Why I'm taking full responsibility for my education - <AUTHOR> http://jarredsumner.com/blog/post/20300793172/why-im-taking-full-responsibility-for-my-education <comment><USER4> Hi,

I respect you point of view but... it won't hold for high level education. Let me explain why:

* I just wish people could forget the idea that Math is fun. It is not. It's interesting, but it's not fun and can be totally counter intuitive, thus there is no "fun" way to demonstrate it. You are mentioning about Geometry but the geometry you are talking about is a very very very tiny subset of what geometry is at a higher level. It's not an topic from Geometry but for example how do you demonstrate that the ensemble of invertible matrix is dense in the set of R(n,n) matrix in a visual manner? These concepts are so abstract that they become too hard to demonstrate. Achilles tendon of most american students I have known and I have worked with is that they are extremely dependent of a representation of what they are dealing with and they struggle with very abstract concept while in the Russian/ French/ Chinese education teachers teach very early to student to manipulate abstract objects (4-D vectors, advanced algebra etc... are often seen in high school).

* The "get less point if you hand back the report late" is actually a good thing for your students. Read one of the Dan Ariely book that showed that this pace helps students study and in the end they end up having better marks. That's the sad human psychology.

* For the theorem you need to learn to be a programmer I agree, you don't need them to be a decent coder. However... there's a say among lawyers: "A good lawyer knows the law, an excellent lawyer knows the judge". If you want to be a great programmer sometimes tools at your disposal fall short and... it's your turn to create. This is the moment where theorems become really important and a great programmer will know how to leverage them whereas a decent programmer will fall short. "A good programmer knows the tools, an excellent programmer knows the theorems" !

<comment><USER5> > _I just wish people could forget the idea that Math is fun. It is not. It's > interesting, but it's not fun and can be totally counter intuitive, thus > there is no "fun" way to demonstrate it._

I couldn't disagree more. As an example, linear algebra is something that has been bothering me for years, long after my college math courses. One of its central topics is eigenvectors and eigenvalues. Every textbook I can remember would demonstrate these with pictures of a sheared rectangle (or a sheared box in 3d). That's fine, but it isn't fun and its not motivating, so no surprise that the concept never clicked.

Then very recently, while browsing wikipedia I came across an excellent demonstration of the concept: "eigenfaces" used in facial recognition software. Its fun, useful, and it clicked.

> _how do you demonstrate that the ensemble of invertible matrix is dense in > the set of R(n,n) matrix in a visual manner?_

You could draw a picture of a circle, emphasizing the line of the circle as the boundary of the set. The invertible matrices are the interior of the circle, and they complement the singular (non-invertible) matrices which are represented by the boundary of the circle.

But more importantly, the teacher should first explain why this might be useful to know in the most concrete way possible, whether its theory behind an applied technique in engineering or a lemma used for an important abstract theorem (no handwaving - tell what's important or significant about the abstract theorem).

It is the teacher's job to motivate the students, good ones do so and bad ones don't. Lazy teachers who don't think its their job to motivate students will get exactly what they complain about: unmotivated students.

Students (American or otherwise) who are willing to just put their heads down and drill rote symbol manipulation are doing themselves a disservice - <USER2> generally does not lead to much insight or understanding of what they are doing (though it may in the exceptional cases of very smart students), especially as the math gets more advanced. Moreover, being adept at calculating is not useful in the age of computers. You only need to do a calculation once (as an algorithm in a computer program).

More important is to gain insight and understanding into the nature and limitations of the subject matter. Then the student is more likely to recognize the cases where it can be applied after they're done with the plug- and-chug problem sets at the end of the chapter (which plague even advanced math textbooks in the form of boilerplate theorem proofs). Of course, simply showing how to plug-and-chug is easier for teachers so they praise obedient students who are easily motivates and ask easy questions.

<comment><USER6> >I couldn't disagree more. As an example, linear algebra is something >that has been bothering me for years, long after my college math >courses. One of its central topics is eigenvectors and eigenvalues. >Every textbook I can remember would demonstrate these with >pictures of a sheared rectangle (or a sheared box in 3d). That's fine, >but it isn't fun and its not motivating, so no surprise that the concept >never clicked.

>Then very recently, while browsing wikipedia I came across an >excellent demonstration of the concept: "eigenfaces" used in facial >recognition software. Its fun, useful, and it clicked.

I couldn't disagree more with your disagreement. Eigenvectors and eigenvalues are abstraction of things observed in many places and studied in one place so you can apply it to everywhere. Eigenface is simply an instance of linear space dimension reduction, whose implementation, by the way, is based on eigenvectors' connection to SVD and covariance matrix. Eigenface won't help with Taylor series definition of matrix exponential, nor solution of linear ODEs, nor Jordan canonical forms. Can anyone say those are not important topics of eigenvalues and eigenvectors?

If you truly want to understand something, there is no shortcut. You have to dig deep, look at and learn related topics, think hard about how and why scientists developed the subject this way. It takes time and concentration, a lot of them. Then you will gain something, and you need to keep at it to master it. No one said knowledge is easy, especially deep knowledge.

>You could draw a picture of a circle, emphasizing the line of the circle >as the boundary of the set. The invertible matrices are the interior of >the circle, and they complement the singular (non-invertible) matrices >which are represented by the boundary of the circle.

This demonstrates the pitfall of facile visualization, because the suggestion is wrong. There are dense sets with no boundary. The simplest example I can think of is rational numbers on the real line. It is dense on the real line, yet between every two rational numbers there is an irrational number, and between every two irrational numbers there is a rational number.

>But more importantly, the teacher should first explain why this might >be useful to know in the most concrete way possible, whether its >theory behind an applied technique in engineering or a lemma used >for an important abstract theorem (no handwaving - tell what's >important or significant about the abstract theorem).

This is easier said than done. At best, it is impractical; at worst, fantasy. Who is going to spend a week of lectures to explain one application in a possibly obscure engineering field. What about the fact no everyone is from an engineering department.

Sometimes theorems are useful for proving other theorems and then for proving other theorems. Gershgorin circle theorem is mainly useful for proving bounds about eigenvalues. That is it. I couldn't motivate more than that. It has application in numerical linear algebra, but it amounts to another proof and you need to go pretty deep in matrix analysis to appreciate it.

>Students (American or otherwise) who are willing to just put their >heads down and drill rote symbol manipulation are doing themselves a >disservice - it generally does not lead to much insight or >understanding of what they are doing (though it may in the >exceptional cases of very smart students), especially as the math gets >more advanced. Moreover, being adept at calculating is not useful in >the age of computers. You only need to do a calculation once (as an >algorithm in a computer program).

This I strenuously disagree. Math, like every human endeavor, requires practice and lots of it. If you cannot recall a pertinent theorem at will, then you will not be able to use it to prove it. You don't have to remember every theorem for all time, but when you need it you better. And practice does develop insights and understandings, which I can personally attest to. Advanced math especially requires a familiarity with basics, for no computer will prove for you a countra-positive.

I am opposed to rote learning. Who isn't? Specifically, I am opposed to Chinese teachers' mind-numbing deluge-of-exercises approach. All the proofs are nothing more than bags of tricks and they seem to take special delight to confuse students by not explaining things fully. I so detest that mindset. The U.S teachers are much better. There are good teachers and bad teachers, of course, and I suspect college professors can be a lot better if they actually put the necessary time in. American textbooks are leagues ahead. But one thing I have learned since is that in the end you have to remember the theorems and tricks because: THEY ARE MATH.

>More important is to gain insight and understanding into the nature >and limitations of the subject matter. Then the student is more likely >to recognize the cases where it can be applied after they're done with >the plug- and-chug problem sets at the end of the chapter (which >plague even advanced math textbooks in the form of boilerplate >theorem proofs). Of course, simply showing how to plug-and-chug is >easier for teachers so they praise obedient students who are easily >motivates and ask easy questions.

This I agree in general. It is after you gain insights and understanding can you innovate and advance. It is remarkable how many Ph.D.'s never master their fields. But it is hard and time consuming. My ideal of math textbook is Richard Courant's "Introduction to calculus and analysis." It is a perfect blend of mathematical rigor and insightful intuition. It is sad that I didn't have it as my introductory calculus textbook. It used to be the standard intro textbook in the West.

I suspect, and I could be wrong, the reason you blame teachers so much is that they didn't teach deep enough and you are smart enough to realize there is more. They had to be "easy" because it is already hard enough for some students. And this may be the ultimate problem with public education: it needs to teach the everybody but it can only do so by dumbing down the curriculum. That and it is expensive to teach but we want to do it on the cheap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author doesn't know enough to know what they don't know.

A high school student doesn't have enough knowledge nor experience to be writing essays on educational theories. This entire post reads as a "I didn't get taught the way I thought I should, so I'm mad about it" rant.

Get your diploma, get a degree and come back in 5 years when you've got some solid education and life experience. You might be able to figure out why the education system is setup the way it is after that (hint: it isn't setup to promote effective education).

</comment><comment><USER8> _For example, why do students lose points for late homework? In what way is homework less valuable the day after it was due, besides a rule that just says so?_

The point isn't to demonstrate the value of the homework. As you just stated, the homework itself often has very little intrinsic value. The value is to get you used to dealing with deadlines. Do you really think that your boss is going to let you miss deadline after deadline without a credible reason? Even if you don't have "boss" in the traditional sense (e.g. if you're doing a startup) do you think your investors are going to let you miss multiple ship dates without consequence?

You might not like it, but that's the way the world works. People need to plan ahead, and they need your products, assignments, code, or whatever by a certain date, otherwise it affects their plans. In the case of your teacher, he or she isn't assigning the deadline to be arbitrary or capricious. He or she is making the assignment due by a particular date so that he or she can get it graded and back to you in a timely manner. Submitting assignments whenever might be okay if you're the only one in the class. But if you take your attitude and multiply it out by the twenty, thirty (or sometimes even forty) other students he or she has to teach, it's a recipe for chaos.

<comment><USER9> It's about respecting other people. That's why it feels crappy to have put in effort to meet a deadline, only to learn that your work is sitting untouched in an inbox for days: The respect wasn't repaid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > By officially going to a public high school, students cede a

> large portion of their responsibility for their education to the school.

> In other words, if you aren't learning much, it's the school's fault.

I'm a senior at a public high school, and I absolutely disagree. The onus to learn _always_ falls on the individual. I refuse to believe that there is a student anywhere that really wants to learn but cannot. Libraries and the internet are always available, as are other people — all of these resources can be learned from.

The author seems unhappy with their high school experience. Public schooling may have its flaws, but to blame one's lack of an education on one's school would be misguided.

> For example, a good way of teaching Geometry is to have students write a > graphics renderer.

No it wouldn't. Not everyone is interested in programming or computer games.

<comment><USER11> I partially agree. The onus is always on the indivdual. An organized class can provide comraderie, a place to ask questions, guidance, and many other benefits. But in the end, it is always up to the individual to get something out of it. A determined person with some basic resources can learn without a class, and a person who puts no effort in will not learn in even the best class.

But as for _I refuse to believe that there is a student anywhere that really wants to learn but cannot._ That is true, but only to a degree. There remain plenty of places, even in America, where internet access is limited and a young student in particular may not have the resources to get consistent and frequent internet access. Similarly, there are places where the libraries are not accessible in a practical way.

A truly determined person, such as Srīnivāsa Rāmānujan can rise above, but they are the exceptions and even Ramanujan got help from people to reach his peak.

<comment><USER10>
        > There remain plenty of places, even in America, where internet access is
        > limited and a young student in particular may not have the resources to
        > get consistent and frequent internet access. Similarly, there are places
        > where the libraries are not accessible in a practical way.

Ok, I'll concede that there may be cases where it is impossible for a determined individual to learn as much as they want. But in the majority cases, I think the old adage "if there's a will, there's a way" remains applicable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _He suggested to use what teachers ask as a starting point_

You need to do this whatever you're doing. Learning at school? Learn more than you need for the test. Learning at university / college? Learn more than you get in lectures. Reading a newspaper? Learn more than they tell you. Reading reports of research? Learn more about the research used.

> _but ithe project actively shows students, "Here's a concrete application of > what I'm teaching that you can benefit from."_

BAH! Knowledge for knowledge's sake is a good thing. Clever exploration of unknowns is an important driver for science. The most well known example of this is Feynman. If you haven't read his books I thoroughly recommend them. He sees something, and wonders why it happens, and then goes off to try to understand it. He was a genius, and so his observations and explorations were usually of interesting things that involved high level science, often unknown at that time. But it's a useful principle.

> _Following directions has no intrinsic value: it's a means to an end. For > example, why do students lose points for late homework? In what way is > homework less valuable the day after it was due, besides a rule that just > says so?_

Unfortunately a lot of your school colleagues are going to end up in the kind of jobs where "following directions" is all that's required. Here is an important lesson: Sometimes you will have an idiot for a boss. That boss will tell you to do something. S/he will tell you to do it in a certain way. You will know, and have facts and evidence to support you that you're being asked to do something stupid, or in a stupid way. You might even be able to put a monetary figure on it - "doing this will cost us $X every month!". It is very frustrating, but sometimes NO ONE CARES. All they care about is the fact that you did what you were asked.

Also, getting work done early is usually a good thing. Learning to plan and prioritise work is an important life lesson, so learning to hand it in on time (with gentle penalties for lateness) is important. Often late doesn't mean "minus one point" it means "tough shit you blew it".

Good luck though, you sound motivated and committed.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's all a journey. Some good, some bad. I believe everyone needs to start that journey but not everyone needs to see it to completion.

Naively, I like to think that nobody should look back on high school, university, or anything until many years AFTER it has completed. Only then have you progressed far enough away from the experience to make an objective view of it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Today's Calvin and Hobbes is relevant: <http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2012/04/02>

<comment><USER15> In my experience the institution itself (the state-mandated curriculum, the teachers, other students) is the limiting reagent, not the individual student who wants a meaningful education.

There's only so much you can do when everyone around you wants to know if "this is going to be on the test?" rather than "is there a deeper meaning to what this character said?".

<comment><USER16> Keep in mind that there are _lot's_ of ways for a school to be bad. I'm always frustrated when people say "the problem with education in this country..." and then list the particulars of _their_ experience. There is a vast diversity of dysfunction ranging from crumbling physical plant to horrible teachers and sometimes lousy parents and lazy students. There are also some phenomenal public schools in the United States.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> That is a good start, but you should also take responsibility for the rest of your life.

In fact, everybody should do this.

It is called being an adult.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the author makes some good points, but for the wrong reasons. A lot of the issues he complains about (lateness policies, taking the "fun" out of learning, ...) stem from other skills that HS is attempting to teach. He is correct in assuming that these skills are important for a student entering college.

However, I think he was on the right track when he wrote "High school isn't educational because it incentivizes a credential only meaningful to universities instead of educating students." This isn't entirely true; high school students will learn things that will be useful even if they don't attend college. But much of the material of a high school education (and the way it is taught) supports the college-preparatory model.

Many students would do well to enter a trade school at an earlier age. Perhaps the US high school education system could be streamlined if students decide which track they were on earlier. Students who were set on college would continue with the traditional HS model, while trade school students could begin vocational training at age 16 or 17.

The real root of this issue is that there _is_ a demand for workers (in the US economy) with skills above that of a HS diploma, but below that of a bachelors degree. These certifications are specialized trade skills. These jobs are relatively well-paying and continue an American economic tradition of entry- level jobs which enable workers to work their way into the middle class.

However, trade schools are looked down upon. Many people go to college and end up working in jobs which they are (supposedly) over qualified for. We need to refocus our entire education system on what matters, and the perception of these non-college degrees will change.

</comment><comment><USER19> I, for one, agree with the author in large part. I'm in my fourth year of college, about to graduate, and I can say that the majority of my school experience has been an utter waste.

I love learning, and that's why I've never been a great student. In middle school and high school, I spent my free time learning about things that interested me—especially programming. In that time I learned about _everything_ I could because school wasn't enough. Dynamics and kinematics, geometry, optics, digital signal processing, splines, vector and matrix math, programming language design, lambda calculus, type systems—things no student my age was expected to know or care about.

I got high grades whenever I bothered to put in the busywork, but I had little reason to. Points and grades aren't _worth_ anything.

Pretending that grades have intrinsic value is toxic to learning and innovative thinking. You get what the teacher explains straight away, and want to move on? Not allowed: you have to go at everyone else's pace. You want to know more about a related topic? Too bad: you have to follow the curriculum. You want to do projects with real-world value? As if! You have to do homework and memorise information—sadly, the kind of information that might have deep meaning to you if it were framed in another way.

I do think losing points for late assignments is fair, though. It inconveniences the person doing the grading, and in the real world, lateness isn't tolerable. Besides, if you don't follow the (meaningless) directions, you should expect (meaningless) punishment.

But here's the thing: would I have bothered to learn on my own if I hadn't had the insufficient school system to piss me off? Somehow, I think not.

<comment><USER20> You don't have to go at the same pace as everyone else.If you want to sit through the class, sure you can do that, or you can ask the teacher/advisor/dean what it takes to test out of the class. Go buy the book and go through all the examples and you should be able to test out of the class most of the time. I did this with one of my classes, and if I were to go back to school, I'd try to do this with every class that I could except research classes.

<comment><USER19> I was never allowed to test out of classes. I always asked when I felt it was reasonable, and always met with the same response. Though I did have a couple of great professors who would stay with me after class occasionally to talk about whatever I was working on at the time.

<comment><USER20> I had one class that I wasn't allowed to test out of during my second to last semester. The professor told us that all of the assignments were up on the portal for the class. I asked him if I could turn in all of the assignments the first week of class. He said yes but wasn't sure that I'd know the material. I arranged a deal that I would turn in all of the assignments the first week and as long as I got an A on every assignment, he would give me the final the at the beginning of the third week and I wouldn't have to show up to class again if I got an A. It's not always easy, and sometimes you've got to get dean/provost approval, but if you really want to do something, you can most likely do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From reading the comments here, people seem to think I'm dropping out and don't plan on going to university. Let me clear that up.

I'm going to get a Certificate of Profiency (I'm currently waiting for the results). In California, it's legally required to be seen as the equivalent of a high school diploma. It's essentially a GED for people under 18.

I plan on going to a high-end university in 1-2 years.

<comment><USER21> What's going to change at the university? I mean sure they have more variety but aren't they incentivizing a credential? Are the teachers there magically more fun or interested in teaching you?

<comment><USER7> The author will find out that not much is different in University. They might even find out that University professors are even LESS incentivized to teach specific students things then grade school teachers are.

Strong will and individual drive to learn define great university students - hopefully this kid adheres to that path and capitalizes on the opportunities University will open up for him. But he's currently dropping out of High School and trying an alternate route because it doesn't meet his rather ill informed expectations - if this occurs again at a higher educational institute, he will be making a mistake.

One thing I've noticed about recent high school grads: they all seem to think the world should meet their expectations and if not, there is something wrong with everyone else. University is a great place to have that attitude beaten out of you. If you don't come out of University humbled, you didn't go to a good one.

Message to the author: university is going to kick your ass - start preparing for it. If you do so, it sounds like you have the attitude and drive to do very well for yourself. But make sure you learn what you don't know before you start to solidify your opinions on things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _"Good teachers actively demonstrate why what they're teaching is interesting/useful/insightful."_

A lot of what you learn has benefits beyond being obviously useful and insightful. It teaches you how to think.

I hated maths and couldn't understand the practical purposes of it. However it helped me develop a way to think about problem solving much later in life. I hated ancient history, What possible benefit does understanding the battle of Troy have to do with me getting a job? It helped teach me critical thinking, which is incredibly important.

While I agree there are problems with modern western education, you've just taken a few of personal anecdotes and written off thousands of useful programs.

</comment><comment><USER23> While I agree with the concept, I also agree with blindhippo saying that the author doesn't know enough to know what they don't know.

"A self-taught man usually has a poor teacher and a worse student." - <USER3> Youngman

</comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me of a quote I enjoyed enough to write down:

"The difference between the university graduate and the autodidact lies not so much in the extent of knowledge as in the extent of vitality and self- confidence." - Milan Kundera (The Unbearable lightness of being)

</comment><comment><USER25> The author looks to be planning a future post on how he plans to take on this responsibility. Can anyone (who feels that they have 'taken full responsibility') share what path they have forged?

<comment><USER26> Over the last fifteen years, I have taken full responsibility for my own education.

Reading has played the most fundamental role in my education. I have always loved learning from well-written books. At times, it might have been a disadvantage to not have a mentor to guide my progress or to answer questions. I'm certainly not a "gifted" learner and I have often spent long hours trying to understand a page of a book. But it is always incredibly satisfying when I finally do.

I think the most rewarding thing about taking responsibility for your own learning is gaining both humility and confidence. I am humbled by the amount of things I still have yet to learn in the enormous field of computer science. But I have also gained an enormous confidence in my _ability_ to learn. I know, from fifteen years of experience, that I can learn anything I want to as long as I apply myself.

Another benefit is that books are far cheaper than classrooms, they're portable, they go at your pace (you can turn the pages as quickly or slowly as you want), and you can keep them on a shelf to refer to for the rest of your life. And e-books are even better!</comment></comment>


NYT Trump Column: Linguistic Clues to White House Insider? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45435813 <comment><USER2> One problem with this kind of analysis is that you have to consider the possibility that the author knows about these tools, and intentionally structured their words in order to mislead them. Maybe somebody was trying to frame Pence. Or maybe not. The point is, this kind of thing is a very weak signal at best for many reasons (including the ones pointed out in the article).</comment>


Apple: No new apps in store during holidays - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/11/10/itunes.connect/index.html?eref=rss_tech&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_tech+(RSS:+Technology)

<comment><USER2> Why is this even ranked up? The article even says it's just like last year.

</comment><comment><USER3> Developers should all be well aware of the annual holiday closing and plan accordingly. App store sales on Christmas Day have been very high. Here's Flurry's report from last year as an example: [http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/12/28/flurry-app-store- sees...](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/12/28/flurry-app-store-sees-record- breaking-christmas-50-growth-from-november-to-december/)</comment>


Warn HN: When PayPal doesn't know the meaning of "Donation"... - <AUTHOR> This is a few weeks old, but I was inspired by Jacques.. Fellow HNers really should be very, very wary about using PayPal for anything other than splitting the cost of dinner amongst friends.
I've had my PayPal account since 2002, and have been using it to send and receive thousands of dollars since then. Last month, PayPal froze my account. I try to keep it as close to empty as possible, but since they purposely make it hard to get money out (i.e. you can't schedule withdrawls) there were some 2500 USD in donations when they froze it.
I write free software. My free software has a "donate" link that goes to the PayPal donation page. The idiots at PayPal froze my account since I couldn't prove 501(c) exemption (which I don't have - and more to the point, never claimed to!) and insist that it's "illegal" to receive donations unless you're a registered non-profit with 501(c) IRS clearance. All this happened when I changed the name of the account from my name to the name of my website (because I didn't want my name on the payment page), bringing to their attention my site and PayPal account.
I tried to reason with them (showed the definition of "donation") and explained that I'm just getting paid at the whim of the user for services rendered, and that it isn't a "non-profit donation" in the IRS sense. No luck there. I asked to go back "to the way things were" - back to a normal premier account in my own name, and not in the name of the non-501(c) organization that I run the site under, but they (of course) wouldn't listen.
In the end, they stopped responding to my emails and told me to get the papers I need to be able to pull the money out. I cannot transfer the money I have to my bank account. I cannot close my account, withdraw any money, use my PayPal debit card or anything other than (you guessed it) put more money into the PayPal balance. The money frozen is enough to hurt, but not enough to make it worth it for me to get a lawyer or waste too much time on it.
So just a word of warning to the wise: don't use PayPal. You'll thank yourself forever.
(I ended up switching to Amazon Simple Pay, which is _incredible_ except no phone support and customer service response times for _merchant accounts_ is 3 days+. Then I tried my hand at Google checkout, except my conversions went down, waaay down; and have come to the conclusion that it's stupid to accept money through any of these 3rd party services. Time to check out real payment processing providers like BrainTree & co.) <comment><USER2> Paypal will let you do daily withdrawals. The magic word is "auto sweep". You have to call and ask for it.

I have used Paypal successfully for fourish years now. Not to ignore your experience, but if I listened to my buddies on the day after they were dumped I'd swear off speaking to young ladies, too.

BrainTree is not viable at your scale.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that metaphor fits at all, because this isn't about people swearing off an entire class of services ("women are evil : web-based payment companies are evil").

To better fit your metaphor, I'd say it's like having all your guy friends warn you that they each had a relationship with Jenny and she cheated on every single one of them, and you shrug your shoulders and say, "Well, she hasn't cheated on me yet, and besides, I think that was totally understandable behavior."

<comment><USER4> >they each had a relationship with Jenny and she cheated on every single one of them, and you shrug your shoulders

To be crass for a moment: If he's only bothered if Jenny puts out that night and not about a long term relationship, knowing that there are other girls he can sleep around with, then he wouldn't be bothered.

Tunnelling through the metaphor: If using auto-sweep he's only risking, it seems, one or two days of payments. When/If he gets cut off by PayPal then he can jump ship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You do NOT have to be a 501(c)3 to accept donations with Paypal. Just register as a regular business and use the donate button. What may have happened here is that you registered with PayPal as a "non-profit" to get the lower transaction fees, but that's NO-NO if you are not a 501(c)3.

Supporting documentation: [https://merchant.paypal.com/cgi- bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render...](https://merchant.paypal.com/cgi- bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=merchant/donations) Click on the pricing tab, then open up the "Standard Rates" section at the bottom. The relevant quote on this page about the donate button is this: "If you are not a 501(c)(3), you can still accept donations with our standard pricing."

<comment><USER6> I can second this based on my own exeprience.

A few months ago, I helped my son to set up a non-profit organization and a website to collect online donations (<http://sujal.org>), mostly from family and friends. I chose the non-profit option for the business type when the PayPal account was created, since the organization was registered as non- profit in my state and also because we intended to file for exempt status with the IRS (until we found that it costs $400 to do that, which is a story for another time.)

A few weeks later, PayPal suspended the account. I contacted PayPal and after a few days going back-and-forth, I was told to change the business type to something that is not non-profit, and also to add a disclaimer along with the donate button to convey that the donations are not tax-deductible (see the above link for exact text of the disclaimer if interested). After doing this, the account was restored.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This exact thing happened to me... I used pledgie + paypal to accept donations to help a friend out in Peru who's home had been devasted by flooding. Paypal froze my account, customer service wouldn't tell me what was up, only that I had to EMAIL the "Compliance Department" which doesn't do phone calls. The compliance department told me I needed to provide the paperwork to prove my non-profit status, which of course I could not do. I sent my friend the amount donated out of my own pocket since the money was locked down in paypal. After 3 months of emailing back and forth I finally got nasty with them and threatened all sorts of lawsuits etc etc. While they haven't reinstated my account they finally allowed me to withdrawl the money. That account is basically in a permanent restricted status and unusable.

PayPal is the new mafia.

</comment><comment><USER8> According to this page <[https://www.paypal.com/cgi- bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/merc...](https://www.paypal.com/cgi- bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/merchant/NonProfitsFAQ-outside>); "you must have documented 501(c)(3) status or you will not receive the reduced nonprofit transaction fees."

Where does PayPal state that you must have 501(c)(3) status to accept donations? (I'm concerned because I do something similar to CompuerGuru-- accept donations for free software via PayPal and have done so for years).

</comment><comment><USER9> I read a lot about these stories with PayPal freezing accounts. Usually, it's with few grands in it.

Did anyone try small claims courts for it? From reading internet seems small claims courts have small fixed fee and if defendad (PayPal) will not appear, they automatically loose.

Probably, it's possible alternative to spending days on phone/email with PayPal, or paying lawyer tons of money?

</comment><comment><USER3> I have diminishing amounts of sympathy for anyone with a recent PayPal sob story. There are ample enough warnings about doing business with them -- both here and elsewhere -- and there have been plenty of topics about alternatives.

If you choose to do business with them, you're choosing to take on a great amount of personal and business risk. Maybe that'll work out for you, maybe it won't. That's gambling.

Can we stop the PayPal complaint train now?

<comment><USER10> _Can we stop the PayPal complaint train now?_

If you have a viable alternative to suggest, then yes, it would be reasonable to tell people to stop whining. Given that PayPal is the only game in town, and that there is no obvious competitor for use by individuals and small companies, the complaints need to be shouted from rooftops.

Ask HN: what about WePay, is that a real competitor?

<comment><USER3> Complaining loudly and often is only effective if it's likely to create a different outcome. PayPal isn't going to change their business practices (people have been complaining about them for _years_ , hence my fatigue over it); there has been an opportunity in this market for at least this long; and authorize.net and other similar services are available to anyone that wants to spend a little bit of effort integrating their API.

That's the last I'll say about this topic, because it's a waste of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Has anyone used WePay for collecting donations? I was considering it as an option for a project I was working on and I was wondering if anyone had first hand experience using it in comparison to PayPal...

<comment><USER12> No experience with them but the only problem I've read about was with WikiLeaks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What's your jurisdiction? I'm not a fan of court, but it seems like this is the sort of thing small claims court is made for. They probably don't show up, you win a default judgment, and then you never use them again. Problem solved.

<comment><USER14> The last time I looked at PayPal's user agreements, they require you to agree to an arbitration procedure in any disputes. So you'd have to fight the validity of that agreement too.

(I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Might be quite off-topic, but I want you to know that for international stuff Paypal has more value to me than Google checkout, as I don't have a credit card and Paypal works with my European bank account. It might be similar in several other countries, so that can be a reason for lower conversions with Google Checkout. Paypal in a lot of cases is my only online currency, alongside IDeal in the Netherlands (that works with my bank account as well).

</comment><comment><USER16> It sounds like your problems are more to do with IRS/US financial regulations than with Paypal. I doubt Paypal invented the concept of 501(c). Disclaimer: I don't live in the US so maybe I am not aware of some subtlety here.

On a more general note, it boggles the mind why anything like 501(c) would even exist in the first place. Sounds like unnecessary, out-of-control beauraucracy.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have some sympathy for Paypal here. They encounter a _lot_ of fake charities, so the word "donation" is a red flag to them.

<comment><USER18> Exactly, it seems a lot of people don't understand what Paypal is. They're a high risk business, if you tried to open a bank account with an email address and name you'd be sent on your way, but with Paypal you can. This makes fraud a huge issue for them, so it's entirely reasonable for them to be locking accounts when something _vaguely_ suspicious happens. Paypal shouldn't be treated like a bank (even if they're _registered_ as one here in Europe) because they're not.

If they get even a whiff of fraud or a _scam_ then they're sure as hell going to investigate, because if it goes wrong and it is fraud who has to pick up the bill? Paypal.

<comment><USER19> Does Paypal give the money back to the donors after a certain amount of time has passed or do they continue to keep other people's money?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Paypal services have horror stories like this all over the web and have become a largely four-letter word in payment processing.

Always consider any balance hosted at Paypal "in danger" and at risk of loss. Sweep into your account.

You don't need a lawyer to take this to your local small claims since its under a typical award.

<comment><USER21> Sweep it into your account, then sweep that into another account lest they decide to withdraw it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Have you tried moneybookers? is it safer? I have had troubles also with paypal and my frind`s accounts has been frozen too. However most of our clients/donators don`t even know there are other ways of sending money.

</comment><comment><USER23> We use the paypal donate function for a registered 501(c)3 and haven't had any real problems but I must say the majority of donations (in quantity, and higher amounts) still come in through checks in the mail.

</comment><comment><USER24> Frozen accounts can only stay frozen for so long. Worst case, after 90 days they'll deactivate the account and send you a check.

</comment><comment><USER22> Have you tried moneybookers?</comment>


38% of American Cars Were Electric in 1900 - <AUTHOR> https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/25/38-percent-american-cars-electric-1900/ <comment><USER2> I've been wondering how they were charged, were they just plugged in, the electric grid was far more primitive back then.</comment>


Upset about data breach - <AUTHOR> At the college I teach at we our network user name and password that we have to use to log-on to publicly accessible classroom computers is the same username and password that provides access to all of our personal data (address, birthdate, marital status, dependant names and BD) as well as our T4 which has our Social INsurance # on it.  I just received an email, along with several other colleagues, that individuals had done something to several classroom computers that recorded our log-in information for a period of 2 months before it was discovered.  This seems unbelievable to me. They won't answer questions about it and are saying "it could happen anywhere".  Am I right to feel like our security is crap for this to happen?  The culprits were students. I have also asked for them to require a different password for access to personal information than the one used to simply logon to a computer and am getting no traction with this request.  I am angry.  Any thoughts out there? <comment><USER2> It's pretty standard corporate practice to have a "single sign-on" that allows users to use the same user ID and password to access all resources.

It's also difficult to secure machines in public places - anyone can sneak in to a classroom when it's empty, and it only takes a short period of time to install a key-logger or other malware if you have physical access to a machine.

It's certainly possible to have two authentication systems, a secure one and an insecure one, like you propose. However, it's more work for the IT department to maintain two systems, and every user would need to know which user ID and password to use in which situation. The IT department may not have the resources to do this, or they may just be lazy.

Another approach to make the system more secure would be to not allow access to sensitive personal data through online systems at all. I work at a company with hundreds of employees where no personal data is accessible to employees online. For example, tax forms are mailed to employees' homes, and you have to go to the Human Resources Department to get any personal information updated. It's cumbersome, but secure.

Since you probably have no power to change the way the college runs its systems, the only thing you can do to protect yourself is to change your password frequently.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your thoughts. That is very helpful.</comment></comment>


Twitter: It's time for patent trolls to bear the costs of frivolous lawsuits - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/10/08/twitter-time-for-trolls-to-pay-full-price-for-patent-mischief

<comment><USER2> The author is confused. If a legal action is moved from preliminary hearing to trial, by definition it's not frivolous. This doesn't mean it isn't really frivolous by some common-sense test, only that the sitting judge determined that the issue merited a court trial. On that basis it's not frivolous, and woe betide the person who suggests that the judge acted wrongly _in his court_.

Truly frivolous legal actions (on which everyone agrees) aren't tried, they're cast out in preliminary hearings.

> _After a trial before a jury, we managed to prove that we didn't infringe > and that the asserted claims from the patent were invalid._

Invalidating a patent in court doesn't make the proceeding frivolous -- all the plaintiff needs to do is claim that he sincerely believed in the patent and in his claims. A frivolous proceeding is one in which a plaintiff knowingly and deliberately wastes the court's time with actions that have no substance.

Also, to base a judgment about frivolousness on the outcome of a trial is to suggest that all losing plaintiffs are acting frivolously _on the basis of the outcome_.

Don't get me wrong -- I think the present patent system stinks to high heaven. But trying to call some patent proceedings "frivolous" just won't work.

What needs to change is not how the law is enforced, but the law itself.</comment>


Hacking the DefCon 17 Badges - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/hacking-the-defcon-17-badges/

<comment><USER2> Ahhh I was wondering what those Ninja Party badges were for...

<comment><USER3> They also had a lot of paper +1 passes, which were apparently acceptable even without a directly-accompanying badgeholder. It was pretty packed, but SNR was still improved over DEFCON as a whole.</comment></comment>


Porsche Chooses CarPlay Over Android Auto Due to Google's Data Collection Policy - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/06/porsche-chooses-carplay-over-android-auto/ <comment><USER2> The original Motortrend article is linked from this submission: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10338099](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10338099)</comment>


iOS6 breaks long polling - <AUTHOR> http://www.realsoftwareblog.com/2012/09/ios-6-mobile-safari-web-applications.html

<comment><USER2> I'm using long polling in our application and I don't see that one connection per server restriction here.

I did however see that safari was not leaving the loading state (and thus not firing any of the loaded events, nor hiding the URL bar) if I started the long polling connection before the page was fully loaded.

Once I moved opening the connection to a setTimeout callback inside the onLoad handler (so not DOM ready, but actual load), this went away and the page works normally.

<comment><USER3> Now this makes sense. As I said below, it seems really strange that this would go unnoticed, especially since one-connection-per-domain affects _all_ sites and not just ones doing long polling.

Still a pretty bad bug, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone at Apple is going "we have had iOS 6 in beta for months now; is this really the first time anyone noticed this issue?".

<comment><USER5> Most web developers use a windows or linux machine to develop and a physical device to test (myself included). That combination prevents you from running the iOS 6 beta, because you need a mac for that. So, only a minority of web developers (those with access to a mac) actually could have tested the iOS 6 beta.

Additionally, the first iOS 6 betas had the browser in such a bad shape that it was obvious they were still working on it. I took one look at it and figured "i'll test it when they're done". They need to have some sort of clear indication of when it's actually ready for testing (and not just for testing of the native SDK's).

<comment><USER6> >Most web developers use a windows or linux machine to develop and a physical device to test.

Maybe I am living in a bubble but every single web developer I have ever met used a Mac. Why ? Because it is the only platform that has Photoshop + a UNIX shell.

<comment><USER7> Not every web developer is a designer.

Also, cygwin.

<comment><USER6> But most web designers would be slicing PSDs at some point, right ?

And Cygwin is a joke. Dealing with the page separator differences alone would make it unbearable.

<comment><USER8> I believe Aderkent meant that many web developers who are not designers (e.g. me) have no need of Photoshop - so we don't use a Mac.

<comment><USER9> By the way, Gimp can open psd files. I'm not sure it works perfect though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I might be wrong here, but if you're using long polling in your webapp, shouldn't you be using a randomized wildcard subdomain anyways? For example, Quora uses #.tch.quora.com as their long polling hostname, with the #-part randomized for each of the browser tab, which effectively allows for an unlimited number of concurrent connections to a single IP address.

I mean, even though Chrome allows 6+ concurrent connections to a single hostname, nothing's stopping users from opening 10 tabs of your application.

<comment><USER11> I think you might be wrong here :)

I've no idea why Quora does that, but I'm pretty sure it's not a standard thing. You really should only being doing one long poll at a time, so it should never be an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another connection related issue is that iOS 6 cache responses of ajax POST requests. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4550441>

<comment><USER13> I submitted that post, so I have some vested interest in this. I came across this bug because I was converting one of my web apps to use the new iOS 6 feature of being able to upload photos from your Camera Roll to a web site.

However, when you upload a picture, apparently, they are all called image.jpg. Since the image name never changed, every time I uploaded a new pic, the first pic was being returned. I couldn't understand why, and as usual, stackoverflow had a good answer for me. I needed to add a timestamp option to my URL in order to work around this behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is very strange...

If the browser only opens one connection to a domain at once, it should have made so many sites much slower to load and it's hard to believe Apple don't have automated tests to check for performance regressions like that.

<comment><USER14> > ... it's hard to believe Apple don't have automated tests to check for > performance regressions like that.

Well, I mean, this is the same company that has received "some press" recently regarding the latest version of its mapping application.

Edit: That was a low blow, wasn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Time to break out the gifsockets.

<https://github.com/videlalvaro/gifsockets>

<comment><USER16> Funny, but a one connection at a time restriction would break gifsockets just like long polling.

<comment><USER17> Dude, the gifsockets example "uses one connection at a time" because I'm too lazy to implement a server using Netty or Aleph in Clojure. The only important part from the gifsockets concept is writing gif frames on demand. The rest is up to you

<comment><USER18> gifsockets is just a niche implementation of long polling. They work the same way.

<comment><USER17> Ups… I read the wrong thing then. I thought the guy was referring to the sample gifsockets app that now supports only one connection at a time. Cheerio!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I believe the restriction is "only single keep-alive connection". This makes sense to me, no need for multiple overhead if one connection will saturate your bandwidth. It will open multiple if the server does not support keep- alive.

Workaround is easy: make sure your long-polling connection is not keep-alive connection.

<comment><USER11> That doesn't seem like a sensible solution. You're basically hurting performance on all other platforms just to work around one of Apple's bugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> He claims that it doesn't happen on Chrome for iOS.

But isn't chrome for iOS just a "skin" with new features on top of the same safari browser?

One issue like I would expect to affect Chrome as well.

<comment><USER21> Chrome on iOS uses safari's layout engine (because Apple doesn't allow dynamic code generation) but the network stack is Chrome's.

</comment></comment><comment> mh- definitely a bug. most browsers, going back a decade, support 4-8+ concurrent connections to a given host (hostname, really).

<comment><USER6> Not necessarily.

While your desktop can handle 8 connections the 3G connection can't.

<comment><USER22> A TCP connection costs nothing if it's merely open and waiting. OK, it costs a few bytes of space in some tables somewhere, but no actual bandwidth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm not sure, why should someone rely on long polling alone. Default fallback mechanism is websockets (supported on iOS), long polling (not supported anymore, obviously) and then follows separate ajax calls. It is not uncommon that something in this sequence would break by design, unsupportedness or bad data connection, so fallback should be used.

</comment><comment><USER24> iOS supports Server Sent Events, which is what should be used in this type of situation:

<http://mobilehtml5.org/>

<comment><USER25> I have a small hosted service in beta, making it dead easy to push events via Server Sent Events (with fallbacks).

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

It's fully open source and can be self hosted as well:

<https://github.com/eshq/eventsource-broker>

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well, iOS 6 has websocket. Visit <http://ajf.me/websocket> and see for yourself.

Since everything will be moving to websocket eventually, might as well get a head start on iOS.

<comment><USER27> Unfortunately, it won't solve the problem for all iOS users. For example the WebSocket protocol is blocked on most UK 3G networks (e.g. O2's censorship proxy only handles real HTTP traffic)

<comment><USER28> Just encrypt the traffic.

<comment><USER26> Yeah. wss: is a thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Quality control is for the wimps</comment>


Ask HN: What does Google pay? - <AUTHOR> I am currently interviewing for a director (not senior) of software engineering position at Google. I'm wondering if anyone on HN has held such a position at Google before, or currently, and what it pays.  I realize all positions will have ranges based on experience, etc, but what ballpark can I expect for a base salary, bonus, and equity?  For a positon based in SF Bay Area, or possibly Seattle? <comment><USER2> Maybe ask that question over at teamblind? According to a somewhat recent discussion of Sep 2018 at teamblind the TC (total compensation in one year, usually not counting any perks) should be at least $750k+ TC, source: www.teamblind.com/article/Engineering-director-at-Google-uaJEgaho

Another reference might be: www.levels.fyi/SE/Google/Facebook/Microsoft

Levels does not have L8 estimates yet, but L7 is already beyond $600k+ TC.</comment>