How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe? - <AUTHOR> https://www.space.com/how-can-a-star-be-older-than-the-universe.html <comment> ajay-d GN-z11 is a galaxy that's 32 billion light years away. Here's the note from wikipedia:

At first glance, the distance of 32 billion light-years (9.8 billion parsecs) might seem impossibly far away in a Universe that is only 13.8 billion (short scale) years old, where a light-year is the distance light travels in a year, and where nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. However, because of the expansion of the universe, the distance of 2.66 billion light-years between GN-z11 and the Milky Way at the time when the light was emitted increased by a factor of (z+1)=12.1 to a distance of 32.2 billion light-years during the 13.4 billion years it has taken the light to reach us.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GN-z11#Notes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GN-z11#Notes)

<comment><USER3> Also, despite the age of the universe (13.8B years), the diameter of the observable universe is 93 billion light years. That's because the universe expanded (and probably still is expanding) faster than light.

<comment><USER4> Can you ELI5 - how can we observe something 93 billion light years away, if the light has only been traveling for 13.8B years? Shouldnt the "observable" distance be the the age of the universe?

<comment><USER5> Your intuition that there is an limited observable distance because is correct. But because of the expansion, that limit is bigger than "speed_of_light * age of universe" .

I don't know enough General Relativity to give a solid explanation. But here is a rough over-simplification: Imagine you've spent the last 5 seconds blowing up a balloon, but there is an ant walking on that balloon, starting from a marked spot.

In the 1st second, the ant moved 10mm. But in the next four seconds you blew up the balloon, so that 10mm of rubber is now 70mm long. The total distance from the ant's starting mark to her end-point can now be well over than 70mm, even though she only walks at less than 10mm/second.

As the ant, so the photon.

<comment><USER6> If space works as a balloon then the growth happens in all the volume of the universe (not just on the "boundary"). Is that how it works? Doesn't that imply that we are getting "bigger"?

<comment><USER7> No. Just because space is expanding doesn't change the electromagnetic forces holding you together.

<comment><USER8> But just thinking of the electromagnetic forces in terms of what is required from them to keep matter together in the context of that same matter effectively expanding faster than the speed of light is... at best weird.

<comment><USER9> The speed of expansion depends on the size of the object. Human-scale things aren't expanding at the speed of light; you need to get to larger-than-galaxy- cluster scales for that to happen.

(In fact space inside galaxies isn't expanding at all, only space between galaxies. But I digress.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Short answer: it's only older than the universe if you ignore the error bars of the estimate.

<comment><USER11> And it's only older than the universe if you assume the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, which there's really no evidence to suggest. Pretty much everything else in the universe all seems to suggest that it all originated from a similar point in time and space and that it rapidly expanded outward. Okay. But what was going on in this particular space back then is completely unknown, so... could there have been some stars forming already from matter that wasn't part of the Big Bang? Why not?

<comment><USER12> Quark Gluon Plasma (observed at the RHIC), at really early in the universe there was too much temperature and pressure to have stars or even atoms. At least that's my understanding.

<comment><USER11> Yes but Quark Gluon Plasma existed immediately following the Big Bang. We arrive at the Big Bang by reverse engineering lots of evidence we see in the universe. What evidence is there that nothing else currently inside the bubble of the observable universe could possibly have been there, very far away from the Big Bang, at the time of the Big Bang?

I don't see why I'm being down-voted because as of yet no one has answered that question. I'm not saying the Big Bang didn't happen. I'm saying we have no observations that give us any confidence we'll never encounter something that wasn't part of the Big Bang. This star actually pre-dating the Big Bang is extremely unlikely, I agree. The simpler explanation is the uncertainty in it's age estimation. But equating "the observable universe" with "stuff that originated in the Big Bang" is an assumption we simply don't have much reasoning for, other than we haven't seen much other stuff. But then... we also don't see many stars this old.

<comment> semi-extrinsic All the evidence suggests that Big Bang did not happen at one identifiable point. Instead it happened everywhere simultaneously. So there is no place in our universe "very far away from the Big Bang".

<comment><USER13> Not the above poster, but I want to understand. I have half-understood thoughts that conflict with each other. Any help showing where I misunderstand is appreciated, but this is probably a failure of my brain to be able to cope.

* All space was contained in the big bang, so "everywhere simultaneously" makes sense from that perspective.

* ...but the idea that space is expanding implies an outer "edge" (, which doesn't make sense if space isn't infinite. (or is it infinite, and just getting "more" infinite, in the way that the space on the number line between 0 and 1 is infinite, but "less" infinite than between 0 and 2?

<comment> crooked-v > ...but the idea that space is expanding implies an outer "edge"

No, it doesn't.

For example: consider an infinite number of marbles in an infinitely long line, all of them are touching each other.

Now, get an infinite number of helpers stationed along the infinitely long line, and have them all move the marbles in front of them to the right and stagger them out in the process, so that there's now an inch between each marble.

You now have an infinite number of marbles an infinitely long line, but it's a _longer_ line than it started out, because there's now an inch between all the marbles.

<comment><USER14> You will need infinite amount of energy to insert spaces between these marbles. Can you point us to source of this energy?

<comment> crooked-v The theory of the Big Bang (or at least the variants with an infinite universe) includes infinite energy as part of the initial singularity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> alan-crowe We've been here before, with stars older than the age of the universe. Last time, we thought that there was only one kind of Cepheid variable. This lead to underestimating the age of the universe. Later, astronomers realized the nearby Cepheid variables (used for calibrating the period/luminosity relationship) differed systematically from the bright Cepheid variables that we could see in distance galaxies.

Understanding the difference between Type I and Type II Cepheid variables lead to a greater estimate for the age of the universe, resolving the difficulty. So I expect some interesting astronomy to come out of tracking down the cause of this discrepancy.

</comment><comment><USER15> A great cosmology faq, answering this and a lot of other questions: [http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html](http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> > It's composition meant the star must have come into being before iron became > commonplace.

Hypothesis 1: the star formed in a way that did not involve or produce a lot of iron.

Hypothesis 2: the star is older than the universe itself.

 _Clearly_ , hypothesis 2 is the more likely.

<comment> hypothesis-3 Hypothesis 3: Due to inherently incomplete information, our understanding of the age of the universe is not yet perfectly correct, and the universe may be older than current models and theory.

Strap yourselves in folks, maybe The Big Bang is but one event woven amid a deeper tapestry of events, significant only in its capacity to occlude deeper periods of time.

It should surprise no one that we might be wrong about some centralized, focal aspect of the universe, given how wrong we've been before, about things we assumed to be the center or origin, previously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This remind me of a similar story with the age of the earth and the solar system. Scientists using new methods were starting to discover that Earth was far, far older than originally predicted...so old, that it seemed to predate our sun. It turns out it our estimates of the solar system's age were wrong, but it took some time to figure out why.

I imagine something similar is going on here. The article mentions that once they got an age older than the universe, they started looking at how to make the star younger...finally by acknowledging the margin of error in estimates. That sounds like bad science to me.

<comment><USER18> > The article mentions that once they got an age older than the universe, they > started looking at how to make the star younger...finally by acknowledging > the margin of error in estimates. That sounds like bad science to me.

Later (in section "Taking a closer look at the age of the universe"), they tell that your theory is also being looked into.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think, by Occam's Razor, the most likely explanation is that there's a skybox surrounding the solar system that Voyager 1 may run into any day now, like Truman Burbank at the end of The Truman Show. It seems to be a more parsimonious explanation of the available facts that we're looking at the result of a super duper planatarium projector, as opposed to an actual vast and frequently inexplicable universe.

<comment> crooked-v If you're going in that direction, you may as well say that the universe is a simulation. Planck limits on measuring time and space as a continuum would pretty useful for putting a hard cap on required rendering resources per volume of space-time...

<comment><USER20> Simulation doesn't have to obey the rules. For non-scientists it is enough to "tell" them how it works without actually rendering it, cause they'll never check. For scientists, you have to make their brain believe that all is consistent with complex computations all the way down.

Imagine that you know physics and math very good. But then simulation suddenly fails due to segfault and you realize that all your knowledge was just a gibberish nonsense and your work sessions and discussions were dream-like experience. Otherwise it was just a pretty dumb 3d simulation slightly better than a modern AAA game.

Edit: I mean, a simulation argument opens a huge can of worms, if you consider the perspective of a lazy simulation developer them-self.

<comment><USER21> While a simulation doesn't have to obey the rules, any given simulation is likely to resemble a system that does adhere to rules, since a simulation is indeed simulating something else.

Even if some external observer can pause, rewind, intervene and violate rules, the reason a simulation exists is to model something else.

This "something else" will have some kind of rules, and the goal of the simulation will be similarity to the actual realm external to the simulation.

Meanwhile, a lazy replication of a model by an unmotivated author would likely impose finite quantities upon scales of interaction, since a simulation won't be able to recreate a real time version of something larger than the external reality itself.

We wouldn't notice a lagged simulation that tries to consume its footprint, but it's probable that an artificial creation would impose caps on aspects of a system to prevent runaway reactions that produce useless simulations. To us, those sorts of limitations would resemble extra physical laws, and while incontrovertible to the simulated entity, such limits might confront intuition in strange ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was hoping for some weird time-bending effect from general relativity, but no, it's just that the ages are within each other's error bars.

<comment><USER23> Still an interesting read and thought experiment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me of Iain Bank's Excession. Great book, strongly recommend it.

<comment><USER25> The relevant bit from Excession is the discovery of a mysterious entity that is 50x older than the universe.

<comment><USER26> What's the explanation?

<comment><USER27> Without giving too much away, it's not from this universe.

You really should read it, it's one of the best books in the culture series and Banks was a phenomenal writer.

It also contains the Affront, a species that are almost comically awful and coined the term "outside context problem":

"The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbors were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests."

<comment><USER28> You left out the best bit!

"An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just one, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop."

Shades of Douglas Adams there...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why can't the star be older because of relativity? I imagine that, particularly in the early universe while everything was nearer to everything else, relative background gravity was higher (and thus relative time) is different than now. Would the star not age at a different rate if it's a remnant from violent beginnings of the universe?

<comment><USER30> I think, if I understand your question correctly, that a star couldn't age more, only less, from our perspective.

EDIT: I could be wrong though, and additionally I believe the star being referenced by the article is actually in a similar reference frame so relativity likely isn't the answer anyways.

<comment><USER31> No, but _we_ (our planet, stuff in our vicinity) could age less.

What we'd need is most stuff (that gave rise to most stars and most of our measures of the age of the universe) to be in a higher-gravity region compared to the star in question. It seems unlikely, but I suppose it's possible...

[Edit: I thought you were talking about GR time dilation due to gravity. A re- read shows that I may have been in error.

Also, for a star 190 ly away, _any_ relativistic explanation, either special or general, is probably wrong.]

<comment><USER32> I don't think there's such a concept as "higher-gravity region" in modern physics, unless you're thinking about "in the vicinity of a giant star, black hole, or something equally massive."

However, if most of the known universe is sitting next to a gigantic mega- blackhole (or enough of them to cover the whole sky), then surely we would have noticed by now...

<comment><USER29> > _I don 't think there's such a concept as "higher-gravity region" in modern > physics, unless you're thinking about "in the vicinity of a giant star, > black hole, or something equally massive."_

I think at the beginning of the universe, there might be a lot of regional discrepancies. They might even just be "temporary" regional discrepancies from gravitational waves due to the inherent nature of the universe growing and everything still crashing together.

<comment><USER9> The cosmic microwave background tells us there were practically no discrepancies at all, actually. Not too surprising, since at the densities back then even a small local fluctuation would easily have become a black hole.

The very early universe wasn't perfectly uniform, but it was really, _really_ close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The most likely answer is that either the measurement or the theory is wrong. Both are probably about as likely.

</comment><comment><USER34> It reminds me of the same question asked in this book, "The Birth of Time: How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe" by John Gribbin. The bottom line was that the calculations always have some approximations, which can throws off a number by a large factor.

</comment><comment><USER35> Did anyone read the article and get a feeling it was mostly just a fluff piece describing how we're refining our ability to tell the ages of stars?

</comment><comment><USER36> Start over space theories all over again. Lets not build our assumptions on previous generation findings.

Only if we take path of how the previous geniuses went through we will have a flawless exploration. Instead of doing that, if we work on someone else's work, its like eating someone else's recipie and trying to remake the tase of it without understanding the ingredients in it.

</comment><comment><USER37> Given the norm for question titles, the answer must be "It can't." Also simply based on what a universe is.

What we have are just different estimates for the age of our universe. And none of them involve simple measurement, obviously. So the challenge is finding the artifact(s) that generate the disagreement.

</comment><comment><USER38> Does the microwave background come from the centre of the universe where the big bang was; and the light from stars on the far side, flying in the opposite direction to us, take longer to reach us than the microwave background does?

<comment><USER39> The Big Bang happened everywhere in the Universe, at once. Our CMBR is coming in from all directions, at all times, as more distant locations(eg further away from us at the start) finally reach us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I would REALLY love to read this, but space.com is one of those asshole sites that wants to take a gigabyte of memory (I'm not joking) and wants a full 30 to 45 seconds of CPU just to load the page.

<comment><USER41> It loads almost instantly without javascript. I can understand not using adblocking but why are you complaining about loading times when not using umatrix or noscript?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What came first, the photon or the electron? Can a photon be emitted without a change in energy state?

I'm new here, so instead of answering questions is the protocol just to downvote?

<comment><USER43> Oftentimes. I gave you an upvote just because sometimes around here you will get downvoted because the gods of zeitgeist decide it must be so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> wow what an interesting article. Finding not one, but multiple stars that are much older than the predicted age of the universe means something is likely very wrong with one of our theories: dark energy, star aging, or using the cosmic background as a measure of the universe's age.

</comment><comment><USER44> I was thinking maybe it was traveling a large fraction of c and there was a relativity thing going on

</comment><comment><USER45> HN is making me wish I studied astronomy, such cool stuff.

</comment><comment><USER27> Nonsense, the universe is only 6000 years old....

and it's a Libra.

</comment><comment><USER46> Okay... This implies the light was stretched along with the space, right? Because otherwise, the photons would just... Never reach here if space between us and the light expanded faster than c.

<comment><USER47> Correct. See...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_problem)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Which universe?

</comment><comment><USER49> A question - how common are such old stars? Because it is right in our backyard. 190 light years away are nothing. And if those stars are rare - <USER2> makes our neighborhood unusual - we have life and some of the oldest object in the universe in almost the same spot.

<comment><USER50> Almost everything of interest essentially happens in our backyard because that's the place we can see with the most detail. It's a little like looking out at the Universe and coming to the conclusion that we're in the middle of it because the "edges" are all around us.

Even if this was rare and there happened to be tonnes of very old stars only close to us, this could again be coincidental, especially if intelligent life is more common than we currently know.

<comment><USER51> This is precisely true, only very small stars last very long, and small stars are very dim. All the old stars that we see must be very close. The bright stars that we see that are far away only live for a few million years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Here we go again... "scientists would look at the ripples in the fabric of space and time". Am I the only one who finds this expression very confusing? What fabric? There is no fabric. Space and time are coordinates. They do not exist physically at all. There cannot be a fabric of space and time.

<comment><USER53> It's a metaphor to help humans grasp it better. Space and time does exists physically.

Does a shortest path between you and your workplace exists that you can traverse? Is it a straight line? No, it's not, but there's one path that you as a being can walk along physically. The buildings, roads, obstacles force you to diverge from the ideal straight line. That's another analogy of what space & time is. Fabric is just shorter.</comment></comment>


New Google Music Service Launch - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/new-google-music-service-launch-imminent/

<comment><USER2> I could definitely see Google launching an iTunes-like music service.

Amazon dropped the ball. Really their only advantage was No DRM but now that iTunes Plus is standard, that went away fast. Since their launch years ago, Amazon has done next to nothing to improve the user experience.

Microsoft is actually doing some interesting stuff with Zune, but they've really positioned it as a niche product for anti-Apple gearheads, not the mass market.

I think Google is by far the most likely company to launch a serious iTunes competitor. With all the work they've done on Android to compete with the iPhone, a music store/service would be a logical next step.

<comment><USER3> Does Amazon have to improve their user experience? Amazon.com is one of the most-used sites on the planet, and you can download any mp3 from its product's page. I use it more than I use iTunes, at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think this rumour is true. Larry and Sergei are famously indifferent about music, and I don't think they'd get into bed with the music industry.

Google is working on a music-related service, but I don't think it'll involve streaming or downloads.

<comment><USER5> On the other hand, they've already had to get in bed with the music industry through their Youtube partnerships.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> screenshots of the service: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/google- music-service-th...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/google-music- service-the-screenshots/)

</comment><comment><USER6> search song lyrics? an anyclip for music if you will?</comment>


IPython in Excel - <AUTHOR> https://datanitro.com/blog/2013/9/9/ipython_excel/

<comment><USER2> I grok why you would want to replace VBA for Excel by Python. But once you've switched to an iPython way of working, your pretty much above and beyond the spreadsheet world?

iPython-way: Build or import nice functions, import them, get your (new) data, run your models and see nice graphs in iPython.

So what the niche is that this product focusses on? Empowering the finance- via-spreadsheet world where separate programmers are dying to be allowed to use Python instead of VBA?

<comment><USER3> As a heavy user of DataNitro in the finance world, I can attest to how much it has improved my life. It allows me to interact with my data providers' excel plugins in a much more expedient manner. I could use their direct data feeds, but testing things on those is a PITA.

Largely, though, I agree that DN isn't really necessary/useful but for a small niche... but when you need it, it's EXTREMELY necessary.

<comment><USER4> In a prior life I used a lot of VBA to process some scenario modeling Excel spreadsheets. Python would have been much better. Python is also becoming more and more common in Financial Services.

I haven't used DataNitro, but it would have helped me in the past, and it fills a very real need. I think the niche may be bigger than you give it credit for.

<comment><USER5> I think it's comparable to XMLSpy, in how powerful it is, how niche it is, how incredibly useful it is to some people, and how expensive it is. [https://datanitro.com/pricing.html](https://datanitro.com/pricing.html)

<comment><USER4> The pricing actually isn't that high if the target is Finance. If anything it may be too low. These are folks who pay ~$20K per user per year for Bloomberg.

<comment><USER5> I meant in absolute terms. There are people who are happy to pay for XMLSpy, too. Ditto for AutoCAD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My own job has some form requirements, one of which is a spreadsheet in Excel. Looks like I just found a way to automate that...

<comment><USER7> Why not just use VBA?

<comment><USER6> Well, I have an Excel version of this: [1]

When I order a part, I have to enter all of this data. Most of the parts I order are repeat orders; I have all of my previous ones on file. I have a program right now that makes a LaTeX document for another form I have to fill out; I put in the NSN, and it populates the form with all of the rest of the information.

Up until now, I'd thought that I wouldn't be able to do the same thing with an Excel spreadsheet, and I haven't been able to build a table like that in LaTeX. So, this extension to Python seems to be the best option.

[1] (PDF) [http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/infomgt/forms/eforms/dd13...](http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/infomgt/forms/eforms/dd1348-6.pdf)

<comment><USER8> so, you're willing to pay USD $500.00 just for that?

<comment><USER6> Damn it, I thought it was freeware. That throws a monkey wrench in there...

<comment><USER9> Look into xlrd3/xlwt3. They're free and platform independent, not as smooth interfacing as DataNitro though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsort_(Unix)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsort_\(Unix\))

* [http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Topological_sort#Python](http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Topological_sort#Python)

* [http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Topological_sort#VBScript](http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Topological_sort#VBScript)

</comment><comment><USER11> All I want is for a good programmable spreadsheet on the Mac. Is that too much to ask?

(This is windows only)

<comment><USER12> I wonder if there is any spreadsheet like functionality written in Python that could be embedded in an iPython notebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks great - going to try it out.

</comment><comment><USER14> Looks great!</comment>


Cloudflare's Transparency Report for 2016 and an Additional Disclosure for 2013 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-transparency-report-for-second-half-2016-and-an-additional-disclosure-for-2013-2/ <comment><USER2> Related EFF article, "Finally Revealed: Cloudflare Has Been Fighting NSL for Years": [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/finally-revealed- cloud...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/finally-revealed-cloudflare- has-been-fighting-nsls-years)</comment>


The Cloud  - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/05/the-cloud.html

<comment><USER2> Security in the cloud really is an issue, consider e.g. <http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~hovav/dist/cloudsec.pdf> \- cross-VM attacks are real, and extremely scary.

(It _is_ possible to get around this; e.g. Tarsnap doesn't trust the server much, and thus gets around the fact that it uses EC2. But that takes careful design and is probably impossible for many applications.)

</comment><comment><USER3> 80s Get rid of all your office mainframes! We can put the power in each client with a PC! Decentralize everything! No more sharing a computer with everyone.

90s Fast ethernet lets us centralize everything. It's way easier to manage a server with a network of clients!

2000s All the clients are cheap and idle. P2P is the wave of the future. Who needs servers?!

2010s Cloud is here! Better to centralize everything in Amazon, Rackspace, <Generic_Cloudservice>. Leave nothing on the client!

</comment><comment><USER4> My suspicion is that, just like Gmail, all of these cloud systems are backdoored. The only secure solution, which applies especially to businesses with any confidential information, is to encrypt and decrypt on the local client machine.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sony loses control of tens of millions of cloud accounts and their gaming infrastructure disappears for weeks, and people still think cloud = reliable and safe, huh?

Even giant botnet infections have nothing on that.

There's a place for everything, yes. Definitely convenience to cloud services. I am not of the opinion it should be the default answer.

<comment><USER6> So anything on a server is now cloud?

<comment><USER7> Like "e-business" and "social network" before it, "cloud" is simply a pseudonym for the Internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> re: backup, if people are savvy enough to use a DVCS, then making it policy that all business documents are installed in that is a fairly good step for the "files" portion of things. This can be secured in a variety of ways that are community validated (ie, not a security sham like Dropbox turned out to be) and can be hosted in a provider independent manner.</comment>


T-Mobile admits it spent $195000 on Trump hotel while lobbying for Sprint merger - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18251722/t-mobile-trump-hotel-washington-sprint-merger-lobbying <comment><USER2> This is getting crazy.

If we had elected Larry Page, would it be a scandal that T-Mobile supports Android phones?

If we had elected Jeff Bezos, would it be a scandal for T-Mobile to use AWS?

<comment><USER3> Yes I think we ought to view it as a scandal.

<comment><USER4> It seems you think that the president and his family must not engage in any sort of business. Are there any exceptions to that?

I don't see anywhere in the US Constitution where a vow of poverty is required. If this were the case, then we could only elect professional politicians at best... or maybe just the homeless. They'd have to be orphaned and single of course, to ensure that family members can't pursue any economic activity either.

Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer and Ronald Reagan was an actor. Government workers sometimes flew on Pan Am, an airline which served peanuts and played movies starring Ronald Reagan. Do you think we ought to view it as a scandal? Both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan stood to profit from this.

<comment><USER5> 195,000 USD on a hotel bill while lobbying the person that owns the hotel.

<comment><USER4> Adjusted for inflation, that is probably just a day worth of peanuts for Pan Am.

It's also far less than the cost of having Bill Clinton give a speech in Moscow to bankers who are lobbying his wife in the State Department. That happened.

<comment><USER5> That's just pure whataboutism

<comment><USER4> Your claim of "whataboutism" is a tired old attempt to dismiss your own hypocrisy. It's not fooling anybody. The moment you mention it, you have confirmed what is obvious: you don't actually care about the issue, except to get in a dig at the president, and would not hold other presidents to the same standard.

<comment><USER5> This is textbook whataboutism, no one is saying the other is not corruption, no one is saying other instances are ok. I don't know why you think the discussion is a scale with weight on two sides, with one side being a 'winner'. Crime and bribery are wrong, period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is outright bribery. We've become so inured to this kind of thing lately that it doesn't seem to register anymore.

From T-Mobile's perspective: I pay (inflated prices) for hotel stays in a very visible way (bright magenta suits!), you help secure a desired policy outcome.

<comment><USER6> Seems to be a pattern of those claiming they will "drain the swamp" being even more corrupt than their predecessors. Trudeau's attempt up here in Canada is even more disheartening because we actually believed him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Waaay at the bottom of the article is the truth. "The spending is only 14 percent of T-Mobile's total spending on DC-area hotels — half of which went to Hilton hotels...."</comment>


Enslaving your interns for evil and profit - <AUTHOR> http://bitquabit.com/post/enslaving-your-interns-for-evil-and-profit/ <comment><USER2> The capstone course at my university, like many others, was to be matched up with someone in the community and be given an actual task from their business, usually with the understanding that we were likely to produce such crappy code that it was going to be discarded anyhow. (Which was broadly accurate.) My group happened to draw a lawyer's office, which wouldn't have necessarily been a problem, except their first move was to get us a to sign a heavy-duty nondisclosure agreement.

The prof brought this to us, and asked us if we were willing to sign this. My teammates were like, "uhhh", and by that point I'd been reading up enough on legal issues on the internet that I simply said "No." At which point my professor said "Yeah, I was just curious what your reactions would be. I was never going to let you sign these. Here's your new project...."

And forget "intern", we were pay _ing_ for this course! It's amazing what papers people will push at interns and such.

If you're in that position, do not be afraid in the slightest to say no. One of two things will happen: They'll retract their request, or you'll get out of a bad situation before it turns really bad.

<comment><USER3> A NDA is a much different beast than a non-compete clause. I have signed NDAs to work on school projects before, but that did not really affect anything I did outside of the class project. I don't think an NDA would close off any job opportunities. The subject of the article signed a non-compete clause, which prevented him from getting a good job opportunity. I don't think those have much in common.

<comment><USER2> You're right in general, but not in this specific case. The NDA was _so strong_ that if read as written it basically forbade us from ever using anything we learned with them, for any purpose, ever. It did _not_ narrow itself down to internal operations.... which we would not have been privy to anyhow! We weren't going to be sitting in on trials or hearing about their cases anyways. It was almost stronger than what you would consider a "noncompete" in that sense.

And since it was a lawyer's office we were little inclined to assume they'd never exercise their claimed powers.

And again, we were pay _ing_ for this course, not being paid. (In fact their "due consideration" clause alone was a bit amusingly handwavy. It was nearly "for the due consideration of being graciously allowed into their presence to bask in the glow of their wisdom.")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm curious how this even came up. Did the prospective employee make the mistake of actively asking the former employer for permission? Not many companies are monitoring their former interns closely enough to even notice where they end up later. Even if they did look, they wouldn't typically hear about it until past the interview stage, unless I'm missing some reason the interview invitation would be publicly accessible.

A non-lawyer guess at a reasonable course of action: Unless you're a high- level employee with particularly sensitive knowledge, it's probably not a good idea to try to pre-clear future employment with the former employer. That just gives them an excuse to over-interpret the scope and tell you "no". Instead it'd make more sense to evaluate compliance yourself, and if in your judgment the job doesn't violate your agreements, go ahead and take it. No reason to go out of your way to even tell the former employer about it; the odds are heavily against them noticing and caring enough to sue a low-level employee.

<comment><USER5> The candidate withdrew his application, citing his noncompete. I followed up with him to verify there wasn't a misunderstanding, and he forwarded an email with his employer saying there wasn't.

<comment><USER6> I know this is not the point of the post, but how confident are you that this was the real reason he declined?

This non-compete sounds rather unenforceable to me.

<comment><USER7> They rarely are, especially in california. My guess would be the same, that there was some other reason and it was more of an excuse. Maybe he wanted to show loyalty to the other company.

<comment><USER8> He was scared. Just like that. You know all that, but when you face a lawyer or an experienced abusive superior, it's hard to be reasonable. Especially if you're not experienced in dealing with people like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This doesn't help much unless they name the company. If companies that do this are named and shamed, it will tend to happen far less frequently.

Also worth bringing up that this kind of thing is illegal in California. If you're wondering why Silicon Valley sprang up here instead of somewhere else, California's extremely worker-friendly professional code is one reason why.

<comment><USER10> I believe it's actually unenforceable, rather than illegal. The difference being that California courts will refuse to enforce the contract, while if the contracts were actually illegal, they'd punish companies for asking people to sign them.

I've heard that some companies still offer them anyhow, hoping that you won't know they're unenforceable and will obey it anyhow. I also seem to remember a case where a company sued to enforce the non-compete in a non-California court. I don't know how that played out, exactly, and that case might still be pending, but the plaintiff seemed to think that another court might enforce the non-compete even if California's courts wouldn't.

<comment><USER11> They are void under Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 16600.

The California courts have decided that California's policy against them is so strong that when California is applying another state's law under California's choice of law rules, they will be treated as void even if they are acceptable in that other state's law.

(A lot of people don't realize that courts will use law from other states when appropriate. For example, if you and I enter into a contract in Washington, and then we get into a dispute over that contract in Nevada and one of us sues the other in Nevada, the Nevada court will apply Washington contract law. It will use Nevada rules of civil procedure. I don't recall, but I think it uses Nevada rules of evidence, too).

There's one unsettled situation, I believe. That would be where we have a non- compete, and it goes to court in a state that enforces non-competes, and plaintiff wins, and then plaintiff tries to have the judgement enforced in California. The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution would seem to require California to enforce the judgement, assuming that the other state's court had personal jurisdiction over the defendant when it ruled. (States generally have to enforce judgements from other states, even if the case would not have gone the same way under their law).

<comment><USER12> So if someone signs a non-compete in Washington, it's practically null and void if they go move to California for a job in California? What if they move back 3 years later to Washington and the non-compete was for 1 year?

<comment><USER9> Contracts generally have a clause that indicates which state's laws they follow. If you go to work for Microsoft, your non-compete will say that the contract is enforceable under the laws of the state of Washington. You can't escape it by vacationing in California or even by taking a job there.

<comment><USER11> If you have a non-compete with Microsoft, and the terms of the non-compete say Washington law is to be used, and you take a job in California, and Microsoft sues _in_ _California_ , California's strong policy against non-competes will apply. Those parts of the Microsoft contract will be treated as void by the California court. Whatever remains will be interpreted using Washington law as construed by the California court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Non-competes are not enforceable against non-exempt workers (i.e., hourly, part-time, or independent contractors) in most states, but especially in blue states.

In some states, including California, non-competes are not even enforceable against full-time, fairly high-level employees.

You or the intern needs to talk to a lawyer, b/c it sounds like the NLRB should be having a chat with the potential employee's former employer.

<comment><USER14> Forget about a lawyer, the intern should call the state's labor board.

They'll cut them down to size for _free_ and be thrilled to do it.

Seriously, I often see advice on HN to lawyer up over an employee disagreement, but your home state's government probably already has a ton of people waiting to jump all over that situation for you. The laws are so employee-friendly it's often pretty unfair.

<comment><USER15> Even if the intern is justified in doing so, taking legal/regulatory action might not be the best way to start a career. A company this unreasonable may actually enjoy personal and professional destruction.

<comment><USER16> Downvoted for spreading FUD. Software development is a vast enough field that you can't be possibly be blacklisted.

<comment><USER17> Beyond that, I would be more likely to higher someone who stood up for themselves in such a situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If what I'm doing is so sensitive that my employer makes me sign a non- compete, they have to agree to pay me for the duration.

Then it comes down to just how valuable they think your experience really is.

I encourage everyone to negotiate a time limit and compensation into any employment contract that includes a non-compete.

<comment><USER19> Excellent advice, really.

When you give something you should get something in return.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> You seem to have taken some pains to not tell us who the offending employer was.

May I ask why? Perhaps I am being naive, but if there is any reason to not publicly shame them here and now, then I don't understand it. Indeed, this would be very helpful to college students who got offered an internship here, googled them, and then found your blog post.

</comment><comment> steve-howard Microsoft does make interns sign non-compete contracts. I have mine in front of me. It's much tighter in scope, however; I can't work on the same thing as I either worked on or learned confidential information about at MS for 6 months after employment. Not at all as bad as the one in the article, but not the worst.

<comment><USER21> I distinctly remembered the intern employment contract including a non-compete clause (with a 1 year duration) limiting work on any competing product or project (rather than entire employers).. but I didn't have a copy of the contract to check so I withdrew my comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is absolutely ludicrous. Non-competes for interns? I hope the company he worked at isn't in California where their non compete would be void.

</comment><comment><USER23> man i wish college kids were given more training before diving into an internship from the what to expect standpoint. This could be a 20 minute class at their career centers in college: these are the X things you need to know (you are not expected to work 100 hours a week free, don't sign Non-Competes, do ask for letters of recommendation, etc).

<comment><USER24> Internships are supposed to be the real world training though. It seems highly unethical for companies to take advantage of interns because by definition interns are inexperienced.

I had great internships and never felt like I had to be vigilant that the company was trying to take advantage of me, so I could spend my time learning. Its unfortunate that you are most likely correct that colleges should now be informing their students of things they need to avoid or deal with like this.

<comment><USER23> I did a handful of internships in college, mostly irellevant to my current career and was fortunate to never be taken advantage of. i know many people who unfortunately were.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I suspect the intern was using that as an excuse to go somewhere else.

Usually, when this situation occurs, the prior firm's lawyers immediately send a notice of intent to file an injuction as well as a statement that the new firm must retain all data pertaining to that hire, as they may be required to disclose it at a later time.

My wife is currently going through a non-compete negotiation, and she and most of my friends work in the finance industry here in Chicago, where this comes up for almost _every_ employee who does decent work and tries to change employers.

</comment><comment><USER26> My previous company did something sneakier. They didn't ask us to sign a non- compete, they made an informal agreement with its clients and vendors not hire any of us.

Now I have 3 years of experience in this specific field but, after being laid- off, no company in the field will hire me.

<comment><USER27> You are unemployed and the victim of a crime. You are perfectly positioned to take some time to work with a lawyer to make the world a better place and make some money from your troubles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's a good thing that Non-Compete's aren't enforceable in certain states. California for one.

</comment><comment><USER29> I found this awesome explanation while searching for more information (specific to Missouri): <http://www.mobar.org/journal/1998/mayjun/corrigan.htm>

</comment><comment><USER30> IANAL, but odds are that this "agreement" would be ruled as non-enforceable by most reasonable courts in the US.

It's not like the guy was VP of software development. He was an intern. The whole reason he has the job is to presumably transfer the things he learns into various other roles.

[http://www.heydary.com/publications/non-competition- agreemen...](http://www.heydary.com/publications/non-competition- agreements.html)

Both you guys should completely ignore the non-compete and see if they try to enforce it. That's a lot of money for the loss of an intern. :-)

<comment><USER31> If I were the intern in question, I would have withdrawn my application rather than proceed like that. I would never want to create an adversarial relation with a current or former employer unless they left me with no other alternative.

It would suck to lose a shot at a great job, but I think it's worth the loss to maintain a reputation as a loyal team player (even if the employer seems unworthy of loyalty) and move on to a more worthy employer when I can find a way to do so that won't raise their ire.

I would draw the line in situations where being a "team player" would require me to act unethically, but in the absence of something like that, I think that over the timeframe of a career, there is net value to being someone that former employers and coworkers recall positively rather than negatively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> After being an intern for 5 years of studying I hoped to get some tips, how to become the slave master now that I have pocketed my Master's finally.

</comment><comment><USER33> In France, such conditions are enforceable... if you pay the guy an indemnity essentially equal to his former salary * duration, for doing nothing instead of working for the competition.

This ensures that such clauses are only enforced when it _really_ makes business sense. But they're often included in contracts anyway, because many employees ignore that they're unenforceable.

</comment><comment><USER34> I second the recommendation in the post - don't sign a non-compete if you can.

A past employer introduced a non-compete half way through my employment. Most engineers ignored repeated HR requests to sign it. I had a few 1:1 discussions with my boss during which I stared with a blank look. Then I just asked: "Have _you_ signed it?" - I was never asked again.

</comment><comment><USER35> While I agree with the spirit of the post, some of it's is a bit inaccurate.

FogCreek did used to run a job board (it was actually created by a FogCreek intern). When Stack Overflow's launched it's job board FogCreek's job board was merged with it in order to give Stack Overflow's board some traction (Joel Spolsky is a co-founder of both companies).

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't understand why a company would choose to enforce a non compete in this situation. The main reason for having interns is to hire them once they graduate. I doubt Bob would consider working at that company again. So the company loses a potential employee and gains nothing.

</comment><comment><USER37> If he's still looking, there are a bunch of California companies who would be happy to hire him.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've signed them when asked and have only been brought into court once. The judge threw the case out in under 10 minutes.

On short, you can't keep someone being gainfully employed simply because you signed a non-compete clause.

</comment><comment><USER39> Is there any precedent in the US of a non-compete being anti-constitutional? As far as I know, most non-competes were determined anti constitutional, as you can't force someone to not get a job. The only time they'd still be viable, would be in the type of examples that OP gave.

<comment><USER40> not really sure how that would apply- the constitution exists to define the powers of the government, and a non-compete contract would be a civil matter between a company and an individual.

<comment><USER9> Any civil matter can also be regulated (regulations can apply to anything, really). But in a practical sense, regulations pertaining to business and professions like this are handled by the states, while the feds really only get into it when it's a matter of worker safety, taxation, those kinds of things. This is why you can laugh at a noncompete in California, while up in Washington, Microsoft gets to own its employees' dreams for years after they leave the company.

Non-competes are so unbelievably worker-hostile that they should really be outlawed everywhere.

I really like the idea of forcing the employer who's enforcing the non-compete to pay full salary for the duration of the non-compete. It seems only fair that if you're trying to keep me off the market because I'm so potentially devastating to your business that you should pay for the privilege.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Benjamin's article is bullshit. The only way to deal with crap like that is name and shame, so that the next time a prospective employee googles the company they notice that they have a habit of fucking employees.

Personally, since Fog Creek is also in nyc, I'm guessing theladders.

theladders is in nyc, indeed is in austin/bay area, simply hired is bay area, I'm not sure where dice and monster are

<comment><USER22> No, they are in Maryland. I don't care about naming the company. I care about putting the kid in a bad position.

<comment><USER41> Said kid is already screwed. You now have a choice: either the next time a prospective employee or intern googles the offending company your blog comes up as a warning, or it doesn't. Which do you think will be more effective preventing behavior like this in the future?

Imagine this post title: "X screwed an intern out of an awesome internship at fog creek" rather than a vague warning to interns not to sign noncompetes.

<comment><USER42> It's not the specific company that is the problem. It's not like they are the only ones doing this. The problem is the practice in general.

Not signing noncompetes isn't a vague warning, it's very specific. I would extend it from interns to everyone other than senior sales staff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> You're asking interns to write a garbage collector during the interview?

<comment><USER44> Why not? Any decent CS course covers garbage collectors. It should be a matter of presenting a known algorithm in pseudocode. Unless they expect the whiteboard code to compile and produce a fully working garbage collector.

<comment><USER45> > _Any decent CS course covers garbage collectors._

In the required core? I'm not so sure that's true. The concept of garbage collection, yes. But garbage collection algorithms would usually be presented in courses like PL or maybe compilers, that are often in the "take 2 of 5" list or maybe even in pure electives. (This is true of a lot of "important" CS "core" algorithms and concepts---every CS department includes them in offered courses but the requirements are usually structured so that not all CS majors will be _required_ to take them.)

<comment><USER46> It was certainly true of the CS course I did in the 80s - as part of the second year (of four) Data Structures and Algorithms course we spent a lot of time looking at memory allocation and garbage collection. This was a compulsory course - even those folks doing joint degrees had to do it.

I'd be amazed if a CS course didn't cover this kind of stuff.

<comment><USER45> Well, it's hard to argue against your 25-year-old personal experience and your amazement.

Less snarkily: I teach university-level CS, and of the five schools I've had direct involvement with (as student or faculty), all covered GC algorithms _someplace_ but I think at least four of them, maybe all five, had at least one path through the major that would avoid covering them. I have researched the situation for certain "core" topics other than GC at dozens of top CS schools and I can promise you that there are many topics that are widely (and correctly) viewed as very important to CS but are not required even at many of the best schools.

<comment><USER46> My comment was intended to demonstrate that 25 odd years ago these things were covered in a non-optional way when the were regarded as fairly esoteric. Today when a lot of mainstream languages have them you'd think a CS course would cover them!

Note I'm in the UK and degree courses here are, as far as I can tell, structured rather differently to those in the US. When I did a CS course the classes required were 80% fixed by your choice of course - there was no flexibility or modularity in the first 3 years, with only the final year allowing for selection of classes. There was no way to graduate without passing the class that included GC algorithms.

Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if this kind of approach has been made more "flexible" to make courses more "accessible".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Non-competes don't prevent you from working at other companies. They only prevent you from actively pursuing work elsewhere. If you signed a non-compete for working on the iPhone you would be allowed to accept a job at HTC, but you couldn't go "I work at Apple and know all their secrets so hire me!" Additionally they can't prevent you from finding work. If you had a very specific expertise on phone antennas, and you had a non-compete for working on the iPhone, the contract would virtually have no relevance.</comment>


Turn Any Bike You Already Own Into a Cargo Bike - <AUTHOR> https://argobikes.com/ <comment><USER2> Nice, copying comment from other thread:

Backed Kickstarter for the Argo and the delivered product exceeded all expectations.

I hope they catch on, the Argo is 1/3 the price of the fancy euro cargo bikes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, this is cool. I don't understand the bottom bracket attachment part. The photo shows the crank arm completely off -- which would take a lot more than 20 seconds! but the video doesn't.

<comment><USER4> It looks like a mount is attached to the bottom bracket, perhaps by a bike shop if the owner is inexperienced with that sort of work, then the cargo bike can easily be attached to and detached from the mount.

There are more videos, one of which explains the bottom bracket topic, but note they are from 2016, see:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL0tbVtr_Ow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL0tbVtr_Ow)

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

@justinator, any context for the apparent dual naming of: argobikes.com and liftbikes.com ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably just a trademark dispute and changing of names (from Lift to Argo), but that's only a guess.

Perhaps to differentiate it from Lyft, since ride sharing companies are getting into the city bike rental biz?</comment></comment></comment>


On Eskimos, Snow and Negative Words - <AUTHOR> http://www.alearningaday.com/2011/11/on-eskimos-snow-and-negative-words.html

<comment><USER2> When building posts on urban legends I find it is helpful to check if they are true, because when they are false (as it is in this case), it tends to ruin the rest of the point.</comment>


A History of Adult Supervision in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-23/a-history-of-adult-supervision-in-silicon-valley <comment><USER2> Even if the people being supervised might often be a bit immature, the term "adult supervision" seems to me very condescending.

<comment><USER3> > Even if the people being supervised might often be a bit immature, the term > "adult supervision" seems to me very condescending.

 _In fact, it was Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page who popularized the concept in a 2001 interview with Charlie Rose. When Rose asked the pair, then still in their 20s, why they had brought in 46-year-old Sun Microsystems and Novell Networks veteran Eric Schmidt as CEO earlier that year, Brin responded, "Parental supervision, to be honest."_

<comment><USER4> > Sun Microsystems and Novell Networks

That resume would be much less impressive today.

<comment><USER3> > That resume would be much less impressive today.

Maybe _because_ Eric Schmidt got taken away from them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting description of Sculley's tenure at Apple as having been "mostly successful".

<comment><USER6> His tenure was hugely successful, especially at the beginning. Apple was in lots of trouble, Mac sales way missed forecast, and Sculley turned the entire company around after firing Jobs and Apple was very profitable for most of his tenure.

Sculley wasn't good at finding the next great thing, so he's a perfect example for most startups. Once the founders figure out what their real business is, the key is execution. If the founders can't do it, bring in someone experienced to do it.

<comment><USER7> The problem with that approach is that outside execs often have their own ideas about what the 'real business' is, founders' wishes be damned.

<comment><USER8> Why is that a problem?

<comment><USER7> It might not be a problem to the business, but it may be one to a founder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I kinda expected an article about how startups treat underage tech workers.</comment>


"How to Live Without Google" - <AUTHOR> "How to Live Without Google" @duckduckgo https://medium.com/@duckduckgo/google-alternatives-e6b3d8f40de2 <comment><USER2> TLDR:

Google Search -> DuckDuckGo (free)

Gmail, Calendar & Contacts -> FastMail (paid)

YouTube -> Vimeo (free with paid options)

Google Maps -> Apple Maps (free), OpenStreetMap (free)

Google Drive -> Resilio Sync (free with paid options)

Android -> iOS (paid)

Google Chrome -> Safari (free), Firefox (free), Brave (free)

Blogger -> Ghost (paid), WordPress (free with paid options)

Google Hangouts -> Zoom (free with paid options), appear.in (free with paid option)

Google Allo -> Signal (free)

<comment><USER3> For Gmail, I'd add [http://mailinabox.email](http://mailinabox.email) (free)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That link you provided does not work.

A few years ago when I was pissed at Google for a penalization (seriously, when you get penalized, and you are using Google's search on your website, it doesn't work), so I had switched to DuckDuckGo for a while for my search engine. And eventually I went back to just using good ol' PHP & MySQL for search.

Anyways, in a fit of rage, I had come up with a list of alternatives as well to get away from Google. Love-hate relationship with Google since they do provide most of the traffic. So we're on good terms again.. but Google decides your trends.. some months they may send me 200-300 visitors a day, and others up to 600.

[http://confessionsoftheprofessions.com/alternatives-using- go...](http://confessionsoftheprofessions.com/alternatives-using-google/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm using DDG, ProtonMail, locally saved documents (because I don't need the cloud for the stuff I'm doing), Firefox Developer Edition, which has gotten so much better recently that I don't miss Chrome. Blogs/ personal websites are are static sites on Github pages or similar services. I have a crappy old iPhone4.

</comment><comment><USER6> Google Search hardly ever finds the stuff I'm looking for these days, so I'm relying on it less and less.

I can't quite figure out how to give up Gmail. It has been my primary email address since Gmail launched. Also, my Gmail address is my Apple ID and that is set in stone AFAICT.

<comment><USER7> you can change your Apple ID if it's a non-apple (mac, me or iCloud domains) email

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202667](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202667)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://prism-break.org](https://prism-break.org)

</comment><comment><USER9> recently i've installed duck duck go as default search engine in mozilla browser, I need to change my behaviour first before totally move on.

</comment><comment><USER10> Unless you're living in a place where Google is not available (i.e., China), why would you try to live without Google?</comment>


Tim O'Reilly's Key to Creating the Next Big Thing - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/business/2012/12/mf-tim-oreilly-qa/?hn=1 <comment><USER2> I liked this part:

"There are way too many people in Silicon Valley who have a lottery mentality, and way too many people who won the lottery who shouldn't have. I hope that they take their good fortune and use it for good." -O'Reilly

<comment><USER3> That's partly why it works though, it attracted the talent and investment dollars needed - to allow waste to occur, so then the odds of some bigger successes increase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The key: create more value than you capture.

Tim O'Reilly first presented this idea in 2009, which is why you might be thinking "hey that's not new": [http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on- stuff-that-matters-...](http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that- matters-fir.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> sorry, whenever i hear "tim o'reilly" nowadays i think "the company which back in the day published good books, now they publish everything, mostly crap"

so before he proclaims his thoughts about he next big thing, he should get his own ( publishing) house in order (i.e.: read the books he publishes).

big fan once, now just meeeh...

<comment><USER6> This is a classic case of middlebrow dismissal.

Please read the original article and think about it critically before commenting. If you would like to comment on Tim O'Reilly as a person please ensure your comments are not ad hominem. <http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad- hominem>

Correct punctuation would also make it easier for other commenters to read and critically think about your comment.

<comment><USER7> Nothing about his punctuation makes his comment difficult to understand.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps, but deliberate illiteracy makes it harder to take seriously.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: r/SpaceX Community Starship Loads Model Experiment - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Czarified/CSLM <comment><AUTHOR> This is _r /SpaceX_ community project curated by _u /Czarified_.[1,2,3]

> _So What is a Loads Model?_

> _In traditional aircraft design, a coarse Finite Element Model (FEM) is > developed to apply loadcases during the sizing and initial testing phase of > the program. I believe there are other methods still used, and I don 't > really know how SpaceX is developing their craft, but there are significant > advantages to this method. For one, the model can be used to determine the > load distribution for internal structure during complex flight cases > (including gross thermal loads). Additionally, loadcases can be created, > applied, and revised to determine feasibility and flight envelope capability > (or vice versa). It's usefulness is degraded when you start to consider re- > entry effect, but as part of this project I'd like to explore that and see > what we can actually simulate._

3D model/mesh ( _Starship.vsp3_ ) designed using _OpenVSP_ [4,5] — _NASA_ 's FLOSS CAD app.

 _FTR, Any contributions are welcome!_

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/user/Czarified](https://www.reddit.com/user/Czarified)

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/awy9t1/cslm_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/awy9t1/cslm_an_introduction_to_my_latest_project/)

[2] [https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/cgmvxi/community_st...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/cgmvxi/community_starship_loads_model_chapter_2/)

[3] [https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/d14032/community_st...](https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/d14032/community_starship_loads_model_chapter_3_ld01/)

[4] [http://openvsp.org](http://openvsp.org)

[5] [https://github.com/OpenVSP/OpenVSP](https://github.com/OpenVSP/OpenVSP)</comment>


Fortune, Failure, Fetish, Fest: Aby Warburg's Glorious Nachleben - <AUTHOR> https://jhiblog.org/2016/07/06/fortune-failure-fetish-fest-aby-warburgs-glorious-nachleben/ <comment><USER2> Can someone please explain how this submission, which has 9 upvotes and no comments (save this one) is still on the HN front page after five hours?

It's far less successful than any other entry on the front page. Clicking to the linked article, it's also not the kind of material that HN is known for.</comment>


Show HN: Fence.Chat – Group chat with people near you from your browser - <AUTHOR> https://fence.chat <comment><USER2> It did not offer more than a request for nickname to me. I am using Firefox.</comment>


Are Chinese hackers targeting U.S. weapons systems? [audio] - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/are-chinese-hackers-targeting-us-weapons-systems

<comment><USER2> I guess I'd have to say "so what?"

In the '85-86 time frame, I worked at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace Company (R.I.P.) on the Harpoon anti-ship missile. It wasn't an overly complicated missile or system, but there were still aspects of the design that Just Didn't Make Sense. Designed in 1970-72, by 1984 docs and institutional memory didn't cover everything any more. Bigger, more complicated, older systems will have even more of the "Just Don't Make Sense" problem.

If Chinese hackers steal some version of some weapons system docs, they're mainly going to be confused by it. Unless they have every subsidiary piece of information (Mil-Standards for everything from bolts to lubricants), test results, and design presentations, and at least some of the design information about interfacing systems (bomb racks, for the Harpoon example, or perhaps bolt patterns on the decks of ships) the engineers who get the docs will mainly spend their time puzzling over gaps in the docs.</comment>


Active Record - <AUTHOR> https://www.martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/activeRecord.html <comment><USER2> I don't know why you've submitted this but I've worked with a project using this active record pattern and had serious problems because it didn't use an entity manager. Due to complexity the same record could get instantiated multiple times and have different contents.</comment>


What I learned from pitching a startup on Good Morning America - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/what-i-learned-from-pitching-a-startup-on-good-morning-america/

<comment><USER2> _A few years ago, my PR company insisted that I train with a coach for an interview they set up for me on GMA. "Why?" I said. "I spent a year of my life building, launching and talking about this site. Isn't that enough preparation?"_

That reminds me when once ago I have worked for a PR guy, actually a corporate communication expert. He ran an expensive training program for CEOs, corporate reps and politicians, which was not only a basic presentation/interview course but included simulated crisis situations with journalists, etc. The funny thing is all of that big shots also thought that professional experience was sufficient to do well in any interview, but during some stages of the course, many of them ended up crying. No matter how much experience, power or money they had, once approached by a pro journalist, they were helpless.

Although a startup interview is not a crisis situation, I believe it's a good advice to get a training before the first one.

</comment><comment><USER3> I still can't get over the $1B prize. Andrew just got massive points for pulling that off.

I'm guessing that it cost $30m to insure that prize. (src="<http://scapromotions.com>)

</comment><comment><USER4> I never realised till now that behind Mixergy was actually someone who had real proper experience with founding and growing a startup. Yes, I read that pitch at the top, but this video says a lot more to me than that line at the top.</comment>


How to build a snow arch - <AUTHOR> http://www.instructables.com/id/Snow_Arch/

<comment><USER2> I think I would have tried with some kind of form, packed snow into it, stood it up, and then taken it away.</comment>


Open Laundry API: connect your washing machine to the cloud - <AUTHOR> http://openlaundryapi.org/

<comment><USER2> This project was made on Polish hackathon called HackWAW in 24h, so it may lack of some features, but feel free to add issues, fork and commit <https://github.com/openlaundryapi> :)</comment>


Girls on film: Australia's 'reality porn' king - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/girls-on-film-australias-reality-porn-king-20121112-29750.html

<comment><USER2> This is actually a pretty interesting story. AW well and truly disrupted the online porn industry decades before "disrupt" was a buzzword. They valued transparancy, connected with customers, had a web style that was vastly different than the competition, and managed to get into a crowded market. Heck, the way they openly showed behind-the-scenes stuff and posted about what gear they used gave them an almost Open Source feel.

What's really interesting is what's come out about how the "founder"'s story was actually a fraud, and how puritans in the government eventually drove them to the other side of the world.

Think what you will about the appropriateness of their product, but I guarantee you that their website has seen more pageviews per day for the last decade than any project to which 95% of us have ever contributed.

</comment><comment><USER3> To be honest, I don't see how this has anything to do with the ethos and general topic of HN. Flagging.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's about an entrepreneur who built a business from scratch and how he got to the stage of building said business. That has everything to do with HN. Far more so than a JavaScript date picker or how airport security is "killing us" (which violates the 'If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic' guideline by a country mile.)

<comment><USER4> Except perhaps there isn't a whole lot of mystery about how to make a porn site, or that such sites make a lot of money, or that law enforcement and the legislative bodies will attempt to shut them down.

<comment><USER5> > ... that law enforcement and the legislative bodies will attempt to shut > them down.

reminds me how heterogeneous the thing we call "western world" actually is.

<comment><USER4> I am not sure I understand your comment.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Disruptions: Top 10 Lists Lead to Less Choice on the Web - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/disruptions-top-10-lists-lead-to-less-choice-on-the-web/

<comment><USER2> The "bubble" isn't such a bad thing with software, IMO. Running a malicious application has much worse consequences than accessing an unpopular webpage.</comment>


Drug Companies and Doctors: A Story of Corruption (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/01/15/drug-companies-doctorsa-story-of-corruption/ <comment><AUTHOR> An older article, but interesting in light of the replicability crisis that has come out since. FTA:

"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of _The New England Journal of Medicine_."

<comment><USER2> Physician here (intensive care, about 10 years of practice).

> It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research > that is published

Absolutely agree. I've tried arguing this with colleagues—that we should be more careful about the clinical conclusions we draw from single studies—but I'm just met with resistance. We just added a new drug to the standard treatment of heart failure, based on a shady Novartis-funded study that decided, in a post-hoc analysis, to exclude something like 50% of the patients after-the-fact (and oh look! now we can show a mortality benefit!). It spits in the face of everything I've learned about the scientific method and clinical research. This is the PARADIGM-HF study and the drug is ENTRESTO in case anyone wants to look into it more. Caveat: it might be a beneficial drug for many patients.

> It is simply no longer possible...to rely on the judgment of trusted > physicians or authoritative medical guidelines

I'm going to disagree with the author on this one. It is possible to trust and rely on your physician, and in many cases you have no choice. Guidelines are just that: guidelines. Not a replacement for careful thought. And I actually like the direction that many guidelines are adopting: one that brings more continual minor updates rather than infrequent major changes. This is a complicated discussion, and depends on what illness you have that leads to your interaction with our health care system, but my advice is to seek out doctors that seem to communicate well with you.

<comment><USER3> Can you provide a source for the 50% post-hoc exclusion? Here is the NEJM paper: [http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1409077#t=article](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1409077#t=article)

<comment><USER2> Ahhh!! I mixed up my studies, that didn't happen in the PARADIGM-HF study. It has other limitations, but I was thinking of TOPCAT.

<comment><USER3> From briefly reading the paper and the post-hoc analysis, it seems that they were very clear about their post-hoc analysis and its limitations. In this situation, whoever are reading into it more than they should (could be novartis and their marketing, could also be the physician colleagues of yours) are the ones that should be criticized, not the authors themselves.

Edit: here are some quotes from the author of the post-hoc analysis

"Referring to the fact that these observations came from a post hoc analysis, Pfeffer said: 'I normally draw a line here, and I wouldn't cross this line if we had things to do for these patients.'

But he added: 'This is a growing part of the heart-failure syndrome. And if we have something that can help these 40% to 50% of people with symptomatic heart failure and an impaired prognosis—if we can improve their prognosis and take care of the safety measures—then I will go below this line by stating that our observations in the Americas—that spironolactone was associated with reduced CV deaths and hospitalizations for CHF—should be taken into account.'"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the saddest part to me:

 _children as young as two years old are now being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with a cocktail of powerful drugs, many of which were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)_

Why are we giving psychiatric drugs to people whose brains aren't fully developed, especially when there is still so much we don't understand about how the brain works?

<comment><USER5> Who said you should blindly trust doctors? Pretty often you'll feel like Don Quixote when dealing with US healthcare.

<comment><USER4> Why consult a health professional if you're not going to trust what they have to say?

When a doctor tells a parent that their two year old is suffering from bipolar disorder and the way to treat that is to take a cocktail of meds then it's not the parents fault when they follow that advice.

<comment><USER6> Why treat doctors as infallible? Do you bring your car to the mechanic and blindly trust what they have to say?

Doctors are no better or worse than any other profession out there. 80% of doctors are pretty bad, and the other 20% make the rest look decent. Just like any profession that has ever existed.

You should be double-checking absolutely every single thing a doctor is telling you - especially important things like giving a two year old psychiatric meds that are not approved by the FDA.

I do agree with your point that it's not the parents "fault" \- but I also would be pretty upset with my parents if they blindly followed whatever advice some guy with a piece of paper told them.

<comment><USER4> Trusting a professional's recommendation is not treating them as infallible, it's called "using the advice you paid for". No I don't blindly trust my mechanic, you shouldn't blindly trust anyone but generally when you seek out a professional's opinion on something it's because you value their expertise.

> You should be double-checking absolutely every single thing a doctor is > telling you

Right, because the average person who knows next to nothing on mental health is going to make a better judgement call on which medication to prescribe their child than their doctor.

Guess what, if that were the case we wouldn't have a story here.

<comment><USER7> _Right, because the average person who knows next to nothing on mental health is going to make a better judgement call on which medication to prescribe their child than their doctor._

Often, yes, the person who cares about the child more than about themselves will make a better decision than a doctor who has 300 more random kids to check that week.

Now, it depends on how that double-checking is done. The simplest way is to get a second (and third, and fourth) opinion, and then judging based on them all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think whole field of medicine is confused.

On the one hand, we have some very good pharmaceuticals. They work very well for their purpose. For example, Naloxone [1] is very good for reviving people who overdose on opiates Some of the modern formulations reflect profiteering [1], but this drug and its cousin (Naltrexone) are very useful.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14782221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14782221)

Two more useful generic drugs are the thyroid medications Synthroid and Cytomel.

On the other hand, most commonly drugs can at best be considered 'palliative' rather than 'curative'. This article talks about the drug industry's efforts to convince people that they'll need to take maintenance drugs for the rest of their lives.

It would be helpful for Medicine to undergo a "back to basics" scrap & re- write of the med schools' curriculum. This will probably take 25 years...

</comment><comment><USER9> And these MDs just shame the whole industry. Bring the status of all hardworking MDs down a notch. No conscience here at all.

What people will do for the all mighty buck.

</comment><comment><USER10> For a punk rock perspective on this issue, I'd encourage you to checkout OxyMoronic by the legendary NOFX.

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

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of how "advisory", pay-to-play rackets like Gartner work. It's dishonest and smarmy and all the more more repulsive when the medical field engages in such practices.</comment>


Ask HN: Where to learn Python 3 for an experienced Python 2 programmer? - <AUTHOR> For an experienced Python 2 programmer, what are the resources to learn what's new in Python 3, and how to program in idiomatic Python 3 way? There are numerous python tutorials out there, but it seems that most of them are either for a beginner Python programmer, starting from the basics, or quite superficial, or focus on migration and compatibility only. Are there documents covering specifically Python 3 new features? I have in mind something in the spirit of what https://babeljs.io/learn-es2015/ does for ECMAScript 5, for example.<p>Thank you! <comment><USER2> Not much to learn.

To get your scripts working (basically):

\- Strings vs bytes (i.e. the reason for v3)

\- Parenthesis for print

Some libraries have been changed a little. Personally, urllib has been the one, I have had the most trouble with.

As for the new features. Look at the release-notes which most of the time as pep numbers. Read the peps.

Some keyword could be: \- generators

\- iterators

\- the "format string" string (prefixed with f)

But it is far from a new language... (Just an incompatible on with the one you know, primarily about strings).

<comment><USER3> Also: use "from __future__ import print_function" to start experimenting with that in older 2.x code. I have found the "bytearray" type (available in both 2.x and 3.x) can be a good way to write mostly the same code for both versions that can start to transition to raw bytes where needed.</comment></comment>