Cleffy – Try the first Guitar lesson - <AUTHOR> https://www.cleffy.it/acoustic-guitar/the-basics/lessons <comment><USER2> Is there a reason for lack of Safari support?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi ecubed! In some version of Safari, there are missing some advanced HTML5 functionalities. In the newest versions, those functionalities are implemented but they are a bit buggy. We'll surely support Safari in the future!</comment></comment>


Halite: An AI Programming Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://halite.io/ <comment><USER2> Here's a link to watch a sample game. [https://halite.io/game.php?replay=ar1478810998-2218848485.hl...](https://halite.io/game.php?replay=ar1478810998-2218848485.hlt)

<comment><USER3> Here's one with a suprising comeback

[https://halite.io/game.php?replay=ar1478706105-405156479.hlt](https://halite.io/game.php?replay=ar1478706105-405156479.hlt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to say that I didn't completely understand the rules after a read- through. Some visuals and a complete walk-through would be nice, instead of piecing it together reading the various parts of the "Learn"-page and going back-and-forth trying to cover everything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. We'll improve the description with more visuals. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a programming competition that was built by two high school interns at Two Sigma over the summer. We had so much fun playing it that we decided to open it up to the public. Have fun!

You need to click through the rankings to see the game in action, so here's a quick link to a recent one: [https://halite.io/game.php?replay=ar1478809038-259229998.hlt](https://halite.io/game.php?replay=ar1478809038-259229998.hlt)

<comment><USER5> I saw their presentation over the summer and was super impressed. I didn't participate in the initial challenge but I'm excited to start now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congratulations on your launch and I hope you enjoy running it. It can be a lot of fun and quite the challenge at times. This looks like a very nice spiritual successor to the ai challenge ants contest.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very similar to the Google AI challenge (the ants one) from a number of years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! The two interns who built Halite were Ants competitors and were inspired to build this after participating in that. They tried to come up with something that had even simpler rules while maintaining a high level of strategic possibilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks awesome. We had a very similar competition[1] twice a year at my university (a group of students created games like this, presented an API to those interested, and an average of ~100 students hacked away at bots for 24 hours) and I loved it. Will definitely give this a shot.

Related: it seems the winning strategy here is to surround your opponents. Is there any possible way to come back from being surrounded?

[1] [https://megaminerai.com/competition/](https://megaminerai.com/competition/)

<comment><USER9> [https://halite.io/game.php?replay=ar1478706105-405156479.hlt](https://halite.io/game.php?replay=ar1478706105-405156479.hlt)

<comment><AUTHOR> That one is great. Never give up, never surrender.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good job on visualization. For something with hundreds of moving pieces, it's pretty easy to see what's going on on the board.

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of [http://vindinium.org/](http://vindinium.org/)

There was a small reddit that used to keep track of games and competitions like this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/gameai/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gameai/)

</comment><comment><USER12> So when I run the game locally there is no visual feedback at all? Is there some way to turn visualization on?

<comment><AUTHOR> On the Visualize tab, you can just drag the .hlt file onto the page to see it. There was a local visualizer, but we scrapped it to focus on a single implementation.

The devs are actively monitoring the site's forums and you might want to take this there.

<comment> a-nikolaev It would be nice to have a submit file button in addition to drag-and-drop. Not everyone is using graphical file managers with this interface feature.

<comment><USER13> This also makes it difficult to automate. Similarly, maybe I would like to automatically submit my new bot when I do a commit or a push, but the Submit button uses Javascript which makes this unnecessarily difficult. (At least for me.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks like the game is basically Risk but with a different mechanic for adding armies to territories: instead of choosing where you add them you get them where you stay still. Is this right? Very nifty!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good way of looking at it. A couple interesting twists are that all the players move simultaneously and the combat is completely deterministic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Problems with latency on the site should be fixed now

</comment><comment><USER16> Super cool and fascinating project!

</comment><comment><USER17> Now if only it supported arbitrary languages.

Or at least a C API, so we could bind it ourselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does!

At launch, there were starter packages for Python, Java, C++, Scala, and Rust. There's a page describing how to add support for additional languages:

[https://halite.io/advanced_writing_sp.php](https://halite.io/advanced_writing_sp.php)

A few days ago, one competitor submitted the C# package. I wrote the Clojure one today and should have it up soon.

<comment><USER17> Thanks. I didn't see this. Sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Could be there a precompiled X86 binary for windows too? Q_Q

</comment><comment><USER19> Reminds me of the excellent windows torrent client of the same name [1]

[1][https://github.com/Eoinocal/Halite](https://github.com/Eoinocal/Halite)</comment>


Why C.E.O.s Are Growing Beards - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/opinion/sunday/why-ceos-are-growing-beards.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> >A Prussian spy later sent to keep tabs on him reported with a mixture of awe and anxiety: "His hair and beard are quite black. The latter he does not shave."

How does the statement convey either awe or anxiety? How else would you describe a black haired man with a beard?

<comment><USER3> Fair point, but perhaps that wasn't the whole report ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From wikipedia:

"Other cultures (while not officially mandating it), view a beard as central to a man's virility, exemplifying such virtues as wisdom, strength, sexual prowess and high social status. However, in cultures where facial hair is uncommon (or currently out of fashion), beards may be associated with poor hygiene or a "savage," uncivilized, or even dangerous demeanor."[1]

Basically, beards are coming back in fashion.

More interestingly, it might be because of sexual selection. When facial hair is rare, people rate facial hair as more attractive. When it is common, then clean shaven is more attractive.

"When shown men's faces, men and women study participants consistently rated the faces with beards or stubble as more attractive than clean-shaven faces. But beards were most alluring when facial hair was rare, whereas clean-shaven faces gained in popularity when hairy faces were the norm."[2]

If this is true, then beards, when unhindered by religious beliefs, will follow a sort of sinusoid function. As they become more prevalent, they will fall out of fashion because clean-shaven will look sexier. When they're less prevalent, they will start growing in popularity again because they're sexy. As soon as majority is reached, the pattern changes.

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

[2] [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/women-prefer-men-with-facial- hai...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/women-prefer-men-with-facial-hair- according-to-study/)

<comment><USER5> I actually feel like they've been "in" for awhile. Perhaps we've already reached Peak Beard.

<comment><USER6> I see more than before but it is not _that_ common, here in north EU at least, yet. I went to two clubs last week and I was 1 of 2-3 bearded guys which indeed aided in attracting female attention (as it always has in my experience). I do not mind if this is the peak ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" Historically, beards in the boardroom have been a barometer of the relative vitality of capitalism and its critics."_

Either that or,... hipsters.

<comment><USER8> Not totally unrelated. For instance, interest in car ownership has gone down as a product of... maybe both, or some intersection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't speak for everyone, but whenever my facial hair gets long enough it's just a burlap sack on my face, full of itching and regret. It actually seems weird to me to do this to yourself just to be fashionable.

<comment><USER10> That's a stage early in the growth of your beard. The itchiness can be "treated" (conditioning goes a long way) and, regardless, goes away relatively quickly—for me it's around the fourth week.

In your case, if you ever do grow a beard again, I recommend keeping your mustache trimmed. An untrimmed mustache is a substantially greater exercise in patience. You have to train the hairs to not creep into your mouth and, even then, there is a months-long period of time when the hairs aren't long enough to stay out of the way and eating anything wider than your mouth ends with you playing the "am I chewing on food or whiskers" game.

As for me, I grow a beard because 1) I can (thanks, genes plus work environment!) and 2) it keeps my face warm during northeast winters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Graph of facial hair popularity in English 1800-2008.

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=moustache%2Cbe...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=moustache%2Cbeard&year_start=1800&year_end=2015&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmoustache%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cbeard%3B%2Cc0)

</comment><comment><USER11> The Wikipedia page on Presidents of the US shows a timeline that matches the one in this article nicely: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_Unite...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#List_of_presidents)</comment>


Engineer Anti-Patterns - <AUTHOR> http://blog.delphix.com/eschrock/2012/engineer-anti-patterns/

<comment><USER2> FTA: _The hardest part of engineering comes through execution - plotting an achievable path through a maze of code and possible deliverables while maintaining a deep understanding of the customer problem and constraints of the system._

This definition of 'execution' actually sounds a lot more like a definition of 'architecture' to me. In a software context, architecture means defining what to code, and just as importantly, what _not_ to code. Many times what appears to be a failure in execution is actually a failure in architecture. So I can't agree that execution is the hardest part of engineering; it is the architect's job to make it the _easiest_ part.

</comment><comment><USER3> Shameless plug: if you'd like to work in this type of engineering culture, drop me a line (email@example.com). We're hiring like-minded smart people who want to work with a kick-ass engineering team!</comment>


EFF to White House: What Will You Do to Protect the Privacy of WhiteHouse.gov Users? - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/eff-white-house-counsel <comment><USER2> Given their grievances:

       1. An "invisible pixel" style webbug/tracker on every page on the site, hosted by WebTrends.com.
       2. The entire WhiteHouse.gov domain appears to utilize edge-caching technology provided by Akamai, Inc.
       3. Access to direct-download MP4s of video content appears to be hosted by Amazon S3.

I have a few more to suggest:

       4. Avoid all javascript because a XSS attack could result in data going to a third party
       5. Avoid unsecured http because cache servers between my computer and whitehouse.gov could intercept traffic and change the pages
       6. Don't register the SSL certificate with a CA because they could issue a different certificate and redirect the user
       7. Don't link off site -- the other page could examine the referrer and know you visited whitehouse.gov
       8. Don't allow the traffic to be routed on networks owned by Comcast or AT&T, since all traffic is monitored there.

I trust the Obama whitehouse will implement these reasonable steps to safeguard our privacy.</comment>


How Find Teleworking PHP MySQL Course Internship? - <AUTHOR> https://w1mpzilla.github.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN,

I'm following a PHP MySQL developer training course, but i have a lot of troubles finding an internship, needed to validate the course.

Companies at the moment, are not really welcoming strangers, even less if it is about an internship.

Do some of you know developing companies that are interested in an internship done by working from home?

Is this even a thing, is it even remotely possible due to the COVID situation?

Because i'm a bit scared that i will not find any internship and the course manager don't care about.

The biggest issue being that the course managers only planned the internship lasting about 3 weeks.

If some of you are interested i can leave here a link of the eportfolio i developed, share it if you find it worth: [https://w1mpzilla.github.io/](https://w1mpzilla.github.io/).

Thank you a lot for your help. Have a great day, Wimp.

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, I don't think such a thing exists in a meaningful quantity. There aren't a lot of win-win reasons why it would. Good luck.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Up please.</comment>


Ask HN: How secure/private is IRC? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irc#Modern_IRC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irc#Modern_IRC)

If you use it through ssh/SSL it is ok.

</comment><comment><USER3> The first 2 things that come to mind: Whoever can connect, can log. Even though an authenticated user's host may be masked, in the server logs they might appear in plaintext.</comment>


The top 3 best selling laptops were all Chromebooks, says Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://www.omgchrome.com/chromebooks-best-selling-amazon-xmas/

<comment><AUTHOR> "The top seller was the 11.6-inch Acer C720, followed by the (cheaply priced) 13.3-inch ASUS C300 Chromebook (which dipped well below $199 in the run-up and is available in an assortment of colors).

The second-generation HP Chromebook 11, based around a Samsung Exynos CPU with 2GB RAM, placed third.

* Acer C720 Chromebook (16GB, 2GB) * ASUS Chromebook C300 (16GB, 2GB) * HP Chromebook 11 (Gen 2, Snow White)"

Another nail in the coffin of the Windows PC?

<comment><USER2> _Another nail in the coffin of the Windows PC?_

I don't think there's been a first nail yet.</comment></comment>


A better cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> I have been building the model of this new cryptocurrency to deal with the problems that the currency cryptocurrencies are facing.
I can't code the model into computer language, but I think the model will work very well once coded and converted into a cryptocurrency.
You guys can read about it here. Thanks for your time. http://chitranjanbaghi.com/building-new-cryptocurrency <comment> iso-8859-1 If you can't encode it formally, good luck convincing anyone your ideas have merit.

Sounds like your top feature is supposed to be blockchain that doesn't grow in size. What do you offer over Mimblewimble? Actually Mimblewimble's blockchain does actually grow, you just don't need to store two merged blocks, you can join their sum.</comment>


Beware the 'mother of all credit bubbles' - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/beware-the-mother-of-all-credit-bubbles <comment><USER2> The link is broken or the article was removed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, thanks. Couldn't edit the url, so reposted here [0]. Correct link is [1].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17287550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17287550) [1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/beware- the-m...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/beware-the-mother- of-all-credit-bubbles/2018/06/08/940f467c-69af-11e8-9e38-24e693b38637)</comment></comment>


Creative Commons announces the "Public Domain Mark" - <AUTHOR> http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/23830

<comment><USER2> If it becomes popular enough, maybe in ten years it will have a unicode code point, and will be found in common fonts ;)

<comment><USER3> c⃠ (c⃠) is supposed to work, but I don't think any browsers support the combining marks yet. ([http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unicode.o...](http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unicode.org%2Fcharts%2FPDF%2FU20D0.pdf))

<comment><USER4> c⃠

It "works" in Chromium, but selecting the text is borked, and so is navigating this text field after I pasted it..

<comment><USER5> c⃠ Works in FF 3.6.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The digraph mark N© has been in use for many years by the groups The Tape- beatles and Negativland, for two examples. It was devised by the British artist Mark Pawson in the late 1980s. (I'm not saying anything against the new mark, just offering this up because it might be interesting to some.)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is just great! I hope Flickr will adopt it immediately. Right now you can not choose "public domain" as a default option for your Flickr account. So we do not have any public domain pictures from there. Attribution is ok, but what if you want to modify a picture or make a collage? Making a clear attribution for Flickr is not always easy without adding clutter to your UI.

Looking forward for huge increase in public domain pictures :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Mine is up and running - thanks! <http://javascriptweblog.wordpress.com>

<comment><USER9> I'm a big supporter of the Creative Commons project, but this is a good example of the problems that CreativeCommons face.

Without wishing to be narky, your use of this mark is inaccurate. Your material is not in the public domain, it is copyrighted to you. You should instead be using CC0, which is the appropriate mark for works still in copyright where the author wishes to disclaim all rights.

(And note that some part of copyright in major jurisdictions cannot be waived - look up moral rights)

This is why this new Mark will be fabulous for widely disseminated works for use in a low value environment. For a work to be properly usable in high value environments, such as for a film script, the players will still need to do expensive due dilligence. As the page for the public domain mark states, 'The work may not be free of known copyright restrictions'.

This isn't a criticism of the CC efforts, just a description of the problems created by the mess intellectual property is currently in.

<comment><USER10> How do you know his material is not in the public domain? By using this mark isn't he relinquishing copyright?

You are just assuming he wants copyright, but it seems to me he doesn't.

<comment><USER9> His material is about javascript! It is not an official US government document and he is living person who claims authorship. It is therefore not in the public domain and shouldn't be marked with a Public Domain Mark.

He is not relinquishing copyright by using this mark, he is making a statement that he believes that no copyright attaches to the material. Two different things.

I'm not assuming that he wants copyright - he gets copyright whether he wants it or not. I'm assuming that he wants to licence his material as freely as possible. The correct way to do that is to licence his material under the CC0 or CC-BY licence.

<comment><USER10> No, he is perfectly within his rights to relinquishing/disclaim copyright on his works.

In some countries that is not possible, but it is in the US.

I don't see where you are getting "no copyright attaches to the material" - are you trying to say you think he doesn't believe in copyright?

You are really assuming a whole lot here. I'm going with the simple definition: If I place a symbol on my works that marks them as "public domain", I abandoned my copyright.

It's the same as putting the word "free" on a couch you don't want.

<comment><USER9> From <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/>

CC0

Use this universal tool if you are a holder of copyright or database rights, and you wish to waive all your interests in your work worldwide.

Public Domain Mark

Use this tool if you have identified a work that is free of known copyright restrictions. Creative Commons does not recommend this tool for works that are restricted by copyright laws in one or more jurisdictions.

<comment><USER11> Also, the respective symbols/glyphs, for those who didn't recognize them on the ur-parent's page:

<http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>

<http://creativecommons.org/images/deed/nolaw.png>

and

<http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/>

<http://creativecommons.org/images/deed/noc.png>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It might have helped the article to have, you know, included an image of the mark. Just a thought.

</comment><comment><USER13> It would be cool if governments could acknowledge this mark so it can be used in earnest.

<comment><USER14> According to its website, Europeana is sponsored by the European Commission which is an arm of the European Union. I'd say that is a hefty acknowledgement from a "government" (or, rather, a supernational organization).

But, yeah, I would love to see the LoC adopt this mark for its digital collection. It'd increase visibility and give the mark an air of legitimacy for the United States.</comment></comment>


Developers Vs. Bigcorp - <AUTHOR> http://www.techfounder.net/2012/08/30/developers-vs-bigcorp/ <comment><USER2> I have no desire to join a union. You and I have plenty of bargaining power without one. Nor can a union represent this very diverse field.

Unions are fantastic when there is no bargaining power, horrible conditions and most critically no mobility. Coal Miners in a town in the middle of Pennsylvania come to mind.

You and I have plenty of mobility. Hell I have moved across the US three times for various jobs and can find work all over the world while sitting on my butt where I am.

If you are building on someone else's platform, you should know there is more to that then technical risk. There is business risk. Did Twitter pay you to develop against their API, did you have them sign an SLA when they return an fail whale?

Once you realize that you are tying your business lively hood to a transient non-binding agreement, you might think twice. Then you will use your mobility and go another direction.

Are external developers what make these tech companies great? Balmer got that one right. (<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6304687408656696643>) But to suggest a union? Won't see me paying dues.

<comment><USER3> You as an individual have no bargaining power when "signing" Apple's or Twitters's developer agreement - it is take what they offer or leave it. If we banded together it might be possible to negotiate with big companies.

Every engineer thinks they are better off without a union because they are above average and would be pulled down by joining a group of average workers.

<comment><USER4> > Every engineer thinks they are better off without a union because they are > above average and would be pulled down by joining a group of average > workers.

Or by being told what they can do and how much they can make based on seniority, not skillset and talent.

<comment><USER3> Steelworkers and teachers unions negotiated agreements that based pay on seniority - I can't imagine developers would do anything like that.

Wouldn't you like to have some kind of transparent review process for iPhone apps? Or an agreement that the Twitter API will be available for 5 years? Good luck negotiating that on your own.

<comment><USER5> > Steelworkers and teachers unions negotiated agreements that based pay on > seniority - I can't imagine developers would do anything like that.

Why not? Unions and union members are extremely rational. Are you suggesting that developers would be less rational?

I'm reasonably anti-union but I'd vote for seniority as a union member. It elevates my salary at the expense of people who don't get a vote (new people). It lets me slack off. And, for folks in the bottom half, it's a salary increase.

> Wouldn't you like to have some kind of transparent review process for iPhone > apps?

That doesn't have anything to do with unions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Speaking as a rather rabidly liberal software developer, allow me to respond to one point:

"Here's to hoping that the 21st century Jimmy Hoffa will be a developer."

Please, no: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa#Prison_sentence>. He was incredibly corrupt.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are taking it too literally, I was referring of course to his influence on making the teamsters one of the strongest unions in American history, not wishing for a carbon copy of Jimmy Hoffa.

Second, not to slide off topic, but it's hard to know how much of that was fact and how much of it was because of the many political enemies he made during his ascent.

<comment><USER6> How about using César Chávez as your example, then?

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted, and updated the article :)

Not a big history buff myself, always interesting to learn new things

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm curious as to US attitudes to unions. I get the feeling they are viewing more positively (although ambivalently in Europe/UK) whilst anti-union sentiment is more deeply ingrained in the US.

(The UK is probably an interesting middle-ground as it is in some other areas)

<comment><AUTHOR> Most professions in the U.S have unions. The most publicized are their sport player unions, which have perfected the art of collective bargaining. Worker unions are a part of U.S culture.

<comment><USER6> Not true[1], and despite the current, small uptick in numbers, I suspect that union membership will continue to fall due to the rise right to work laws around the US[2].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States#Membership)

[2] [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/what-are- right-t...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/what-are-right-to- work-laws)

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure what you refer to as not true - most professions in the U.S have a union. I didn't say most workers are a part of it.

<comment><USER8> What does that even mean?

<comment><AUTHOR> A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized high educational training (Wikipedia). For example, you can have a doctor union - it doesn't mean that every doctor is a member in it.

<comment><USER9> Part of this was also structural, if you think about it. the professionals were typically self-employed or partnerships. The professionals, in other words, were the bosses/upper management. The need for a union, somewhat redundant. Notice, that changes when the State becomes involved. Then you do see, say teachers unions. Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> I said professions, not professionals.

<comment><USER9> Historically, professions = Upper/Ruling Classes. Members of the ruling class don't (at least historically want/need) form unions precisely because _they are/were the ruling class_. [Edit: _Professional Associations_ i believe were fairly common, as a vehicle to further the interests of a specific profession.]

<comment><USER10> > Historically, professions = Upper/Ruling Classes

Perhaps within the last 100 years, but not "historically" in a general or broad sense. The historical ruling class didn't have professions, they had power.

<comment><USER9> Up until 1812 or so, I would agree with you. But the landed classes were forced into the professional ranks throughout the 19th C. "To makes ends meet." The Corn laws, ca1830 & ff.

Edit: If I may elaborate on this.

Also, i did not mean the _political_ sense of "ruling class". I meant, strictly speaking, their status as economic agents. If you are a partner in a partnership, you have legal _control rights_. Same as if you are a material shareholder in a stock-company. You are _not_ an "at-arms-lenght-employee" in other-words. So, the idea that you would need a union for what were in essence "company directors" just does not make logical sense. Again, that changes when (whatever the expertise) thes folks are forced to work for the state; they are then stripped of their _control rights_ and take on a position more akin to _Labour_ , structurally.

<comment><USER10> I must agree that I specified too short a time period before which the "ruling" class simply ruled and weren't strongly connected to professions and investment activities.

So thanks for posting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe there is a simpler solution then a full-blown union.

A good start is simply a list of demands + a list of possible protest actions. Developers did it really well with Stop SOPA.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly what a union does, just on a full time basis. So you have an organization you can appeal to every time there's need for action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How would a union negotiate API usage limits that Twitter places on 3rd party developers? Unions as a whole have become pretty detrimental to society, no matter how much they originally helped.

More importantly, think of something to build besides another damn Twitter client. If you can't, get a job like everyone else until you have a better idea you can execute.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't offer any easy solutions, only the concept of a body that can represent many developers in order to have actual leverage against those companies. Twitter is just one example.

<comment><USER12> So a union would help workers negotiate things like wages, benefits, and overall treatment of workers. What you are proposing with this analogy is some kind of organization that would somehow have the power from outside of a given business to force that business to adopt practices preferred by third parties. Not really the same thing, not sure how you would go about forming such an entity, and frankly it sounds pretty terrible for the business climate as a whole.

<comment><AUTHOR> A union doesn't have to necessarily regulate wages - just be a source for developer grievance against companies that generate value from their work. Also consider that you don't have to be a part of the union if you don't agree with its principles. The only power a union has is from his members willing to negotiate collectively, there's nothing more to it.

<comment><USER12> The fundamental difference remains: a union is for influencing an organization by employees for the employees (within). What you want is to influence on behalf third parties with no affiliation with the organization.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure what is the 3rd party you are referring to. There are two sides here - individual developers or small dev companies, and giant tech companies - who should be working together to create a healthy ecosystem, but when one is in conflict with the other the giant companies do whatever they want. A union is a collection of individuals / small companies that together have enough leverage to negotiate on better terms with the giant companies.

<comment><USER12> First of all, I don't think you understand what a union is. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States)

Second, I don't think that's a very realistic picture of how things work. There are businesses which have a) a plan for how to operate and make money b) employees whom they pay to perform services. Then there are outside parties who may interact with that business in some way. But the business is going to operate in the fashion that makes the most sense for the business.

So Twitter has decided that it is in it's own best interest to limit how outside parties interact with its service. You'll have to convince them otherwise if you want to reverse that. Similarly, Apple has decided that allowing outside parties to have a certain degree of free reign in developing for its products is best for its business. Hopefully the distinction is fairly clear, but I'll lay it out because it seems like maybe it isn't to you:

Apple makes most of its money selling devices like iPhones, iPads, and computers. Third parties developing software for those devices only serves to increase their sales.

Twitter, on the other hand, is still trying to nail down their business model for making money. Third parties developing software using Twitter's APIs really only serves to increase the load on their servers. Perhaps initially it helped drive traffic, generate interface ideas, and even offered a company or two for Twitter to buy and integrate, but they are beyond that need now. At best they may be interested in allowing outside parties to build software on top of their service IF you grant them a share of the money you make in doing so (hence the whole, "let's talk when you get over your token limit" stance).

Businesses exist to make money. So if you want Twitter to open up their service, you'll need to demonstrate how it makes them money. That's the bottom line.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't want to get bogged by the semantics of a labor union since that is really not what I meant (and I think you know that). I'm talking a body representing developers in ecosystems where they are a part of, regardless of what semantic name you want to give that organization.

Apple and Twitter, both depend greatly on developers adding value to their ecosystem. You may say Apple sells devices, but it makes a huge part of its revenue from selling apps on the (iOS / Mac) appstore. Developers build those apps, not Apple (who develops a very small subset of integral apps). Those apps not only generate revenue directly via commissions, but also make their devices useful and attractive to the general population. Without the apps, the iPhone is a glorified PDA.

If you think developers are meaningless to those both companies and are just 3rd parties who have no influence, it is you who do not have a realistic picture of the state of things. Obviously, individual developers or small companies have no leverage. But a body representing a large portion of the developers on either platform will have such leverage and could make those companies make some concessions in the way they treat developers.

If all developers flocked to Android, Apple stock would crash. If developers pulled the plug on all of their twitter apps, Twitter would feel the effect strongly. Despite what you want to claim, developers do effect the bottom line for both companies substantially.

<comment><USER12> Apples profit from App store sales are pretty minuscule when compared with the profit they generate by device sales: [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apples- app-store-economics-ave...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apples-app-store- economics-average-paid-app-sale-price-goes-for-1-44/52154) [http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-apples- gross...](http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-apples-gross-profit- per-product-2012-8)

$538 million from app sales vs ~$60 billion from iphone sales and another ~$10 billion from ipad sales. I think the motivation for the app store is pretty clear based on that.

I'm not sure what you are basing your claim that Twitter would collapse without developers on, they manage their own in house Twitter clients now. You'll find that most users outside our little YC echo chamber use a) twitter.com b) one of the official Twitter clients

<comment><AUTHOR> I really don't understand what you're saying. Are you denying how crucial the apps to the sales of the devices? do you think they could sell without the apps? in addition, do you think apple doesn't care about 500M$ in profits?

Also, are you saying that the twitter API and 3rd party apps have nothing to do with the success of twitter? I didn't say collapse, I said they would feel it strongly. Not sure what is your point, really.

<comment><USER12> My point isn't that Apple doesn't care about the money it makes from the app store, my point is that Apple has a vested monetary interest in keeping developers around going forward. iPhone sales pre-app store were pretty small; the app store drives a lot of their business.

Twitter, on the other hand, has no business interest in developers going forward. It's true they may not have gotten where they are without third party devs, but that need is gone now; they can move forward without them. You may lament that as being cruel in some manner, but that's business my friend. Twitter isn't going to collapse because they cut off third parties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Developer work is too varied to have a single consistent voice. Drop the union idea, the word has too much baggage and becomes a huge people management issue. Turn it into what developers do best, build an app/api.

I'm not sure if this idea will make too much sense; I need to see if I can find some time to explore it a little more. I could see building an app/api which is a mixture of a news/issue aggregator and a remote config editor.

Figure out how to surface issues to developers in a consistent way. Then let developers decide which issues matter to them, and how to deliver updated configs. Then let developers decide how to use the api/config from there. Maybe some apps will decide to disable in-app purchases for some time period, maybe some will alter code-flows to use a competitor of a big company, maybe some app will praise some company for their stance on some issue. The developers need to be in full control at all times though. The api would let developers read the remote config from their apps.

Maybe it just turns into a remote config service, and the activism part gets lost... but it might work as a vehicle for this kind of activism too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps "union" is too loaded of a word. My intentions was for a body that can collectively bargain on behalf of developers against companies that right now are treating them as they will since as individuals they have no leverage or recourse.

<comment><USER14> Unions originally worked because they could stop the flow of all labor (union or not) into a job site. Now there is a legal process that avoids the violent bits, but it doesn't really apply to the current situation.

Moreover,the equivalent to a picket line is what, a DDOS? Shit will get you sent to jail, yo.

The structure of desirable APIs <-> Developers makes collective bargaining not super useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, it's much more simple than that. Developers can simply cut their apps from the ecosystem for a short while. Or move to another platform in large numbers. Just the threat of each action should cause those companies to consider some concessions.

<comment><USER14> You're missing the point. Individual workers or developers are replaceable, and at a serious power disadvantage. A union works by blocking all access to labor _, and requiring the company to negotiate with the union alone. Unions used to do this by physically blocking non-union workers from going to job sites, today there are formal legal processes. There is no alternative to either method available to developers for closed platforms. If you opt out of developing for the more lucrative platforms, there are plenty of people willing to replace you.

_ I know it's more complicated than that and that there are exceptions, and that over time some places become hybridized. I'm still right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My dad had his life threatened by union workers for working overtime on a job he was overseeing installation of (robotics engineer). They told him to stop working because he was making them look bad (he was working well into the night because he was away from home and had nothing better to do, plus that's just who he is).

He thought they were joking, ignored them. They came back with muscle and told him in no uncertain terms to put down his wrench or they would beat him.

This happened while he was working away from home when I was learning how to walk.

I run a business right now, and have run several others. I would rather shut the doors to my businesses than be strongarmed by union thugs. I know I'm not alone in this.

Ideologically, unionism isn't necessarily horrible. Practically, it involves all sorts of illegal activity that is forgiven because of labor relations. There are a ton of legal exemptions in place for unions in the US.

I don't know why I even got into this conversation, but I wanted to make it clear that there are plenty of business owners that would rather offer zero jobs and make less money themselves than offer a single job to a unionized worker.

</comment><comment><USER16> You don't call it a union, silly. A union is for socialists.

You call it a Professional Association. The same way doctors and accountants do. It's essentially the same as a union, but it's for rich, conservative people.

</comment><comment><USER17> An engineer working in a steel factory. Question: Can he carry a screwdriver. Answer: No. Reason: Union rules.

Please just drop shit you have no knowledge of.</comment>


Accurate deep neural network inference using computational phase-change memory - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16108-9 <comment><AUTHOR> IBM blog : [https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2020/05/iso-accuracy- deep...](https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2020/05/iso-accuracy-deep- learning-inference-with-in-memory-computing/)</comment>


Ask HN: SSD to Ethernet? - <AUTHOR> How do I connect an ssd directly to the internet?  I want to be able to serve HTML files without processor. <comment><USER2> You can't. The physical interfaces aren't compatible, and the protocols used to communicate aren't compatible. You will need physical hardware that's compatible with each side (probably SATA on the SSD side, some flavor of Ethernet on the network side) and an OS/webserver of some sort to translate requests from HTTP to files stored on disk, and to communicate with remote HTTP requestors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, if I used a switch for the IP side then I would only need to put a web server on the SSD board? would that be right?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does your team store and share passwords? - <AUTHOR> Our start up is finally in a position where we have started onboarding new employees. We have multiple client-specific deployments of our product and was wondering what is the best way to share the credentials with the team. <comment><USER2> 1password, lastpass or similar password managers. They sync "in the cloud" but some also allow putting the database on a server you control. Alternatively there are a open source solutions [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135519](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135519)</comment>


Where is Wendy Carlos? (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.culturedmag.com/wendy-carlos/ <comment><AUTHOR> The relative difficulty of finding Wendy Carlos recordings came up in the thread on Bach. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393234](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393234)

> _As DeLuca says: "It is okay that Wendy Carlos is private and that she makes > her music difficult to find; it makes her music more special."_

I doubt the scarcity is a marketing ploy, though HN's entrepreneurs might find that aspect interesting to analyze. My guess is that Carlos is financially secure, has gotten all she wants out of her career in entertainment, and doesn't want to engage publicly any more.

<comment><USER2> At 80 years of age not wanting to deal with society beyond a close circle of trusted people is not all that strange, even if one doesn't consider poor health and the general effects of the deterioration of body and mind at that age.

Her works _are_ available, just not in a form accessible to the majority — sometimes her albums can be found on CD or vinyl in second-hand shops, but lossless FLAC copies are of course available on-line here and there. Obviously, the latter likely run foul of copyright laws, but her music will be available for future generations.

I always wonder what creators think of the issue of their legacy. Some are meticulous, or even downright cruel about it (Prince comes to mind), but I guess some just don't see it as their problem any more.</comment></comment>


Google pushes Portable Native Client to secure native cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/15/google_hpc_donation/

<comment><AUTHOR> This title doesn't match the one on The Register, but I think captures the important piece of news: Google appears to be exploring using the Portable Native Client to secure third-party native code running on their compute infrastructure.

I've always been wondering when/if Google would make this move, and they appear to have done it. If Google has the patience, PNaCL seems like a bold longterm play both to secure code on the client (more dubious because of browser fragmentation) and in the cloud.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not sure that more compute power = more science breakthroughs (scientific research is kinda screwed up the way it forces scientists to always validate their hypothesis of lose grant funding) ... but it can't hurt.</comment>


Detroit is Dying… Quickly  - <AUTHOR> http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/03/23/detroit-is-dying-quickly/ <comment><USER2> As a lifelong resident of the Rust Belt, stories detailing its deterioration are hardly new, sadly, so these stories aren't of particular interest to me. What I do find interesting are the people who are sticking around, trying to rebuild the city they grew up in. Although these stories are rarer (and riddled with narcissistic entreporn fodder for INC magazine and its ilk), they do offer some hope.

This article mentions that Pittsburgh has also seen significant decreases in population over this decade. Pittsburgh is often used as the model city for rust belt rebirth. They were the big player in steel, lost the steel industry, and were able to rebrand themselves. They are considered by most to be the most tech-friendly city in the rust belt. I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that Pittsburgh did a better job in attracting businesses outside of steel when they still had the luxury of steel.

Having Carnegie Mellon doesn't hurt either. Most cities in the Rust Belt cannot worry about attracting talent because they are hemorrhaging talent. Instead these cities have to focus their attention and resources on retention. With CMU, Pittsburgh gets the benefit of bringing in some quality students who may stay within the community after graduation.

</comment><comment><USER3> The US Census version of "Detroit" is the area within the city limits. It has been "dying" since since the '68 riots, due to a combination of white flight, decline of manufacturing, and subsequent decline in retail, services, and civic engagement. All of which leads to more people leaving -- often going just 5-20 miles, into the suburbs.

In real life, to most southeast Michiganders, "Detroit" is a much larger area encompassing dozens of neighboring suburbs. That Detroit continued growing into the late '90s. The effects of the economic downturn were visible there long before the big 2008 crash (mostly in housing prices and boarded-up storefronts on suburban main streets), but its overall population decline has been much less dramatic than 25% in 10 years.

The "dying" talk is overblown. Cities ebb and flow. Manhattan in the 1970's, anyone? This is a very low ebb for the Detroit area, but it'll come back. All the way? Probably not -- being the central hub of a world industry was a bit of a historical fluke. But there's a foundation of engineers, designers, and other educated white-collar types -- along with the vestiges of a blue-collar middle class -- to build upon.

When I moved to Los Angeles ten years ago, the Hollywood area was a wasteland. So was downtown. Old Town Pasadena was gang territory. Echo Park is where you went to get shot. Now all of those areas -- and many dozens more -- are bustling and in various stages of gentrification.

<comment><USER4> It's overblown until we get the 2010 data for the tri-county Metro Detroit area. In 2000 that pop was 3.9M. If it rose in the last 10 years I would be very surprised. BTW I am a former Oakland County resident.

<comment><USER3> I, too, would be surprised if the Metro Detroit population rose, based on what I've heard from friends still in the area. But I'd be even more surprised if it declined by 25%.

Not saying that the area's not in trouble. It is. But the difference between "in trouble" and "dying" is significant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_profile_of_Detroit>

<comment><USER6> he's implying that black people are killing detroit. Look at the population of whites to blacks from 1820 to 2000.

<comment> mkr-hn That was my assumption, but also why I asked for clarification. I try not to take the worst possible interpretation as truth. But if that's the case, I would just point out Atlanta. It's half-black and doing fine. So it'd be silly to claim.

"Blackness" seems like a poor metric for economic vibrancy.

<comment><USER6> When I moved from Europe to America, my neighborhood went black. White flight seemed to kill all the businesses around my neighborhood. The "Blackness" of an area can't be ignored but it doesn't account for Detroit's problems.

<comment><USER7> America has "black" problems that Europe may not have.

<comment><USER8> look Europe has a problem in accepting non western cultures, lets not enter into that useless debate here on HN..

<comment><USER7> Europe does. But I realize the way that I put it was not constructive.

There is no debate. In Europe, they have a problem of communication between classes. In America, we have a problem of communication between communities. One society is not better than the other. That is same tired old "debate" that we should avoid here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> ...Or possible Detroit is the first of many American cities to go through an as yet unpredictable transformation. Stories like this discount the potentially positive effect this kind of 'reset' can have on a city. Let's face it - Detroit had lost its way a long time before all this economic turmoil sent many of us in a tailspin.

But of course sensational headlines like this get the most attention.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I heard a story this morning saying that Detroit now has enough empty space that some other large cities could fit inside it.

The first thing I thought was "what a great opportunity to create parks and greenways!" Even if they don't have the money to develop them right now, the land will be super cheap. Doing some of this and announcing plans for more would surely draw some business and development. "Look, you can have offices here, and workers can ride their bikes through a forest from their homes!"

<comment><USER11> I know you're trying to be positive here, but this is one of my biggest sticking points when talking about Detroit.

The collapse of detroit is a catastrophic failure in what is supposed to be a well-run country. There's no real consensus on what went wrong and how to fix it, and worse, most people don't really seem to care.

In some neighborhoods, house values have dropped to $300. "Enough empty space that some other large cities could fit inside it". With that kind of exodus and drop in value, you'd think there was a Chernobyl there, but there wasn't. Just a completely unexplained failure of management.

So yeah, parks and greenways are great, but don't overlook the massive failure that allowed that. Chernobyl is now an amazing wildlife preserve.

<comment><USER12> I don't think I'd be the only person outside the US to be thoroughly intrigued by the opportunities provided by $300 houses. I'm in Adelaide (AU) which is about as far from anywhere in the world as most places and house prices here are crippling.

I know a $300 house is going to be a shithole in the middle of nowhere but you could buy 1,500 of those shitholes for the land value alone of one place in a mid-range suburb here!

Does anyone else dream of buying up a suburb, fencing it off and creating a CoD Nuketown-style paintball arena?

<comment><USER13> $300 plus $4000 per year in taxes, that's the real story here

<comment> mkr-hn That's equal to $333/month in rent. It might not be such a bad deal if utilities are reasonable.

<comment><USER14> Rent and utilities are only part of the story. I'm reminded of that old saw about what are the most important factors in real estate:

1\. location

2\. location

3\. location

Location effects many important things, including the number and quality of neighbors, what sorts of things happen after dark, and generally what will be considered "normal" in the local culture. You can change a lot of things about a property after you buy it, do a lot of fixups, remodelling, heck even totally tear down and build up a new house on the land. But you'll have a much harder time changing the sorts of neighbors and larger community you'll have. Especially over the short/medium term.

<comment><USER12> When the house next door is also $300, I can quickly become my own neighbour... ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great link-bait headline, but nothing more than the census numbers. I'm in Detroit. I just ate lunch at Slows, which was packed as usual. Detroit goes as does manufacturing, and the last decade was harsh. However, the city has increasingly more to offer, and it is coming back in bioscience, tech, the arts, and manufacturing, automotive and non-automotive.

The city might look like rock-bottom to outsiders, but something is brewing. In 5 years, the headline will be 'is Detroit making a comeback?'.

<comment><USER16> I actually think Detroit is about to see a _huge_ resurgence. From what I understand, there are a lot of young, artist-type people moving there right now, which is _exactly_ the type of people I think Detroit should be trying to attract.

<comment><USER17> This is true, many college grads and creatives are moving into the city. In addition, Quicken is moving their entire company downtown.

There are also some great incentives to live in the Midtown area, which is home to Wayne State University.

<comment><USER18> I think you're referring to Quicken Loans. Intuit, developer of Quicken software, don't seem to have any presence in Michigan.

<comment><USER17> Yes Quicken Loans, is known as Quicken around here. I am sorry if that was not obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _In 1960, it had the highest per-capita income in the U.S._

That's striking. It's almost hard to imagine that the city could have been so strong in the past.

<comment><USER17> Why? The city was HQ to the 3 auto companies. Oakland County, in the "Metro Detroit Area" is still one of the nicest + wealthiest counties in the Country.

It was in the top 5 a few years back, I am sure it's gone down a few spots since then.

Check out this video, pretty cool referencing the rise and fall (and rise again): <http://vimeo.com/11021663>

<comment><USER7> Does anyone else here this and then think about Silicon Valley?

Maybe it's just paranoia...

<comment><USER20> I've long maintained that Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the first half of the twentieth century. It was where enterpreneurs that wanted to make things settled.

My dad tells me stories of when he was a little boy in the twenties when the city was the best place on the planet to start a company and it was just bristling with entrepreneurs.

Sadly the city lost its way but it's starting to get it back. The destruction of Detroit is the easy story for the media however and the city's rise isn't being widely reported.

<comment><USER21> "the city's rise isn't being widely reported."

Where is the evidence of its rise?

I'm honestly curious. I plan to buy a plot of land, maybe a house, somewhere in the next year or two, and Detroit has been in consideration because of its incredibly low prices (I don't plan to live there full-time; I live in a motorhome and travel, but it'd be nice to have a plot that I own and know I can always go park on for as long as I like if I feel like settling somewhere for a month or two). Detroit has a cool history, in terms of music. But, it also seems to be a bad investment, right now...no matter how cheap something is, it can always go lower, and Detroit seems to still be trending downward.

<comment><USER20> If you want to get a taste watch this video series: <http://bit.ly/aO1wFm> There are a lot of entreprenurial groups and funds that just weren't there twelve months ago.

If you want a more boots on the ground feel attend Maker Faire this summer. I've spoken to some of the O'Reilly folks who were very nervous about last years Faire and were quite simply in their words "blown away" by Detroit in a positive way. Tim O'Reilly compared the Henry Ford museum to the equivalent of the Louvre.

Houses in Detroit are already selling for $1, How much lower can they go? Chinese investors are snapping up hundreds of houses. Locals are even buying them and flipping them to outsiders.

[http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/17/rtr.detroit.opportunity/ind...](http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/17/rtr.detroit.opportunity/index.html?eref=rss_topstories)

You have to decide for yourself if that sounds like a market that can still go lower.

<comment><USER21> "Houses in Detroit are already selling for $1"

Where can I find these one buck houses? Hell, I'd pay at least twice that.

Seriously, though, the lowest prices I see on craigslist right now, in the city, for an actual house, actually for sale, is $9900. Now, I'm not one to complain about a $9900 house on a reasonable chunk of land, but this one happened to have a gang tag on the garage door when I looked it up on google maps.

Sure, a can of paint is only ten bucks, but I can imagine a $9910 house going down in value. And, I don't want to park my motorhome in a place where it'll get vandalized...it costs a hell of a lot more than ten bucks to repaint a motorhome.

But, let's assume I come to Detroit this summer (I've been considering it) to look at houses. Where should I be shopping? What neighborhoods are centrally located, and coming up rather than going down? I kinda imagine the ideal neighborhood would be one filled with old folks. Old folks usually take pretty good care of their houses, they don't spray paint gang signs on garage doors, and they're mostly likeable mind-their-own-business sorts of people. A lot of the best neighborhoods in cities I've lived in have been older neighborhoods with older residents, that became hipster neighborhoods as the old folks passed on. That may just be selection bias...just the neighborhoods I liked and have seen grow (like East Austin, or the Montrose in Houston).

<comment><USER22> I'm not the most qualified to comment on this but I'll offer what I can:

In the city proper, I don't know that the 'old folks' thing will work well. The old folks still in Detroit in decent neighborhoods will not be areas with the cheap houses you are looking for (yes, there are some really nice areas in the city). The others probably left for nice areas outside of the city.

You'll probably want to look where the current wave of young people are moving to. I really don't know what these areas are but I'm sure you can look some up.

Midtown, with Wayne State University and the Detroit Medical Center, is probably a good area. Don't know too much about it but Tech Town[1] is at WSU. They are offering incentives to get employees to move and live in Midtown. I don't know that you'll find any super cheap housing there.

You could also look somewhere like Ferndale. It's just on the other side of 8 mile and maybe a 10-15 minute drive from downtown. You won't find the super- cheap $300 houses but you can find a really good deal. It's a nice, young, liberal town just on the border. It's also next to Royal Oak, a little more expensive area where you'll find a lot of young professionals. So that covers centrally located, safe and cheap, not super-cheap, but also not in Detroit proper, which also means lower taxes (as far as I understand).

I guess it all depends on your motivation. Finding something super cheap, centrally located and safe will probably be difficult.

[1] <http://techtownwsu.org/>

<comment><USER21> "In the city proper, I don't know that the 'old folks' thing will work well. The old folks still in Detroit in decent neighborhoods will not be areas with the cheap houses you are looking for (yes, there are some really nice areas in the city)."

I don't mean "old, rich folks". East Austin was poor, mostly black and hispanic, and crime-ridden for decades before a resurgence began in the early 00s. But, a lot of the residents are still old folks who've lived through the whole process of decline and rebirth. Houston experienced white flight, and then began to recover in some of the older neighborhoods surrounding downtown (as far as I know downtown Houston is still a graveyard at night, and may not be fixable because there is no housing, the ground level streets are non- porous and have no shopping or nightlife). Same story, lots of older home owners that never left; their kids were grown when white flight happened, so they didn't feel as compelled to follow the good schools or were too poor to move or just didn't want to leave their home and stubbornly stuck around.

But, the rest of your answer is awesome, and is exactly what I was looking for. I don't actually need a house to cost $1 to consider it a good deal. But, it would take a really good price to get me to buy property in a place with weather as bad as Detroit. Hell, the place is unlivably cold six months out of the year, as far as this Texan is concerned. But, I'd consider buying to have a cheap summer parking place in a cool and interesting town, and if it happens to come with a house built in the 40s or 50s that I could renovate a bit, that's gravy.

<comment><USER22> Just thought of someone that might be a good contact for you to help scout out the area: Emily Doerr. She's opening a Hostel in Detroit. She's young and seems to be passionate about the city and bringing others in. I read an article about her in the Detroit Free Press but can only find a picture gallery on their site now.

Other people you could get in contact with are those doing urban farming.

Links:

<http://iamyoungdetroit.com/index.php/2011/03/emilydoerr/>

[http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=C4&Date=...](http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=C4&Date=20101214&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=12140803&Ref=PH)

<http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/hosteldetroit110910.aspx>

<http://www.facebook.com/HostelDetroit>

<http://twitter.com/hostel_detroit>

<http://www.hosteldetroit.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There has never been a better time to invest in Detroit. I believe we have hit bottom. Billionaires are investing in the city again and we have competent leadership for the first time in decades....

Detroit is within 90 miles of about 6 major Universities, the lack of talent argument is lame.

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure. There are sparks happening right now in Detroit but it's going to take a lot more entrepreneurs and businesses than Slows to revitalize Detroit.

SE Michigan does have one of the highest rates of engineers in the country. It's great for manufacturing but Michigan needs more business sectors. As it stands, Ann Arbor is the only tech hub in the state and even then, plenty of talent is leaving for Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER17> There is a lot going on in the West Side of the State. There is an incubator <http://momentum-mi.com> and we are having a Lean Startup Conference (<http://leanstartupmi.com>) there as well.

In Detroit, I am helping with FutureMidwest (<http://FutureMidwest.com>) and FundedByNight (<http://fundedbynight.com>).

There are a lot of Michigan ex-pats so to speak, it's a matter of showing them we can create a tech community (that unites AA + Detroit) and get then pool our resources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here is an awesome documentary about Detroit that was made really recently.

<http://www.palladiumboots.com/explorations>

It made me want to move there. It also plugged omnicorp, which is a pretty cool hackerspace located there.

</comment><comment><USER24> There's a beautiful photography book called the "Ruins of Detroit" that conveys this:

<http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/index.html>

<comment><USER10> Wow. That is really cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wow! I had no idea Detroit was only 10.61% white. Is this an exception case in the U.S. or is this kind of ethnic disproportion common across cities?

<comment><USER26> This can be somewhat misleading for someone who isn't familiar with Detroit. When people say 'Detroit', they often mean the sprawling metropolitan area of the city of Detroit and the surrounding suburbs. The Detroit metro area has 4.4 million residents. The _city_ of Detroit has only 700k. This article refers only to the _city_. And yes, the city has very few white residents. It is overwhelmingly poor and black.

It's not unusual, in the U.S., for urban centers to have a high minority concentration, but I believe this is much higher than most major cities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wouldn't say it's "dying". It has been bad but it's time to get more efficient and maybe that's what the city is trying to do. Also, not all of Detroit is that bad

</comment><comment><USER28> 'Consolidating' is probably a more apt descriptor. Much of the outer sections are sparse and neglected, but other people have noted it still has an active core.

</comment><comment><USER29> According to friends, you can buy beautiful houses in Detroit for $100 a pop. It's the Warren Buffet strategy. Buy long.

<comment><USER30> What concerns me (and I would appreciate comments from people who may know) is that I might be buying something with a great deal more than $100 in liabilities for cleanup or something. There's no fun in buying ten houses for $100 each if in five years you incurs thousands of dollars of obligations each to bring them up to some code or become liable because someone trespassed and died there or something. Even for a house in Detroit this is ringing my "too good to be true" bells; if it were just a fun thing to buy and see increase in value I gotta think it wouldn't have been that cheap in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> look the trend Detroit, Cleveland, ... this is the result of shipping jobs to china. I bet, bay area will loose 10% of its population by 2020.

<comment><USER32> Actually those jobs in Detroit/Rust Belt are moving to the southeast.

Southern states are offering tax breaks, state funding to train workers, low cost labor pool, low rates of unionization, etc.

<comment><USER33> As an explanation for the rust-belt as a whole that seems inaccurate; the south today is not nearly as industrialized as the northeast was in its heydey. Certainly the steel industry, one of the dominant industrial sectors, has not moved to the southeast, which has almost no steel industry; it's done a mixture of just shutting down entirely, and moving to China. The automotive industry is closer to being accurate, though I don't think the number of automotive jobs created in the southeast is actually particularly large, certainly nothing on the order of the change in Detroit's population.</comment></comment></comment>


Leap for Mac makes Kinect look like a drunk, stumbling uncle - <AUTHOR> http://macdailynews.com/2012/05/21/small-usb-dongle-for-your-mac-makes-microsofts-kinect-look-like-a-drunk-stumbling-uncle-with-video/

<comment><USER2> Nice. The title is almost as impartial as the actual article or the comments section where users gleefully celebrate another victory over "Microshaft Winblows."</comment>


Facebook and Twitter are more addictive than cigarettes or alcohol, study finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/06/facebook-and-twitter-are-more-addictive-than-cigarettes-or-alcohol-study-finds/

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe more addictive than cigarette or alcohol at first, but there is a saturation point. Unlike cigarette or alcohol, there is no saturation, only addiction.</comment>