that I am wasting my education.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's true that the 'Ivy League' graduates many smart individuals, but does the Ivy League actually make them smart. It's the inverse of "garbage in garbage out". A top graduate at an Ivy league school would be just as smart if they went to a small state school. The difference, and where most rankings come from are the connections. Graduates from any Ivy League school generally receive the best job offers (most money) even though there are a thousand other graduates that are just as smart, but didn't go to a name brand school. The Ivy League can only admit so many students. I graduated from a small public university, but that doesn't mean I wasn't challenged during school. I worked extremely hard both in the classroom and at my jobs. The author of this article doesn't have a problem communicating with 'the working class', the author chooses to have a problem.

</comment><comment><USER18> In addition to talking about the good and bad of elite educations, Deresiewicz's piece also strongly praises the traditional liberal arts degree. He seems to think it far more valuable than _more practical_ degrees. But, I'm not convinced.

First, shying away from _practical_ studies reminds me of exactly the fallacy that drove me to leave philosophy after I finished in undergrad. My experience was very similar to what pg writes about in <http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html>. Asking the 'big questions' devolved into quibbling over split hairs and avoiding useful, testable hypotheses that could really make the world a better place (not that 'big questions' are bad, but we should try solving them in useful ways, not randomly)

Also, the author seems to think that a _glorified form of vocational training_ is a bad thing. But, could it be possible to create an educational system where vocational training creates the thinking man Deresiewicz wants? That is, could an interest in say, programming, motivate studying history by examining the development of mathematics and computing machines over time? Could it lead to a study of economics through questions about the Pareto Principle or the right way to offer our programs to the public (free, product, service, and so on)? Could it lead to philosophy and psychology by asking if man is potentially programmable and why certain types of programs can't be written with our current model of computation?

In short, could vocational training take a singular interest and use it to create the sort of individuals Deresiewicz decries elite schools for failing to produce?

</comment><comment><USER19> The author mentioned Yale university. I took a look at the web traffic graph:

<http://www.quantcast.com/yale.edu>

4 times drop in four years.

Could anyone explain why it happened?

<comment><USER19> I don't think Quantcast makes that big errors while measuring high-trafficked web site.

There should be another explanation. Either Yale is losing popularity, or students prefer to use other web resources while learning about Yale (e.g. Facebook).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article has popped up a few times (I think it's been on HN before) and I've read it each time with increasing disgust. There's a pervasive attitude amoung attendees of elite universities of feigned modesty, mostly it's fairly innocuous and that's fine. In many cases it's genuine. But this is truly a new level of feigned. The "hole" in the writer's education an educational topic, it's a character trait. And this is a flaw he's developed by spending his whole life assuaging his own insecurities by convincing himself it's true. Now there's no doubt that elite universities are breading grounds for this type of thought and students first encountering them must choose whether or not to imbibe in the kool aid. Most do. It takes a very strong 17 year old to walk into this type of society and call bullshit, but it does happen and when it does we got authors who can write genuinely on this topic.

A wonderful example of such a work is J.R. Moerhinger's Tender Bar.

</comment><comment><USER21> This has popped up a few times on HN already, I wonder if there is an upper bound to when you're allowed to repost an old article?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=224861>

</comment><comment><USER22> 1\. Isn't this a repost?

2\. Maybe the plumber didn't feel like chatting while he worked.

</comment><comment><USER23> It must be this year's phrasing, but every time I hear the phrase "I can't / we failed to communicate", it really means I don't think the person so far under my station would understand.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think American students should study, work and live in Chindia for at-least 2 years

</comment><comment><USER25> Great article. I think he puts downs, "The kid who's loading up on AP courses junior year or editing three campus publications while double-majoring" a bit too much though. People who are very busy with various projects tend to also be more introspective, in my experience. Good grades can just be indicative of good time management and brightness, which are important in anyone who wants to change the world.

<comment><USER3> > People who are very busy with various projects tend to also be more > introspective.

Interesting, I have always believed the opposite to be true just as often. I'm not sure if I would make the connection that they are more introspective. Introspection requires time alone for oneself to ponder life, not necessarily so busy with external things to never leave room to ponder the inner.

Though I would agree that people like that are generally successful, however whether they are truly happy is another thing completely. My experience is that often they live to meet the expectations of others, which can never bring happiness or lasting satisfaction.</comment></comment>


Comcast blocking Cloud 9 online IDE - <AUTHOR> https://status.c9.io/# <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the status message (posting for posterity)

"Investigating - It appears Comcast is blocking our domain name and all Comcast users in the USA may be affected. We're trying all available channels to get the site unblocked. Please see [https://community.c9.io/t/cant- access-c9-io-comcast/14834](https://community.c9.io/t/cant-access-c9-io- comcast/14834) for more information. Mar 30, 02:25 UTC"</comment>


Sucralose with carbohydrates may blunt the body's ability to metabolize sugar - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/10/common-artificial-sweetener-might-be-making-you-fatter-sicker-new-study-says/ <comment><USER2> This has been hinted at before, some LCS have been measured to cause an insulin response in spite of being low or no calorie. Insulin added to the blood with no sugars to neutralize is bad for the body/can slowly cause insulin resistance.

What's also interesting is that Aspartame keeps on coming out ahead in study after study. No insulin response, no substantial side effects, and no proven cancer risk.

From everything I've read if you're only going to consume one LCS then make it Aspartame, it has had more research conducted on it than all of the others combined (and frankly most, even natural, food ingredients).

<comment><USER3> As a type 1 diabetic, I can confirm that vast quantities of aspartame do not cause my blood sugar to rise.

<comment><USER4> I always assumed that when I taste something sweet, my body starts putting insulin in my blood. Over time it learns how much to put in based on how sweet the food tasted. If that's true, I'd expect too much insulin for food with aspartame, BUT ALSO too little when food has real sugar, because of the long term learning.

I'd expect a type 1 diabetic not to see either effect because the system that aspartame wacks out of tune is turned off for them.

I appreciate that I have no actual knowledge on the subject, except that I know the body must have control loops for this stuff and they must be kept in calibration by some mechanism. Probably my model is too simple.

<comment><USER4> I can do better than assume.

"Tasting sweet food elicits insulin release prior to increasing plasma glucose levels, known as cephalic phase insulin release" [https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/biomedres/28/2/28_2_79/...](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/biomedres/28/2/28_2_79/_pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe the right answer is to not use anything that is extracted and refined, including sugar.

<comment><USER6> I like sweet things in my coffee. I also like not being overweight. Hence, sucralose in my coffee and 1000mg daily of metformin (taken for life extension purposes, second order effect is lowering blood sugar level). The right answer need not be "abstain from what you enjoy" if we can hack together a solution from diet and engineered compounds.

<comment><USER7> Metformin is a pretty serious drug and that is a high dose. It's one thing to use it for off-label use like PCOS, but I would be very cautious for a more nebulous use.

<comment><USER6> Metformin is fairly safe and toxicity doesn't occur until you reach doses that are many, many times higher than therapeutic doses [1] [2]. Not a doctor, not your doctor, talk to your GP before starting such a regimen (especially for healthy kidney and liver function). My prescription was a 3 minute convo after my annual physical ("its safe, my kidneys and liver are working, I want to live longer [3] [4], and I will sign a waiver I won't hold you liable if necessary"), and I would've just ordered it online if my doctor said no.

[1] [https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/35/4/731](https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/35/4/731)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5934269/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5934269/)

[3] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25041462](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25041462)

[4] [https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02432287](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02432287)

<comment><USER8> What does metformin do for therapeutic purposes? wiki doesn't allude to much besides diabetes treatment.

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

<comment><USER9> Look under the Research section: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metformin#Research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metformin#Research)

It's the last entry. Relevant links:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4613459/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4613459/)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156816371...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568163717301472?via%3Dihub)

[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28802803-metformin- reduces-a...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28802803-metformin-reduces-all- cause-mortality-and-diseases-of-ageing-independent-of-its-effect-on-diabetes- control-a-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5943638/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5943638/)

<comment><USER8> thanks I missed that section!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Allulose is an interesting sweetener that has the same molecular formula as fructose, and IMO tastes much more similar to table sugar than other sweeteners.

It has been shown to lower glycemic and insulin response when taken with other carbs [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19155592](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19155592)

I'm guessing because of the molecular similarity I've found it to have similar browning as sugar when cooking.

A few downsides--it has a cooling sensation depending on what I use it to sweeten. Also if I consume too much it can cause bloating (a downside of not being absorbed like sugar is). In general it doesn't look like it's as well researched as other sweeteners, so it's hard to tell if there are more subtle/long term downsides.

More here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psicose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psicose)

</comment><comment><USER11> I can taste sucralose. It's very irritating, because it rings out as a clear bitter note with a definite aftertaste, but none of my peers have the problem, and so I look like a hypochondriac.

<comment><USER12> I can taste all these "sweeteners" and they all taste bitter to me. Cola Zero actually makes me wretch.

I just drink normal Cola but moderation is key. I have very few other sources of sugar and I eat mostly healthy home cooked (by me) food. Lots of vegetarian food too.

<comment><USER13> I love diet coke. Aspartame doesn't taste as close to sugar as sucralose does, but it has no lingering aftertaste.

<comment><USER14> Opposite for me. Coke zero is preferable to diet coke. (Neither are good.)

<comment><USER12> In Norwegian we have a proverb, "Smaken er som baken" which roughly translates to "The taste is like the butt", and it is implied that they are all different :)

I know people who prefer Zero or Diet to regular, but not many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is the "let's hang a chlorine on some sugar" sweetener right? It always struck me as implausible that it would be biologically inery.

<comment><USER16> Yes, sucralose is chlorinated sucrose (table sugar).

If the structural formula looks like a pesticide it might be better to not ingest it.

<comment><USER17> Better not drink coffee or eat peppers then. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/03/22/5-pes...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/03/22/5-pesticides- we-consume-every-day/#7ce702ce779c)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> n=45 Link to study: [https://www.cell.com/cell- metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(20)...](https://www.cell.com/cell- metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131\(20\)30057-7)

<comment><USER19> Low N is still interesting. If anything, it can help justify larger studies along the same lines, since there are costs for a study and researchers have to make their case to get the funding.

<comment><USER2> It isn't "Low N" though. 45 adults for a clinical study like this one is actually a very respectable size, particularly given their measures (and their respective reliability/studies backing them).

Seems like every study I read non-science people accuse it of having too few participants, without even considering the type of study (clinical Vs. statistical) and measures (subjective Vs. objective, reliability, literature, etc).

This is not a "Low N" study. If you believe it is then explain the statistics or methodology problems.

<comment><USER19> Yes, that too. Also it's important to realize that each study is a datapoint unto itself, and over time these data points paint a picture. But even if the study is not the whole picture, we can still get a hint as to what that picture is shaping to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The natural question that comes to mind is what ratio mixture of a sugar and an artificial sweetener can be used without encountering the negative metabolic effects. Being able to reduce sugar and calorie intake using such a mixture would still be better than nothing.

</comment><comment><USER21> When these sorts of studies first came out, I came to grips with the notion that honesty was the best policy.

Lying to your body about what it's eating seems not to work out. You need a healthier relationship with sweets, not sugar.

<comment><USER22> Yup, it always makes me think "TANSTAAFL". I used to be a big soda drinker in my teens; pretty much cut it out as an adult but those calories were probably replaced with beer.

As someone who meal tracks and exercises regularly, I definitely generally feel (calories in)-(calories out) is most of what matters, BUT, once you start doing that, there just isn't much room for junk. You can't really exercise your way out of a tub of ice cream a day. The more you work out, the more (good) fuel you're gonna need, so there's only so much wiggle room for junk.

Sadly, when I do have my soda-or-two a month, because I DO calorie count, I've finally given in and started having something like Coke Zero, but I should probably stop lying to myself, just have the real thing, and track it for the calories it has :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Strange study. Maltodextrin is basically pure glucose, it hits the bloodstream right away and in a very high concentration. This is why it is used in "gainers" bodybuilders take after hard workouts, to trigger insulin response and replenish muscle glycogen.

Sucrose has to go through the liver first, so its release and concentration will necessarily be much lower. Not as low as for fructose, but lower than for maltodextrin. Its half life will be longer as well.

The point is, the two sugars aren't even using the same metabolic pathways, and yet they compare them as interchangeable. WTF?

</comment><comment><USER24> I've always thought that LCS were far less harmful than sugar because your consuming 10 times less of the substance than a taste equivalent amount of sugar. You'll notice that when you consume a combination of Sucralose and maltodextrix, there's 10 times less of it (but they make 1tsp taste equivalnet to 1 tsp of sugar), but density is 10 times less.

If this isn't true, then it blows my mind!

<comment><USER25> Why would the amount of maltodextrin in granulated sucralose products that combine maltodextrin with sucralose have anything to do with the question of whether sucralose is bad for you?

<comment><USER24> Because there's 10 times less of it there.

Hypothetically, if maltodextrin was equally bad for you as sugar, then you'd consume 10 times less harm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Stevia tastes better and has no insulin response.

<comment><USER27> Stevia tastes bitter and nasty. It's not even sweet.

<comment><USER28> I wonder if people have dramatically different sensations to artificial sweeteners like they do foods such as Cilantro or Grapefruit.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like the perfect study for 23andme (they did a cilantro study [1]).

[1] [https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/the-genetics-of- ci...](https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/the-genetics-of-cilantro- taste-preference/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Would it just be better for people who are getting too much sugar to eat less of it?

<comment><USER30> What does the quantity of food consumed have to do with this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> thanks for the article. I am cutting down on all sugar completely. Already started feeling better and lost some weight just by cutting the sugar.</comment>


Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - <AUTHOR> https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14591/14591-h/14591-h.htm <comment><USER2> This is an English translation in original metres of the tragic play Faust I of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

In contrast to Faust II it is quite accessible and not too long. Here is one of the most famous verses:

        I am the Spirit that Denies!
        And justly so: for all things, from the Void
        Called forth, deserve to be destroyed:
        'Twere better, then, were naught created.
        Thus, all which you as Sin have rated,—
        Destruction,—aught with Evil blent,—
        That is my proper element.

tl;dr and _SPOILER_ (heavily abridged and slightly modified from [1])

Mephistopheles makes a bet with God: he says that he can lure God's favourite human being (Faust), who is striving to learn everything that can be known, away from righteous pursuits.

Faust makes an arrangement with the devil: the devil will do everything that Faust wants while he is here on Earth, and in exchange Faust will serve the devil in Hell. Faust's arrangement is that if he is pleased enough with anything the devil gives him that he wants to stay in that moment forever, then he will die in that moment.

Faust seduces 14 year old Gretchen. Gretchen's mother dies from a sleeping potion, administered by Gretchen to obtain privacy so that Faust could visit her. Gretchen discovers she is pregnant. Gretchen's brother condemns Faust, challenges him and falls dead at the hands of Faust and Mephistopheles. Gretchen drowns her illegitimate child and is convicted of the murder. Faust tries to save Gretchen from death by attempting to free her from prison. Finding that she refuses to escape, Faust and the devil flee the dungeon, while voices from Heaven announce that Gretchen shall be saved.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe's_Faust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe's_Faust)

<comment><AUTHOR> Faust

I've studied now Philosophy

And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—

And even, alas! Theology,—

From end to end, with labor keen;

And here, poor fool! with all my lore

I stand, no wiser than before:

I'm Magister—yea, Doctor—hight,

And straight or cross-wise, wrong or right,

These ten years long, with many woes,

I've led my scholars by the nose,—

And see, that nothing can be known!

That knowledge cuts me to the bone.

I'm cleverer, true, than those fops of teachers,

Doctors and Magisters, Scribes and Preachers;

Neither scruples nor doubts come now to smite me,

Nor Hell nor Devil can longer affright me.

_edit, tl;dr from britannica.com:

Faust, also called Faustus, or Doctor Faustus, hero of one of the most durable legends in Western folklore and literature, the story of a German necromancer or astrologer who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power. There was a historical Faust, indeed perhaps two, one of whom more than once alluded to the devil as his Schwager, or crony. One or both died about 1540, leaving a tangled legend of sorcery and alchemy, astrology and soothsaying, studies theological and diabolical, necromancy and, indeed, sodomy. Contemporary references indicate that he was widely traveled and fairly well known, but all observers testify to his evil reputation. Contemporary humanist scholars scoffed at his magical feats as petty and fraudulent, but he was taken seriously by the Lutheran clergy, among them Martin Luther and Philippe Melanchthon. Ironically, the relatively obscure Faust came to be preserved in legend as the representative magician of the age that produced such occultists and seers as Paracelsus, Nostradamus, and Agrippa von Nettesheim.

         -  -  -

Goethe's play, which contains an array of epic, lyric, dramatic, operatic, and balletic elements, ranges through various poetic metres and styles to present an immensely varied cultural commentary that draws upon theology, mythology, philosophy, political economy, science, aesthetics, music, and literature. In the end Goethe saves Faust by bringing about his purification and redemption.

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Got some other nice analyses?</comment>


Feds identify suspected 'second leaker' for Snowden reporters - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/feds-identify-suspected--second-leaker--for-snowden-reporters-165741571.html <comment><USER2> >"The Obama administration in my view is conducting a war against whistleblowers and ultimately against independent journalism."

This is spot on. When you use your power to ground another President's flight in the hope of catching a whistleblower from your own country on it, there is something very wrong.

<comment><USER3> I'm always amazed that most people don't know about this incident.

<comment><USER4> Wow, I had no idea that happened. Here's a link for the lazy...

[http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/07/03/us-violates-intl-law- grou...](http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/07/03/us-violates-intl-law-grounding- bolivian-presidents-plane-in-pursuit-of-snowden/)

<comment><USER3> Would it be considered topical enough to submit this to HN as a separate post?

EDIT: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8519052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8519052)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "But the case has also generated concerns among some within the U.S. intelligence community that top Justice Department officials — stung by criticism that they have been overzealous in pursuing leak cases — may now be more reluctant to bring criminal charges involving _unauthorized disclosures to the news media_ , the sources said. One source, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said there was concern 'there is no longer an appetite at Justice for these cases.'"

Aren't these comments _themselves_ probably unauthorized disclosures to the news media?

<comment><USER6> > Aren't these comments themselves probably unauthorized disclosures to the > news media?

Offically, yes. In practice, no. My understanding is that government orgs need some amount of non-official contact with journalists in order to get information out to the public. That is partly so they can make favorable information disclosures without it seeming official.

One could view the comment you quoted as an attempt to slightly improve the image of the Justice Dept and intelligence community without risking those entities appearing to be "soft on crime" (which is what would likely happen if they issued an official statment).

<comment><USER7> Whoa whoa whoa! Now we're getting deep into what used to be called "Kremlinology". Back in the depths of the Cold War (and even today, from North Korea) the Soviet government would issue "news" that was blatantly untrue manure, and nothing else. So people would try to divine real meaning from arcane aspects of the untrue manure.

If they need to "make favorable information disclosures without it seeming official", and they need to improve their image without appearing to be "soft on crime", they should just say so, rather than making unofficial official statements and jumping through flaming semantics hoops like linguistic circus lions. We know those TLAs are rogue, but if we need to apply Kremlinology to understand them, they've lost their moral and linguistic anchors as well.

<comment><USER8> The main goals of these "hints" is to

1) Release the information to the public.

2) Not be on the official record of releasing such information.

Maybe Justice Dept. doesn't want to be on the record about not towing the party line or not being "tough" on leakers, but at the same time, it perceives the public is getting a little fed up with these NSA shenanigans. So they don't want to make it official, as it would seem as the executive branch is devided in its public stance.

So they test the waters by releaseing an "anonymous" hint like that and then see what happens.

This also, interestingly, can serve as a hint-hint to the NSA management to tone it down a bit, as Obama is getting some bad rap about this and so on. Sometimes the most direct message is not a direct message but through an anonymous hint like this. (Directed both at media, people but also government agencies as well).

This is nothing new and is tried and true PR technique.

<comment><USER3> Are there any ongoing efforts to disrupt PR schemes like this? I'd like to see the public less easily manipulated but I'm not sure where to start. (And, technically, not sure that I'm not also being manipulated.)

<comment><USER9> I don't think this amounts to manipulation of the public, since it's an attempt to get truthful information out into the public. Rather it's politics --like getting your friend to ask someone else's friend if she likes you.

People on HN tend to frown on this sort of politics. I'd posit that such attitudes are counter-productive. If you forced Americans to choose between two black or white options: security or liberty, you might very well not like the outcome. Sympathy towards people who leak national security information is not such a popular position that an agency can shout it from the rooftops. If you make more subtle disclosures untenable, the outcome might not work out in your favor.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I should have clarified: Any tool or technique can (will?) be employed by either side.

I moreso wanted to know: when the security > liberty fanatics employ it against us, how can we best disrupt it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bruce Schneier insists this is actually the third leaker.

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/10/us_intelligen...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/10/us_intelligence.html)

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/08/the_us_intell...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/08/the_us_intellig.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8150292](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8150292)

<comment><USER11> The second leaker will become the "third" if they are identified after Snowden and the person in this story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hope the leaker is safe - the article doesn't say an arrest was made.

<comment><USER3> This is an excellent point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's a shame they identified* the second leaker. I was hoping they would be able to leak moar.

* Allegedly. Innocent until proven guilty. It'd be great if they managed to beat the government in court.

<comment><USER11> Maybe they haven't ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious why Greenwald and Schneier seem so keen to publicly conjecture that there are multiple whistleblowers. It seems rather counterproductive to me. Is there a good reason?

<comment><USER14> After someone published Aug 2013 material, it was clear that Snowden isn't the only one. There's no harm in talking about two whistleblowers at that point.

Emphasizing that there's more than one might encourage even more whistleblowers. Talking about a certain number might also hide that there are even _more_ out there.

Knowing the exact number of sources might help the agencies assign publications to sources, and thus, support in locating them. If you try to assign material that is actually from five sources to just two, you'll have a hard time seeing a clear picture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Which band of government shills is downvoting anyone who doesn't side with the feds [pigs] on this one?

Identify yourselves and sign up for pr0j3kt m4yh3m's next hit list whenever or whoever that may be

<comment><USER15> Don't you need several hundred points in order to downvote? I'd think that would make it a lot more difficult to brigade on HN.

<comment><USER16> Thousands I believe at this point.</comment></comment></comment>


Fedcoin - <AUTHOR> http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2014/10/fedcoin.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> This misses a major benefit of our current system - reversibility.

Currently, if someone initiates a fraudulent billion dollar wire transfer from the fed, it would quickly be reversed.

Does anyone thing the Fed or our monetary policy should be entirely subject to the rule of algorithms and undoubtedly flawed security policies and people? Isn't it better that a government agency or a court can reverse the transaction when a Putin lackey transfers $100B?

I understand the benefits of irreversibility with bitcoin, however at a certain scale, this benefit becomes a handicap. Legal systems have humans who can correct things when they go terribly wrong. Cryptocurrencies as a whole are vulnerable to the next zero-day exploit, which in this case could destroy the government and all of our hard earned currency. That's not a risk I think any of us could consider rational.

<comment><USER3> Reversibility is all about trusting a third party with your wealth, which has obvious downsides. That said, reversibility will always be there for those who are not prepared to take responsibility for their wealth.

Moreover, the scenario you propose is ridiculous. If Bitcoin wins, government will have to change, as it will no longer be able to coerce tax payment. Who would voluntarily give their bitcoins to the government in the first place? What individual or group could be trusted with the private key? I don't know how it would work, but it would have to be different.

<comment><USER4> Nope. The government derives most of its tax base from various income-based taxes (corporate and personal), or property and use taxes at the state and local level. Only anonymous entities would be able to avoid these, Bitcoin or no. It would be hard to organize significant non-digital economic activity through anonymous entities in the face of government interference, and trivial for a government to mount that interference. Some possible mechanisms include forbidding all brick and mortar + other non-anonymous entities from interacting with anonymous ones, infiltration, etc.

TL;DR: Bitcoin does not enable _The Diamond Age_.

<comment><USER3> More likely is that those with a lot of Bitcoin would exit to more hospitable states like Saverin did. In addition, the tactics you propose are not only draconian, but expensive to enforce on a large population. See the War on Drugs.

Also, why would a state give up it's printing press? No clue what the Diamond Age is, but I will check it out.

<comment><USER5> The tactics he proposes are not too far from what has always been done to tax cash, except with marginally more information available automatically to authorities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Once you have a central authority that everyone trusts, what does the blockchain add?

<comment><USER7> The author attempted to explain this in a previous post: [http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-fed-is-more- likely-...](http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-fed-is-more-likely-to- adopt-bitcoin.html) Summary: A blockchain is cheaper than maintaining three redundant data centers.

As long as mining is involved, I don't agree with that argument.

<comment><USER8> Rather than mining, you could just let a trusted authority issue blocks which would be validated by peers, it still prevents double spend, but would allow the authority to prevent transactions.

<comment><USER7> That raises the question of whether a central audit log counts as a blockchain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Clearly a joke, shame that few understand the irony.

<comment><USER10> It would have been a better joke if the author had pointed that that if it's controlled by the Federal Reserve, you don't need a proof of work distributed blockchain and you could simply allow all parties to connect to the Fed in some kind of Automated Clearing House network.

This hypothetical system would allow debits and credits to be settled electronically at very low transaction costs and could be scaled to billions of transactions, and anyone could participate in such a system by spending 10 minutes and opening a free "checking account" at a local credit union.

<comment><USER11> I think the problem (from a BTC hoarder's perspective) with that is that BTC is neither required nor desirable from an operational perspective in such a system.

<comment><USER10> From the perspective of the government, Bitcoin is only for Cowards, Crazies, and Criminals.

Cowards, who want to find technological solutions to social problems.

Crazies who are terrified that Satan will take over the Fed and decide to suddenly make dollars worthless, and in the process destroy the county.

And of course criminals who use it to buy drugs.

=====

Luckily we know better, that assuming you are one of the technical 1% who can keep your wallet from being hacked, you can (for a little extra money in conversion costs) use bitcoin to shop at overstock.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This guy just re-invented Chaum's DigiCash. DigiCash is a centrally-issued but privately transferable digital currency from the 1990s. Bitcoin is DigiCash with distributed issuers ("mining").

</comment><comment><USER13> The most direct way to explain why these types of posts are misguided are to understand the mechanics of "rent seeking behavior" which is an incentive that always exists for a third party involved in a financial transaction. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent- seeking)

</comment><comment><USER14> I proposed something similar to this as a way to handle fraud or non- performance in Federal contracts:

[https://plus.google.com/u/0/+StevenFlaeck/posts/BNzLK4wwwPY](https://plus.google.com/u/0/+StevenFlaeck/posts/BNzLK4wwwPY)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is silly in concept and fails to grasp why the Fed exists in the first place.

The entire purpose of the Federal Reserve is to enable a system of monetary expansion or contraction on whim, which is also why the gold / silver standard had to be abandoned (they are contradictory concepts).

The modern central bank, in this case the Federal Reserve, is the very antithesis of the bitcoin / cryptocurrency concept. There can be no union of the concepts. The Fed requires the ability to debase the nation's currency at any time and for any reason it sees fit. Without the current Fed system you can't run the military industrial complex, you can't 'pay for' the entitlement liabilities via inflation, you can't hold consumer and corporate borrowing costs artificially low, you can't run wild budget deficits and then pay hyper low interest rates on that debt via debt monetization / QE, you can't arbitrarily inflate assets to fake prosperity, and so on. There's zero chance the Fed or US Government gives up any of those powers unless they have no other choice.

<comment><USER16> >The entire purpose of the Federal Reserve is to enable a system of monetary expansion or contraction

This is just one of several mandates that the Fed has. The Fed also exists to supervise and regulate banking institutions, in addition to running the national payment system.

The author's post could fall under the latter responsibility.

<comment><USER17> > The Fed also exists to supervise and regulate banking institutions

So how, exactly, in a world where bitcoin was king (and pigs could fly) would the fed "regulate" bitcoin institutions?

You cannot do fractional reserve banking in bitcoin without all your loans being blatantly obvious and public. Users would track the coins they put in the wallets you control in their name, and if you touch them they will raise hell. You don't need consumer protections in that system because everything is public. And I don't condone whatever privacy violations would be necessary to audit a bitcoin banks wallet security infrastructure, when they can naturally (in the same way services like bitfinex and campbx have sought security accreditations) do so on their own as a competitive advantage without any unnecessary violence.

So what exactly is the federal reserve going to do to bitcoin wallet holders (aka bitcoin banks) besides the above? Bitcoin as property is just as prosecutable in court if your bank fucks up and loses your money as any other asset, I can't believe that is reason for an entire bureaucratic federal infrastructure to exist.

<comment><USER18> We did fractional reserve banking w/ the gold standard. There is no reason you couldn't do fractional reserve banking on top of bitcoin, with the bitcoin replacing gold.

<comment><USER17> I don't mean you cannot do it, you just cannot obfuscate where the money goes, since you can trace bitcoins across the block chain unless people are actively and intentionally diluting them, in which case you know where the paper trail ends and thus who was doing that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A productive environment for remote work - <AUTHOR> https://standups.io/blog/a-productive-environment-for-remote-work/ <comment><AUTHOR> Many envision & dream about the best environment for remote work.

Most think that what makes remote work great is to work from a beach, or an idyllic place sipping on cold drinks.

But the best environment is the one you set with the right processes and toolset.</comment>


Elf in Guile (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://wingolog.org/archives/2014/01/19/elf-in-guile <comment><USER2> Does anyone have any benchmarks for guile 2.2 compared to 2.0? I have a lot of small scripts, but for work we use guile as a recursive macro expander for pascal (It was my project, and I like scheme. This was a "first draft" implementation, but stuck and no one could be bothered to rewrite it). That could use a speedup, since for big macros it takes quite some time, and I don't think I can optimize it any more and still be able to read the source.

Edit: so I read the NEWS file in the 2.1.2 branch, and apparently the eval.scm (the interpreter) got 2-3 times faster just by being compiled by the new bytecode compiler. Life is good. I'll compile it in my lunch break tomorrow and see if it works :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Author describes features from 2.2, which is not out yet. Stable is 2.0.11 and unstable is 2.1.2: ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guile/

For example, 2.0.11 still uses stack-based bytecode.

</comment><comment><USER4> How do these features compare to Chicken, which also compiles to native code, if I'm not mistaken?

<comment><USER3> Chicken compiles to C, which is then compiled to native ELF by C compiler. This ELF can be loaded by OS loader, that is implemented in the kernel. Chicken can produce statically compiled binaries: [http://wiki.call- cc.org/man/4/Deployment](http://wiki.call-cc.org/man/4/Deployment)

Guile does not compile to native code. It compiles to bytecode, which is stored in .rtl-text section of ELF file. It is not native code executed by CPU, but the code for Guile VM. Resulting ELF files can't be loaded by OS, they are loaded by Guile which executes bytecode. The advantage is that object file is portable between architectures, but it depends on Guile loader, which should be installed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is from over two years ago and the release still hasn't happened? What's the story behind the story?

<comment><USER6> Software built in one's free time can take awhile, basically. But Guile 2.2 is in the prerelease phase now, using 2.1.x version numbers. The new compiler and VM are essentially frozen for now. A little more polish and some additional bug fixes and then 2.2 will be released.</comment></comment>


Monoids without tears (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/monoids-without-tears/

<comment><USER2> Did you ever realize that there is a similarity between addition (+) and zero (0) and multiplication (x) and 1? Can you guess what it is?

If you add something to zero, you get that same thing.

If you multiply something by one, you get that same thing.

That's what a monoid is: the generalization of the idea that if you can find an operator on a certain set (+ and x) and a special member of that set (0 and 1) that obey a few simple laws, then that thing is a monoid.

So we have identified two monoids: (Integer, +, 0) and (Integer, x, 1). Of course, this works with Floats and a few other number-based types.

I'll give you another example of a monoid: (String, append, ""), because if you add the empty string to a string, you get that same string back.

Now monads are a different topic. They are a monoid but understanding them requires a little bit more background, so I'll stop there.

<comment><USER3> Other "every day" monoids:

        - (Array, concat, [])
        - (Floating point numbers, min, +Infinity)
        - (Floating point numbers, max, -Infinity)
        - (Boolean, AND, true)
        - (Boolean, OR, false)
        - (Subsets of set S, union, {})
        - (Subsets of set S, intersection, S)
        - (Functions of type S → S, composition, the identity function)

You'll often see folks writing functions from Strings to Strings but returning _null_ or the like in the "empty" case instead of an empty String. Having them instead return the "identity" element of the relevant monoid will always result in a simpler, more composable interface.

<comment><USER4> > Having them instead return the "identity" element of the relevant monoid > will always result in a simpler, more composable interface.

But there may be more than one relevant monoid, and thereby more than one identity element.

In the case of a function which returns an integer, should I return the multiplicative identity, or the additive one?

<comment><USER3> For a given problem, there's often some natural monoidal structure underneath the hood even if the operations aren't explicitly part of the type signature.

For example, it's "natural" for the sum of an empty list to be 0 but the product of an empty list to be 1. Why? So that the "hidden homomorphism" is preserved (here ++ is list concatenation):

            sum(listA ++ listB) == sum(listA) + list(listB)
        product(listA ++ listB) == product(listA) * product(listB)

For similar reasons, given some predicate P is some predicate, the any? should return false for an empty list and all? should return true so that the following hold:

        all?(P, listA ++ listB) == all?(P, listA) && all?(P, listB)
        any?(P, listA ++ listB) == any?(P, listA) || any?(P, listB)

Behind it all we're not only transforming values of TypeA into values of TypeB , we're doing it in a way that respects some underlying monoidal structure.

If you want to think of it in a more programmer-centric way, any time you have an operation that could be as a fold[1] there is an underlying monoidal structure. Monoids permit folding, folding implies the existence of some monoid.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fold_(higher- order_function)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fold_\(higher-order_function\))

<comment><USER5> There's a typo in the first line of your first example.

        list(listB)

should read

        sum(listB)

<comment><USER3> Indeed!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the first 'F# For Fun and Profit' article I've read, I was very impressed with how the author (Scott Wlaschin?) breaks the subject of monoids down so clearly, something tells me that the author will be helping me out a lot in the coming months.

<comment><USER6> Monoid != Monad

There seems to be some confusion about which one is confusing. The hardest part of understanding monoids is accepting that yes, that's all there is to it. The fuss is about the other one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I know that a monoid and a monad are two different terms, there's no confusion.

However, despite monoids being relatively simple, my first introduction to monoids was this...

[http://gettingsharper.de/2015/03/03/understanding-monoids- us...](http://gettingsharper.de/2015/03/03/understanding-monoids-using-f/)

... which I didn't find beginner friendly. YMMV.

<comment><USER6> But what is the use of understanding monoids, other than as a step towards understanding monads?

No criticism... I read all of these submissions. But the ones which only cover monoids [0] leave me wondering, Okay, now what?

So I guess the confusion is mine.

[0] Other than to say that monads are "very different things".

<comment><AUTHOR> > "But what is the use of understanding monoids, other than as a step towards > understanding monads?"

I'm sorry, but I don't follow. It's just terminology for communicating more efficiently with other programmers (and mathematicians, in this case). They're both a group of ideas with a label. Why would one group only serve to introduce the second group?

<comment><USER6> You're completely right — I stand corrected. The OP covers practical usages at the end of the piece, as well as in a follow-up piece for that sole purpose. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Monk creates a new Tibetan Unicode font - <AUTHOR> http://tibetangeeks.com/geeks/lobsang_monlam/

<comment><USER2> OSX actually has been shipping for a while now with a decent Tibetan font.

Unfortunately Windows' Tibetan font ("Microsoft Himalaya") is in a disappointing state.

See the mashed up letters on row 3, letters 3 and 4 from the left: [http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/family.aspx?FID=32...](http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/family.aspx?FID=321)

The link to purchase the font links to a 3rd party they commissioned the font from, but they no longer seem to sell it.

If you have an OSX and a Windows computer you can compare the font support between them here: [http://www.unicode.org/charts-6.1.0beta/script/chart_Tibetan...](http://www.unicode.org/charts-6.1.0beta/script/chart_Tibetan.html)

Symbols 0FC5 - 0FC8 are especially poor and almost unrecognizable.

Many letters are missing from 0F75 - 0FBC, which are used for Sanskrit transliteration into Tibetan.

<comment> angry-hacker The monk is using his font also in his website: <http://www.lobsangmonlam.org/>

<comment><USER3> Works for me! (Win 7 x64 Ultimate; no extra language packs installed, just English. Impressive that it Just Works™...) <http://i.imgur.com/E0XYi.jpg>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> On a completely related manner, why do they fire off an event everytime a word is double clicked. I read online articles by clicking around constantly.

<comment><USER5> I thought I was the only person who did that.

<comment><USER6> Plenty of us around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love the footer on that website:

"This site built with Open Source: html/css, php, apache, linux, vim, air, water. and the awesome Lenovo ThinkPad — made in , working for — thank you, China! "

Open source air and water - brilliant.

<comment><USER8> To be more helpful with the quote:

"This site built with Open Source: html/css, php, apache, linux, vim, air, water. and the awesome Lenovo ThinkPad — made in [Flag of PR China], working for [flag of Tibet(?)] — thank you, China!"

<comment><USER7> thank you, i'd forgot the flags and it does make things more scannable. I think your right - least i assumed it was the Tibeten flag as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tashi delek - བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས

<comment><USER10> Nga Leon yin. That and tashi delek is pretty much all I know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oh, I misread that as a "Tibetan Monk" create a new "Unicode font". That would have been more interesting.</comment>


Find out who voted for ACTA - <AUTHOR> https://www.votewatch.eu/cx_vote_details.php?order_by=euro_vot_valoare&order=ASC&last_order_by=euro_parlamentar_nume&id_act=3055&euro_tara_id=&euro_grup_id=&euro_vot_valoare=&euro_vot_rol_euro_grup=&euro_vot_rol_euro_tara=&vers=2

<comment><AUTHOR> There were 39 votes for ACTA yesterday - here's the breakdown by country:

      France	21
      Germany	8
      Italy 	5
      Denmark	1
      Finland	1
      Greece	1
      Portugal	1
      UK		1

If like me you live in the UK and are interested why Newton Dunn (Liberal Democrat) voted for this why not contact him:

email: email@example.com

web: <http://www.newton-dunn.com/>

<comment><USER2> Bill Newton Dunn's response is apparently: "I fully agree with the EC that ACTA hold none of the dangers & fears about which a small number of people have emailed"

<https://twitter.com/webmink/status/220513308191637504></comment></comment>


The Secret Strategies Behind Many "Viral" Videos - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/22/the-secret-strategies-behind-many-viral-videos

<comment><USER2> All this crap works only because YouTube measures only the number of views of a video, and not how many people stop watching it after the first few annoying seconds.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've heard the same things about Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit and so on (news.YC?). What I don't get: how do you get a significant number of "friends" on those networks who are willing to watch/read your spam?

My real life friends typically don't use social networks and, not being entrepreneuers themselves, they often did not get the point when I asked them to get a stumbleupon account just to rate my site. On the other hand, I could not yet muster the motivation to worm my account onto some other people's friends list just to make them rate my submissions.

How do you handle that problem? Perhaps a "entrepreneur helps entrepreneur" network for those things would be in order?

<comment><USER4> The last time I suggested news.yc users collectively upvote each others' submissions on digg/reddit I got downmodded... but I'm still game, if you guys are game.

<comment><USER5> Find the security hole in your plan. :)

<comment><USER4> Well, the problem with all digg-gaming schemes that I have heard about is that someone usually rats everyone out to Digg and then everyone gets banned.

<comment><USER5> The security hole I was thinking of is this: it would give an incentive for digg-spammers to set up accounts on news.yc!

<comment><USER4> yes, that would also be bad

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> All I can say is that I'm not really surprised.

</comment><comment><USER6> this is exactly the kind of stuff that makes people distrustful of "marketing" messages. Sketchy direct marketers have found their way onto the Internet, and now they're finding their way out of the adsense playground.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think the amount of comments at TC proves that Dan knows he's stuff.

There is no such thing as bad publicity.

</comment><comment><USER8> I worked in a new media marketing department as an intern for awhile and this is exactly the kind of things they were looking into doing. They wanted to generate buzz by promoting in various online communities as a "community member." Not surprisingly, this is where they had their most success. I fortunately didn't have to participate in the buzz generation but there's no question everyone is looking to do this kind of marketing, whether you like it or not. Marketers will do anything to get eyeballs on their message.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, these guys found their way to techcrunch, so they must know something about the novel ways to spam.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow I never would have guessed that spamming can work.

</comment><comment><USER11> Also see:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6352>

<comment><USER12> Incidentally the author's website, Findory.com, is now defunct. Looks like the answer was "yes."

From the linked post: "And this makes me wonder, am I ruthless enough? In Findory Video, for example, the system tries to automatically filter the soft porn that appears quite popular on both YouTube and Google Video. Is that a mistake? Findory has never spammed anyone. Findory keeps well within fair use for copyright material. Findory directs traffic to content providers to help them earn revenue from their work. Are those mistakes?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This sort of behavior will make social networks even more popular, since you will want to only trust your friends.</comment>


XxHash – an extremely fast non-cryptographic hash algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://cyan4973.github.io/xxHash/ <comment><USER2> Unsure about the Q.Score, but for _large_ data, MeowHash appears to also be a solid choice for non-cryptographic hashing: [https://mollyrocket.com/meowhash](https://mollyrocket.com/meowhash)

A comparison that a user ran vs. xxHash: [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9pr5ir/meow_ha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9pr5ir/meow_hash_a_noncryptographic_hash_capable_of_16/e84z0k7/)

<comment><USER3> meow is certainly not solid. it's brand new and still being discussed.

regarding the "extremely fast" claim: it's only fast for large blocks, not for normal strings. it's the perfect hash for a file or block digest, certainly not for a hash table.

<comment><USER4> According to the developer the upcoming release will be faster even for small blocks

[https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1060718409296437249](https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1060718409296437249)

<comment><USER3> tip: Whenever someone is claiming "extremely fast", like xxhash or meow look at independent benchmarks. Nobody beats the simplest multiplicative hashes, esp. such big ones.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stanford is facing significant financial pressures - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Stanford/status/1252988492927217664 <comment><USER2> The key point in the thread is that they're giving back their CARES Act funding as they know smaller colleges need it more than they do. Stanford has a $26B+ endowment... they'll be just fine.

Harvard, on the other hand, has a ~$41B endowment, and last I read they're taking the CARES Act funding. They're taking a lot of heat for not returning the funding, instead saying they'll "use 100% of it for students." Stanford is taking the higher road here.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stanford has a _$27 billion endowment_ , having _doubled_ in the last decade alone.</comment>