What It's Like to Be a Black Mathematician - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/edray-goins-black-mathematicians.html <comment> tyler- People from poor demographics in general are discriminated against in various ways.

Want to learn math but come from a poor neighborhood? Good luck. You're probably locked in a school system with bad teachers and few if any math courses beyond calculus.

Even if you're talented you probably know 0 people that can help you. Now your growth is prematurely stunted.

That kid from a better off family that shows talent in math? Probably get recognized for it from an early age and gets tutors and advanced training. Probably already completed proof based courses in analysis, algebra by the time they completed high school. They get into better schools and have ahead start. Even if they are just as talented as you the poor kid.

<comment><USER4> _Want to learn math but come from a poor neighborhood? Good luck. You're probably locked in a school system with bad teachers and few if any math courses beyond calculus._

I've read and listened to a number of accounts about how _peers_ in poor neighborhoods are the biggest barrier to academic achievement.

 _Even if you're talented you probably know 0 people that can help you. Now your growth is prematurely stunted._

Or worse, your peers punish you for your ability. In my personal experience, they can even tell you that you are sexually inadequate and somehow less essentially human. This feedback is all the worse, because it is genuinely believed by the one giving it.

 _That kid from a better off family that shows talent in math? Probably get recognized for it from an early age and gets tutors and advanced training. Probably already completed proof based courses in analysis, algebra by the time they completed high school. They get into better schools and have ahead start. Even if they are just as talented as you the poor kid._

There are cultural contexts where children form groups and help each other and offer moral support. Such social interaction seems to be attached to high performance in just about every human endeavor where skill and knowledge are important. One study found that Asian kids were very good at forming such peer groups to study math, and that African American children were much more prone to studying alone. Asian cultures are noteworthy, in that academic achievement is prized even by the poorer segments of society, though I've also known African Americans who are from families with such a subculture which prizes knowledge and academic achievement.

<comment><USER5> Hold on, let me catch up here: your poor-neighborhood peers tell you you're "sexually inadequate" and therefore you go on to not be a mathematician? Can you connect those dots for me?

<comment><USER4> _Hold on, let me catch up here: your poor-neighborhood peers tell you you 're "sexually inadequate"_

No. My peers told me I was sexually inadequate and less than essentially human. This was also mixed up with my having been molested be a peer in high school. As a result, I was pretty much unable to have a relationship until my late 20's, and even so it was hard to sustain a relationship long term for many years beyond that. (I'm happily married now, however.)

Insults and gaslighting with regards to one's sexuality are a particularly potent psychological weapon, and from what I've seen both as a direct participant and as an observer, some people from poorer backgrounds will actively punish those who are demonstrating academic excellence, or who are cultivating themselves in some other fashion. Such people are likely just a small percentage of the general populace. However, if one "sticks out" then that small percentage tends to find you more easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This mathematician is not stupid. I would be inclined to believe he understands statistics/anecdotes/academia better than you reading this right now.

We only get a small glimpse into the intricacies of his world view and life, and this is what he has chosen to share. This is the story he is telling.

Ask yourself why someone in this position would tell this story based on years of lived experience. Do you believe him? Or do you believe keyboard warriors in some of the comments under this article diminishing his perspective with "but what about"-ism and the like?

I am black and studied math in school. The 'leaky pipeline' exists to some extent. Racist people exist even if you, reading this, are not racist.

<comment><USER7> May I ask you a question?

Not for the sake of argument or anything - I'm genuinely curious.

Yes, racist people exist. No doubt here. As do exist many other nasties: dishonest salesmen, stupid teachers, dumb police officers, incompetent doctors - you name it. They make the headlines, but I firmly believe there's not that many of them and most of people are fully adequate and reasonable.

From the article it sounds like there's a full faculty of racist bigots who see maintaining white supremacy as their primary goal. He's universally hated just for the color of his skin and there are few to no people who treat him as equal.

Is it really that bad?

<comment><USER5> There is no place in this NYT profile where Goins makes any claim about a "full faculty of racist bigots who see maintaining white supremacy as their primary goal", so that's not a reasonable question to ask.

<comment><USER7> Looks like you've dismissed my question on technicality.

I have to admit this is not exactly the answer I was looking for.

<comment><USER5> Not that it matters, but just because my nerd brain won't let this go until I type this out: refuting the core premise of your question isn't a "technicality". The correct answer to "is it really that bad", in this case, is "NaN fssst bzzrt pop!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't doubt that there absolutely exists prejudices in this case but I also wonder how many will also be created by one self in that situation just because how the human mind works.

I used to have quite a lot of acne and it really got to my head. It of course did affect how people treated me, especially girls, because acne is not very attractive however after a while I probably read into things way more than I should. That people who were treating me the way they normally would or just happened to treat me badly because they had a bad day did treat me that way because of my acne.

Being the lone black guy in a research institution in a country like the US with that kind of history must be easy to start falling down that hole. Especially if there also exists people who are prejudiced or racist and expresses that as well.

<comment><USER6> So you believe your experience with acne could be a lot like people experiencing racism?

<comment><USER9> I feel like your comment is disingenuous. He's saying that we all feel slighted, and perhaps cases where minorities feel slighted, is just that.

A case mentioned from the article that gave me this vibe:

> "A couple of them were at a board writing something," he recalled. "I went > over and asked, 'What are you guys working on?'"

> "We're too far in to catch you up," he said he was told.

I know personally, I used to feel very "in tune" to how people perceived me. I read a book on body language when I was younger, and would constantly analyze how people moved ("head tilted, they think this is interesting", "arms crossed, they're defensive"), etc. It went further than that - <USER2> language etc.

But, there were some cases were I was certain someone was being an asshole to me - but I learned I was wrong. Now I'm much more restrictive in how I pass judgement on someone.

I hope others give me that benefit, because I constantly find myself thinking of how something I said in conversation could be misunderstood, etc. Communication is hard.

<comment><USER10> Yep, and thinking about that some more, I have to wonder if he might be suffering from early/mild signs of schizophrenia. The assumption of racism is unjustified paranoia.

When schizophrenia starts, it is common to assume that people's actions are in some way plotting against you. A person does something for a reason unrelated to you (example: bumps you accidentally), and you assume it was intentional.

I recall that there is even an increased chance of illness for math experts. Famously, it hit John Nash.

So his interpretation of other people's actions may be a sign that he is not well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The thing with prejudice is nobody will ever admit to being prejudiced. All you can do is piece it together. Sometimes your working hypothesis is that it's just noise, other times it's prejudice.

I brought in a woman to work on a project once, and it was awful.

Despite her doing objectively better work than what was available before, my partners decided everything she did needed criticism. Never anything substantial, just pretend criticism meant to look like they knew what they were talking about. And one of them wanted veto on all the work, despite knowing very little about it.

They questioned whether she'd have been on the project if she didn't know me, which is pretty out there given she did this for a living for some very well known firms.

Then they called her something offensive in front of her, and when I called them out on it, they pretended it was a joke intended to make her feel like part of the team.

Can you ever conclude what people's true motivations are? Not really. Could someone genuinely have felt that some person's work was substandard, they didn't get the job legitimately, and could they screw up some office banter? Sure.

It took me a long time to think this through, but in the end it misogyny seemed to be the only answer. We'd worked with plenty of incompetents before without saying much, and hired plenty of people (all guys) through the friends network. We'd never had anyone get bullied like that in the office, though.

Story got a whole lot worse later, but that's for another time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> When I was in primary school in Canada, I was able to get mostly good grades without really trying. I admit I was a little lazy, and my laziness would result in the occasional bad grade.

What I remember is that I would always be scolded by my teachers for not doing well. A few of my friends, however, who were black would never be scolded for not doing well at school.

The point I'm trying to get across is that racism can be quite subtle and baked into things we don't even realize, like the expectations we have of other people. I'm not sure how well I would've done in life if people implicitly expected me to fail.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think subtle racism is a big problem. It can be felt without being verbally communicated to you, the actions from the perpetrators are frustrating and you feel helpless. The perpetrators would not be corrected because they said nothing wrong. Worst of all is that you don't get a fair shake, and you might be dismissed at the slightest hint of incoherence and sometimes you feel like the perpetrators are waiting for you to fail.

</comment><comment><USER13> > For the record, here is a small sample of other communities where black > people are strongly underrepresented:

> Runners (3%). Bikers (6%). Furries (2%). Wall Street senior management (2%). > Occupy Wall Street protesters (unknown but low, one source says 1.6% but > likely an underestimate). BDSM (unknown but low) Tea Party members (1%). > American Buddhists (~2%). Bird watchers (4%). Environmentalists (various but > universally low). Wikipedia contributors (unknown but low). Atheists (2%). > Vegetarian activists (maybe 1-5%). Yoga enthusiasts (unknown but low). > College baseball players (5%). Swimmers (2%). Fanfiction readers (2%). > Unitarian Universalists (1%).

> Can you see what all of these groups have in common?

> No. No you can't. If there's some hidden factor uniting Wall Street senior > management and furries, it is way beyond any of our pay grades.

> But what I noticed when I looked up those numbers was that in every case, > the people involved have come up with a pat explanation that sounds > perfectly plausible right up until you compare it to any other group, at > which point it bursts into flame

Excerpt from Black People Less Likely: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/02/11/black-people-less- like...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/02/11/black-people-less-likely/)

<comment><USER14> I would bet that in almost every one of those categories, Americans of New England descent are over-represented compared to people of Christian Italian/German/Polish descent. (With the least money on the sporting ones.)

<comment><USER15> Furries (2%).Occupy Wall Street protesters (unknown but low, one source says 1.6% but likely an underestimate). BDSM (unknown but low). Environmentalists (various but universally low). Wikipedia contributors (unknown but low). Atheists (2%). Fanfiction readers (2%).

there are quite a few that don't really match...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> EDIT: Got rid of part of my post that had enough information in it that could be tied to people in real life.

\</comment><comment>--

It doesn't help that West Lafayette is a very racist place in my experience. I'm white and a native speaker of American English. On my first day of teaching at Purdue I introduced myself to the class and a student asked, "Are you an American? Do you speak English?" At the time West Lafayette had a confusing road system for a small town. Lots of 5-way intersections and one way streets. I was late to a dental appointment and apologized to the dentist's secretary. I explained that I had a hard time figuring out how to get to the place. She responded, "Yeah, the road system here was designed by a drunk Indian." I'm certain living in Indiana exacerbated the situation.

<comment><USER17> It is also not helping that there actually _is_ such a thing as "token X". A less discussed side effect of affirmative action.

<comment><USER18> I don't think that's the thing that's 'not helping', here.

<comment><USER19> There is such a thing as the "token gaijin" at Japanese companies - <USER3> foreigner who can show to visitors how international company this is. Generally very little influence or path of progress. Also just the knowledge of this phenomenon can cause self-doubt for the individual.

White people office workers Japan are of course not the same as black mathematicians in the U.S., but I don't believe that it's not contributing to the problem if it occurs.

<comment><USER18> I just don't think 'my prejudices are actually true' is the conclusion to draw from 'tokenism exists', that is all.

<comment><USER15> you and me don't, but many do. It is a fact that affirmative action undermines the claim of competence of minorities in the workplace. It also a problem to be addressed. Whether or not it is right to think that has little influence of the fact that many people reach that conclusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I fail to see how either of your anecdotes constitute racism

<comment><USER21> > Yeah, the road system here was designed by a drunk Indian

What does including Indian add here? If the (alleged) drunk was white would the person have said, "drunk white guy"?

<comment><USER16> I'm assuming this is a genuine question on your part. I would suggest reading up on common stereotypes of the native peoples in the U.S. Native Americans did not design the road system in West Lafayette. Whites did. The person making the remark is in essence saying:

 _Yes the road system is really fucked up. It 's so bad that I can't give a real explanation for it so I jokingly say a drunk Indian had to have done it because that's the only thing that can make sense._

<comment><USER22> For some reason I assumed that it was referring to subcontinent Indians, and was slightly confused because I don't consider it racist to point out that their road system is absolutely atrocious.

<comment><USER4> My first thought was that it was a non-sequitur, but that it involved subcontinent Indians. I find it ironic that people who are apparently calling out one kind of bigotry in this thread are then playing on stereotypes of what people who live in certain places are like.

As a nonwhite who actually has been racially bashed and who has seen people overcome bigotry through their basic humanity, I always want to warn everyone that the problem isn't people from a particular place, people of a particular ethnicity, or people grouped by any surface characteristic, chosen, indelible or in between. The problem is groupthink, and the dark emotions that can come about because of it.

The moment you start imputing thoughts, feelings, and emotions to people with scant evidence, you have taken a misstep. (1) You have succumbed to groupthink. If you would fight bigotry, it first behooves you to actively eliminate your own bigotry. It's then your duty not to fall into the very patterns you're supposed to fight.

(1) -- Also, if you start condemning people because you imagine you know what they are thinking and feeling, and you believe they are lying to you, then you set up a situation where no one can prove their innocence, and no one trusts anyone else anymore. We have historical accounts of such times and places. Often, such epistemological catastrophes accompany inter-ethnic and inter- sectarian violence and atrocities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I always struggle to see people victim of racism identify themselve only through their race.

. "I have been the only one in most of the universities I've been to — the only student or faculty in the mathematics department."

"To say that I feel isolated,"

I have always been different looking than other people around me and never identified myself through my race but through my interests and undertakings in life. I find it sad that even people with PhDs think all people of the same race are the same and feel isolated when they re not around same race people while for me being a mathematician surrounded by mathematicians should be the only thing that matters.

<comment><USER11> But this is not necessarily a matter of choice. If everyone else thinks race is a thing, you need to at least think about it, regardless of whether you believe in it too. I'd like to think the way you do ("my interests and undertakings in life"), and mostly I do, but if I find myself in a society where everyone has a label, I need to consider my label. To the point where it might make sense for me to have others with that label near me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> As an Asian in math I suffer from racism as well.

<comment><USER24> See I was voted down. Racism.

<comment><USER25> Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvoting.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

The problem with your earlier comment is that it was unsubstantive. Grand claims in unsubstantive comments on inflammatory topics are particularly problematic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> At this time, only 4 hours old and 93 points, but is buried as #257 on the 9th page. What gives?

<comment><USER27> The moderators have a long-standing bias towards the political right. A black man with a PhD in Mathematics is not allowed to speak out about systemic racism on Hacker News.

<comment><USER25> Forgive me for sharing a sample of my collection:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16134205](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16134205)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13110004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13110004)

I know how obvious it seems that the bias is against you, but that's mostly because you (i.e. any of us) are 1000x more likely to notice cases you dislike or disagree with.

<comment><USER27> Your handling of this comment section was irresponsible. If you cannot handle this responsibility you should ban submissions and comments dealing with any and all social issues and allow only technical discussion. You have allowed a hateful element to silence a voice that spoke truth to power by making simple observations about how mathematicians handle race over a course of decades. The moderation of this submission was unreasonable and discompassionate.

Edit: To my brigader bot, I am responding directly to a moderator. I want him to read this comment. Flagging it immediately after I post is actually helpful. Downvoting it only helps to prove my point.

<comment><USER25> To be honest I'm having a hard time orienting to your complaint here. The only thing I remember about the thread is banning someone who commented from (I think?) the opposite side to yours, so if anything I'd expect the bias accusation to run the other way.

If you think we made a mistake in the thread, it'd be more helpful to post (or email us) a link and point out the specific mistake. Rote denunciations don't help us correct anything, and general accusations like [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19195885](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19195885) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19194629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19194629) don't add information, because you're simply not working with an accurate picture of what we do. I understand how that happens, but there isn't much in it I can learn from.

<comment><USER27> My complaint from the beginning was that you stifled conversation by detaching this thread and because every comment is flagged and downvoted automatically you have allowed those who are afraid of this type of discussion to sabotage any submission they dislike. You caved to the brigade instead of acting as a responsible moderator. The ranking algorithm and the moderation policies are too crude for this type of submission. It would be more responsible to disallow them entirely.

<comment><USER25> What you say about the comments is clearly not the case, as anyone can see by looking at the thread.

I'm not sure what you mean by detaching the thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> But aren't we all a minority in some way?

Looking at the folks in my office, many of us are not native speakers of English. The guy sitting next to me is a native speaker, but he's black. The guy next to him is a white native speaker, but he's disabled and has to work from home most of the time. Another guy "ticks all the marks", but he's extremely shy. And so on and so forth.

Look at yourself, at your parents carefully and you'll realize you are a minority in one way or another.</comment>


John Gruber: The App Store, Day One - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2008/07/app_store_day_one

<comment><USER2> Waiting for approval to join the ranks of iPhone application developers is made even more frustrating when you see the App Store spammed with 99 cent "ebooks"

<comment><USER3> Not to mention 4 different Flashlight applications, each of which simply displays a white screen, and three of which the author has the audacity to charge money for.

Thus far the App Store selection is very underwhelming.

<comment><USER4> I'm thinking about starting a subscriber's only website optimized for the iPhone that just shows a blank [white] web page. Why share revenue with Apple on this hot market vertical?

But yea, you're right about underwhelming. I was surprised. I guess I shouldn't have been since half the apps they demoed at the keynote really should have been web pages (MLB, eBay, AP, TypePad, etc). What really surprised me is the UI of a lot of these apps. You can give a developer Interface Builder, but you can't make him a designer.

<comment><USER4> Shit, someone beat me to the flash light web app:

<http://www.vflashlight.com/iphone/>

It's not a subscriber site, but he asks for $5 donations (<http://www.vflashlight.com/>). What the hell is wrong with people?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The app download counts are now reset to 0.</comment>


Foulab, Montréal's first hackerspace - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/chronicles-of-montr%C3%A9al/foulab-montr%C3%A9al-s-first-hackerspace-590b5ec00151

<comment><USER2> No, this was Montreal's first hacker space: [http://notman.org](http://notman.org)

Foulab looks cool too, and I can't wait to check it out, but they should get their story straight.

<comment><USER3> notman is as much a hackerspace as noisebridge is a flower shop.

Also, we were running as early as October 24th 2008.

Here's a mini documentary about us which we went back in time to publish in 2009

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOTw_PkK_SU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOTw_PkK_SU)

<comment><USER2> Ok, my bad. The article makes it sound like it just opened.</comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk says he has a green light to build a NY-Philly-Baltimore-DC hyperloop - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/20/16003766/elon-musk-boring-company-hyperloop-nyc-philadelphia-baltimore-dc <comment><USER3> "Verbal government approval" sounds like bullshit. There have to be at least a dozen different governments that would need to be involved in a project like this: the federal government, DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, NY state and a bunch of local governments. Who would be able to give verbal approval for all of them?

<comment><USER4> You're right, of course, which is probably why he's tweeting about it: once the public is sufficiently hyped about the hyperloop happening, it becomes harder for those governments to say no.

<comment><USER5> Your naiveté regarding transportation infrastructure projects (or hell, any infrastructure project) is endearing.

<comment><USER6> Please be civil when commenting here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For the Boring company to really get going and work like Elon Musk is dreaming about, I think the laws for mineral rights (underground property rights) will have to be modified in the US. Sort of like how the ownership of airspace was modified when airplanes became a big thing. Imagine every airline negotiating with all of the property owners they flew over for a coast-to-coast flight. Air travel would just have not developed in the US.

Maybe below ground property rights should not be quite as absolute and people would have to allow tunneling below a depth where disturbance to the near surface is far below the background. They could receive some kind of predetermined fee and/or rent. I hope America is still flexible to implement such a legal change.

<comment><USER8> Even within the current framework, it shouldn't be hard to acquire an underground easement, by market or eminent domain. Shouldn't be very expensive, either. A deep underground tunnel means basically no diminution of property values. Subway and water tunnel projects tend to pay very small token amounts (a few hundred dollars) for similar underground takings. Not quite as streamlined as a "free groundspace" regime, but not a big obstacle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> On the spectrum of likeliness to mean shit all, how does "verbal green light" compare to Obama announcing $8 billion toward high speed rail (which was later obstructed by republicans).

I can't help but think of this Simpsons scene whenever I hear Musk talk about Hyperloop and the Boring company.

[http://imgur.com/a/KRmlS](http://imgur.com/a/KRmlS)

The guy has no skin in the game, and meanwhile he's building a car company which does not benefit from increased public transit use. It's a sham folks.

<comment><USER10> The Boring Company is meant to work with the road system by transporting cars underground. It fits perfectly with his car company.

What's the nature of the supposed sham? It doesn't look like he's structuring this company in a way that will let him take the money and run, so what's the plan?

<comment><USER9> The sham is that he's creating hype in future nonexistent tech to distract government officials from investing in current infrastructure that would compete with automobiles.

Governments could build high speed rail right now and significantly improve transportation options, but with the promise of some better Hyperloop system in the future, they could be encouraged to hold off. Of course Hyperloop may never appear at all.

Similarly with the Boring Company Musk is asserting that increasing road capacity with tunnels will reduce congestion and improve the transportation system, when in reality this issue has been studied at length and has been proven false. Due to induced demand increasing road capacity simply encourages more people to drive, which Musk would of course be in favour of. Yet again by putting forward a zany idea and additionally hand waving about the future promise of autonomous cars, Musk distracts government officials from real transportation solutions that can be implemented today.

<comment><USER11> He's open sourced all of Tesla patents with the goal of accelerating the transition to EVs. For that and many other reasons it's obvious his intentions are pure. Not to mention failures in regard to high speed rail are nothing new in the US. To think this "announcement" was derived to thwart those efforts is delusional. Hope you find a way to channel your nefarious thinking toward something positive.

<comment><USER9> EV patents are irrelevant to the discussion. EVs are still cars. Public Transport offers an alternative to automobile based transportation. It is in his best interest for governments to invest their infrastructure dollars in automobile based infrastructure instead of alternatives.

<comment><USER11> Other car companies developing EVs are a bigger threat to Tesla than government spending on high speed rail. Sorry you didn't make the connection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would rather see an investment in Hyperloop instead of the "US tax payer- subsidized but still overpriced and unprofitable" Amtrak service.

I imagine if this news is true it will get very political as Amtrak has recently secured billions from the Federal Government for new trains, along the same corridor:

[https://media.amtrak.com/2016/08/1610/?mc_cid=d3b3f1fecc&mc_...](https://media.amtrak.com/2016/08/1610/?mc_cid=d3b3f1fecc&mc_eid=874274a502)

Amtrak is largely a political problem with no will in Washington to fix. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Amtrak had actual competition.

Even if the threat of Hyperloop were the kick in the pants Washington needs to fix Amtrak, Hyperloop would be a success. See:

[https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2014/07/amtrak](https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2014/07/amtrak)

<comment><USER13> If they succeed, you'll likely get your wish in more ways than you bargained for. The NE corridor is the only part of the entire Amtrak system that's even close to solvent, and it subsidizes the rest of the system. This project would take the bottom out of the part of the network that pays for the rest of it. It would probably kill Amtrak, everywhere, even in places that will never see a hyperloop.

<comment><USER12> >"If they succeed, you'll likely get your wish in more ways than you bargained for. The NE corridor is the only part of the entire Amtrak system that's even close to solvent, and it subsidizes the rest of the system."

Yes exactly, and that is the point being made in my Economist link. Amtrak should be broken up. Why should commuters along the NE corridor be subsiding the rest of it? In 1971 when Amtrak was founded this made sense but in 2017 with budget air travel it's to believe it still does.

Let Amtrak continue to operate the NE corridor and be profitable. But why should they be protected from competition? Or stated a different way - <USER2> should commuters be denied an alternative?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Whilst, I'm always pro on anything that can ameliorate our transportation network, I'd much rather see them connect areas where people work with areas where people can live - I think this is the biggest problem of our times. Optimize for the trips that are made the most frequently - people's commute to work.

<comment><USER15> If someone can get from Baltimore to NYC in about 20 minutes you're changing the scale of where people can live and commute from. I have plenty of friends that spend 45 minutes commuting from Brooklyn to Manhattan and I'd guess a not insignificant number of them would be willing to live in Baltimore where housing is cheap if they could get to the city in 20-30 minutes.

<comment><USER16> You'll never be able to get from Baltimore to NYC in 20 minutes. You'll be able to get from the _Hyperloop station_ in Baltimore to the _Hyperloop station_ in NYC in 20 minutes. To get to/from the station from/to your place of residence/work will take most people another half hour on each side. So… more like an hour and 20 minutes. Yes, it makes living in Baltimore and working in NYC _reasonable_ , but not _easy_ as "20 minutes" implies.

Not to mention the difference in housing cost would have to support the cost of travel. Who knows what a single Hyperloop ticket will cost but a 3-digit figure wouldn't surprise me, especially during rush hour. You could be looking at $3-$4k/month for a daily commute (which granted, is not too far from the difference in housing costs between parts of NYC and parts of Baltimore).

<comment><USER17> 40min each way is a common commute.

Living 5min from Baltimore hyperloop station would give you 15mim on the other side for a 40min overall commute each way.

If you are saving 2k/month on rent you could pay up to 50$ each way and break even. Though, I don't know what tickets would actually cost, that not ridiculous.

<comment><USER18> 5 min from the Baltimore station is a very small real estate market.

<comment><USER17> The limit on the number of hyperloop riders is probably a larger limitation. 0.6 miles radius = 1 square mile which could have 50,000+ people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Even IF this means there are magically zero problems with tunneling rights... There's no way this gets approved without detailing fire safety.

Tunnel fires are NO JOKE. Especially with very, very long underground tunnels with particularly narrow diameters and primarily (or exclusively) elevator- based access. A thousand firefighting and evacuation questions there that I haven't heard a single reporter ask.

<comment><USER20> If it's Hyperloop, there supposed to be very low amount of air in the tunnel. That theoretically solves many fire problems.

<comment><USER19> The video does not illustrate an exclusively hyperloop system. But even if it is exclusively hyperloop, what if there's a fire or toxic gas release inside a pod and you have to escape?

<comment><USER20> Planes are dealing with this somehow, so I'm sure hyperloop can come up with the solution.

<comment><USER19> My claim is not that The Boring Company and related government public safety agencies can't figure this out. It's that the tunnel project is not going to get approved without detailing fire safety, which is a BIG deal and probably more complicated in terms of government approvals than "mere" tunneling rights.

You mentioned planes. There are tons of regulations and engineering codes and procedures and training and on-board safety personnel that go into making airplanes fire safe. Including emergency landing and evacuation and firefighting procedures which need to be reimagined for deep underground, elevator-accessed tunnels.

Even the existing procedures for subway systems probably need to be reimagined for deeper depths, narrower diameters and elevators which are the hallmark of The Boring Company's approach.

And I should reiterate that the video shows cars using surface elevators and riding on electric sleds, not a more tightly controlled hyperloop system. So that further complicates safety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'll be reservedly optimistic about this. Besides money, right of way is going to have to be an issue. Hope DoT does all it can without having to get into eminent domain much.

All the best, and please make up all the way to Boston.

<comment><USER22> It sounded ridiculous the first time I heard it but trains actually have right of way over cars/pedestrians... I wonder if those rights transfer if you could buy up an old train line?[0] (Of course, a HyperLoop isn't as easy to just drive over like train tracks, but if the tracks are already there, it's actually the towns/taxpayers that are responsible for the cost of building a safe crossing for cars/people.)

[0] The wiki article is pretty thin on details but it sounds like they do me: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-of- way_(transportation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-of- way_\(transportation\))

<comment><USER23> > it's actually the towns/taxpayers that are responsible for the cost of > building a safe crossing for cars/people.)

Depends. In some states, the costs are shared between the rail owner and the locality (by law). Michigan is one of those.

<comment><USER22> Ah okay. Certainly that sounds like the fairer way to handle it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If this is true, what is needed to cement public confidence in this techology is a quick and definite win. Maybe a tunnel between lower Manhattan and Staten Island? Both landings are government owned and would greatly improve upon the current 20 minute ferry ride across. It can also be the first link on the NYC- DC route.

</comment><comment><USER25> If we could efficiently dig straight-line tunnels under the Northeast Corridor, would it actually make sense to stick a hyperloop in them?

The reason trains are slow on (some of) the Northeast Corridor is because (1) tracks aren't straight (2) population density means you're frequently running through cities and (3) trains stop all over the place, so people can actually get on and off.

The hyperloop sacrifices throughput for speed, but if you ran a conventional- style train fast through straight tracks underground, you could still do DC to NYC in 90 minutes or less, with a much higher throughput. Letting an order of magnitude or two of people make the trip in 2-3 times the time seems way more valuable than letting the smaller number make it faster.

</comment><comment><USER26> Ok, so let's say there is 350 km in an almost straight line. A great tunnel boring machine excavates around 20 meters per day in average (80 m on good days; next to nothing on other days). So that's 140 meters per week or 7 km per year. With 10 of those he could cover the distance in 5 years. For one tube. If he wants 2, 3 or 4 tubes, which would make sense on such busy stretch, he would need 2, 3 or 4 machines more. Musk claims the Boring Company will drill faster than traditional tunnel boring machines. If he could go twice as fast, he could do with half the machines.

It's doable, I guess, but I think the regulatory obstacles, archeological excavations, etc would slow it all down more than the machines.

<comment><USER27> EDIT: refers more to cost, and not directly time.

Musk claimed[1] existing tunnels are far too big/wide as they're over- engineered for safety + regulatory FUD. Boring plans to reduce tunnel diameter by half (from 28ft to 14), and then build a better machine to tunnel + support the walls simultaneously. Estimates would reduce costs by ~10x.

[1]: [https://youtu.be/zIwLWfaAg-8?t=3m10s](https://youtu.be/zIwLWfaAg-8?t=3m10s)

<comment><USER28> I would imagine that cost and time are pretty interchangeable on a tunnel from DC to NYC, since you could simply add more boring machines all digging different sections of the tunnel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> >> _" City center to city center in each case, with up to a dozen or more entry/exit elevators in each city"_[1]

This alone will drive up required funding exponentially. Almost all of the named city centers have onerous space, security and tunneling red tape that will intuitively drives up the marginal per-mile costs the closer to the city centers one tries to bore.

[1] [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/888053729919877120](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/888053729919877120)

</comment><comment><USER30> I was surprised to hear this, since there's already a rail line from DC to NYC. But maybe that's why they're so receptive, and 30 minutes is a whole lot better than 3 hours. I hope this succeeds, I'd love to see some lines between cities without rail connections.

</comment><comment><USER31> Title should be changed. "Verbal government approval" doesn't imply green light.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hyperloop? A concept for which not even one single working prototype exists? And even if there was a prototype- who would pay for this? Dream on.

Why not fix the train instead - you know, in some other parts of the world the high speed train is a reality, and works quite well.

<comment><USER33> Big Government seems to be really hooking into the trend of these new and unproven tech trend, like solar roadways, because lets face it, it's a great way to soak millions into great sounding/feeling things and run away while everyone is still dreaming with their heads in the clouds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Relevant Thunderf00t video discussing the hyperloop [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk)

</comment><comment><USER35> Such cynicism! This is super cool. This is 1950s sci-fi stuff.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's more interesting in what this leaves out.

Suppose this happens, some cities like Boston become simple "suburbs" to a more connected mega region.

</comment><comment><USER37> Wait, was that his plan all along?

I mean, is it feasible he released the idea of Hyperloop into the wild and let other companies battle it out and spend an enormous amount of money on R&D, only to build a "straightforward" company and sell it's "product" (infrastructure) to Hyperloop and the others?

</comment><comment><USER38> Think it will happen. Sooner or later

</comment><comment><USER39> No New Jersey city on the route?

</comment><comment><USER40> The DFW/Houston/Austin triangle needs a hyperloop.

</comment><comment><USER41> I will wait till final confirmation. Maybe he forgot to mention to Trump it won't be running with clean coal technology and it might get axed.</comment>


Sales Free Agents website for Covid-19 Layoffs - <AUTHOR> https://salesfreeagents.com <comment><USER2> Interesting idea! i'm curious how many folks would be comfortable opting into that not knowing exactly where their name is going (I see the disclaimer and love the idea) I just bet folks would be cautious. Is there a way to identify what type of salesperson/experience/level/industry etc.</comment>


TechEmpower Framework Benchmarks Round 11 - <AUTHOR> https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r11 <comment><USER2> I've been following these for a few rounds and I find it a bit amusing that they get less useful, as the numbers for some are so high that there's no easy overview of the "slower" ones.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you concerned about AI? - <AUTHOR> Elon Musk says that if you aren't concerned, you should be. If you are concerned, why? If not, then why not? <comment><USER2> No. As someone who has watch AI development since the late 70's as both a student, undergraduate and then real world programmer, every hyped-up break- through in AI has led to minor improvements but nothing that takes the programs beyond relative simplicity.

Even the systems that beat grandmasters in there respective games are having to operate at gigahertz speeds, focussed on one simple task to beat the human who has to operate in a highly sensory loaded environment. The human has many things to focus on, is running at relatively low speeds (nerve impulses are glacial slow compared to the impulse sequences in silicon hardware) and is still only just being beaten.

We have little or no real understanding of how the brain works, what sentience, intelligence and consciousness or free will is. Until we have this kind of understanding of ourselves, this concept that certain people are worried about (the singularity) will not happen. None of our computer systems (or all of them combined) are of the complexity of a single human baby brain.

In addition, since I also believe that there is a Creator God who built and designed the universe and that new intelligences are solely in His domain, I have no concern over any such singularity ever being created by man.

<comment><USER3> What we do have to worry about is the power of hype and marketing and the stupidity of the management class falling prey to that.

That stupidity and short sightedness may cause more loss of livelihood than the technology itself.

<comment><USER4> Yes. It seems almost inevitable that companies will overhype their versions of the tech in order to get more investment. The more success the tech has, the more expectations the public will have.

Musk's rhetoric has come from some relatively minor advancement, in my opinion, compared to what is coming, given that GPU/ASIC hardware is still improving.

I think education can help, and maybe we should expect some dips. Perhaps in the next dip, research into the tech will not fall as flat as it did in the 1980s during the last AI winter. Who knows what lies ahead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No - we have only a very basic understanding of how the brain works, have no idea what consciousness even is, and know little about human intelligence.

The only thing I can think of is there's a sinister agenda pushing these constant fear-mongering stories about how we're all going to die from AI. Show me a neural net that even comes close to doing anything resembling original, organized thought and I might take these warnings more seriously.

<comment><USER6> We still don't know everything about the biology of bird feathers but we can make flying machines.

True AI is not going to happen tomorrow, but I expect it to come within my lifetime. It's easy to get hung up on the complexity of biological systems like the brain, but sometimes all that complexity is not necessary to the function. Complexity is the result of an evolutionary process, and may not be a necessary component of intelligence

<comment><USER4> Evolution has taken us through an uncountable number of neurons and lifespans.

In my opinion, even if we had an AI that matched performance of the human brain, it'd still be missing the historical data on earth (and the universe) we used to arrive at this point, the level of parallelization that exists across the earth across all life forms, and the capacity to input as much data as all life on earth can. Data and input capacity are as important as the model in machine learning. I think we sometimes forget how interdependent we are. We learn a lot through sharing our experiences, and when there are more of us, we make more breakthroughs as a species.

And, maybe the answer is 42.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am concerned. People think AI = Skynet but in reality, the next couple of decades, AI = millions of humans out of jobs. I am concerned the change will be too fast for us to adapt. Not only do we need to invent a lot of new jobs, we may need to re-learn basic paradigms like job = goal of life = success. I suppose we can imagine millions of humans that are freed from work to devote their time to hobbies, art, sports, entertainment, etc. What if that does not happen? We plug them to media and keep them calm? Bored jobless youngsters are dangerous, no?

<comment><USER8> The more I watch this unfold the more I feel we need a new type of party...something more technocratic (uses ai/tech to streamline processes/end bureacracies and make things run more efficiently) and socialize some things..like medicine/basic income/education -- but STILL keep production in the hands of businesses.

One alternative to single-payer could be hospitals = insurer. Hospitals would have a max they could charge which would be a % of income for individuals above poverty line and would be required to treat poverty level families...maybe divy them out by hospital as best as they can to spread the costs.

hospitals would benefit because they could set the price for themselves....since they only have x amount of recurring income and they know roughly x amount of patients come through door monthly for x, y, z ailments...etc..

They could form coalitions with other hospitals to negotiate drug rates that are more fair...etc...

All while ending insurance industry, ending insurance CEO pay, sales agents, customer support jobs--all wasted money in healthcare... I think a MRR system makes more sense to their bottom line. -- traveling? Your host hospital/insurer would pay the out of area hospital.. they'd all set comparative prices that benefit everyone...because they all have the extra costs of making sure the system holds up...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I actually am, but not about AI becoming smarter than us, or the 'singularity', for good reasons others have already stated.

I'm concerned what happens when human-sized combat robots become capable of defeating a trained and motivated human opponent. Such a thing is certainly a way off, but requires no fundamental advances in our understanding (very much unlike skynet/singularity-style general AI) so I see it as a certainty sooner or later, and the way everything is going probably sooner.

Throughout human history, the inherent power the rich have over the poor has had an equally-inherent counterpower: there are many more poor people, and if the rich make things too miserable for them, if they all rise up together, they will win. To my knowledge this is a universal in human history (please prove me wrong!), and in general tyrants and elites everywhere have to devote SOME of their resources at least to maintaining the 'general welfare', which is really a nice way of saying 'giving the poor enough to stop them rising up and taking our stuff'.

If robots become capable of beating serious human opponents one-on-one, then I think this age-old balance changes, because once you can build one such robot, you can build a hundred thousand, and what are the poor people going to do about that?

</comment><comment><USER4> In the sense that it will kill us? No.

In the sense that it may cause a lot of people to retrain? Maybe.

Regarding the first version,

Musk says this in order to acquire more AI talent, or get it cheaper. Jürgen Schmidhuber does the same thing. What they have in common is they both run organizations that they founded in order to build "AGI".

It is odd that they're warning against AGI and building it at the same time.

My theory is, if they can convince people that they're doing something "causeworthy" or world-changing, then they can attract more AI talent. In Musk's case, OpenAI also serves as a pipeline, or at least networking location, for getting more in-house talent at Tesla.

I think it hurts the field of AI that they say things like this because it gets people's expectations up. However, it also looks like it helps them recruit and network in an area of work that is very, very competitive among companies.

The guy who went from Waymo to Uber's self driving car program, for example, had received a $100 million bonus from Google, and Google said this was not out of the ordinary for engineers at that level.

Regarding #2, I'm a bit more optimistic than the average SV person. I don't think anyone can tell the future. We just need to focus on making education more accessible. There are no two ways about it, in my view.

</comment><comment><USER10> _Actual_ AI? No. But if I _were_ super-rich I would be, because I'd be concerned an actual AI would look at the problems that the world has and conclude that resource hoarding at the top of the wealth pyramid would be the first problem to solve.

The things being sold as AI? Absolutely. Weapons systems, policing systems, and the like, being run by poorly-understood algorithms infected with the unconsidered biases and assumptions of their creators seem like a great way to make things worse, not better.

</comment><comment><USER11> True AI, not in the slightest. However, the current implementations of machine learning I believe have the potential for disastrous results, especially as ML is being used for ever more critical roles; We're due for autonomous weapon platforms this year, and self-driving vehicles are soon to follow, while there is limited research on the security of the algorithms, especially in the case of induced edge cases.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not concerned about AI, but I am concerned about AI being improperly used. In Australia there was a recent controversy with the govt using big data to improperly correlate tax returns with information submitted to centrelink (social security), to determine if people had received welfare when they were ineligible.

It turned out that correlating the data was prone to error due to limitations in both datasets, and it was worsened by the high error tolerance, such that they automatically issued debt notices to all false positives and cut their payments with no human oversight. This was made worse by there being no way to appeal the debt to a human.

I think you're only going to see this kind of blindfaith incompetence more.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think thus far the only thing I'm really concerned about is our trust/dependence on it. Articles like this one ([https://www.autoblog.com/2017/08/04/self-driving-car-sign- ha...](https://www.autoblog.com/2017/08/04/self-driving-car-sign-hack- stickers/)) show just how fragile some of this ML stuff is.

Of course, I'm also assuming that ML = AI... that is a correct assumption, right?

<comment><USER11> IIRC AI will probably emerge from and incorporate ML, but it's unlikely that AI will be entirely ML-based.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not concerned about some kind of consciousness, but before machines were unable to recognize something else than a very specific type of data. Now machines can recognize faces, objects, even emotions. That attached to a program and the existence of "big data" can be even more dangerous, because human is dangerous.

</comment><comment><USER14> Not afraid of an hostile take over by AI. Everything is data all the way down so I'm afraid of those that wield that data.

</comment><comment><USER15> We're already at "machines should think, people should work" for low-level jobs, like fast food and order fulfillment. Robots are still not good at, or cost-effective at, unstructured manipulation, but computers are great at organizing work, communicating, selling, and accounting. What management used to do.

<comment><USER2> Computers are not great at organising anything, cannot communicate, cannot sell and cannot do accounting.

It requires a person to "program" these facilities. Without the human generated programs, no computer is capable of doing anything. They are no different to a hammer, a crane or crowbar. They are simply tools in the hands of a human.

They are completely useless if not picked up and used appropriately.

What is unfortunate is that there are many people who act like the computer and get blocked by GIGO. They are unable to work around this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My worry with any new technological leap is that we simply forget how to do things that we needed to do prior. When it comes to the AI we have now:

* when self driving cars are mainstream, will we forget how to drive?

* when ai can answer all questions we need and want will we forget how to think and solve problems?

* when robots can print anything and everything, will we forget how to manufacture things with our own hands? What happens to agriculture and food production as well?

We don't even need to get to the point where we build weaponised AIs that kill us SkyNet/Horizon style; We might just forget how to do stuff.

My theory for the near future is that society will need to form guilds of arts/sports/craftsmanship to preserve the skills that brought us here.

<comment><USER17> Of course we won't stop thinking, creating, conversing, and there will always be hobbyist and academic interest in even obsolete skills.

But we have already forgotten how to make, how to farm, etc. I don't think any single person can make even something as simple as a pencil, from scratch, let alone something like a cell-phone, advanced drugs etc. Even bringing together a collection of all the necessary experts, the task would likely be almost impossible without computers, and the rest of modern infrastructure.

If humanity were to be somehow detached from even today's infrastructure, we'd be in trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Super Intelligence" made a nice point that AI will likely be very stupid until it's suddenly very, very smart. I thought the AI worries I read about in the media were a bit hyperbolic till I read this book - it makes some good and sensible arguments as to how a human dangerous AI might come about. It doesn't claim general AI is necessarily very likely, but more that, in the event it does come about, it will be very sudden, very swift - it won't be the gradual curve of innovation and improvement we've been used to elsewhere - and so our time to react to it's birth and implications will be very short.

</comment><comment><USER19> I worry about "good enough" AI winning in the jobs race against humans mostly. You can see it now, like the other day where some non-extremist content was being purged from YouTube. If a human were doing that job it wouldn't have happened, or at least somebody would be accountable instead of "lol a bug." I can see a future where all kinds of interfaces are aggravating and obtuse, like when you have to speak carefully at a phone prompt for the speech recognizer to understand you.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yes, because even basic AI can be hacked at the hardware level.

</comment><comment><USER21> Not at all. I'll be long dead before anything happens.</comment>


Has Political Correctness Gone Off the Rails in America? - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/overwrought-political-correctness-helped-trump-win-a-1125725.html <comment><USER2> In short, yes, the PC culture is way out of hand. We are teeter tottering over a chasm being pulled by two extremes: free speech as the right to insult whoever and however you please, and curbs on free speech because it can be threatening and scary and hurtful. Unless we find some middle ground the end to this conflict will not be pretty.

Where do we go from here? Respect each other, treat each other kindly, extend grace readily, and individually work to develop thicker skins. We are all too sensitive, and quick to take offense. There will be lots of people who don't agree with us, who say mean, hurtful, scary things to us... We must expect this, and embrace our fortitude. We need to stop seeking safe places, and comfort, and instead seek to grow through the fires of difficulty. I think there's a lot of truth to the phrase: there is no growth in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the growth zone.

If that is true then I fear the new generations drive for safe spaces (etc.) means that they are missing crucial opportunities for growth.

Let's be clear. Out here in the real world it's a dog eat dog place where no one gives a shit about your feelings. Either you are an asset (HR = human "resources"), or you are not, and you are summarily terminated.

Bottom line: all of us need to become more tough, stronger. And that only happens by challenging ourselves, being uncomfortable, interacting with those who disagree. I personally embrace opportunities to learn from those who have, for example, different political beliefs, because I believe it enriches and challenges me...And therefore makes me a more whole and well rounded person.

<comment><USER3> \- "The real world" is not the workplace.

\- Generally, puberty is by far the cruelest time of life

> "personally embrace opportunities to learn [...] it enriches and challenges > me[ ...] makes me a more whole and well rounded person."

You're getting awfully close to getting me to use the p-word :). Anyway, what you're describing may be an abstract debate about the benefits of some policy. What some people (apparently – I'm not among them but consider the idea plausible) experience is debates about _them_ , personally. So if puberty was a bit difficult because you wouldn't sing along to the (completely voluntary) praises to the lord, and you're so happy to have found likeminded people at the big-city university, it probably hits you a bit harder when the Campus Christian Campaign holds a rally outside your dorm-room window.

That's not to say the examples from the article aren't ridiculous and excessive. But all too often these articles are used as arguments by people who also consider it "liberal excess" when (one example I remember) a female presenter at #largeITConference complains about dozens of tweets commenting on her appearance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you chime with the flavor of most articles in the Guardian you'll love this piece about the 'deplorables'.</comment>


Facebook sued over alleged private message 'scanning' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25584286

<comment><USER2> It seems to me as though if you are on Facebook in the first place you should be posting, messaging, lolcats-ing with the knowledge that nothing is private - I understand the need for privacy, and concerns with identity theft etc. but have come to the possibly unfortunate, possibly sad realization that privacy, especially when the internet is concerned, is a thing of the past - I live in the UK where there is approximately one CCTV camera for every 32 people. With that knowledge, Facebook peeping on my pointless messages to friends somehow doesn't seem to concern me all that much.</comment>


Ask HN: Building a framework/library for education purposes. How best to do it? - <AUTHOR> If I wanted to develop a deeper understanding of web technologies by building a framework or library, what is the best way to do it? <comment><USER2> It's hard to build things without a specific use case in mind. So maybe start with a specific application in mind and build a framework to help with that.

Or, skip the framework and just build the application: if purpose is learning it's probably a better way to go, since it's a more direct use case.

<comment><AUTHOR> My application is automation and aggregation. I want to build a framework so I can gain a deeper appreciation of the pros/cons of the abstractions frameworks create

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Start building and see what happens.

Understanding does not require completion or utility. It just requires research. Some experiments fail. That does not mean nothing is learned.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Have you paid the global tax ? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dinkevich.com/have-you-paid-the-global-tax/

<comment><AUTHOR> Annoying but true</comment>