Google is transforming public education with low-cost laptops and free apps - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/technology/google-education-chromebooks-schools.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0 <comment><USER2> I have a daughter in the local school district.

They use Lenovo Chromebooks which are built like brick sh*thouses with proper full-travel keyboards and touchscreens.

Chromebooks work, and I am a big fan of them in education. I have a pretty good idea how hard our teachers work, and I'd hate to think of the Windows bullshit being imposed them, like it's imposed on me and my coworkers.

Chromebooks free up teachers and IT admins from Windows update administration, anti-virus software install and administration at the computer level, and from most other malware other than browser extension malware.

Google Docs is incredible and a huge step forward to the point that where possible, most of my own notes are accessible to me from anywhere I can get into my Google account.

For a child, this means they no longer have to schlep a laptop around. Just an account and a Chromebook or other thin client are needed.

I'm a big fan of Microsoft's recent changes, and generally a pretty heavy Windows user warts and all, but it's interesting that Microsoft have never been able to make say cross-machine sync'd folders work, despite pushing it for like 15 years, whereas DropBox has built a giant business from it.

<comment><USER3> OneDrive works, if one wants to use it. It just came too late.

<comment><USER4> I've been through too many OneDrive snafus to invest more effort into making it work or trusting it for anything. Failed syncs, never-ending syncs, and it has hosed up my OneNote notebooks such that I have a whole set of duplicate notebooks I have tried and failed to fix, which all say "This section isn't available yet. It was added from another device. You'll be able to use it when that device syncs. Section was last modified at (some date over 2 years ago)"

And I am a bona fide Microsoft fanboy former employee of 15 years!

<comment><USER5> Is the onenote data not available as XML?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A couple personal anecdotes related to this: I volunteer at a school to help maintain around 300 iPads and ~20 iMacs. It's awful. (I am a longtime Mac user at home BTW). The management tools around updating the iPads, installing apps, and configuring users are all terrible, unreliable and old. It leads to teacher frustration and less use of the equipment in the classroom. The only thing worse are the windows computers, which are in such bad shape that they just stopped using them.

An example: To install an app for all students on the iPads, we need to plug them all in to a big USB hub, then connect a Mac with management software to it and run a sync procedure. It fails on about 10% of the devices, so we run it again. Each run takes several minutes. There are over-the-air methods for doing this, but they're corporate solutions not provided by Apple and are pretty expensive.

So given all that, if ChromeBooks promise per-user customization and document storage with much simpler administration, it's no wonder they're taking over.

<comment><USER7> >The only thing worse are the windows computers, which are in such bad shape that they just stopped using them.

Sounds like they are old and haven't been maintained properly.

I have experience with small (~200) and large (~6,000) professionally maintained Windows installations. They operate like a finely tuned engine, allowing you to focus on your core work.

And that's the key. There are hacks who call themselves "IT" and there are true IT folks who have the training and knowledge to do things right the first time around.

Prior to my first experience with professionally managed Windows installations I had completely ignored that entire world. We built our own computers --save laptops-- and every installation, save the initial image, was locally managed by the engineer running that machine. Works great. No question about it.

From experience with 20~30 machine installations, I can't remember a single serious issue in, say, 20+ years other than a hard drive failure. No real hardware failures outside of that. No viruses or any such problems in, again, 20+ years and multiple generations of OS and hardware. The key, I'll guess, is to buy good hardware and install good software.

And so, when I read accounts that describe nightmares I have to wonder what people might be doing. I don't understand it at all. I've been using PC's since the very original IBM PC and I can't remember a nightmare scenario, ever.

As for Mac's and iPads. I've had experience with ~200 seat Mac installations. They have the same issues PC's might have. The only "nightmare" I could point out is that, generally speaking, Mac users are utterly clueless. This excludes developers, of course. I saw IT burn time with the dumbest issues, whereas the PC users in the same business (about 200 as well) really only consumed IT time when there were hardware or software installation issues for the most part.

iPad's? I consider them to be useless for but a narrow set of business or educational applications. Cash register? Sure. Authoring documents and doing heavy web work? Nope. In general terms I am pretty down on tablets. I think they've manage to ruin desktop software. The transition of something like Skype from a computer-class application to mobile-first turned the program into a circus act that uses 10x more screen space for everything. Touch, as far as I am concerned, for business and other applications, is bullshit.

Chromebook is a far better choice, one that is easy to manage and deploy.

<comment><USER8> > Sounds like they are old and haven't been maintained properly.

That is the heart of the issue. Maintenance should _not_ be so difficult. It has generally been a non-issue for most Linux distros _for over a decade_. Windows maintenance is difficult on purpose. There is an entire economy based on windows maintenance. It's not just a headache, it's like shooting yourself in the foot.

> There are hacks who call themselves "IT" and there are true IT folks who > have the training and knowledge to do things right the first time around.

Since we are talking about public schools, I accept the reality that there will, more often than not, be a "hack" employed. Even so, their job should be _that_ easy. The reason that it is _not_ is that Windows promotes a culture of "hacks" and misinformation. GNU/Linux has the _opposite_ culture, and it's _free_.

<comment><USER6> And in my case, there are no IT employees at all. For some reason there is budget available to buy the hardware and none to maintain it. This is changing slowly but for the moment it's the unfortunate reality. So it's up to teachers and volunteers to try and make things work, and as you were saying if things are too difficult they just stop using them.

And a side note, I was a Windows user for a decade and have now been a Mac user for a decade and the level of maintenance required for a Mac is _easily_ an order of magnitude less than Windows.

<comment><USER8> > I was a Windows user for a decade and have now been a Mac user for a decade > and the level of maintenance required for a Mac is _easily_ an order of > magnitude less than Windows.

That's still generally the case, but it's worth mentioning that over the last decade, Windows has improved significantly. It's still the worst OS, but it's a lot closer to OS X now.

After decades of innovation, we now have operating systems like NixOS and Guix that are inherently maintainable in ways Windows and OS X can only dream of. If we had a user-friendly NixOS (or Guix) for schools, etc. it would be _trivial_ , even for teachers and volunteers, to maintain hundreds, or even thousands of systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have mixed feelings about this. Personally, working as a contractor at Google was one of the interesting jobs I have had and I generally like Google.

That said, after reading Dave Eggers' excellent book "The Circle" last year and having watched the movie yesterday, I was reminded of the dangers (even if fictional in the case of the book) of a monopoly controlling knowledge. The book/movie is obviously about Google and information monopolies even if the fictional company is named The Circle. Buying the education business with free/inexpensive services definitely increases Google's chance of being the information monopoly.

Personally I like to pay for services. I pay for FastMail and just use GMail as a backup email. I pay for Evernote instead of using free offerings like Keep. I pay for Office 365 to get lots of cloud storage and the Office apps for the rare times when I need them. I pay for using GCP and I buy movies and TV shows from Google Play and Apple. It is a cliche, but I like to be the customer and not the product.

I understand that School districts are on a tight budget, so it is understandable that they make use of free (or priced under-market) services.

<comment><USER10> Did the invention of printing press made them a monopoly? Google does not generate information; they facilitate it. The more the information is free, the more it will be converted to knowledge by these same schools and students. Your comparison of it to your values of buying things for yourself, is misleading.

<comment><USER11> I'm glad you're questioning that assertion, but I don't think your counter- argument is very convincing. The economics of the printing press were different than the economics facing Google. For example: Google search benefits from network effects (clicks are used to improve future search results). Google mostly provides information goods (zero marginal cost of production), but books aren't really a perfect information good.

Google _is_ darn near close to a monopoly on search (at least, Peter Thiel made that the premise of Zero to One), which isn't to say they're also a monopolist in every other field they're in.

<comment><USER10> I don't know what your definition of "perfect information good" really is, but books have been converting information into knowledge for hundreds of years. Before the printing press, scribes used to hand-duplicate. The invention of printing press effectively changed the whole scene (just as the searching on the Internet changed Internet). Irrespective of the concerns of privacy etc, Google provides the best sauce of technology which facilitates searching the information (which converts to knowledge). As far as I can see, Google isn't in the business of creating knowledge.

<comment><USER11> The term "information good" is from economics: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_good)

An information good is one for which it's very cheap to produce additional units. Unfortunately, I'm probably abusing the term, since books are listed as an example of information goods. The idea is that most of the cost of producing the book goes into the content (writing, editing, etc.) and actually printing one additional book is cheap. (When I said books are "imperfect" information goods I meant that they still require paper and shipping and retailing and such, but it's probably just a bad use of the term.)

There's a fantastic book about the economics of information goods called "Information Rules" ( [https://www.amazon.com/dp/087584863X](https://www.amazon.com/dp/087584863X) ). Software is an information good so this covers some topics relevant to the digital economy. My favorite part is the chapter on lock-in. In particular the discussion around the equation:

profits from a customer = quality advantage + switching costs

which puts "(marginal) goodness of your product" on equal footing with "pain you can inflict on your customer for leaving".

<comment><USER10> The original topic was not on the topic of economics, rather, the monopolies any invention creates. The economics of things have existed alongside everything else in human history. The point was whether Google is a monopoly in the context of information. My contention was to identify the fact that Google only facilitates the information (like what printing press did to the information people were keeping orally, or through scribes).

If Google is the monopoly in the sense that the OP describes, then a unified Internet itself is a bigger monopoly. Break apart the monolith of the Internet itself, and you have more player contending equally in facilitating search etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > he said: "I cannot answer for them what they are going to do with the > quadratic equation. I don't know why they are learning it." He added, "And I > don't know why they can't ask Google for the answer if the answer is right > there."

Wow. Back when I worked for Boeing on the 757 design, there were engineers that were "formula pluggers" who pulled formulas out of manuals and used them. Then there were engineers who understood the formulas - where they came from, what assumptions they were based on, and how to derive them.

The latter used the formulas correctly, the former often blindly misused and misapplied them.

Googling for a formula is not how proper engineering is done.

<comment><USER13> You're talking about engineers. Of course you need to understand some formulas if you're going to be an engineer. But for most of the people who aren't going to do that, they're useless.

<comment><USER14> Except the quadratic formula, just as an example, has a lot of positive qualities when taught to children:

* The longform is fairly complex, so it is non-trivial to remember or recount. You can't just guess it (at least without knowledge well beyond it). So it looks like "magic".

* It is a great introduction to _what_ formulas are. They are non-trivial proofs of concepts that took research and logic to conclude.

Learning logic and learning patterns, especially the non-obvious ones like the qf, are what promote analytical thinking. We need _more_ of that, not less. Maybe the problem is more that kids are shown a magic formula and made to mechanically repeat it on a couple dozen data sets than to actually learn how to reach conclusions _like_ the qf. Making kids proof it would probably be more valuable than making them repeatedly use it beyond a few times to assure them it is valid magic math.

<comment><USER15> One of my teachers back in high school made a comment to the effect of: "This class isn't about learning math. It's about practicing critical thinking skills."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16>
       "I cannot answer for them
       what they are going to do
       with the quadratic equation.
       I don't know why they are
       learning it."

If Mr Rochelle cannot answer this question, and recommends just googling it, he might not be a good person to be anywhere near STEM eduction.

<comment><USER17> Also, the most literal answer "solve quadratic equations" is kind of the most meaningless, what a physicist does with it is different than what a graphic designer does with it. The teacher might be saying they don't know in that context and would rather not lie to individual students that it's super important for them in particular way.

<comment><USER18> That's like saying you don't know what you'd "use a lever" for.

<comment><USER17> And I imagine after answering that question a few hundred times it might take on a level of kafkaesque absurdity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > I cannot answer for them what they are going to do with the quadratic > equation. I don't know why they are learning it

This sounds disingenuous to me. There are lots of things kids and college students and adults learn that have no immediately foreseeable application. I'm sure most people on HN have thought about it. I wonder what the consensus is.

My take is that learning how to use technology should not be a classroom priority, for many reasons. One of those reasons is that there is no guarantee that whatever tech you learn will stick around. I had a high school teacher insist that we use Ask Jeeves rather than Google because she "liked it better."

It feels as if the adoption of Google products is driven much more by convenience for the school system than by a strong belief that it improves learning. I'm not an expert, but I remember reading more than once that technology doesn't seem to have a meaningful main effect on learning (though perhaps has a mild interaction effect with the teacher.)

The article itself barely addresses the question of learning outcomes, and focuses so much more on privacy.

<comment><USER20> This is probably taking his off-hand remarks too seriously, but I don't think anyone really uses the quadratic equation for anything. Quadratic functions definitely come up, and the derivation of the quadratic formula is definitely useful to learn, but the formula itself seems like a mathematical dead end.

In general I think being forced to learn things with no clear application is part of why the school system fails so many people.

<comment><USER19> I see your position. We should acknowledge that both sides of this are well- trodden, and the article even touches on it:

"It puts Google, and the tech economy, at the center of one of the great debates that has raged in American education for more than a century: whether the purpose of public schools is to turn out knowledgeable citizens or skilled workers."

I guess over time I've started leaning more toward "knowledgeable citizens," _but_ I don't know why they need to be mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER21> You can do both if the tools being used are commodified but not if they're propietary. Chromebooks and Google applications are proprietary products so they're at odds with creating knowledgeable citizens that can work and think outside Google sanctioned confines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For us Microsoft tools were the highest price point and we didn't use 50% of the features. Apple Enterprise is a joke though they are making good progress now. Google had just enough of a tool at a price we could really justify to the tax payers. As for Google evangelism we offer Google docs and office 365 online. Students are free to choose as Google and Microsoft have been awesome at cooperation in tools. We also have a training with outgoing seniors about how and why free accounts exist on websites. I've always told them they can used a paid account to retain privacy. To this date no seniors have chosen this. Most don't even convert accounts but just use takeout, the bulk data download tool.

<comment><USER23> I would be very happy if the kids became conversant in libre office. It has all the functionality they need and they would be comfortable with it going into college.

<comment><USER24> I'm a big fan of free software. My desktop is Linux. But I almost never use LibreOffice. Can't access and edit the docs on my Android, nor my wife's work Mac. Nor my parent's Windows PC when I visit them. I'm definitely not installing software on my parent's PC. I'll be responsible for the next 100 "something isn't working" phone calls.

<comment><USER23> Is there no way to install LO on the Mac or Android? Do you use Google Docs instead?

<comment><USER24> Can't install stuff on my wife's company Mac. But a browser is everywhere. Yes, I begrudgingly use Google Docs. One big challenge to alternative offerings is compatibility. There is usually little resistance to asking someone to accept a Google Doc or an MS Doc. I wish there were a widely accepted open source alternative.

<comment><USER23> Agree. I even started using Google Docs with a contractor. Not happy about it, but it more-or-less worked. I'm on a slow network and I find Google Docs annoyingly unresponsive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Google is providing cheap, stable laptops for education and most people commenting here are painting Google as an evil data-hungry corporation. I get that companies should be subject to scrutiny due to their outsized responsibility and impact, but this is just silly.

In 2013 only 60% of children had internet access at home in the U.S.[0]

It might not seem like a big deal for HN readers, but computer access is still a really, really big deal for kids in the U.S.

[0][https://www.childtrends.org/wp- content/uploads/2012/07/69_fi...](https://www.childtrends.org/wp- content/uploads/2012/07/69_fig1.jpg)

<comment><USER26> Provide cheap, stable laptops that do not have any bias to any corporation, no integration with Google services, or anything, and this would be true.

But this way? Sorry, but after the past years you can't honestly believe this is pure altruism.

<comment><USER27> _Sorry, but after the past years you can't honestly believe this is pure altruism._

Of course it's not. That doesn't mean all parties can't benefit.

<comment><USER26> I'm sorry, but that's not relevant. A child should never have to enter any such arrangement where they have to give up anything.

Anything shy of pure altruism regarding schools for young children should be considered automatically evil. Making profit with children is always bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I teach high school kids as a part time.

I have around 15 students, and afaik all of them use Android. Most of them are 13-14 years old. They have absolutely no understanding of how advertising- based businesses work, a poor knowledge of privacy settings or the workings of data deletion, nor do they have any remotely adult conception of why they should worry about those things.

They share everything. Sometimes they even take pictures of my whiteboard doodles.

Google's objective is in plain sight for everyone to see. Imo, this Chromebook move is not good at all.

<comment><USER29> Zuboff's _surveillance capitalism_ is instructive:

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

video: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=0QwPHinDdOc](https://youtube.com/watch?v=0QwPHinDdOc)

<comment><USER28> Thank you for the links, and yes it is. In particular, Zuboff's third law: "Every digital application that can be used for surveillance and control will be used for surveillance and control."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > "I cannot answer for them what they are going to do with the quadratic > equation. I don't know why they are learning it." He added, "And I don't > know why they can't ask Google for the answer if the answer is right there."

To me, this is giving Google much more than your privacy, customer loyalty or ad exposure. Your are giving away some of your very basic abilities: if you only learn to search with Google, you will not learn how to reason on your own. Knowledge stored in your brain is of much better use than that on Google, because your brain is capable to perform much more powerful queries on it.

However, using a brain at its maximum power needs years of training, which is what one would really expect to receive in school. This training requires that your brain works on its own, without external help from a search engine, for more or less the same reason you will hardly become a strong cyclist if you train on a motorbike.

Schools should really be wary of too much computer time for children.

<comment><USER31> >To me, this is giving Google much more than your privacy, customer loyalty or ad exposure. Your are giving away some of your very basic abilities: if you only learn to search with Google, you will not learn how to reason on your own. Knowledge stored in your brain is of much better use than that on Google, because your brain is capable to perform much more powerful queries on it.

Sorry, but this just sounds like propaganda. As an academic, Google is the single most useful tool at my disposal. It doesn't inhibit original thought, but lets me focus on what's actually new by giving me access to things that are already known and available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is a great business move, the children probably have no option but to provide their personal information to Google.

<comment><USER33> What a disgrace!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Google I feel has broken Microsoft Office monopoly the difference will be felt 10 years from now though. Earlier everyone had grown up using Microsoft office now most children will grow up using Google Office suite. Though I still think Google sheets is still way behind Microsoft Excel. The day Google can build a convertor that can convert all excel files and macros etc I would shift to Google sheets currently I have too many years of work to move to Google sheets. The next generation of students growing up with Google won't have the same problems.

<comment><USER4> Isn't proficiency with Microsoft Office still expected in most workplace environments? Google docs, sheets, slides all fall short of the capabilities of their equivalent applications in Office. The Google apps are good enough for many tasks, but really don't cut the mustard if you are accustomed to the depth of capabilities in Office. Are we doing students a disservice by sending them out into the world without proficiency or even familiarity with Office?

<comment><USER35> I think if students know the basics from Google they'll be fine picking up Office. Lots of people learned Office on the job after coming from Lotus 1-2-3, or electric typewriters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> They are also building profiles on every single one of those students which is not only creepy but downright dangerous.

Imagine if Trump decided he no longer wanted to hire anyone for a public sector job, if they are pro-green politics.

Society will come to regret this and I'll probably still be alive to witness it.

<comment><USER37> The privacy policy for education and the article both explicitly say they are not doing this.

<comment><USER24> > say they aren't doing this.

Well, problem solved! Neither the government nor Google have ever lied to us. ;-)

<comment><USER38> Without an example that shows that Google has a habit of lying your comment just wastes people's time. Do your research and make your comment useful.

<comment><USER24> Oh lighten up. The defendant is already infamous. Whether or not you think Google is "evil" is largely a matter of opinion and definitely not worth anyone's time debating. It's already been done over and over. But it's still my right to distrust any big company or government with my data, along with deciding the odds that current or _future_ leadership will break promises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Honestly, this isn't a big issue for two reasons:

1\. The Google stuff works. I would have loved for that kind of organization and management in my elementary school classes. Google docs is also great and means I don't have to beg my not so wealthy parents for a Microsoft word license (or learn in the 4th grade how to pirate it).

2\. Let's not kid ourselves, everyone is going to make a Google account anyway. As long as the school accounts aren't used in collecting ad data (which they're not) this is a non issue.

<comment><USER24> Your 2nd point and obedient acceptance of the inevitability highlights just how much of a monopoly it is and how desperately we need alternatives. Or to just break up the monopoly.

<comment><USER39> Again,the products are good. It's not like Comcast where I feel screwed when I can only use them. If I want to use a different email provider right now I could very easily, but none of them appeal to me.

<comment><USER24> My problem is that it's _everywhere_ you turn. Phone. SEO. Maps. Videos. Browser. Email. Search. The list is endless, and growing and for a phone is there really an alternative? The other choice is another big company who will collect data about you too. Agreed Comcast is worse. That's not exactly a high bar. :-D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "Free" apps.

The only cost is the student's privacy. Gotta get them sucking at the Google teat early, and in to their database as soon as possible.

<comment><USER41> Well of course! How else will you manage to look at historical trends of your consumers? Gotta start sucking the cash out of the little ones from an early age.

I wish someone from the GNU/Linux crowd could make a chromebook-like software set that was really Free software.

<comment><USER42> Doesn't come with lobbying money, though, so in the end it wouldn't make much of a difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> With regards to quadratic equation comment, Aside from being one of the simplest non trivial derivations/ uses of algebra you could teach children (and often the derivation is not taught...), the solutions to polynomials have a very important place in the history of mathematics and the development of modern algebra (which of course is also not taught...) Should children all be forced to gain an appreciation for the significance and origins of modern algebra? I think, yes. We force them to learn history of whatever country they reside in, year after year. We force them to learn and appreciate novels and literary analysis (equally "useless"). If they don't have an appreciation for mathematics is or does (and quadratic equation is a simple example leading up to some VERY important developments), how will they really know whether or not they want to have a career involving math some way in the future?

</comment><comment><USER44> Google Classroom has an interesting monopolising effect on schools. Google Classroom has changed the price dynamics hugely; making it impossible for other providers to really compete since they give so much away for free. It is really a shame - Google Classroom (the app) isn't the best LMS as it is quite unresponsive and confusing.

<comment><USER23> Exactly. This is an example of the _possible_ downside of relaxed anti-trust enforcement: leveraging your domination in one area to brutalize competition in another.

Also, they've been caught once not keeping kid info private. They'll do it again. But, free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Chromebooks are much better than iPads for this kind of a task for sure, but I wouldn't want everything my child wrote and looked up throughout his development sent to a major advertising corp. This data should still be maintained by the school or by a company the school partners with with a zero internal or external sharing policy.

<comment><USER46> It seems to be maintained by a company the schools partner with with a zero internal or external sharing policy:

From [Common questions about Classroom]([https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6025224?hl=e...](https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6025224?hl=en))

Does Classroom contain ads? No. Like all G Suite for Education services, Classroom contains no ads and never uses your content or student data for advertising purposes. Learn more about [privacy and security]([https://edu.google.com/trust/](https://edu.google.com/trust/)).

<comment><USER47> [https://www.eff.org/press/releases/google-deceptively- tracks...](https://www.eff.org/press/releases/google-deceptively-tracks- students-internet-browsing-eff-says-complaint-federal-trade)

IMHO google is constrained by laws protecting minors here, not because the Google nor even the schools care that much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> If there was a chromebook that came with a SIM card and an unlimited data plan, worldwide, I would buy it in a heartbeat and replace my Macbook. I like the idea of cloud storage, the ability to instantly log onto a new machine and have everything there. This critically depends on 100% connectivity though.

<comment><USER49> The Chromebook pixel from 2013 had 4G LTE, for some reason they didn't include it on the 2015 one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a _huge_ step in the right direction. Microsoft Office and Windows are a huge unnecessary and practically unmaintainable approach.

That being said, public education would benefit even more from using a consistent, maintainable, and free Linux distribution.

Public schools but _a lot_ of worthless effort into providing computers for students that are (attempt to be) secure and usable. A good Linux distribution (like NixOS, or even Ubuntu) has tools to provide a consistent maintained operating system for tens or hundreds of systems. This has been the case for _over a decade_ , but administrations have assumed that since everyone uses Windows, that they would be swimming upstream to do otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is there any evidence that computers in the classroom improve results of the 3 R's ?

</comment><comment><USER50> 15 yo high school student here; we have Google Apps accounts and use chromebooks every once and a while. The district has carts of chromebooks that are brought in when students need to do research or work on projects in class. They work pretty well. (The district also has Mac Minis, which are used by the teachers and in the library; they are imaged to Windows if the teacher chooses.)

Happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER51> Do you use them for having fun or just for homework? What other computers do you use?

<comment><USER50> We don't take them home, just for working on projects in class. Of course, nobody _ever_ goofs off when given an hour of relative freedom.

At school, chromebooks and the Macs in the library. At home, whatever we have --we don't get computers to take home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> > Referring to his own children, he said: "I cannot answer for them what they > are going to do with the quadratic equation. I don't know why they are > learning it."

In case anyone is curious, this video has a good visual explanation of how to derive the quadratic formula:

[https://youtu.be/EBbtoFMJvFc](https://youtu.be/EBbtoFMJvFc)

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm still on the fence to whether or not the ability for big companies to give away free software is a net good or not. On one hand, schools theoretically have more money now to spend on mission critical things. On the other hand, the theoretically best possible product will in all likelihood will not be free. Such a product could give exponential gains in productivity to teachers, easily offsetting whatever cost is incurred.

<comment><USER54> Classroom is NOT free for schools.

<comment><USER55> Do you have a source for this? Their support documentation says otherwise.

"Classroom is a free web service for schools, non-profits, and anyone with a personal Google Account." [https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6020279](https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6020279)

"Classroom is free for all users." [https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6025224](https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6025224)

<comment><USER56> Classroom is free, I think the device management MDM software costs $30 per device for a perpetual license:

[https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1388674-managing- chro...](https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1388674-managing-chromebooks)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Dying Man's Lost Recipe Made His Daughter a Multimillionaire - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-23/how-her-dying-dad-s-lost-recipe-made-hiroe-tanaka-a-millionaire?utm_campaign=news&utm_medium=bd&utm_source=applenews <comment><USER2> Canny business woman uses folksy story to make millions.</comment>


Interested in a cryptographically signed identity? - <AUTHOR> I have a few invites to Keybase if you want to skip the line of 25,000+ people on the waiting list. :-) https://keybase.io/daniellamb <comment><USER2> I also have 5 invites, send me an email through the address in my profile and I'll invite you.

[https://keybase.io/raed](https://keybase.io/raed)

<comment><USER3> I have 20 left :-) drop me a mail and I'll invite you [https://keybase.io/mikebos](https://keybase.io/mikebos)

edit: Mehh should be in the main thread, sorry

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've got 20 invites left as well, if anybody else wants one...

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd love one if you have any left :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I would like to receive one</comment>


Phase 2, NYC graffiti pioneer who pioneered "Impact Expressionism," dies at 64 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/arts/phase-2-dead.html <comment><USER2> rest in peace brother.</comment>


Abstruse Goose: A Mathematician's Apology - <AUTHOR> http://abstrusegoose.com/a/185.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought that applying for a job at Google was applying for a job in advertising ...</comment>


Magic Leap – How Rigged Was the Rolling Stone Demo? - <AUTHOR> http://www.kguttag.com/2018/01/17/magic-leap-how-rigged-was-the-rolling-stone-demo/ <comment><USER2> There's no point in getting uppity about whether the picture frames were used as markers to improve Simultaneous Location and Mapping, the demo was shot from a fixed Point of View, it was too lame for SLAM to even be a factor. You can't call fake on something that isn't there to begin with.

[https://youtu.be/OLtDeonCAYE](https://youtu.be/OLtDeonCAYE)</comment>


Stupid is better than smart - <AUTHOR> http://christianowens.com/post/3016971050/be-stupid

<comment><USER2> If you (re)define a word to be sufficiently broad, it's particularly difficult to find positive aspects to it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Glorification of the stupid is nihilistic. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. So reason is required to produce the values on which human life depends.

In "The Roots of Nazi Psychology: Hitler's Utopian Barbarism", Jay Gonen described the typical Nazi mentality as being a contradictory mix of brutality and intellect. He analyzed these "brilliant morons" in Freudian terms, but according to Leonard Peikoff, in his book "The Ominous Parallels", the roots of Nazi stupidity glorification are actually to be found in the philosophy of Kant who famously attacked reason.

<comment><USER4> > Kant who famously attacked reason

[citation needed]

Yes, Kant wrote books called "Critique of pure reason" and "Critique of practical reason", but they were not attacking reason.

You needn't take my word for it. Here is an excerpt from the article on Kant in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is online but written by experts and very good indeed):

"Kant's main goal is to show that a critique of reason by reason itself, unaided and unrestrained by traditional authorities, establishes a secure and consistent basis for both Newtonian science and traditional morality and religion. In other words, free rational inquiry adequately supports all of these essential human interests and shows them to be mutually consistent. So reason deserves the sovereignty attributed to it by the Enlightenment."

"Famously attacked reason", forsooth!

<comment><USER3> If you study this a little deeper, you will discover that it is improper to cast Kant in the role of being a champion of reason.

On the contrary, Kant made no secret of his motive for writing those books. His aim was to make a metaphysical domain for religion.

His method was to drive a wedge between the natural world and the human mind.

In the Preface to the Second Edition of the "Critique of Pure Reason", he says "I must, therefore, abolish knowledge, to make room for belief."

To understand Kant's main gimmick, see "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" by Ayn Rand.

<comment><USER4> Kant did indeed write the words you quote. But I wonder whether you've actually read them in their context, because it seems very obvious to me that he is applying this statement only to _metaphysics_. He is saying that we cannot know for certain (for instance) whether God exists, or whether "free will" is real. Now, this may be right or wrong, but it certainly isn't _anti- rational_.

As for the "wedge between the natural world and the human mind": if by that you mean that, e.g., he insisted that our minds aren't presented directly with Things Themselves, and that perception is an indirect affair: yup, he did, and he was right, and again I see nothing anti-rational in that. (Yes, I know Objectivism teaches otherwise. So much the worse for Objectivism.)

<comment><USER3> It is anti-rational to try to establish a premise for reasoning by arbitrary assertion. In other words, an evidence-free reason is no reason at all.

Simply stating a position in order to propel a line of thought is just empty talk, to be dismissed without further consideration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I disagree. One doesn't have to be either smart or stupid. One has to be smart and know when its best to act stupid.

And yes, one can outsmart stupid, by being smart and stupid as required.

</comment><comment><USER6> In case not everyone is aware, this is a campaign for Diesel. I first saw this as a storefront display in Santa Monica saying "BE STUPID" in big bold letters, which led me to a quick search and to: <http://www.diesel.com/be- stupid/>

Clever campaign. I don't know of many clothing companies that have marketing slogans that get discussed on HN.

</comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't make sense to me. This sounds like the opposite of what John Stuart Mill said about Socrates and the fool.

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."

\- John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863)

</comment><comment><USER8> So ... is that stupid for certain values of smart? Or is it smart for certain values of stupid?

I agree with the basic premise: Think outside the box. Don't get stuck in a mental rut. And most importantly, don't let others with no vision bring you down. But I think the validity of your message was undermined by how you said it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Actually it's smart to take risks. The expected value of foundig a startup is sufficiently high to make it a rational decision in most cases. I recently read an article which stated that most successful entrepreneurs are actually highly risk averse- they only take carefully calculated risks.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the saying go.

It's better to be lucky than smart.

I would replace stupid with ignorant.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Stupid" is not brilliant. "Don't be stupid" is a heuristic used where an idea does not conform to 'known' patterns. It's about someone else telling you that whatever you came up with does not appear to mesh with their understanding of reality. Those who ignore "don't be stupid" and succeed, not because they were stupid and there's something inherently positive about being stupid. It's because the heuristic was wrong this time. Someone applied it wrong, or maybe their understanding of the world is false.

When the heuristic is correct... well... the -other- saying goes 'if I had a nickle for every fool...".

For example, stupid has hangover. Smart has hangover too. The question is, is the hangover worth it. If it's worth it, then you're not actually stupid. You are in fact smart, and accepted the label 'stupid' that someone else gave you. On the other hand, if I got a hangover, a 5 hour hole in my memory, lost my wallet, and ended up in a hospital... probably actually stupid (happened last year). Cause that really wasn't worth it.

</comment><comment><USER12> _The world is full of smart people doing all kinds of smart things. Thats smart._

That's.

<comment><USER13> _Like baloons_...

 _stupid has the one hell of a hangover._

Either he's trying to make the style mirror the content intentionally, or he just doesn't care much for standard English. I disagree either way.</comment></comment>


How TheLadders.com scam works - <AUTHOR> http://corcodilos.com/blog/3219/theladders-how-the-scam-works-2

<comment><USER2> The Ladder's preys on the illusion that there are such things as "$100K+ jobs," when in fact there are truly just "$100K+ employees." Someone either does or doesn't have what it takes to add enough value to warrant that salary. People who can bring more than 100K in added value to a company probably don't need to use a site like the Ladders to get a job.

<comment><USER3> I agree, but it's still _hard_ to add $100K as a McDonald's server - clearly, some jobs make it easier to add that much value than others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The whole concept of charging job seekers for access to listings is just ridiculous. Anyone who falls for a scam like that deserves to lose their money and time. As a hiring manager I would never advertise on a site that charges candidates.

<comment><USER5> Any job seeker who is worth 100K+ won't pay the subscription fee anyway... their listings show the location and often the company name, even to non- paying users. It doesn't take much effort to figure out how to go find the actual posting directly from the actual company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's my impression that people who command a 6-figure salary generally don't need help finding work. Reading this reminds me of the "work from home" infomercials they show at night. "For an nominal fee, we'll help you make $5-$10K/month!" And it seems like those infomercials, the only people making money are the ones who own the company.

</comment><comment><USER7> TheLadders was present at the NYC@Boston startup event a few weeks ago, which supposedly had to turn away some companies interested in being there. I'm surprised the people running the event would let a company like this recruit.

<comment> brown9-2 They seem to employ a several dozen developers in NYC: <http://www.cenedella.com/job-search/photos-of-us/>

I wouldn't think a giant job and resume board needed this many people to run.

<comment><USER8> A Lisp/functional programming meetup group I sometimes attend is hosted by The Ladders. Their offices are actually really nice and look like it'd be a great place to work for a developer. It's awesome of them to let us use their space and equipment; I know nothing of their business practices, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> On the other side of the coin, just add "computer programmer" to your resume, send it off to the investment banks, and enjoy your "$100K+ job". It's not a scam when both parties consent.

</comment><comment><USER10> Job listings rarely include salary information. I don't see anything wrong with them guessing that certain jobs are above $100K.

So if the job title is "VP, Technology", it seems logical to include it in their site. The example in the way-too-long article is "Marketing Manager". Managers can make over $100K.

I don't see why he's so worked up by this. Except maybe they compete with him.

<comment> brown9-2 You wouldn't see a problem with them copying a job listing from your site, that originally had no salary info on it, and them slapping a guessed salary on the copy of the listing they show to their users? The users aren't told the salary they are looking at in the listing is a guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author of the blog post is a head-hunter. Since the Ladders is disrupting head-hunters, he's not exactly an impartial participant in this conversation.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've heard that the actual business model behind theladders is that they sell access to companies to see / search the database.

Here's one of their internal sales presentations (to corporations):

<http://www.slideshare.net/uptheladders/theladders>

Due to the monthly subscription fee they've gotten candidates that self-select out of the junk that you find on HotJobs, CareerBuilders, Monster, etc.

<comment><USER13> Most job sites do this, including LinkedIn, Dice, Monster, etc., and they charge a lot for it. $1,000/month to start in the case of Dice and about half that for a limited search on LinkedIn. Makes sense from a recruiting standpoint in one sense--if the candidates are truly $100K+ material--but my suspicion in this case is that candidates are more likely folks who want to make $100K+, think there may be an easy way to do it, and are willing to pay for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That is the longest assassination piece I've ever seen. The gist of it is probably true -- that the Ladders copies postings from other sites and does not verify whether all its jobs pay >$100K, despite advertising to the contrary. But that whole point could've been made, verbosely, in two paragraphs. This post is literally 8,000 words.

<comment><USER15> Agreed. Once it started getting redundant, I glanced over and realized my scroll bar handle was quite small and still at the top...

<comment><AUTHOR> I've still got my fingers crossed that one of this summer's YC startups is a tl;dr generator:)

 _I do see the irony in mentioning that on a post I submitted, but it could use the love of an editor._

<comment><USER16> If you turn it on in the OS X services preferences you can do Safari-->Services-->Summary

Here's what I got:

 _This seems to be the heart of TheLadders' method of doing business: TheLadders itself is the source of inappropriate job applicants that waste a company's time and money. Without consent of the employer, TheLadders takes its job descriptions, tags them with inaccurate salary ranges, and induces its subscribers to apply for those jobs._

Not bad.

<comment><USER17> That's pretty good.

... I think I'll start running it on my email drafts before sending them out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not suprised TheLadders scrapes results from other sites. Otherwise their database would be almost empty. Hardly can you find an employer willing to disclose salary and say this job is paying 100K and more.</comment>


Best Text Editors for Programming This Year - <AUTHOR> https://zeroequalsfalse.com/posts/developer-text-editor/ <comment><USER2> Imo, this article crosses the line into spam territory. If there's a tool with which the HN audience is already familiar it's the text editor. This article seems like a random list. That might be okay (barely) if the first entry were Emacs or Vim. But it's Atom, and there's no good explanation as to why.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would've been funny to see a 'generated by org-mode' somewhere on the page</comment>


Powering Apple Watch Apps with IBM MobileFirst - <AUTHOR> http://www.tricedesigns.com/2015/05/15/powering-apple-watch-with-ibm-mobilefirst-part-1/

<comment><USER2> OK, I'll ask the softball question. What exactly is IBM MobileFirst bringing to the table here? This app could be written with just the Apple SDK, iCloud, and Apple Analytics or just about any third party analytics library with logging, right?

Reading a little more closely I see the promise of push notifications enabled in a future version of the example app (presumably already available for any app, and already available in iCloud too btw).

So I guess the difference here is that all this stuff is cross platform? (other than the small detail about it targeting Apple Watch).

<comment><USER2> Crickets... IBM is MIA from this conversation.</comment></comment>


Full Stack Developers: Renaissance Men of The 21st Century - <AUTHOR> http://www.singularityhacker.com/post/49855538753/full-stack-developers-renaissance-men-of-the-21st <comment><USER2> One of these days, the blogging classes will notice that web development is just another specific application (though obviously now a very popular one) of much more general fields like software development, graphic design and typography, HCI, technical management, and so on. So is, say, iOS app development. It's strange, and I think very unfortunate, that a new generation is growing up as if these are entire industries in themselves or as if specialising in the current tools and trends in an even smaller, more specialised part of web work or mobile app development is somehow all there is to know or learn from. It means many enthusiastic newcomers aren't benefiting from the decades of collective experience we've gathered in the wider fields, and without that wisdom they inevitably repeat many old mistakes that could have been avoided.

</comment><comment><USER3> Renaissance software creator, perhaps.

A true renaissance man (or woman) is someone proficient in much more diverse fields.

<comment><USER4> I agree, this is a ridiculous overstatement of the importance of software engineering. A renaissance man equivalent of today would have to be proficient (at least) in physics, chemistry (and mathematics naturally), (electrical) engineering, programming and to some extent even law. I don't know anyone who would fulfill these requirements.

<comment><USER5> ... you entirely ignore the arts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> He still can't write a compiler, or do anything new with regards to Operating Systems. Think about the things we read on HN and say "Impressive" to. None of them are on the list.

<comment><USER7> Writing a compiler is easy. Optimizing one, not so much, but setting "writing a compiler" as some kind of difficult thing that requires arcane magic irritates me.

<comment><USER8> Maybe most people's last contact with compilers was that lex/yacc undergraduate course. That was much harder than it had to be.

<comment><USER7> My first contact with compiler writing was through a book, I forgot the title, where the guy explained how to write a compiler for pascal-like language for some specific, non-x86 processor (I forgot which; I only remember that it wasn't anything I'd heard of). The book was very amusing and made me realize how simple the idea of compilers is - I was somewhat proficient with assembly then and after a few illustrative examples it all "clicked". Needless to say, the parser was handwritten and expanded when another construct was added to the language, so it was the simplest and lowest-overhead possible.

Anyway, compilers and interpreters ideas are very simple and powerful and beautiful because of that. There is no magic, however magical their workings may seem from the higher level :)

<comment><USER9> Mayhap you refer to Crenshaw's tutorials.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _> The renaissance man that emerged in the 13th century was someone who could "do all things if he will". The renaissance man of the 21st century is the developer who's capable of executing a software project from the bottom up._

Because the only thing anyone ever needs to do in the modern world is develop _software projects_ , of course.

<comment><USER11> A remarkably small subset of software projects, I think you'll find :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> That list has nothing to do with being a full stack developer. It's a minimum set of responsibilities for a technical lead on a project.

</comment><comment><USER13> So basically a Renaissance Man is what we used to call Web Developer back in the day?

<comment><USER7> For me "back in the day" was around 2003, but given that my country is "ten years behind the rest of the world" I guess that your was earlier?

And I agree with you. Entering web development I had to know about: OS administration, DB managing, backend development (it was PHP then), front-end development (JS but with good knowledge of HTML/CSS), and on the top of it I had to know Photoshop basics and sometimes talk with client and users.

But... I can tell you now that I landed a decent job - that was HELL. I would never, ever go back to how it was then. You know, it's easy to know basics of DBA, but to be good at it? It's years of experience. The same for PHP and JS, even CSS is quite a huge and complicated beast - and I won't say a thing about Photoshop, because I still wake up in the middle of the night, scared to death, because of it. I had to become good with all these technologies at once, and that meant compressing years and years and years of learning and experience into a week. Or maybe a year, but it still was too much.

At the end of it - two years down the road - I was burnt out and uncertain if I want to work with computers anymore.

I now do almost the same, but without clients and users and with only two or three areas I want to be good at, leaving the rest to the teammates. It's ok now and I sometimes wonder what the hell I was thinking years ago. I probably was just young and stupid.

The funnies thing is that whatever I learned then I already forgot and whatever I still remember is now outdated and not useful at all. Was I just wasting my time, trying to be a "Renaissance Man"? I'm still not sure, but many things seem to suggest that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > market the resulting product or service

and

> Understanding what the customer needs

Seem to be intended to go together but are really disjoint. Marketing the product isn't the same as understanding the needs of the customer. You can do both but they aren't implicitly the same thing.

Also, I don't quite understand how this is news worthy. It's an interesting thought, but there's no real discussion about any of this and as others have noted, there's no mention of Operating Systems or Systems Programming.

</comment><comment><USER15> When I go back to the original list [http://www.laurencegellert.com/2012/08/what-is-a-full- stack-...](http://www.laurencegellert.com/2012/08/what-is-a-full-stack- developer/), full stack developer mainly seems to be backend developer + javascript & knowledge of the browser context.

It does make me think that most people claiming to be full stack developers are jack of all trades, master of none.

</comment><comment><USER16> That barely scratches the surface of being a renaissance man.

To be a renaissance man just of computers, one has to have a clear understanding of the material, philosophy, money and culture flows; to experience the plight being imposed on miners in developing countries exporting rare metals and other materials that are refined and put together by tireless hands at sweatshops called the assembly line as shiny devices, to commiserate with the people who design it under the ever changing requirements and availability and shipping dates, to argue with those who work with the abstract and absurd fashions and philosophies of programming, to share the responsibility of the managers for hiring and firing the students and the family men and friends, and to sweat with the sales people at every step along the way.

When the renaissance man understands this, not only because of reading about it, or observing it, but having experienced it all, from the mining of the elements to the laying of the cables back to the ground, from the fluffy cloud pictures on the whiteboard to the actual nebulous reality of internet, he seeks to improve his skill, the living conditions of his family and neighbour, and the economy of his current living quarters, city and country, by working more diligently and more wisely.

And whether he succeeds or fails, the renaissance man thanks and reveres his God, and lives jovially with his neighbours and honouring his enemies.

That currently certain type of software happens to work easiest on a specific set of technologies, is but a mere detail, if well understood and fully mastered, to the renaissance man of computers. Reading the article, he would be delighted in his neighbours' interest in learning more, but might also be saddened by their strong self-importance that reinforces their narrow- mindedness.

End of rant.

</comment><comment><USER17> Funny, I just call them "engineers".

An Engineer (with big E, as in Designer, Doctor or Lawyer) _must_ know the business side of things, _must_ understand how to design technical solutions that solve real problems, and _must_ know how to factor in the costs in his designs, and _must_ have a fundamental grasp of science and technology so that he can be versatile when needed (if he is "too" versatile, he is a generalist).

Of course, as a designer, the Engineer's designs tend to be bold but generally not deeply aesthetically pleasing. IMHO, to be a "Renaissance Man" an Engineer must also master aesthetic beauty, have a classical education and a deep fundamental knowledge of the humanities.

<comment><USER18> Before that they were CICS application programmers. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> How about full stack DBAs and full stack system administrators? A DBA may be specialized and only keep database servers running, or they may work at all levels from developing code to tuning disk and network I/O. It seems that developers, DBAs, and system administrators all have an equivalent in working the full stack.

<comment><USER8> The term for full stack system administrators is devops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is any of the things on the list some kind of synonym for programming?

Update: If you click the "Credit" link at the bottom you are taken to another "full stack" list of items which I guess are assumed to be implicit prerequisites for this one. That seems like a pretty clear failure of items #5 and #6.

</comment><comment><USER21> Are there any other developers out there? How can you develop something without understanding the big picture. When what you do is in isolation from the rest of the project it just works poorly ...

</comment><comment><USER22> I think the list is incomplete. One needs to know how to sell your product too inorder to become a "Renaissance man".

<comment><USER23> That's not that hard to sell if product is well adjusted to customer needs, that is in the list. It would be more productive to hire "marketing people" for the selling job specifically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> How, exactly, does identifying full-stack developers as "Renaissance Men" change things in real life?

</comment><comment><USER25> "full stack" is the new "ninja"

<comment><USER26> No! Is the new monkey business..

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I would think anyone who isn't a "code monkey" should fit in this description.

</comment><comment><USER28> [sudden-clarity-clarence] "full stack" is a pretty serious error condition...

</comment><comment><USER29> No.

"Full-stack" has become trendy as slightly-with-it recruiters realize that the not-with-it rest of the corporate world encourages a certain combination of tight specialization and mediocrity in which people say, "I don't _do_ 'back- end' " and that people who've been steeped in that world for a few years are undesirable employees. As it becomes an HRism, I'm starting to think that the new rule is: if you say "full stack", you're not.

I _aspire to be_ competent over all sorts of technologies, but my definition of "the stack" is pretty expansive and I have a lot of gaps to fill.

Also, you're not a renaissance person if you don't understand science, mathematics, economics, history, art and literature (and much more) to, at least, a passable degree.

<comment><USER30> Couldn't agree more. It seems to be used to mean knowledge of some of the stack on a front end, and some of the stack on a back end, and some of the stack of whatever runs your database, and the idea that this is unusual and special.

I've never described myself as a full stack engineer, but have worked on front ends, back ends, underlying language implementations, underlying database implementations, and so on, and I just consider myself a (hopefully good) engineer.</comment></comment>


Paypal acquires Stackmob - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/17/someone-is-buying-stackmob-for-christmas/

<comment><USER2> This is bad news - Paypal is an incredibly shady business and I dislike them intensely.

They have all the power of a bank, but none of the accountability. They can freeze your assets and if you want to complain dial 1-800-talk2robot, like pissing in the wind.

I'm sure you've all read the horror stories about Paypal. There certainly isn't a shortage of em.

<comment><USER3> Banks can and do freeze merchant accounts for the same reasons and same amount of time as PayPal, and you can complain to the same robotic call tree if you don't like it. PayPal's not unique in that at all, most consumers just have no exposure to this as they never operate a business and have to get a merchant account to accept credit cards.

There does seem to be a shortage of horror stories with PayPal compared to how fiercely they're hated by some like yourself. I read a handful a year at most. For 230 million accounts, that's less complaints than you'd expect as a baseline regardless of the company's service record; every business gets their share. Certainly less than I hear about cable and phone companies, big retail chains, etc.

<comment><USER4> Just dug this out from Quora: [http://www.quora.com/PayPal/Why-does-Paypal- have-so-many-pro...](http://www.quora.com/PayPal/Why-does-Paypal-have-so-many- problems-in-the-UK-with-freezing-cash-in-accounts?share=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So they're closing up shop? No more Stackmob?

</comment><comment><USER6> I was just looking at Stackmob last week as a potential backend for my next project. I had originally planned on using Parse but with their acquisition, I felt uncertain about their future. With Stackmob going the same route, is there any decent backend I could use reliably?

<comment><USER7> I've been completely reliant on Parse as a backend for a long time. The acquisition made me nervous but I've been reassured and am now comfortable with Parse as a long term solution for a few reasons. For one, the development of the platform has not stalled at all since the acquisition. I don't think you can find a more complete and enjoyable backend solution than Parse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I never really understood what StockMob does/did? Will the service continue?

<comment><USER5> "By joining PayPal, the StackMob team will maintain its focus on developers and extending innovative mobile technologies that aim to allow consumers to access the rich capabilities of the PayPal global network... We believe that our work at PayPal will make it easier for developers to create seamless payment solutions that span online, mobile, and in-store experiences."

I think they're done.

They're gonna be joining Paypal to improve what Paypal has.

<comment><USER9> That really sounds like an acquihire to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Any guesses what the sticker price was?

<comment><USER11> Since it wasn't disclosed, I'm guessing less than the amount raised. Doesn't seem like something PayPal as a business would be interested in, so it's most likely a talent acquisition.

<comment><USER12> A talent acquisition is usually for more than the amount raised. Unless they were really struggling and about to go out of business.

<comment><USER10> _in spite of the added incentive of a reportedly low asking price, Yahoo opted not to make a deal.

So, while PayPal and StackMob declined to share details on the acquisition price, it doesn't sound like this was a blockbuster deal. Furthermore, while StackMob had a good run, it doesn't come as a complete surprise that StackMob struggled in its efforts to reach profitability and scale to the degree it had initially hoped._

It sounds like maybe investors will break even and employees get jobs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WebAssembly Studio - <AUTHOR> https://webassembly.studio/ <comment><USER2> Not exactly a dupe, but from 3 hours ago...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16811721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16811721)</comment>


SaveUp makes paying your debts addictive and fun - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/01/saveup-debt-solution-game/

<comment><USER2> Alright, I think I understand the rules now.

You earn one "credit" for every dollar you deposit into a registered savings account (or every dollar you pay off a registered mortgage, or whatever).

There's no limit to how many credits you can earn, but there is a limit to how many credits you can spend: a maximum of thirty a day.

Credits are spent by putting 'em into a big slot machine which dispenses prizes whose value and winning probability are unknown. Hopefully you can get something, though.

The best way to game the system seems to be:

1\. Move, say, $10,000 out of your savings account into your checking account

2\. Sign up for saveup

3\. Move the $10,000 back into your checking account, claim your ten thousand credits

4\. Spin the wheel three times a day for the rest of the year and hope you get enough prizes to make the effort worthwhile.

Do I have it right?

edit: Aha! I found more information on the precise rules of the contest: <https://www.saveup.com/rules> including the probabilities of winning prizes. For instance, your odds of winning the two million dollar prize they're so keen on talking about are 1:170,230,452. On the other hand, your chances of winning $10 are one in 4133. There seem to be various different _types_ of drawing which you can enter, but none of 'em seems to have better than a 1:1000 chance of winning even the most trivial amount of money (five dollars).

<comment><USER3> I went through and found the expected values of the Jackpot and $50k instant win tickets, and found the expected value (excluding the inclusive value of additional credit rewards) to be ~$0.016

By that metric, 1 credit is worth $0.0016, and 10,000 is worth $16.

<comment><USER2> Sounds roughly right.

Or to put it another way, you can, at the cost of an extra daily chore and a bunch of "special offer" emails, earn about four point eight cents a day. I'm afraid I'm just not sold on the value proposition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I signed up and quickly went through the tour, but now I realize I went too quickly. I don't know how to redo the tour (or if it's even possible), and can't find anything with a similar explanation.

Then again, it's mostly self-explanatory: just click on a Play Now button. :)

(EDIT: Hah! This is kind of cool. I'm playing slots, except not spending any money. (Au contraire, the more I save the more I can play.)

<comment><USER5> We are definitely going to add a button to take the tour again. But for now, you can just go here:

saveup.com/?tour=1

<comment><USER2> So I have to sign up for your service before I find out what it does? I can't find any details at all outside the media coverage, and if I'm gonna sign up to turn my financial affairs into a game I'm gonna want to know what the rules are first.

edit: Wait, I found <https://www.saveup.com/about/faq>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This site has the exact mechanics of a slot machine.

<comment><USER7> Except the machine is your own "house" (bank accounts), right?

<comment><USER5> Co-founder at SaveUp here. SaveUp is absolutely free. Think of it as a rewards program that is scalable to any financial instrument. You can earn SaveUp credits with an type of account ( ING Savings Account, Chase Credit Card, etc).

Basic concept is we reward you for good financial actions. We have sponsors and will get more sponsors to offset the prizes, as well as financial referrals.

<comment><USER8> So, my "reward" is an advertising opportunity for banks, insurance companies, etc.? They better be offering some sweet deals.

<comment><USER5> Your reward can possibly be $2million or any of the prizes on our site.

We will never accept financial products that are not in the best interest of our users. Nor will we ever sell your information.

We are just trying create an entirely new rewards program that is free and self sustaining. Our inspiration comes from Prize-linked savings. Check out this article about PLS.

[http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/11/18/freakonomics-radio- co...](http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/11/18/freakonomics-radio-could-a- lottery-be-the-answer-to-americas-poor-savings-rate/)

<comment><USER8> In the end, it will all depend on what offers you can secure from companies that like penny-wise customers. It's a very relevant demographic, for sure. I would think the pitches would be for savings and investment products, insurance, mortgage refi, coupons, group buys, and loyalty programs. It's a good business plan, but it really depends on the quality of the offers. Consumers have been conditioned to distrust financial/insurance products, since they are so often a scam wrapped in a scam – even when offered by the biggest names.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> this seems like it should be part of mint's site..</comment>


Serverless dev practices questions - <AUTHOR> Hi guys,
So after spending some time exploring serverless practices (Lambda in particular), a few questions popped into my mind which i'd love to get some more experienced views. The development guidelines seem to be quite straightforward for some simple stuff to do and the given sample code demonstrate it nicely. Yet - what happens when the overall application isn't as simple and requires more than 15 lines of code? Building the design and logic of the app shouldn't be that hard, yet making sure that it actually works is what worries me more…
What are the given practices to test, debug, troubleshoot and iterate with the code i write in Lambda? The best i came up with is traces and log collection (most common), wrappers for the code in Lambda to collect more metrics and SAM local which should allow you to run stuff locally (but then, how to simulate the real context and the flow of the app)... are these really enough to test code in Lambda? Are there any other options around? Are there any other outstanding issues in developing for for Lambda? <comment><USER2> AWS Lambda is a very small interface. I'm only getting started, but I'm planning to keep all my application code in a separate project with no Lambda dependencies, test _that_ as I would any application, and then have a thin wrapper that just wraps each endpoint in the Lambda interface.

This would also maintain as loose as possible coupling to the Lambda ecosystem, making porting easy -- I'm in Java-land, so that probably means Dropwizard. I'm not there yet, but I'm planning to maintain a parallel Dropwizard wrapper, to make local dev easy.

<comment><USER3> Have you thought about the added execution time from JVM startup? A project I had dropped in my lap awhile ago was figuring out a way to speed up a java lambda function. Basically we decided the only way was to try and make the lambda container always hot. A cloudwatch event would trigger the lambda function every 5 minutes to make sure it was always hot.

<comment><USER2> For now, my project isn't very sensitive to taking a couple-of-seconds warm-up hit. But I'm aware of the issue, and it seems that keeping your classpath lean works wonders. I'll be investigating further, but my tentative plan is to section the endpoints by their dependency-size. The majority of the enduser- latency-sensitive endpoints will need little more than a JDBC connector.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recommend to use the Serverless framework [https://serverless.com/](https://serverless.com/). It's pretty straight forward and very useful to configure imho. In this way the entire project (configuration + code) can be versioned (svn, git...) easily.

</comment><comment><USER5> We use AWS Lambda exclusively on the product I am currently working on (3 peoples team).

\- We use the Serverless framework

\- Monorepo with multiple (micro) services

\- Each service exposes Lambda for particular functions (e.g. Articles service exposes GetArticle, CreateArticle, etc..)

\- No business logic is being shared between services, only libraries

\- Three environments, Dev, Stage, Production (and every developer can also deploy its own)

\- Tests are invoking the Lambda handlers directly and are mocking responses from other Lambda calls. We use Localstack to stub AWS services, such as S3 and DynamoDB.

Still, a lot to learn of course, but so far everything is working great for us.

<comment><USER4> What do you use to store articles? DynamoDB? If so, are you ok with querying and searching data? What about security? How do you implement it?

<comment><USER5> DynamoDB for storing only. After an article is stored in DynamoDB and stream will index it into an ES Service. Then we are quering and searching only ES. DynamoDB can't handle searching very good.

Security wise, everything is private except one Lambda that exposes a GraphQL server and is being forwarded to the public net through API Gateway. We will implement subnets and security groups very soon.

<comment><USER4> With ES do you mean ElasticSearch from AWS? This is interesting, can you tell me something more please?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We are using microrepos, we implement all logic in libraries then import those libs into another project that wraps it w/ the lambda logic. The lambda logic tends to be small and all the 'work' is done in libraries. Thought here being if we need to migrate to another serverless solution (or server solution) it's quick/easy to wrap the tested libraries in whatever the next logic should be.

Then we use Apigee a127 Node project to invoke the lambda's. This is where authentication is done (we use Auth0 JWT/Bearer tokens). The Apigee a127 project invokes the lambda and handles routing. We looked at serverless but didn't want to use API Gateway since we already had apigee. We plan to look at SAM next but so far haven't need it. We have a few grunt scripts that we can use for running the lambda locally so far not a big deal.

For logging we use an AWS ElasticSearch cluster and Kibana.

So far we haven't run into any big issues with lambda, we see better response times when there is a constant load on the system, I guess that helps w/ keeping the lambda's warm. Even cold start isn't a big issue b/c the $$$ saved is well worth it.

Automate EVERYTHING. You will quickly get a bunch of lambda's and you need a way to keep them all updated, manual SUCKS.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would recommend splitting out the lambda-entrypoints from the rest of your app, so that you can test it separately.

Personally, I've found it tough to test full integrations where I'm depending on cron jobs, work queues and notifications. I felt like I was writing an awful lot of code just to be able to fake all these integration points, which meant that in reality there was a lot of behavior that wasn't really being tested.

</comment><comment><USER8> I use [http://serverless.com](http://serverless.com) to manage and deploy my Lambda functions, then I use [https://github.com/dherault/serverless- offline](https://github.com/dherault/serverless-offline) to run a local copy of most things needed. Not perfect yet, but really helped me getting moving fast.

</comment><comment><USER9> > Are there any other options around? Are there any other outstanding issues > in developing for for Lambda?

I'm not sure how AWS Lambda handles the charging of network latency (or failure) case of downstream external service dependencies but that is one of our biggest problems. ie pull/scrape architecture. The push portion (ie events) of our architecture is an obvious fit but that is already taken care of quite nicely.

We interact with hundreds of web services (REST APIS, SOAP, etc) that are actually external from us.

Its unclear if or how Amazon charges you for a slow external service (I would imagine its particularly bad if the code is blocking IO) or if that is even possible. I do know spawning a whole bunch of servers to connect to a single REST API endpoint is damn slow.

I have feeling Lambda for our case is probably not a good one? Obviously for data processing I can see it but that is not a challenge we have.

In an ideal world our downstream (or I guess it could be called upstream...) dependencies would contact us but... that sadly isn't the case particularly for adhoc stuff.

</comment><comment><USER10> This stuff is hard and we're all still figuring it out. Just recently we realized we built a monolith because we weren't paying enough attention to whether all the features should be a part of a single system. We're going to revisit that.

Don't look at your function as an app, it's an function and the best functions do a single thing. The definition of a single thing depends on the scale of view you're taking. But that may help you to realize your functions shouldn't be very complex and possibly small enough to test more easily.

However, that results in increased system complexity as you start adding SNS topics, SQS queues, DynamoDB tables, and all sorts of event triggers. Something I've adopted is using draw.io (others use Lucid Chart) to draw out the system logic. Maybe this helps?

[https://www.draw.io/](https://www.draw.io/) [https://www.lucidchart.com/](https://www.lucidchart.com/)

Maybe this makes the confusion worse?

</comment><comment><USER11> For lambda, I highly recommend integrating AWS X-Ray.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been using Claudia.js [1] with Node / Lambda, and it's a lot easier than going through the web ui. My colleague built an Alexa skill linking service using Claudia, Node & Lambda. You can check out the code as an example of building something that's got a few functions & endpoints [https://github.com/XeroAPI/xdhax-alexa- sample/tree/master/al...](https://github.com/XeroAPI/xdhax-alexa- sample/tree/master/alexa-xero-linking-service)

[1] [https://claudiajs.com/](https://claudiajs.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> We use Azure Functions, mainly cause that's what our project is already on. Seems to work just fine. Done all in C# .NET no huge complaints yet.

[https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/pricing/details/functions/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/pricing/details/functions/)

</comment><comment><USER14> i like the serverless framework also. x-ray integration is also key although it hadn't come out when i wrote this...

30 questions to ask a serverless fanboy [http://www.iheavy.com/2017/03/13/30-questions-to-ask-a- serve...](http://www.iheavy.com/2017/03/13/30-questions-to-ask-a-serverless- fanboy/).

</comment><comment><USER15> I have a very large application implemented as one single lambda python function.

Works great.

<comment><USER16> Please define "very large". When I think large app, I think at least a few hundred endpoints split across tens of thousands of files. How can you have a very large app with a single endpoint? Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER15> Ok we have very different definitions of very large. I mean s complete full featured SAAS workflow application.

I don't actually use the AWS HTTP API gateway. I control the front end entirely so my UI just talks direct to lambda. It's very simple - instead of futzing around implementing REST API mapping layers I just connect all my front end functions to a single lambda function and specify in the params the name of the python function I want to run. Super easy.

Even if you wanted to use API gateway you could still map all the end points to one single application and dispatch based on the route/URL.

I can make a solid recommendation to anyone use lambda .... seriously consider using Cognito for your user management.

There's no reason why you couldn't have tens of thousands of functions in the same function, in fact probably a good idea.

<comment><USER2> > seriously consider using Cognito for your user management.

Can you please expand on that recommendation? I tried and found it profoundly opaque, and eventually gave up in favour of auth0. I specifically wanted to use the hosted login/sign-up forms.

<comment><USER17> I found this tutorial had some very good information on incorporating Cognito into an app: [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/build-your-first- serverless...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/build-your-first-serverless- application)

It lays out the architecture fairly well and how Cognito ties into it. Still very fiddly, and doesn't give any indication on how to use their hosted forms (which are a bit of a mystery to me as well).

Since it's still on point with the OP's question, I'll ask: What has your experience been with auth0? It's another service I have considered.

<comment><USER2> I really liked it. Easy to follow instructions and an active community where all questions I could come up with were already answered. Took me an afternoon after getting almost nowhere with Cognito in three days.

The thing I spend the most time on was "user_metadata" and "app_metadata", two JSON blobs on each user, RW and RO respectively. In order to read those at all from your application, you have to define a custom "rule" (arbitrary Javascript that wraps responses). The reason for this is something about standards and name-spacing, but I couldn't really follow the argument, and it's seems like this is something that very confusing to a lot of users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> checkout [http://theburningmonk.com/](http://theburningmonk.com/) for good posts on some serverless topics you've mentioned</comment>


Implementing the Bitcoin Lightning Network on Stellar - <AUTHOR> http://jedmccaleb.com/2015/12/08/lightning-for-stellar/1/ <comment><USER2> This is an example of an approach to smart contracts that uses the Stellar model which keeps the bulk of the logic outside of the system so only people that are interested need do any processing. This should make it more scalable.

I haven't thought through it yet but I think the most common case would actually be 1 directional. Curious if people agree or have another opinion?

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't stellar's PoS network fork?

<comment><USER2> The Stellar network did fork when we running on a fork of legacy software. Since then, we have rebuilt the entire consensus system using a completely different consensus system. The underlying consensus system was designed by Prof. David Mazieres, head of Stanford University's Secure Computing group - you can read the white paper here: [https://www.stellar.org/developers/learn/concepts/scp.html](https://www.stellar.org/developers/learn/concepts/scp.html) A completely new implementation of SCP in the form of stellar-core was completed earlier this year. You can read about it here: [http://graydon.livejournal.com/227874.html](http://graydon.livejournal.com/227874.html)</comment></comment>