Why You Should Never Buy a Home Again - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/03/why-i-am-never-going-to-own-a-home-again/ <comment><USER2> The title on the post itself (and the slug in the URL) is "Why _I_ Am Never Going to Own a Home Again" (emphasis mine). In the article, the author states "there are many reasons to not buy a home," and the reasons are from his perspective, which presumably is what his friends are asking for.

However, the title here on HN makes it sound like the author is suggesting nobody ever buy a home again — probably not his intent. Sure, there are numerous reasons for not buying a home just as there are numerous reasons _for_ buying a home — it depends on your situation.

I can personally relate to some of the author's arguments. Having rented out the house I bought 5 years ago while I'm living abroad, I'm essentially paying a 2nd rent to make up the difference between what I'm getting from my renter and the sum of my mortgage, taxes and homeowner's insurance.

<comment><USER3> Read the article. The author is definitely saying nobody should buy a home again. He structured the article as advice using his own personal experience.

<comment><USER2> Just because we had different interpretations, you shouldn't assume I haven't read the article.

To me, there is a difference between saying: "From my personal experience, when my friends ask my advice, I present them these reasons for not buying a house," and: "Nobody should ever buy a house."

If nobody bought a house, who would we rent from?

Update: fixed spelling

<comment><USER4> >If nobody bought a house, who would we rent from?

James is saying: don't buy a home and make it your primary residence. He is fine with buying real estate (homes, condos, apartment buildings, REITs, etc) as investment properties.

An added interpretation of mine: he assumes that you would have a property management company take care of the landlord duties for you. In the case of REITs, it's really hands off.

Sources:

 _By the way, this is going to sound like a contradiction: but I think housing is a great investment right now. I think housing prices have gone down far enough and I can list the reasons why housing as an abstract investment concept is going to go higher from here._

\- from the linked article

 _Rather than spend $100-200k+ on a down payment for a house (which is like throwing money away since it is completely illiquid as long as you own the house) you can put that money in a portfolio of diversified REITS (REZ is an ETF of residential REITs, for instance) if you truly believe in housing. You can do it with some leverage as well if you believe in the idea (like 90% of Americans do) that you should leverage up 200% the single largest investment in your portfolio (your house)._

\- from <http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/02/never-own-a-home-again/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The man's got a point. And I say that as a homeowner of nine years.

The first point I would make is that unless you're independently wealthy, you're either going to be renting housing or renting money. All else equal, thirty years later you'll own some money or you'll own some property, respectively. The trick is in the "all else equal" part, because given rent versus price ratios, interest rates, and inflation expectations one or the other may be a far better deal.

Secondly, in a lot of desirable areas renting an equivalent property is far cheaper than buying. A lot of that has to do with the fact that rentals aren't usually quite as nice in terms of location, condition, and accoutrements as owner occupied places, but the effect often remains after correcting for this.

Good reasons to own your house? If you have pets, finding a rental can be really hard. If you enjoy renovating and general handypersonship maintenance might be a feature as well as a bug. Finally, if market conditions make it a no-brainer.

Tl;dr don't pay more in mortgage than you'd be comfortable paying in rent, and don't feel like you need to own a place to be a grownup.

<comment><USER6> Another good reasons to own is that when you own a home, no one can kick you out. When you rent, whether you live there next year is at the landlords discretion. A landlord may decide to sell next year, to renovate, to find tenants who never complain, to let their children live there, etc.

Also, fixed mortgages stay the same price, but rents rise.

<comment><USER7> I understand that your point probably is "as long as you pay your mortgage and taxes, no one can kick you out". I think the likelyhood of being kicked out in both instances is extremely low if you continue to pay your rent/mortgage.

<comment><USER8> last year there were a number of stories in the UK press (not that that is necessarily an indicator of accuracy) about renters having a month's notice to move out as the landlord had defaulted on the mortgage (and not informed the tenants).

<comment><USER9> They were lucky not to live in the US! Since the foreclosure crisis began, a lot of people have found out their rental home was foreclosed when the sheriff showed up on their door to evict them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Lets spell out very clearly why the myth of homeownership became religion in the United States. Its because corporations didn't want their employees to have many job choices. So they encouraged them to own homes."

If that was their plan (which I doubt), it wasn't very effective. Americans move much more frequently than people in most other countries.

<comment><USER11> Possibly true, but what if employees had the additional flexibility that being tied down to their homes prevented? I think you are confusing this effect with a more general bias towards mobility relative to other countries.

The most recent housing market collapse has made America much slower at readjusting to restructuring of the economy--for example, workers in Florida can't easily sell off their homes to move to a different location with greater job density, for instance. I'd like to see more data supporting your assertion.

<comment><USER12> What do you mean by, "Possibly true"?

<comment><USER11> Sorry for being unclear. I was referring to:

> Americans move much more frequently than people in most other countries.

That fact may be true, but my point is that it may hide the effects of uncontrolled-for variables

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Life is not all about money!

Buy a house because you want someplace to be your own, that you can customize, and really be part of a neighborhood, and not worry about asking a landlord for permission.

I bought a house because all the apartments I looked at for the price were dumps, and in a house at least I had incentive to fix the stuff that made it a dump.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats why I divided the post between "financial" and "personal". The personal stuff is my own reasons, the "financial" stuff is why I think financially buying a home is a big mistake.

<comment><USER14> The financial aspects depend a _lot_ on where it is. In and near the large urban areas, no, owning a home does not make financial sense. But in small towns, well away from the large cities, it is a different matter. Rents vary from one area to another much less than home prices do.

I moved in 2001 from the DC suburbs (College Park, MD) to Cumberland MD. The duplex I rented was about a third what it would have cost in College Park. Later, I bought both sides of the duplex, for less than a sixth of what it would have cost in College Park.

From what the _Places Rated Almanac_ said, that sort of variation is normal across most of the country. Note that in my case I even stayed within the same state, so I didn't benefit from the regulatory and tax changes that occur in some inter-state moves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Decide for yourself: [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent- calcula...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent- calculator.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> _There must be some ancient evolutionary tic that makes us want to tear down walls or put nails in them or paint them._

And? Most people decorate their homes, put up art, paint, or otherwise like to decorate and furnish their homes. It's what makes it feel like a _home_ rather than a box you sleep in each night for, and I'm sticking my neck out here with a guess, a plurality of humankind.

</comment><comment><USER17> > _Starting March, 2009 I was renting an apartment directly across the street > from the New York Stock Exchange. It was fun. I'd look out the window and > see Wall Street. How exciting! Before that I lived in The Chelsea Hotel with > Chubb Rock. Last year we decided to relax and move a little north. Now I > look out the window and see the Hudson River. And its quiet and I can walk > along the river in the morning with no noise._

I can't imagine that was cheap. Most of the article is inflected with desire to retain hoards of cash and sleep on top of a pile with many beautiful women (well, that's the undertone). Yet he's blowing what must be a huge wad on an apartment in NYC in an upscale area.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I moved to a nice little suburb about 65 miles north of NYC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> One big macro-scale drawback to home ownership is that it impedes labor mobility: It anchors homeowners to a particular city and makes it harder for them to consider moving elsewhere to find employment. A few months ago I heard economists on _Marketplace_ saying this was a significant national policy problem.

<comment><USER19> Labour mobility is a relatively new concept too. In the days before nuclear families, people have large extended families to rely on for childcare, and are in a better position to look after their elderly without having to send them to a nursing home. I'm not saying labour mobility is a bad thing, but they have their own policy issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I could easily refute all the points in that article if I had the time. I'll suffice to give this example:

"A" buys a $100,000 house, "B" rents a $100,000 house. Both pay about $1,500 per month. At the end of 15 years, "A" owns an asset worth $100,000, "B" owns nothing. You decide.

<comment><USER21> I agree in theory, but in practice people don't go from renting houses to buying identical houses---they always trade up: from a 2 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom condominium, from a 3 bedroom house to a 5 bedroom McMansion, etc.

Because of this the costs of ownership once mortgage, taxes, utilities and maintenance are tallied up are often more than what a person was previously spending on rent.

Secondly, his major point is that home ownership involves a cash _down payment_. Its' not a case of person A/B spending 1500 per month, its a case of person A buying a 100k home and paying 20k in cash for the right to a loan. That 20k may have been better spent in more volatile and profitable investment than home ownership.

Third and lastly, a house can lose value. Did the major employer leave the area or downsize (e.g. Detroit most prominently, Ghost towns, and a scattering of towns all over US that relied on heavy industry)? If so, then your house value has fallen. Did the area fail to gentrify or did you buy in a bubble? If so, then your house value has fallen. Has there been a disaster that the economy hasn't recovered from (e.g. Katrina, coal slush floods in W. VA, BP oil spills effect on homefront properties)? If so, then .....

The argument that a house is an investment fails because it is the least liquid of investments, and thus harms the buyer the most when the prices fall. You can always sell your stock even in a strong downturn, but who is going to buy your drafty McMansion situated in an edge of town neighborhood in a down economy?

<comment><USER22> The conditions of Detroit actually make it one of the most attractive areas for Real Estate investment in the country.

High & mid-rise buildings Downtown are being purchased (Dan Gilbert is one such buyer) for 6 figure sums.

[http://detnews.com/article/20110127/BIZ/101270352/Quicken- Lo...](http://detnews.com/article/20110127/BIZ/101270352/Quicken-Loans-buys- Detroit-s-Madison-Building)

<comment><USER21> Yeah, its a buyers market but if you already bought a home, you're a _seller_ and likely hate the current situation in Detroit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why is the title of the submission different from the article's? "Why You Should Never Buy a Home Again" sounds trollish. It's does not apply to a large number of people for whom buying a home is indeed a good idea. Please edit the submission title to match your current title:

"Why I Am Never Going to Own a Home Again"

<comment><USER3> He structured the article as advice to others. The title is interchangeable with you should never own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a beautiful piece of link bait. His advice might make sense if you live in New York, but it doesn't work at all in most places in the country. If you live in the suburbs you can't find places to rent. If you have kids and care about where they go to school, you don't want to follow this advice. If you live in a city like Cleveland or Detroit or a hundred other Midwest towns where the price of a house can approach $50k, it may not be worth it either.

<comment><AUTHOR> I rent, I live in a suburb, I have kids. So what else can I say? I wrote the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Yeah, I used to have a similar mindset before starting my (big) family. I can understand what he's saying (though very arrogantly) but I hope he's open to changing his mind someday, just in case.

He mentioned he likes having a hassle free life. Once you have a lot of kids, not only do you have your own hassles, you get to be a part of everyone's hassles and there's no such thing as a hassle free life.

All I'm saying is, never lock yourself into any mindset as circumstances can change.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is a very biased view and it might become invalid in different market conditions. Just think of a great inflation or any market collapse. If you own a house, you can still live in there. But you can only burn your cash for heating.

As long as our financial system works, cash is of course the best form of an asset.

<comment><USER19> That's absolutely right.

All discussions about the merits of investing in houses must be compared to something else that is available at the moment.

Cash may be king now, but one needs to always be aware of inflation.

I am surprised though at his figures for housing:

> Housing returned 0.4% per year from from 1890 to 2004.

I wonder where he got that from.

There are times when you can buy for less than the cost of replacement, due to rising cost of building materials, labour et c.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Someone has to say it: this site is full of bad writing and logical fallacies. Can we please stop linking to it?

<comment><USER14> You should notice that it's the author mostly linking to his own site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I just had the opportunity to sell a large 30-year fixed-rate bond with massive leverage into an overheated bond market with damn near a guarantee of serious inflation over the next 30 years. Thank you, Bank of America!

</comment><comment><USER29> A simpler point I didn't see emphasized is that even when you "own" a home you do not own it. You're renting it from the government, home owners association and utility companies. Disagree? Stop making payments to those three entities and we'll see how long it takes for men with guns to come and evict or arrest you. Owning is renting. Free your mind.

<comment><USER30> I agree about the other two, but the utility companies one seems hyperbolic; if I actually wanted to live in a place without electricity, running water, Internet access, etc. supplied by someone else's infrastructure - which I do not own - I think I could very easily cancel all of those and be fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Housing is not an investment, it's an expense.

To compare another investment, if you were to save $200/mo away into an investment account bearing 9.0% (like an S&P index fund), this would amount to $368,894 after 30 years. The whole time these funds are liquid and accessible to you, not subject to foreclosure, nor is this a required payment. $400/mo is $737,789.

<comment><USER32> Great.

Except that money can't go into an investment account because you still need it for rent. Actually, around here I'd be paying about 50% more than my current mortgage to rent the same sort of house, so month-to-month it is a greater expense. So the only difference is you still have the down payment.

And even then, for me, having that downpayment makes little difference financially over the course of 25 years. I seriously doubt it would _stay_ in the bank over that time.

I had an argument with a friend a couple of years ago along these lines; he claimed that renting was much more financially stable, but now he seems no more or less stable than myself... There is a lot of FUD around the "buy a house", "don't buy a house" argument, it's best to treat it all with a pinch of salt and make your own decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'll buy a home with cash. Never with debt. Mortgages are pointless. I'd rather pay my rent to a landlord than a bank.

<comment><USER6> Mortgages are an excellent inflation hedge. Consider it--you borrow a large pool of dollars to buy the home. The value of the dollar drops through the floor. Now you are paying back the loan which was for a fixed amount and doesn't change with dollars worth half as much.

<comment><USER34> But surely the interest makes up for this. It wouldn't make financial sense for the lender otherwise; why lend money to homeowners if it won't beat inflation than, say, invest it in the stock market?

<comment><USER6> In the US, the interest is tax deductible, so if you have earnings to match against that, the effective interest rate to the buyer is only 2/3rds of the nominal rate on the mortgage.

<comment><USER35> So then wouldn't the buy/rent decision depend on your income tax rate?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There are several advantages of home ownership that most people do not take advantage of.

A tax free gain for the sale of a primary residence (2 years + ownership) is one in particular. I am on my 2nd 'primary residence' in 3 years.

<comment><USER36> Flipping houses, ah yes. This is a beautiful tax loophole created and endorsed by the lobbying NAR that enables salespeople the ability to make bucketloads of commissions based on unrealistic appreciation of house values in a very short amount of time. Housing market go boom, boom, bust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> (adds on to headline)..."if you have a difficult time reading market conditions, don't understand your financial situation and feel comfortable moving your belongings from house to house every few years."

<comment><USER38> ..."and don't mind being at the mercy of inflation when your landlord jacks up your rent 10% with a month remaining on your lease."

<comment><USER31> Outside of property tax increases (at least in the State of Tennessee), the landlord can't increase rent on you if you've got a lease contract. Things are much stricter in many other states.

<comment><USER39> I think the GP was saying that the landlord was announcing a 10% increase in rent with only 30 days notice not an increase of rent for the last month of the lease.

<comment><USER38> Right. Maybe I overexaggerated by saying 30 days instead of 90. But sooner or later you get that notice "Hey, it's time to renew your lease. By the way, it's a 10% increase on the next year. Take it...or start looking for a new apartment. Good luck with the market out there."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> .... and he ends with this sentence:

         By the way, this is going to sound like a
         contradiction: but I think housing is a great
         investment right now.

Go figure.

<comment><USER41> Housing is an investment, a home is not.

<comment><USER42> Of course it is, just not the monetary kind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think his post is a bit extreme. It depends on a lot of factors on whether to buy a house or not. I think most of his reasons aren't really valid for not owning a home.

I'll make some comments on his financial arguments:

A) If you pay off your home fast, you won't have anymore mortgage payments. And you actually own something that you might be able to sell later, getting some money back. If you rent, you won't see that money ever again. So technically your cash is good as gone if you rent. If you own, you can get something back at least.

This depends on the house you buy and the market. For example, I rented a lot until I found a good deal on a house. Now I pay less on my mortgage than on my apartment I rented.

The rent may increase every year too. At every place I stayed, they always raised the rent every year. At least with the home, you don't have to worry about that since you have the same mortgage payment every month.

B) Usually the seller pays the closing costs, especially at the current market. If not, negotiate so the seller pays. You don't usually have to worry about this if you're buying a home.

C) He's right on this one. The comfort of calling the maintenance person at my apt was one of the benefits over owning.

D) This is simliar to A). It depends on the market and the home you get. For me, the taxes + mortgage turned out to be simliar to what I paid in rent. Plus I now get a huge refund because of my deductions. So I paid around the same amount as my rent, and I got a bigger refund on my taxes.

E) I agree with the author. This is probably one of the disadvantages of owning a house.

F) I don't consider my home an investment. It's a place I bought to live in. I don't expect to make a profit from it. I have my stocks and mutual funds that I consider to be investments.

Now my comments on his personal reasons on not owning a home:

A) I agree with the author. This is same as E) above. I don't know why he put it twice.

B) I don't see how this is a reason not to own a home. The benefits of owning a home is that you can do whatever you want with it without worrying about the landlord looking over your shoulder.

C) I don't understand this argument as a reason for not buying a home.

D-F). Not everyone is same. Some people's hobbies are gardening and maintaining the home. They actually enjoy doing it. Some people like the sense of stability. But if you're like the author and like to change things up a lot and be mobile, a house is probably not good for you.

G) I got stressed when I rented because the landlord needed to raise the rent every year. Then I had to go through the stress of negotiating the rent increase. If I wasn't successful, I had the stress of budgeting for the higher rent or had the stress of packing all my junk up, finding a new place, and moving. So renting isn't always stress free.

H) This is true. But if you plan wisely, you should still have a lot of cash available for emergencies, even after buying your home.

<comment><USER31> The problem is that many in the US have been brainwashed into believing their house IS an investment and this justifies purchasing above their means, because "at least I'm not throwing the money away in rent."

<comment><AUTHOR> Right. The big issue is people think they are wasting money on rent. But if you factor in mortgaeg, taxes, maintenance, etc it still comes to rent or more, EVEN when the house is paid off and there is no mortgage (but taxes keep going up)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> In general, I think that this is not good advice.

It is not a bad idea to buy a modest size home that meets your family's needs for a reasonable price.

As you get older and have hopefully had a good career, try to own at least two modest homes and become a landlord.

There is a good chance that we will see a lot of inflation in the next 10 years or so. If this happens, owning rental property may help to protect your assets.

</comment><comment><USER45> Places I rented over the years either had music blaring next door or loud parties periodically or I could hear other couples having sex, cockroaches from neighbors, etc. (this was in the _nicer_ areas).

I've had my fill of all that. Owning a home is just as cheap as renting one in my area. The peace and quiet I have is priceless.

</comment><comment><USER46> He also says >>> housing is a great investment right now. I think housing prices have gone down far enough and I can list the reasons why housing as an abstract investment concept is going to go higher from here.

</comment><comment><USER47> How can he make such sweeping statements about the financial implications of buying a home without actually making calculations based on real numbers? Depending on real estate to rent ratios, the calculation varies dramatically.

</comment><comment><USER48> Yeah, that's it. Lease everything, don't own any assets. Let me know how that works out for you.

<comment><USER21> Surely, you have to own some assets. "Leased food" doesn't sound like fun.</comment></comment>


Like Android, but not Java/XML. Any alternatives? - <AUTHOR> Android L with the Material design language looks very attractive. But I really dislike the Java/XML combo for development.
So, anyone tried the alt-Java's for coding Android apps: Kotlin, Xtend, Scala etc.
Or even Xamarin or QT/QML.
P.S With ART, I hoped Google were moving away from Java and would bless one of the alt-Java syntaxes and eventually cut-out Java and evolve ART independently. But apparently not. <comment><USER2> This here explains why they can't move to other languages overnight:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N3XyVkAP8nmWjASz8L_Ojjnj...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N3XyVkAP8nmWjASz8L_OjjnjVKxgeVBjIsTr5qIUcA4/preview?sle=true)

They basically need to rewrite Android from scratch, and then find a way to make all old Java apps compatible with the new Android, too, but I'm guessing that should be easier with ART available.

<comment><USER3> That doesn't make any sense in the OP's context.

In which language Android core classes are implemented doesn't matter as long as both languages compile down to Adnroid's bytecode.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. My understanding is that currently the Android ART toolchain is:

Java source -> Java byte code -> Dalvik byte code in apk -> install time compile to Oat file for execution in ART

Initially, just looking for something more expressive/succinct than Java that compiles down to Java byte code and is sympathetic to the Android frameworks. Not sure if there are any tools that compile down directly to dalvik and skip Java byte code entirely.

<comment><USER3> Use Scala.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> C# and/or F# + Xamarin: [http://fwaris.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/xamarin-f- experience-...](http://fwaris.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/xamarin-f-experience- report/)

(I have not yet tried, but am going to)

PS: why hate XML? It has its place. JSON is not meant to be extensible and it's a data, not mark-up language.

</comment><comment><USER3> People use Scala and it works pretty well.

Here is a mailing list full of those people: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/scala-on- android](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/scala-on-android)</comment>


Can we stop bad-mouthing CSS in developer talks, please? - <AUTHOR> https://www.christianheilmann.com/2016/10/05/can-we-stop-bad-mouthing-css-in-developer-talks-please/ <comment><USER3> The problem with CSS, as far as I'm concerned, is not that it cannot solve the task, but that it isn't intuitive and that you need to be aware of lots of 'tricks'/workarounds to get fairly simple concepts to work.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it's hacks built on top of hacks, and even with all its complexity, it still doesn't come close to the state of the art in print layout and type- setting from centuries ago (although that's not just the fault of CSS).

But the sort of talks that the writer is talking about annoy me too. CSS is rubbish but most people know that already. It's unimaginative and lazy to constantly repeat it. However rubbish it is, we still have to deal with it for the moment.

These days I just think of CSS as a low-level language that is best left to compilers and so on. In the same way I don't want to hand-code Abstract Syntax Trees, I don't want to write CSS when I can use a higher-level alternative that spits out decent CSS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe someone should learn to take a joke... I consider myself a 'real' ( what does that even mean ) software developer - working on web-sites/apps since 15 years - starting my path doing web-design, adapting css as it came out... IT WAS IMPRESSIVE AND AWESOME ( because there hasn't been anything good before )...

But I have to say i am still learning and running into stuff i have done a 1000 times - unable to understand why this is working - only to uncover one statement which breaks everything... BECAUSE CSS HAS TERRIBLE INTRANSPERANT CONCEPTS AND QUIRKS ( Not all are its own faults, looking at you IE ). Also some of them have arisen because it's not used what it was made for - <USER2> documents of text... Not all the fancy stuff we miss-use it today.

CSS is an old friend here to stay - he can for sure take a joke ( sometimes a beating ) and so should you. I usually enjoy these talks :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not bothered about people badmouthing something that really ought to have been superseded, but I really do appreciate the videos included of what appear to be good CSS practices which might help me for when I do the occasional layout for simple projects. For that, I find this a useful blog post.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why should CSS be different from any other language ?

<comment><USER4> I think the point of the article is that people shouldn't rude about CSS because it makes web developers and designers sad. It implies a divide between them and "real" developers who sneer at something they use every day. More of a social critique than a technology critique.

<comment><USER7> And yet we have many 'web developers' constantly telling 'real' developers how Javascript is the best thing ever, and all of these 'old' languages are outdated.

Why is JSON praised, but XML shamed ? Java is old, bulky and slow, but Javascript is the answer to everything ? The debate goes both ways.

The correct answer is that all languages, etc. are suitable in the correct scenario, and none should be 'special', whether that be praised above all others, or condemned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of the saying: There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses</comment>


Journalism is Dead - <AUTHOR> http://www.vgchartz.com/article/260846/journalism-is-dead/ <comment><USER2> "Actually," he sniffed imperiously, "it's about ethics in game journalism."

</comment><comment><USER3> Forget the NYTimes helping to send us to a war that killed over a million Iraqis. Forget FOX News that runs 24/7 propaganda, stoking divisions. GamerGate is truly journalism's death knell. /s

<comment><USER4> Heaven forbid we talk about media misbehavior while Fox News is still around, especially if that media misbehavior is using our own biases against white men to manipulate our opinion.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Migrating comments to FB-only brings solid benefits? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> What are we supposed to talk about? What are your pros and cons here?</comment>


Mysteries within the obvious, Language the Code for our Minds - <AUTHOR> http://www.victusspiritus.com/2010/02/17/mysteries-within-the-obvious-language-the-code-for-our-minds/ <comment><AUTHOR> Should be a fun read. And the local overrides of high level programming I suggest is likely already implemented somewhere I haven't seen. I'm excited about this concept though. Personalized code/meaning.</comment>


Sexual assault, and why men don't get it - <AUTHOR> http://lepid0ptera.livejournal.com/78344.html <comment><USER2> I'm sorry but this whole discussion has been beyond obnoxious as far as I'm concerned. It started with people taking one drunk jack ass and extrapolating that to slander the whole male tech community and now we have someone taking one insensitive comment and extrapolating it to slander all of HN (the other comment she quotes just pointed out it would have been a better idea to go to the police)

Does the author really believe anyone in their right mind would think it was ok for a man to stick his hand down a woman's pants uninvited?

<comment><USER3>
        Does the author really believe anyone in their
        right mind would think it was ok for a man to
        stick his hand down a woman's pants uninvited?

That.

Even more, she cites a comment which really explains everything:

        I'll probably get downvoted for asking,
        but I'm curious, would everyone be as upset
        over this had it been a drunken female guest
        inappropriately grabbing a guy's package? And
        if the male blogger had then written a similar
        blog about being sexually assaulted at a party,
        naming the female who grabbed him?

        I'm not endorsing this sort of behavior obviously,
        but the public shaming element here seems fairly
        twisted. If a sexual assault occurred she should go
        to the police about it and press charges.
        Not start an internet witch hunt.

You feel ashamed? You're getting abused? Go to police and social services for god sake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There seems to be a bit of "talking past each other" going on here, because nobody is stopping to consider the real motivations involved. In particular, while I think lepid0ptera has defined her side of the discussion well, I think she may have completely misunderstood a strong motivator on the other.

Many responses on one side have been along the lines of "that kind of behavior is reprehensible, but we have no idea if it happened here without an impartial inquiry", perhaps going so far as to suggest that she was irresponsible to name him publicly.

Responses on the other end of the spectrum have echoed the idea they understand how horrible the experience was, because they've either experienced something like this themselves, or know someone personally who has; again, many going so far as to applaud her bravery in both coming forward and being willing to name her assailant.

Consider perspectives.

One side is terrified of the idea of an assault like this (either on themselves, or on a loved one), which informs their view of the situation. They put themselves in the shoes of a potential victim, they empathize, they appreciate the emotional and potentially physical harm that could occur. This gives their reaction to a post like the one made earlier essential context: they believe a woman was attacked, with no witnesses, leaving her in a uniquely helpless situation that she'll relive in her mind for the rest of her life, but at least she has the courage to name the man who did this to her.

The other side is terrified of the idea of being falsely accused (either themselves directly, or someone they care about). An accusation of sexual assault can end careers, take away essential freedoms, mark them for life in both a professional and personal context. They empathize with another possible victim here: someone falsely accused. This also gives their reaction essential context; they are watching someone's career and personal life dragged through the mud, accusations and discussion threads that will live online in perpetuity for future employers and lovers to see regardless of the outcome forcing them to relive this experience for the rest of their lives, without any kind of due process for the accused.

I think it would do everyone good to take a deep breath, try very hard to set aside their own prejudices, and understand why the other side is reacting the way they are. I'd like to think, especially here, that most participants are trying to act in good faith. Perhaps a little perspective would help.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't pretend to know what it's like to be a woman - nor really how situations like this are to be resolved positively for both parties.

However, one thing that strikes/confuses me is that while some women may wish to paint the current poor girl's reaction as some kind of universal truth - I've heard of zillions of yarns where it went exactly the other way... i.e. the guy and girl end up having a night of great sex because he was bold enough to go all in (pun a little bit intended).

This schism in results tells me that only one thing can be known for sure. If you're going to go stampeding for the crotch, make sure you've picked a girl that's up for it. Don't know how to pick such a lady? Don't know if you know how to pick such a lady?

Buy her flowers then... and we can all be spared these excruciating discussions on a place where we'd all feel much more comfortable chatting about code.

<comment><USER6> I think it can definitively be said that if you kiss a girl and she shoves you off and tells you she's not interested that she's not 'up for it'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> All good points. Men really _don't_ get this issue from the female perspective.

But umm, showing up on a male dominated board, picking a few admittedly lame comments and then busting on the entire group for their cluelessness?

I also saw a great deal of support for Noirin, a great deal of concern for the state of the tech community and some really good discussion on how the problem might actually be fixed.

There exists an enormous asymmetry in power between men and women when it comes to sex, and so it generates equally large asymmetry in consequence when it comes to accusing men of misdeeds. This causes a great deal of fear and mistrust from both sides, which leads to huge differences in perspective. (Sorry to go Yoda there) To say this causes lively debate is somewhat of an understatement.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think the talking past each other is largely because the argument was polarized before it begun:

 _Women_ \- Think men don't understand the seriousness of sexual assault, know women who've been victims

 _Men_ \- Think there are women who cry wolf on sexual assault, know men who've been victims of that

...and so we inevitably reach this cross-talk where men are saying "where's the proof?" or "innocent until proven guilty" (which is largely what I saw from HN), and women are responding with "why aren't you treating this seriously?"

Drunken louts are not just a feature of tech conferences, they're everywhere. It is only coincidental that the last time I told a guy to "shut the fuck up and leave. Now." was at an academic conference after he made some particularly offensive comments to a married woman. I think most men are aware of thing like this, and do what we can.

HN attracts a more thoughtful/passive/insensitive (depending on point of view) approach to most things, so the "innocent until proven guilty" line seemed to be the general vibe I got from the commentary. I think that's the most even- handed such an issue can get.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone have a cache of the article?

<http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/> is down, and I'd rather read whatever happened directly from one side than from a third party.

Edit: relevant part (they're at a pub):

 _"And then I went to the loo, and as I was about to go in, (name), who had been speaking in the Hadoop track, called me over, and asked if he could talk to me.

I'm on the board of Apache. I'm responsible for our conferences. I work on community development and mentoring. If you're at an Apache event and you want help, information, encouragement, answers, I will always do my best to provide. So this wasn't an unusual request, and it wasn't one I expected to end the way it did.

He brought me in to the snug, and sat up on a stool. He grabbed me, pulled me in to him, and kissed me. I tried to push him off, and told him I wasn't interested (I may have been less eloquent, but I don't think I was less clear). He responded by jamming his hand into my underwear and fumbling."_

OK I'm going to agree with the author here (assuming this is true). If you're escalating without complaint, there's nothing wrong with putting your hands down a woman's pants. If she's indicated she's not interested though, it's being an asshole.

<comment><USER6> Someone pasted the content of the post in the other thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875865>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lepid0ptera ---

A think you may be concentrating on a different subset of the commentary than I am. I see a lot of different viewpoints:

1) Wondering if we should trust only one side's account without knowing all the details.

2) Wondering if she's being irresponsible by _not_ escalating it to a police matter.

3) And yes, wondering if she's making too much of a deal about nothing.

I'm most interested in the second. I feel like she's getting push back from people who feel that by trying to handle the matter herself, she's not properly adopting the socially acceptable role as a passive victim. I think you might miscounting some of these responses as being in the dismissive category when they are actually something else.

Or maybe I'm miscounting the 3's as 2's. Or maybe I'm misconstruing her response as being extra-legal --- for all I know, she's decided to file charges AND name names. In any case, I find the HN discussion more useful than silence, and better than most of the internet discussions I see elsewhere. Certainly a greater variety of viewpoints would be help this process. You're bold and write well --- if you're not already here, come and join us rather than pointing out the lack of diversity from afar.

</comment><comment><USER11> > It hurts and is potentially embarrassing and SCARY, because it is a prelude > to rape,

Agreed. It is also highly unprofessional.

> which in turn is a prelude to death and/or babies

I think this is a little bit over the top, there are short-term birth control pills and most rapist do not kill their victim, and this is no longer the case:

> Fathers have killed daughters for getting raped, husbands have killed or > abandoned their wives for getting raped.

Accusing someone with rape has been used as a weapon for a long time now, I don't think it's that surprising, that a lot of people are skeptic.

</comment><comment><USER12> First point: the entire post rests on invoking a double standard. Imagine how it would feel if it was your daughter... in some parts of the world a raped woman's life is ruined.... Um, bad intro, really bad intro. Sure, the idea that any kind of sexual experience devalues a woman shapes a woman's experience of sexual assault. However, asking men to get in touch with their patriarchal, proprietary attitudes toward women's sexuality is not a good way to further a discussion about sexual assault. Leading into my second point....

Second point: the male response to a story of rape is really their response to an imagined scenario in which they're falsely accused of rape. This says a lot about men's difficulty identifying with women. They find it easier to identify with the man in the story, even though he's the villain and acted in a way they never would. Since they're unable to identify with the woman, they identify themselves with the man, and since they themselves are not sexual predators, they imagine a scenario in which they have been accused of rape because of an innocent mistake.

Naturally they recognize this is different from the original story, but they are so unable to empathize with the female protagonist that the alternative story they conjured, in which the man is a victim, is much more compelling to them. They _know_ it's a different story, but it's so scary and real to them that they simply _must_ discuss it. The original story of rape is so unreal to them that they simply push it aside.

This lack of empathy for victims of rape is what needs to be overcome so that men can have a more evenhanded response to stories like this. Instead of asking men to imagine themselves as a patriarch whose honor and property have been marred, ask them to imagine themselves _as a woman_. Ask them to put themselves in the place of a woman and imagine the experience of a man shoving his hand into their pants and groping them.

Empathizing with women does not come naturally for men, so men need to practice and take a self-conscious, self-critical approach (as anyone would when attempting to empathize with someone different from themselves.) They need to be careful to balance their perception of the story. They should not automatically replace the man in the story with themselves and let that perspective define their response. If they easily imagine the man's point of view and feel the intense emotions they would feel in his place, they should work until they can imagine the woman's point of view and feel her emotions just as vividly. Women can assist by describing a woman's experience. Actually, I would say that guidance is essential, and men should pay close attention. There's no lack of material available; we must simply avail ourselves of it.

Again, it's the woman's experience that we should focus on. It's a bad idea to invoke the brother's or father's response. Sure, every guy can imagine the sense of shame, violation, and powerlessness they would feel about their sister or daughter being raped -- feelings that may be analogous to the shame, violation, and powerlessness felt by a rape victim -- but the fear in the heart of every loving high school boyfriend approaching the door of his girfriend's house betrays the assumption that his girlfriend's brother or father would be similarly outraged by the idea of her having consensual sex. The brother's or father's outrage does not depend on empathy and may be in contradiction to the woman's own feelings. In this day and age, their reaction seems pathetic and ridiculous, an atavistic twitch.

So the empathy must be with the woman herself. To have a balanced response to the story, a man must identify with the woman as easily as with the man, and should not simply project himself on the man but instead realize that the man might have behaved in a way that they themselves would not. Until that is achieved, men will respond to a very different story than the one told.

<comment><USER4> Your second point, I think, too easily dismisses the fears men have.

Lacking evidence which suggests the guilty party, we are left to our own natural sympathies. Women may have more sympathy for the narrative of a woman assaulted, men may identify more with the story of a man falsely accused.

These are both perfectly natural responses, _as long as we recognize our personal biases_ , and can accept evidence which contradicts them when it becomes available. I can't see how it is productive to undermine either point of view: they are both legitimate emotional responses.

<comment><USER12> _they are both legitimate emotional responses_

... and people of both sexes should strive to feel both responses, instead of reacting solely from the perspective that comes naturally to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3>
        I am 25 years old, and I have had sex with 50 people.

Dunno, why, but I find that really, really amusing. Because, you know, men are filthy animals, right?

<comment><USER13> I accidentally upvoted you. It goes without saying that the disgusting crap you wrote there should be downvoted.

(Edit: And now I don't get why I'm being downvoted. What's in any way amusing about having sex with 50 people? Sex is fun and sex is normal, why shouldn't everyone have as much as he or she wants to? She never said that men are filthy animals if they have a lot of sex. She never said that she ever assaulted anyone – that's what she criticizes, not sex. Sex is not the same as assault. I thought that was obvious.)

<comment><USER14> I'm not disgusted. The irony is that the essayist seems to be assuming all men are sex-hungry primitives, and 'keeping score' is exactly the sort of thing that makes male chauvinists so annoying. Although her points are completely legitimate, they're obscured by the generalizations and condescending tone.

<comment><USER10> For what it's worth, she goes on in the comments to point out that some significant number of those 50 were not men. Seeing that she consciously chose the inclusive '50 people' rather than '50 men', I think you may be reading something into the essay that was not intended.

<comment><USER14> I never assumed she was talking about 50 men, nor do I see what difference it would make. It's the scorekeeping style that struck me as absurd in this context.

<comment><USER10> My apologies then. I wasn't sure if your response was directed at the original or the edit, and apparently I was wrong. The original didn't strike me as focused on scorekeeping.

<comment><USER14> No need to apologize, everyone has a unique perspective on issues like these.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I kind of stopped reading at the 50 dudes in 5 years part. She pretty much lost all credibility at that sentence.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is bad :(</comment>


Show HN: Slide to Subscribe - <AUTHOR> https://slidetosubscribe.com <comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. I initially built this as a challenge to myself to make a better signup form. The purpose was to simplify email collection: placing a signup form in an article should be as easy as placing an image. Conversely, subscribing should be as easy as a swipe. I wanted something that looked cool, without being flashy, and also adaptable to different types of websites. This is what came out of it.

A couple of things that you might find pretty cool: \- Everyone gets a subscribe.to/brandname URL \- Works natively on Medium: just type [https://subscribe.to/me](https://subscribe.to/me) and press Enter</comment>


Discuss: What do you think of push notifications? - <AUTHOR>

I hate push notifications.
Notifications bring us no peace.
Notifications drain batteries. (80% drain overnight while left on 3G)
Notifications interrupt our train of thought.
The only reason why I see notifications can be useful is if you were eagerly waiting for an email.
What do you think? <comment><USER2> I enjoy the option. Part of the reason I deleted Words With Friends (Android) is because I would never remember to take a turn, and it rarely notified me properly.

They don't always have to vibrate/chime, mind you. An icon appearing and the light blinking is, to me, not intrusive at all. I check it, see what the note is, and dismiss it if I need to.

At home I leave my phone connected to wifi and commit the sin of leaving it to charge overnight. Your downsides don't affect me at all.

<comment><USER3> It depends a lot on the user, obviously. For your example of WWF, I don't need a notification. When I have a few spare minutes, I open it up and make some moves. It's almost always my turn in one of my 20 games, and I don't need an alert to tell me that one of my 20 opponents just played - the only marginally useful notification would be the first. They added notifications to a recent update and I hate it. (Maybe there's a way to disable it - I'll have to investigate.)

<comment><USER2> You're right; it definitely depends on the user. That's why I think it's better to have them there and be able to turn them on/off, than it is to not have them. That's all.

They're the bane of the OP's existence, yet I find them useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They have their uses. Some are important to see, others are not. It really depends on what the notification is for.</comment>


The blockchain is essentially a linked list - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Is-a-blockchain-essentially-a-linked-list?share=1 <comment><USER2> A better analogous structure would be the structure used in Git.

The only major difference is that Git is a DAG while a blockchain is restricted to being a tree.

What do they have in common?

A block is a commit, containing a metadata and a hash pointing to the preceding commit.

A Merkle tree is a tree, though restricted to having only two children; trees in Git also contain the hashes of its children.

A transaction is a blob, the new file to be included in the next commit.

And if I recall correctly, the Git protocol was devised against a similar issue of centralization - SVNs. If the SVN could not be reached, then you were not able to access your repository. Since there was only one ledger, it meant a single point of failure.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for this. For the longest time, I actually thought the blockchain was powered by git, or at least the DAG and associated tech concepts. But I assumed that because it's not too far off, but it is a critical difference.

Out of curiosity, I wonder if there's a reason why it's not just built on top of git? Is there an inherent incompatibility between the two, or some sort of benefit to forgoing using existing tech?

<comment><USER2> While similar in structure, they have different objectives: Git is for version control of files; blockchain is for maintaining balances.

In addition, the protocol of blockchain is way more complex than the one for Git; you have concepts like proof of work and economic problems like double spend that have to be dealt with.

<comment><USER3> Thank you again. I forgot about the priorities, especially with how the financial industry has a lot of different needs, such as transactional reliability, whereas there are parts of git that are very fuzzy in different areas because file comparison isn't as binary as a financial transaction or have as many repercussions if off slightly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The first answer in that page (right now), is terribly misleading.

>> "As the image shows, all the nodes are connected to each other."

He is confused between a block-chain and the computing nodes in a network.

<comment><USER5> Guess what? The answer is gone now!

I did not know that Quora did or allowed that. Did the writer remove it? Did it get down voted to oblivion (unlikely, had positive up votes yesterday)? Seems un-transparent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Singley or doubley linked list?

Edit: Just kidding, obviously singley.

I am not a blockchain expert but don't agree with the "not at all" answer. The illustration seems misleading, the nodes have nothing to do with the data structure, AFAIK blocks are only linked to previous block.

I've always understood it as essentially a singly linked list where no list node can be removed without invalidating the entire list.

Am I wrong?

<comment><USER6> You are correct. The answer on Quora is confused/misleading.

<comment><USER5> And gone now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This title is misleading: This was formulated as a _question_ that was put forward (verbatim text: "Is a blockchain essentially a linked list?"), and the current answers are already now diverging between "Not at all!" and "Yes, ... blockchain is similar to a linked list ...".

</comment><comment><USER8> Nope, it's a limited grow-only stack. Linked lists are unlimited, and you can insert and delete everywhere. A blockchain not, you can only add to the top, with deletion forbidden.

</comment><comment><USER9> Somewhere in a small SV office: "Reverse bitcoin on this white board"

</comment><comment><USER10> "AndHell is just a sauna"

Over simplifications that gloss over important details

</comment><comment><USER11> Is crypto-currency considered to be the most innovative use of blockchains? Is there anything that currently doesn't use blockchains that could see a benefit from doing so?

<comment><USER12> Food security / safety is a trillion dollar business. There are several early stage efforts to apply blockchain to that problem. As a segment it's almost entirely backwards technologically (the best innovation consumers have seen on that front in 20 years, has been laughably flawed use-by dates).

Fighting imposter products may have extremely valuable applications for blockchain, for example knock-off Gucci bags etc. It'll take years before authoritative systems emerge that dominate that product validation space, but it's probably inevitable that they will.

<comment><USER13> > Fighting imposter products may have extremely valuable applications for > blockchain, for example knock-off Gucci bags

This example always gets brought up but Gucci bags already come with serial numbers and receipts that you can use for lookups and registration with Gucci. Presumably Gucci is using a database to store this information. What benefit would consumers realize if Gucci changed out their database for one that was immutable? Is there really any significant number of Gucci consumers who don't trust the company to maintain the integrity of the product database they currently use? The interests of the company and their customers seem pretty aligned. Perhaps there would be some benefit to having the full sales database easily and instantly accessible by anyone in the world? But absent any demand from consumers for them to go farther than they already have that would seem to be outweighed by Gucci's desire to not reveal _all_ of their sales data to competitors (or GDPR-busting private information for that matter).

If they did want to give up such detailed information then why not just provide weekly sql dumps on the web and avoid the consultant fees and expense of maintaining a more inefficient database? Perhaps they could also make customers sign a contract that prevents hem from engageing in private sales without registering the sale with GucciCentral. The fact they have never taken a simple steps like these to dispell any trust issues between them and their customers tells me that there may not be many that their current systems don't already address adequately.

Please tell me if I'm missing something. This one has puzzled me for years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Linked list is just a digital append only ledger

<comment><USER15> Linked lists can prepend, append, and have items inserted or removed anywhere, and are explicitly built around references to other nodes.

They're neither append-only, nor are they ledgers (which are basically just logs, nowhere in the definition of which is there an implied reference to any other item).</comment></comment>


Is This What Innovation Looks Like? - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/12/is-this-what-innovation-looks-like/383695/

<comment><USER2> The first comment on the article's page is interesting. I wonder if the building is acting like a Faraday cage and blocking cellphone signals.

As for the question posed in the title, no, this is what politics looks like. This is what happens when developers get together with investors and politicians and tech startups and they all decide they want to renovate an area of town and build some new building and bring in a bunch of companies that generate jobs and tax revenue and, happily, provide a place for media photo ops with the dignitaries -- it all looks good, it makes everybody look good, but what has come out of this place so far?

Innovation is not real estate development, it's not a building, it's not politics. If the teams inside this center create new technologies, new ways of doing things, optimizing existing ways, then perhaps there's innovation.

Otherwise it's just a political/media buzzword.</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone do academic writing in their own time? - <AUTHOR> It has been a few years since I got my masters degree, and I never had the ambition for an academic career. Pursuing a tech one at the moment. Still miss writing about topics that interest me. Is there anyone here who incorporates (academic) writing with a non-academic career? How do you manage? <comment><USER2> I don't pursue an academic career, I'm a freelancer doing various things, yet I published two cryptographic papers in recent years (at real scientific conferences, one at USENIX Security, other at USENIX WOOT). In one case it was even financially viable due to bug bounties.

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentat...](https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentation/bock) [https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot16/woot16...](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot16/woot16-paper- bock.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've written a few academic papers on my own time after grad school. It wasn't much harder than writing papers while in school, it just took some nights & weekends time, and I had to work a little to find people willing and capable of reviewing the papers and giving feedback. It cost a bit of personal money to present at a conference whenever a paper was accepted, but it was what I wanted to do so it never bothered me.

I'm not sure I understand the question though, what seems like the hardest part of writing, what is stopping you from doing it now? Lots and lots of people write in their spare time, and there are plenty who write on academic topics and submit papers to journals and conferences. Is it finding the time, or doing the research? Being motivated, or fear about being accepted as an academic while not part of an academic institution?

FWIW, you can certainly research & write on academic topics without trying to publish in journals. Plenty of people have blogs with articles that could be journal papers if they had only a splash of formality. Lots of people are more interested in doing the reading & writing than they are in publishing. Quite a few people like that here on HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think what seems to be the hardest part is to not only find the time but combat the imposter syndrome of not producing research within an academic context/with supervision. Also, reduced access to scientific databases is a bit of a turndown, we used to get it at uni.

Not all that interested in publishing in academic journals persé.

<comment><USER4> Writing scientific papers for decent journals is time-consuming. You need to write your findings in the context of the scientific discipline, previous results, be formal in the context of the discipline, write decently well and, most of all, have novel and interesting results to show.

As for databased or access to journals, luckily there is SciHub.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't, but if you are interested in doing this then you should definitely give it a go.

Beside actually doing good research in the first place, there should not be major barriers to writing and publishing a paper and I don't think there is the kind of gatekeeping that people think there is. Pick a small conference or workshop to start with, read a few papers from previous years to understand the format, style and conventions of the medium, and then you just write and upload your paper by the deadline. There's no more ceremony or secrets than that compared to writing a good technical blog post.

Of course, your research has to be good in the first place. I've seen people try to write papers and get them knocked back and they think it's because they're outsider, when in reality they didn't actually have a research contribution in the first place.

<comment><USER4> There is certainly gate-keeping at decent journals. For instance, not having an affiliation with an institution or a company known to carry out research is not the best presentation you can make.

<comment><USER5> But reviewers will not know who you are affiliated with until reviewing is done and the paper is accepted.

<comment><USER4> Very few journals do double-blind reviews. Maybe some conferences in CS, but in my field (biology) I never reviewed a paper without knowing who the authors were, along with their affiliation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am a former academic now working in tech. In the past year I have missed research.

I don't have the time or patience to go through the whole peer-review process in my spare time. Furthermore, some aspects of peer-reviewed scientific writing are quite boring to me e.g. introductions, trying to sell the importance of your results.

Instead, I find that I can scratch my research itch by doing what I want, then uploading the results to GitHub. So far I've re-implemented a couple of recently published papers, and put in a modest contribution of my own. If you want some discussion on your work, you can turn to a pertinent online forum.

Apart from being much faster than writing a full paper, another advantage is transparency and reproducibility. It has become a fulfilling hobby.

<comment><USER7> What is your field? Can you link some of your work?

I could be interested in helping with the "academic writing"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have coauthored about 20 articles over the last 25 years, mostly in peer reviewed mathematics journals.

I published the first three while in grad school. After grad school, my advisor and I just kept collaborating meeting once a week for an hour or two. I was never paid to do academic research, it has always been a hobby for me. I have only published one article where I was the sole author.

</comment><comment><USER4> I switched to tech one year ago after more than * years in academia (biology). I am still publishing, mostly papers that were half-completed or going through the peer-review process. I enjoy writing in general and I also enjoy writing research papers, but the peer-review process is largely dreadful and it is difficult to justify spending considerable time doing something that I have already done for years, I moved away from, and that won't further my career.

I published more than 50 papers, some in top journals, and most of them as the first author; I still find frustrating that companies (recruiters, hiring managers, peers) don't associate that kind of production and its determinants (scientific skills, coding, writing, persistence) to proxies of potential added value to the company.

Edit: 10

2nd Edit: changed "manuscripts" to "papers"

<comment><USER9> What is the difference between a manuscript and an article?

<comment><USER4> In my field, they are called either manuscripts or papers, rarely articles.

<comment><USER10> In my mind 'manuscript' is a book length publication, while 'paper' is a standard short publication for journals or conferences.

<comment><USER4> The book-length publication would a book or monograph if shorter. "Article" would be in my mind for non-peer-reviewed outlets. I typically use "manuscript" for papers that have yet to be published. -- I edit the above and I write "papers" instead of "manuscripts" to avoid confusion.

<comment><USER10> Oh yes, I confused 'manuscript' and 'monograph'. I agree with your clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My SO works in a library but does academic research in her own time. It's difficult to find the time, but writing papers during evenings/weekends and, where possible, presenting them at conferences has resulted in some degree of success e.g. a published book, invitations to participate in editing/reviewing. Getting a full-time academic post is difficult, though, as there is a lot of competition for the few in the field that come up.

<comment><USER4> I would recommend an academic career, especially at a minor institution, only to some of my worst enemies. Poor pay, bureaucracy, days and nights grading, boredom. Yes, you might spend your career investigating something you are interested in, but there is also something in variety.

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately, the library job is much along those lines as well, so a job concentrating on her preferred subject would still be an improvement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I study every day on my career, and consider it an academic exercise to read tech blogs on coding, design, server admin, etc... and I sometimes write about these topics to inform my clients. I kill 3 birds with one stone. I learn, I get to dive into topics deep that benefit my mind, and my work (doubly satisfying) and educate my clients. It lowers my stress when my research provides a very real world solution. (These are really good days)

When I write about my understanding for my clients it is sort of like training and marketing at the same time. It forces me to know my subject better to make sure I am giving good advice to my clients. This is not documentation, I keep that separate. But I am finding more Digital Ocean articles the cross this boundry between mere documentation and useful teaching/tutorials.

So it feels like a natural fit, I am interested in research and writing and others need what I know to do better at their work/business.

But, I have other personal topics I research and write about (history, religion, health, etc...) that is not work related, but I keep them separate from work complete, keeps stress low. But I do use tech skills to help me with them. (ie, data scrapers and manipulation, graphs, analysis, apps, database access and APIs, etc...) But this relationship is one way, "work -> personal research", almost never "personal research -> work", unless it's purely a side effect of knowledge gained...

These personal writings are more critical, some extensive (many years of research, writing and editing) and I have a family and decent social life. I just don't have real hobbies or too many time wasting activities, and I keep my personal research separate from my work research. I guess it's all priorities?

<comment><USER10> I believe "academic writing" usually refers to original research. One notable exception is a survey of recent advances in the field.

<comment><USER4> Reviews also have to present original results often in the form of novel syntheses, not just she did this, then he did that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I do this. For me it's fairly easy as I left academia and simply carried on working with former colleagues/acquaintances, in my spare time. My contribution as a %age of the overall workload has dropped, but is still meaningful.

Obvious caveats are:

* In some areas such as CS, you'll want to publish at a conference. If you submit a paper, one named author will have to agree to present it. If that has to be you, you'll have to pay the travel and registration cost for the conference.

* IP / ownership issues are big, particularly if you work for a BigCorp in a field close to that you are publishing in --- these tend to be pretty inflexible on this. I found it difficult, but not impossible at the BigCorp I worked for. I'm in a small consultancy now, and it's a breeze.

</comment><comment><USER14> In the field of medicine this is standard, at least in the UK. Many medical specialties expect you to have a PhD to get a good senior post in a teaching hospital. To get a good PhD grant you are expected to have a pedigree of publishing research, and the classic way to do that is join a research group on your days off/evenings/weekends.

I'm lucky enough to be on a good PhD programme so my 9-5 is now academia, but in my late 20s a typical weekend and weeknight would involve a couple of hours of academic writing which I would be doing "for free". I'd be first or second author on the papers, but I'd be publishing under the institution of the group I'd tagged on to.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the idea of a research group. I did not know that the field of medicine this was a standard practice. Was it not too overwhelming?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thank you for this question. I have been struggling with a deadline for my dissertation for personal reasons and feel like giving up on the whole thing. It is unlikely that if I give up on my deadline that I will return to do more academic work. However, I enjoy researching and want to continue to research and write. Just a few days ago I asked my husband if he thought it was reasonable to ignore the deadline and just continue writing my dissertation for myself. He sent me a link to your question today. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Amazing :). Keep on going, especially for yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I still publish. I joined an industry lab this June. My day to day function is highly non-academic, but we can do academic research on the side (we don't have to).

I intend to keep on researching since research is fun. But writing itself is not as much fun, so I wonder if I will try to publish as much.

1\. Collaboration. If you look at my publication records, I only have a single paper where I am the sole author, and I made sure a few very knowledgeable friends read it. So find someone sharing similar interests and talk to them. Once a collaboration starts, it is much easier to get going.

2\. Branch out. Recently, I improve algorithms in areas (more applied operations research) close to mine (theoretical x {computer science, combinatorial optimization}). This includes 3 of the papers I'm preparing. It only took a few hours to realize improvements are possible, although it takes much longer to polish and present. It also leads me to an interesting problem in my own field.

3\. Giving talks. It is probably much easier to have an opportunity to give tech talks. Giving the talk itself forces you to organize your thought well. I often find better ways to organize my writing after I've given the presentation. (I really should give talks before writing the paper...

</comment><comment><USER17> Possibly slightly off topic: not ever having been in academia, how would one go about "writing a paper"? I assume you start off by researching something interesting and jotting down your results, but I'm guessing there's a little more to it than that. Are there any resources that could help one get started with this?

<comment><USER18> Yes, you would also read some research papers relevant to your work and cite them in your paper. So typically intro, hypothesis, experiments, results, conclusions/next steps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I did my Masters part-time and really struggled with the writing part, to the point I took a 7 months sabbatical to finish my thesis. Thus was not just due to my full-time work but also family, commuting and other things you do. But I do get why you are missing the research part because it is fun! Hope you find a way doing both!

</comment><comment><USER20> I dropped out of a PhD in philosophy and am now a software developer. Tinkering with some of my old papers is my main hobby these days. I also have little kids, so I don't get a lot of time for it, but I'm hoping to have at least one significant item ready for publication in the next year or so.

<comment><USER21> I'm also an ABD PhD in Philosophy (the clock on that is almost 4 years old now so there's little chance of me actually writing a thesis at this point) turned software developer. We failed philosophers turned hackers should form a little society or something

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You might be interested in the resources available via the National Coalition of Independent Scholars: [https://www.ncis.org/national-coalition-independent- scholars...](https://www.ncis.org/national-coalition-independent-scholars- ncis)

</comment><comment><USER22> I've done a conference paper and had another one accepted. For me, the hardest is finding good places to publish. Conference levels fluctuate and magazines carry different weight - this is not necessarily obvious for a bystander.

</comment><comment><USER23> I do. I was in academia for over 15 years, and exited almost 2 years ago. Since then I've published quite a few papers, and stayed active in conference organization / journal editorial activities. Lately, I've slowed down notoriously, I'm busy enough with my day job.

I think it helps if you have a good group of people to work with, since it motivates you, and you get good feedback (also helpful if they're still in academia and can easily register/attend conferences and/or pay open access fees).

<comment><AUTHOR> Why did you decide to exit academia?

<comment><USER23> Death by a thousand paper cuts. Bad management making bad decisions, funding getting harder and harder to get, pressure to do contract research (I was at a large public research institute, not at a uni)... Things were going downhill quickly and seemingly irreversibly, so I was no longer happy there, and there were no good alternatives in research where I live.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds rough :(

<comment><USER23> It was... but if you do care about science, you can still do it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In what area you are interested in?

I guess we could create a small "research group"... I would join and give my contribute.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking about expanding on the ideas of Nicholas Nassim Taleb. For instance the concept of anti-fragility.

My academic background is in information studies but I'm not married to the field.

<comment><USER8> That seems really cool!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you work in tech at a level high enough, then conferences, white papers, technical reports and so on are part and parcel of the job. All these generally coalesce into 1-2 academic-like papers per year for important journals in your field.

<comment><USER4> Working for a tech company that does research and at a level that is high enough is no small feat.

<comment><USER24> Ok but academic writing serves a purpose, it is the consequence of an intellectual effort at a level high enough for peer review and actual progress; you can even do it alone if minded and disciplined enough to bear the stress, maybe starting from conferences in your field to test waters while honing your skills. It is not a given that comes with a degree, though, so a gentle nudge is not enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I always wondered how you can submit your work for approval and publishing from outside the academic life. Are there conferences that accept submissions from someone who is totally unknown?

</comment><comment><USER26> no interest in pursuing an academic career

while working on my phd my focus was on biometrics where i had a few publications, but moved onto robotics/autonomy so it took a bit to ramp up in the domain, but after a few years i'm close to where i was and just submitted 3 papers to ICRA last week

to echo other comments here, there's no way i'd have any output if i wasn't working with others on these papers</comment>


US bans Kaspersky software amid concerns over Russia ties - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-07-kaspersky-software-russia-ties.html <comment><USER2> But, how good is Kaspersky software at keeping the NSA out of a computer?</comment>


Ask HN: What is the difference between model thinking and system thinking? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> This is unfounded but I think that model a snapshot at a particular moment whereas systems is dynamic.</comment>


Ask HN: Open Apple MacBook Shipment from China? - <AUTHOR> I just received a Macbook which was shipped from China 5 days ago. Is it safe to open it and use with out wiping with a chemical wipe and ruining the screen ? <comment><USER2> Leave it in a garage or somewhere for a 2-3 more days if you don't want to use a chemical wipe. If it's sunny and doesn't rain and you don't have theft problems, leave it outside for a day or two.

If you are in the US, I would be more concerned on whether your delivery route driver is infected rather than China.

edit: If anything, wipe the keyboard and trackpad, you don't need to touch the screen

</comment><comment><USER3> ^^yep^^ they are almost completely built and packed by robotics</comment>


Tableau-Like Drag and Drop GUI Visualization in R - <AUTHOR> https://towardsdatascience.com/tableau-esque-drag-and-drop-gui-visualization-in-r-901ee9f2fe3f <comment><USER2> Rshiny of R is something that Python doesn't quite have an equivalent. Recently dash from plotly is trying to become one. This is one of the usecases of how shiny can influence bringing R to masses.</comment>


Break a dozen secret keys, get a million more for free - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cr.yp.to/20151120-batchattacks.html <comment><USER2> What are the preconditions for the AES batch attack? 2^40 users encrypting the same message? Similar message? Any message?

<comment><USER3> > 2^40 users encrypting the same message?

How about probably the single-most-encrypted block in history: 'GET [http://www.g'](http://www.g')?

<comment><USER4> It would actually be something like:

      GET / HTTP/1.1
      ?

where the ? is the first letter of the most common first request header. A bit less reliable for a given target (due to needing to guess the header), but a bit more effective in general (due to not actually caring about the domain).

<comment><USER5> The ? is the 17th byte, unnecessary.

<comment><USER4> You're right, I forgot that the HTTP spec calls for Windows line endings. That means the header doesn't even matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Real-world clients often support non-elliptic "DHE" along with, or instead of, elliptic "ECDHE". It would be interesting to trace the reasons for this: for example, were people worried about ECC patents?"

DHE was in the original SSLv3 spec, but not commonly used before NSS added support for DHE_RSA in the early 2000s I think. ECDHE did not come until much later.

</comment><comment><USER7> What are the incentives for the authors of the linked papers? Why would they round up an old, incorrect, estimate of RSA factoring? Is this just engineers engaging in "optimization" and trying to edge out more performance?</comment>


LetsLunch Launches in New York Today - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/27/letslunch-launches-in-new-york-today/

<comment><USER2> Hmm, Stack Overflow is no longer on the application page. Choices are now limited to LinkedIn, Twitter, and Hacker News.</comment>


Yahoo replaces CEO Terry Semel; Yang takes over - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/18/financial/f133429D12.DTL&type=business <comment><USER2> A new day is rising for the technology CEO.

The sun is setting on the tall, white MBAs and rising on short, asian engineers.

\- a short asian engineer

</comment><comment><USER3> There is something very very very wrong with big corporate America, whenever execs of poorly performing companies manage to squeeze $70 million in compensation. I fail to see any reasoning behind decisions like that, except old&stupid; _"well... it's the way these things work"_

<comment><USER4> It's no different in other industries. Teams have to pay star players lots of money, even if they later do badly; publishers give big advances to famous writers, and sometimes their books flop. It's just the way the world works, not some specially sinister thing about CEOs.

<comment><USER5> As far as I know, this is largely an American (U.S.) phenomenon. I don't think many other countries have the kind of disparity between managers and other employees that American corporations have.

I have also read analyses suggesting compensation is often influenced by the fact that board members are usely CEOs of other companies who know that their compensation will go up if the compensation of other CEOs go up. If true, that would qualify as "sinister" in my judgement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Finally!</comment>


Bletchley: the women's story - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11323312/Bletchley-the-womens-story.html

<comment><USER2> If you get chance; visit Bletchley park. They do an excellent job of portraying the role of women during the war. For example, although it was in some ways quite progressive in recognising female talent and promoting them in a limited fashion, there are other examples where women we left to do hard, hot or heavy work (like maintain the Bombe machines). From some of the interviews it's clear that a) the women understood the machines, if not from a mathematical standpoint then from an engineering one but b) many of the men, especially at the top, looked down on the WREN's operating the machines.

It's a fascinating dynamic that they've displayed very well.

And on top of that it's a fascinating place anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> There was a British TV show produced a couple of years ago called _The Bletchley Circle_ which featured a group of women who had worked at Bletchley joining together again to solve crime in the 50s.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bletchley_Circle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bletchley_Circle)

Unfortunately, despite fairly high production values, the writing wasn't very good and the show was a bit of a disappointment. There were two seasons but I didn't make it to the end of the first. It might have been better if they had made a more realistic show set during the war and focusing on these women's real experiences.

<comment><USER4> I found it rather tedious and un-climactic. A bit of a disappointment and a waste of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Netflix has a drama series that has a fairly realistic portrayal. For me, the crux of the show is how they have to maintain "normal lives" in the gender- skewed 50s after doing such critical, technical work they can not talk about in public, nor get recognition for.

[http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70272998](http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70272998)

<comment><USER6> > Oops! This title is unavailable at the moment; there might be a technical > glitch, or we may have rotated it out of our entertainment catalog.

> Try searching for your title again; if you find it and are still not able to > play it, please contact customer service.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be available :(

<comment><USER7> geo-licensing doesn't work in the modern age. Who knew.</comment></comment></comment>