Google Is Trying Too Hard, or Not Hard Enough, to Diversify - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/technology/google-diversity-lawsuits.html <comment><USER2> There are, I think two different things here:

1\. Getting women in the pipeline from an early age. Whether it's cultural, or women in developed Western economies don't need an escape hatch like in places they face few options --as a country, if we are to progress, we have to find a way to improve the pipeline. Increase the pool of women candidates, and you will not have to work hard at finding good candidates.

2\. Google should have not touched the live wire that is a publicly stated policy for PR brownie points. If they meant to improve things, introduce processes without the unnecessary fanfare because, as we now are witnessing, they are being pincered from both sides --which is ultimately counterproductive.

<comment><USER3> _1\. Getting women in the pipeline from an early age. Whether it 's cultural, or women in developed Western economies don't need an escape hatch like in places they face few options --as a country, if we are to progress, we have to find a way to improve the pipeline. Increase the pool of women candidates, and you will not have to work hard at finding good candidates._

I've been in relationships with 2 women who could code, but who absolutely didn't want to do that as a job. (They formed these ideas well before they met me.) I also taught 100 level Computer Science courses at University, and encountered many young women with similar attitudes. There is something going on in our culture which makes women not want to code as a job.

Liana K covered some of this in an even handed way, even as the fury was still running hot: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRvtA2JIIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRvtA2JIIA)

 _Google should have not touched the live wire that is a public policy for PR brownie points._

I suspect that they were invaded by large numbers of employees with an agenda who have what they feel is a moral mandate, who won't take no for an answer, who furthermore feel they are justified in toxic and intellectually stifling behaviors by their moral mandate. People are taught in college and socialized in online groups that it is their moral duty to pursue this agenda and take such actions. Given the scope of the reactions I saw come out of Google during the Damore furor, I think it's basically too late for them. I'd hope to be wrong, but I see little hope.

I don't think Google is wrong for trying to recruit more women. Their problems have to do with how their efforts have manifested in their internal culture in a way which stifles free inquiry and dissent. If it hasn't already happened it's only a matter of time before they succumb to stagnation and only run off of their market position and network effects. Also, as we have seen with other media companies, at some point in their decline, the decline will motivate behaviors which are harmful to society at large. I suspect this process has already begun.

<comment><USER4> _I 've been in relationships with 2 women who could code, but who absolutely didn't want to do that as a job. (They formed these ideas well before they met me.) I also taught 100 level Computer Science courses at University, and encountered many young women with similar attitudes. There is something going on in our culture which makes women not want to code as a job._

How do you know that what they want is a consequence of our culture? Did they say so?

For example, if they don't want to because it's just not enjoyable or interesting enough, then I think that's okay (provided it's being presented properly). It is okay if a person is not interested in a type of work. It doesn't necessarily imply anything wrong with either.

<comment><USER3> _How do you know that what they want is a consequence of our culture? Did they say so?_

Liana K makes the case for this side of the issue very well. The 30k foot version: Note that programmer used to be a preferred occupation for women.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRvtA2JIIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIRvtA2JIIA)

As someone who thinks that James Damore was unjustly fired and that many people and news media imputed things on him which he did not mean or in fact say -- Let me say that there is something toxic and immoral in the Bay Area tech community. There is something like that in any large enough group of people. If someone is a small enough minority, they can become a target for the very small number of sociopaths. Power does corrupt. There is an element of truth behind both sides of this issue. If it weren't so, it would not be as difficult as it is.

 _It is okay if a person is not interested in a type of work. It doesn 't necessarily imply anything wrong with either._

I agree that is okay. However, I think it's highly likely that not all of the ire I've seen around this issue is an ideological fiction.

<comment><USER2> Here's my take:

We need to encourage both boys and girls at an early age [i.e. we should not discourage either boys or girls]. As these boys and girls grow up into men and women in the workforce, having been side-by-side all through school, I think both, by then men and women, will both find they have a place in the tech workforce.

In the US (and other places) we have people who pursue fame (in acting, singing, etc.) when we know and they know their chances are slim. But we as a society value "celebrity". We celebrate liberal arts. We don't so much celebrate hard sciences. That's part of the problem. We don't need so many cashiers and delivery boys and girls with liberal arts degrees doing nothing in their careers.

We could have many of those people who study liberal arts go into more meaty things --there are better prospects for STEM than for liberal arts graduates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder at what point the work is more important? These discussions upto a certain point are helpful when does it start to hurt the competitiveness of company.

</comment><comment><USER6> May sound odd but I have found working with a bunch of other white folks to be like high school especially in the 20 to 40 age range. While as a white guy working with just about all Indians to the best working environment. Though it is socially lacking due to culture differences there isnt a bunch of insecure back stabbing types .... just ppl that work well together and without judgement.

Also I work in the government sector redesigning and developing govt sites and apps. It's not Google and Facebook but it is Medicare and other names yet ppl aren't banging at their door begging to work there .. so there's also that lack of competition and competition/insecurities brings out the worst in many.

<comment><USER7> You must have been lucky enough to be working with Indians who were all from the same caste. I've worked as an intermediary to different teams comprised of competing castes because they refused to work with each other.

<comment><USER6> My experiences and jobs have all dealt with working in small teams; 4 to 8 people from project mangers, designers and developers.

<comment><USER7> It's easy to get lucky with small numbers. I was a researcher and I worked alongside teams of hundreds of people, mostly Indians. I was a mentor to a bright young hard working "untouchable" who showed lots of promise. He informed me about the caste system and who was in what caste. Sadly once I left the company the other teams who would work with me ended up shunning him and driving him out of the company. I got him a job at Facebook and he's happy there so at least that worked out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's also the same company that pushes out a "do no evil" narrative while throwing their AI on top of predator drones so middle grounds are a bit tough for them.</comment>


Why would anyone choose Docker over fat binaries? - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/why-would-anyone-choose-docker-over-fat-binaries <comment><USER3> Just a sidenote, a part of this article reminded me of the RFC2110 - <USER2> naming of hosts, an old april fools RFC.

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2100](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2100)

</comment><comment><USER4> I wondered this myself 2 years ago and went with fat binaries (uber jars, actually.) Unfortunately fat binaries aren't an option for many languages...</comment>


Tumblr Falls Into a Really Big Pile of Money - <AUTHOR> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20101119/tumblr-falls-into-a-really-big-pile-of-money/?mod=ATD_rss

<comment><USER2> Excellent. Maybe they'll be able to hire someone to get rid of all that inline Javascript.</comment>


Twenty Thirteen - <AUTHOR> http://raganwald.com/2013/02/20/twenty-thirteen.html <comment><USER2> You mentioned outsourcing your comments to HN (by way of submitting your own post and then linking to the discussion HN thread). Is this considered kosher as long as the topic is relevant to the HN community? And does it just so happen that bloggers who do this only write posts that are HN-worthy?

This may work simply because it is self-policing, since self-submiting on a topic in a gray area would risk hell-banning. I am curious if you ever choose not to exercise the outsourcing for a post that wouldn't be of interest.

Related discussions as to why people prefer HN as their commenting system here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5247226>

<comment><USER3> I _think_ what raganwald was saying is that the blog itself will be comment- free. If topics from it end up (legitimately) posted on HN, reddit, et al., with commenting occurring there, fine.

I did not take the description to mean that every post would have a link to "comment on HN" connected to a pre-spun-up HN post. (And, with HN's relatively recent changes to headers to disallow framing [1] in compliant browsers, there won't be any framed HN threads.)

I think that for the latter to occur (as opposed to not -- the current situation), would very likely go against the management wishes and objectives of HN. For several reasons: Relevance (or not); the ban on excessive self- promotion; the implications for HN should this become at all widespread.

TL;DR: HN is not Discus, and per my reading of OP, raganwald is not treating it like Discus, so all's fine.

\--

[1] Last I checked, HN is now setting X-Frame-Options to "deny". Or, they have been, and I noticed more recently when it started borking a client-side extension I was using.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/HTTP/X-Frame- Option...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/HTTP/X-Frame-Options)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't submit all of my posts. If I think a post is appropriate for HN, I usually wait a few hours and see if someone else submits it first.

Only then do I add a link back to HN, not a frame of some kind.

If my blog was a magazine, I wouldn't want to drag people into my home office to read it and discuss it, I want them to take the magazine to their book club and read it and discuss it there.

And it isn't always HN. I've noticed very little interest in discussing my JavaScript posts here, so now I link to the <http://reddit.com/r/javascript> discussions, where there have been more comments.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the explanation. I didn't understand how and in what circumstances the posts were linked. It makes sense to bring the discussion to the communities of interest for a variety of reasons, especially if your topics are varied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You mentioned using footnotes. I agree that it's a great way to contain side points, digressions and references. I have a design/readability question though: how do you feel about using _side_ notes instead of _foot_ notes though? Like e.g. how Bret Victor uses them [0]?

[0] - <http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/#p72>

<comment><USER5> +1, or better yet, an on-hover for the footnote anchor which shows the actual footnote. Either way, I hate scrolling back and forth for context.

<comment><USER6> The hover based feedback was great for its time, but now, it breaks on newer touch based interfaces.

<comment><USER7> It would be nice if people didn't abandon things that benefit the mouse just because they don't work on touch. It's possible to support both a hover-based and a touch-based interaction paradigm for footnotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can you remove position:fixed from the header css, it makes more sense when that theme is used as a doc but for a blog it is unnecessary.

<comment><USER7> Seconded. You mention distraction-free writing in your blog post; position:fixed headers make for the opposite of distraction-free reading.

Edit: also, the return link from a footnote hides the footnote behind the header. I'll point out, though, that overall the theme looks very good and I like the idea. I'll probably do something similar in my own migration away from Posterous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Jekyll or any markdown enabled DRCS is the cat's ass. It's beautifully simple and a shift towards social collaboration for content and not just code.

</comment><comment><USER10> > I drop a CNAME file into the repo. For <http://raganwald.com>, the file > contains the text raganwald.com. Once you push that, Github starts resolving > hits to raganwald.com to whatever you are publishing

What prevents me from putting a CNAME file with that in my own repo, out of curiosity?

</comment><comment><USER11> @raganwald: I've used just about the same setup to power my own writing blog (<http://slicedupfor.me>) and other sites for several months now, but I have it all under one Github account. Am I missing some benefits from a multi- account setup? Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's something I'm doing that Github doesn't like. For example, I just removed the CNAME from oscin-es/oscin-es.github.com and added it to one of my repos called oscin.es.

But all I'm getting at <http://oscin.es> is a 404.

I can see it works for you, not sure why it doesn't for me.

UPDATE: Now it's working! Ok, I need to update my blog post. Thanks!

<comment><USER11> Curious. You can contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com to exchange notes if you want to pursue the root cause further.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do you have an archive of your pre-homoiconic blog? There were some very good posts, and the Wayback machine doesn't have it.

<http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://raganwald.com/>

</comment><comment><USER13> Constructive criticism for those with reversed out type on their blogs like twenty thirteen. If you insist on a black background please use the color green as your font color rather than white. After 500 words or so white type on black becomes hard on the eyes.

<comment><USER14> Light grey or "wheat" (as defined by X11's rgb: 245 222 179) work well, too, and are more neutral than green. I have my terminals and Emacs wheat-on-black and I love it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great article, I am close to doing something similar myself, except with Hakyll and a Linode node instead of Github Pages. Pandoc (what Hakyll uses on the backend) gives the Markdown input a bit more flexibility than normal, I think.

</comment><comment><USER16> People ditching RSS is sad. I want a web where people can write cool software that consumes and transforms and enriches other content on the web. I want more sites to make more data accessible via stable public APIs, not less.

<comment><USER17> I used to implement RSS (or better, Atom) to any blog engine I wrote. Not on my last one.

I feel like the web has moved away from feed consuming and more towards consuming content curated through social networking (think Twitter or HN).

Still I _do_ believe some sort of API is in order, so I now mostly implement dynamic JSON output. It's not standard, but at least I don't have to deal with XML.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18>
        it's a win for everyone if the comments praising my writing are alongside
        those pointing out where it could me, um, "even better."

That should be "where it could be*" :)</comment>


Fibonacci(50) Performance: Java  C  C++  D  Go  Terra (Lua)  Lua-JIT (Lua) - <AUTHOR> http://joshitech.blogspot.com/2014/10/fibonacci50-performance-java-c-c-d-go.html

<comment><USER2> Back in the day, when we didn't know any better...

[https://web.archive.org/web/20080729072224/http://shootout.a...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080729072224/http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=recursive&lang=all)

</comment><comment><USER3> You should try to implement the Fib with tail call and then test it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail_call](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail_call)

<comment><USER4> First he should implement it properly, remembering last two values at any time. His way is just plain outrageous.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here the comparison is not about the algorithm, but language with similar recursion logic.

<comment><USER4> Then he should have used appropriate function to calculate, Ackermann for instance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if the author validated the results returned by Java for Fibonacci 50. Performance can increase significantly when correctness is not an issue. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, if you look at the [https://github.com/rohitjoshi/lang- compare/blob/master/fibon...](https://github.com/rohitjoshi/lang- compare/blob/master/fibonacci/results_fib_50.txt), it print fibonacci (50) = 12586269025

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know why Java would be faster here? Is there any kind of optimization happening under the hood? (Automatic memoization?)

<comment><AUTHOR> See the updated blog again. It seems issue is with Clang/LLVM on MacOSX. I reran the test on Linux with Gnu g++ and it outperforms Java.</comment></comment>


Show HN: The Whois DB - <AUTHOR> https://thewhoisdb.com/ <comment><USER2> super lovely but without a search option is pure pain</comment>


Encryption of messages on the fly in a single step in any program – Crymer - <AUTHOR> http://crymer.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> We just launched a program to encrypt messages. I would be grateful for any feedback. Now the program is in beta and is available for Windows. Continue its development?

</comment><comment><USER2> Do you have information on what algorithms are being used for encryption?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, we use Rijndael (AES) with 256 key for message body and RSA with 2048 key for session key.

<comment><USER3> Astroturfed comments and accounts created to upvote your story are two of our least favorite things on HN.

This looks like good work. Please don't ruin your chances of sharing it with the community by using tactics like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, but all the votes and comments given by users ycombinator or my friends. I gave a link to an entry in Facebook and colleagues if it is prohibited by the rules, sorry. [https://www.facebook.com/groups/StartupHub/permalink/7307943...](https://www.facebook.com/groups/StartupHub/permalink/730794370322847/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Questions to ask before taking on a startup job offer - <AUTHOR>

Recently, I have got multiple job offers. I am just curious to find out what questions do you guys ask in picking a job. And any criteria that you have other than salaries.
Some of the questions I ask are: 1. How do you make money? 2. How much stock can I get? 3. Any paid vacations? 4. What are the performance criteria? 5. Is working remote an option? 6. Is the office dog friendly? (Since I have a small dog) 7. Can I continue to work on my personal projects (websites)?
The criteria that I take into account are: 1. Team (chemistry with the team, expertise of the team, direct access to mentors)
2. Culture (is it a fun place to work) 3. Technology (I only want to work on Rails projects and would like to learn about iPhone dev) 4. Growth (I want to work on companies that will benefit me in the long run as an entrepreneur. Specifically in the area of marketing, fund raising, pitching ideas etc. Also what can I expect to become down the road.)
Anything to add? Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> I think the questions you've outlined are usually what anyone should be worried about, except maybe the dog friendly one :-)

Also, it would be good if you can do some research in the the main business model for the company. How familiar are they with their target market, what is their target market? and stuff like that. I've found quite a lot of startups are clueless about that. Finding a year down the line that the equity(over cash) is worthless... is certainly not a good feeling. I've been there personally so i know.

If you're taking equity, get something written on the equity agreement and this is a MUST!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great insights! Thanks a lot!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If no new revenue streams where developed and no new customers bought, how long will it be until your operating capital runs out.

second, how man rounds of funding are planned? Are those rounds delusional (this is only important if your are receiving equity)?

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you funded?

What is the track record of the management? (1st startup?)

How much runway do you have?

Talk to others that are employed there.</comment>


World's First Kitchen-Free, Robot-Run Fast-Food Restaurant - <AUTHOR> http://foodbeast.com/content/2012/11/16/heres-a-look-at-the-worlds-first-smart-restaurant-chain-kitchen-free-and-run-by-robots-2/ <comment><USER2> When I was a teenager the most popular part time jobs among my piers were either working in a supermarket or at a fast food place.

Lots of supermarkets are starting to replace humans with self-checkouts and things like this will probably become standard in fast food.

So how is a teenager supposed to fund his pot habit in 2020?

<comment><USER3> In 2020, they will probably be able to grab some weed from the family pantry.

On a different note, I am curious to see how economy and society will shape up once most low entry barrier jobs are automated.

<comment><USER4> It's a triumph that we're automating these kind of jobs. Why are we wasting human talent on inane jobs like store checkout or junk food production? Every person in one of those jobs is a wasted mind. If we could put those minds to work on something meaningful think what we could achieve.

<comment><USER5> There's a psychological and human aspect that some deem as positive that you are overlooking. While some shun away from the human experience, it's refreshing to head to an In-N-out burger and have well-paid smiling faces take your order and serve you delicious food.

Sure you could automate that kid, but while trying not to be sappy, that's another face you get to see during the day amidst a traditional day filled with computers, iPads, and now according to this -- machines making our food.

<comment><USER4> I don't agree with this argument.

When I want to socialise with people, I'll go to a bar, my friend's house, a coffee shop, etc. If I want a burger, I want to get issued with that burger ASAP, without having to deal with someone who you may consider to be a nice person, but I may consider to be a douche-bag.

If that well-paid smiling person didn't have to work at the burger place, she might have something more interesting to talk about when we meet in a proper social environment.

<comment><USER2> I find that having a face to face interaction with another human being at least once a day makes you feel more human.

Sometimes I can go a few days to a week where me and my friends are all busy doing things, I buy all my stuff from the self checkout or via amazon and don't really interact with anyone.

Then when on friday night I go out to a busy party it feels like a shock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not exactly kitchen-free, is it? You've got to have food storage areas, produce washing stations, produce prep stations, garbage disposal, and even if the actual grinding, cooking, and sandwich assembly functions are all contained within the robot, you're still going to want to house that somewhere out of reach of the general public, making that area a de facto kitchen.

I wouldn't worry too much about jobs--you're still going to need people to wash, inspect, prep and load the produce, as well as the meat grinders and bun burners. And there better be someone in there to disassemble the robot periodically to give it a good thorough cleaning and reassemble it.

<comment><USER7> I agree, poor choice of title... That being said, a throughput of 1 burger every 10 seconds is pretty impressive given the final product. By fast food standards, maybe not so quick, but look at the ingredients they're using - I'd argue they're actually _real_!

Also, I love the conclusion in the article - "After all, how 'gourmet' can you get when your cuisinier is made of cold steel and plastic?" I don't know what the author uses to prepare her food, but I guess gourmet somehow means I should prepare my food with wood utensils over an open fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Highly suggested essay regarding food automation in the future: <http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm>

<comment><USER9> Also by Marshall Brain, a somewhat-related thought-provoking short story about a theoretical future where robots displace the minimum wage workforce: <http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting, you don't think of Krispy Kreme as making robot donuts.

Curious that Macdonald's, with so much careful specification of all processes, hasn't done this, at all. e.g. fry/remove/salt fries. (though their standard coffee is mostly automated). Macdonald's is so well-placed, I can only assume it isn't actually cost-effective for them. Maybe it's worth it for Momentum, for the PR? Or, by starting from scratch, they can make radical changes? Or, it isn't happening? (it's just a "concept" so far).

Finally, Larry Niven wrote a short story about automated restaurants "Intent to Deceive" (1968).

<comment><USER11> Macdonald's recently introduced touch screens as cashiers in europe. They didn't do it in the u.s. .My guess is thy didn't want the bad PR. Maybe similar motivations exist for lack of robots.

But maybe the simplest explanation is that big businesses are not very much optimized for innovation, so it took a startup.

<comment><USER12> Holy wow that is chauvinistic. McDonalds is an incredible innovator in efficient production of comestibles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It sounds like they are a long way from actually operating a restaurant. This is just speculative hype.

"Momentum Machines – the minds behind the burger maker — have expressed plans to create their own "smart restaurant" chain, serving burgers made by their own crime-fighting cooking robots. According to the company's site, the technology will provide "the means for the next generation of restaurant design and operation.""

</comment><comment><USER14> James Bolivar DiGriz will come along and make the first order for a porcuswine burger I'm sure.

</comment><comment><USER15> ObRef: Automated fresh pizza vending machine: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_lxiU8eLM>

</comment><comment><USER16> Interesting article, though the author's picture is definitely swearing at me.

</comment><comment><USER17> Robots in a restaurant benefit only the owner, not the customer (esp. when they burn the burgers like in the pictures). When robots are able to cook proper meals, they'll be in our homes to do so, because we'll want to save time and money and not walk to the next fast-food restaurant.

<comment><USER18> When it comes to computers, first they come big and bulky. They're not user- friendly. They're industrial.

Yes, you'll have robots cook you a meal at home eventually. This is just the first step. I don't want that massive thing in my kitchen. When it's tiny, portable, and user friendly ... then it's fine.

> Robots in a restaurant benefit only the owner, not the customer (esp. when > they burn the burgers like in the pictures).

I've had plenty of humans make me a shitty burger. The good thing about machines is that once you tune them, they'll make the same exact burger, every single time. That's a huge benefit to consumers. Now I won't have to eat someone's bad day!

<comment><USER17> > The good thing about machines is that once you tune them, they'll make the > same exact burger, every single time. That's a huge benefit to consumers. > Now I won't have to eat someone's bad day!

OTOH, the robots will ignore your complaints and never try to be friendly for a higher tip ...

<comment><USER18> > OTOH, the robots will ignore your complaints and never try to be friendly > for a higher tip ...

No worries, my credit card company listens to complaints. And you know, those are the best kind of complaints, because they get your money back.

In the end, robots will be extremely friendly ... because they have no sense of "fairness" or self-interest ... only a programmed instruction to make the customer happy or if things really get out of hand, to call the cops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow it's McSwiney's from the Stainless Steel Rat books.

</comment><comment><USER20> HOLY Old Georgie, it's PAPA SONG'S.</comment>


Tom Mitchell: Never Ending Language Learning (2012) - bra-ket https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51q2IajH94A

<comment> bra-ket I've seen this talk in person last week and there are some new developments, in particular the coming up paper by EA Platanios and Mitchell 2014 where they describe a new way to reconcile consistency with correctness, i.e. how do you resolve conflicts between internally consistent but factually incorrect beliefs, and train the machine to learn from its mistakes (currently they just delete incorrect beliefs unlike human learners who incorporate their history of "fails" into making new decisions). Besides other things, they work on introducing time scale into learning and integrating NEIL (Never ending image learner).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is the project page: [http://rtw.ml.cmu.edu/rtw/](http://rtw.ml.cmu.edu/rtw/)

If you scroll to the bottom you can see the "facts" this program has most recently learned along with its confidence in them. To me these facts don't look very impressive, since many are wrong or at least show a very stretched approximation of the truth. (Edit: actually I refreshed the list and the content got a lot better, so I might have just hit on a particularly bad set of data)</comment>


Orkney Islands – "Egypt of the North" - <AUTHOR> http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/neolithic-orkney/smith-text <comment><USER2> Unfortunately this article is behind a paywall, for NG subscribers only :(</comment>


Safari's text-shadow Anti-aliasing CSS hack (applies to Chrome as well) - <AUTHOR> http://www.komodomedia.com/blog/2009/03/safari-text-shadow-anti-aliasing-css-hack/

<comment><USER2> I noticed this a while back when I mocking up a few designs in Chrome. It's a pretty neat trick that I make use of on occasion when things look rougher than I'd like.

Be sure to test in multiple browsers, though, as I actually ran into a situation once where it looked great in webkit based browsers but looked oddly blurry despite my settings in Firefox. That may have improved with recent updates.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's a convenient way to test it out: <http://www.elfboy.com/text-shadow/></comment>


Continuation Passing Style in JS - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/articles/by-example-continuation-passing-style/ <comment><USER2> Good article! I find CPS rather refreshing to work with in JS; so much so, that I prefer using it for asynchronous code over promises or async/await. It turns out 'callback hell' isn't so hellish with a few simple conventions, and I feel that functional-style asynchronous code is much easier to get right than imperative-style asynchronous code.

Shameless plug: ([https://github.com/somesocks/uchain](https://github.com/somesocks/uchain))</comment>


Generating Poems with GPT-2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.gwern.net/GPT-2 <comment><USER2> Nice work! I was wondering if you noticed changes in the output coherence during training?

I fine-tuned it on the corpus of The Office quotes [1] and I noticed that a loss of around 0.9 gives me the most 'humorous' outputs. This may be subjective but I think for comedy the surprise plays a huge role and for longer training (and loss around 0.4) it feels overly unsurprising and therefore less funny. I also tried sampling with temperatures >1 but then it just goes crazy (e.g. some outputs are completely in Latin).

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/bmn0og/p_l...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/bmn0og/p_language_model_gpt2_finetuned_on_the_office/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I get a lot of Latin and Spanish in mine but I think that's because they actually are represented in the poetry corpus. Not too surprising that the regular GPT-2s are also exposed to a lot of foreign language, as Reddit is not a strictly anglophone website, and that it'll remember despite some finetuning (there are so many parameters in it, after all).

I do look at the training samples but I've never noticed a worsening of 'coherence' in the samples, so to speak. I wonder if that what overfitting looks like? My PG corpus is so large that the GPT-2s struggle to converge, much less overfit, so I don't know what overfitting would look like. You could try using the new pseudo-validation loss checking feature nshepperd added to see if there's any connection between the validation loss and your perception of coherence.</comment></comment>


Dissection Font - <AUTHOR> http://erikdemaine.org/fonts/dissect/ <comment><USER2> It's nice that you can link to whatever words you like, for example [http://erikdemaine.org/fonts/dissect/?text=hello+word&letter...](http://erikdemaine.org/fonts/dissect/?text=hello+word&letter=1&2piece=1)</comment>


200 Pounds of Cocaine and an Aristocrat Sugar Trader's Nightmare - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-30/into-africa-cocaine-commodities-and-a-blue-blooded-trader <comment><USER2> > "The Spanish stressed this was a rip-off load and the recipient of the > container would have no knowledge it was being used to transport drugs," DEA > spokesman Melvin Patterson said this week, reiterating a previous statement > from the agency.

Am I missing something? So criminals use innocent traders containers without them knowing and this trader was then charged with attempting to smuggle the cocaine?

<comment><USER3> The prosecutor is probably pressing charges for political reasons.

<comment><USER4> To the average smuggler, it's a write off. To a dealer, at most an inconvenience. The end user is unaffected.

The only real value of a seizure like this is the political one IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get da women...</comment>


Bootstrapped Side Projects - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/hnshah/status/1167953814260862976 <comment><USER2> If you want more examples in detail, check out [https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/)</comment>


Why companies make their products worse - <AUTHOR> https://www.1843magazine.com/ideas/the-daily/why-companies-make-their-products-worse <comment><USER3> I don't agree with the idea that giving companies better and better tools to achieve price discrimination is the win-win that the final quote seems to make it out to be. Yes, I can see how it could allow a company to offer goods to people who otherwise would not be able to access their services, but this comes at the cost of potentially complicated usage restrictions, making it easier for incumbents to squash new competitors, and pushing for more and more of a legal framework to support this kind of business model at the expense of the end user. I can think of examples where the products are barely (if at all) worse and see how heavily it swings things in favour of the powerful incumbent:

Trademark restrictions to prevent importing what could be effectively the same textbook or wrist watch.

DVD region locking where you can sell practically an identical product but charge vastly different rates in different areas, and it's illegal to work around.

License agreements on software not to restrict specific functionality, but rather the usage scenarios.

The example in the article of the slower LaserPrinter example morphs from being a physical restriction to modern printer cartridges that block ink refills via DRM.

Comcast's battle with Google Fibre where the price will heavily drop in just the areas where Google Fibre operates. Makes it much harder for Google Fibre to make any gains, but the vast majority of Comcast customers see no decrease in their bills.

Even the recent EpiPen drama, where they want to be able to milk as much as possible out of the pockets of insurance companies, but end users don't want to play the real price, so they introduce the co-pay discount to try and offset that cost. It makes the "rich" organisation pay, but reduces the amount paid by an individual.

<comment><USER4> Pricing products differently in different countries is all about charging whatever people will pay for something, in order to maximize profit.

Australia's minimum wage is ~$16/hr, so Adobe products, Apple, even online downloads cost a lot more than the US, because people in Australia have more money to spend.

When the citizens of a country have a lot of spending money, international companies charge them more than in countries where the citizens don't have a lot of money.

Viewed this way, it's really interesting to note that "stuff" (cars, laptops, phones, beer, smokes) is cheaper in America than any other developed country in the world. This is an interesting way to come to the conclusion that the average American citizen has less spending money than the average developed country citizen

<comment><USER5> I can tell you never lived in a poor country.

Often times it's the reverse: international goods are same or significantly higher than USA or first world prices: the west embraced free trade but the rest of the world not so much....

A few things like McDonalds will be lower by 30% but many chain stores will go the opposite direction: luxury pricing premium...reasons vary from local tariff(especially for cars or electronics) or just brand snobbery(Nike is expensive in china for example) or protective laws(Korean electronics and cars are more expensive in Korea than USA, tariffs keep out cheaper foreign competitors).

Often times, poor countries have crazy bad wealth distribution ratios so overcharging to enhance prestige is fairly normal. Going low on price is a bad strategy since 90% of the population can't even afford your goods but the top 5-10% can spend like kings.

Australia getting screwed on pricing is likely due to some goofball middle man system or taxing/tarriff scheme combined with island isolation surcharge(hawaii suffers this too).

I wouldn't be surprised if their is some foreign software tax.

<comment><USER4> > _I can tell you never lived in a poor country._

On the contrary, I spent 2 years in Central and South America (almost lived in Argentina) and I'm now making my way down the West Coast of Africa.

That aside, I wasn't really talking about "poor" countries, I was talking about the pricing of stuff like cars, TVs, laptops among developed countries.

People from Europe/Australia are continually staggered when I tell them how little I paid for a 4x4, or an Apple Laptop in the USA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Today Eurostar offers a ticket that uses Dupuit's logic. It offers ultra- > cheap tickets that do not specify the time of travel (this is revealed two > days before the trip takes place). Adding uncertainty to a traveller's > itinerary is a reduction in quality. But it is useful because it forces > business travellers – who must be in London or Paris at a specific time – > away from this bargain option.

This doesn't seem like quite the same thing. Eurostar makes a real saving on their "manufacturing" here - they can give the customer a seat on whichever train has space, rather than having to allocate them a seat ahead of time and maybe fill up a train and drive potential customers to fly instead.

<comment><USER7> It does both at the same time. It allows them to service less time sensitive customers or extremely price sensitive customers without losing revenues as they would if the cheaper ticket didn't have the large downside of travel time uncertainty. So it's the same thing with an added bonus of decreasing the potential need to run more trains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The hypothesis that you would have excess supply is not very well thought out.

Take the train example that he mentioned. He is effectively suggesting that higher margin 2nd class tickets subsidize 3rd class tickets. Companies may be afraid to improve 3rd class, thinking it would eat into their 2nd class and lower profits. But they would very likely just sell more tickets, as their 3rd class was now the best in the business. And provided there were an actual differentiated service in 2nd class, those tickets would still sell. And if the was no difference, they could eliminate 3rd class altogether and sell second class only for greater volume and slightly lower price (or make 2nd class improvements).

Cannibalization is no problemo for business. Some folks at Apple were afraid the iphone would cannibalize ipod sales. Imagine if they actually went with that thinking and sold iphones that didn't play music. And iPods still sell to this day.

Unless the sector has high barrier to entry (e.g. Intel), such practices are very often short sighted. You don't see IBM selling printers anymore.

<comment><USER9> > But they would very likely just sell more tickets, as their 3rd class was > now the best in the business.

IMO, you're simply begging the question by presuming that 2nd class won't be cannibalized.

We're also forgetting that one can't simply increase ticket supply, because trains and airlines are capital constrained once you run out of seats. At best, you can hope to charge _more_ for 3rd-class tickets, at the expense of having cheaper, or empty, or fewer 2nd-class seats.

Even if a company manages to raise price of 3rd-class tickets, they face both a 1) lower effective subsidy from 2nd class and 2) the cost of providing 3rd- class amenities. Which effect dominates very well depends on the relative preferences of 2nd and 3rd-class buyers.

The sweet spot is to find an inconvenience that _only affects 3rd-class ticket-holders a little bit, but annoys 2nd-class ticket-holders a lot_.

The Eurostar is a good example of that -- most people aren't inconvenienced too much by being told their flight time 2 days in advance (so depresses economy ticket prices only slightly), but deep-pocketed business travelers find it completely unacceptable (which shifts effective demand to the business seats).

<comment><USER10> If the trains run out of seats in 3rd class, this helps prevent 2nd class from being cannibalized - customers who want a guaranteed seat or less overcrowding then have to buy a 2nd class ticket.

<comment><USER9> That shouldn't happen -- your excess 3rd-class customers would go with your competitor instead of buying expensive 2nd-class tickets.

Best choice is to raise the price of 3rd-class seats, which brings us back to whether the increased ticket revenue there offsets cannibalization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author describes how companies cripple their own product to extract "maximum profit from each punter," but does not say why this is good for the customers. Presumably, most of the profits are funnelled to shareholders.

> The key test is whether the practice means more goods are sold. Suppose the > French had regulated trains so that all carriages had roofs. All those in > second class might have switched to third class, potentially rendering both > uneconomical to provide.

Could not there be a third option where the quality is not crippled so much but priced such that there is an increase in both supply and demand for a reasonable ride? In the current scenario, business chugs along, with lower- tier customers settling for an inferior product and upper-tier customers extorted to the maximum extent.

<comment><USER12> You're right—the author doesn't really address this. If a business is unable to price discriminate by adding or removing features, they will end up having to pick either (1) high price or (2) low price. [Stylized example, of course]

If they pick High Price, then they will include lots of features, but only people with a high willingness to pay and high ability to pay will end up purchasing the product. This means that people who would have been willing to purchase the low-end version of the product do not have that option and will instead purchase no product.

If the company picks Low Price, they will not include as many features because (in many cases) there is not sufficient profit incentive. This means that even customers who would have been willing to pay for these features cannot purchase them.

Ultimately, the assumption is that if customers are interested in making a purchase of a "crippled" or "feature-enhanced" product, and the company is willing to make that exchange, then the exchange makes both parties better off. This is what economists call "gains from trade."

Does this mean that everyone customer is better off with price discrimination under every circumstance, or that one cannot imagine a way in which a company could operate altruistically in order to make some customers better off? No. But generally they won't, and this is typically tied to the company's duty to their shareholders. (This is why B-Corps are nice—they give more flexibility in this regard.)

<comment><USER13> Minor nitpick: if a company is not able to add our remove features, the product would be exactly the same no matter wether they go for volume or for price per unit. What you describe is the scenario where the company would be unable to have more than one price tier, while retaining the ability to add our remove from the set of features.

Edit: communism might be such a scenario, because multiple price tiers might be seen as ideologically incompatible, but even that would be a misconception as it misses variability personal preference: one might be willing to make compromises in other areas to have a bigger TV screen, while their neighbor might be more than happy to sacrifice screen size for a more sophisticated bicycle.

<comment><USER12> This would be true where the product is already built. The point I was trying to make is that if we lived in a world where "crippled" / "premium" products were not allowed, companies would face the High Price / Low Price choice in advance and would have to choose an option and make development / feature choices accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is an extremely shallow analysis.

Price discrimination has always been fundamental aspect of business and economics: companies often offer different "values" different price points.

BUT, software businesses have another aspect many physical product & service companies do not: the ongoing cost of maintenance and support for legacy applications, and the (typically) increasing cost to add new features.

Consider the opening example: Microsoft Outlook. It's highly likely that Microsoft was motivated by _cost_ issues, and was _not_ executing a deliberate de-feature move.

<comment><USER15> They still have to maintain Outlook whether or not it's in the lower cost option. You could argue that they might save a tiny bit in support, but I'd be surprised if it was a relevant amount.

<comment><USER14> I'm sure they are very interested in moving users to a newer platform. Legacy support is "all cost" \-- you're typically not getting any revenue.

Look how motivated Microsoft was to drop XP support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In the case of physical products, the answer is pretty obvious - products that last = fewer sales. So companies try to find the balance between lifetime and turnaround time to typical replacement/repurchase.

I refused to do that when I did induction and LED lighting. My products are still in use by the people that bought them. I don't expect them to need a replacement for 20 years. Maybe by then I'll be back in the lighting business.

<comment><USER17> In regards to induction hobs, it seems most, if not all of them, have glass tops. Why aren't they made of something more sturdy like ceramic or stone?

<comment><USER18> There might be a good reason why they use glass ceramics instead of for example stone. Maybe because it's harder to manufacture consistently (ferromagnetic impurities?), has a larger coefficient of expansion or because it's harder to implement touch controls for them. It might just be more expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The examples could have been better.

486dx/sx anyone? Here the maths coprocessor was not wired up in the budget version. Yield had as much to do this as marketing.

Lame Teslas. If you want auto drive and to use all those battery cells then pay extra. The mass production can be extra efficient plus upsells are possible as the customer can pay for the upgrade later.

1000 hour light bulb. The cartel of lightbulbs required bulbs to last a lot less. Worse product, more repeat sales, rigged market.

The smaller chocolate bar. To hit a price point, e.g. a dollar/pound/euro the product can be made worse or smaller.

The cheap board game. Times have changed, people play a board game once and it goes in the bin. Before TV the product would have been played year round and passed on to the next generation. There is no need to build a product to that standard any more.

Patents expire too, this means products get worse.

Changing laws. Imagine that you can no longer use bright food colours, the product gets worse.

This article didn't address anything I didn't know of and made no mention of what is obvious.

<comment><USER20> Light bulbs aren't such a clear example. Incandescent filaments are much more efficient at higher temperature but burn out quicker. In the general case, savings from reduced electricity cost more than offset the increased replacemet rate for bulbs in accessible fixtures.

<comment><USER21> > Light bulbs aren't such a clear example. Incandescent filaments are much > more efficient at higher temperature but burn out quicker

That's a common misperception. Early filaments could last for decades. It took a lot of work to design a filament that burned out after a certain amount of time:

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

"The cartel was a convenient way to lower costs and worked to standardise the life expectancy of light bulbs at 1000 hours, while at the same time raising prices without fear of competition. Members' bulbs were regularly tested and fines were levied for bulbs that lasted more than 1000 hours."

<comment><USER22> What about after 1939?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I fear many economists have the mentality of child prodigies; brilliant, extremely clever and very unwise. On a planet (<\-- maybe note this) with limited surface-space and resources, and with growing populations with growing standards and demands, the paradigm of Planned Obsolescence(PO) is going to be exceedingly difficult to sustain. Aside from the physical limitations (see: Pacific Ocean plastic island, wars for resources, ocean acidification, climate change, etc., etc.) facing this paradigm of PO, the social costs generally go overlooked. Whether it is a reluctantly accepted 'necessary evil', or something merely conveniently ignored, there is something dishonest at the root of PO, which may have the collective effect of promoting a dishonest society. Perhaps some here can laud the virtues of the Phoebus Cartel[1], or any number of other such rackets - there are clear short-term benefits. But it seems terribly unlikely that a strong and trusting society will ever be more than ephemerally forged from this material. The PO paradigm also seems to lend itself generously to the Hegelian Dialectic while contributing ineffectuality to the masses, demarcating Consumers from Providers. I'd like to see economists explore the advantages of local economy more often.

It's a complex world that's unraveled, one where our popular methods of survival can be perfectly legal, unethical, hypocritical and irrational simultaneously, and the ensuing conflicts arising therefrom, conveniently viewed and treated as isolated. I think Adam Curtis's _The Century of the Self_ [2] offers a bit of insight on where things starting going silly, and some of the mechanisms involved.

While the article may not be directly supporting PO as a paradigm, it gets uncomfortably close. Planned Obsolescence is great fun and games for a while, but I think the final results are predictably grim. There are definitely great challenges in maintaining a thriving economy without enslaving ourselves to endless consumerism, but these challenges must be faced. PO isn't the way.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel) 2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self)

<comment><USER5> Planned Obsolence is also beneficial in some cases. Many products are significantly more energy efficient although they function the same(fridge and cars come to mind).

In the software realm, plenty of software that should have been replaced or constantly updated chugs along managing critical infrastructure. Old hardware compatible with such systems get rarer thus raising operating costs and difficulty in servicing.

THe Phoebus Cartel was some major bullshit hence laws against price fixing were passed. These days trade is global so smuggling products from other countries is easy...unlike in 1939 where you only had a few stores/vendors to choose from who sold lightbulbs.

The modern version is vendor lock-in(see microsoft, sony, and apple which love this): hopefully this philosophy dies in the long run.

<comment><USER23> _" hopefully this philosophy dies in the long run."_

I sure hope so. Although there are myriad more, here's another example of this philosophy in action:

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160920/07021035568/hp- la...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160920/07021035568/hp-launched- delayed-drm-time-bomb-to-disable-competing-printer-cartridges.shtml)

I'd rather work manual labor than be the guy who decided on that - <USER2> considered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If there is vendor competition, all tiers of service can be improved, while retaining market segmentation.

<comment><USER25> Unless there's a breaking point of "good enough" that can serve all segments.

Typically though, this "making the product worse" thing is used as part of the sales cycle of a patented product. There has to be some "proprietary" piece (whether a large up-front investment in infrastructure or a new technology) or else it's a commodity and this type of segmentation doesn't work.

<comment><USER13> "Premium fuel" is a perfect example of price segmentation in a commodities market. Granted, not many customers fall for it, but it seems to be enough to keep up the expensive ruse.

<comment><USER26> Not really. High compression engines need higher octane in order to achieve full performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There was recently Onnibus in Finland. They sold cramped two storey bus trips at very limited lanes. First ticked sold at 1e and price going up so that the last goes for 35e or something. Similar to cheap air travel schemes. You extract more accurate info as it's not just two price points but a curve of ticket-price/time.

So far the result has been all bus services lowering prices, train tickets going lower too and overall people traveling more. It was needed price cut as some people we're switching to air travel as plane ticket was cheaper than train.

</comment><comment><USER28> This article's premise hinges too much on the feasibility that 'good' and 'bad' can be defined objectively. Not good.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is this like multi-licensing[1] or freemium[2] models in open source software?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi- licensing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing)

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

</comment><comment><USER29> There is a result in microeconomics that if you ban price discrimination from a previously discriminating firm, there was a always an alternative policy (specifying a maximum profit margin the firm can achieve but placing no restrictions on price discriminations) that would have lead to strictly greater welfare gains.

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176597...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176597001900)

This is ignoring competitive and redistributive effects, but the competitive implications should be positive (higher profits encourage competition) and this tool is sufficiently blunt for it to be unlikely to be the optimal feasible redistributive mechanism.

<comment><USER10> It is, of course, rather difficult to cap the profit margin of a company in the real world, both for political reasons and due to the difficulty of actually defining profit.

<comment><USER29> You can just use the gross margin accounting definition, this isn't too difficult and firms should be roughly compliant. Also, firm profits should be higher than if you ban price-discrimination, so I don't see where the political resistance would come from?

There are issues with:

1) Estimating the demand system and so picking the optimal gross margin. However, banning price discrimination is also relatively blunt and leads to a somewhat arbitrary outcomes from a welfare perspective.

2) Effects on firm incentives to reduce costs. If a firm knows that it will be subject to maximum gross margin restrictions in the future, it will have a weaker incentive to innovate possibly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I fail to understand how it becomes economically viable to sabotage a product like this.

A third class is a form of subsidy, it will be sold at a loss.

I don't think having a train company decide for the date of your trip a choice. It's just that train management is expensive, so if you remove the date constraint, everything is simpler, because you can fill an entire train that will travel a certain week, instead of having to deal with the uncertainty of a train which is not entirely full.

Ouigo do that in France.

</comment><comment><USER31> "Product Managers". If you have ever had the pleasure of dealing with one you would know

</comment><comment><USER32> Bahumbug. Another lame attempt to justify greed at the expense of others. Not to mention the added resource use and pollution. The Profit motive isnt always right, correct or optimal.

</comment><comment><USER33> Airlines. I seriously believe that market has hit a low-cost saturation point. They are now actively making their most common product worse, more painful and difficult to use, in order to sell upgraded versions.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wish I could read an article on why Apple insists on, version by version, making their software worse. E.g. recently released Safari 10 inexplicably removes the Accessibility preference to "Never use font sizes smaller than ...".[1]

Unfortunately you won't find anything informative like that in this article. Instead you get examples such as why in 1849 French railways offered three classes of travel, and why the lowest tier was deliberately very bad. That doesn't really help explain current practices (unless Apple inexplicably wants to force me to use Firefox instead of Safari?).

[1] fortunately the internets have already discovered a command line workaround, but should that really have been necessary?

       defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2MinimumFontSize -int 18

</comment><comment><USER35> "Lying is good!" \- Economists

<comment><USER36> Advertising non-existent cheaper but lower-quality alternatives is a by- product of actually having those alternatives in an industry. When a hotel advertises budget hotel rooms in its front window, but tells walk-ins that they're sold out and only the more expensive larger ones are available, that hotel is cashing in on the tiered quality-price phenomenon with a bait-and- switch ploy. Such "lying" is merely a by-product, not the product itself.

And in fact such by-products needn't even be based on "lying", such as when a business "withdraws" its cheaper alternative by changing the rules of purchase, e.g. requiring the customer to buy a high-markup item at the same time.</comment></comment>


Simple trick Kevin Mitnick used to crack FBI crypto comms in the 90s - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/RFInfoSec/status/773102415130271748 <comment><USER2> I'm not so sure that qualifies as a "crack".</comment>


30 Austin tech CEOs headed to California in search of workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.statesman.com/business/30-austin-tech-ceos-headed-to-california-in-1809049.html <comment> joe-mccann First, Austin is NOTHING like Texas. It is a beacon of progressive hope in an otherwise bass-ackwards state. I moved to Austin from New York City by way of Portland, Oregon so believe me, when I say that there is no way I would live in TEXAS; Austin is anything but that.

Also, other reasons Austin may be attractive to potential candidates:

1.) No state income tax. This is huge. If you make $140k a year in SF, you take home significantly less than you do in Texas. Also, there is no "city tax" like SF has.

2.) Cost of living is HALF, that's right, HALF of SF. Beautiful homes or urban condos are available and priced well below what you would spend buying OR renting in SF.

1 + 2 = lots of $$ in your pocket.

Not to mention the fact that Austin is arguably the hippest city in the country from a growth perspective. With events like ACL and SXSW (plus the thousands of live music shows throughout the rest of the year), the creative arts scene is flourishing.

Finally, the weather. It was 86 degrees, no humidity on December 19th last year. And yes, it is HOT in the summer, but with all that extra cash, you can go live in Europe for a few months to beat the heat.

<comment><USER2> Do you get paid the same as in NYC?

I get recruited by companies in the midwest who tout that the cost of living is half of NYC. But, they also pay half as much as NYC, no relo package available. Whenever I do the math I still come out ahead in NYC.

The other downside I have found is that there are usually only one or two interesting companies and the rest is enterprise software.

<comment> joe-mccann My net income was significantly higher after leaving NYC. Let's put it that way =)

<comment> joe-mccann Are you asking me to share my specific income? That's not gonna happen. Let's do some hypotheticals.

$140k in NYC (this is a common salary/comp) $120k in Austin (this is a common salary/comp)

Nominal dollar amounts, yes, $20k is dollar for dollar, less. But now, factor in your taxes (NY State tax, Kings County, etc.) That $140k is now significantly less. Factor in cost of living being TWICE as much (literally, my rent per sq ft was more than twice what it was in Austin). You now are TAKING HOME less money.

So when I said net income, that's what I meant. If you're more concerned with a higher salary and less net income, then, well good luck to ya. I prefer to have more $$ in my pocket after it's all said and done.

<comment> joe-mccann You're welcome, but the reason I explained is the answer is yes AND no. Yes, because gross dollar amount is less but No because take home is much more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm going to have to agree with most others here. I live less than five hours from Austin, travel there for business occasionally and rarely get calls from companies in Austin interested in hiring me or if I know anyone they should hire.

On the flip side, I am rarely in the valley (a few times a year at best) and I get calls or emails almost weekly asking either if I am interested in a job or if I might know someone who is, most of these even offering sign on bonuses and bounties for hires.

Yet the CEO's of companies in Austin are trotting out to the valley to find the talent while everyday good programmers from surrounding states go to the valley because they don't see Austin as a viable alternative.

They have a top tier engineering program only hours away (Rice) which has basically become a funnel for Microsoft and Amazon in Seattle yet they want to focus their attention on the valley.

Go to schools like Georgia Tech, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, Illinois, UT. Alot of those kids are coming from the south or the midwest and they end up in the valley because they think that is the only place they can make it.

At the end of the day this really comes down to marketing, and when you spend your money marketing to developers that have already been sold on another city often you are too late, but if you hit them earlier like the valley has gotten so good at doing they are MUCH more likely to see Austin as a viable solution

<comment><USER4> I agree, but maybe they're just treating this a warm-up/practice visit, and chance to scout their main competition for the rest of the country. The visits to other non-tech hubs will be the real outreach.

A direct appeal to founders and investors to start more ventures and offices in Texas, for the advantageous business climate, would make more sense.... but such an effort wouldn't be led by CEOs/recruiters from established firms... who probably _don't_ want the competition of more employers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think this makes sense... I'm from MN and made a recent trip to the Bay area where all the local startups were clamoring over me. Meanwhile back in the midwest, I have to actively market myself to attract any attention. If you're really looking for untapped talent, go where nobody else is looking.

<comment><USER6> Exactly! Milwaukee and Madison have huge pools of programmers that are largely ignored.

I'd try to recruit them in late November or early December...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've founded a couple of startups in Austin. The thing to know about Austin is that, at least right now, there are only about 6 consumer Internet startups of note who can afford real talent. Unless you move here for a specific position, or are a developer, finding a decent job will be tricky. If you like enterprise software, though, you'll be happier than a pig in mud.

<comment><USER8> Would you mind naming the startups?

<comment><USER7> HomeAway, indeed, Retailmenot, vast, Gowalla, myedu, uship, regretsy/passiveaggresivenotes, wpengine, otherinbox, Dell.

<comment><USER9> Regretsy is a startup? I thought it was just a blog that linked to stupid Etsy art.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems counter-intuitive, I thought the competition for hiring in the valley was already too high.

Isn't the benefit of being outside the valley cost of living and human capital?

<comment><USER11> Exactly what I was going to say! Calif is a terrible place to go and scout out talent, unless they're also trying to raise visibility in the same shot.

I'd suggest they go to the east coast instead.

<comment><USER12> SFBA is a better place if you're willing to offer above market (or find someone who wants to leave the Bay Area), specifically to hire a couple of experienced people who can be the core of a company, or who have specific technical expertise. Basically this is the same pool as startup founders.

My startup is in SFBA. I'd love to be in Seattle or Austin instead (I like guns; taxes are secondary consideration; and I'd love a 5k ft2 house), but from a hiring perspective, it's easier to find people who have already done something successful in the bay area.

Maybe set up a second US office for development in one of those two later, but initially, it's hard to beat SFBA. (I guess I'm in the "boring enterprise software" space, at least more so than Facebook, but less so than SAP).

Recruiting from elsewhere (especially Boston/Cambridge) makes a lot of sense, but people are generally more willing to relo to SF than to either Seattle or Austin, at least from my experience.

<comment><USER11> This explains what they're looking for, but not why it's location dependent. Sfba is a startup hub, but that dosnt mean that talent doesn't exist elsewhere! What's the successful metric? Part of a startup? Founder? Product principal?

Admittedly, I may be slightly biased here because I wonder why much of the east coast tends to get marginalized when talking about startup activity. (I'm in Philly)

<comment><USER12> Looking for: * deeply knowledgeable and passionate about computer security * adequate developer (ideally in Python, C/C++, but specific languages don't matter) -- would take better developer and less experienced (but still interested in) security; ideally everyone is great at both the security/audit/ops side and the dev side, but a team with everyone having a different mix is most realistic * compatible long-term goals which are explicit; if someone wants to use this to become a great startup founder in 1-2y, i'd be fine with that and then introducing to investors, or someone who wants a 10y+ job, but being explicit about desires seems essential, in exchange for the company being honest about status, long-term potential, etc. * cultural fit: able to get along with the team, and also compatible with "how startups work" -- easier if someone's been part of a successful product launch at a startup in a similar role

There are way more of those people in the bay area (although, many more jobs, too) than in Philly (I am from suburban philadelphia myself). Recruiting from enterprises might be ok for employees 20+, but not as good on the cultural fit issues for #1-10.

NYC is basically out (they are a net importer); Boston is a major source; philadelphia, atlanta, north carolina, etc. might be minor sources, and DC is probably a net importer.

I'd relo candidates from places like that (we can't really do remote yet), but wouldn't personally want to set up an office anywhere but SFBA, Seattle, Austin, a few non-US places, or unfortunately DC-Metro (I hate DC Metro myself, but in the long run, it's necessary; not sure if MD, VA, DC makes the most sense).

<comment><USER11> Appreciate the insight! Makes the organizations like Dreamit Ventures and the university business incubators even more important in my eyes. We've got the developer talent, but more lacking in the xp of 'how startups work'.

<comment><USER12> I think internships/coop are more important; if you were e.g. a Waterloo student who spent 2y of 5y working for Facebook, Amazon, Google, or small great startups, you'd be in a good position to start a startup (or work for an early stage one) locally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How do they plan on convincing the average liberal democrat Californian to move to a conservative stronghold like Texas?

<comment><USER6> I moved from reasonably liberal parts of Illinois/Wisconsin to Dallas/Fort Worth about three years ago... I wouldn't recommend this.

When I decided to move from DFW to start a company I looked at Portland, Boston, San Francisco, and Austin. Austin made sense, financially. Texas has no state income tax (unfortunately the social services reflect this), jobs, and the cost of living is a fraction of what it is in other cities of its size. Also, winter is just another word for January here.

Unfortunately, Austin is still a reasonably small town surrounded by Texas.

I wouldn't have come here if I wasn't trying to sack away money in a town with a reasonable selection of 24-hour cafes and restaurants. While I know a few SF->Austin transplants who love it here, I'd rather be in San Francisco.

<comment><USER14> As someone who went SF->Austin (and is originally from DFW) I'm curious why in the hell you'd pick DFW after you looked at Portland and Austin?

<comment><USER6> Family.

They moved down after I went away for school. After being away from them for about 6 years during/after school, I went down the summer before my brother got married and ended up staying for a bit after meeting a girl.

This was well before I considered Austin or the others. I didn't intend to settle in Texas when I first got here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What about non-competes? If you take the offer of one of these companies, if their employee contract is of the standard type outside of California, you'd better save away enough money to move back to where they are non-enforceable as a matter of long standing public policy.

</comment><comment><USER16> " The zero-sum-game hurts the overall tech community, so we've decided to come together to seek out new additions to Austin to help us all grow"

It's not a zero sum game. Every individual will produce a different amount of value depending on the position they are in.

</comment><comment><USER17> And most of California is nothing like LA or SF! This drives me a bit nuts... I've done a ton of traveling, and while I think you can generally and accurately describe life in a certain city, it doesn't expand well to bigger geographies. Parts of France are nothing like Paris. Parts of Japan are nothing like Tokyo. In general, when choosing where to live, it's best to make sure you are a match on the city level. (Perhaps, too, give points to a city for being enough of a hub to make traveling easier.)

</comment><comment><USER18> _The group is targeting engineers with experience in Java, Ruby on Rails and Python programming_

I read this and thought, "hm, although the markets for RoR and Python are not massive, they have been growing at a good clip, perhaps that's a good area to focus on." (I'm from a background of C++ and PHP, and I'm thoroughly burnt out on them)

Then I realized that these guys are idiots. They're follow-the-crowd types who are ignoring masses of untapped talent elsewhere in the nation and _flying around_ to recruit in the same "rockstar" seeking circle jerk as everyone else. It's no wonder they're short on talent, they probably don't have the slightest clue what it looks like.

So now I wonder, "hm, maybe those are actually just buzzword technologies and they won't hold up in the long run..."

<comment><USER19> I think you're right...except for the part about Python and RoR. I think those are here to stay, though I doubt many people know why to would pick one over the other, perhaps other than the buzzword value.

<comment><USER18> Oh, I'm definitely not knocking RoR or Python. But they certainly seem to be in significantly less use than PHP and ASP.Net (using Indeed's jobtrends as my ubiquitous measure of reality, RoR + Python jobs count approximate PHP _or_ ASP.Net jobs count).

Since I assume that the total number of jobs in a given field are proportional to the number of open listings, and since I assume that the number of skilled developers is tied to the historical job number, I am led to imagine that there is a much bigger pool of skilled ASP.Net and PHP candidates out there.

Basically, it sounds like these guys are just manufacturing their own dearth of job applicants. They're using hot, newer technology and flying to the most high-demand location to seek talent. If they made their products in ASP.Net or PHP and hired from other areas of the country, I'll bet they would have no trouble getting their product done quickly. But that's less buzz-wordy and they couldn't live their rockstar-wannabe fantasies.

(Note that I'm not making any claim as to the superiority of any language, or potential speed of development)</comment></comment></comment>


Towards Fairness in Visual Recognition: Effective Strategies for Bias Mitigation - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.11834v1 <comment><USER2> I never really got the motivation for this. Please correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like if I am creating a neural net to recognise if someone is smiling, I should use all the information in the picture, including race and gender.</comment>


My startup pivot idea. Comments? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I recently posted a thread to gather pivot ideas for my startup (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1734466). I got many ideas, and I thank HN for being so helpful.
Given our less-than-satisfactory traction, we would be willing to try a rather major pivot. Do give your feedback on this idea:
1) Imagine an Addthis/ShareThis button, made specifically for ecommerce. Just a sharing button on your store/product pages.
2) Anytime a visitor shares to Facebook/Twitter and that share results in new visitors/leads coming in, the sharer gets a discount coupon as an incentive.
3) Alternatively, the sharer gets a (bigger) discount coupon only for sales made by their friends, not merely visits.
4) For either scenario, the technology provider gets a cut.
Would you want to use a system like that, say, if you are a retailer? <comment><USER2> The problem with competing with AddThis and ShareThis is that they're dirt simple to slap on a page and free (not to mention they target more than just Facebook). The advantage you have is that their target is sharing web pages and your target is sharing products - so make your widget dirt simple, free, and very good at sharing products. Then add things like discounts and analytics to a premium plan.

</comment><comment><USER3> Usually this is a problem, of what can you do for them more than what can they do for you. Your biggest issue as you pointed out is adoption by retailers, and if really they have a problem with giving out coupons.

</comment><comment><USER4> There are already several companies and scripts that do exactly this, especially in the 'IM' space.</comment>


Ask HN: Where are some good IRC/IM places hackers hang out? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> #startups is for idiots - never found it useful just the same 5 people blathering constantly and judging newcomers

#debian-mentors on OFTC is nice

Really any channel where a bot posts recent builds...

</comment><comment><USER3> Connect to chat.freenode.net, type /list, and find the channels that interest you. :)</comment>


Encryption in your iPhone application? Get ready for paperwork. - <AUTHOR> http://www.zetetic.net/blog/2009/08/03/mass-market-encryption-commodity-classification-for-iphone-applications-in-8-easy-steps/

<comment><USER2> ITAR (munitions) compliance is not a particularly new aspect of software export; if you were exporting encryption, you need(ed) to work within the rules.

In my experience, ITAR compliance has gotten easier, too.

Using existing and available encryption libraries (and at settings below military-grade) is usually the easier approach. This rather than rolling and then reviewing your own encryption. Certainly for ease of export compliance, but also because rolling your own encryption code is one of those design and programming tasks that is far harder than it looks, if you really want to get that code "right".

There are certainly other considerations around exportation and with working internationally.

If you're not sure, check with a legal services firm; with the folks that know the details of complying with export and import requirements, and with individuals and businesses and countries you can (and cannot) work with internationally.

<http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, rolling your own encryption has more than one peril.

The catch in this case seems to be that "encryption" includes even making an HTTPS request with built in iOS libraries.</comment></comment>