Ask HN: For someone starting to learn webdev in 2018, where should they start? - <AUTHOR> For a newbie programmer, without a degree, webdev seems to be the easiest field to break into. So with that in mind, what would you recommend said newbie to learn? Is starting with python-django or ruby-ror combo still good enough or are they considered outdated? What about JS with koa-express? Is Go preferred over JS? On the frontend, react or vue or just html/css is good enough? <comment><USER2> Go I have never seen in the industry. Go seems to be enticing idea at some (perhaps backend developers) who want clean architecture and security is one of their top priorities. Not saying it should not be in frontend dev. I would take Javascript as the basic recipe - especially so called vanilla JS, as Javascript is almost always in the core of any frameworks. For absolute beginning, knowing html and css is imperative still - since this is also like the vanilla JS issue: no matter what you put on top of the web, it turns out as html and css (and Javascript :)

</comment><comment><USER3> HTML, CSS, JavaScript still are the foundation of web development. So, I'd start with that. Which framework you choose after that pretty much depends on personal preference and on what's used in projects you work on. You can't really go wrong with either Angular, React or Vue.js.

For most applications you will need some sort of data-driven back-end. SQL databases are the most widely used data storage option. Learning SQL therefore will be extremely beneficial.

As for back-end / server technologies and languages again this depends on your background and your environment. Java / Spring / Spring Boot is a very solid option, as are Ruby / Rails or Python / Django.

</comment><comment><USER4> Python backend is easy to learn. JS for front end is critical. For JavaScript, make your life easier- start at ES6.

For Python for backend start super simple for small projects. Bottle.py or CherryPy.

Templating is a thing of the past, use Angular or ReactJS for front end development and use async calls for all data loads.

That's what I'd suggest. Python is easy to learn, start with simple things like bottle.py to to make a simple restful service. JavaScript can be a mess if done wrong, but ES6 is a game changer. I like both Angular and React, I find Angular 1.x super easy to use and learn but never use it in produciton.

If you're starting out, that's a quick dev cycle and easy to learn.

</comment><comment><USER5> For the web, HTML + CSS + Javascript is the basic language. Any other language and framework relies on them. There's no avoiding HTML and CSS for creating web artifacts. A person can avoid Javascript for a while, but reasonably easy tasks will turn out to be harder.

These days, my recommendation for starting with HTML + CSS + Javascript would be [https://freecodecamp.org](https://freecodecamp.org) It is not perfect and is not for everyone. But it is a reasonable starting point and exposes people to the inherent complexity of web development in a measured and structured way.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> There are many different paths to success. But considering the first sentence, just go with JS.

PyRu is/are still good enough, and Go is too, but considering the first sentence, just go with JS.</comment>


Why does the Moon look so huge on the horizon? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/05/13/why-does-the-moon-look-so-huge-on-the-horizon/ <comment><USER2> As far as I knew the illusion was caused by light scattering and refraction:

"The distance from the surface to 300 mb averages 9,300 gpm. When the sun is directly overhead, radiation passes through 9,300 meters of atmosphere between the surface and 300 mb. When the sun is at an angle, it must pass through a greater length of the atmosphere before reaching the surface. When the sun is passing through the atmosphere at a 45 degree angle, the radiation must pass through 13,000 meters of atmosphere between the surface and 300 millibars. When the sun is passing through the atmosphere at a 5 degree angle, the radiation must pass through 107,000 meters of atmosphere between the surface and 300 millibars.

"The amount of scattering and refraction differential depends on how far the sun's radiation must pass through the atmosphere. As the length of passage of light through the atmosphere increases, the amount of scattering and the refraction differential increase. When the sun or moon are within about 10 degrees of the horizon, they have the illusion of looking much bigger than they do higher in the sky and the coloring looks different. This increase in scattering is also the cause of sun sets and sun rises giving a red color on the horizon. Although the size looks different when close to the horizon, it is mostly an illusion."

Taken from <http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/215/>

<comment><USER3> That's what I thought - but the illusion in question doesn't work if you take a photograph. It's purely psychological.

<comment><USER4> Yes, if you take a photograph, a dollyzoom like effect comes into place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a purely psychological effect.

When it's way overhead - it's the moon. You've seen it all your life. It's just there.

When it's on the horizon - your automatic distance-judging machinery (we're talking more than just parallax and depth perception here - I mean the whole process) says "hey that thing is really far away, and way, way past the horizon, way further away than those mountains, so it's obviously really, really big by comparison (which is completely true).

Humans perceive the world more or less on a horizontal plane - so we interpret things in that plane differently than we do things above/below us.

<comment><USER6> A camera is not susceptible to psychological effects i believe. Will it be bigger on a picture?

<comment><USER7> The camera isn't, but our brain still is when we process the picture taken by the camera.

<comment><USER8> But the key point is having some other objects in the picture that will give you the perspective change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're into this sort of thing, I highly, highly recommend M. G. J. Minnaert's Light and Color in the Outdoors: <http://www.amazon.com/Light- Color-Outdoors/dp/0387979352>

The harvest moon is one of his favorite illusions, and there just tons of little nuggets like this. It reads like an optical Wittgenstein: a series of short, numbered observations about the way light and vision work that you'd never have thought of, but once you read, you can't stop noticing.

E.g.: you can always predict exactly where a rainbow will be, you can tell leaded glass at a glance, wire meshes only cast vertical shadows, the green flash is very real, sunsets look _exactly_ like sunrises, you can navigate by a polarized lens, hills look steeper from above for the same reason that steeples look shorter than the shadows they cast on a cloud (related to the harvest moon), and the line of the sun on the ocean always points right to you. Have you ever noticed atmospheric perspective, or how drastically colors change with distance? You will after reading this book.

Minnaert makes some interesting claims about the harvest moon in particular. For example, lie on your back and look at the sky for a while: the flattened dome effect tends to wash out rather quickly, and the moon looks roughly the same size in any direction. He also claims that binocular vision is closely related to the perceptual flattening of the celestial dome, and one-eyed people do not perceive the harvest moon. I'm not sure if he's totally correct, but it's interesting to think about, isn't it?

It changed the way I look at the world. I believe scientific consensus has moved on in certain areas in the years since it was originally composed, but Minnaert's careful thought has aged superbly. Definitely worth it.

</comment><comment><USER10> This explanation works, but there's another: On the horizon, you have things to compare it against. It looks the size it _is_. In the middle of the sky, there's nothing but a large black field with a small circle: it looks smaller than it is, because it's overwhelmed by the larger field. It's a _very_ well known effect in the art world.

</comment><comment><USER11> The next time you see the moon like that, turn your head sideways: It won't be so big anymore.

The psychological effect depends on the horizon. Tilting your head to the side alters the horizon's alignment, so the moon next to "some straight, vertical line" doesn't appear as big.</comment>


Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/25/gett-in-advanced-talks-to-buy-juno-for-250m-as-uber-rivals-consolidate/ <comment><USER2> I prefer Gett for long commute. It gives you a firm quote so if your Uber/Lyft/Juno driver messed up enroute or there's a traffic, you don't pay the extra. From a user's perspective, this saves me money. I would take Gett to Barclay Center knowing Uber and Lyft would charge me high premium after game. Or trip from Manhattan back to Queens. There's also an option to make extra stop which is nice! Gett cars are the regular black SUV cars so much more comfortable.

This acquisition is nothing but acquiring users (although Junos has fewer drivers so fewer active users) and talents, as Gett itself can already do what Juno and other rider-service apps can do. I wonder if they will continue to run Juno as a standalone app like Seamless and Grubhub but share the same user database. I still wonder why Seamless and Grubhub can't shut down one of them, this seems like a marketing tactic than anything else, creating a diversion that there are other players in the market. Who knows, maybe there's tax advantage.

<comment><USER3> Re Grubhub/Seamless (I used to work there):

The sense I got was that they haven't unified the brands yet because they're really afraid of messing up the NYC market. Grubhub merged with Seamless in 2013 because leadership wanted to get into NYC, and Seamless owned/owns NYC. It's a hugely profitable market for the company.

They've toyed with the idea of bringing the brands closer (particularly around the Grubhub rebrand last year), but nothing's happened so far.

<comment><USER2> I see. I can see the risk, although at this point both apps are virtually identical appearance wise and even function wise. For the G/S folks out there, not that I am picky, but seems like a good idea to consolidate. I was actually using Grubhub before downloading seamless then I wanted to try Seamless (I didn't know the merger until I downloaded both apps and realized they are the same).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Juno pledged to give away 50% of the founding shares to drivers via RSUs over a 10 year period [0]. I wonder how units many were issued, if they had accelerated vesting upon an acquisition, and if so, what drivers actually got in the transaction.

[0] [https://gojuno.com/drive/meet/](https://gojuno.com/drive/meet/) Over a period of ten years, we intend to distribute to drivers a number of RSUs that would give drivers the same ownership interest as our founders upon an IPO or sale assuming all such RSUs vest.

</comment><comment><USER5> The headlines I see in Hebrew (both Gett and Juno's founders are Israelis) are somewhat more low-key: the undisclosed price tag is estimated at "few tens of millions", to be paid in shares of privately held Gett.

<comment><USER6> Could you link to some of them?

<comment><USER7> Sure: [http://www.themarker.com/technation/1.4049196](http://www.themarker.com/technation/1.4049196)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Been using Gett in NYC with excellent results. Car availability is hard to beat, even during peak hours and the special flat $10 rate in manhattan is quite the deal. Never tried Juno but will check it out.

</comment><comment><USER9> The more the merrier. At this point, I'd hate for Uber to have a monopoly in this market.

<comment><USER10> Lyft?

<comment><USER11> Lyft isn't available in a LOT of places. Not even in all the major cities in North America unlike say, Uber.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wait, the article says that if Gett and Juno combine they'd beat Lyft? It doesn't look like they are even close to Lyft's size...

</comment><comment><USER13> Am I the only one that was wondering why the dialup ISP Juno.com was considered a rival to Uber? Guess it's a different Juno..

TIL Juno.com still offers dial-up for $15.95/mo. Gone are the days of free dial-up with obnoxious banner ads.

<comment><USER14> There are a few who still offer free dial-up. No banner ads, since they make money by doing traffic pumping.

<comment><USER15> What's traffic pumping?

<comment><USER16> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping)

<comment><USER15> I wonder if schemes like this are used anywhere other than the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Instead of burning cash by subsidizing travels, Uber could have just bought some competitors but still... The only chance Uber has is becoming a monopoly, and I don't see how they can achieve it.

<comment><USER18> Why do they need to be a monopoly to succeed? I personally dislike Uber based on all the latest PR but what if they actually achieve a self driving car? If so, this would change the business entirely because no more contractor's to pay.

Do you think if one company has self driving cars and the rest don't this is a competitive advantage? Perhaps they license the self driving car software to other companies which also presents revenue options.

<comment><USER19> Self-driving is so far out as a door-to-door taxi service as to be utterly irrelevant to Uber's business model.

<comment><USER20> I'm not sure it's 'so far out' Waymo is running such a service in Phoenix: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/25/waymo-begins-first- public-...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/25/waymo-begins-first-public-on- demand-self-driving-service-test-in-arizona/)

<comment><USER19> Right. Because the fact that there's a Google employee in the driver's seat ready to take over control makes no difference whatsoever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So I assume these must be rival alt-taxi companies, but I have never heard a whisper of their existence before this story.

Uber, despite the seemingly coordinated smear campaign, reigns supreme in this area.

</comment><comment><USER22> Something about this headline interests me, along with the title that appears here on HN:

Article: "Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate"

HN: "Ubser rivals consolidating: Gett to buy Juno for $250M"

I wonder if the HN headline is as-submitted or mod-ified.

The latter title leans much more on the Uber link, while TC's headline puts it at the end.

If we didn't have all of Uber scandal stuff going on, I wonder which title would've been submitted to HN:

"Uber rivals scrambling as Gett buys Juno for $250M", maybe?

Here's a fun query to run: Pull HN submissions and go back to the linked articles. Pull those headlines, and then remove ones too long for HN's length limit.

Of the remaining headlines, normalize and see how many HN posts modified the title in some way.

<comment><USER23> Very few people on HN actually care about the Uber scandals. Almost no one has changed their daily behavior. They all still use Uber.

It's exactly how Trump won the US election. A small group of people spread the idea Uber is doing poorly when in reality they're not.

<comment><USER24> I'm skeptical about the business model in general, not related to any recent scandal.

The leaked financials[1] seem to indicate it's a losing proposition until self driving cars are relatively ubiquitous.

So whenever it does become financially viable, there's a pretty long payback cycle. And no obvious iron clad moat that keeps competitors at bay...ones that aren't under pressure to pay back investors for years of subsidized prices.

Of course, the leaked data is incomplete, and using unusual accounting, so perhaps I'm wrong.

[1] [http://gawker.com/here-are-the-internal-documents-that- prove...](http://gawker.com/here-are-the-internal-documents-that-prove-uber- is-a-mo-1704234157) and [http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever- deliver...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part- one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html)

<comment><USER25> Sounds good.

Revenues growing exponentially from 2012-2015. The revenues in 2015 were even higher than the predictions done 2 years earlier (that were actually planning for a steep exponential).

At this rate of growth. They should be making 1-2 billion in revenues per quarter now. Wish we had a recent leaked document.

That's a solid multi billion dollars business. Worse case scenario if they run out of subsidies: Stop distributing tons of incentive in unprofitable markets + fire half the staff (they have too many anyway) = back to positive.

<comment><USER24> Easily back to a profitable business that is already in a hole how big?

Anyone can drive big revenue by taking huge piles of investor cash and selling things below margin. That isn't magic. If that buys market share with a moat, it may make sense. If not, it's unwise.

<comment><USER25> The size of the hole is irrelevant.

What matters it the size of the shovel they are using (their expenses and subsidies) and the force of the wind that's refilling the hole with nearby dust (the customer revenues).

They can reduce their shovel without impacting the wind too much.

<comment><USER24> Amazon was fine throwing money into making a moat, and they have a tangible one.

I don't see what Uber's moat is once self driving cars are common. It seems they will be fighting off competition (car companies, Waymo, etc) that didn't have to spend money on lobbying, lawsuits, subsidies, and so forth.

<comment><USER25> That's your problem there! :D

Self driving cars are just hype that won't be any significant for another decade. You should forget about self driving cars.

What Uber has right now is real, a massive customer base and network of taxi, that is bringing billions of dollars. They could totally focus on that and have a strong and sustainable business.

<comment><USER24> Sans self driving cars, Uber loses cash. You seem to think shedding employees is enough to fix that. Closing a $2 to $3bn/yr loss with just layoffs seems hard. Eliminating subsidies puts competitors on a level playing field. I can sell dollar bills for 90 cents and be incredibly popular too. I just don't have the panache to sell that plan to Saudis.

<comment><USER26> Sans self driving cars, Uber's competitors are also losing cash, and they are losing cash faster than Uber

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168)

<comment><USER24> Yes, that seems logical. I'd mentioned competition in my comment as Waymo and car companies.

"Sell at a loss but make it up in volume" probably doesn't work well for many :)

<comment><USER26> I read your comment twice. You only mention Uber and not "Waymo and car companies" unless your referring to a different comment of yours than the one I replied to here.

<comment><USER24> This was the only spot where I said anything about specific competitors: _It seems they will be fighting off competition (car companies, Waymo, etc) that didn 't have to spend money on lobbying_

The bigger thing, though, is that you keep implying that I said Lyft was somehow in a better spot. Now you're noting I never mentioned Lyft.

Nothing I'm saying is affected one way or other by Lyft. Pointing out that they have the same problem doesn't change the rationale.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Police plant evidence and high five unarmed white 19 year old after killing him - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/17/zachary-hammond-police-shooting-lawyer

<comment><AUTHOR> FTA:

"Citing law enforcement sources in a neighboring department, Bland and Richter claim in the letter that officers on the scene "desecrated" Hammond's body, raising his hand and high-fiving it.

The letter also revealed an eyewitness who claims to have seen an officer retrieve something from the back of a patrol car and place it under Hammond's body after he had been removed from the vehicle. Bland and Richter suggest that this may explain the "white powdery substance consistent with powder cocaine" found on Hammond's body."

So, killing an unarmed 19 year old in a traffic stop, not rendering aid, playing with his dead body, then planting drugs. There were multiple cops on the scene here.

Tell me about how there are just a few bad apples.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good flight information data sources? - <AUTHOR> I am looking for free and legal data sources for flights. Most of the sites offer some paid solutions which charge per request which is not feasible for my product. I came across to this website which looks like it's getting its data in real time and in bulk (https://www.airportia.com) Do you know what could be powering this website? Thanks! <comment><USER2> Data looks similar to [https://www.flightradar24.com](https://www.flightradar24.com) (without the map) and its wikipedia page lists a couple of sources [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flightradar24](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flightradar24)

<comment><AUTHOR> unfortunately flightradar24 does not offer an api even in their paid subscription</comment></comment>


Show HN: Upcall – Triggered Human Phone Calls - <AUTHOR> https://www.upcall.com <comment><USER2> I don't see any policies around types of businesses, code of conduct, adherence to Do-Not-Call policies or information regarding privacy or security rigor applied to the citizens that would be effected by this platform.

This just seems like an amoral SaaS service I kind of want to die. Fast.

<comment><USER3> While your commentary around privacy and security is valid (they could indeed reference that more clearly), referring to them outright as an "Amoral SaaS service [you] kind of want to die" is extremely judgmental and out of place on HN.

<comment><USER2> I disagree. I think I laid out a fair argument for my opinion, and I believe I have the right to express that opinion in our lovely open internet as much as they have a right to be a thing in the first place. Me wanting this to cease to exist isn't calling in to question their right to be there in the first place. I think if we ever lose our voice in calling out things that seem detrimental to our society at large for the sake of not seeming "judgemental", then we've devoided all platforms of value - especially HN.

<comment><USER3> My issue is that you made a blanket judgement of something with seemingly little input or reasoning. Why do you feel that way? Go into some detail at the very least, instead of just dismissing it out of hand.

The security questions could be answered by then more easily instead of having to dig - I get that. But that's not enough imho.

You have the right to express your opinion, for sure. But when you make a blanket judgement with little you're going against HN guidelines:

> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky. > Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets > more divisive.

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A > good critical comment teaches us something.

<comment><USER4> In my opinion, he did outline a few reasons for why he felt that way, albeit concise.

The HN guidelines do not expect everyone to be positive. Negative feedback that's justified is important in any community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The pricing page seems... bizarre to me.

\- They mention that the tiers have 1, 5, or 10 users supported. Is this concurrent users? Does "user" even mean phone call recipient in this case, or is it just someone who's _dispatching_ the Upcall calls?

\- The enterprise tier seems like it should be subdivided; some of the things you pay for are really, really niche, but likely cost a small fortune to get set up on Upcall's end, justifying a much higher price. Looking at you, HIPAA compliance.

\- What is, even, a "Logic Decision Tree" in this context? Is this just the fact that the caller should offer the recipient a few specific paths? Isn't it cheaper to do this using a robocall (and widely done this way by many enterprise phone support systems)?

\- "Custom inbound voicemail" is a weird feature for a company marketing itself as outreach towards clients rather than the other way around; my understanding is that this is marketing and reactivation, not support, and incoming calls should be minimal in most use cases.

\- All the email stuff is probably cheaper being handled by a specialized standalone service; why try to fracture your business's focus by trying to enter a space dominated by well-established players? (Not trying to say competition is bad, but this company clearly specializes in something other than email, so it makes little sense to me that they should be dividing their effort like this).

<comment><USER6> >\- They mention that the tiers have 1, 5, or 10 users supported. Is this concurrent users? Does "user" even mean phone call recipient in this case, or is it just someone who's _dispatching_ the Upcall calls?

I assumed user to mean people who are the clients (the people paying for the service) who can login to see the progress of the "call tasks".

>\- The enterprise tier seems like it should be subdivided; some of the things you pay for are really, really niche, but likely cost a small fortune to get set up on Upcall's end, justifying a much higher price. Looking at you, HIPAA compliance.

That's pretty common for this type of service offering. Basically the pricing is there to give you an idea. You see in the basic plan where it says "Ideal for Simple Tasks"? That usually means "you can have it your way, but don't get crazy." Think things like "call and ask Carl if he's coming on Friday" or "let Lakisha know that her order is finished." Everything else is a custom plan!

\- What is, even, a "Logic Decision Tree" in this context? Is this just the fact that the caller should offer the recipient a few specific paths? Isn't it cheaper to do this using a robocall (and widely done this way by many enterprise phone support systems)?

My take away from the How it Works page leads me to believe that it's for use with the "scripts". The script changes when the callee answers a certain way.

>\- "Custom inbound voicemail" is a weird feature for a company marketing itself as outreach towards clients rather than the other way around; my understanding is that this is marketing and reactivation, not support, and incoming calls should be minimal in most use cases.

They're banking on people setting the custom caller ID to their actual number. It's probably just their so there is no "hole" if someone calls back. Certain types of calls _do_ generate a lot of callbacks.

>\- All the email stuff is probably cheaper being handled by a specialized standalone service; why try to fracture your business's focus by trying to enter a space dominated by well-established players? (Not trying to say competition is bad, but this company clearly specializes in something other than email, so it makes little sense to me that they should be dividing their effort like this).

I think it's specific to the use case of contacting new leads. If I were upcall, my intent would be to scan the emails for specific types of customers that the client wants to call and start "call tasks" based on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Telemarketing is wrong. You are working to destroy the value of one of the most marvelous accomplishments of the human race.

<comment><USER5> Telemarketing isn't inherently wrong, IMO, even though it's often poorly- executed and painfully annoying. In some cases, it's a better way of doing client outreach than email.

<comment><USER7> I'm not saying there is no imaginable ethical sales activity that involves a telephone in some way.

But despite do not call lists etc, I can no longer answer my cell phone when I don't recognize the number, because of all the unwanted commercial calls, scams, surveys, etc. Many are falsifying their caller ID data because they know that everyone would block them if they could.

This product really really looks like it will be used to make that situation worse. "90% MORE LIKELY TO CONVERT A LEAD if you reach out minimum six times". Blech.

Somewhere, people are failing to communicate about something important because these people are pissing in the well.

<comment><USER8> > * "90% MORE LIKELY TO CONVERT A LEAD if you reach out minimum six times". > Blech.*

Wow, I can't believe that's actually on there.

<comment><USER9> Why? I've heard for email, it's eight.

<comment><USER8> Because it's a scummy fucking thing to come out and say - "we'll call people half a dozen times until they cave and buy whatever garbage you're offloading."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I see a lot of criticism of this product by referencing it as a telemarketing solution - it is not.

These are not cold calls: they are inbound leads that you have to source and have permission to call. If someone fills out a lead form on your site and checks the "contact by phone" option, this allows you to scale a bit more rapidly in high-volume top-of-funnel lead gen where you are trying to filter out unqualified or low-value leads.

Edit: sueders101 pointed out that they reference cold calls. With the TOS in mind I bet that's a copy mistake as they require permission to call berg secured before making a call. Thy definitely could use some copy updates and calling out security/privacy more clearly.

<comment><USER10> "These are not cold calls"

When you hover over the solutions options they literally say

"Prospecting: We cold call businesses and generate new leads for you."

<comment><USER3> Fair. I was referencing the demo and the ToS makes it clear you must have an Established Business Relationship, which means I'm this case it wouldn't be truly cold as there is a lead and permission to call involved.

<comment><USER10> "you must have an Established Business Relationship"

They say on the prospecting page:

"UPLOAD YOUR LIST: Upload a list of target businesses to call. We can help you finding one too."

It doesn't sound like you need an Established Business Relationship.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it's not terribly consistent what they require. I do agree they need to call it out more clearly :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why the heck is this is Show HN? It's a company with 2.2M in funding.

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

Also first time submitted was 2 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER12> When you said triggered I thought it was angry people making phone calls.

<comment><USER13> Close!- the phone calls are making angry people.

<comment><USER12> Lol. The Triggered Human team is a crack team of socially insensitive people with the ability to trigger someone in under 5 seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I thought this was going to be outsourcing to have someone else call NYTimes to cancel my subscription.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wow, you can tell it's Monday! Haters gonna hate. Not sure if it belongs in ShowHN, but as someone familiar with the company I can say that Upcall outsources outbound calling for inbound leads. For the uninitiated, that means people who've requested to be contacted by phone and given their phone number for that very reason. As a former tech sales exec, I'm always amused by engineers who think their salary comes out of thin air, or that your VCs don't expect a profit at some point. Someone has to sell what you're coding, and that generally involves a phone call, and there is a correlation between deals closing and the speed with which someone responds to a warm lead. Upcall's goal is to fill that need.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would like to call out YCombinator for supporting this.

It is a slimy business, it is booming at the moment, but there are a lot of other, healthier ways to make money and I think they built perception to be better then others for good reason. This just doesn't suit them.

I am open to hear opposing views and explanations, sans kposehn who acts as these guys advocate here.

</comment><comment><USER17> The platform overview video is basically a screencast, and 480P is a really painful resolution for watching small text, even if I open it in YouTube app instead of the postage-stamp inline size the site tried to show it to me in. For a service that's supposed to talk to people for me, the fact that you apparently could not find anyone to record audio for a 4 min video really doesn't inspire confidence.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have a hunch these automated call systems that "do things for humans" (like Duplex, or this) are taking a ride on the Hype Cycle.

</comment><comment><USER19> The calls at Basic level are $0.29/minute. That's only $18/hour, and with Upcall taking a cut of that, what is the skill and education level if they have a "100% U.S.-based team"?

<comment><USER8> What's the problem with a low skill and education ceiling?

<comment><USER19> Intrinsically, nothing. However, it seems incongruent with how they're positioning the product. Presumably a low-skilled and low-educated work force can fit into a sales pipeline, but the same could be said for doing software QA, yet we still essentially hire for the edge cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Who is this product for?

<comment><USER21> Companies that don't mind outsourcing their reputation to a third-party outbound call center.

When I get an unsolicited call, I always ask pertinent questions. If they can't be answered swiftly, I know that the company doesn't care enough to properly train their sales critters, and so my trust in them to do anything properly is significantly decreased.

Pertinent questions might include "how is your software or service delivered?", "where is the company located?" or "where is your security policy documented?".

<comment><USER8> When I get an unsolicited phone call, I typically put my phone down without hanging up and go on about my business, until they hang up.</comment></comment></comment>


New Google Analytics Flow Visualization - <AUTHOR> http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/10/introducing-flow-visualization.html?utm_source=mandatory&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=v5default

<comment><USER2> It's great to see Google constantly adding new stronger features into GA. Omniture are going to have to do some incredible innovation or acquisitions to keep selling their astonishingly expensive packages.

</comment><comment><USER2> I have always thought that it would be great to add some animation into flow analysis. It's inherently a dynamic concept yet it's always analysed statically.

I'd love to see some dots representing users moving through these lines and the dots could also illustrate how much time people spend on the various pages. Coloured dots would be a beautiful way to visualise different segments.

<comment><USER3> You might like the real-time "Traffic Flow visualization" by Chartbeat. Example using avc.com: <http://chartbeat.com/labs/iflow/?host=avc.com>

Click on the pages that are connected by lines. :)

<comment><USER2> Beautifully done. This is exactly the type of treatment I'd love to see in those GA flows. Thanks for pointing it out

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great that GA recognizes importance of visual representation of flows. Although for sites with loads of dynamic content where URLs include one or more ids you would see picture segmented by content. Unless you instrument your site by features. Project we work on allows for quickly finding patterns of URLs that correspond to features while visually showing the top flows: <http://infunl.com/screen/0>

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks great, but I really want this as a _standalone_ product so not to share my traffic stats with the 3rd party.

<comment><USER4> By standalone you mean installed on your servers?

<comment><USER5> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Visitor Flow is located under Standard Reporting > Visitors.

Where? I can't see it.

<comment><USER7> they will roll it out in the upcoming weeks.

<comment><USER8> The blogpost is from a month ago. Google hasn't rolled it out yet?

edit: Yep, Google still hasn't rolled it out to most accounts. :( source: [http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Analytics/threa...](http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Analytics/thread?tid=205e33cb3f1e0b17&hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm new to GA. I started using it last week in my new blog.

I saw this feature, and found it amazing. It's really good to make A/B tests, and to see the effectiveness of your about page or home page. As my users grow, I think I'll use it more and more.

</comment><comment><USER10> This would be a lot more useful if you were able to define a sequential path rather than "of the users who went to page x, n also visited page y".

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool, they're not using Flash for this one. One step at a time I guess.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm just not in love with google's new UI.</comment>


Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) solver on Julia - <AUTHOR> https://nextjournal.com/kirill_zubov/physics-informed-neural-networks-pinns-solver-on-julia-gsoc-2020-final-report <comment><USER2> This is a great achievement for a student within such a short amount of time. I guess kudos to the supervisors for providing these finely-tuned setups (simple PDEs, suitable intial data and guidance how to plot and show the essential data, i.e. the error distribution).</comment>


Ask HN: How to write hackers resume - <AUTHOR>

This is second time I am writing resume, I am not very keen writing a traditional resume, I am planning for apply for few companies, as far I checked out in the web all companies wants to send out resume to mail ID. I am writing a resume in ReStructured Text(rst) and sending them link is it ok? I am not keen because I would like show my gihub profile, stackoverflow and other social links and send source code. How to differentiate normal tech company and hacker friendly company? How are hackers hired ? <comment><USER2> If you have it all on your website, all you need to do is to get the right person to view it. Instead of sending traditional resume through the website / board, I would suggest to do some research about the company, find the right person and email them directly with a link.

Here's an idea for getting their attention (worked for me) - I found the right person's name, bought an AdWords campaign with his name as the keywords. And then emailed him just one sentence "when was the last time you googled your name"? with a link to google search his name.

A. No one can resist something like that. B. The ad linked to the unique cover letter (unindexed, so they won't see the other ones:) and that linked to the resume. C. Total cost was like 5 bucks because he showed it to ~10 people - def. worth it.

The bottom line is - anything that will get the right person's attention would do :)

<comment><AUTHOR> this is one is very trick & doesn't work most of the time

<comment><USER2> I was applying for a marketing position and I got a response 100% of the times.

I am not suggesting this is the best way to go for a development position. But the principle is the same - you have to stand out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> _How to differentiate normal tech company and hacker friendly company?_

Each of your questions requires a pretty lengthy discussion that can rarely be covered in a forum but I've addressed the above question at length in an old blog post of mine: [http://voltsteve.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/how-to-find-job- for-...](http://voltsteve.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/how-to-find-job-for- hackers.html)

If you're UK based then have a look through our site: <http://www.hackerjobs.co.uk></comment>


Japan Shrinks by 500k People as Births Fall to Lowest Number Since 1874 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/24/world/asia/japan-birthrate-shrink.html <comment><USER2> Japanese population is a little over 126 million. 500k is a roundoff error -- literally. In reality the population is not growing. The issue is more that the population demographics is moving upwards in age. The big place I see a problem is with the ageing farmer population. Also, the demands on the pensions system are going to peak. Living in Japan, I'm quite worried about the pension system. They already "lost" a whole bunch of records and asked people to provide proof of employment over their lifetime or risk losing benefits at employment. They've pushed retirement age from 60 to 65 and I reckon they'll push it further.

But it's all good. We'll have some pain and the rest of the world can learn from it. We all need to do this and it's better that there is at least one country that's going through it now. I expect scandals and hardship, but in the end this country will be better off for it -- like the world itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> A gradual reduction in population sounds like exactly what the world needs.

<comment><USER4> Exactly, figuring out how to increase happiness without growing the population exponentially, would be major progress. It has some hard limits in terms of resource consumption and distribution.

<comment><USER5> the government and conglomerates will not like this

<comment><USER6> I'd like To expand on this, Economic models are built on growth. To achieve growth there are three ways, increase the demand, increase the consumers, and increase productivity/efficiency.

The world economy has been expanding rapidly in party because there are more consumers brought about from an increase in population.

You need to fix the dependency on an exponential growth model before you can hope to have a reduction in population and I'll take it a step further and this needs to be done to solve climate change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Imagine if artificial wombs were possible. The government could control birth rates simply by producing children like they print money to increase inflation.

<comment><USER8> You've obviously never raised a child. The problem isn't a lack of wombs or the first 9 months of childbearing.

<comment><USER9> As Japanese, I can say they are a few of the problems too. You can't take maternity leave most companies (when you're pregnant, it usually is time to quit), or you're not allowed to be pregnant until none of your coworker is pregnant.

> Case of child care worker chided for getting pregnant before her 'turn' not > uncommon > [https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180402/p2a/00m/0na/00...](https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180402/p2a/00m/0na/003000c#)

<comment><USER10> Reading this makes me sad and a little bit angry. It is ridiculous that a company/employer might suggest your right of getting children. In a different context this would be considered a joke or something you would read about in a dystopian book, but instead it's happening in one of the most developed countries in the would.

<comment><USER11> You are conflating economic development and social development. Go check out some youtube channels from westerners living in Japan and you'll see that the economic development has had a cost. I don't really know how to define it because it's their society and I can't put my American values on it, but the salaryman thing has a cost. This birthrate issue is probably it. Will Japan eventually collapse because of it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, no number of immigration can replace this. This is too little too late.

<comment><USER13> Immigration is not to replace, it is to substitute. So eventually Japan will be full of people again. Just of different culture and level of civilisation likely.

<comment><USER14> But then it wouldn't be Japan anymore...

<comment><USER12> What would you rather have? A civilization and culture extinct or a a civilization that adapts with newer people, creating a blend of the future?

<comment><USER14> Ceasing to be Japan would equal to have the culture be extinct so it's obviously not a solution.

Even if it wasn't (like you seem to argue), I would rather realize than in 10 years many jobs will be automated, so you won't need as much manual labor and Japanese will be just fine.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with IP (when you don't believe in it)? - <AUTHOR>

Howdy folks, I've recently found myself in a position where I am developing a SAS offering, and the company I work for wants to investigate IP options.
I don't believe in IP. I think the whole idea is silly. If I could I would prefer to GPL everything I write. I don't think anyone can own ideas, and I definitely don't think someone can have a government monopoly on implementing certain ideas.
How do you guys deal with this? Does anyone else feel personally that they don't think IP is a legitimate idea - but they are compelled to file patents and such regardless? Do you pitch your company on going open-source? Or try to sell the company on just keeping the goodies as 'trade secrets'?
What say you, hackers of the world? <comment><USER2> I also don't believe in IP, but my career is literally in IP (I work with patents, within the IP division of a large company). IP is a game -- it has a set of rules that people play by -- and my job is to work with the rules as they are implemented, not to worry about whether or not the rules are good rules (or whether or not they accurately reflect some aspect of reality).

Refusing to work with IP because you don't believe in it is like refusing to play WoW because you don't believe in wizards.

Now, if you have a philosophical objection to IP, that's a different issue. You need to determine for yourself what your philosophical objection is worth in monetary terms. Will this company be able to pay you enough to make you temporarily set aside your moral standing (or, alternately, will the release of this software produce more good in the world than its licensing produced bad in the world)? If the answer is no, then leave.

The answer, unless you are already wealthy, is probably yes -- few people are willing to starve to death for their position on the morality of IP, and if you quit your job and refuse to work for any company that uses or produces proprietary products, you will probably run out of money and starve to death on the street before you find a new job that fits your criteria.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Howdy folks, I've recently found myself in a position where I am developing a SAS offering, and the company I work for wants to investigate IP options."

I'm just curious, do you want to stay employed at your current job? If you open-sourced your SASS offering and 10 competitors popped up in the next few months and you were fired (because your company went out of business), would you be okay with this?

Not open-sourcing your software gives you what little competitive advantage you have in this world. Especially against large corporations. It's becoming easier and easier to start a software company these days, and large companies have more money and man-power than you.

If you are trying to make a profit, why would you just hand over all of your ideas and software to a competitor? It really doesn't make any sense to me.

<comment><USER4> So much of success doesn't depend on the code or the idea. Its product-market fit, time to market and such things. As engineers we wish that clever code or a good idea were all it took. So often they don't really matter at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> So is this an argument that potentially being at the 'right-place right-time' is all that's needed, not necessarily the IP?

<comment><USER4> Sure. And its a crap shoot even then. Multiple startups are essentially based on the same observation, with more or less equivalent solutions. Then its ALL about marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You have a number of options:

1\. Quit

2\. Do an excellent job, and try and present an unbiased case.

3\. Try and present as negative case as possible for IP, and as positive a case for not protecting the company IP.

4\. Don't do it and hope they forget.

I doubt they will listen. Limiting your options to quiting or hoping they'll forget. Personally, I'd probably say you don't think that the code can effective be protected by patents but you're not an expert and they may want to find an outside consultant.

Then find a new job that better aligns with your interests.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear ya.

"I'd probably say you don't think that the code can effective be protected by patents but you're not an expert and they may want to find an outside consultant." \- good advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If it's not your name on the door, do you really have a final say in what the answer to this question is?

Problem is, now that your company is aware of what you're working on you just can't leave and start your writing your own GPL code on the same idea. Since your employer values all internally developed IP they will most likely come after you for the "theft" of that IP.</comment>


A host of common chemicals endanger child brain development, NIH journal reports - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-host-of-common-chemicals-endanger-child-brain-development-nih-journal-reports <comment><USER2> Here's the two most relevant paragraphs:

"The list includes chemicals used extensively in consumer products and that have become widespread in the environment. Of most concern are lead and mercury; organophosphate pesticides used in agriculture and home gardens; phthalates, which are used in pharmaceuticals, plastics and personal care products; flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers; and air pollutants produced by the combustion of wood and fossil fuels, said University of Illinois Comparative Biosciences professor Susan Schantz, one of dozens of individual signatories to the consensus statement."

""And if it looks like something is a risk, we feel policymakers should be willing to make a decision that this or that chemical could be a bad actor and we need to stop its production or limit its use," she said. "We shouldn't have to wait 10 or 15 years — allowing countless children to be exposed to it in the meantime — until we're positive it's a bad actor.""

And their website: [https://ldaamerica.org/](https://ldaamerica.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> So, what's the solution? I've been hearing about this my entire life, and it just seems to feed into a horribly asymmetric debate between academics, scientific consensus on one hand, and "all of industry" on the other.

<comment><USER3> Downvotes and no answers... not too inspiring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you can find a copy of 'The Incredible Shrinking Woman' (starring Lily Tomlin), there is an amazing amount of social commentary about consumer exposure in the first 15 minutes or so.</comment>


Who Are Your Lifelines? - <AUTHOR> http://www.taxiwars.org/who-are-your-lifelines/ <comment><AUTHOR> This was originally voted up as a story at Kuro5hin.org (K5) on Jan 28, 2015.

In the comments to HN submission 'RIP Kuro5hin', I posted about my story having been the last to post, and that I was thinking about getting a domain of my own. One of you responded, "Please do that. I enjoyed your stories, particularly 'Who Are Your Lifelines?'" [1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609802)

I'd started blogging about my taxi passengers at K5 in March, 2012, after my 8th lease. My original intention was to help me better remember all the interesting people I was meeting. I posted at K5 because I wanted to be anonymous, and was not looking for attention (the site was already on life support at that time).</comment>


How China's unmanned stores allow people to live with almost zero human contact - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/7ibn8t/how_chinas_unmanned_stores_allow_people_to_live/ <comment><USER2> Two large supermarket chains in my country have been replacing human cashiers with machines where customers can scan their own goods. The cashiers are now working as troubleshooters, helping people who have trouble operating the machines.

The blessing of this is twofold.

1) It's much faster. I have an incentive to scan my goods quickly and pay quickly - I'll be home, doing awesome things, sooner. The cashier has no incentive to work quickly. They'll have to stay at work until 8pm no matter how slow they go. Also, you can put 5 electronic cashiers in the place where 1 human cashier was. Parallelization.

2) The cashiers seem happier in their troubleshooter role than going _beep--- beep_ all day.

I really like this development.

<comment><USER3> I used to work at Target and they had a system in place that would time the cashier from when they scanned the first item to the time the payment was placed and gave a letter grade based on how fast the experience was for the customer.

It was a bit of gamification but also served as way for managers to see which cashiers were slow and not meeting company standards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not easy to live in China with no human contact.</comment>


A QUIC look at HTTP/3 - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/814522/ab3bfaa8f75c60ce/ <comment><USER2> > _In practice, it will mean asking the DNS first to check if HTTP /3 can be > used._

Looking at the (draft) DNS specs for HTTPSSVC records [0] it seems that there's also the equivalence of SRV records? (SRV records is something that the browsers have never implemented)

I recall a semi-recent discussion about the prevalence of CDNs and what options there are for smaller players and DIY-ers and how SRV could have had a role in that [1]. I'm really looking forward to the spec rolling out if this is the case!

(There's a little example given in the Appendix of the DNS specs [2])

[0] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dnsop-svcb- httpssvc-0...](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dnsop-svcb-httpssvc-01)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22073098](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22073098)

[2] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dnsop-svcb- httpssvc-0...](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dnsop-svcb- httpssvc-01#appendix-A.1)

<comment><USER3> Yes, Alt-Svc just isn't practically faster unless you're constantly back to that particular site so a DNS solution had to be on the table, and (the current assumed path for) eSNI assumes a DNS solution too.

It will be interesting to see which is the biggest deployability headache out of QUIC itself (UDP doesn't work for a noticeable fraction of users) and HTTPSSVC (not only will lots of people who have a shiny new HTTP/3-capable server not have a DNS server that understands HTTPSSVC lots of their clients have DNS servers which reject queries they don't understand outright).

Remember it was about a year between TLS 1.3 being finished and being really finished, because the standard that was cryptographically sound and made sense from an engineering perspective couldn't be deployed - what we've got now is that protocol seen through a funhouse mirror that lets it pass middleboxes.

For example the version field where you'd write TLS 1.3 (actually in a sense SSL 4.2 or maybe SSL 5) you can't do that. To sneak past a middlebox say instead that you're TLS 1.2 like it expects, and furthermore, you are re- connecting. It shouldn't worry that it can't understand the rest of what you say because you're just re-connecting - it must have approved that previous connection and so logically this one is likewise fine. Actually remembering which such connections have happened would cost money and isn't required to make the test pass so the middlebox doesn't do that and many will just allow all re-connections past untouched.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only one who thinks QUIC looks a bit crazy with all its variable length fields in the frame, separate short & long header format, and rather high limits for certain things? 160 bit connection ids and 64 bit stream ids sound like something you'd benefit from if you're Google scale and building big-ass load balancers on custom hardware but I feel like there's going to be a lot of overhead for everyone else. (Consider that a TCP header with no options is as large as a single maximum size connection id in QUIC).

At least the designers of IPv6 seemed to care more about efficiency, even if the protocol otherwise seems quite bloated and overengineered.

<comment><USER5> I guess connection IDs are that large to allow the use of stateless cryptographic identifiers similar to tcp syn cookies. And stream IDs are assigned sequentially and variable length encoded, so they shouldn't take up much space most of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Uber was an early adopter of QUIC and saw significant performance improvements for its apps from it, especially in markets where mobile connectivity is poor [https://eng.uber.com/employing-quic- protocol/](https://eng.uber.com/employing-quic-protocol/)

<comment><USER5> With recent linux kernels most of the cited quic advantages are also available for TCP, the exceptions are HoL blocking which is inherent in TCP (but how bad it is depends on loss recovery, which is improving) and connection migration which will come to TCP via MP-TCP.

Their article doesn't even mention against which kernel verison they're comparing

> In the future, TLS1.3 will support 0-RTT, but the TCP three-way handshake > will still be required.

This is outright wrong. With TCP you have fast open, which provides 0-RTT send just like the TLS 0-RTT handshake.

<comment><USER7> All of this is covered in the "Boxes" section in the article

<comment><USER5> I was sppecifically responding to the bullet list in the "Adopting QUIC" section of the uber article. I don't think the general "middle boxes ruing everything" argument addresses this.

BBR has very few if any middlebox problems. Neither do tail loss probe improvements or any other sender side optimizations such as TCP_NOTSENT_LOWAT. TFO may cause issues in corporate environments (works fine with my home equipment) but fallback is easy. So I don't think this really "addresses" the issue. Improved acking is not strictly needed if you use tcp timestamps for RTT estimation and still ack improvements have been added to the kernel over the years.

<comment><USER8> Fallback for TFO isn't easy because your request might not have been idempotent.

Start running some HTTP requests multiple times and you can quickly see hard to debug breakage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Man, I'm just waiting for AWS load balancers to support HTTP2. Last time I checked they still convert HTTP2 into HTTP1 for downstream endpoints.

<comment><USER10> Why is that an issue for you? It seems like the downstream connection would be on AWS' internal network, so HTTP 2 doesn't have as many advantages.

<comment><USER11> HTTP/2 push comes to mind. Your services hosted behind an ALB won't be able to make us of it if the connection is dropped to HTTP/1.1

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great article, thanks. Just today I happened to see an Alt-Svc header from a LiteSpeed server and was wondering what it was. I've (finally) signed up for an LWN subscription.

</comment><comment><USER13> So far no mention of SCTP which would have been fine if people switched to IPv6 (which more and more are every day). Instead we have this monster of a protocol emulating it over UDP.

<comment><USER14> Wouldn't SCTP suffer from the ossification of middle boxes?

<comment><USER15> Yes absolutely.

Some of the people involved in the early QUIC development in Google had been heavily involved in the SCTP work and blamed its lack of success on the difficulty in getting firewalls, middleboxes (and the teams that manage them) to accept a new IP protocol. So they wrapped QUIC in UDP.

<comment><USER16> SCTP can run over UDP. WebRTC does it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I took an early look at the performance (using Python) in November which may also be of interest. [https://pgjones.dev/blog/early-look-at- http3-2019/](https://pgjones.dev/blog/early-look-at-http3-2019/)

(That site is also served over HTTP/3 if you want to try it out).

</comment><comment><USER18> The article states:

>"In HTTP/2, the single connection carries hundreds of streams. In this case, when we lose one packet, "one hundred streams are waiting for that one single packet"

Could someone elaborate on how this is worse if all of those streams are part of the some client request? Am I missing something really obvious.

<comment><USER19> The difference is that in HTTP/1.1 browsers tended to use up to six TCP connections per origin. On a site that loaded many resources (a.jpg, b.png, c.js, an API call, _& c._) from one origin, they were multiplexed across _six_ TCP connections, and so if a packet on one connection was lost, the other five would be unaffected and could continue at full speed.

In HTTP/2, all those requests are multiplexed across only one TCP connection per origin (each request becomes an HTTP/2 stream); so now when a packet is lost, _all_ requests in progress are affected, rather than as few as ⅙ of them.

If you only ever make one request at a time, this difference does not affect you, because only one connection would be used under HTTP/1.1 as well.

But this case can make HTTP/2 significantly worse than HTTP/1.1 on low-quality mobile networks.

<comment><USER5> They may all be affected, but with selective ACK that means the receiver will still ACK most of the data, the server will notice that one packet was missing via SACK, resend it along with even more new data and all you got is a larger batch coming in 1RTT later, throughput isn't affected if your congestion controller can distinguish spurious losses from congestion (as BBR does). The problem only snowballs when future requests will only be made depending on previous data.

<comment><USER20> The other requests are still taking the latency hit.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but they were parallel requests in the first place, so in terms of wall time you're still only taking the latency hit once. And if they're larger in aggregate than the connection's BDP some of them would only have finished by the time that it has recovered from the loss anyway.

So... it's complicated. I'm not saying that HoL is a non-issue and that TCP is perfect. It's just that you're not eating the latency penalty N times and for anything that is dominated by throughput rather than latency it's even less relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > HTTP/3 is expected to use two to three times more CPU time than the earlier > versions for the same bandwidth consumption.

I wonder the "for the same bandwidth consumption" is based on what. HTTP/2 with TLS I guess?

</comment><comment><USER22> > new implementation of TLS in the kernel

This sounds like insanity to me. Is there an _old_ implementation of TLS?</comment>


A bug in SpaceX's communication system hid ESA's messages - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/3/20847243/spacex-starlink-satellite-european-space-agency-aeolus-conjunction-space-debris <comment><USER2> Original source of information: [https://twitter.com/lorengrush/status/1168917747109191681?s=...](https://twitter.com/lorengrush/status/1168917747109191681?s=21)

My theory: someone must've turned off their pagerduty and didn't hear the alarm.

<comment><USER3> They silenced it thinking they'd dealt with it, but it was a new alert of the same type now odds had been updated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you have one mission critical system, all your systems are mission critical.

It's usually the link you don't expect or don't know about that screws you over. Like an email server, DNS, networking. At any level, a complicated house of cards can easily come down.

Thankfully, in rocket engines, simplicity is a design goal.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure that SpaceX's excuse that it wasn't deliberate really helps their image here. Deliberately ignoring it, for whatever reason, could be fixed with a firm "you really can't do that", backed by lawsuits or complaints to the US government (FCC? Airforce?) etc.

On the other hand, a culture of oversight that fails to adequately test its emergency response procedures seems a more systemic problem.

<comment><USER6> The article mentions that at the time they said that, the probability of collision wasn't that high. So, it looks totally OK to say they didn't have plans to move it, then, since it means they didn't believe there really was any risk of collision if they both stayed in their current paths. At that time, ESA's query was probably to ensure they didn't have any plans for maneuvers that would raise the probability.

> "They said at that point in time they had no plans," says Merz. SpaceX > confirmed that it exchanged the initial email with ESA. At that time, the > probability of collision was about 1 in 50,000, according to SpaceX, which > is too low to require any preventive action.

SpaceX might have even interpreted it as ESA asking because they might have their own plans for maneuvers and they just wanted to make sure that SpaceX's movements stayed predictable.

It doesn't need to be that SpaceX was being negligent here.

<comment><USER5> At the time they said that, yes, probability of impact was low. But then the probability got much, much, much higher. 10x the probability at which maneuvers are typically made. And we can't chalk it up to what or how SpaceX might have interpreted it. We know interpretation was not the problem. They freely admit that they never saw further messages because of a bug in their process, so we don't need to imagine their interpretation. The simply never knew the risk was there. Even if we were going to that extent though, clearly such an interpretation doesn't comport itself to how these things are resolved within the community of satellite operators. Which, if SpaceX made a misinterpretation, also shows a negligent disregard for how emergency resolution functions here.

I hope their ubiquitous constellation of broadband-providing satellites works well. I couldn't care less about the negligible impact it might have on visual observations of the sky-- the society enriching effects of cheap ubiquitous networks outweigh it. But they have to get basic things like safety protocols right, not iterating without such things from a minimum viable product.

<comment><USER6> > They freely admit that they never saw further messaged because of a bug in > their process, so we don't need to imagine their interpretation.

No, what I said about interpretation was about the first query when it was a 1 in 50,000 chance. For the message they missed, we don't need to imagine their interpretation because they can't interpret a message they never received.

> Even if we were going to that extent though, clearly such an interpretation > doesn't comport itself to how these things are resolved within the community > of satellite operators.

At the level of the community, I don't see a problem here. ESA tried to contact SpaceX to agree on a course of action; SpaceX couldn't be contacted because of a bug on their end, so ESA acted on its own to resolve the situation from its end.

I can see a problem if they plan to be a significant portion of all space traffic and they can never be relied on to be contactable in case of problems arising from their satellites. However, this happening once doesn't seem like negligence.

<comment><USER5> Their response to the first query was fine. We agree on that.

My criticism is with them having a system that wasn't tested adequately enough to realize they would be blind to further messages. This _forced_ ESA to act on its own when standard protocol, the responsible way to behave, is to work together. The ESA's ability to act was a luxury not all satellites have. SpaceX's inadequate testing could have had catastrophic consequences for both parties. You seem to be using the fact that it all worked this time as evidence that there was no real problem here. But the fact that one responsible party avoided disaster doesn't excuse the irresponsible party's problem with inadequate testing. It would be a bit like having a car drive on the wrong side of the road, nearly hit another car, but that other car moved out of the way, so really everything is okay. That doesn't quite parse for me. I don't see how someone can come away from this without saying that SpaceX needs to fix something, because SpaceX themselves admit to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One point that's missing here, is this occurred on Labor Day weekend, a Federal US Holiday. Everyone involved would have been off of work and they were relying on the pager system. If a bug occurred in that then there would have been no one to reach.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are there 'give way to the right' or 'both alter heading to starboard' type rules for orbit? You wouldn't want both satellites to alter their orbits in the same direction.

<comment><USER7> No. The only thing codified in law is that the country of launch bears the liability for the satellite. If there were a collision, the liability to ESA would be due from the US government given that the satellites launched from US soil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just a few months ago SpaceX fanboys were telling us those satellites were no problem, because "space is so large". The problem is, they're operated by overworked, delusional people.

People are going to die, because hype is more fun than security.

<comment><USER10> People are going to die from satellite collisions?

<comment><USER6> Probably because the created debris would be practically impossible to clean up later, and if we ever have consumer space travel, that debris might pose a significant risk.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heESAW2addo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heESAW2addo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claims that each Starlink satellite is programmed with > its own autonomous space debris tracking system, which it will use to move > out of the way of potential debris if necessary.

Uh huh. Yup, and teslas already fully self drive. Do not believe Musk's claim that anything he works on does X until you see it do X with your own two eyes!</comment>


Dispatch: web-based IRC client in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/khlieng/dispatch <comment><USER2> I've been using a similar client called thelounge for the past year and I really love it.

[https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge](https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge)

It's a node based IRC client you can install on a server and then connect to with a web browser.

It essentially turns IRC into slack/irc cloud, it has inline images/video, URL prefetching, push notifications, themes and custom css, mobile support, and allows you to idle indefinitely persisting your connection to your favorite channels across numerous devices. You can even hook it into active directory if you wanted.

<comment><USER3> Several months ago I switched from MacOS to Fedora.

Two things I really missed from MacOS that I thought didn't have a good alternative in Linux were Colloquy and Sequel Pro.

The Lounge via Docker Container and [https://applicationize.me/](https://applicationize.me/) :

        docker run --detach \
                --name thelounge \
                --publish 9100:9000 \
                --volume ~/.config/thelounge:/home/lounge/data \
                --env THELOUNGE_HOME=/home/lounge/data \
                --restart always \
                -u "$(id -u $USER):$(id -g $USER)" \
                thelounge/lounge:latest

solved my IRC itch, and it works even better than Colloquy.

Still haven't found anything that comes close to Sequel Pro, though.

<comment><USER2> that's pretty slick, but you miss out on the best features (persistance/push notifications) if you're running it locally in a docker container.

<comment><USER3> It connects to a ZNC server on DigitalOcean.

<comment><USER4> Why not run thelounge on your VM then?

<comment><USER5> Maybe for speed. Local lounge installation would feel more like a desktop app.

<comment><USER6> Having Lounge reconnect to ZNC every time you start the app neglects any speed gains you'd have from running it locally. And it gives you overall a negative experience because unread markers and other things are reset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems like a promising project, but right now it still is lacking some features that are very nice to have in my opinion:

* Colored nick-names

* Theme-ability, even if only through user-provided CSS overrides

* Nickname autocompletion when hitting tab, preferably with some logic such as "you talked to this user recently"

* A locked down mode in which only authorised users can connect

That said, I really like the fact that you can search the history right from the client. Since I am not using this in production, maybe someone with more experience can tell me about how well it scales?

Also I feel that the separation of channels and DMs with users is very sensible.

I personally use The Lounge ([https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge](https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge)) for my web IRC needs, which solves my main issues outlined above, but doesn't have searchable history nor separated users and channels (there might be a setting for this that I haven't found yet).

<comment><USER8> What do you mean separated users and channels?

<comment><USER7> I should have been more clear about that. I meant a visual separation between the channels I join in a network and the users in the same network that I open DMs with.

I realize I can achieve this by hand, but I frequently join/leave channels and open new DMs and it would just be a nice to have thing for it to happen automatically.

So far it hasn't bothered me enough to actually open a feature request, so take this with a grain of salt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Would take a lot to make me abandon trusty irssi, but I welcome this. The image of IRC seems tied to mIRC-era UI design and some attribute the current state with competing proprietary chat programs to perceived user unfriendliness of IRC, as if it's the protocol's fault the clients don't "look modern"

</comment><comment><USER10> Would like to get my colleagues on IRC, but a crucial element is missing which Slack nails: _Copy link_

Conversations need to be able to referenced. Getting some logbot + archive going is way too painful.

</comment><comment><USER11> I really like this! It's such a pretty client. Minor nitpick though:

The SSL checkbox shows up as two checkboxes (one regular, one fancy), the regular one way out in the middle of nowhere:

[https://i.imgur.com/tFqN4HK.png](https://i.imgur.com/tFqN4HK.png)

If you don't have a large monitor to test it on, you can use Chrome's dev tools to emulate a higher resolution.

<comment><USER12> Completely offtopic, but what DE/WM is that?

<comment><USER11> I'm using i3-gaps and polybar. My GTK theme is Arc [0] and the paper icon set [1]

My dotfiles are really disorganized, but here's my polybar config which I copied from some reddit post:

[https://github.com/veggiedefender/dotfiles/blob/master/polyb...](https://github.com/veggiedefender/dotfiles/blob/master/polybar/config)

You'll need fontawesome 4 and material icons

[0] [https://github.com/horst3180/arc-theme](https://github.com/horst3180/arc- theme)

[1] [https://snwh.org/paper](https://snwh.org/paper)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's quite amazing the longevity that IRC has enjoyed, still essential around a lot of the OSS community. I know a lot of my Fedora questions are answered on #fedora.

I'm often a little baffled when I try to get help with a project and it doesn't have a chan on Freenode!

</comment><comment><USER14> Wasn't able to connect to freenode. SSL didn't work at all, then without SSL I was "throttled" (few minutes later). So only one thing I can comment on is that the connect form shouldn't be reset every time.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't know why the underlying language for the code is important in the product description? Seems a little clickbait to me. Instead why not focus of the UX you provide or the speed that you have. I just don't get why the mention of GoLang is required, unless its a hobby project for someone learning GoLang. I've seen a lot of these projects mentioning Rust or GoLang lately, capitalising on their popularity, I get that Open Source projects help in understanding the language and hacking around it, but repetitive projects also do this! Is there some reason for it? Btw, I did like the UI, only ended up with this error "Error: tls: oversized record received with length 20306" post login.

<comment><USER16> The language is important. If I want to customise it for example it helps to know that I know the language. Also it gives me a rough idea of how fast and robust it will be.

Finally the language affects deployment. Given that it is Go I know it will be trivial to cross-compile a static binary.</comment></comment>


Why I won't be upgrading my iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.productwiki.com/home/article/why-i-won-t-be-upgrading-my-iphone.html

<comment><USER2> the main reason is mobile.. are you seriously telling me you are carrying that ipad with you everywhere. Shopping, going out to eat, driving in the car.. the iphone mobile web, maps, email is awesome. I won't be upgrading because I'm getting a google phone.

<comment><AUTHOR> I won't be carrying it everywhere but that's not really the point. The times that I don't need/want an ipad such as driving, walking about, going out with friends is what the current iPhone/nexus one/etc are more than sufficient for.

It's all of these other things these phones can do that I no longer care for. I don't really care about the iPhone vs Android anymore because my phone has become a lot less important to me. Basic apps, good web browser and being able to make phone calls are all I really need now. An ipad in my messenger bag can take of anything more demanding in a heck of a lot more enjoyable fashion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't see much point of upgrading if you own 3GS. But is worthwhile consideration if you own 3G or older to take advantage of multitasking. Unless you must have 720p hd video and video chat.</comment>


Cracking open the StarWars BB-8 droid - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/sphero-bb-8-teardown-reveals-the-cool-robot-tech-inside-this-fun-star-wars-toy/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is definitely the droid I'm looking for. ; )</comment>


Adobe: More than 84M Smartphones and Tablets Support AIR - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/13/adobe-air-milestones/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Venturebeat+%28VentureBeat%29

<comment><USER2> I admit to being idealistic and closed-minded about AIR and Flash, but that's 84 million too many in my opinion.

<comment><USER3> I get flash, but what's wrong with AIR?

<comment><USER4> AIR apps don't _feel_ right. In the way that, for many, the subliminal _feeling_ is what differentiates good iOS apps from everything else, AIR apps feel weird. All of them.

Call me crazy. But the fact is, there's another layer between the program's code and the OS. That layer is going to introduce some of its own character into the app, when compared to native apps for the current platform. I think that AIR's particular "character" is most unwelcome.

<comment><USER5> _AIR apps don't feel right. In the way that, for many, the subliminal feeling is what differentiates good iOS apps from everything else, AIR apps feel weird. All of them_

So do feel the same about every web app? Because Air is basically just webkit with some prepackaged APIs.

<comment><USER4> Almost. Web apps and native apps are very different beasts, and AIR makes a noble attempt to bridge the gap. The difference is that users expect web apps to act like web apps; a little bit of latency between input and visual feedback has always been the status quo (and it's getting much better). Native apps are supposed to react instantaneously, and behave consistently, and respect certain OS-wide UI conventions, accessibility features, and so forth. If the app stutters when being resized, or if there are lags in the interaction, semi-savvy users will assume that the app is poorly coded while the non-technical will be less satisfied without the ability to understand or express why.

<comment><USER5> I get what you're saying - but I have doubts about whether non-technical users care enough about those differences, glaring though they may be.

On the other hand, I guess non-technical users don't even have a concept of 'web apps'. They're just web _sites_ which provide some useful service.

<comment><USER4> You might toss this off as the "buzz" factor, but a possible indicator of layman-users being affected by these subtle frustrations is the surging number of average users switching to the Mac.

And besides, everyone can see lag. My dad uses that term correctly, and he can't even tell the difference between "email" and "outlook".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And lots of devices support MMS, that doesn't mean anybody uses it.</comment>


How to Level the College Playing Field - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/opinion/sunday/harold-levy-college.html <comment><USER2> Maybe we shouldn't keep the college system around in its current form at all.

In Iran, there's something called the Guardian Council. If you want to run for an election, the Guardian Council has to approve you first. If they don't approve you, you can't run.

We don't have that in America, and that's generally considered a good thing. What we do have is an emphasis on credentials -- and the opportunity to get these credentials is gatekept by admissions officers.

For example, look at the Supreme Court. Every current justice went to either Harvard or Yale -- mostly Harvard. The last one not to attend either was O'Connor. So, in practice, we have a guardian council here in America, which determines, among (many) other things, who can get on the Supreme Court.

There's also the issue that not everyone understands the college game -- not just admissions, but the importance of going to a brand-name college in the first place. There are still a lot of parents and counselors and so on out there who think the only thing that matters is getting the degree, no matter where it's from. So if you don't come from a background where people know the game, you're screwed for life, unless you can become a successful entrepreneur.

<comment><USER3> To be more precise, the name of the institution on the degree matters for only a handful of universities. If you don't have one of those names, it doesn't matter which name you have.

If the kid isn't getting in to one of the prestige-brand schools, the parents and counselors are correct--many of the public universities and lesser-known private colleges are essentially the same. But there is also a third tier, composed mostly of community colleges, correspondence schools, and for-profit "nationally accredited" colleges. That credential might not be enough to pass by all gatekeepers.

Different universities occupy the top tier for different industries. For instance, in software, MIT counts, but in politics, it doesn't.

It's not really the quality of the institution, but the strength of the brand, and the nepotism by alumni. And it's the people you met that can pry open an opportunity for you later. We don't live in a meritocracy. You still have to know someone who knows someone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Definitely an interesting piece.

While college has the potential to be a great equalizer, society needs to focus on the school system before kids reach college.

Teachers walked out in three states because they are so underpaid. Teacher have second or third jobs.

You want everyone to have an equal footing? Let's adequately fund our education from k-12. And while we are at it let's have some universal pre-k.

If we do both, we can have a more merit based society. If we just focus on colleges, it won't solve root cause.

<comment><USER5> If the traits that produce a person of high "merit" are 50% due to genetics and another 25% to environment from conception to age 3 (as most studies suggest), how to you plan on solving the "root cause" of the problem? In the US at least, people a more and more mating with their peers in IQ, conscientiousness, and culture. With the huge variation in human traits, a meritocracy is going to see massive inequality especially over generations. Careful what you wish for.

<comment><USER6> Do you have a source for these statistics?

You put merit in quotes and then stated percentages plus the claim that there is a growth in similar IQ partnering.

<comment><USER7> 50% genetic + 50% "unshared environment" is the rule of thumb for any complex trait, I assume that's what GP had in mind.

Unshared env is a polite way of saying noise; approximately 0% "shared env" i.e. parenting, education, etc. (There are many caveats, obviously.)

You could do worse than [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates) as a place to start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think there are good points here - but the fact remains that it is impossible to send every "qualified" candidate to a top school. What can we do to make _not_ going to a top school less disadvantageous?

<comment><USER9> Make the top schools open up more seats, be they public or private.

<comment><USER10> That's not a pragmatic solution though. Where will the top schools find more "top" professors to teach and mentor all those new students? There are some legitimate logistical realities that constrict the size of top schools. I'm not sure they can be made any larger without compromising educational quality.

<comment><USER9> >Where will the top schools find more "top" professors to teach and mentor all those new students?

A shortage of smart, ambitious PhDs seeking policy positions is, fortunately, _not_ a problem our society has. Quite the contrary.

<comment><USER10> But a shortage of ACCOMPLISHED PhD's seeking policy positions, IS, unfortunately, a problem our society has.

You're dealing with a situation where the PhD, in and of itself, is not really much of an accomplishment.

<comment><USER9> I think it's kinda bullshit to claim that most PhDs are bullshit.

<comment><USER10> Not what I said.

What I said was that when one is in the situation of selecting a professor to be hired at an Ivy, the PhD in and of itself, is not really an accomplishment. It's more akin to an "entrance fee".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1) Say there is an absolute measure or at least good enough to base a meritocracy on. If top schools are diverging from it, are they not then rejecting top students? Shouldn't other colleges then be able to recruit those rejected top students and become top schools? But the opposite is happening -- top schools are becoming more exclusive.

2) If diversity means different values, then doesn't that mean different people will value different attributes? Doesn't that mean everyone deserves to go to a top school, or at least everyone who thinks he or she is great by his or her values?

Point 2 suggests that a meritocracy is impossible because there are too many dimensions and measures, all the more so the more you value diversity.

I'm not promoting the above. It's just what came to mind reading the article. I'm not sure what it missed because it doesn't sit right, but it suggests whatever top schools are doing is working and that a meritocracy isn't as tenable as you'd think.

</comment><comment><USER12> "This may seem counterintuitive, but please stop giving to your alma mater. Donors to top universities...."

Wow, I guess this assumes that the NYT's readership all went to "top universities".

I happen to donate heavily to my alma mater, which is a no-name state school. I donate to their honors college, which offers academic merit scholarships. This program is what allowed me graduate debt free. On the other hand, I don't even answer the phone when my (private, elite) graduate school asks for money.

</comment><comment><USER13> I feel like there is way too much heterogeneity in education. One bad Apple teacher/professor will ruin significant portions of a generation. At th college level, I've seen people lose scholarships because some professor had an axe to grind - just for the sake of being mean.

Then things like the SATs and GRE compound the problem. Little human knowledge accurately boils down to true/false, multiple choice, or robot graded literature. I also used to hear tales of foreign students memorizing whole books of solutions and essay examples. I competed with them while still doing homework and taking tests - no rime for memorizing at any required scale.

</comment><comment><USER14> Access to top-tier education _and_ credentials simply needs to be a competitive effort open to every person on the planet, not held hostage and available via a selection process which has socioeconomic biases.

<comment><USER15> What is the competitive process that you envision that has no socioeconomic biases?

(I agree with you in an idealistic way, but I see millions of micro and dozens of macro problems with trying to implement it.)

<comment><USER14> The work of people more gifted would be useful, as I doubt my first guess attempt would be the most ideal solution. But what I imagine would be ideal would be competition among solutions themselves, as well as more realistic competition among education providers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Legacy admissions probably tip the scale in close calls.

I applied to my mother's alma mater which is a top 10 ranking University. I had nowhere near the GPA needed and they wrote back with a nice form rejection letter that says that they had given special consideration as the child of an alumni and regret not being able to offer an invitation to next year's class.

Then I've heard stories of parents donating $2M to get their legacy (child) in to an Ivy League with below average grades.

<comment><USER17> > Then I've heard stories of parents donating $2M to get their legacy (child) > in to an Ivy League with below average grades.

I had a friend who got into Notre Dame that way. His wealthy alumni grandfather took him and the dean out to dinner one night and slid a generous "donation" check across the table. Guy had something like a 1.8 GPA from high school. He got in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some nice ideas from a montivated individual.

I hope MOOCs can play a part, too. They seem to hold hope for large-scale change in the outdated college system.

</comment><comment><USER18> Nice ideas, from a person with their heart in the right place.

I like the 'microcolleges' idea, I hope this and MOOCs can help solve this problem.

</comment><comment><USER19> If I was an American,I'd go to uni in Sweden, Norway or Germany. International + free/cheap education.

<comment><USER20> But that ignores a key underlying tenet of this discussion - that what school you graduate from is a major factor in your employability in the upper echelons of American society. If you want to get a top job in DC or Manhattan, you'd better graduate from a school that's on the interviewers' very short list of 'good' schools.

<comment><USER21> If my HS age son decides to go to college in Europe, I fully expect he'll do so with the goal of remaining there to work after graduation. If current trends in the US continue, I would strongly encourage it.

<comment><USER20> Alright, but that's an entirely different topic. Save that one for the emigration-from-US thread.</comment></comment></comment></comment>