How to Ace Calculus: The Art of Doing Well in Technical Courses - <AUTHOR> http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/14/how-to-ace-calculus-the-art-of-doing-well-in-technical-courses/ <comment><USER2> This generalizes to formal computer science as a programmer, and is probably one of the best ways to put it I've ever seen. If you understand computer science as the formula, you'll think it's pretty useless. If you get the concepts, you start seeing how it is useful everywhere.

I do not sit down and prove my designs and code or use lots of tricky algorithms, but I use a lot of the insights and ways of thinking I picked up from the computer science concepts, thinking about invariants and the maintenance of them, etc. There's few things sadder than sitting through four years of school and coming out seriously thinking that it's all useless wankery against the importance of "REAL PROGRAMMING".

(I've also noticed/learned that when you do a good solid job of designing your system with strong foundational concepts, the system will talk to you as you try to design it. I just got back from talking to a coworker about a case where I need to bypass my permissions system and temporarily become a superuser in order to do this particular thing, and I realized that rather than that being "the solution", that was actually my permission system telling me that I was doing something wrong. Only after I realized that did I reflect on it for a moment and realize the permission system was right and I was trying to do something potentially dangerous. I had thought about the thing I wanted to do but didn't fully consider how it might be exploited. We may still do it, we may not, but either way, listening to the code taught me something important about my system. You don't get these insights when you're too busy with your REAL PROGRAMMING and turning out mushy, concept-less code. You just write the flaw in and let your customers or hackers find it.)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's something that I think most people are missing, although many of you will already know this.

People are saying that you need to develop the intuition, to develop the visualization skills, to develop the sense of what's happening rather than simply memorizing the formulas.

But to me, the visualization is not the point. To me, the sense of what's happening based on the visualization is not the point. To me, the point is the richness of understanding, the combination of many ways of thinking.

This doesn't come without effort.

The lunk-to item seems to suggest that by having the picture in mind one can avoid all the tedium of remembering the epsilon-delta limit arguments and can avoid the definition of lim_{e->0}(f(x+e)-f(x))/e and so on, but that's not true. The point is that the formula is tied up with the image, not that one subsumes the other.

Allegedly Euclid said King Ptolemy (in response to a request for an easier way of learning mathematics) that "there is no Royal Road to geometry".[1] Likewise there is no "Royal Road" to a mastery of calculus. Or indeed, to a mastery of _any_ subject. That which can be mastered with little effort has long been surpassed, and work is required to gain the depth and breadth required to make these things easy.

But we do these things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard."[2] They are of value, and developing the mastery is satisfying in its own right, but also makes you a rare commodity.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road#Cultural_references_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road#Cultural_references_to_the_Royal_Road)

[2] <http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm>

<comment><USER4> You can certainly avoid all the tedium of the epsilon-delta arguments while mastering calculus. In fact there were over a hundred years between the invention of calculus and the formalization of the epsilon-delta definition! Calculus was not invented in the same way it is taught, and the early masters of calculus were much more intuitive than rigorous.

For references, calculus was first published in 1684:

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

But the epsilon-delta definition wasn't formalized until 1817:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(%CE%B5,_%CE%B4)-definition_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/\(%CE%B5,_%CE%B4\)-definition_of_limit)

<comment><USER5> You could perhaps try to learn calculus the way it was taught three hundred years ago, but I'm pretty sure it would be more difficult, not easier, than the standard presentation. In the early years calculus was considered black magic only the smartest few could master, probably not unlike the way, say, String Theory is seen today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "They switch to a philosophy major."

This comment seems odd to me, as philosophy is another subject where a failure to sit down and really think about the topics at hand will leave you hopelessly lost, if the class is taught to any degree of rigor.

<comment><USER7> Both of the CS majors I knew that switched majors switched to Philosophy.

I never asked why. They both were having trouble in the Intro Algorithms class when they bounced.

Maybe people that think they are CS/Math people and then find out that they might not be CS/Math people find solace in Philosophy? Maybe what they liked about CS/Math was the logic more than the algorithms.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps that way they can still get into A.I., except without having to learn LISP. I wonder if there are any ex-CS people who similarly go into Linguistics.

<comment><USER9> "I wonder if there are any ex-CS people who similarly go into Linguistics."

It's surprisingly common in my personal experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This rings true for me. Certainly the courses I struggled in were ones where I had a hard time getting a grip on the concepts. The best lecturers helped by teaching in a way that made the key concepts clear and showed how they developed from previous concepts taught.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a chinese who is surprisingly good with technical courses and math, and also a computer science major who is somewhat not that bad with programming:

Learn to see patterns. Math is all about patterns. Get obsessive. I just got out of an obssessive period (3 days, to the point I didn't wanna talk to anyone) where I couldn't solve problems. Visualise problems in your head, put the entire problem domain into your head, lie on the bed. Solve it YOURSELF.

Always, always, solve it yourself, and only ask when you have TRIED AND TRIED. Then when you finally ask and get the solution, you'll remember it for life.

Pattern, and self-attempting. Practise makes perfect too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Free idiom upgrade: Perfect practice makes perfect.

<comment><USER12> Or: Practice makes permanent. (Inject qualifiers as needed)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have to disagree, at least somewhat. Insight, understanding the basic concepts has always come fairly easily to me. The REALLY hard part is the disciplined practice needed to be able to actually apply what you know to real problems.

<comment><USER14> But if you haven't seen how it maps into real problems, was there any insight at all?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is why I did terribly in quantum mechanics; I was never able to generate a whiff of insight about anything that was going on. The thing is, I'm not sure the top students really did either.

<comment><USER16> Like everything there is a balance. I think that if I could go back in time and give myself one piece of advice it would be: Don't try to gain insight into everything. There isn't time. Its fine to do this for fundamental things like calculus but for laplace transforms, fourier series etc it can take too long given the time that a college student has. If it is your profession then that is a different story. Also for things that are sufficiently alien to our everyday experience (like relativity) I think maybe you just have to accept it and,work with it for a while and then possibly try and look for insight after because initially we have no other intuition to relate it to.

<comment><USER17> I wholly disagree. I don't buy the OP's argument for _tactically how_ to learn one bit, but knowing concepts for everything you "learned" is the only way to do it. After first year, I almost never had to work hard, I could just derive anything I needed, and yeah, this included using fourier series and laplace transforms.

To me the key is to observe that concepts are important then observe that the easiest way to learn concepts is to learn them at the optimal time of day (ie, not 8 am during the class when you are tired, that is a waste of time), from the optimal person (ie, not your prof that just wants to get back to research), during the optimal time of the term (ie, not in the first week of class, more like the week before the midterm and the 10 days before the final). To achieve all of this just requires two skills: 1. Knowing how to learn from a text book 2. Knowing when a textbook is crap and getting a better one from internet review sites.

Learning from a text book is easy. Cover the page with a piece of paper and read each line. When they come up with a problem that you don't have a function for _derive it_ and bam, you've invented the formula for lateral- torsional buckling of non-uniform crossectional beams you will never have trouble with the concept again. If you get stuck (stuck to the point of it hurting your ego, not "I'm sure I would get it if I had the time" stuck then look at the formula (not the proof if you can avoid it). Try to prove it again! If you still can't prove it, find the proof somewhere (hopefully the text, but if not email your prof or the book author for the proof). I corrected the same (otherwise super awesome) text book 3 times over the course of two years. The author loved me because out of the 5 corrections he did 1 was from himself, 1 was an email that said "I think this is wrong" and the other 3 were from me _proving_ that he was wrong.

Anyways got kind of long there, but don't waste time learning from other people, just learn how to learn and damn well get the concepts otherwise what's the point?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why is the tendency to introduct concepts, and often leave out the insight? Why don't professors start with insight and generalize concepts?

<comment><USER19> A good teacher is a master of _two_ subjects. The subject of study _and_ pedagogics. A PhD in the subject of study and maybe one course of pedagogics will necessarily skew things a bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would dare to say +95% of the teachers I had up until college were downright mediocre because they lacked one single paramount side of outstanding teachers: p-a-s-s-i-o-n. Sometimes this alone has the potential to drive one's pedagogical skills.

<comment><USER20> I think most teachers would say the same thing about the students they've taught. It's pretty hard to impart insight and understanding to someone who doesn't care and doesn't want to.

<comment><AUTHOR> A passionate teacher is likely going to instill greater interest in a large number of students than that of one who does not convey the slightest amount of passion, dooming the poor disciples to such an ordeal -including the brightest ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Understand the topic and practice a lot? Well, yeah. That is good as an objective, but what's missing is a way to get to the point where you actually understand the thing.

<comment><USER22> "Insight" as used by the author is just a fancy (and misused) word for understanding. "To succeed you can't just memorize the formula; you have to understand how it works." Is that really such an insightful thing to conclude?

The most valuable part of the article for me is where he points out that a lot of hard-working but unintelligent students write copious notes without ever doing the mental gymnastics to understand what it is they're writing down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Cal Newport, the author of the submitted blog post, draws comments both here on HN and on his own blog pointing out that deep understanding of a subject doesn't necessarily equate to VISUAL thinking about a subject. There is a big literature on "learning styles" and some attempts by some schoolteachers to categorize children by what their preferred learning styles are. When I have taken learning style questionnaires, and when I have asked my wife (a piano performance major and private music teacher) about this, the answer on learning styles is "all of the above." I personally think, based on my observations of successful learners of a variety of subjects, that learning styles are themselves learnable, and a learner with a deep knowledge of a particular subject will know multiple representations of that subject. My wife has had many piano performance courses, and also music theory and ear training courses, and has learned visual representations of music both in the form of standard musical notation and in the form of "music mapping,"

[http://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Music-Learning-Teachers- Studen...](http://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Music-Learning-Teachers- Students/dp/0895793970)

which she has found very helpful.

As for mathematics, the subject I teach now, I have always cherished visual representations of mathematical concepts, for example those found in W. W. Sawyer's book Vision in Elementary Mathematics

[http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Elementary-Mathematics-W- Sawyer...](http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Elementary-Mathematics-W- Sawyer/dp/048642555X)

[http://www.marco- learningsystems.com/pages/sawyer/Vision_in_...](http://www.marco- learningsystems.com/pages/sawyer/Vision_in_Elementary_Mathematics.pdf)

But other mathematicians who taught higher mathematics, for example Serge Lang, recommended memorizing some patterns of multiplying polynomials by oral recitation, just like reciting a poem.

[http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Mathematics-Serge- Lang/dp/038796...](http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Mathematics-Serge- Lang/dp/0387967877)

The acclaimed books on Calculus by Michael Spivak

[http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-4th-Michael- Spivak/dp/0914098...](http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-4th-Michael- Spivak/dp/0914098918/)

and Tom Apostol

[http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Vol-One-Variable- Introduction...](http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Vol-One-Variable-Introduction- Algebra/dp/0471000051/)

are acclaimed in large part because they use both well-chosen diagrams and meticulously rewritten words to deepen a student's acquaintance with calculus, related elementary calculus concepts to the more advanced concepts of real analysis.

Chinese-language textbooks about elementary mathematics for advanced learners, of which I have many at home, take care to introduce multiple representations of all mathematical concepts. The brilliant book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States by Liping Ma

[http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary- Mathematic...](http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics- Understanding/dp/0415873843/)

demonstrates with cogent examples just what a "profound understanding of fundamental mathematics" means, and how few American teachers have that understanding.

<http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall1999/amed1.pdf>

<http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf>

Elementary school teachers having a poor grasp of mathematics and thus not helping their pupils prepare for more advanced study of mathematics continues to be an ongoing problem in the United States.

<http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf>

In light of recent HN threads about Khan Academy,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2348476>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2350430>

I wonder what Khan Academy users who also have read the submitted blog post by Cal Newport think about how well students using Khan Academy as a learning tool can follow Newport's advice to gain insight into a subject. Is Khan Academy enough, or does it need to be supplemented with something else?

<comment><USER24> I think you make an important point, but I'm not sure the post takes any particular focus on visual representation other than a graph is generally an easier way to intuit what a derivative is. His repeated use of the word concept suggests insight for him requires a more general abstraction.

As an aside, why do or did people claim there is visual learning aside from spatial learning? I don't experience visual and spatial imagination as different things. (With reasoning about time always assumed.)

<comment><USER5> _[...] other than a graph is generally an easier way to intuit what a derivative is._

Even that is a matter of personal preference. I honestly believe it's easier to get the concept of a derivative by linking it to instantenous velocity.

<comment><USER25> There are many different ways of thinking about mathematical concepts like derivatives. The more you know, the more deeply you know them, the better.

Here's a random example: Marsden and Weinstein define derivatives in their out-of-print textbook Calculus Unlimited without limits. The tangent to a graph at the point x is the boundary between two line pencils, one of lines entering the epigraph at x, the other of lines leaving. There's no limit- taking of chords. It's a simple and neat definition that connects with classical notions of tangency.

In his essay On Proof and Progress in Mathematics, Thurston lists a dozen other definitions or conceptions of derivatives in his personal arsenal, some very sophisticated. But even those among his definitions that are elementary and have roughly the same scope there is a difference in their psychological affordances, and that can make all the difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good article but I don't think it's the whole story. Works well for maths, probably, where in my experience everything is obfuscated by a) lack of any practical real-life application for most people and b) non-verbal symbolic representations of concepts.

With programming you very likely do want to apply the stuff you're learning to 'real life' problems, and you're going to be expressing all your efforts in a programming language with familiar keywords (and just a few symbols/operators). Here the problem is not intuiting what the purpose is - it's easy to explain what Ajax calls are supposed to do, for instance, but actually implementing them is quite bitty. You need to set up a sort of chain of connections between multiple points, and not until you've learnt all the details of this process, can you tuck it all away neatly under one abstraction and free up brain cycles to deal with higher problems. I find more and more that when I learn a new corner of programming, there's just inevitably going to be a certain number of hours of faffing about learning the details before it 'clicks.' You feel stupid for a week or so, the boom You Know Kung-Fu, like it was easy all along.

Having said that some students just really struggle with basic concepts like 'variables' and need to make sure they intuitively grasp them. But that's about _passing_ , not getting straight As.

</comment><comment><USER27>
        [T]he students who struggle in technical courses are those who skip
        the insight-developing phase. They capture concepts in their notes
        and they study by reproducing their notes. Then, when they sit down
        for the exam and are faced with problems that apply the ideas in
        novel ways, they have no idea what to do. They panic. They do
        poorly. They proclaim that they are "not math people." They switch
        to a philosophy major.

This may well be true, but if it is, these students are setting themselves up for a fall: if they wish to be any good at all at philosophy then they will need to cultivate precisely this skill. Much of philosophy consists of taking a general set of tools (concepts) and applying them to different situations. It isn't terribly fruitful approach unless one understands those concepts in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER28> What is described should be effective, but seems like too much work to me. I prefer the advice I offered in <http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=70113> instead. Besides, you get the benefit of looking like a really lazy genius.

</comment><comment><USER29> This article is devoid of interesting content. The central thesis is: "In order to understand something, you need to develop _insight_. Well, duh. It does not explain how to develop 'insight', it does not explain what constitutes 'insight' and it does not even justify that the main example, visual representation of a derivative, results in 'insight' and results in people having an easier time grasping and using derivatives. As I am skeptical the example actually grants that 'insight' (it may seem obvious to you and me, but that is the trap we must avoid. The point is that it _isn't_ obvious to many), this article did not add anything to my understanding of 'teaching' or 'understanding' at all.

</comment><comment><USER30> The article is correct in the insight part, however it misses(or doesn't state explicitly) the fact that insight comes from the definition of the problem, what you are trying to do. Every concept is a solution to a problem, and to get the insight, my approach is to go through a list _What am I trying to accomplish (this is where visualizing comes)_ What are the other ways of doing it _How does this method work, and why_ Why is this method better then others *Where will this method not work.

After this solving any problem in the problem set is a piece of cake. Reduce the problem to subproblems, check applicability of the concept to the subproblems, apply the method, enjoy the result.

</comment><comment><USER31> Like most study tips, these do not suit me.

From what I know of Cal Newport, I expected data -- evidence that these techniques work better than X. I thought Dr. Newport might even say X works better for group A and Y works better for group B.

</comment><comment><USER32> That is exactly the reason why studying technical subjects is such a joy! Once you grasp a concept, you don't need to learn anything by heart (which I suck tremenduously at.)

</comment><comment><USER33> This article is very helpful, but in all honesty, I think the formula is slightly more valuable than the picture. They're both essential, of course, but the formula is really the key to understanding the concept.

This is said, of course, from the vantage point of someone who has studied calc with 3 variables and so on, so may not have the fresh perspective.

</comment><comment><USER34> Erm... how to do well in technical courses - understand it. Profundity squared. Not.

Author is missing the fact that yes, you need to understand it, but you also need to practice the exams. The further into your university years you get, the more your basis in understanding becomes valuable, but you still need to practice the exams.

</comment><comment><USER35> A friend and I like to put it this way: after you learn information, you need to _compress_ it. Find a way to make it take up as little brain space as possible. Then you're more likely to retain it, to understand it, to be able to use it.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is all well and good, until the day when you decide to learn something on your own from a book, and encounter concepts defined in epsilon-delta form that make zero sense to a mind trained on intuiting concepts from graphs.

Visualization will not get you beyond 3 dimensions, nor will it get you understanding systems in terms of Lagrangians/Hamiltonians, nor will it give you the ability to read texts geared toward actual mathematicians.

Speaking for myself, it was surprisingly difficult un-learning the "slope of a tangent line" type of conceptualizing in order to understand math with sufficient rigor to be able to actually read math texts correctly.

<comment><USER37> Yes, the "develop a visual analog" approach will not be effective if you spend all your time translating back and forth between the linguistic abstraction (for all delta, there is a small enough epsilon such that...) and your visual analog. For example, I just checked, and Baby Rudin ([http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Mathematical-Analysis- Third...](http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Mathematical-Analysis-Third- Walter/dp/007054235X) ) does not contain a single picture or line drawing.

Additionally, some things like ordinary algebraic manipulation are very well- suited to linguistic abstractions ("multiply the polynomials, take the derivative, put all terms involving _z_ on one side of the equation, apply the quadratic formula"). Sometimes only the linguistic abstraction can give the solution (e.g., "this problem is easy because the quadratic coefficient cancels out, and the equation is in the form t^3 + c t = d").

It's also worth noting that manipulating the linguistic abstractions takes a lot of insight and talent (e.g., knowing the perfect substitution of variable to make an integral fall into a known form, or knowing which one of the four error terms will be hard to control, and working on it first).

It's not wise to be over-committed to the visual approach.

<comment><USER38> I have generally found it very helpful to spend a lot of time understanding the behavior simple concrete cases, and understanding how a general mathematical principle applies to them. The visualizable low-dimensional case of analytic geometry is a particularly flexible concrete case for understanding many principles of calculus and linear algebra. I appreciate fairly well how it breaks down: I went on to path integrals and other quantum stuff where the number of dimensions is much larger than three. But the understanding from 1-3 dimensions was very helpful. More generally, one can make a habit of thinking about how general principles apply to special concrete cases that you understand. When trying to understand group theoretical theorems, you can check how they apply to your favorite concrete groups. When trying to understand conservation of angular momentum, or the Bohr correspondence principle, you can cross-check your understanding of them with what you know about the behavior of hydrogen atoms and balls rolling off the edges of tables and so forth. And probably many readers here will have naturally tried thinking about how a nontrivial algorithm would work on some simple concrete data set.

The advantages of thinking this way seem to be a little like the advantages of test-driven development: time spent understanding representative concrete cases doesn't teach you everything, but it can eliminate many misunderstandings very quickly.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Career dilemma, what would you do? - hnthrowaway-aex

In the last year, I've joined a services consulting firm as a consultant for a specialised area in IT. This job pays roughky $90k (package) in SF. However due to issues regarding relocation (immigration and so forth) I've been working remotely from another country. This has been difficult nonetheless, however the company has been supportive and have paid for all lawyers thus far.
Last week, I was given an offer from a friend who heads this particular area of IT in a pre-ipo company that has been considered a brilliant place to work and is one of the stable growing startups for over 5 years. The offer given to me was to not relocate and take a job leading a team in my expertise for a higher pay + equity.
I have worked with said company's team in the past and have found it delightful.
I would like to ask HN, what would they do? I have a level of loyalty for said company in SF and love the team a lot there. Immigration issues are soon to clear up if all goes well.
Personally I had decided to leave SF company by the end of this month if such immigration issues do not resolve and take this offer.
Otherwise, I plan to continue with this company even though the pay will be significantly less and work significantly more stressful.
Said company in SF have been cutting costs and do not evaluate salaries more than once a year. Even after staying a year, I feel like my salary will only increase by $5-10k.
Thanks all <comment><AUTHOR> Loyalty is great, but if the other situation is going to shore up your immigration situation for the time being, it's a growth oriented first that will get immediate higher pay + equity, seems like you really want to take the new opportunity but feel loyal to your existing employer.

I mean, people understand you have to do what's best for you and that these kinds of opportunities don't grow on your trees. Be gracious, create a runway for your exit to ensure that operations are minimally impacted as best you can.

But in my estimation, seems like this is a no-brainer in the decision department and that since you'd considered leaving the other firm anyway, the other opportunity showing up when it did was fortuitous.

I wouldn't go sharing all of that with them (e.g. i was planning to leave anyway..) and instead be very gracious, relay you've accepting a different position that aligns better with your immediate and future goals and ask how you can help the transition before your exit date.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER2> How much loyalty do you really owe to "Said company in SF have been cutting costs and do not evaluate salaries more than once a year. Even after staying a year, I feel like my salary will only increase by $5-10k."?

Also, even assuming immigration and relocation issues get resolved, have you investigated what living in SF on $90k is going to be like? It's a spectacularly expensive place to live.

</comment><comment><USER3> More stressful, less pay, less opportunity for growth. It sounds like the only thing the position has going for it is help with immigration.

My thoughts if I were in this position: If immigration would make me happier than working for the company you are considering jumping to, your original plan seems to be sound. Otherwise, I'd make the jump.

</comment><comment><USER4> Take what you think is the best job. Treat your old employer nicely, but you are not their slave.

The only reason I see that you would stay put is if you want to relocate to SF (you'll need the visa). If that's not a major goal for you, then take the new job. If you relocate to SF, be aware that it will be a life-changing event, and you will be exposed to many more high-paying jobs in really cool companies. Either way, you won't be with your current employer for much longer, so don't worry about loyalty. Again, just treat everyone professionally.

</comment><comment><USER5> > I have worked with said company's team in the past and have found it > delightful.

> Otherwise, I plan to continue with this company even though the pay will be > significantly less and work significantly more stressful. Said company in SF > have been cutting costs and do not evaluate salaries more than once a year. > Even after staying a year, I feel like my salary will only increase by > $5-10k.</comment>


Tech's Troubling New Trend: Diversity Is in Your Head - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/opinion/diversity-tech-women-silicon-valley.html <comment><USER2> "That's right: a dozen white men"

And there was I thinking using arbitrary categorisation with stereotypical labels was the very definition of prejudice.

Clearly I need sending for re-education.

What happened to the notion that we should treat people as individuals rather than sticking them in pre-labelled boxes?</comment>


Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.0 - <AUTHOR> https://webkit.org/blog/8311/intelligent-tracking-prevention-2-0/ <comment><USER2> While this doesn't solve the problem completely, it's interesting that they started. Apple can go all the way down to the system level to anonymize iOS and at make you look like everyone else, much more so than Firefox for instance.

Also some shade thrown at Facebook in the screen time demo, they called out Instagram and Facebook as great things to block. Not a full war declaration, just "how about less Facebook".

Some examples of why this doesn't completely block everything... All the cell phone companies have unique ids on each device which they seem quite happy to sell. [1] There are many ways to fingerprint people on the web (how fast code is running, gpu speed, touch and scrolling style) that will be wack-a-mole for awhile. Each website that is tracking you now could use it's own cookie to record user behavior and then send it to FB/Google on the backend to link them later. For your phone on wifi, your isp or cable company is selling data based on your mac address and ip address. [2]

Great that unlike GDPR, this isn't an enormous pain for every little website in the world. It just makes big company Facebook/Google tracking harder.

[1] [https://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-disable-data-tracking- on-a...](https://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-disable-data-tracking-on-att- verizon-sprint-t-mobile/)

[2] [https://hackernoon.com/what-youre-revealing-to-your-isp- why-...](https://hackernoon.com/what-youre-revealing-to-your-isp-why-a-vpn- isn-t-enough-and-ways-to-avoid-leaking-it-503816542951)

<comment><USER3> > Each website that is tracking you now could use it's own cookie to record > user behavior and then send it to FB/Google on the backend to link them > later.

I dunno if this is realistically practical. Right now the reason people do this is basically because of a combination of a perception that doing so adds value to the page and the fact that it's incredibly trivial because the web frontend platform is relatively uniform.

Having to add and maintain a backend shunt for the data though? That's not something that's going to creep on to every single website in existence like facebook like buttons have. Hell, it requires you to even have a backend, which many sites that have these buttons barely even have.

<comment><USER4> With the sudden increase of data collection checkboxes in the last few days since the GDPR is in effect, I noticed more than one website claiming that for technical reasons I _can 't_ opt out of having my data resold unless I enable third-party cookies "to store my preferences". Yeah, right, I thought. But I really don't know if that's shady or just technically inept (likely both). Perhaps as you suggest many websites simply don't have the infrastructure to do anything non-trivial in the backend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ITP 2.0 just got _the_ Seal of Approval.

[https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1003716676813090818](https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1003716676813090818)

<comment><USER6> For those that don't or can't do Twitter:

Alex Stamos, CSO of Facebook, tweets:

"If this is about protecting privacy, and not just cute virtue signaling, then they should block all 3rd party JS and pixels."

Some funny responses:

""If this is about reducing the climate change, and not just cute consciousness about improving the world, then they should live in the forest with a wooden stick and nothing else" \- you know exactly that Apple is trying to balance UX and privacy" @RL_Scharf

"Guy who set the house on fire is upset that he's being denied access to matches, claims nobody should have them." @poiseavan

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Even if "tracking" is allowed by the user for your domain (via the new API to request access), you must still get user interaction in the future to access the cookies that the user already allowed.

See: [https://webkit.org/blog/8311/intelligent-tracking- prevention...](https://webkit.org/blog/8311/intelligent-tracking- prevention-2-0/)

</comment><comment><USER8> All in favor of these changes. Employing the user to control what is theirs is always good. The only part i do not like (from the power user perspective) is the auto save passwords. Prolly a good thing for the avg end user tho.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wish at some point Apple would also include a built-in ad blocker so we don't even need to install third-party ones.

<comment><USER10> Built-in would mean they are actively at war with FB/Google. Safari's content blocker is their way to a) avoid the wack-a-mole game and let the blockers evolve along with their competition and b) stay somewhat neutral to their competitors.

<comment><USER9> > they are actively at war with FB/Google

Why is that? They're not at war with any particular company, mainly at war with a business model equivalent to cancer. Those companies will be welcome back anytime once they find out a proper business model that respects users.

<comment><USER11> > They're not at war with any particular company, mainly at war with a > business model equivalent to cancer.

Look, if you declare war on "primarily German-speaking countries", the end result is you're probably at war with Germany.

<comment><USER9> Not sure if you analogy works.

There's only a very few countries where German is the main language.

There are unfortunately many businesses where ads (aka cancer) are the main business model.

<comment><USER11> > There are unfortunately many businesses where ads (aka cancer) are the main > business model.

Few of which really _matter_ at Apple's scale. A war with adtech is going to _primarily_ be a war with Facebook and Google - the two companies look to have somewhere between 60-80% of US digital ad spend captured.

Your local newspaper is a) probably using Google Adsense and Doubleclick anyways and b) has no power to harm Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original source is here (scroll all the way down) - [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/06/apple-previews- ios-12...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/06/apple-previews-ios-12/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Is this a standard / proposed as a standard? All of the links are on webkit.org, but the properties it adds to the document don't bear any reference to webkit.

<comment><USER13> The Storage Access API that they mention in the blog post is proposed to WHATWG, but not accepted as a standard yet: [https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/3338](https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/3338)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Or more simply, delete cookies on browser close.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Edited the title from iOS 12 Safari -> Safari because this applies to the desktop version as well[1]

[1] [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/06/apple-introduces- maco...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/06/apple-introduces-macos- mojave/)

</comment><comment><USER15> We've updated the link from [https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/1003701261064130560...](https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/1003701261064130560?s=19) now that there's an official source.</comment>


ASK HN: Critique our Kickstarter video? (pre launch) - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/307418848/1538084997?ref=333275&token=18e24756 <comment><AUTHOR> Would you back it?

If not, why not?

What can we improve?

How much do you think it might raise?!

All comments welcome!!!</comment>


Teachur: Accredited bachelor degrees for $1000 - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/786695552/teachur-bachelors-degrees-for-1000 <comment><USER2> "Chur" is another way to say "Thanks" or "Cheers", the usage of which is popular in New Zealand.

So, I read this as:

"Tea? Chur."

<comment><USER3> That's funny. Can you use chur in a sentence the way it is used?

<comment><USER2> it tends to just be a reply to something. like, you wouldn't say "chur, where everybody knows your name".</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook closes at $38.23 first day NASDAQ trading, above IPO price $38.00 - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-starts-at-40-in-debut-then-fizzles-2012-05-18?dist=afterbell <comment><USER2> On the one hand, this indicates that the underwriters did a good job of maximizing FB private shareholder value on the IPO.

On the other, the shape of the daily curve looks like it was supported at that level artificially.

Even if not, it doesn't look like there's a lot of market confidence for it at this level.

<comment><USER3> More evidence of artificial support, a tweet and screen capture from Paul Kedrosky:

<http://lockerz.com/s/209964861>

It's easy to overlook the graphic; it's the thin black bar with faint text. It shows:

      Bid (size): 38.00 (x9999900)     Ask (size): 38.01 (x146300)

...and the tweet referencing it was about 20mins before the close. The earlier tweet was:

 _@pkedrosky: Watching certain underwriters try to keep certain IPOs above their issue price reminds me of playing Missile Commander, at scale._

Still, this isn't necessarily a negative for Facebook. They optimized their take, and Zuckerberg won't be needing the market's approval or capital again for a while.

<comment><USER4> Why isn't this illegal stock price manipulation?

<comment><USER5> It's the only manipulative practice allowed by the SEC because of the need to "maintain a fair and orderly market". This article describes it fairly well in its abstract: <http://economics.ouls.ox.ac.uk/10713/1/IPOstabilization.pdf>.

"Stabilization is the bidding for and purchase of securities by an underwriter immediately after an offering for the purpose of preventing or retarding a fall in price. Stabilization is price manipulation, but regulators allow it within strict limits - notably that stabilization may not occur above the offer price. For legislators and market authorities, a false market is a price worth paying for an orderly market."

EDIT: Just included the full description.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad about this.

If we had trading that quickly doubled or tripled the market cap then that may well be evidence of unsustainably high valuations (I hesitate to use the word "bubble" [1] as it's largely a baseless pejorative at this point).

That being said, some say this is evidence of FB being fairly priced. I disagree on two points:

1\. Pre-IPO investors expect an immediate return. Investment banks ("IBs") underwriting IPOs will be selling those shares to their most valued clients (in large part). Those clients expect an immediate return. Also there is a nontrivial number of "stag" investors in IPOs (investors who do first-day sales to trade on this bump);

2\. The IPO itself can in large part in set the tone. A stock that jumps 50% on IPO sets expectations as a stock that's going places. A stock that drops can have everyone for the hills and a stock that's level can just make everyone nervous (becoming a prisoner's dilemma);

3\. There's evidence the IBs are propping up the stock at issue price levels; and

4\. Current investors will have a lock-out period from selling. This may be 6 or 12 months. Whatever the case, if supply meets demand now then extra supply suggests a price drop may be coming when that lock-out period ends.

Consider this: Even _Groupon_ jumped 25% on first-day trading.

Now I'm not predicting doom and gloom here. In all honesty I have no idea what will happen with the stock. I do consider it a high-risk investment at this point and personally I wouldn't touch it. YMMV. It may still be spectacularly well. OTOH it could be the Beijing Olympics of the tech sector (the Beijing Olympics being essentially the turning point of the economy in 2008).

Trading at a P/E of ~100:1 is high risk. Make no mistake. Facebook has important strategic issues they need to deal with.

Anyway, to those early employees, congratulations. This will change the life for many (and already has). I'm particularly glad to see that Zuck didn't pull a Pincus [2]. This speaks highly of him IMHO.

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3987892>

[2]: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020462190457701...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204621904577018373223480802.html)

<comment><USER7> Layperson question: what does it matter? What impact does Facebook's valuation have on its day-to-day business, now that they have the IPO cash in hand?

<comment><USER8> The shareholders control the board, and the board controls management. Thus, unhappy shareholders will mean new management.

In FB's case however, Zuck still controls (through proxy) the majority of votes; Zuck cannot be ousted.

There are other problems with a non-performing stock too; employee morale may be (and is increasingly?) tightly related to the share options they own. If management is not performing well and costing their employees money (!) that can ruin morale.

This doesn't just involve Facebook; currently the market is pretty bullish on web companies. It can quickly turn bearish, restricting the capital that currently flows so free.

<comment><USER9> Do Facebook employees get options, or do they get actual stock?

<comment><USER8> Typically, they'll be offered options to buy stock for essentially nothing. Often there will be tricks though - for example it might take a couple of years in employment to be able to exercise all of the options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So what about the cancel/change orders being stuck in limbo the entire day? I was unable sell $fb because of this. Tried to dump them at 41.50, but because one cannot "trade with oneself" I couldn't. Heads should be rolling at Nasdaq by now...

<comment><USER11> This is why you do not play the IPO game unless you are an insider (underwriter or early investor of the company in question). You _will_ lose. They will see to it. And you will have no recourse, as they are in bed with the regulators.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> They got a lot of capital to play with. What they do with it will determine if they can build a business that is worthy of such a high valuation.

They are currently priced as if they were bound to run a highly profitable business. Now, reality must catch up with the dream and promises.

</comment><comment><USER13> It started trading at $43.00 and ended at $38.23 which is a -8.39% loss. Why is the IPO price $38.00 if it started trading at $43.00?

<comment><USER14> Facebook's IPO was yesterday (while it started active trading today). If you were one of the blessed investors, you could buy the shares yesterday at $38. It seems like there were a lot of orders early today (probably entered in before Facebook started trading) that were executed early and by the time 3pm rolled around the pent-up demand had subsided.

So, this morning when it started trading, the first order seems to have been $42.05 (according to Google) with subsequent orders fluctuating from there. The LA Times is reporting ([http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi- tn-facebook...](http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-facebook- trading-20120518,0,6622700.story)) that the companies who underwrote the IPO (for example, Morgan Stanley) had to defend the price so that it didn't drop below $38 during trading today. Basically, one can do this by offering to buy shares at $38. That way, their clients who bought yesterday at $38 don't suffer a loss today as the stock is actively traded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Stupid question: How much money did Facebook (the company) actually raise? A lot of shares where sold but not all of that money goes to Facebook. It goes to whomever was selling those shares.

<comment><USER16> We saw ~125% volume today, meaning that 125% of the shares that were for sale were sold (some were obviously sold twice.

I would assume this means that all of the stock was sold, meaning, with a valuation of ~104 at close, Facebook raised ~16 billion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wait until the engineers leave to become VCs.

</comment><comment><USER18> I read earlier that the underwriters were forced to buy large amounts to keep the price above the IPO. It could have been much lower!

<comment><USER19> Wait until next week. It'll happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So how does this ripple out?

My (amateur) thought is that it means the end of billion dollar valuations for companies with no revenue whatsoever.

Which will have the effect of pushing all valuations down.

Which is maybe not a bad thing, overall.

Will it mean less actual funds raised? Or similar amounts, just at notably lower valuations (and thus for a greater percentage of shares)?

</comment><comment><USER21> FB: $38.00, May 18th 4:19 ET

<http://i.imgur.com/QP12D.png>

</comment><comment><USER22> Traditionally, the point of an IPO was that it let the company raise more money than private investors could provide, so that the company could fund further growth. It's hard for me to see what opportunities this IPO opens for Facebook. They were already extremely well-funded. They already saturate their niche. It seems like the most likely consequence is that it will lead to early employees cashing out and moving on, while the only possible use for the billions raised are the kind of acquisitions that history shows rarely result in a net gain for the acquirer.

<comment><USER23> But the reason they had so many billions cash on hand was the huge round they rased last year via Goldman Sachs.

Investors certainly participated in that with the expectation that they could exit with profit in the near future.

In other words, they took a payday advance (with very generous terms to the borrower). You still need the payday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> _"The stock closed Friday at $38.23 — just 23 cents above its IPO price"_

Just wanted to point out that FB did NOT close at $38.02, though I think that would've been hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER25> The after-hours charts are interesting. The stock price is bouncing around the $38.23 range (+/- $0.03), but even marketwatch.com is showing some jumps up to the $40 range.

<comment><USER26> after hours trading is not a great thing to try to trend with because the volume is so low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Apart from the 'blessed' investors who purchased before the stock started trading on Nasdaq, everyone who bought FB lost money today.

</comment><comment><USER27> NASDAQ glitched all day.. Scottrade, Fidelity, and other brokerages were unable to place orders.

</comment><comment><USER28> I really don't get why FB is valued that much. If you look at their revenues, net income, quarter-to-quarter growth, the stock should be at $5.50.

Seriously, look at GOOG, compare it to FB. You must be insane to buy FB.

<comment><USER29> Buying stock is generally about what you think will happen in the future, not what has happened in the past.

<comment><USER30> No, sir.

Speculating is about what you think will happen.

Buying stocks in a business is about buying into something that has shown to be profitable, and stable. Enough to exchange your hard-earned money for it.

Read "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham to gain a better picture of what investing really is.

<comment><USER31> Speculating is not about what you think will happen. It's about what you think _other_ people think will happen. It's about the market, not the inherent value of the stock.

Good investing is about buying into something you think is undervalued.

If a business has been "shown" to be profitable and stable, as you say, then its stock price will be high enough to reflect that, and it's probably not undervalued, unless you know something special about it. All you can expect it to receive a steady small stream of dividends, or sell the stock sometime in the future for roughly the same amount you paid for it originally. That's not really "investing", that's just swapping cash for stocks. Save yourself some risk and just put your money in an index fund instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> (EDIT: Earlier this title read "barely above it's IPO price". It definitely used this word, "barely". My comment is now moot. I'm leaving it due to the replies.)

what is with this title? It sounds like it's saying sullenly, "a year later, Facebook is barely above its IPO price".

OF COURSE IT'S TRADING AROUND ITS IPO PRICE, GIVEN THAT IT'S JUST IPO'D. I mean, of ALL the times a company could be trading at its IPO price, don't you think the IPO date is the least notable? Yeesh.

 _Incidentally, the submitter and I also have a VERY different definition of 'barely.' $0.23 in a day means $230 per 1000 days. At that rate, investing at $38 sounds like a steal to me! A better title might be "Facebook stock up already_!"

<comment><USER33> The more interesting thing is: "It didn't plummet like some people were expecting!!!"

<comment><USER34> Wait until employees start dumping their stock.

<comment><USER35> The flip side of that sentiment is "wait until a bunch of sector-specific ETFs and other mutual funds start buying their stock". You know, QQQ Trust, S&P500 index funds, et cetera.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: What DNS provider do you use ? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a DNS provider that will provide me with the ability to set a low TTL value for my domain but not charge me the earth.
I don't mind paying a monthly fee as long as it's reasonable, but the provider has to be rock solid (i.e. very reliable).
Does anyone have any recommendations ? <comment><USER2> I run EveryDNS and am looking for an ALL-STAR PHP/MySQL hacker who wants to help take it over. You must be in San Francisco.

This is a simple business that can _easily_ grow to make $1mm a year (and with some work, $5mm/year). I will help you understand how to grow and run a business. I am focused on OpenDNS these days and EveryDNS has been neglected (though we added AAAA support on Saturday night).

In addition to the business side of things, I will also teach you about networking, routing, BGP, and every other aspect of running a world-class global operation that provides a necessary service to the Internet.

Contact me directly -- david at ulevitch dot com.

<comment><USER3> a) Your error messages are not noticeable enough - they're way too far from the register/login area.

b) Why not let people use e-mail address as username (aka why limit usernames)?

<comment><USER2> Because I am focused on building OpenDNS (profitable, hiring, etc).

EveryDNS is a usability nightmare. The service is TOP NOTCH and RELIABLE but the website needs an overhaul. I cry myself to sleep every night thinking about it. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://everydns.net>

Great track record (total of 1 hour of downtime due to DDoS for past 4 years). Nice features. Free, but don't forget to donate.

</comment><comment><USER5> Real hackers run their own hand-coded DNS server.

Seriously, though, I run a DNS server on the same machine that runs my [small] web server, etc. There is an argument to be made that you need failover machines for DNS, but my counter-argument is that if my web server machine is dead, no amount of DNS redundancy is going to fix anything.

<comment><USER6> For a website only, that's not a big deal. However if you also have email for that domain, mail will immediately start bouncing when DNS goes down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/>

it's reasonable.

<comment><USER6> I've been using DNS Made Easy for a while. I find the prices are very good if you have a bunch of domains to host. I'm using five nameservers for each domain and that seems like plenty of redundancy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been using zoneedit.com

Very kludgy site, but it gets the job done for free.

<comment><USER9> Same here

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> editdns.net - it's free for basic features (and donation supported for a full account). Siple interface that doesn't get in your way. And nameservers in US and EU. Have Neva had any issues since I started (about a year ago)

</comment><comment><USER11> I use DynDns; they do yearly fees of around $60 (depending on what you want) and its very solid. They also have great customer support, so its easy to ask questions at any time.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use EveryDNS. Never had any problems, and even donated.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been using editdns: <http://www.editdns.net/>

Its free, and has worked very well for me over the past year.

</comment><comment><USER14> I use primarily my own DNS servers (linux/bind), but also some addresses uses domainmonger.com and godaddy.com DNS.

</comment><comment><USER10> editdns.net - it's free for basic features (and donation supported for a full account). Siple interface that doesn't get in your way. And nameservers in US and EU. Have Neva had any issues since I started (about a year ago)

</comment><comment><USER15> Why do you need low ttl's? Can you clarify the problem you are trying to solve?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes - SPOF on some hardware means I'd like to be able to make DNS edits on the fly to redirect users to a status page in the event of a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> We run our own using MyDNS. It has a few bugs, but by and large it works.

</comment><comment><USER17> UltraDNS</comment>


Practicing privacy: Encryption - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/articles/practicing-privacy-encryption/

<comment><USER2> _" Encryption makes privacy a right that can be claimed rather than granted."_

Not really, or at least not alone. There will always be points at which information must be encrypted. Encryption just pushes the need for the right to be granted to those points. This is not at all a bad idea, of course; just that government recognition of a right to privacy is still important.

<comment><USER3> Encryption provides a good way to keep secrets. This has nothing to do with privacy. Privacy is minding my own business without anyone watching me or judging me.

If you need to rely on encryption to protect your privacy, then you have very little privacy, because everything that is not encrypted can be snooped on: where you are, who you talk to and about what (because GPG doesn't protect the username and subject), who are your friends (because you can't trust them to encrypt properly).

If you want to escape surveillance, encryption is just one tool. What you really need is good opsec habits. See for examples [http://fr.slideshare.net/grugq/opsec-for- hackers](http://fr.slideshare.net/grugq/opsec-for-hackers)

<comment><USER2> Excellent resource, thank you for sharing it. I think we're agreed, though, that we shouldn't be needing to practice opsec to have some basic privacy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For cloud services I'd recommend Lastpass (works with Yubikey 2 factor) for password management and Tarsnap for backups.

<comment> mike-cardwell Worth pointing out that if you use LastPass and the US government wants a list of all of the accounts you use, a history of when you logged in to them, the IPs you were using when you logged in, and your usernames and passwords, they can get it.

All they need is a court order to compell LastPass to target your account with some modified backdoored JS. They have done this before to force Hushmail to send backdoored java applets to targetted users.

I used LastPass for a very short time. I now use a PGP encrypted text file.

<comment><USER5> PGP encrypted text file is not very convenient. Give keepass a try [http://keepass.info/](http://keepass.info/). Its open source, cross platform and has a nice random password generator. Can't live without it.

I never understood why people would want to use a cloud-based password manager. I find the whole idea of giving your passwords to a 3rd party ridiculous, and doesn't matter if they are encrypted or not. Wasn't there a security breach with one of these services a few months ago?

<comment><USER6> Yes, LastPass which is why I use 1Password + DropBox. As soon as a non-Dropbox cloud (eg. aerofs) share becomes available that works for 1Password, I'm switching to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > By long, I mean greater than 16 characters, and perhaps longer than 20.

Talk about going overboard... furthermore this in combination with "Don't use words or "clever" variations on words" make it all but likely that you're going to forget your own password and write it down.

<comment><USER8> If you can't remember 1 password over 20 characters that you will use a lot with a password manager you probably need to change what kind of passwords you make.

Instead of "E=E<4oc^(z&kj6Snm9uy" do something like "The Brown cow jumps over the m00n!".

Set the password manager to make you enter the password if you haven't used it for 30 seconds (for a few days so you remember your password).

You're using a password manager with a good password that is easy to remember but the you do use the password manager to generate hard to remember passwords like the one above.

<comment><USER2> Do not give password advice without looking at the entropy.

Estimates of the entropy of English text place it below 1.5 bits per character. "The brown cow jumps over the moon." would, generously, have about 34 * 1.5 = 51 bits of entropy, plus a few more for the simplistic substitutions - say 70 bits total? This is assuming the sentence was, in fact, chosen uniformly across English sentences, which is obviously not going to be the case (this one being a modification of a line from a nursery rhyme), so in actuality it'll be even worse.

A fully random password of length 20, from characters on a typical keyboard (say 94, it seems to be on mine) would have 20 * lg(94) > 20 * 6.5 = 130 bits. But impossible to remember and a pain to type correctly.

Picking from my /usr/share/dict/words with no restrictions (99171 entries), it would take 70 / lg(99171) = 5 words to be stronger than the sentence and 130 / lg(99171) = 8 words to be stronger than the gibberish, with no substitutions or tweaks, however not all of those passwords could be typed on my keyboard.

Restricting /usr/share/dict/words to those which match (with LANG=C) '^[a-zA-Z]\\{1,10\\}$' yields 61078 words at about 7.3 bits of entropy per word, so you would get security comparable to the above with 5 (again - aliasing) and 9 words respectively.

Some nine-word passwords generated this way:

        embryo distressed Ramadan chocks broaching official outstript explicit formulas
        tokens bruskly realizing rubric earmarks aphorism sweeps hallelujah Bardeen
        respects jocularity crummier leave spinsters Rodriquez hatch assurance torture
        patinas Elba dairymaids blabbing kissing handyman Ind tobogganed directed
        mossy Flora concepts medalist kidding heinously deafened evaluation nodes
        Steinmetz lizard Janette scatted cunning geckos belched demurring grandest
        faints nicest unleashes navel Monroe frostbites Pl loon careening
        overtake tasselled quahog utters Upjohn incloses punchy Jericho reveille
        sicked sinning premiere Satanism loiters accrual Caspar infatuate renewable
        dinning hereabouts Lithuanian formalism voiceless demoted bundle teed fluent

The above were generated with LANG=C grep "^[a-zA-Z]\\{1,10\\}$" /usr/share/dict/words | rl --reselect -c 10 | xargs

This is, obviously, reliant on an assumption that rl produces cryptographic level randomness, which is probably not the case but should certainly be near enough the case for examples (and in any case will be much, much closer to true than any method involving humans - we are very poor sources of cryptographic entropy).

<comment><USER8> Thanks for taking 1 tiny part of my point and trying to destroy it.

I chose the passphrase "The Brown cow jumps over the m00n!" as an example not "The brown cow jumps over the moon." which is a significantly worse passphrase, especially considering every word is available in a dictionary.

The OP had trouble memorizing more than 16 characters for a passphrase so I suggested something easier yet still solid yet you seemed to think I suggested just a plain english sentence of words.

<comment><USER9> If you think "m00n" vs. "moon" or "The" vs. "the" matters, you're not paying attention. A memorizable, but randomly composed string of words all in lower- case ASCII is significantly stronger than anything "complex" (for you, hardly for the cracker--common substitutions are basically worthless: they provide no entropy) you can concoct _and_ remember.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: iOS Interactive Notification - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lab111/hedwig <comment><AUTHOR> I think notification should not only just notify the users, but also enable them to handle it. For example, when you receive a message, you may want to reply immediately. But it would be terrible if you have to go to the contact view and find the sender from hundreds of them. Why not just tap the notification and do what you want?

This is my first open source framework, although it's very simple, the new concept and the API are great in my opinion. It's been 1 month since I published it but there are only 6 stars. Really have no idea why some similar but uglier can have 1000 stars. No complain, just want to ask for experience and suggestions. I hope people can explore this concept with me, but the first thing is to let them know it.</comment>


A New Dilbert.com - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dilbert.com/post/108099648551/a-new-dilbert-com

<comment><USER2> I remember flicking through a Dilbert comic as a child, thinking it was rubbish. Now after some years of office work experience I love it. Those care free days are never coming back.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some younger people might not appreciate just how on-the-button some of the Dilbert cartoons are. They can be almost painfully accurate.

[http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-11-07](http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-11-07)

Some of them are pretty old but it's worth having a reflective look through them to check that you're not performing a Dilbert cartoon.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The new design of the homepage [0] is very nice and clean.

I like how you can see multiple comics at a glance. The idea to intersperse blog posts is interesting.

0\. [http://dilbert.com/](http://dilbert.com/)</comment>


Who Needs Harvard? - <AUTHOR> http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2004/10education_easterbrook.aspx

<comment><USER2> There are workplaces that are shallow in their standards, and simply trust buzzword-compliant, shiny pieces of paper, so a good school can certainly help acquire "more jobs". But as we know, more isn't better. Any intelligent person needs to see such crap as a big, giant red flag and run far away. Any employer not willing to dig deeper and find out who you really are, and what you're really capable of, is not worth working for!

Take a counter-example. I've been to interviews where an entire day was spent with me, sending many different people my way. This was real effort on their part, and it felt good. I had a chance to meet many potential colleagues, and they explored several different ideas. I could see that they weren't stupid enough to just trust what I wrote on a couple of pages, they really wanted to see what I was capable of. My university is very good, but certainly not well known in the U.S., and the fact that it isn't Yale had no effect on the interview. That's as it should be.</comment>


Ask HN: Is bioinformatics/computational biology a valuable field? - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering if these jobs will be valued/be in demand in the future, and how much I would earn. I'm currently doing an undergrad Bioinformatics/comp. bio. (BCB) at my university, but I'm unsure if the job market looks very good, and some google searches lead me to believe the pay isn't great. Furthermore, to get further in the field, a PhD is generally required, which is certainly not appealing. I'm currently aiming to apply for medical school, but am also considering doing a joint degree with BCB and a comp sci major to be more competitive if I don't get in. However this would mean graduating a bit late. Any thoughts on either my degree, or what the future holds for this field? <comment><USER2> I could tell you non-specific tips about jobs.

Differentiating yourself is important if you want to get the best pay in your field. Some jobs are quite repetitive and could be automated easily. And a lot of jobs in bioinformatics are re-inventing the wheel, sometimes awfully. It would pay IMO to think at a higher level, standardize the toolset and procedures, use the excellent tooling that the profession has already adopted.

Galaxy is a step in this direction, so it would not pay to be a good practitionner, but it would pay to be the guy that can automate bio- informatics jobs.

You can have also a niche competency, like knowing how to operate a specific hardware or software. I would not bet on that approach.

You can also try some professional certification, or knowing regulations in your field or be expert on some quality assurance procedures.

You can also try to be able to manage large bio-informatics projects from project design to operation and strategic steering.</comment>


ArrayUtil in Groovy - <AUTHOR> http://svn.codehaus.org/groovy/trunk/groovy/groovy-core/src/main/org/codehaus/groovy/runtime/ArrayUtil.java

<comment><USER2> This was subbed about 4 yrs ago with discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1951803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1951803)</comment>


Rust 1.45.2 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rust-lang.org/2020/08/03/Rust-1.45.2.html <comment><USER2> I thought Rust releases happened on Thursdays... Did they change their schedule or did this get released early for some reason?

<comment><USER3> Hotfixes

<comment><USER2> ah good call

found the P-critical [https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/issues/74954](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/74954)</comment></comment></comment>


Java Deployment Toolkit Plugin Does Not Validate Installer Executable  - <AUTHOR> https://nealpoole.com/blog/2011/10/java-deployment-toolkit-plugin-does-not-validate-installer-executable/ <comment><AUTHOR> At the end of the blog post is a timeline of the investigation and correspondence with the vendor. This is how to do disclosure.</comment>


"Why I cried at the Apple Store" - <AUTHOR> http://www.ailynlatorrephotography.com/blog/why-i-cried-at-the-apple-store/

<comment><USER2> An article about an Apple Store full of pictures of flowers?</comment>


Ask HN: How many different datastores do you use at your company? - <AUTHOR>

I'm doing a quick survey for a research paper to validate if startups have multi database problems such as keeping data synchronized <comment><AUTHOR> 4 or more databases

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 3 databases

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 2 databases

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 1 database</comment>


Why Not All Great Hackepreneurs Get Picked By YC (he offers a Plan B) - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/1350/Why-Not-All-Great-Hackepreneurs-Get-Picked-By-Y-Combinator.aspx <comment><USER2> The YC email arrives ...

GEEK #1: So read the message. Did we get in?

NERD: _READS EMAIL, looks dejected, tears streaming from eyes. Starts blowing on sleeve. Honking sound._

_'... We're sorry to say that we can't accept your proposal for funding. Please don't take it personally, because most of the proposals we rejected, we rejected for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the applicants ...'_ [0]

GEEK #2: "So did we get in?"

NERD : "No, we didn't get in."

GEEK #2: "Why, do you think it had something to do with me saying, 'I wanted to give it a try for 3 months then go back home and continue my PhD.?'" [1]

GEEK #1: "You what?"

NERD : "I told you, first we do the startup, make a good product, then the PhD., then we party, not before."

GEEK #1: "What about this?" ... interesting offer, "show off hackenpreneur skills?"

GEEK #2: "Isn't 'hakenpreneur' one of the Thunderbirds?"

NERD: "Thats Hacken - backer" [2]

 _ALL: Read article, mouths words, absorb information_ [3]

GEEK #2: "You do almost the same thing, same place, similar money, coding! LOOK! They even give you a idea to start working on."

GEEK #1: "Sun Tzu says: _'a wise general makes a point of foraging on the enemy. One cartload of the enemy's provisions is equivalent to twenty of one's own, and likewise a single picul of his provender is equivalent to twenty from one's own store.'_ " [4]

NERD : "Hmmm. What about our idea?"

NERD : You know. Our idea to revolutionise the storage and retrieval of unstructured data across the Internet. We have a demo, we've launched, got great feedback, users. We have what it takes. It will probably change. We can adapt.

GEEK #2: "Goggle stopper!"

NERD : "No, Google stopper."

GEEK #2: "Thats the code name, 'Goggle Stopper'."

GEEK #1: "Sun Tzu also said _'when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity'_ [5]

GEEK #2: Ancient Art of War, I love that game. If you get enough knights, take the bridge you can ...

NERD : But if we work for something else, we miss out on working on our own stuff, the people stuff, the business stuff. We could always go home, scrape some money together, polish our idea, skills and pitch again?

GEEK #1: "Sun Tzu also reminds me that, _'our men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards'_ ". [6]

NERD : Every day we aren't working on our own product, is a day wasted. Nothing will stop us!

GEEK #2: You're right. Why would we want to work on other peoples ideas? We're street wise. We do things on our own terms.

NERD : Working for a boss, sucks.

GEEK #1: Right. [5]

GEEK #2: You tell 'em boss.

__Reference __

[0] I read this straight off a 'mauricecheeks' post ~<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9464> It is by far the best current Plan B that I have read.

[1] I know someone who did exactly this. Sad story.

[2] Really Brains name is "Hiram Hackenbacker" ~ <http://www.google.com/search?q=hiram+hackenbacker>

[3] Dharmesh Shah, "Why Not All Great Hackepreneur Get Picked By Y Combinator"

[4] Sun Tzu, "Mit Classics, II. Waging War, #15" ~ <http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html>

[5] Sun Tzu, "II. Waging War, #4", Ibid.

[6] Sun Tzu, "II. Waging War, #16", Ibid.

[7] Straight out of 'Alien', Brett.

<comment><USER3> This the funniest thing I've ever read on news.yc.

<comment><USER2> _'This the funniest thing I've ever read on news.yc.'_

(as you know ) if you poke fun at things you can get across messages in parallel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Of his reasons, 1 and 2 are mistaken. If a startup with a single founder looks especially promising, we don't simply reject them; we get them to find one. And we have no bias toward consumer apps. Two of the most successful startups we've funded (neither is launched yet) are doing stuff for businesses. The reason we fund more consumer apps is simply that more apply.

BTW, we're soon going to announce a third plan B, which we hope will be a better alternative to this or Techstars: to work for a YC "alumni" company. While some (e.g. Loopt) are quite established, others are so new that you could be the first hire, which is very much like being a founder.

<comment><USER4> PG: Who's hiring? Is this going to be restricted to YC applicants?

<comment><USER5> Zenter is hiring - <http://www.zenter.com.> You can email us at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you really need to be told a plan B you shouldn't start a startup.

Plan B is just start building something and stop worrying about getting other people's approval! If you make something cool, then you will be able to find other founders, money ... etc.

<comment><USER7> Not all ideas, no matter how world-changing, can be turned into a full company with just one founder and roughly zero cash. For young founders, 15k, partners and a basic support system can make a world of a difference.

edit: The real deciding factor for me though will be his equity equation.

<comment><USER8> Right, but it's usually possible to find another, simpler idea - even if it's just consulting - that will generate $15k and bring you in contact with potential cofounders or customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thats a cool proposition, something to consider for those of us who dont get accepted YC. However, I think 99% of the experience founding a startup is from the fact that it is based on YOUR idea, not someone elses. From that comes the insane relentless drive to push the limits. I would have a hard time programming 20 hours a day for weeks on end for an idea I was not involved in creating.

I do think its cool he would be willing to fund your personal idea after the work period. But then you lack the mentoring/community/networking aspect of YC which I think is more important than the actual funding (at least in the very early stages). Best of luck to him though on recruiting some quality hackers.

<comment><USER10> I would disagree with your thesis that 99% of the experience is based on pursuing your idea. Many entrepreneurs start companies for reasons other than pursuing their own idea. Some simply like the control, autonomy and culture of a startup.

I'd also posit that when finding co-founders, you are in a sense finding someone that will help you execute your idea (and that makes them no less of an entrepreneur).

<comment><USER11> "Some simply like the control, autonomy and culture of a startup."

Will people really get the opportunity for that, though? If the idea isn't "theirs" in the sense that it was (more or less) handed to them as something to work on for you, will they feel the same freedom to change or modify it as they would with their own startup? And isn't that flexibility a necessary component for a startup's success?

It's a delicate psychological issue... as students, we've been very much conditioned to respond to an authority figure (teacher, boss), and if you don't want to fall into that role, you should be consciously careful not to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good idea. The most important thing YC provides is an effective social network. You're connected to piers going through the same process, so you have people that understand what you're going through. In addition, YC provides advise/access to people who have been where you're attempting to go and facilitates interactions with investors that would be difficult to arrange on your own. You probably couldn't offer the same networking opportunities, but if someone is having a hard time finding a cofounder, being Cambridge at MIT would probably help.

<comment><USER10> I agree with all your points. That's why my offer doesn't really compete with YC. In fact, you have to have applied to YC and been turned down in order to be considered for this option.

I can't provide the peer-group support and advice that PG does. But, I can hopefully start you down the process (I'm involved with half a dozen local startups, not including my own, and have decent contacts on both the entrepreneurial side and the investment side of the community).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Summary: If you don't get to be a YC founder this time, come work for his startup on his ideas. Same location, same time period, same money, very different role IMO.

<comment><USER10> This is a reasonably fair characterization (though candidly, I have not worked out all the details yet).

I considered simply making an equity investment (like YC does), but don't have the bandwidth to do something like that at this time.

One of the reasons I didn't post this article until after the YC deadline is that I wanted to make sure people didn't confuse this as an alternative to YC. As you noted, the role is very different.

Not for everyone, but might make sense for some.

<comment><AUTHOR> Howdy Dharmesh. I think it's a cool idea--good luck with it. I like the <http://www.websitegrader.com/> app. I ran it on a couple sites I'm involved with and got some good suggestions.

<comment><USER10> Thanks. This is a pet project of mine (amongst others). Response so far has been pretty good. We haven't officially "launched" it yet, but about 9,500 URLs have been processed by the tool so far. It's a fun little tool to work on.

<comment><USER14> I hadn't seen the site before, very cool. My only suggestion would be to offer the necessary syntax when relevant, e.g. for adding meta keywords. Granted, it only takes thirty seconds to lookup, but people are more likely to make the changes immediately before they forget if it's right there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm excited by what seems to be a boom in micro-seed startup financing...what could less charitably be referred to as the YC-app knockoffs.

This guys seems to have a good approach, though, in defining a slightly different niche for what he wants to do. While I would be willing to concede that nobody can implement the YC model as well as YC, I hope there is room for more micro-seed startups^2 with different focuses and different approaches.

<comment><USER10> I would liken this more to Google's summer of code or Joel Spolsky's paid summer internship program.

I think it's really hard to compete with Paul and what he's built with YC. Strong following, great set of people and a very difficult set of benefits to match. If you fit the YC profile, I think that's a great path for lots of hackepreneur types.

But, I think there are still "gaps" in the market between YC and other early- stage investment vehicles (angel groups, VCs, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow this summer will be very interesting. I'd like to see the outcome of the Techstars.org, YC and onstartups. I'm sure we should get a good crop of startups.

</comment><comment><USER17> I dont know if there are more than 2 plans. Its either YC or go alone. Reason for sticking with YC is free access to paul graham :D and his suggestions. I think this is something priceless and if at all we are out of YC, I hope i have a face to face meet up with PG and convince/beg to be our mentor :) Just like George Bush quoted "You are either with us or against us", i would go ahead and quote, its either YC or alone :)

<comment><USER8> Don't forget the other YC founders. PG gets all the fame, but IMHO RTM has accomplished more. And I wouldn't mind working with Trevor or Jessica either...

<comment><USER17> Well when i said PG, i meant PG + Team at YC. As long as i get advice from ppl at YC, i would be glad

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if he'll get the type of people he wants or expects: there's a significant difference between people who want to start their own company versus going to work for someone else (i.e. this does sound more like a summer internship than a funding opportunity).

</comment><comment><USER19> Very interesting proposal. If someone isn't already working on a startup, this would be a great way to get some experience (working for a startup is the next best thing to starting one). Who knows, it might serve as preparation for the winter round of YC.

<comment><USER10> That's the hope.

Though I'm a big PG fan, I'm no PG. My thinking is that my experiment can extract a few more people into the startup mindset (and clearly, there's some upside for me too). In my experience, simply resisting the temptation to jump into big company land is a huge step. If possible, I'd like to make it really hard for great hackepreneurs to revert to a big company job simply because they didn't make it in to YC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Contract programmer at $27 per hour for a 3 month project. That's what it is.

<comment><USER10> I find it curious that you think that's what it is.

Candidly, I'm not naive enough to think that I'm going to attract anyone worth attracting if that's all it was.

<comment><USER20> Will they be working on _your_ project?. Yes

Will they be working on _their_ ideas/project? No

Will you pay for medical, dental, 401K etc? No

Will you be paying the employer share of Federal and State taxes from their paycheck? No

Is there any obligation or gurantee that you will help them in return for the work they have done for you? No.

If, after working for 3 months on your project; if you dont like them, will you still be obligated to finance them to work on their idea? No

That's the definition of someone looking for a temp or contract programmer. (and frankly, the market rate for a 3 month contract programmer of YC caliber would be at least double that).

So, was I mistaken? :) :)

Note the big difference. YC lends a helping hand by letting the startups work on _their own projects_ and investing money, effort, experience and time to help them succeed with their companies.

My sincere suggestion is: be _generous_ and offer the exact same terms that YC does.

"cast your bread upon the waters for after many days they shall return to you"

([http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=25&chapter;=11&version;=47)](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=25&chapter=11&version=47\))</comment></comment></comment>


McDonald's Expands Push to Swap Frozen Patties for Fresh Beef - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-29/mcdonald-s-expands-push-to-swap-frozen-patties-for-fresh-beef?cmpid=BBD112916_BIZ <comment><USER2> McDonald's was using fresh beef in some areas (e.g. California's Central Valley locations like Stockton) clear back to 1978 at the latest. It becomes a logistics issue and expense, plus the environmental impact of additional delivery trips.

"These burgers are hotter and juicier than our previous quarter-pound patties, ..."

Well, sure, but that's only at the time you pull them from the grill.

When you then just stuff the cooked patties into a heat tray for (perhaps hours) later assembly into a sandwich (modern McD procedure, unlike the old days), the benefit is mostly lost.</comment>


A 32-year-old state senator is trying to get patent trolls out of Massachusetts - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/14/this-32-year-old-state-senator-is-trying-to-get-patent-trolls-out-of-massachusetts/ <comment><USER2> I'm always amused at the Silicon Valley attitude towards "patent trolls". Figuring out some way to make people slave for below minimum wage - fine. Obtaining a monopoly and then raising prices - fine. Using a monopoly in one area, such as an app store, to keep out competitors for your own products - fine. Shipping crap that doesn't work - fine. But enforcing patent rights - that's bad.

<comment><USER3> Wow. Straw man galore.

Edit: feel like I should expand one this.

None of the opinions you mentioned are consistent across HN, nor are they supported by all of the same people. Not even a majority of HNers support most of those opinions. In fact, I think the only one of those that HNers do tend to support in majority is "But enforcing patent rights - that's bad."

<comment> jay-anderson I don't think even the majority of agree that enforcing patents is wholly bad. It's a bit more nuanced than that. Some of my personal problems with patent enforcement of the top of my head: (1) it often isn't encouraging creators to keep creating (the patents being enforced have been sold or assigned away from the individual) (2) patents are being used as a stock pile for insurance against other companies suing them (3) non-practicing entities (patent trolls) are generally the ones bringing law suits (4) many patents we hear about appear low quality (obvious, prior art, do it on a computer/network, etc.)

After seeing issues like the above over and over again it feels like the system isn't working to do what it should. I'd love to see patent enforcement to help fund the work of inventors and push the overall state-of-the-art forward, but it really feels like that's not what's happening right now.

<comment><USER4> All of the "problems" you state are valid, but targeting patent enforcement to fix the problem is like trying to stiffle a food poisoning epidemic by changing the way people eat instead of fixing the source of the problem which is in the food prep.

Patent trolls are succesful because of the millions of worthless patents issued (i.e. scope that actually does overlap prior art, such that people think they have broader protection than they actually have). The other reason is that people are filing patents (and getting them granted) based on concepts that seem viable in principle, but which they haven't actually distilled to practice (ahem - Magic Leap).

All of these issues can be greatly mitigated by reinstituting (1) the rule for inventors to actually demonstrate the technology they're patenting to the USPTO.

1\. [https://www.uspto.gov/custom-page/inventors-eye-what-are- cur...](https://www.uspto.gov/custom-page/inventors-eye-what-are-current- guidelines-submiting-models-your-patent-application)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This can only be good for Mass tech and tech companies in general. One can only hope more politicians wise up to the negative externalities of patent trolls. That and opposition to anti-compete clauses are what politicians should to attract talent to their regional economies.

<comment><USER6> The proposed law is useless. Other states have similar laws -- they are useless.

The problem is that they rely on infringement claims being made in "bad faith." Patent trolls never make claims that would trigger these bad faith conditions.

Or, if they had made qualifying "bad faith" claims in the past, it is trivial to update their demand letters to avoid triggering the bad faith clauses in these bills or laws.

<comment><USER7> I think the laws are also useless because they require that claims be filed in Massachusetts.

The article mentions cloudflare a bunch, but they are based out of California. I don't even know of them being sued by a patent troll in Massachusetts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How dare he? They're just trying to atone for their sins.

<comment><USER9> I clicked to the comments to pun "let's take the mass out of patent trolls." well done, friend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> " You hear about the three or four kids in a dorm room who are tinkering around with an idea, then suddenly, they get slammed with one of these completely vague cease-and-desist letters from a place they've never heard of, citing patents they didn't know existed. The threat is: turn over everything you're doing to us, or pay us $30,000."

Has this ever happened? I don't think so.

Also, it would be nice if the interview included a peppercorn of information about the bills.

WA state has a new anti-patent troll law. It is useless.

edit: link to the bill sponsored by Eric Lesser [https://malegislature.gov/Bills/190/S128](https://malegislature.gov/Bills/190/S128)

edit2: after scanning the bill, it looks like every "mainstream" patent troll would be able to continue to operate without making any changes to their practice. Only the most incompetent lawyers have any chance of triggering the "bad faith" element in this law. (Same as WA state anti-patent troll law.)

<comment><USER10> Yes it does happen. Small startup gets a shakedown when they get into incumbent player market. Been there. Not always but it can be game ending. Not commenting on the quoted anecdote, just my experience and word of mouth from others.

<comment><USER11> It happens for trademarks too.

<comment><USER12> Well, yes, but you can change your name and usually avoid having to pay up a large sum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pardon my ignorance, but if these firms are buying up patents, aren't they paying fairly and squarely for IP assets? Whether or not they produced the IP, how does that factor into whether or not they are "bad actors" in commercial exchange?

<comment><USER14> The problem is they are 'buying worthless patents'. Then trying to get people to pay not because of the patent, but because the US court system is so expensive.

One of the problems is the patent office may grant an extremely narrow patent, but the courts just might interpret it broadly. However, the shell company suing you has no assets to recover over a bogus suit. So, taking them to court has zero upside, costs money, and has a tiny chance of costing a lot of money. Thus troll.

<comment><USER15> IMHO the patents are usually not narrow, but overly broad, and they should not have been registered in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The title seems abbreviated for no apparent reason.

</comment><comment><USER17> What can they really do at the state level? I believe patents are a federal issue. I'm not sure what a state law can do about a patent troll trying to enforce "their" federally granted patent rights.

</comment><comment><USER18> What a garbage heap of an article. There is not even a single sentence giving a summary of what the bill would do.

</comment><comment><USER19> I guess when you hit 2 to the 5th power you want to make big changes in the world :)

<comment><USER6> Well that may be. But, this bill isn't it. It is almost a copy of other ineffective laws in place in other states.</comment></comment>