What the Next Generation Needs Is Math, Not Programming - <AUTHOR> http://statspotting.com/what-the-next-generation-needs-is-math-not-programming/ <comment><USER3> What the next generation really needs lessons in: \- Humility \- Empathy \- Patience \- Self restraint and control \- Mindfulness/Awareness \- Disappointment \- Resilience \- Communication \- Listening \- Learning \- Financial independence and literacy \- Critical thinking \- Problem solving \- Self acceptance

Then we can focus on what area the person can best contribute in. Not everyone is going to suited for a job in programming or mathematics, or STEM as a whole.

<comment><USER4> What the next generation really needs is an economy where everyone can make a decent living with a modest effort, without having to desperately "outcompete" other job seekers. The US had that kind of economy at some point. Since we haven't lost any arcane secrets since then, it must be still achievable today.

<comment><USER5> The "decent living" of past generations is still available today, but past generations were poorer than you think they were, particularly for those who don't come from white and privileged backgrounds.

<comment><USER6> Although almost everyone is better off in material terms than they were two generations ago, I fear that the level of wealth required to live a "comfortable" life may have outpaced that increase. How many hours does a blue collar worker have to put in to live close to a grocery store and good schools? How much time do the working poor spend commuting? If you break your arm, what percentage of your income will be consumed by medical costs?

I don't have any data on this, but it's my hunch about why there's so much economic resentment these days.

<comment><USER7> "How many hours does a blue collar worker have to put in to live close to a grocery store and good schools?"

Depends if they work in a unionized industry.

"If you break your arm, what percentage of your income will be consumed by medical costs?"

In most industrial countries, including the US after the ACA, very little, because of health insurance.

"there's so much economic resentment these days."

That's inequality. When everyone around you is poor, except for a few rich folks you don't see often, it's not as big a deal. When you're constantly exposed to the things you don't/can't have, that can lead to resentment.

This goes back to your first sentence: "Although almost everyone is better off in material terms than they were two generations ago, I fear that the level of wealth required to live a "comfortable" life may have outpaced that increase."

In the US, Median Income peaked in the 1970's and has been flat. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#/media/File:U.S._Hourly_Wages_- _Real_or_Adjusted_for_Inflation_1964-2014.png)

The poor (in the U.S. anyway) are relatively worse off than they were 2 generations ago - the bottom 50% have seen very little growth in income in 50 years, while the top 50% have grown a lot more. [http://www.russellsage.org/sites/all/files/chartbook/Income%...](http://www.russellsage.org/sites/all/files/chartbook/Income%20and%20Earnings.pdf)

Not all countries are as bad as the US, particularly Canada or Europe, because they have strong redistribution systems (health and social insurance, etc.). But the trends aren't great.

<comment><USER8> I am self-employed and pay $6000 a year for high deductible health insurance for my family that has a $5000 deductible. So if my child breaks their arm and that is my only expense that year, then I paid $11,000 for their broken arm. Not cheap by any means. I'm sure lots of people on this forum work for companies that cover their whole cost of insurance and are out of touch with costs, but the "Affordable" Care Act has not made health insurance more affordable.

<comment><USER9> Insurance doesn't work that way. If you had a heart condition which required operation (so maybe 100k) you would also have paid 11k. You need to average over all expected outcomes to calculate whether it was affordable or expensive. In other countries (Europe and Canada) that 11k comes out as taxes instead of direct and indirect insurance costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why place one body of knowledge in front of the other like this? Everything has to be a competition with some people.

It's always been a mistake to believe math is somehow more noble than programming. Best explanation as to why comes from the preface of SICP by Abelson and Sussmann:

"Underlying our approach to this subject is our conviction that ``computer science'' is not a science and that its significance has little to do with computers. The computer revolution is a revolution in the way we think and in the way we express what we think. The essence of this change is the emergence of what might best be called procedural epistemology -- the study of the structure of knowledge from an imperative point of view, as opposed to the more declarative point of view taken by classical mathematical subjects. Mathematics provides a framework for dealing precisely with notions of ``what is.'' Computation provides a framework for dealing precisely with notions of ``how to.''"

<comment><USER10> Where did you get nobility from. This isn't the author's point at all. Obviously knowledge about different areas of knowledge can be of more practical benefit at different times. The point is that in the next few years knowledge of math will become relatively more valuable and programming relatively less valuable.

Regarding the quote, it is a best a great oversimplification. Mathematicians have been interested in computation for a long time. See the Euclidean algorithm for example. Interestingly its computational complexity was worked out a hundred years before computer science was even considered a subject. Many great mathematicians like Gauss also had a keen interest in computation. A description of the fast Fourier transform was found in his notes after he died.

It is true that mathematical theorems have historically not been written from a computational point of view. But many many theorems can easily be turned into an algorithm (anything based on induction for example). Mathematics has many different subfields and the number of such constructive theorems varies based on the area. However, constructive arguments in mathematics are so pervasive that I think it is silly to even try and separate computation and mathematics as separate ways of thinking.

<comment><USER7> "The point is that in the next few years knowledge of math will become relatively more valuable and programming relatively less valuable."

Sorry, that's at best an opinion, and at worst, bullshit. There little evidence of this. This article makes an assertion, provides a few anecdotes.

<comment><USER10> I agree there is almost no content in this post. Reasonable cases could be made both for and against the point I think.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I accept that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Today, we can get away with 'knowing' how Google works without understanding > what a 'principal eigenvector' is. Tomorrow, we need to absolutely know > that.

Part of the advancement of technology is that fewer and fewer people actually understand how stuff works. What percentage of the population has any notion of how a computer works under the hood? How many people understand how our national power grid works? Our sewage system? Our cars? As our world gets more sophisticated, we specialize; we have to. Sure, there will be people who will have to know about eigenvectors tomorrow - but do we all? Not by a long shot.

<comment><USER12> That reminds of some idle thoughts I had several years ago, when I lived in an apartment, during a storm.

It was a dark and stormy night. The rain was coming down hard, and there was a good bit of wind. It was not a night you would want to be outside in. As I sat in my dry, warm, lighted apartment I got to thinking about how different life was compared to my distant cave dwelling ancestors.

If they wanted a drink of water, they had to leave their cave and go find running water. On a night like this, they would have to choose between thirst and going out in terrible weather.

In my apartment, I simply turn the handle on a faucet, and as much water as I want is instantly available. No need to leave the apartment when I get thirsty.

If I want to be in rain for some reason, such as to wash, I simply step into the shower and it will rain on my command, at whatever intensity I want, at whatever temperature I want. My ancestors would have to wait for rain, and accept whatever intensity and temperature that it happened to be.

If I get cold, I turn the thermostat up, and minutes later the temperature is to my liking. My ancestors would have to move around in their cave and hope to find a warmer spot, or build a fire and trade away clean air for some warmth.

If I want to do something that needs light and it is night out, I flip a switch and I have light. I can adjust the brightness to anything from just enough to get around to enough to do anything I can do in full sunlight. My cave dwelling ancestors would have to use fire for light at night, messing up the air of their cave and only partly lighting their home.

If I want to enjoy a gentle breeze, I turn on a fan. They had to go outside.

I then got to thinking about how if my ancestors could see me, they might think I was some kind of god as I summon running water, rain, wind, light at will, and control the temperature.

Then I realized that if they were put in my apartment and I in their cave, they would be able to do all that I can do after a couple minutes instruction...and I would have no idea how to actually make a fire.

I'm not a god compared to them. I just found a better cave.

<comment><USER13> Ok, but 'we' are gods compared to them. We've build a better society together. You can take some pride in your part in that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This depends on how people learn and perceive information. If I hadn't learnt programming before I was taught Maths and Calculus, I probably wouldn't have understood some of the basics like Functions, Matrixes and Series etc or it would have taken me quite a while to grasp the idea.

For me Maths is boring. It's abstract and you don't have any interaction whereas programming is more fun for me. I never truly understood some of the physical and mathematical concepts I was taught in school and uni until I came across programming/software development problems that are solved with those and only then I realised how useful they can be.

<comment><USER15> I also find Math studies by themselves to be quite boring, at least that is how I perceived it for most of my education. Yet I had one teacher who worked really hard to show how Calculus is applied in reality. He made all of his homework and test's real world problem solving oriented. He was also a part time scout for the Seattle Mariners and he would do all of his in class examples using either base ball or real estate. This really helped me put into context many of the concepts and the multitude of ways they can be applied, not to mention it was a really exciting and enjoyable class.

After experiencing that I saw Math in a new light. I simply wish that my K-12 education was more directed to the applicability of many of the concepts we learned as I believe it would have made the subject not only much more approachable but enjoyable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What students need is the ability to self-teach. They need to be able to recognize when there is a gap in their knowledge, know how to find instruction in those topics, and have the motivation to follow through on actually learning it.

If children gain those skills by the time they are adults, they can correct any faults in their educational paths.

<comment><USER17> Is self-teach 'newspeak' for learn? You learn by observing, researching and practicing. I guess I am getting old.

<comment><USER18> I thought self-teaching, self-taught, and similar were jargon that has been around for a long time. In the historically recent programming community especially it's all over the place: people who never did formal CS education teaching themselves how to program and are as or more effective than their Stanford peers. The difference between self-teach and learn is that the former is an attempt at learning through one's own will and direction, and the latter is merely a state of understanding the path to which can be from many directions (self-directed, teacher-directed, or just simple observation of the world around you).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> According to the Curry-Howard correspondence, all mathematical proofs are actually programs. This is normal. A proof is a series of steps, and if you unambiguously describe these steps, a computer will obviously be able to execute them. Furthermore, since Alonso Church successfully proposed a Turing- complete axiomatization based on just functions (even numbers are just functions), a computer program is clearly a mathematical object. An alternative axiomatization, Zermelo-Fraenkel, is based on sets. There is probably no better playground for sets than using a relational database. SQL is pretty much Zermelo-Fraenkel on steroids. In other words, large areas in math go into supporting the discipline of computer programming already. I do not believe that everybody would have to spend more time with areas in math for which no useful applications exist and that we are therefore unlikely to use in programs.

<comment><USER20> All things that exist are mathematical objects and programs. Algorithmic information theory asserts that my cup of coffee is actually a program.

While mathematics is important to computer programming, for most practical purposes it is of limited utility unless you are inventing new computer science. Knowing how to use a relational databases correctly requires no formal set theory. Understanding how to build a massively parallel relational databases requires understanding the topological equivalents of relational operators, which is much more mathematical, but very few programmers design or build parallel databases.

<comment><USER19> > Knowing how to use a relational databases correctly requires no formal set > theory.

Very true, I guess. But the other way around, someone who has used relational databases, will immediately understand formal set theory and find it absolutely trivial. Another example would be regular expressions. Anybody who has ever used them will immediately recognize what Kleene's closure is about and effortlessly deal with it. I think that this is generally the case. If you first solve problems with tools that embody a particular theorem, and if later on you read up on that theorem, you will find that theorem trivially simple. In other words, math and computer science are only hard, when you have never used them. Since formal education does things systematically in the wrong order, students tend to consider math and computer science to be hard.

<comment><USER21> >someone who has used relational databases, will immediately understand formal set theory and find it absolutely trivial.

This is simply not true, you may understand the very basics of it, but by no means you will understand set theory and much less find it trval by just using relational databases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm going to deliberately try to be controversial, but in order to spur discussion. What the next generation needs is more soft/social sciences, not STEM.

tl;dr of my point: we know dangerously more about technology than about people, their needs as individuals and their needs as a society. Somewhere along the line we should stop throwing technology at people just because we can, and start to focus on the right solutions - technological or not - <USER2> real problems.

<comment><USER23> If by "soft/social sciences" you mean real substantive disciplines like history, philosophy, civics, and the arts, I agree with you.

Currently "social studies" in school is a bit of a trash bucket into which gets thrown every personal ideology and pet project that some teacher got her feminism or social work or grievance-studies BA in. It's the worst subject in most curricula, even worse than English. The problem is there's plenty of those nonsense degree holders and far too few college graduates who have studied the humanities.

<comment><USER24> What kind of degree are you talking about when you say "social studies"?

<comment><USER23> I'm referring to "soft sciences" like social work, psychology, sociology, [grievance] studies, poli sci, etc, as opposed to the humanities: history, mathematics, philosophy, classics, fine arts, etc.

<comment><USER24> Not sure what you mean by grievance studies but most of those, besides being quite important, fit under the humanities label. Mathematics on the other hand, probably not.

<comment><USER23> Most of those would be classified as "social sciences", not humanities. It has to do with the methods and philosophies they use. Grievance studies is my nickname for "_____ studies" where the "_____" is the name of some census checkbox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Every profession has a tendency to overstate it's own importance. In the eyes of programmers , we are misunderstood , under appreciated and people don't fully grasp our worth.

Management thinks that they're the real movers and shakers , having to take all the risk , make all the tough decisions , while having to deliver results while being saddled with sometimes recalcitrant and inefficient teams.

Mathematicians feel that they are the ones at the vanguard of progress and are angered by the fact that people have the temerity to say that they don't "get" math or have any use for it in real life.

Though Delmania's comment skirts dangerously close to what pg might call a "middlebrow dismissal" , he makes a very important point. Our increasingly unequal economy and limited opportunities are forcing us to increasingly push ourselves harder and into a fierce cycle of competition that is destroying us.

Some lessons in Humility , Resilience and Self acceptance would do us a world of good.

<comment><USER26> >Management thinks that they're the real movers and shakers , having to take all the risk , make all the tough decisions , while having to deliver results while being saddled with sometimes recalcitrant and inefficient teams.

It is by far easier to imagine something than it is to make that imagination real.

It is by far easier to tell someone what to do then it is to do it.

Management is by far easier than engineering.

Management, however, is still a dramatically different skill than engineering, and it is a skill that is important.

<comment><USER27> > It is by far easier to tell someone what to do then it is to do it.

Only if you don't care whether it gets done, and if it gets done well. Otherwise, it's far easier to just do it, and not rely on the known unreliable "other people".

Problem is that a big share of management in fact don't care about those things, and only manage the political game. But don't let that mislead you, actual management is hard, quite on par with engineering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Misleading title: the actual message:

> _[I]ntelligent analysis of large scale data is the future. And for that > future, what you need is Math, not Programming._

I don't agree; intelligent analysis of data probably requires the combination of a large number of cases, stitched together with some hacks. And a principal Eigenvector or two buried in there in some supporting role.

:)

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Of course, mathematics education in public schools is notoriously awful, though quality obviously varies across jurisdictions.

I can't see programming education faring better, especially considering that the emphasis is on "code". This is a _horrible_ thing to put at the forefront, because it limits your view to the particular set of language constructs you use as opposed to broader properties of computer systems and computation. It is best to start by a rundown of high-level computer architecture (von Neumann and Harvard) so as to understand basic machine instructions and types, progressing into OS fundamentals (something like _The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System_ , though condensed), then briefly into compiler construction and language VMs, onto practical usage of a CLI shell, the various ways of representing resources and IPC, data structures and how to use them in forming basic services (like a message/event broker bus or publish-subscribe with named pipes and the file system under a standard interface/toolkit), build systems and so forth. Ideas and concepts with code on the side.

Obviously these are rushed examples, but the point is that code-centric computing education in public schools will probably backfire by creating people with just enough knowledge to have extremely warped views of software. Unless your goal is to turn kids into ALGOL monkeys who can't see beyond the mnemonics, I suppose.

You might say this would be too complex for public schools to implement. I agree, which is why it should stay out. Do it right or don't at all. Bashing out Java code alone is nowhere near as relevant as some people seem to think it is.

</comment><comment><USER29> What the next generation needs (among other things) is for people to realize that the world has become far too complex for the next generation to just need one thing.

</comment><comment><USER30> This article assumes there is no such thing as Computer Science, which is the development of algos and the like which the author assumes is done by mathematicians.

</comment><comment><USER31> The title already says it all. After "everyone must learn to code", people start returning to more sensible ideas.

<comment><USER32> Any interesting thing done on a computer will land into math territory anyway. The current geek-fetish trend can't go away fast enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I agree the next gen needs Math. Not for the reasons in this article, though.

John Carmack's 2012 QuakeCon speech is almost a direct rebuke: [https://blogs.uw.edu/ajko/2012/08/22/john-carmack- discusses-...](https://blogs.uw.edu/ajko/2012/08/22/john-carmack-discusses- the-art-and-science-of-software-engineering/)

 _In reality in computer science, just about the only thing that's really science is when you're talking about algorithms. And optimization is an engineering. But those don't actually occupy that much of the total time spent programming. You know, we have a few programmers that spend a lot of time on optimizing and some of the selecting of algorithms on there, but 90% of the programmers are doing programming work to make things happen. And when I start to look at what's really happening in all of these, there really is no science and engineering and objectivity to most of these tasks. You know, one of the programmers actually says that he does a lot of monkey programming—you know beating on things and making stuff happen. And I, you know we like to think that we can be smart engineers about this, that there are objective ways to make good software, but as I've been looking at this more and more, it's been striking to me how much that really isn't the case.

Aside from these that we can measure, that we can measure and reproduce, which is the essence of science to be able to measure something, reproduce it, make an estimation and test that, and we get that on optimization and algorithms there, but everything else that we do, really has nothing to do with that. It's about social interactions between the programmers or even between yourself spread over time._

</comment><comment><USER34> Here's a concrete example of what this is about:

"Conventional programming languages are growing ever more enormous, but not stronger. Inherent defects at the most basic level cause them to be both fat and weak [...] inability to effectively use powerful combining forms [...] lack of useful mathematical properties for reasoning about programs." [0]

It goes without saying that mathematics is at the root of computer science, but we've gotten so far away from those roots, which is why we're reaching the upper bounds of complexity that can be foisted upon our old, broken way of thinking. Time to go back to basics.

[0] [https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs242/readings/backus.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs242/readings/backus.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER35> What the next generation needs is to stop being told what they need.

</comment><comment><USER17> Here's the challenge faced by strong students. At a recent science fair, a strong 8th grader presented a simulation where you could fly a rocket around a plant, with the ability to change gravity, thrust, etc. I asked if he had explored the math (since this was a soluble problem.) The answer "The math is too difficult - I do it numerically, much easier that way."

There is great advantage in re-using the work of others, but in order to advance the frontiers of knowledge people truly need to understand the underlying assumptions and mathematics.

<comment><USER36> There are whole subfields of mathematicians who would agree in spirit with "I do it numerically, much easier that way" :-)

<comment><USER17> Absolutely - numerically is they way to go in some fields, but without a deep understanding of the underlying limitations there will be no expansion understanding/knowledge. It's the old academic vs. practitioner argument.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> If we are breaking it down to something this basic I think a more accurate statement would be, "What the Next Generation Needs Is Math AND Programming"

In traditional Computer Science there is already a focus on both of these areas. The question I wonder is more, "Does the degree prepare us for either of these areas?"

In the area of programming I believe the answer is a resounding NO. Most students coming out of a 4 year CS program aren't ready to be programmers. They've been taught a bunch of theory and fundamentals, but they haven't spent time applying them on real problems at scale. Within the classroom setting the fundamentals are applied to trivial problems that can fit into the constraints of a classroom setting.

Like many programmers, my career path (until recently), has kept me pretty far away from the math; so I don't think I can say for sure that the same is true here, but I suspect it is.

I have argued for a long time that much like a doctor goes through a residency program, something similar should be required of computer science degrees. At least a couple of years of the program should include students working together with experienced professionals building real systems that are attempting to solve difficult problems.

</comment><comment><USER38> As someone who has a maths degree, I find it sad that most of the jobs advertised that require a background in maths are either jobs of Quants or Data Scientists.

<comment><USER36> Actuarial work and accounting are both very accessible to mathematics majors; you really just need one extra course worth of content (that you can work through yourself) to be prepared for an entry level position in those fields.

<comment><USER38> For me Actuarial work falls into "Quant" work, and accounting has nothing to do with maths.

<comment><USER36> _> accounting has nothing to do with maths._

Sure, but like I said, with a Mathematics degree you can self-study and get an intro-level position pretty quickly.

Otherwise, I guess you can go to grad school or become a teacher? Or, certain types of software developers get to do interesting math as well.

<comment><USER38> I am not interested in doing anything related to accounting, except for my own business.

> Or, certain types of software developers get to do interesting math as well.

Yes! But sadly, those type of positions are rarely advertised - well, you could say that Quants and Data Scientists are some kind of software developers as well, but the maths needed in other fields are kept very secret.

Now, I am not looking for a job at the moment - I graduated in 2006 and am working on my own thing now (maths related) - but I was just lamenting that people complain that more mathematicians are needed without providing concrete jobs for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Teach kids basic arithmetic WELL, teach them logic in a fun way, find a way to get them to like reading and think critically about what they read. That's fine for me. I'd do away with all the rest of math (algebra, trig, etc) and have it as optional in high school. Really, if you got the stuff above right as a kid, you don't _need_ to learn trigonometry if you don't want to at the time.

<comment><USER40> I'd personally throw in something like geometry, which (at least when I took it back in my middle school days; maybe my experience was atypical) had a heavy emphasis on mathematical proofs, how they worked, why they were important, the differences between postulates and theorems, how to prove theorems, etc. Whereas most of my prior and future math courses (particularly algebra) ended up feeling like an endless barrage of busywork, geometry forced me to actually _think_ about what I'm doing.

<comment><USER39> Now that I think of it, I remember having lots of fun with geometry, trying to figure things out on my own. I still remember the first time I got to prove Pythagora's on my own, or the formula for the volume of a pyramid. It felt so awesome that I still long today for a math course where you start from zero and the teacher just guides you into figuring stuff out yourself, one by one (Pythagora's, Pi, formulas for volume, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Nah it needs history as demonstrated by the OPs myopic stance. Ever hear of a liberal arts education? I wonder why that became popular?

</comment><comment><USER42> Why do I need to know tomorrow what an 'principal eigenvector' is?

<comment><USER13> Sort of like knowing what the complexity of an algorithm is - so you can know if your solution to a big-data problem is going to scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Here is some of why the OP is correct:

From 50,000 feet up, we take in data, maybe already have some other data, manipulate all that data, and get results we want to be powerful, valuable, etc.

This little process is more important now because computers let us do much more in the data _manipulations_.

That said, there is a remaining question: What manipulations should we have the computers do?

Shockingly often in the past, we understood the manipulations well enough to program them because we were largely just programming what we had done or in principle knew how to do just manually.

But, as we have programmed more of what we knew how to do manually, we will want more powerful, valuable manipulations.

Well, often the best approach to more powerful, valuable manipulations will be via mathematics. There, we can look at reality, see some situations or properties that appear to hold, let those be _assumptions_ for some mathematics, that is, _hypotheses_ for some theorems, proceed with theorems and proofs, get some mathematical results, and use those to say what manipulations to do.

E.g.: (1) Statistical hypothesis tests. (2) Systems of ordinary differential equations as growth models. E.g., what would happen if we released 1000 healthy US bobcats into the outback of Australia? (3) For real time local delivery, which vehicle takes the next order that comes in so that we can meet promises to customers and minimize expected delivery cost? (4) Pick a part of the ocean, drill a lot of oil wells; now, what should the sea floor oil pipeline network look like to carry the oil to where we want it meeting safety standards and minimizing cost, e.g., expected net present value over the life of the oil wells? There are many more such.

For such problems, data manipulations from theorems and proofs, sometimes new, can knock the socks off any other approach, e.g., intuitive heuristics.

That's some of the future of math, especially in what gets programmed.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is it not possible that students need both?

In the same way that students were offered home-ec and shop in previous generations, to learn the real-world applications of their "cerebral" subjects, are we not teaching programming today as the real world application of mathematics?

Eigenvectors, great. But what can I do with them? Now, software that uses those eigenvectors to control the motions of a robot, that's something kids can get excited about, and can turn into a career (not to suggest pure math can't lead to careers, but the combination of the two opens up _more_ careers).

<comment><USER45> While I appreciate not everyone is the same, I am not fond of the idea that young students are always more interested in practical applications than they are intellectually curious. Making things blow up, or controlling something with a few lines of code is fun and exciting, but so is discovering something that previously seemed hidden about how the universe works at a fundamental level. For a lot of students math is exciting because they feel that they are imagining how reality itself is working, and even how reality might have functioned if some seemingly arbitrary rules had been decided differently.

I don't mean to say that practical applications are not inspiring, rather that the good intentions are misguided when they imply that very young students aren't capable of abstract thought or ever motivated by purely intellectual subjects. Becoming an engaging teacher of theory may not even be attainable to as many people as who are able to encourage a student through a practical demonstration, but that is different from children not being receptive to both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> > "Google works without understanding what a 'principal eigenvector' is. > Tomorrow, we need to absolutely know that."

This is total BS. Even in the present day, most programmers can survive their entire career without knowing this.

</comment><comment><USER47> Not everybody needs to know how to do math beyond arithmetic (though the opportunity should be provided).

The focus should be making sure everybody can understand the math, and especially statistics, they are presented with everyday.

<comment><USER19> Wow. You are projecting us back to the mid-12th century, before we got hold of Algoritmi's famous book: Kitab Al-Jabr, i.e., Liber Algebrae. Before that it was only arithmetic and bits and bobs of Euclid's Elements (=Geometry). That was all they had.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> ... says mathematician.</comment>


Proposal: Add to Your Job Description – Encyclopedic Knowledge of Syntax - <AUTHOR> I've been interviewing and I really don't see the point of this style of interview. You know where they quiz you on obscure language details. When a simple google query will answer the question. Don't get me wrong. I'm fine if you want to do this style of interview, but at least label the job description so I know not to waste your or my time. <comment><USER2> It is a demonstration of your people skills as much as technical.

I was in a phone screen for a ML job and failed to recognize the term "regularization.". They explained what it meant and I realized I had been doing it all along and it turned out I did know the subject, just not the word.

Software jobs require people who can master details; if you were a Pythoner I wouldn't expect you to know everything but I'd love to know that you've thought seriously about some aspect. If I wanted to hire somebody who was resentful about focusing on details I would be hiring a salesman!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I fact why not create a list of simple to moderate tasks. And have them write out code snippets for each. But you're allowed to use an IDE and/or google.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I get that it's a popular tech interview. And if you took a formal class in the subject you can probably blow throw those types of interviews.</comment>


Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes, first interview since 1989 - <AUTHOR> http://www.cleveland.com/living/index.ssf/2010/02/bill_watterson_creator_of_belo.html <comment><USER2> He sounds like a very emotionally mature individual. He's living his life his way, and though he notices the reaction of others to his creations, he doesn't define himself by them.

Think about a project you're really proud of. Now, think about how you would feel if that was all that anyone associated you with, regardless of your other accomplishments. It's your choice of emotion. I put it to you that he's made a very sane choice in how to react - he's let go of it and any baggage that could be associated to it.

In a world that lauds "reunion tours" and the like, he's a breath of fresh air.

<comment><USER3> He's had to fight the syndicate for a long time during C&H not to merchandise his comic strips. In an industry where it's ok, if not normal to merchandise your comic strip, he's one of the few the railed against it, even when his comic strip peers made of of him for it. He's had lots of practice not defining himself by others' values.

"It never occurred to me that a comic strip I created would be at the mercy of a bloodsucking corporate parasite called a syndicate, and that I'd be faced with countless ethical decisions masquerading as simple business decisions.

To make a business decision, you don't need much philosophy; all you need is greed, and maybe a little knowledge of how the game works." <http://psychologynews.posterous.com/speech-by-bill-watterson>

If he was a HN user, he'd probably get downvoted a lot for his anti-money-as- the-bottom-line view. And oddly enough, I argue that part of that attitude and values contributed to the long lasting value of his comic strips, as we're still talking about him and reading C&H today.

<comment><USER4> That being said, I would have loved a Hobbes stuffed animal when I was a kid, and I'd love to be able to give one to my kids someday (provided the hours I spend with my laptop hasn't rendered me completely infertile).

<comment><USER5> Everyone in the _world_ would have loved a Hobbes animal. He could have made a mint off of that. Which makes his decision not to merchandise one of the most impressive displays of artistic integrity I know of.

<comment><USER4> How is that artistic integrity? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they never went the way of Garfield or The Simpsons, but a couple of simple stuffed animals would have been great.

<comment><USER6> Part of the magic of Hobbes is that Watterson never resolves the issue of his true form. To Calvin, he is a real tiger. To his parents (and everyone else), he is a stuffed animal. To sell a plush-toy version of Hobbes would make this dichotomy less compelling. It would be like knowing the Secret of Monkey Island.

<comment><USER7> I personally think that a perfectly normal Hobbes stuffed doll would be an incredible incitement to a child's imagination. Instead of a talking Dora the Explorer doll that can replay the voice of the actress from the cartoon, the child (or child at heart) would be compelled to imitate Calvin and use their imagination.

And as to killing the magic, I'd think it's safe to presume that anyone with the agency and means to obtain a Hobbes doll could also can handle the fact that Calvin lives inside a comic strip with his Hobbes, but the one you've got is different

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "I think some of the reason 'Calvin and Hobbes' still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it."

A good, good lesson.

<comment><USER9> Fawlty Towers ended after only 12 episodes because John Cleese basically wanted every episode to be 100% awesome.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawlty_Towers#Episode_guide> (see the last para in that section)

<comment><USER10> The original version of "The Office" ended for similar reasons I believe. Contrast that to the American "let's beat this thing till it jumps the shark" version.

<comment><USER11> I approached the American version of The Office with trepidation for this very reason (in fact I avoided it altogether until after the fourth season had come out). When I finally started watching it, I was delighted to discover that it is, if anything, even better than the original.

The characters are more complex and richly realized; the boss is as much an object of pity and even compassion as of scorn (er, Scarn); and Dwight is almost unbearably awesome.

There may be a shark-jumping in the show's future (heck, it may be happening as I write this - I won't get to see the current season until it comes out on DVD this coming September), but I haven't seen it yet.

<comment><USER10> Well for me it has jumped the shark but that doesn't mean I won't watch the odd episode now and then but my point is that American shows almost never leave on a high note.

<comment><USER12> Lost Season 6 starts tomorrow and I have high high hopes. Perhaps too high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> these are not very good questions, are they.

the interviewer starts with the obvious bias that he thinks it's bad that calvin and hobbes is not around anymore. watterson says "yeah i'm pretty much over that" and the interviewer just won't take no for an answer: why not do some other strip, give the fans something they want, they all feel a connection to you, etc.

it would have been a lot better if the interviewer was willing to accept what the guy was saying and go forward from there. "okay, so you're not doing the strip anymore ... so what's in your life these days?"

<comment><USER14> And so few questions!

Watterson is so modest that he gives his only interview to a local journalist with no particular interest in comics who mainly asks questions about celebrity. This is like Einstein being interviewed by a sports journalist.

<comment><USER15> I would pay to read Einstein being interviewed by Hunter S. Thompson.

<comment><USER16> Hunter S. Thompson was a very 'special' sports journalist. Most sports journalists wouldn't give Einstein a good interview.

That said, I'd pay to read HST/Einstein as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For the record the article isn't his first interview since 1989, this was: <http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/calvinandhobbes/interview.html>

It's still neat to have another though...

<comment><USER11> How hard would it have been for the reporter to do a search on Bill Watterson interviews instead of just guessing? The widespread low quality of mainstream reporting never ceases to amaze me - especially when we're supposed to believe that the traditional media are the last bastion of authoritative, reliable, _professional_ journalism.

<comment><USER18> Or just load up the wikipedia page on him. In the four paragraph* "Since Retirement" section, it mentions both that interview and other attempts to get an interview.

*It's 5 or 6 now, but the later ones refer to this recent interview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Always amazed at how much he looks like how he drew Calvin's Dad.

<comment><USER20> More like Max, I'd say. :)

([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_characters_in_Calvin_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_characters_in_Calvin_and_Hobbes#Uncle_Max))

<comment><USER21> An image of Uncle Max here:

[http://www.neatorama.com/2009/10/09/the-mysterious- disappear...](http://www.neatorama.com/2009/10/09/the-mysterious- disappearance-of-four-comic-book-characters/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What is he doing with his time now? Is he employed, is he writing the great american novel, is he gardening?

None of the interviews touch on that- it makes me sad.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not sure which is more amazing: that Watterson finally gave another interview, or that we're so eager to read it. "Calvin and Hobbes" has been discontinued for one and a half times the length of its run, and still we remember it with so much interest; Watterson was -- is -- a master.

(And while we're on a roll, can we also get an interview with Gary Larson?)

<comment><USER24> If Watterson looks like Calvin's dad, does that mean Larson is this weird round dude with a tiny head?

<comment><USER25> One of the Farside collections had the fat kid as the "About the Author" photograph. So, yes, I guess so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Here is the transcript of his Kenyon College Commencement speech.

<http://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html>

<comment><USER27> I wish there was a video of this somewhere. I would need to hear his voice inflection to really get his true... attitude on life and relationships.

"When it seemed I would be writing about 'Midnite Madness Sale-abrations' for the rest of my life, a friend used to console me that cream always rises to the top. I used to think, so do people who throw themselves into the sea."

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I believe people don't get why Calvin and Hobbes became as big as it did, which is simply because it's fans responded to it in their own personal ways.

> What readers take away from it is up to them. Once the strip is published, > readers bring their own experiences to it, and the work takes on a life of > its own. Everyone responds differently to different parts.

I believe the thing that spoke to me most out of anything I've ever read was this: [http://whatever.scalzi.com/2003/01/01/the-child-on-the- train...](http://whatever.scalzi.com/2003/01/01/the-child-on-the-train/)

To most this is a sad and unfortunate story, which is how I originally took it. However, when I picked up his book covering the past of Whatever it took on a completely different meaning. My life and perceptions changed quite radically in the intervening years, and years later it's still a difficult subject to deal with publicly. It's a catch 22, you feel bad for bringing it up because it's not only difficult for people to deal with, but it's also an awkward subject to breach. However, it's an issue that truly requires to be discussed as 1/4 of couples experience it, but discussing it hits the first snag. The emotions are seriously conflicting as you're exceptionally happy, and then it goes away. You're upset and depressed, however there is an awkwardness to the emotions as nothing feels like it was ever lost. It's almost like having a false-positive test, but much more profound.

Calvin and Hobbes provided ways for its readership to relate, and apparently managed it profoundly with a vast assortment of people. It's one thing to cater yourself to the general public en masse, but it's something worlds apart when you _relate_ to the general public en masse.

</comment><comment><USER29> So much humility. Our industry needs more.

</comment><comment><USER30> Obviously, his attitude/philosophy towards C&H hasn't changed much in the past 15 years. It's almost like he pities his legions of fans for digging the strip so much. When ever I read the interviews from years ago or even some of the strip commentary, I feel like Watterson's just got a giant chip on his shoulder and I kinda want to hate the guy.

I started reading C&H when I was 11-12 and my son has been interested since before he could even read on his own. This strip touches on something that I haven't found with _any_ other strip. Peanuts was great in it's time (I guess, I never really liked it.) But I can read C&H a zillion times and never get bored.

I just wish Mr. Watterson wasn't so off-putting, it would be nice to get more insight into his creativity as opposed to the shoulder-shrug and giant "meh" that's he's provided so far.

<comment><USER31> He was really put off by the publicity and loss of privacy when the strip got really popular. Rumor has it he paints landscapes and then burns them. [http://quazen.com/arts/animation/bill-watterson-and- calvin-a...](http://quazen.com/arts/animation/bill-watterson-and-calvin-and- hobbes/)

<comment><USER32> He's our Salinger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Sadly, no info on what he's doing _now_.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've always rather enjoyed this piece of found internet art, having grown up with Calvin and Hobbes, and now having my own family on the way.

[http://www.coffeeandcigarettes.com/2009/02/11/yea-verily- i-s...](http://www.coffeeandcigarettes.com/2009/02/11/yea-verily-i-say-unto- thee-this/)

</comment><comment><USER33> FWIW, some fans are making a film to coincide with the strip's 15th anniversary:

<http://www.dearmrwatterson.com>

It seems they haven't secured an interview with the man himself, but they have interviews with a mix of other people.

</comment><comment><USER34> My local paper ran an article about Watterson and the adventures of the reporter who tried to track him down.

<http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10020/1029428-44.stm>

</comment><comment><USER35> Couldn't resist passing on this link:

<http://www.s-anand.net/calvinandhobbes.html>

(An interface to search C & H quotes and download them)

</comment><comment><USER36> Bill Watterson is a convicted sex offender. In Ohio he is a registered sex offender. That's why he is so reclusive and shut down his comic so soon.

<comment><USER37> He's not. <http://www.drc.state.oh.us/OffenderSearch/Search.aspx></comment></comment>


Giftawk – Speech to Gif - <AUTHOR> http://giftawk.com

<comment><USER2> > Please use Google Chrome :)

For those of you, like me, who don't use Chrome, this post appears to have some samples of giftawk output:

[http://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/08/19/a-true- gif-t/](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/08/19/a-true-gif-t/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly Google Chrome is the only Browser with the Speech Recognition API.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps your browser suggestion should include this useful info. It's one thing to say this as a blanket statement to people using old IE versions and having trouble--or as a recommendation on a site people _need_ access to--but when trying to show off a thing among a group who make pretty intentional decisions about what browser to use it's just going to make people shrug and move on.

<comment><USER2> It's impressive that literally every comment is about this message. Not a single person has commented on the actual functionality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> FYI The smiley only makes it worse. Brad Frost has recently written a post about how important it is to write user-friendly error messages ( [https://medium.com/@thomasfuchs/how-to-write-an-error- messag...](https://medium.com/@thomasfuchs/how-to-write-an-error- message-883718173322) ). If Chrome is required, at least tell me why.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Please use Google Chrome :)

:( Please avoid lock-in

</comment><comment><USER6> >Please use Google Chrome:)

No, because I don't normally use that browser. So, I guess the user doesn't get to know why, will just ignore the site and move on to something else.

I _do_ actually know, but I'm pointing out the major problem from the user's perspective. If a everyday non-technical person visits, they're just going to assume the page is broken. You usually only get one (very short) attempt at getting the user interested enough to interact with your site.

They should be displaying the simple explanation why their site won't work on Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Please use Google Chrome :)

Nope.

</comment><comment><USER8> > Please use Google Chrome :)

I don't care then.</comment>


Top Startups From Y Combinator W14 Demo Day - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/25/best-y-combinator-demo-day-startups/

<comment><USER2> I like wit.ai but I don't think their pricing model is sustainable for many developers.

At bulk pricing you get 25000 queries/day for $1500/month. At 30 days/month it comes down to $.002/query.

Assuming you generate revenue from advertising and you are able to display one ad per every query. You have to do $2 CPM or better to break even. Which is about the current market price [1].

There are other revenue models than mobile ad, but taking that example the developers would have to give all their revenue to wit.ai which would not make any business sense.

[1] [http://www.quora.com/Mobile-Advertising/What-are-current- mob...](http://www.quora.com/Mobile-Advertising/What-are-current-mobile-phone- ad-CPM-rates)

<comment><USER3> Hi, Wit.AI team here. Thanks for your feedback.

We also have a free community plan: if you agree to give back to the community by sharing your training data, then Wit.AI is free for you.

That being said, we are just getting started and we'll adjust our pricing after we get more developers' feedback.

<comment><USER2> I noticed that but I was wonder how sustainable that model was. 1 - you need to make money so, someone has to pay.

2 - at some point you'll reach saturation with training data and that won't be a viable option.

Anyways, love what you're providing and we'll look into where we can use it. But just wanted to do a quick back of the envelop math.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love PushBullet, didn't know they were doing YC. I don't know if they can ever grow into making enough money to show up on the YC ROI charts but they have a great solution to a common problem and have been developer-friendly since day 1.

</comment><comment><USER5> Having built voice interface systems in the past, I'm definitely intrigued by what Wit.AI will deliver. Any plans to support multiple languages?

</comment><comment><USER6> I was interested to see the differences between this and Mattermark's top 8. The only two in common are Kimono and The Dating Ring.

Mattermark Top 8:

Kimono Labs, Taplytics, CodeCombat, Airpair, Beacon, Ambition, The Dating Ring, Style Lend

TechCrunch Top 8:

wit.ai, The Dating Ring, PushBullet, AirHelp, Weave, Boostable, Kimono Labs, BatteryOS

<comment><USER7> Mattermark and their rankings are going to be looked back on as just as useless as a professional blogger. There are hints of positives for you to take away (and make wide sweeping bets across companies with - if you're an investor), but the outliers end up being outliers in a number of ways. Pretty much all the ways that make prognostication like this precisely pointless.

<comment><USER8> Mattermark founder here, and to be clear we are not "prognosticating" \- the Mattermark Score has not been proven to be predictive in any way. It is descriptive, describing which companies are getting more and more people to care about their existence on an ongoing basis. If anything, this might be similar to "traction" and might help companies raise... but as we all know many startups who appear to have traction still fail. What we hope to do is make investors aware of companies who are gaining traction that they might overlook, and in the long run we hope we can encourage them to look beyond the echo chamber of tech and focus on the echo chamber of a startup's actual customers. We'll see how it goes...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> OK, I'm often a bit skeptical about some of the startups from Y Combinator, but Airhelp is definitely something interesting for me. Anything that simplifies going after relatively small sums of money is good in my book.

<comment><USER10> I agree, definitely a big potential here. They say that there is a $16 billion potential in claim each year, which is a pretty huge pie. Does anyone know how much of this is currently claimed each year?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm surprised to not see AirPair in this roundup, they're very well situated in what could become a _huge_ industry.</comment>


The First Wearable Hydration Monitor - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lactate-threshold/lvl-the-first-wearable-hydration-monitor <comment><AUTHOR> '...developing a revolutionary red light technology (actually near infrared light) that for the first time ever [we] can measure dehydration...'

Measuring body hydration real time. Can anyone confirm this is at least theoretically possible ?

</comment><comment><USER2> I use my tongue.</comment>


Svbtle now open to the public - <AUTHOR> https://svbtle.com/signup <comment><USER2> Isn't this like shooting themselves in the foot? Svbtle exclusivity was the only differentiator, guaranteeing at least some quality of the content. Now it's gone and so Svbtle turns from a notable content source to just another blogging platform.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER3> This same comment, except replace "Svbtle" with "Facebook" back when they opened up registrations for college students outside the Ivy League. It's not too far off from the much ballyhooed Slashdot quote on the first ipod.

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame. [http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases- ip...](http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod)

<comment><USER4> What a brainfart of a comment. You are missing the point _completely_.

Facebook isn't a publishing platform. Apple didn't undermine its best feature in existing product by introducing iPod.

<comment><USER5> What an unnecessarily mean-spirited comment. Did you really need to say your first sentence?

That being said, maybe you're missing the point. Maybe svbtle wants to be a mainstream publishing platform and is just bootstrapping its initial user culture by curating the users. Maybe not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would say that Medium killed them. The problem with svbtle is that there was absolutely zero hope for a long time to get in. If they made it exclusive but there was some way to work your way in, I think they would have done fine but it's too late now.

<comment><USER3> Not so sure it's this simple. The market is pretty large. Not everything needs to be so black and white.

<comment><USER7> I agree. I think Dustin has a lot left to show.

<comment><USER8> Who?

<comment><USER9> Dustin Curtis ([http://dcvrt.is](http://dcvrt.is)), creator of Svbtle.

<comment><USER10> I don't know if you're just taking a stab at the name there, but at least supply the real URL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Too late, it's over. I don't want it anymore. I can get the exact same stuff with minimalistic Jekyll/Pelican themes and Svbtle is not exclusive anymore.

<comment><USER12> "Use my template, it's cool". I don't understand Medium either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As of 11:58PM CST, that web page says:

"Want to be a part of the network? Awesome. But for now, we're invite-only. You can apply for an account below, and we'll send an invitation when we're ready."

<comment><USER13> "twitter can't be blank"

Why not?

<comment><USER14> so does the last name, for some reason last name can't be blank, do we have to use our last names? it's not a must. why is it compulsory?

I don't know why it's not public to some people, i just signed up it was not as cool as i expected

[http://ruky.svbtle.com/trying-my-thing-with- svblte](http://ruky.svbtle.com/trying-my-thing-with-svblte)

<comment><USER15> clearly, it's because they don't want royalty to join! ;)

(AFAIK, most royal families dont have last names)

<comment><USER16> They do, they just don't use them everyday. E.g. the Tudors were called the Tudors because that was their surname. Current lot are the Windsors I think.

<comment><USER17> Yes they are. They changed their surname to Windsor after high anti-German sentiment during WW1. [1]

Prior to that they were the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha's.[2]

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Windsor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Windsor) [2]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saxe- Coburg_and_Gotha#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saxe- Coburg_and_Gotha#United_Kingdom)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wovld like to vse this or listen to Chvrches, but I gvess neither option is set in stone.

<comment><USER19> I wld prfr SBTRKT or MSTRKRFT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In a very sarcastic voice I would like to say how excited I am.

Moving on to the next story...

</comment><comment><USER21> Oh, lucky me. Signup seems to have been disabled while I was filling out the form (I was greeted with the form without Twitter handle forced etc). When I pressed "Apply" or whatever it said, I got to a page that said "Sorry, but we can't find that page.". Now mobile and desktop site redirects /signup to /apply. What a mess.

</comment><comment><USER22> What's the point of this? Can't you just use Obtvse?

</comment><comment><USER23> It appeared to only be open for a few moments. It was then redirecting to /apply. As of a few moments ago you could /signup again, but the accounts beings created have issues.

Jeepers Creepers, boys! Get your act together.

<comment><USER20> Probably a bad PR stunt. Not sure why they'd need that though; I'd rate their competition Medium at best...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder how much of this is influenced by medium and the approach they've taken.

</comment><comment><USER24> Groucho said it best... I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member. That said, opening it up would be a mistake, ask A Small World, aka the affluent circle jerkers. (Still miffed Paris Hilton never wrote me back).

</comment><comment><USER10> Oh well. I was looking forward to it but now I've got Ghost and it does pretty much everything I want it to.

</comment><comment><USER25> i was never fooled by their "we're too good for you" stance, so i'm not even slightly inclined to apply for access. ever.

one of the best things about the web is that nobody has to ask permission from anyone else to make their speech free.

-bowerbird

<comment><USER14> i don't think the internet is free. Everything has a price. For example if you blog you've to pay for hosting, for a domain. Although $10 is nothing for for some asian countries it's a big communt.

If you get it free still you can only do that until their money runs out like what happened to tumblr or else they'll put ads like what yahoo is about to do to tumblr. And wordpress ads that suck.

So the internet is not free as people think it is.

<comment><USER25> when i was talking about free speech, i was talking about "free" as in "speech", not "free" as in "beer".

although, to be honest, i also know of no free beer.

-bowerbird

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Somehow I got in without an invite. Lucky me?

<comment><USER21> Yes, because now it's broken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Open to the public" doesn't mean restricted signup, we'll choose at our discretion.

</comment><comment><USER28> What is it?</comment>


Ask HN: A good tutorial for C#/.Net? - <AUTHOR>

At work, our main legacy app is written in C#/.Net - so far, my main experience has been working in Ruby/Java. Working in .Net has been good so far but I haven't been able to find a book/tutorial that tied a lot of "essential concepts" together really well. E.g. how does the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) tie into your application, things of that nature.<p>Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> C# Programming Fundamentals: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/vcsharp/aa336804.aspx>

Developers School For Learning C#: <http://www.programmersheaven.com/2/Les_CSharp_1_p1>

</comment><comment><USER3> Charles Petzold has a nice free book on .NET:

<http://charlespetzold.com/dotnet/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.LearnVisualStudio.net> has some great videos along with sample code.</comment>


2016 is not the year tablet magazines get to die - <AUTHOR> http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/2016-is-not-the-year-tablet-magazines-get-to-die <comment><USER2> Anyone care to explain what a "tablet magazine" is as opposed to just the online edition of a magazine that may or may not have a print edition?

I need to be convinced that tablet magazines were ever alive before I can be convinced that they aren't dead yet.

<comment><USER3> The Conde Nast magazines (Vogue, New Yorker, etc) have iOS apps in which you basically download a glorified PDF for every issue during your prescription period. I haven't done it in awhile but the PDFs are generally massive, around hundreds of megabytes, but contain full-color spreads and ads like you would see in the print product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem with "tablet" magazines are that they force publishers to pick one tablet to optimize for. There is no equivalent to responsive web design in the magazine sector. So what you end up with is content originally designed for a 4:3 10" Retina iPad, but also available via the Play Store or dedicated magazine app on form factors where it has no business being, like an 8" 16:10 Android tablet, where you have to zoom, pan and scroll to see the whole page. It is enormously inconvenient, and I would guess most people just end up going to the website, which in most cases is responsive and will likely work well on a tablet, laptop or phone.

Magazines on mobile devices should offer the same level of comfort and convenience as their physical equivalent. I would love to swipe through pages like I do on my eBooks, as I find scrolling through text every few seconds to be a hassle and visually disorienting, especially for long-form reading.

I'm happy to continue to subscribe to physical editions of my favorite magazines, as the mobile experience doesn't offer nearly enough at this time to be worth my while.</comment>


US Sec. of Transport: We're looking into tech to disable cell phones in vehicles - <AUTHOR> http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/16/secretary-of-transportation-lahood-were-looking-into-technology-to-disable-cell-phones-in-vehicles/

<comment><USER2> What happens when I'm driving on the highway and see an accident but it's somehow unsafe for me to exit or stop my vehicle? (Perhaps it's on the other side of the median.) Cell phone doesn't work, and I can't call 911. Not sure if forced corrective measures seem like the best option here. Also, not to minimize it, but how is 5,000/year an "epidemic" of any sort? Seems like there are dozens of other more dangerous things we should be focusing our time, energy, and tax dollars to solve.

</comment><comment><USER3> Any distraction is dangerous when you drive.

I suspect the next step is to forbid talking with the passengers, and then they will remove the radio.

All of this despites statistics showing clearly that hands free phones didn't improve the situation.

mad, mad, mad

</comment><comment><USER4> Why should passengers in vehicles be prevented from making calls? There are any number of perfectly safe situations that they would be preventing, and even emergency situations that they would be making worse, in order to correct some behavior they feel is unsafe.</comment>


Strange Maps - <AUTHOR> http://strangemaps.wordpress.com

<comment><USER2> Hic sunt sirenes

(This has been up on the front page for 6 hours with no comments because all who dived in for the first time haven't come back ;-)</comment>


AskHN: some stupid queries over Mac and OSX  q(^_^)p - <AUTHOR>

off lately, I've been watching lot of people put OSX on their intel & amd PCs and notebooks. Besides that, whenever I watch a screen cast, be it RoR, or CodeIgnitor or videos related to google app engine or that video of fast web app developement from carsonified, I find a Mac, and OSX! Why is a Mac/OSX so popular among these web developers ? Shall I get the same experience out of emulation? or Shall I install it on my amd64 ? <comment><USER2> <http://blog.labnotes.org/2008/04/05/whats-on-your-mac/>

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/136417/whats-your-dev- env...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/136417/whats-your-dev-environment- setup)

[http://groups.google.com/group/columbusrb/browse_frm/thread/...](http://groups.google.com/group/columbusrb/browse_frm/thread/a0be7ce49dcd1005#)</comment>


Intuit tries to call Mint's bluff? Is this normal? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/quicken-online-cant-believe-mint-is-doing-so-well-sends-threatening-letter/ <comment><USER3> One of the best days I've had since starting my current company has been receiving an email from a C-level at our largest competitor, pointing out a flaw in the product comparison table on our website (due to the fact that they had released a new version that added one of the features we had that they didn't). I imagine the guys at Mint must have been downright giddy receiving this letter.

On another note...Whenever I get into a conversation about a business I wish I'd started, Mint is the first one that comes to mind. It's such a _huge_ market, and Intuit has failed so miserably to make the transition to the web-- and if they ever admit that the web is a better way to solve this problem, they'll have to accept dramatically lower per-user revenue, which is something that very few companies have the balls to do. It's why the tech industry has massive churn every 10-20 years--market leaders get eaten from the bottom (mainframes by minis, minis by micros, etc. for example).

<comment><USER4> One of the sadder examples for me is Polaroid, they were doing some strong work in digital imaging but supposedly it didn't receive internal support because "it would undermine our film business". It's one thing to turn a blind eye to upstart innovation, it's another to intentionally stifle it within a company.

Any examples of companies that have done this right? Succeeded at replacing their own obsolete technology with upstart technology?

<comment><USER5> Seems funny to talk about IBM in this context but they did start out making punch cards in 1896. They successfully made the transition to computers, mainframes, and then PCs, but then finally missed the shift from hardware to software. From about 1896-1980 they were pretty on the ball, though.

Also AT&T has made the transition from fixed to cell phones, okay so far.

It's a lot easier when the new business has the same business model but new technology. When the business model changes along with the technology, often the established company doesn't view change as "profitable enough" and decides to fight the future. If you're curious about this "The Innovator's Dilemma" is a really good book.

<comment><USER6> Them missing the shift to software wasn't for lack of trying. They had lots of mainframe software, and then had a huge division making PC applications software in the eighties, which no one much liked. Then they made a major push with OS/2 and forked DOS from Microsoft, and bought Lotus. Unfortunately for them, for some reason IBM didn't seem to be able to make mainstream software that people wanted to buy.

<comment><USER5> The trickiest shift is the business model. IBM could always sell software to corporations. They never managed to sell software to consumers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know if it's normal, but it's certainly an _unbelievably fucking dumb_ marketing move; your dad knows Quicken, but might not have known about Mint --- until Quicken made sure he did.

<comment><USER8> It would be brilliant if Intuit is planning on buying mint...

<comment><USER9> It would be brilliant if they've already secretly signed a deal to buy. If they are just planning on buying, then this would just drive up the price they have to pay Mint's shareholders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What about those boxes of Quicken rotting in the shelves of resellers/customers - doesn't Intuit count them as sold copies even if the software was never used?

<comment><USER11> They'll count them as _sold_ copies as soon as the money is in.

Buyer != user

<comment><USER12> Depends who is the buyer. If it's the store then Intuit will definitely account for them as purchased. I don't know how it works in shrink-wrap software retail, but in most retail situations products are bought wholesale by the store, not lent on consignment until the end-user purchases them.

<comment><USER11> My point was that intuit will have recieved money for the product. So they can honestly say that it was sold. They don't claim that buyers actually use it. (though in order to keep up sales in the long run, they probably strive for that)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can just picture a large board room at Intuit of stuffy suits all sitting around baffled how this tiny startup is managing to totally dominate them. I'm going to sign up for Mint right now.

Fun fact: A safer way a company can brag in advertising is called "puffing" <http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/puffing>

</comment><comment><USER14> As the old saying goes: If you're worth suing then you might be doing something right.

</comment><comment><USER15> I love how Mint's reply to Intuit says "Hey, we're actually growing faster than you think" and ends with an overt advertisement of Mint's services.

</comment><comment><USER15> The reason Mint is doing so well is quite simple: it's so damn easy to use.

I just signed up now, and I was expecting to have to go through a number of loops to get it to grab the data from my multiple bank accounts, but it was a breeze. Just another step in the sign-on procedure - truly great work on minimizing the number of people that default from linking their bank accounts.

And the UI is goal-oriented with a deep understanding of common tasks people want. I saw my transactions and renamed one of them..... and was about to groan how stupid this going to be, renaming everything else to match, when I saw the "rename all other instances of xxx always" option. I was floored.

Great work, Mint!

<comment><USER16> Everyone, pay attention here. _Mint doesn't have any technology._ They're just an unbelievably well-designed front end for Yodlee.

"[T]he UI is goal-oriented with a deep understanding of common tasks people want". Is your site doing the same?

<comment><USER17> Is that why they can make dubious security/privacy claims like:

 _Mint uses only your account login credentials for access to your account information and Mint does not store these credentials._

Clearly that information needs to be stored somewhere, but Mint can make it sound to the users that it is magically not stored (because it's technically not stored by Mint).

I haven't actually used the service. I have a general aversion to services that ask me for my password to a 3rd party account. The import-your-contacts types are bad enough, but bank account access is just too much for me to potentially give up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love mint. I actually caught fraud on my credit card while checking my balances on my iPhone through mint's app while at work. I was thinking of writing them a thank you letter.

I would have been tempted to reply something like this:

"At Mint, we have an algorithm to calculate the number of users we have. This function is defined as follows:

mint users = (average logins during the past 7 business days / (registrations - closed accounts)^last business day's S&P 500 closing price - <USER2> rainfall of the Amazon basin during the past 6 months[in inches]) * 0 + number of Intuit customers ^ 2

As you can see, here at Mint we may have even underestimated the number of users we have"

<comment><USER19> _I actually caught fraud on my credit card while checking my balances on my iPhone through mint's app while at work._

Don't you read the charges on your statement before you pay it?

<comment><USER20> I caught an accidental double charge when checking my balances on my iPhone through mint's app while at work.

I use auto bill-pay, but the bill wasn't due for two weeks anyway.

<comment><USER21> Is it fraud if it's accidental??

<comment><USER20> Philosophy aside: who cares?

I caught it early and corrected it before it was a problem. That kicks ass in my book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _As you are no doubt aware, all advertising claims must be verified and substantiated before they are used in advertising._

Now that's a novel idea. Nine out of ten doctors agree.

<comment><USER23> Sure, but nobody said you had to say what the other 90 doctors you asked thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why would Mint even respond to a letter like that? I could understand if, say, it were a reporter asking, but what right does a competitor have to demand such figures? Let alone so rudely.

Though I suppose if the competition is determined to make themselves look like assholes, furnishing a polite reply and then leaking the whole thing isn't a bad way to help them out.

<comment><USER25> Hmm, I suppose if someone wanted to be truly a dick to quicken, they could have the publicly available figures printed onto a large billboard (the ones that go on the back of trucks) and park it in front of intuit's HQ.

That's one way to present the info :)

<comment><USER24> That's funny, but it would be a big mistake. If they start acting arrogantly themselves, people will say "they're no better" and they'll lose the advantage of the contrast. The last thing to do when experiencing success is flaunt it and act entitled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I signed up sometime last week to check it out, and my six-digit bank account ID numbers in Mint's database are 6079xx and 6079xx+1. They're sequential, so there are 600,000ish rows in the table, but that's not necessarily proof that they're all active.

I don't use Mint for anything really, but technically I'm a user.

<comment><USER27> Mint's user data is sharded across multiple DB's. So if you're the first user on a fresh DB, your bank account will have ID 1. Also, users usually have multiple bank accounts as well, so accountId isn't a good indicator of # of users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> If you've used both Quickbooks Online and Mint, it's no surprise at all that Mint is doing so well. Mint just blows it out of the water in terms of UI, features, and ease of use.

<comment><USER12> I've used both Quickbooks online and Mint and as much as I agree with you on interface, I must completely disagree on features. I wish I could use Mint but after trying it out there are several showstopper issues. Just one example, Mint lacks the ability to import or even manually enter past transactions so it's really useless if you want to get all of 2008 in there.

<comment><USER29> Exactly. Without the ability to enter in other transactions (for example for cash), Mint is just _read only_. It's a great and useful read only view of your finances, but there's little other functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if this was some kind of botched overture for a sort of partnership.

<comment><USER31> That happens more frequently than you think. I was once 'sued' by a F500 company for exactly that purpose, a 'softening up' round before negotiations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So annoying we don't have mint in Australia I hate doing the finances manually.

Is anyone here able to describe how their interface to your bank account works in more detail? I haven't heard a great explanation of it.

Part of me is still amazed that many people have happily typed in their banking passwords.

<comment><USER33> There really isn't an interface. Mint uses your login to get the state of your accounts but does not allow you to transfer money or anything else, it is read only. Then it tried to catagorize all the transactions you have based off their database of companies. You can track your spending over time in different categories. It sounds like nothing but unifying all your accounts in one place is very useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why use mint? Why not register with yodlee directly?

<comment><USER35> Mint is lightweight and has a nicer UI, but Yodlee has more features and can track more types of accounts. I have both set up and find myself using Mint more often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe it's just me, but this article felt a lot like something I would see on valleywag. Just replace tech companies with tech individuals.

There is, of course, shallow technical discussion about how users are counted; even a comScore chart; but the tone of the article and the ludicrousness of the whole affair felt no less voyeuristic.

</comment><comment><USER37> so I can just email any company and demand them to give out their proprietary data? Mint should have told them to go to hell.

<comment><USER38> This is essentially data Mint publishes on its front page, and has mentioned in press releases before. I don't think that really qualifies as proprietary.</comment></comment>


U.S. Border bars Psychotherapist with drug research in his past (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.alternet.org/story/50948/u.s._border_patrol_bars_canadian_psychotherapist_with_drug_research_far_in_his_past <comment><AUTHOR> There's another set of articles bouncing around but I wanted to dredge this particular story.

The story is of a respected psychotherapy researcher for a Canadian university. Andrew Felmar's profile is here: [http://www.andrewfeldmar.ca/](http://www.andrewfeldmar.ca/)

This story was also covered here: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/08/closeddo...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/08/closeddoorsofperception)

The gist is: In his distant past, he researched the effect of various substances that years later came to be classified as illegal substances. This was in Canada, and he attempted travel to the USA. He was declined entry to the USA as the border agency Googled his name, found his research, and considered him an admitted drug user.

The point of posting this in light of the NSA and PRISM revalations is to show that you needn't have done something wrong or be doing it today, that there are examples of people who have found their past re-defined by the present and that they now breach some rules that would not have been considered back then.

The message I took from this at the time was this:

        When Feldmar looks back on what has happened, he concludes that he was operating
        out of a sense of safety that has become dated in the last six years, since 9-11.
        His real mistake was to write about his drug experiences and post this on the web
        , even in a respected journal like Janus Head. He acknowledges that he had
        not considered posting on the Internet the risk that it turned out to be. So many
        of his generation share his experience in experimenting with drugs, after all.
        He believed it was safe to communicate about the past from the depth of
        retrospection and that this would be a useful grain of personal wisdom to share
        with others. He now warns his friends to think twice before they post anything
        about their personal lives on the web.

<comment><USER2> > His real mistake was to write about his drug experiences and post this on > the web, even in a respected journal like Janus Head.

In the light of the NSA scandal, would it really have made any difference if he had only admitted to drug use in private communication? If the DHS has no access to NSA surveillance data right now (or had in 2007, when this happend), it's only a matter of time until they do.

<comment><AUTHOR> In light of PRISM, no. I guess the only difference was whether you saw the border control use Google, or whether you just arrived and were declined entry without information as to why.</comment></comment></comment>