Apply HN: Graticule – an Android real-time location sharing app - <AUTHOR> Graticule allows you to share your precise (GPS) or approximate (network) location with anyone you choose to, in a very "get out of my way" style.
Features:
- no registration required
- you get a private web tracking link that you can share with anyone (they don't have to have the app installed)
- the tracking code is disposable, change it any time you want
- as easy as technically possible on battery/data usage
- no identifiable information sent from your device (except your location, of course)
- encrypted communication
- passive mode (piggybacks on other active apps, like running/cycling ones)
What can I do with it?
- give peace of mind to your family or loved ones when travelling
- showing off while paragliding/flying/??? (assuming you still have enough signal for a data connection)
- putting a cheap android phone in your car, on your pet, or anywhere else and track it
- guide someone remotely to a location
- no longer have to answer "Where are you?" or "How far are you?"
What do I need?
- an Android device
- data connection
- GPS or Wi-Fi turned on (depending on what kind of accuracy you need -- precise or approximate)
If it seems like it's trying to be too many things at once, you're probably right, since you can use it in a lot of scenarios.
Actual real-world usage so far (from people that have taken the time to say thanks)
- driver in Norway giving his family peace of mind when commuting on icy roads in the winter
- same as above, only also for cyclists, hikers and other outdoor types
- an unnamed police department using it for bait cars
- truck driver with a youtube channel giving his viewers his approximate location
- ground crew tracking a paraglider pilot for easier recovery (when doing cross-country flights)
- parents showing their children where they are when travelling for business
https://graticule.link <comment><USER2> I think it's a very cool project, congratulations :)

Some questions:

\- Are you solo? Will you work with someone else if YC decides to fund you?

\- What would you focus on if YC or other investor should fund you? Market development? Improving the MVP?

\- Have you shown it to interested parties? Would this be better as part of some SAR suite/extreme sports app/map app, or as a standalone?

One of my uncles used to go on sailing yatch races, I guess this could be useful for his family, but he hadn't heard of it. Do you think it's ready to be advertised?

<comment><AUTHOR> > I think it's a very cool project, congratulations :)

Thank you, that actually means a lot to me.

> Are you solo?

Yes.

> Will you work with someone else if YC decides to fund you?

Truth be told, I seriously doubt I'll any funding, especially being in Romania/Eastern Europe where bureaucracy is ... let's say, plentiful. (When I started freelancing I had to go through influential acquaintances just so the <IRS equivalent> clerks could make up their damn mind on what paperwork I need so I can legally pay taxes -- something apparently nobody else in the city was doing)

If by some miracle that happens, I do have someone in mind, a bit less technical but a lot more think-like-a-user type, he's helped with a lot of feedback early on.

No idea if he would quit his day job for something like this though.

In the meantime , I'm just happy to get some real feedback (good or bad).

> What would you focus on if YC or other investor should fund you? Market > development? Improving the MVP?

First priority would be figuring out how to reach my target audience, which has proven kinda difficult.

Advertising an app online for people that are mostly outdoor has proven counter-productive :-)

UI/UX/introduction/video tutorial/documentation would be the second most important thing, as some things that I thought were obvious have proven otherwise. (Too many people have mistaken a 'Send feedback' for a "send this link to a friend")

That's about it, anything else I think is too soon.

> Have you shown it to interested parties?

I've shown locals about it, they thought it was cool, but technology penetration is not so high in the extreme sports area.

So they either don't have the smartphone for it, a data connection, good enough battery and so on.

In other areas like the US the response was even more positive, but as I've said before, I have trouble reaching the more outdoorsy types, especially while at the same time not being too spammy.

> Would this be better as part of some SAR suite/extreme sports app/map app, > or as a standalone?

Graticule does have a passive mode, where you start it and it will only transmit if there's another app requesting location (like Strava, Runtastic, Waze, whatever).

Other than that, I'm not sure what it could be integrated with; it would be nice to have it 'always-on' (even if it's just once every hour), but I don't think people are going to be receptive to that ideea.

> One of my uncles used to go on sailing yatch races, I guess this could be > useful for his family, but he hadn't heard of it.

Nice! I'm not sure how far a data connection goes on water, but it's worth a shot.

> Do you think it's ready to be advertised?

I'm actually pretty happy to say that since I've opened it up for public use, it's had 100% uptime through a lot of infrastructure changes.

It's a nice personal challenge (I like being both a sysadmin and a dev) treating it really important to keep it up and reliably running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Google used to do this and I think they shut it down? Or, at least, it never took off. What would you do better?

How will you make money?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Google used to do this and I think they shut it down?

If you're referring to Google Latitude, you're correct.

> What would you do better?

I'd focus more on the search and rescue (SAR) aid part than the social part.

To expand, I specifically made it for my own personal use as I'm a (hobby) skydiver/paraglider pilot/motorcyclist/hiker/cyclist/skier... you get my point (not bragging, just trying to give some background).

These are all activities that while you are mostly with a group, there's a lot of time when you are on your own and it's really easy to go missing if the wrong series of events happen.

I don't have any really serious personal examples, but I do have one from my country: a sailplane pilot when missing while doing a cross-country flight.

There was a massive nation-wide SAR operation for about a week, they've looked for him border-to-border.

After that, the operation was pretty much called off.

It took a few weeks until some hikers found the sailplane by accident, ~ 13 km from where he took off, pretty much the last place anyone looked (because it was a good thermal day, so everyone thought he made at least 50km+ cross country).

While something like Graticule might not have saved him (it's unknown how bad the crash was), it sure could have reduced the SAR.

> How will you make money?

Currently charging for the "PRO" version where the whole tracklog is persisted, not just the last beacon.

Other than adding more features in that version, no idea (it started as my "soul project" not a cash cow).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is the difference between your product and others like Glympse, Find My Friend and family orbty ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to compare to Glympse, since that was what I researched the most before deciding to make Graticule, but it might apply to the others.

Differences:

\- no time limit on the tracking link

\- it's not just for driving; surprisingly I stil got enough signal to use it even when paragliding at 1800m/5905ft (can obviously vary)

\- no need to pick a destination (disadvantage: no ETA)

\- just hit start and send your link (they mostly fixed this, after I released Graticule, in Glympse Express)

\- privacy oriented, no social stuff (good or bad, it depends I guess)

\- choose your location source: precise (GPS) or approximate (wifi/cell triangulation), for privacy or battery reasons

\- choose the beacon interval, for privacy or battery reasons

There's probably more, but it's been a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Curious as to where you see Graticule going.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whenever I try to think about that my mind races too far ahead, then I worry about the technical limitations and I get a little discouraged.

So I try not to and take it one step at a time.

But to somewhat answer your question: a personal safety device that is always active, not something that tries to detect an emergency situation (which I find very hard) and only then activate.

In my experience, even the last known location is better than nothing at all.</comment></comment>


Lightsaber Dueling Is Now Recognized as a Competitive Sport in France - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/5531786/lightsaber-dueling-sport-france/ <comment><AUTHOR> > _Blows only count if the fighters first point the tip of their saber behind > them. That rule prevents the viper-like, tip-first quick forward strikes > seen in fencing. Instead, the rule encourages swishier blows that are easier > for audiences to see and enjoy, and which are more evocative of the duels in > Star Wars._

I especially liked this bit.

</comment><comment><USER2> "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."</comment>


Baggg.it Rebrands, Turns Into Shopping Extension Called Agora - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/08/baggg-it-rebrands-turns-into-shopping-extension-called-agora/

<comment><USER2> We're hoping to have our beta launched by April or May. Here's a direct link to the beta signup page: [http://8xjrmf2g.launchrock.co/](http://8xjrmf2g.launchrock.co/)</comment>


Show HN: What If I Lose My 2FA – Be prepared for the day you lose your phone - <AUTHOR> https://www.whatifilosemy2fa.com/ <comment><USER2> You should show all the services available in the landing page.</comment>


Entrepreneurial Precognition - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/start-ups/entrepreneurial-precognition <comment><USER2> I don't find the examples listed notably precognizant.

CNN Jan 21 "First US case of Wuhan coronavirus confirmed by CDC"

The entrepreneur blog posts linked seem to have been posted in March. This was the month of shutdowns and widespread recognition.</comment>


Google's Teach Parents Tech - <AUTHOR> http://www.teachparentstech.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> simple tech support videos to send to mom, dad or uncle Vinnie</comment>


Facebook losing out to YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat among US teens - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44329488 <comment><USER2> Facebook puts a lot of restrictions yet ironically the abusive users aren't restricted per se.

~ Khayri R.R. Woulfe</comment>


Migrating SimpleGeo Customers to Parse: Idea to Production in One Day - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parse.com/2012/01/16/migrating-simplegeo-customers/

<comment><USER2> pretty awesome one day hack guys ... congrats on moving fast and hopefully gaining lots of customers as a result</comment>


Game studio Ready at Dawn switching to Rust for all new development - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/AndreaPessino/status/1021532074153394176 <comment><USER2> Whenever I see people talking about the pains of "C/C++", my suspicions go up that they are writing C++ in a "C with classes" style, and are having a horrible experience.

<comment><USER3> When team sizes grow, time to hire those teams shrink, and deadlines shrink, you trend toward the quality of work product being whatever the system permits. Would you agree that C++ is overly permissive for such teams?</comment></comment>


Deep Learning with Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems - <AUTHOR> https://practicalai.me/blog/deep-learning-with-ehr-systems <comment><USER2> That would a terrible idea.

Here is a simple example why:

Finasteride is a compound that is used in two drugs. Proscar is used for prostate enlargement. It is old, out-of-patent, and has cheap generics. Propecia is used for hair loss. It is a newer, and (at the time) very expensive. The only difference is that Propecia is a lower-dose formulation.

What people did was to ask their doctors to perscribe generic Proscar, and then break the pills up to take for hair loss. Doctors would then justify the prescription by "diagnosing" enlarged prostate. This would enter the patient's health records.

If you apply deep learning without being aware of this "trick", you would learn that a lot of young men have enlarged prostates, and that Proscar is an effective, well-tolerated treatment for it.

Health records are often political-economic documents rather than medical.

<comment><USER3> I think this article actually agrees with you. The very first NOTE is this:

""" Note: Be cautious about using data that was primarily created for insurance purposes. Often, it's not truly reflective of patient's condition but rather encompassing for billing / profit. Luckily, there are clinical reports, like radiology, diagnostic imaging, pathology reports, etc., that are intended for physician use and are more reflective of true patient conditions. Unfortunately, most of this data is not readily available in APIs because it's largely unstructured. This is a ripe space for ML to take raw, unstructured data and produce structured, computable data. """

<comment><USER2> Insurance is just a one part of the problem.

Large practices have treatment standards on which physicians are evaluated. Reporting side-effects might be politically inconvenient in some cases. Medicine is also, like other human endeavors, subject to fashions and fads.

At best, applying machine learning to health records will generate a hypothesis that must be checked in a properly controlled trial.

<comment><USER4> So it's not a "terrible idea"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wrote this last yr. before jumping back into clinical ML but never got around to sharing it. Added some 2019 updates (clinical BERT and approach for industry applications).

I updated the appendix with a few papers from 2019 but it felt like there were 10X more papers compared to 2018 (which is fantastic!). But, instead of making the appendix even longer, I highly recommend just following [http://www.arxiv- sanity.com/search?q=health](http://www.arxiv-sanity.com/search?q=health) to stay up-to-date.

Even if you're not in the health space, you'll find ingenious interpretability techniques and tips leveraged by researchers out of necessity of being in the clinical space. I conclude with a realist note on the challenges that lie ahead for safely transitioning research to the clinical setting.

<comment><USER5> Great work! I've got a rather wild ML ERH story to share.

So wrote my thesis on the design of EHR system ([http://barnett.surge.sh/](http://barnett.surge.sh/)), and I interviewed this guy who said he was working on a crazy revolutionary ML-powered EHR system. It apparently had features such as voice recognition for writing notes instead of typing - but it also featured taking unstructured medical notes, and with the great AI, structuring them. So suddenly large scale medical record analysis would be easy - a rather incredible idea. However it sounded like they were at a very early stage, and they had nothing to show - so I thought 'yeah good luck getting that working' and trucked along with the thesis.

A few months after finishing my thesis, a friend of mine sends me this news article ([https://thespinoff.co.nz/the-best-of/31-12-2018/summer- reiss...](https://thespinoff.co.nz/the-best-of/31-12-2018/summer-reissue-the- mystery-of-zach-new-zealands-all-too-miraculous-medical-ai/)).

Turns out a journalist had heard of this medical AI, and dug way deeper. This guy (Albi) had convinced the GP I talked to that he had a working medical AI system. He had actually gone so far as to have the GP email 'the ai' and have it reply. However the whole thing was a fucking sham - it didn't exist, and the person replying was honestly probably just Albi. They were trying to raise funding to get it further, based on this claim of a 'functional ai'.

I don't think the GP I interviewed was in on the con, I think he was being taken for a ride. However once the article was published, there was heaps of attention and it all kind of fizzled out, and Albi was recently bankrupted.

But, I'm glad to see somebody is working on this problem - who isn't a conman haha.

<comment><USER6> Every major EHR vendor and some other related organizations have been working on that problem for years. It's seen as a "holy grail" of EHR functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Arent there privacy concerns?

<comment><USER8> Good question. I imagine you would train models using the deidentified datasets cited on the page and design your prediction pipeline in the same vein as any other HIPAA-data related application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> whats the goal of this project? what are you actually trying to learn from the EHR record?

<comment><USER3> I think it's mean to be a good review on the field and what's possible. They're also covering what you shouldn't do with EHR data and some of the dangers</comment></comment>


IDE and Editor survey - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1lgp25sLFCKw5K58mrxb4PmIpZpn0yzAD329EFVB0ZKI/viewform

<comment><USER2> Takes a good five minutes to fill in but will be interested to see the results of this.

I suspect it will be people who want a more up to date, more stable sublime. We'll see.

<comment><USER3> Is sublime unstable for you? How do you use it?

I use it 8 hours a day professionally (web dev in php/python) or hobby (python/go/whatever) and it works really well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "How much would you pay?" is totally the wrong question to ask. People have no idea how much they'd actually pay until you show them the product and invite them to get their credit card out. And it's well known that people's willingness to pay is affected by all kinds of seemingly irrelevant cues.

If this is a market research exercise "Do you pay for you development tools?" would be a much more useful question.

<comment><USER5> Up to now, I've never considered personaly buying a development environment. Now I can say the idea is kind of disgusting - imagining my development tools evolve into silos, like happened with social interaction and portable apps.

I guess I know exactly how much I'd pay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ville, is this survey yours? Will it be considered done based on time or answers? It's interesting, looking forward to the results!

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice to see lots of interest in the survey! We set this up with a friend of mine because we did not find much existing data about this subject. We'll keep it open for the rest of week and provide the results and analysis next week.

<comment><USER7> Please add my email to your list and notify me directly, I might miss an HN post..

I completed the survey and selected our product (crudzilla.com)...will be interest to know what developer attitude is given my obvious business interest:)

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem, we will notify you. This also gave us an idea to add an optional email address field to the survey for notifying about the results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Where can we see the results of the survey?

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. We will do an analysis of the results and publish them here after we get enough responses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> i am interested in this</comment>


Greatest speeches of the 20th century, enhanced using neural networks - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/details/GreatestSpeechesBabbleLabs/Inaugural+Address+-+Franklin+D.+Roosevelt+(1937.)mp3.mp3 <comment><USER2> Is there any paper on the neural net used?</comment>


"Six strikes" Internet warning system will come to US this year - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/six-strikes-internet-warning-system-really-truly-coming-to-us-this-year/ <comment><USER3> _the new program is meant to educate account holders and younger users about the perils of downloading unauthorized content_

What perils? Later in the article, lawsuits are mentioned, but the whole thing is pretty vague.

Putting aside both the legality and morality, doesn't this policy seem odd? If there's nothing wrong with what people are doing, then there's no need for this at all. If people are doing something wrong, shouldn't there be legal censure, or something? Not just a warning about some mysterious "perils of downloading unauthorized content"?

What premises could you possibly have that would make the correct conclusion "warn people 5 times and then take some vague and indeterminate action"?

<comment><USER4> The perils are mainly getting sued for copyright infringement. I'm all for copyright even if the current scheme is insane.

The legal problem is that no one can tell if the content is authorized or not. Maybe it's fair use, maybe I legitimately bought it, or maybe it's similar enough to another video that the bot got confused. Sending a warning is just a way to sidestep the judicial oversight that a legitimate legal action would entail.

<comment><USER5> I think the way this works in practise is not that it's monitored by ISPs at the source but rather it's monitored at the other end of the connection.

What happens is that the copyright holder, or some company working on their behalf goes and connects to a torrent swarm.

Once they are connected to the swarm , they download the file in order to verify that it is in fact copyrighted material. At that point they can log any attempts by other peers to connect to them and download material from them since the clients have no real way of telling who is a normal peer and who is involved in monitoring.

They get a big list of IP addresses and times, from the IP they can figure out who the ISP is. They can then ask the ISP to release records for which subscriber was assigned that particular IP address at that time and bingo they have found the infringer.

<comment><USER6> two points:

\- I believe there's some sort of issue with the approach where they log people who download from them, because if you download a copyrighted file being willfully shared _by the copyright holder_ you haven't infringed.

\- I once downloaded one song from a "500 greatest hits" type torrent. Some time later, my university sent me a notice that they'd received a complaint that I'd illegally downloaded Hotel California (I hadn't). Hotel California wasn't even adjacent in the torrent to the song I did download; there were never any attempts to get all or part of it. So the detection system (at that time, at least) would seem to leave something to be desired.

<comment><USER5> I'd be amazed if #1 washed in court. By connecting to a swarm that is distributing copyrighted works without the copyright holder's consent you've demonstrated that you have intent to pirate the material. Besides even if you argued that you got a few chunks of the file from the copyright holder (or a party acting on their behalf) you will have downloaded other chunks from others (and possibly uploaded some of them back to the rights holder).

#2 I'd put down to a random bureaucratic fuckup rather than an inherent issue with the detection system. I know a couple of people who've had letters from their ISPs regards these activities and they have said that they were accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't get it... why do the ISPs even bother opting in? Isn't it just time and money spent on basically making their customers angry, and for what benefit on their part? Why spend money on something that provides no obvious benefit, and many negatives, to the company?

I know some ISPs are also content providers, so I get that one. But what about the rest?

<comment><USER8> Looks like most ISPs are either content companies themselves (Comcast) or have tight relationships with them (AT&T, Verizon).

They all see higher profits in screwing over consumers, apparently

<comment><USER9> Another possibility: content companies said, do this, or we'll try to get the USG to force you to, which will be more expensive for both of us.

<comment><USER10> As I recall, it was reported that the US Copyright Czar was involved in getting these ISPs together and negotiating this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > [...] but in no way was missing a July deadline a missed deadline

Thanks for clearing that up, Ms. Doublespeak.

</comment><comment><USER12> One issue I see with this, is mobile ISP's could, or will abuse it.

Last year, I got a phone call and e-mail from AT&T stating that if I didn't stop using my phone for tethering, I would be automatically "upgraded" to a DataPro 4GB data plan, which would override my "unlimited data" plan.

The issue with this is, I was using my Android phone as a hotspot, and I was using it to watch videos from MSDN for work purposes because funny enough, AT&T's 3G network was faster than my work internet connection.

My concern is, with phones and tablets blurring a line between mobile computers and desktop computers (with docks included), if the next phone I get in a few years comes with the ability to dock my phone to use a full desktop, is that going to count as tethering? Is "desktop mode" data plan going to be different than a "mobile mode" data plan? Will I be forced to finally give up my "unlimited data" plan on my phone?

AT&T has tried numerous times to get rid of my data plan, and I know one of these days I'm going to get a bill and it's going to be gone, and I'll call AT&T and ask what is going on and they will just say "We don't offer that plan anymore, so you were moved to the most appropriate plan" just like they tried to do years ago.

I could see since I am a "unlimited data" plan user, they could implement this six strikes plan, and use it any chance they can find until the inevitable happens.

<comment><USER13> You should read your ToS. Even if you are on an "unlimited data", tethering is, most likely, explicitly prohibited.

<comment><USER12> I fully understand that, and I complied with them without question. I'm concerned that eventually, especially with the government support, I will be bullied out of my unlimited data plan via loopholes.

<comment><USER13> If it happens, take them to a small claims court. Show your contract. They will have no case. They can't switch you to another plan if you don't agree (well, if you keep tethering, they can).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there US governmental oversight of this program? Or is it just a business arrangement between numerous copyright holding companies and ISPs? It looks like the latter.

After an end user has received all 6 strikes, they could be sued or the ISP could cut them off. Nothing prevents someone from being sued before completing all 6 strikes, and a user could possibly complete 6 strikes and receive no penalty.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_alert_system>

<comment><USER4> It has been specifically designed to avoid regulation. The ISPs opt-in, there are no prescribed penalties, there are no legal notices or anything that would involve the courts.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Obama administration did play as a "mediator", but you're right. This system is specifically designed to avoid regulation, because they know they wouldn't get that regulation. This way they can sidestep it by "partnering" with the ISP's and carriers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I predict a huge increase in uptake on VPN services and other privacy providers.

I am seriously thinking of going full encryption for absolutely all my internet and email use. Getting so tired of "Big Brother" and his idiotic "Big Business" sidekick.

<comment><USER16> It feels weird (as a conservative leaning pseudo-libertarian) believing that Big Business is doing a far better job of screwing up the Internet than Big Brother.

The next step will be prohibiting US-based services from providing truly- encrypted communication/storage.

<comment><USER17> Big Business is rather influenced by Big Brother in this case. In much of the US the telecommunications industry receives heavy funding from local and state governments to build out their networks. There might be much more competition (or not, who knows!) if it wasn't for the regulations, subsidies, and municipal monopolies that are granted.

I'm not saying it would be better, but the telecommunications market isn't even close to a free market.

<comment><USER16>
      Big Business is rather influenced by Big Brother in this case.

I don't think Big Brother would be pushing so hard against copyright infringers if it weren't for Big Business lobbying, particularly Big Media. Big Brother is the accomplice, Big Media is the culprit.

<comment><USER17> If you want to threaten others, best to use and influence the entity that is "allowed" to use aggressive force. If you had to threaten internet users one- by-one with guns, you might discredit yourself. Best to use Uncle Sam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A prediction: Members of Anonymous (or similar) will hack the home wifi of every congressman/woman related to this, and cause them to receive six "educational alerts" and then get cut off.

Soon thereafter the law will change or die.

<comment><USER19> That's not a bad idea, but I highly doubt congresscritters would be cut off. A simple phone call would likely get them exempted.

<comment><USER10> I don't know where things stand with this program, but back in the days when MediaDefender's email was leaked, one of those laid out a policy of not going after politicians and the like.

<comment><USER19> Perhaps fittingly, Anonymous has a similar policy of not going after journalists. Don't bite the hand that feeds you...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Remember that the big ISPs are owned by big content companies. If anything, forcing this issue on people is going to result in increased regulatory oversight, so I honestly don't see this happening.

</comment><comment><USER21> "... but in no way was missing a July deadline a missed deadline."

Just seems like this is the Copyright absolutionist's mindset in a nutshell. Nothing is what it seems like, it's what we say it is.

</comment><comment><USER22> Good luck with this, idiots. I've cracked two WPA2 networks in my area and two WEP networks. Cancel their service; see if I care.

<comment><USER23> Are you actually going to compete with these guys for the title of "biggest jerk"?

<comment><USER24> The point is raises is important. There is no law that you have to secure your network. If someone uses your network to pirate, do you get shut down? That's like demolishing a freeway because a criminal drove down it for his getaway.

<comment><USER23> I agree that the point is important, but that problem already exists independently of this issue.

To use your analogy, the guy I was responding to was saying: "if you make a law I don't agree with, I will break it and frame innocent people. See if I care."

That's where it becomes a competition for the title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The "trouble" with such a warning system is that at its base is he presumption of positively identifying the infringer. Sure, and ISP can say "such-and-such activity violates our ToS, and you're responsible for all traffic on your account", but identifying a particular individual's traffic (from a content- owner's perspective) seems to be difficult given the increasing frequency of IP-as-identification being tossed from U.S. courts.

So, the biggest practical question in my mind is how they plan to reconcile penalties for individual infringers against the rights of the account holder.

<comment><USER26> IIRC you're allowed to use the open Wi-Fi defense one time (i.e. you can eliminate one strike). After that you've been "educated" so you cannot claim ignorance for any later strikes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I assume that this will be targeted at whoever pays the bill.

The problem is that a lot of people especially families etc have more than one person using the internet even if you ignore issues such as other people breaking into your network without permission.

Another problem is that bit torrent traffic is very difficult to block without effectively crippling the internet connection since modern clients seem to be clever about using encryption and trying different ports etc. I've tried blocking bittorrents on my router using it's feature for doing so, didn't work at all.

This means that you might have a family with a shared internet connection where all of the kids are given internet access because they need it for schoolwork & keeping in touch with friends etc but maybe one of them simply keeps downloading copyrighted material despite being told not to. Identifying and preventing this behaviour might prove impossible and it's likely that the entire household suffers as a result.

<comment><USER27> (Went through all this stuff 5 years ago when it was passed in France, so I already went through most of the arguments/counter arguments)

The argument is that they don't care, it _is_ the fault of the account owner if they are not able to prevent "illegal" usage. Account owner should be able to install "something" (they were always vague) that would help him prevent people doing illegal stuff.

By something we always thought it would be allowing ISPs to do DPI or something (and you would off course have to pay for it, because it's a service they offer).

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if DPI would help much if the torrent connections are all encrypted.

Perhaps you could do something by profiling connections, for example if a particular computer has a large amount of connections open to a large number of IP addresses. But then again in theory you don't have to download very much to trip over this, downloading 6 separate 4MB MP3 files could do it if you are very unlucky.

The only thing I can think of would be to run everything through an HTTP proxy and then explicitly whitelist IP addresses of individual websites as and when you need them.

Of course this would break stuff like XboX games and any legitimate use of P2P networking.

<comment><USER27> I didn't imply it made sense. That said I'm pretty sure you could have some decent results with ML based analysis of network traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I worry this is the step in between illegal downloads and making anonymity illegal. If they can flag you for downloading unpaid content, it won't be long before they flag you for circumstantial patterns leading to that behavior such as using TOR.

<comment><USER29> We're already almost there.

Try being _truly_ anonymous on the Internet these days. It's near impossible. Most online vendors won't accept pre-paid credit cards. Many email providers require you to provide a phone number or another email address as "verification".

Even posting on forums is difficult, because while Tor is decent for fetching data, some websites blacklist Tor IP addresses (or, even if they don't, there's a chance you may be sharing an IP address with someone who _was_ banned from a forum).

<comment><USER30> Online vendors don't accept pre-paid Visa? This is news to me. How do they even know - it's just a regular Visa card. I've used a number of such online (mostly ones I got in all kinds of promotions) and never had a problem - <USER2> didn't even think anybody could do that and I doubt Visa would allow you to do that - to reject pre-paid Visa card. Do you have any source to this claim?

<comment><USER29> > Do you have any source to this claim?

Paypal, for one, makes no attempt to hide this: [https://www.paypal- community.com/t5/About-My-Account/using-p...](https://www.paypal- community.com/t5/About-My-Account/using-prepaid-visa-card/td-p/462071)

While Paypal will accept it if you provide a Visa-verified billing address, not all will, and that would defeat the point of anonymity anyway.

Visa and AmEx also forbid international payments on prepaid cards, and most merchants nowadays require a verified billing address. (This wasn't the case as recently as 2009).

Remember that a prepaid card is not a credit card - there's no risk of you not paying, because _they [Visa] already have your money_ and yet merchants refuse to take it. It's completely ridiculous.

<comment><USER26> This sounds more like a problem with the issuing banks. Is there any way for a merchant to know that a card is prepaid? If not, how would they know not to check the billing address?

(Semi-related: Do prepaid cards count as debit for purposes of the regulation on swipe fees?)

<comment><USER29> > This sounds more like a problem with the issuing banks.

It's a problem with _both_ parties, since _both_ are known to refuse to process them.

> Is there any way for a merchant to know that a card is prepaid?

Yes

> Is there any way for a merchant to know that a card is prepaid?

No

<comment><USER29> Copy and pasted wrong - just noticed. The 'no' is supposed to be in response to the debit card fees question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have two hypotheses about this:

1\. They're never going to roll this out and aren't actually putting any resources into it, but are simply hoping that they can stir up some news every few months as a cheap deterrent.

2\. They are going to roll this out, and the primary target of it is kids downloading on their parents' connections, which would explain why they only seem to even be attempting to work with the largest ISPs. Obviously that would be ineffective at deterring anyone who pays their own ISP bill; those users could just move to a smaller provider. But if they're hoping to use parents as enforcers, it makes perfect sense.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have the feeling this will end up very bad for Americans, much like the patent system, and then there will be a decade or more before anyone even tries to revert it.

<comment><USER32> You make it sound like this is official government policy or a law, but it's just an agreement between some private companies. Copyright holders can already can communicate with ISPs and ISPs can already shut off someone's internet.

My ISP used to forward me copyright violation notices periodically (it was my roommate's doing), and claimed they could shut off my internet after three of them. This six 'strike' policy seems lenient in comparison.

<comment><USER33> _You make it sound like this is official government policy or a law, but it's just an agreement between some private companies._

Not just any private companies. These are agreements between private companies whose size and influence gives them a unique position of control over peoples' lives; such a partnership, negotiated with the involvement of the white house, might as well be official government policy or law.

<comment><USER34> Correct. Due to Government policies on broadband and telecomm in general, effectively no competition exists in most urban areas for broadband access.

So, these 6 (or so) ISPs can make an abusive "6 Strikes" copyright regime into de facto national law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I feel like this article about how the Law views information and how Tech views it is germane.

I think it is one of the best descriptions of this split, and what problems we'll have to overcome.

<http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php>

</comment><comment><USER36> I would like to hear from somebody living in a country that already has this kind of system in place. How does it work in practice? Do they catch every torrent you download for instance?

<comment><USER26> In France, "95 percent of people who have received a first-time notice of illegal sharing 'do not give rise to the need for a second notice,' that 92 percent of people who received a second notice cease illegal sharing, and that 98 percent of people who receive a third notice 'show the same trend.'" [http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/11/3316158/graduated- piracy-r...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/11/3316158/graduated-piracy- response-france-hadopi)

So yeah, telling people "don't get caught again" works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Luckily there are still smaller independent internet service providers out there. A mass switch from Comcast after people discover they are being spied on might wake them up.

<comment><USER38> To _who_ exactly? I left Comcast due to their horrible service but that meant stepping down to a 6mbps DSL line. In the evenings Netflix can't even maintain a stream.

I have a choice between two terrible providers. If you know of some amazing ISP we can all switch to, I'd love to hear it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Good thing my neighbor only uses WEP encryption on their AP.

</comment><comment><USER40> Oh well, it's the ISPs' loss. I'll lower my internet plan by $20/month and rent a seedbox colocated in Europe instead. Problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER41> New Zealand has a three strikes policy, I wonder what the 6 vs 3 implies. Maybe RIANZ paid more than the RIAA o_O

</comment><comment><USER42> Hmmm. I'm from Canada, and therefore have no opinion on this but, has this been in the news at all until now?

<comment><USER11> It's news to me! It probably just took a backseat to SOPA/etc. and was likely tabled at that time, only to resurface now that those efforts have been unsuccessful.

<comment><USER43> It's been in the news several times before, many of them via ArsTechnica as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY Quite the fascinating exploration of perception, reality, accuracy, and fitness. With some bonus elements of human-computer interaction and UI/UX thrown in.
Perception is not reality, but rather, fitness. <comment><AUTHOR> Quite the fascinating exploration of perception, reality, accuracy, and fitness. With some bonus elements of human-computer interaction and UI/UX thrown in.

Perception is _not_ reality, but rather, fitness.</comment>


Is It O.K. to Be a Mediocre Employee? - <AUTHOR> http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/is-it-o-k-to-be-a-mediocre-employee/

<comment><USER2> If I work hard I get between a .15 and .25 raise next time the evaluations come in.

If I phone it in I get between a .15 and .25 raise next time the evaluations come in.

Let me pick...

That's assuming there isn't a raise freeze, which there has been for the last 3 years.

The dirty little secret of successful companies is that as an average employee it really doesn't matter how much harder I work I won't see any actual benefit.

They'll fire me if they want and there's not much I can do about it.

What I can do is the minimum to get my check and go home.

</comment><comment><USER3> The average incentive system says yes.

Why work so hard when the result of your work (the company's output) will be the average of everyone's output in the company? So the trick of the game of keeping your paycheck with minimal effort IS to be that average employee of the company. Work less, you might get noticed. Work more.. well, it gets averaged out, so the incremental benefit to you is diminished.

Picking and choosing which company you want to associate yourself with is a whole different question.

</comment><comment><USER4> The sad fact is that at large companies at least, not only is it often perfectly OK to slip into perpetual mediocrity mode, but also, far too often -- given the way these companies treat their employees -- downright necessary, in order to maintain one's health and sanity.

</comment><comment><USER5> You can easily do this at a large company (you can even be a really terrible employee and get away with it). But, I've worked at small companies pretty much my entire career and it's not easy to do this without getting noticed and eventually fired.</comment>


Rust for C++ programmers – part 2: control flow - <AUTHOR> http://featherweightmusings.blogspot.com/2014/04/rust-for-c-programmers-part-2-control.html <comment><USER2> > If we want to index over the indices of `all` (a bit more like a standard > C++ for loop over an array), you could do

        for i in range(0, all.len()) {
            println!("{}: {}", i, all.get(i));
        }

I'd suggest using `enumerate`[0] instead of creating a range on an existing collection:

        for (i, n) in all.iter().enumerate() {
            println!("{}: {}", i, n);
        }

[0] [http://static.rust- lang.org/doc/0.10/std/iter/struct.Enumera...](http://static.rust- lang.org/doc/0.10/std/iter/struct.Enumerate.html#method.enumerate)

<comment><USER3> I have rather questions like: Why all.inter().enumerate() and not just all.enumerate() ? Why for a in all.iter() and not simply for a in all ?

Apparently is the language clever enough to match the types (which is good), why isn't than simply clever enough to recognize then that in on the array needs the iteration? Why isn't possible to directly enumerate the array?

Even (at least this one) C++ has something simple:

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/jj203382.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/jj203382.aspx)

        for( auto y : x ) { // Copy of 'x', almost always undesirable
            cout << y << " ";
        }

        for( auto &y : x ) { // Type inference by reference.
            // Observes and/or modifies in-place. Preferred when modify is needed.
            cout << y << " ";
        }

        for( const auto &y : x ) { // Type inference by reference.
            // Observes in-place. Preferred when no modify is needed.

Not even "in" keyword is used there but it still allows iterations through anything that can be iterated without writing too much red tape, by invisibly expanding to these famous STL declare iterator with the unnecessary long declaration, iterate between begin and end constructs:

        range-based for:
         Automatically recognizes arrays.
         Recognizes containers that have .begin() and .end().
         Uses argument-dependent lookup begin() and end() for anything else

<comment><USER2> > Why all.iter().enumerate() and not just all.enumerate() ?

enumerate is a method of the Iterator trait, so you need an iterator. This way it can have a truckload of reusable methods without polluting every collection's namespace I guess, and still things work for collections with multiple iterators (just ask for the right one).

The iteration method does not have to be called ``iter`` I'd think (e.g. a tree structure might provide both a depth-first and a breadth-first iterator, none of which would be accessed via `iter`?)

<comment><USER3> I'd do:

        for x in all     does .iter()
        for (x,y) in all.enumerate()   does .iter.enumerate()

And were there's no one iter() like trees, only by them it would have to be specified, as they wouldn't have iter():

        for x in all.depthfirstiter()
        for (x,y) in all.depthfirstiter().enumerate()

95% of times 5% percent of the constructs are used, why not making them pleasant?

<comment><USER2> > I'd do: for x in all does .iter()

See pcwalton's answer in an other subthread, an Iterable trait (which for would use instead of Iterator) was tried and didn't work out previously, but it's not shelved.

> for (x,y) in all.enumerate() does .iter.enumerate()

That makes literally no sense. What if enumerate() is the thing returning an iterable because reasons? Now it calls enumerate() on the wrong object, or blows up because there's no .iter in the first place.

You _could_ have 30 methods on the Iterable trait (or directly on your vector) which would just delegate to the corresponding Iterator. Not sure there's that much value in it.

> for x in all.depthfirstiter()

Except according to your previous declaration that would result in a call to `all.iter.depthfirstiter()`. Or the compiler has to go magic things around, traverse the chain until it gets the first (or last? Or all of them? How do you pick which one's right?) Iterable, an inject an iter() calls in it…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is the reason for using overly minimalistic, assembly style keywords like fn, str etc? Even C++ doesn't go that far (I think string is more pleasant to read than str). It's not like it's saving much, and it only worsens readability.

<comment><USER5> It's a matter of taste. I personally feel that your specific examples make Rust more readable, because of how little space gets wasted on those frequent, unambiguous names. Ubiquitous boilerplete-ish things that show up everywhere _should_ recede a bit, imo; let me spend my line width budget on what's unique and important about my code.

But again, it's just a matter of taste and not really worth wasting a lot of time worrying about. The important thing about Rust is its semantics (speed, safety, control), not its syntax.

<comment><USER6> > The important thing about Rust is its semantics (speed, safety, control), > not its syntax.

Agreed. I love Haskell syntax above all else, but I like Rust's semantics too much to let that get in the way of me using it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I still find it's a pity that so new language has "you must write let" that even Basic programmers don't have to do during at least 30-40 years:

[https://www.powerbasic.com/support/help/pbcc/let_statement.h...](https://www.powerbasic.com/support/help/pbcc/let_statement.htm)

I remember not having to write let in Basic even in eighties. Anyway, since 1995, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_(programming_language)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_\(programming_language\)) people have an idea that there is a simple way to have "define and assign" that is different from "assign" without requiring a keyword: use := for define and assign, x:=exp is equivalent to let x=exp, use = for just assign. Google Go just reused that idea. Even if it's used today by Go, I still don't understand why Rust avoids it, because it makes sources significantly more readable: the variable is not obstructed by the keyword.

let mut is even more "stuff" before the variable in the language where declarations otherwise always follow the variable (which is good!) I'd use x := expression and x : mut = expression.

<comment><USER7> It wouldn't work in Rust because "let" supports arbitrary (irrefutable) patterns, and Rust has full pattern matching. The parser has to know when a pattern is coming up. Languages that use :=, like Go, don't have a complete set of destructuring features. The convenience of being able to have an arbitrary pattern in "let" bindings far outweighs the disadvantage of having to type "let".

"x : mut = expression" wouldn't work in Rust because types follow :, and "mut" is not part of a type. "mut" is needed after each binding because one pattern can contain some mutable bindings and some immutable bindings.

<comment><USER8> As someone who is learning OCaml at the same time as Rust (and who already had some Haskell), I can attest that the power of pattern matching is well-worth the extra "let". Plus, in addition to the signal it provides to the compiler, it also provides _me_ a signal to know that I've got a new variable and the option here to do destructuring pattern matching. Very cool.

pcwalton: after getting over the hump of Rust's pointer semantics, I've found that it's a very elegant and fairly simple language. So I was partially wrong about my assessment of Rust as a "complex" language (I say "partially" because the pointer semantics do add a significant layer of unavoidable complexity).

I'd encourage anyone put off by the complexity of Rust's pointers to just push on through. I think you'll find it's worth the trouble.

Rust is definitely _the_ language of the future for games, embedded programming, system programming and other areas of programming that require a high level of determinism. I can't wait until it's stable enough to use for real projects (hopefully sometime this year).

<comment><USER9> Have you read [http://static.rust-lang.org/doc/master/guide- pointers.html](http://static.rust-lang.org/doc/master/guide-pointers.html) ?

<comment><USER8> Yes. That was the guide, along with the pointer semantics table, that basically convinced me to give Rust a second chance, since if pointers could be summed up in a table, they were definitely comprehensible even for a PL peon like me.

<comment><USER9> Cool, thank you. I was wondering if it helped or hurt. Great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why is the symbol '|' used for or in pattern matching, not '||'? If '|' is used for bitwise or elsewhere in the language then this might lead to confusion.

<comment><USER2> > If '|' is used for bitwise or elsewhere in the language then this might lead > to confusion.

`||` is the logical or[0], why would it lead to less confusion?

(and yes, `|` is the bitwise or[1])

[0] [http://static.rust-lang.org/doc/0.10/rust.html#lazy- boolean-...](http://static.rust-lang.org/doc/0.10/rust.html#lazy-boolean- operators)

[1] [http://static.rust-lang.org/doc/0.10/rust.html#bitwise- opera...](http://static.rust-lang.org/doc/0.10/rust.html#bitwise-operators)

<comment><USER10> I suppose I just assumed that logical or is closer in meaning to the or in pattern matching than bitwise or is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's the purpose of:

        y if y < 20

In the match block, can't we just use x?

<comment><USER2> Yes, you could write this as `_ if x < 20`. But not as `if x < 20`, I'm pretty sure the pattern is mandatory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another great entry. Keep 'em coming!

</comment><comment><USER13> The two issues in the comments so far, iteration with index variable and assignment/destructuring without explicit let are both handled beautifully by CoffeeScript. At least Rust gets right "everything is an expression". One of the best things CoffeeScript "brought".

<comment><USER14> As if coffeescript originated the features... We don't have iteration with index variable because it's seen as extraneous and unnecessary. If you aren't using iterators, you're paying for unnecessary bounds checks (LLVM often can't optimize them out). The explicit let mostly comes from the ML heritage and want for nice pattern matching.</comment></comment>


How much money doctors actually make - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-money-doctors-make-2017-4 <comment><USER2> I'm a graduating medical student with a master's in computer science. In a lot of ways CS is the polar opposite of medicine; one values derivation and automation while the other emphasizes memorization and one-on-one interactions.

Surprisingly, teamwork is one area where CS wins out. I've found that despite the professed importance of the _healthcare team_ , healthcare often doesn't function like a team at all. Doctors, nurses, PAs, patient care assistants, administrative staff, can make or break your life by providing support or creating obstacles. I think it's a result of a inherently tiered system with a single person (e.g. the attending) on top who decides the treatment plan. In CS you almost never have a single person who is overly-trained relative to peers. Maybe you'll have a better developer, UI designer or manager, but none of these attributes makes that person the sole decider. The pay structure in medicine reflects its hierarchical system: software managers don't earn 10x what software developer make, whereas attendings easily make 10x a nurse's salary.

<comment><USER3> > I'm a graduating medical student with a master's in computer science.

That's... actually really neat. What made you go for a graduate degree then on to med school, if you don't mind me asking?

<comment><USER2> I actually got my master's in the middle of medical school (I took a leave of absence). My undergrad degree is in computer science as well. It's my long- term goal to start a radiology informatics company.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for answering! How do you feel among your peers? Performance-wise and general understanding of topics? Is there no noticeable difference or do you find that you're learning things from a different form of understanding?

Sorry for all the questions, I think it's fascinating when people wind up in a very different field from one they've more formally studied in.

<comment><USER2> Computer-science wise: I'm a rather good developer, according to my supervisors. I'm quite comfortable with Java, Python and a bit of Swift. I _love_ writing code, starting with BASIC when I was 11 years old.

Medicine-wise: I'm in the bottom quartile of my class. I'm terrible at sitting there and studying. It's a completely different mind set. I did really poorly on UMSLE Step 2 in particular; most med students do +20 points higher relative to Step 1...I did 40 points _lower_. That test is entirely memorization, we're talking memorizing immunization schedules for children, the screening guidelines for low-dose CT, the warning signs of an acute abdomen, and so on...

In terms of benefits, I'm much faster at research data analysis. I'm doing imaging work and I can take a DICOM, convert it to NIfTI, run an algorithm in Python or MATLAB, and dump the results in under and hour. That kind of stuff is second-nature to me, but takes my fellow lab mates an indeterminate amount of time. I've written a number of 20-line scripts for my classmates that do basic stuff like vertical lookups in Excel and searching for files on the filesystem. Really simple stuff that would take a person a long time by hand.

One more thing, the MCAT was a _blast_ for me. It was a wonderful test. It emphasizes integration and application of what you've learned on novel problems, very much like computer science. The USMLEs were hell. I got 98th percentile on the MCAT; 40th percentile on the USMLE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These data would be more informative, were they also paired with vocational costs MDs also incur, usually unavoidably. Malpractice insurance, prep for board exams, for example. Note that the latter can include having to travel to conferences, or similar events, to stay current in the field, and there may not always be an employer to reimburse such costs. Likewise, insurance rates will vary between disciplines, eg. higher for radiology vs psychiatry.

<comment><USER5> I don't really understand this. I'm a small business owner and all the insurance, training costs, etc. are not money I make. Those are business expenses. If you work for a big hospital or group, the employer pays for all that. If you open a private practice, your business still pays for it. The doctor and their practice are separate legal entities for a reason. The doctor's salary comes AFTER all that stuff is paid for by the business. So you don't subtract the cost of insurance from their salary.

<comment><USER6> While this might be the case in many businesses, physicians generally pay their own malpractice insurance (which can easily be more than $10k a year) out of pocket. The litigious nature of the medical system as a whole in America drives these costs way up and it makes a noticeable impact in not only how much doctors take home but how they act to cover their asses from a lawsuit.

Conference expenses and the like are still often covered by the group though so that's at least something.

<comment><USER7> $10k doesn't seem so bad if you are billing at a rate of $2 million a year.

(Of course utilization isn't 100% and primary care doctors aren't billing at that rate, but that's often the rate for a not particularly expensive specialist visit)

<comment><USER5> [http://www.aafp.org/news/practice-professional- issues/201505...](http://www.aafp.org/news/practice-professional- issues/20150513salaryreport.html)

>On average, primary care physicians overall -- and family physicians, specifically -- earn $195,000 annually, compared with $284,000 for physicians in other specialties

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Quite surprised Dermatology and Plastic Surgery aren't the top two. Those specialities are almost unique in being the only remaining ones in which most practitioners are _not_ in managed care programs so can and do charge what the market will bear.

If you go to an oncology conference you see a lot of paper presentations and poster sessions. If you go to the annual Derm conference there's a whole "scene" in the corridors and the trade show floor is really little different from the trade show floor of, say, a car show, or the AVN awards. Maybe GDC, or maybe that's a bit over the top. If you aren't an unabashed fan of capitalism (which I am), you'd likely call it crass.

One year I was walking the show floor and stopped to look at a display of liposuction tubes -- it was beautifully laid out, like a cross between a bunch of Cala Lilies and an pipe organ rank. The salesdroid came over and said only two things: \- "Hello, Doctor! Do you do liposuction in your clinic?" (I shook my head) \- "Well you can easily get an additional $3000/day from these babies."

I'm also surprised radiologists score so high because a lot of the analysis has been farmed out to India. And since that entailed a fully digital stack, those Indian MDs are about to be the first physicians to be replaced with DL. Perhaps the large number reflects a small residual 'n', or perhaps the radiologists have been able to hang on even though part of the job is outsourced -- presumably by them.

<comment><USER9> >Those specialities are almost unique in being the only remaining ones in which most practitioners are not in managed care programs so can and do charge what the market will bear.

I think you've hit upon the reason. Turns out when the customer is paying directly and feels the pinch directly the market will not bear as much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's funny that list almost seems like the pay scale should be inverted.

The most important doctors get paid the least and the least important doctors get paid the most.

<comment><USER11> That logic also seems to be true in most major corporations...

<comment><USER12> "important" might be one adjective, but typically less specialized, less competitive, and more common

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article is extremely misleading. Even though these salaries might be high, they aren't adjusting for number of hours worked.

When we think of a typical "salaried" job, we think 40 hours/week. This is almost certainly not the case, even for the cushiest physician specialties.

My girlfriend is a critical care physician about to enter attending-hood working at a university hospital. She will be working a minimum of 50 hours/week and with all the administrative tasks she's being asked to do, it'll probably be more like 60+.

Really we need to see hourly rates to get a better idea of what physicians _actually_ make.

</comment><comment><USER14> The doctors who live on my street drive Porsches, Mercedes-Benz and Audis. Two docs on our street own multiple Porsches each (summer, winter, racing).

Maybe it's family money.

Then again maybe it's taxpayers paying their salaries.

(location: mid-sized city in Canada)

<comment><USER15> German doctors have nice sports cars too. Same in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've wondered why everyone and their moms are pushing people to study computer science and STEM, but you don't see the same push for physicians.

<comment><USER17> Because it takes 0-4 years of schooling to get your foot in the STEM door, but 8-12 years of schooling for medicine. That pretty much bars access for anyone interested in having money in their 20s/30s, and those without a strong support system.

There is a reason why only those from affluent/foreign backgrounds go into medicine. They're the only ones who can "afford" to not make money right out of college.

<comment><USER18> Realistically, it takes 4 years to attempt to get your foot in the door at a medical school unless you have pre-admittance or you're looking at a special case like UMKC's 6-year program. Getting into an MD or a DO program isn't a guaranteed thing. It's a substantial downside risk.

Also, you can have a STEM-based undergraduate education as your pre-med, even math and computer science can count if you take the right additional electives. The two aren't mutually exclusive. It's a good fallback if you bomb out of getting into med school (or decide 3 years into ugrad that you don't want to apply).

<comment><USER17> 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of med school at least. And I agree that a tech related bachelor's is a good idea for a med school backup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> These pay scales are insane for the fact that doctors essentially just have to show up. This doesn't even include management of others (aka Director roles, etc). Just literally showing up.

<comment><USER20> if you think all doctors do is "just show up", i'd be curious to know what you think programmers do. Do they just "type stuff"?

<comment><USER19> I meant ... normally for a pay scale above $200k in the non-coastal areas, someone has to manage staff, lead a team, run a business unit, and make strategic decisions. Literally, doctors "do their specialty" \- no teams, no 'winning clients' and closing deals to bring in business. They don't have to have any other skills but their specialty at those ranges.

<comment><USER21> ...I know a number of doctors who manage staff, lead teams, provide cost justifications to their hospital's C-suite, and make strategic decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Despite having the same training and experience as their white peers, > physicians who identified as Asian, Latino, or black received significantly > less

What does this mean? The averaged all doctors by race? They averaged by profession and race then combined to form some sort of weighted average by race?

<comment> gingerbread-man "We found that African American, Latino, and Pacific Islanders were more likely to work in medically underserved areas than were white physicians (adjusted odds ratio, 1.22-2.25; p < .05)." [1]

Though I'm sure bias has a part in the income disparity, I suspect it is less so, relative to other professions, as the fees paid to doctors for each procedure are broadly standardized. Individual doctors' choices of where to practice and what kind of patients to serve may play a larger role. (IMHO, this is a much better justification for affirmative-action programs than other oft-cited justifications.)

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22708247](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22708247)</comment></comment>


Simulating Extreme Spacetimes - <AUTHOR> http://www.black-holes.org/explore/movies <comment><USER2> Somewhat off-topic, but regarding visualization, we're told that Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milk Way, but also that it is very unlikely that e.g. the Sun will actually collide with any other stars -- galaxies are approximately empty over all. I have always want to know what it would look like from Earth to see the stars of the two galaxies 'sliding across' the celestial sphere during the merge. Has anyone seen something like that? I search online for it every few years.

<comment><USER3> Even at closest approach, there won't be any appreciable change in the night sky over a human lifetime. Note that in the gallery at the bottom of [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/milky- way-c...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/milky-way- collide.html) the shortest time between frames is still 50 million years.

<comment><USER4> From the original article:

" it will take 4 billion years before the strike. ... it will take an additional two billion years after the encounter for the interacting galaxies to completely merge"

Also, it's important to keep in mind that galaxies have a pretty low density. If you shrank the sun down to the size of a ping pong ball, earth would be a poppy seed about 10 feet away. Proxima centauri, the nearest star, would be 500 miles away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Something the general reader may not know: As late as ~2004-7, calculations of this type were impossible. It was a major achievement when numerical relativists were able to achieve a single orbit of a black-hole black-hole binary system.

Figuring out how to make it work was the culmination of decades of attempts at the problem. Improved computational power didn't hurt, but the major improvement was finding the right metrics in which to do the simulations.

<comment><USER6> From what I remember about numerically solving differential equations, your approximations will completely diverge from the actual solution near singular points in the equation, so you have to transform the problem to come up with a singular solution. I imagine the interaction of two singularities would result in some interesting singular points. Is that what you are alluding to when you say "finding the right metrics" or am I completely off base?

In either case, could you link to one of those 2004-7 papers? It sounds like a fascinating read.

<comment><USER5> A tricky part was making sure that numerical instabilities didn't propagate outward away from the event horizon. I believe there are now several solutions to the problem, but the one I find most intuitive is simply extending spacetime ad infinitum inside the black hole in order to allow gravitational waves to propagate inward forever.

More here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_relativity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_relativity)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Super cool research going on here. I came across their website after seeing, "What the first LIGO detection would look like up close" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt8Z_uzG71o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt8Z_uzG71o)

[edit] this might be a better link for visuals of the simulations: [https://www.youtube.com/user/SXSCollaboration/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/SXSCollaboration/videos)

</comment><comment><USER7> This almost feels pornographic, it's so good. In the particular the extreme counter-rotating example is so interesting to consider, but really exciting to see simulated. I just imagine the ergoregions of each body going absolutely nuts in those last few moments of merger.

<comment><USER8> It would be interesting to do the ray tracing and see how the mergers would actually appear to an observer.

<comment><USER7> You could probably do it with a handful of test photons, without breaking the bank.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's a visible-wavelength simulation of a gravitational singularity in free space running through Apache on an old Sun machine at Dal:

[https://web.cs.dal.ca/~hannon/](https://web.cs.dal.ca/~hannon/)

;)</comment>


The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/05/anti-nuclear-lobby-misled-world

<comment><USER2> I have the perfect solution for the pro-nuclear folks - y'all can move to one neighborhood and we can build the plant in the center. The rest of us can move 100+ miles away. You can even have the power for free, you just aren't allowed to be evacuated when things happen that weren't on the "we can solve this" list. If radiation is so harmless and controllable, put your money where your mouth is.

How about waiting until they have to stop pouring highly radioactive water into the ocean in Japan to be pro-nuclear? This is like saying "drill baby drill" while 100 days into BP flooding the gulf with oil and dispersants.

Japan built 30 foot tsunami walls around entire cities and everyone believed in them. Those cities lost 10k people at a time, dead now because of their faith in engineering as "magic". Those earthquake resistant buildings on the California fault lines? A large enough quake and they are going to be as good as a 30 foot wall dealing with a 35 foot wave.

<comment><USER3> I'm unclear what solutions you're proposing.

Don't build? Consider only safety, not utility, when building?

Don't use electricity? Use electricity generation methods which kill far more people on average than nuclear?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Indeed, but by far the bigger tragedy was in choosing the way we currently 'do nuclear' over thorium... we chose the more difficult and less safe route, in order to use the leftovers to kill more efficiently. I have little sympathy for us, to be frank.</comment>


Dutch Girl Fakes a Trip to South East Asia - <AUTHOR> http://www.gapyear.com/news/230749/dutch-girl-fakes-a-trip-to-se-asia <comment><USER4> Another interesting take on this in my opinion is that no one recognized the places that she went to. Perhaps people don't realize that interesting destinations exist in their home towns.

<comment><USER5> This is the first thing I thought. Given a sufficiently large city and a sufficiently disinterested friend group I think it's possible to pull this off in many places. I have friends who have grown up in New York and never been to the Met. I'm fairly certain I could convince them I was at the Louvre.

<comment><USER6> People could possibly pull that off with me even for museums I have been to a few years ago. I won't remember all the paintings, I won't really remember all the interior room styles (even when they are pretty unique, a few single photos usually don't capture that, unless you do it on purpose). Even if I saw a painting that I'm sure I've seen somewhere else, they do move/loan them to different expositions over time, I've seen that happen in reality too (I'd remark on that, hey I think I've seen that one at museum X--ok, maybe that's when I would start to get a clue).

Add to that the fact that you simply don't _expect_ to be lied to in such a straightforward manner, I see no shame in being able to be fooled in this way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What an amazing plot twist it would be if she actually had gone to Asia and ended up faking that she faked the trip.

<comment><USER8> She would loose the credit for the project if the school found out though.

<comment><USER9> But the project could actually be how easy it is to manipulate the media

<comment><USER7> She's actually attending the M. Night Shyamalan school of art.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Love this. Very cool project, even if, as pointed out already in this thread, it was emulated from the Leeds 13's own fake trip.

Also fascinating how hostile some of the commenters are here. The project explores the illusion social media sites create. I think it's pretty cool.

<comment><USER11> What "illusions" do social media sites create? I don't see what this has to do with social media. Other than it makes it a bit more difficult to pull off. Because you need to make posts over the time period.

<comment><USER12> I think it's more accurately "the illusions we create within social media sites" \- if someone can do this, what subtle misrepresentations are we creating (with or without thinking about it)? Certainly, it is _not_ unique to "social media sites", but an attribute of social interaction in general. Social sites just reify and persist that interaction in a form suitable for this kind of a project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am actually surprised the travel industry isn't on facebook more. How many more travel pics do we see now then before fb?

<comment><USER14> The thought occurred during a recent vacation I took: if I tried to show my friends and family my vacation photos after the trip it would be a classic sitcom groan moment, but by posting during the trip I get past their defenses. Their need to compulsively 'like' things kicks in, and they unwittingly view the whole trip anyway.

<comment><USER15> The medium is the message - it's the context that changes the meaning.

Sitting everyone down for pictures is almost gloating; but when you remove the obligations, people's desires to be nice, helpful and curious kick in so they take a look and click like.

But yeah, I'm surprised that companies involved in travel aren't all over social media. My only guess is that it might be difficult to change the messaging from "travel is exciting" to "travel with Xyz travels pty ltd is exciting" because of the industry's commoditization.

<comment><USER16> Some travel-related companies are "all over social media". Tripadvisor had some success with their FB apps showing "cities I've visited" etc.

To be honest, it's just that social media already does most of the job for them, for free (travelers post pictures on their own, nowadays even tagging the location or establishment), so why push it?

<comment><USER17> Because you want people to link directly to the trip or vacation or hotel or airline that they used. People usually don't mention it, they mention the destination.

<comment><USER18> I've found that a lot of people are using Facebook to share airline deals with each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cheapassgames/stuff- and...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cheapassgames/stuff-and-nonsense)

<comment><USER19> How does this relate to the topic?

<comment><USER20> The first paragraph:

You and your friends are globetrotting explorers. Or so you say. Actually, you are all liars and cowards, and despite your claims to the contrary, you've never left London.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Cool experiment, but not letting your family in on it? Not sure how this will affect future trust issues...

<comment><USER22> It was for research. If it were my daughter, I'd be both impressed and proud. Besides, most college students represent a different reality to their parents than the one they actually live.

<comment><USER23> I don't know, I'd be pretty worried about my daughter if she were in another continent. I'd want the hotel information, I'd send her extra money. I'd be reading up on news in that area.

I doubt I would be angry to find out it was a university project and she never went anywhere, but whatever I would feel probably wouldn't end up being pleasant. Maybe it wouldn't be bad, but the stress put on the parents doesn't seem right. I don't think children know how much parents care about them sometimes.

<comment><USER24> > _I don 't know, I'd be pretty worried about my daughter if she were in > another continent. I'd want the hotel information, I'd send her extra money. > I'd be reading up on news in that area._

She was in university, not 14 years old.

<comment><USER25> You're right. Traveling alone in several foreign countries for more than a month as someone just out of high school is completely safe. There is no reason a parent would have to worry about their kid doing that.

<comment><USER24> > _You 're right. Traveling alone in several foreign countries for more than a > month as someone just out of high school is completely safe._

First strawman. I never said it's "completely safe". Staying in your parents house is not "completely safe" either. You can fall of the stairs for example, or get an electric shock. Or they can bore you to death by overprotection.

However such travelling is perfectly common. Tons of young people go backpacking in several foreign countries (you say it as "foreign country" means danger. In actuallity going to places like e.g Paris, Denmark or Singapore is a heck of a lot safer than staying home in Baltimore, Atlanta or Los Angeles).

Besides "just out of high school" translates eighteen, so it's not a "kid" anymore (heck, in most countries, it also legally an adult). Heck, eighteen year olds were conscribed in most major wars, including Vietnam.

> _There is no reason a parent would have to worry about their kid doing > that._

Of course there's a reason: being over-protective. A little worrying is OK. The BS "I'll be reading the news for that part of the world" (for what? In case there was some avalance or earthquake or armed robbery and a news story mentions their child?) is not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder what measures she took to simulate network latency. That's one of the things, that's going to immediately rat you out, if you're not where you're supposed to be.

</comment><comment><USER27> For what its worth, she mentioned in a television show that she got a 7 (out of 10) mark for the project, which was people thought was rather low. The fact is that she does a kind of art study and that the teacher was not all to impressed with the 'art' she created for the project.

<comment><USER28> Reminds me of this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeds_13](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeds_13)

Some Leeds art students faked a trip to Malaga on student grant money. Caused great outrage. I was friends with one of the 13. He dined out on it for a while, had a whale of a time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Here's a post with more pictures: [http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/this- woman-used-photos...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/this-woman-used- photoshop-to-convince-her-family-that-she-we)

</comment><comment><USER30> As seen on: Random people fakes a great weekend posting pictures of smiling people holding drinks on nightclubs.

</comment><comment><USER31> Reminds of this - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mason_University's_histo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mason_University's_historical_hoaxes)

</comment><comment><USER32> Nope, sea water cannot mirror like this on a photo. It's obvious that it is in a [probably indoors] pool.

</comment><comment><USER33> She'd have probably enjoyed the real South East Asia more

</comment><comment><USER34> In the spirit of the increasing Facebook dependency, [http://99daysoffreedom.com/](http://99daysoffreedom.com/)

<comment><USER35> I am already off Facebook since a few months. The first 2 weeks I caught myself opening a new tab typing 'face' and then realizing I deactivated my account. I just moved to a new city which breaks my old ties even faster. But my really good friends call me now and that feels really good!

Next up: 99 days without hackernews :)

<comment><USER36> > Next up: 99 days without hackernews :)

I'll bet you that will be a _lot_ harder to do than breaking with facebook. So far I haven't managed.

<comment><USER34> noprocrast would help ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Interesting!

She is so cool and smart.

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't see the modernity of the project because she used traditional methods like setting up a complete scene and photographing herself. Perhaps a more modern variant is to make lots of posts from a south Asian chat room to convince people your are from South Asia?

</comment><comment><USER39> LOVE the experience and HER for most TRAVEL is over-rated. LONG time New York City, NY, USA. Seen the tunnel doors under the Columbia University campus .... but then, i was a student.

Go to the factory parties in Brooklyn and ride my bicycle through the POLISH Greenpoint section with the Catholic statues and shrines in the house or apartment yard or garden.

SHAME ON YOU for only thinking the experiment or sociology review or comment on Facebook is ABOUT FOOLING YOUR FRIENDS.

In general, most of your FRIENDS are DUMBER than you are and even test lower on the IQ scale.

ITS ALL ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE. Can you get a real Chinatown street food - <USER2> bizarre food high? Without going to Bangkok? Without jet lag? without high amount of expense?

Sure scuba diving in the Caribbean is a high point of life. But I spent most time looking behind me for there were sharks / barracuda etc. So, experience and MILEAGE WILL VARY GREATLY.

CONCLUSION: no suprise, you ignoramousses. Read the book on globalization. In Florida you can hear the NATIVE INDIAN from Mexico who has NO PAPERS who is working construction IN FLORIDA.

Many friends have never been to the Metropolitan MUSEUM of NYC, NY, USA - <USER3> link. HUNGARIAN movies and cheap student films were shot at the Hungarian Coffee Shop right near St. John the Divine Church. Location is close to 116th street. Columbia University.

Here's proof. Simply come up with ONE HUNDRED QUESTIONS for a reality movie /documentary / March of the Penguins in Antartica etc.

MOST OF THE COLLEGE GRADUATES are clueless! Are they living in a Matrix? Are MOST OF THE PENGUINS EXACTLY the same and 95% or ninety five percent of all penguins seen are MALE?

Something is wrong, because "the illusion social media" or rather the DEPENDENCE UPON VIRTUAL or almost reality.

PS. look carefully at the MONK PICTURES. DO you see Waldo? that is a joke. Do YOU SEE FIVE THINGS WRONG? are the light spectrum color variation appropriate?

Does water swirl down the drain in a counter-clockwise direction?

SHAVING HEAD USING A MODERN DAY RAZOR? some teeth filled with gold by dentist while in the US they use verneers and coverings and 'silver amalgam'?

</comment><comment><USER40> _> The reasons behind her actions, however, are noble: it was all part of a university project, in which she wanted to show how Facebook activity is not necessarily reflective of real life._

I don't think doing academic research is a carte-blanch to lie to people. One girl might do this sort of thing for the ego boost of appearing cool. But what about the ego boost academics get from pulling this kind of trick on other people.

<comment><USER41> Every time someone posts to Facebook, it's a lie. All of Facebook is a lie. No ones posts all of the details of their lives, especially the ugly details, or the uncomfortable details, or the embarrassing ones. This student set out to underscore that fact, and I am tickled that she did so quite effectively.

<comment><USER40> Selectively providing information is not equivalent to lying.

<comment><USER36> That's the second time in a week that I come across that statement on HN. You'd be surprised how the rest of the world views lies of omission, hint: not kindly.

<comment><USER42> Lying by omission is not the same thing as not mentioning irrelevancies.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kids are glued to their screens – but parents are in no position to criticize - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/22/kids-are-glued-to-their-screens-but-parents-are-in-no-position-to-criticize <comment><USER2> Do as I say not as I do!</comment>


PCs see surprising gain in US as global decline slows, but Apple slips - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/pcs-see-surprising-gain-in-us-global-decline-slows/

<comment><USER2> I'd bet that the rise of larger phones have made tablets less of a necessity. I have a 5.3" Galaxy Note 3 and it fits comfortably in my pocket. My wife has the same phone and it fits in her purse. There's no need for a 7" tablet because it wouldn't be much of an improvement for screen size for the hassle of having to carry it around. That leaves 10" tablets, but the novelty of running apps on a big screen wears off when you can run the same ones on a 5.3" screen. The Surface is a nice alternative if you want to run desktop software, but it is a hard sell at $1300 when you can get a 15" touchscreen from HP for $300.</comment>


Why mmap is faster than system calls - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sasha_f/why-mmap-is-faster-than-system-calls-24718e75ab37 <comment><USER2> I get the point, but mmap _is_ a syscall as well. Perhaps a better title would be, "Why using mmap is faster than using read and write syscalls".

Would using O_DIRECT flag result in similar timings for mmap and read/write?

<comment><USER3> I doubt it. Using O_DIRECT is essentially bypassing the buffer cache. Similar to the "cold" experiments where the file is not cached. Mmap is still faster. I have also done experiments on a NVRAM machine with DAX file system (no buffer cache). Mmap is still several times faster.

<comment><USER2> It is skipping the buffer cache that is true, but, if I understand things correctly, it allows kernel to use user provided buffers directly, thus skipping the copying of the data from kernel to user land. That is why buffers used in O_DIRECT context have to be aligned properly.

It would be fun to run the experiment non the less.

From open(2) man pages on O_DIRECT: _Try to minimize cache effects of the I /O to and from this file. In general this will degrade performance, but it is useful in special situations, such as when applications do their own caching. File I/O is done directly to/from user- space buffers_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A system call is a special function that lets you cross protection domains</comment>


Show HN: Enlight – Learn to code by building projects - <AUTHOR> https://tryenlight.github.io <comment><USER2> I think project based learning is the only way to actually learn programming. It's why most people suggest new programmers to "just build something they want" (which I think is bad advice). It's easy to envision a person reading 20 books and taking 3 MOOCs on programming not being able to tic tac toe game. It is far more difficult to envision someone who built 10 projects not being able to program.

What I dislike about the projects linked is that they give you all the code, rather than just giving you the challenge. Shameless plug: I started a blog about programming challenges (projects, not algorithms) where you just get the tests and you have to write the code. The first (and only, for now) project is a URL shortener: [https://cmocanu.github.io/blog/post/url_shortener/](https://cmocanu.github.io/blog/post/url_shortener/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand where you are coming from. I think having code exercises and a more step by step process is something Enlight can improve upon. I love your URL shortner tutorial. Feel free to contribute a project or two to Enlight! Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The [nodejs chat application]([https://tryenlight.github.io/nodejs- chat](https://tryenlight.github.io/nodejs-chat)) should at least briefly run through the perils of XSS and ways to sanitize inputs. The chat app lets you inject arbitrary javascript/html/css which noobs may not consider at all.

Otherwise, great idea! Should help a lot of people

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point - will add something on that soon. I by no means am a professional programmer, just a hobbyist sharing what I've learned.

<comment><USER4> Why the `var`s everywhere in the example? They should really be `const`s

<comment><USER5> `var` still works everywhere, right?

<comment><USER6> Current coding examples should be using the current best practice, which is const. If you want to support old browsers without compiling the JS, you are going to have a lot more issues than const/var and is not for beginners.

<comment><USER5> The difference between `var` and `const` is irrelevant for beginners. `var` also happens to be the standard on deployed browsers and existing code, and every beginner should recognize it. It's the least substantive thing you could pick to criticize about this code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shameless plug but once I made a repository of projects to learn programming: [https://github.com/tuvtran/project-based- learning](https://github.com/tuvtran/project-based-learning)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great job! You think some Enlight projects would fit well there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I get a number of people asking me how to become a programmer as a second career. For most of them, I wouldn't recommend going to college for it, but instead learn it on the side. Project-based learning I think is the best because it matches more "real world" programming and it's fun to see the results of your work. This seems like a good resource that fits right into that approach. I'll be passing this on to others. Good job!

<comment><USER9> Its 2017. "Don't go to college" has always been really bad advice, and has never been more so than right now. If you go to college and do well in CS, you will have tech companies asking you to join them. You will also be equipped to takle unsolved problems, and make new services. Go to college.

<comment><USER10> What would you recommend for someone who already went to college in an unrelated field but is looking at CS/programming as a second career? Is the degree that important, or would an alternative path serve a returning student better?

<comment><USER9> Yes, a degree make a massive difference, particularly if you aspire to work in an established technology environment. Decide what you want to do, and then work out what you need to do to get there.

If you dont want to do a degree- what then do you do? Basically you have to somehow get experience. But if an employer is willing to take you on without any experience, then that is probably not a place that you want to work. They will have low standards and poor pay and conditions, and therefore churn out poor products. So it is unlikely that this will create a "stepping stone" that will get you where you want to go.

To cut a long story short, since getting up to speed is realistically going to take you a year or two anyway, you might as well go to college.

I dont mean to sound grumpy here, but I just feel that there is concerted effort from some quarters to talk down the value of a good education when clearly if you look at Silicon Valley, education is valued really highly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would add some depth to some of the beginner/intermediate tutorials. For example, in the to-do list project you could introduce something like localStorage to make it persistent. It's only a few more lines of code but opens up a whole new topic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes sense. I added localStorage to the text editor, but adding depth to other projects enhances not only the app, but now the user knows more features to implement in their future projects. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This looks interesting. Do you want some feedback about the homepage?

This: _" Subscribe to email list: Join 1,000+ developers and get notified of new projects"_ makes me wonder: what kind of projects will I get notified about? Can I get notified only about certain types of projects that I'm interested in?

And how often will I get notified, is that configurable? Once a week, or every 2nd week, is probably enough for me. My inbox gets too many notification emails already.

I'd definitely sign up for notifications, if I could choose to receive only notifications about stuff similar to Discourse, Slack, StackOverflow, Disqus, wiki software, Diaspora, Facebook, Scuttlebutt, which I'm particularly interested in.

Nice initiative :- )

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback. I will definitely consider this in the future (when I make my own mailchimp like service) as users would benefit from this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a gradual color change in the header of [https://tryenlight.github.io/guide](https://tryenlight.github.io/guide), which is fine and all except the text isn't legible when the color is red.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for letting me know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The animation of what you're going to build before even clicking on it is super neat, kudos!

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a GIF ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I subscribed via MailChimp and got a link to go back to [http://enlight.ml](http://enlight.ml) but a MacKeeper ad popped up. I tried again in incognito and it showed some other generic ads. Probably a bug?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep that's a bug. Will fix shortly. Enlights old domain was enlight.ml until freenom took away the domain. I guess that's what happens when I use a free domain :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another shameless plug for [http://sudo.org.au/](http://sudo.org.au/). We do exactly this, thanks for sharing shamdasani! :)

</comment><comment><USER17> A question. For the database side of things, do mainstream chat apps use the PubSub model? If not, what then?

</comment><comment><USER18> What would make these dramatically more fun for me is the examples instead being exercises

</comment><comment><USER19> Fantastic! Conveys complex problems in a simple, easy to consume manner. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER20> You're a class act, shamdasani. Thanks for sharing. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to hear :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Learning to program right now. This is highly motivating!

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to hear

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> feature request: add discussion page for project discussion, getting help, suggestions, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the plan. Any suggestions for forum software? Discourse? Flarum? Trying to implement it before the new year.

<comment><USER12> You might want to check out EffectiveDiscussions too: [https://www.effectivediscussions.org](https://www.effectivediscussions.org). It's like Discourse + StackOverflow (Q&A) + Slack (chat) + HackerNews. (I'm developing it.)

Later this week I'll release a slightly new version that'll make it the probably fastest forum software out there :- ) But Discourse is more stable & well tested.

Here're some features you might like, if you like HackerNews: [https://www.effectivediscussions.org/-32/how-hacker-news- can...](https://www.effectivediscussions.org/-32/how-hacker-news-can-be- improved-3-things)

Discord (chat) is fairly popular too. But maybe not so great for Q&A because everything scrolls up-and-away in a pure chat.

<comment><USER23> This is interesting stuff, good luck! Is it being used on any good public sites yet, would love to see how it gets used in the wild.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This looks fun, good job

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> S-H-A-M then Dasani like the water company nothin to it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Chrome thinks "This page is in [Luxembourgish]" ... wtf?</comment>