Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/863804342/colleges-face-student-lawsuits-seeking-refunds-after-coronavirus-closures <comment><USER2> This is just the straw that is popping the college bubble.

My Alma mater has 15 administrators who make 2-3x more than the President did when I graduated. The President makes $5 million+. The VP/Dean of HR makes > $1 million.

Administrators took a 5% pay cut. Lots of professors are furloughed or laid off.

The school did all kinds of shenanigans to hang onto as much tuition/board/food money as they could. Students are not getting what they paid for, so of course they are suing.

It's the same story as every other industry in the US.. the administrators/executives trying to rob everyone blind while they can.

Alumni have been furious for years now, this isn't helping.

<comment><USER3> It was obvious while I was a student that the ratio of administrators to faculty was ridiculous. And the growth rate ratio between them was 3:1. At no point was it clear to me what real value they were adding. I was the captain of a more capital and real-estate intensive than average student group, and it was absolutely infuriating to try to figure out how to get anything done. There was always some new bureaucrat condensing out of the ether who needed to be appeased. No meant no, but a yes was never enough.

To be quite honest, I see the same thing in my professional work. Everyone feels that their problems deserve more headcount. And heads make work, justifying more heads. Further, those heads want to get promoted, so they make-work to justify that too. And to compound the problem, people try to magnify their power and impact by becoming gatekeepers. More people to say no and more overhead and drag to every action.

It's unfortunately difficult to ask and to honestly answer why we do things and whether those things are worthwhile. It's even harder to take corrective action even if you admit that what you're doing is not worthwhile. I think it's one of the pillars of cost disease that is nibbling away the on-the- ground productivity of Western societies.

<comment><USER4> > Everyone feels that their problems deserve more headcount.

Take two teams, one with 6 people that produce a lot of value, and one with 50 people that produce... Let's say the same amount of value.

When the manager of the team with 6 people, in the same org, starts getting paid three times more than the manager of the team of 50, you'll stop seeing managers fight for headcount.

All of the economic incentives in the workplace lead to bloat, because people aren't paid for value added - they are paid market rate. The market rate for a manager of 50 people is higher than the market rate of a manager of 6 people.

It's like the gripe that engineers have in firms that don't have an engineering career track for vertical advancement. Good engineers are pushed into becoming managers, because that's the only way they can get rewarded. Likewise, managers are pushed into becoming managers of larger teams, because that's the only way they can get rewarded.

<comment><USER5> I agree, but quantifying value add is very hard. If we were just comparing small companies against each other then it would be straightforward to just look at each companies profit. But when you look at a team within a company, how can we say what that teams value add is?

Say we considered a simplified case and focused on a single engineering team that is solely responsible for a single product. Just looking at the revenue generated by that product is insufficient since it excludes the contributions of sales, marketing, business development, etc. in driving that revenue. And practice most engineering teams are dependent on other engineering teams for providing shared services and infrastructure.

Its also insufficient to just consider current revenue of a product. We also need to consider the potential future gains from a product, which is unknown.

And quantifying value add gets even harder when we start looking at individual people. Considering individual contributor engineers, there are numerous ways that one can contribute, ranging from developing new features, diagnosing and fixing bugs, writing and updating documentation, mentoring, interviewing candidates, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The reason there is such a large premium for on-campus education versus online universities is because on-campus education is an _experience_ as much as it is a service.

If you're only interested in mastering the content, then online learning may be the place for you. That's why we see so many people pursuing online courses for their master's degrees and when they return to school later in life. They just want the content; they don't need (or have time for) the on-campus experience aspect of college.

The on-campus college experience encompasses so much more than just acquiring knowledge based on what's taught in class. It's dorm life, it's extracurriculars, it's meeting people and forming friendships and hanging out with them outside of class time. It's being in a place where there are so many interesting people to meet. It's being in a relatively forgiving environment where practically everyone is figuring out how to live on their own (or with roommates) for the first time. Being physically present in that environment is a key draw.

For me, the VAST majority of the value I got out of my on-campus education was the stuff that happened outside of class time. And I'm not even talking about the friendships or the networking or the fun. I'm talking about my actual education. For instance, I learned a lot more about journalism by working for the campus newspaper than from classroom instruction. And I don't think that atmosphere or energy can be easily recreated virtually.

I say that, by the way, as a remote worker who has had to spend a lot of time convincing managers and higher-ups that yes, remote workers can be as productive and energized as in-office workers. Remote workers are generally happier when they're not looking to their job to supply all of their social needs. But an on-campus experience is much more all-encompassing in terms of what needs and desires it fulfills for post-adolescents.

<comment><USER7> The problem is, if you're going to fall back on that perspective, Real Life (TM) has all those things too, and it will continue to do so, for essentially free. There will be clusters of that sort of thing somewhere, just as there are "retirement communities" and "bedroom communities" and such. Universities certainly aren't bringing anywhere near enough value for their marginal improvement on those matters vs. what would exist without them to be worth decades of crushing debt.

If you surrender on what the Universities have to offer intellectually, then you're putting them in a position where they're going to be competing with generalized social forces that can create similar clusters of demographically- concentrated appeal _without_ having to pay administrators and deans and speech police and all that stuff, and the universities will never be able to win carrying around such baggage.

"And I don't think that atmosphere or energy can be easily recreated virtually."

It can't be recreated virtually. But it _can_ be recreated without a "University" attached to it.

If what the unis were offering was, you know, proportional to the gain, maybe 1/5th to 1/10th the cost they are now, then maybe it would still be worth it. But paying gold-plated prices for "social experiences marginally better than what you could put together yourself if they weren't there" is not a sustainable plan, or an adequate defense for their practices.

Viva la disaggregation.

<comment><USER6> The counterpoint to your argument is that if it is so easy to create those types of communities for much less money than what universities are charging, why hasn't it happened?

I would guess that it's a combination of 1. not being as easy as it seems and 2. network effects. Because of the latter, you would basically have to persuade a large number of students to make the switch at the same time for them to feel as if they still have the social/professional networking they get from the on-campus experience.

<comment><USER8> It's illegal to create living communities for young people. You are allowed to discriminate against people younger than 55, but not against any other age criteria.

It's another example in the unending list of losses in this generational war.

<comment><USER9> Genuine question, is it illegal if the people are older than 18? Possibly with resident adults acting in some supervisory role. I'm imagining dorm like satellite communities for collective remote online learning.

<comment><USER8> I would doubt requiring the individuals be able to agree to contracts would be illegal, this effectively would be 18+.

But you won't get young women joining if you also have to allow 55-yr-old male leches live next door. In University this is rare, but SROs can't discriminate in the same way.

<comment><USER9> I'll cede we don't want 55-yr-old leches next door to young adults. But I'm not sure it's necessary it has to be an SRO, if from what I understand is a term for low income/homeless focused housing. There should be a way for the lower priced remote college tuition to pay for the housing and requirements for only remote attendees to live there. But maybe I'm not seeing something.

<comment><USER8> Dorms are SROs -- it means a place where you rent a room but share other amenities, like bathrooms and kitchens. It is usually low-income, but most people are low income when young.

It's illegal to create the "college experience" (nearly only 18-22 year-olds living together) without University because filtering directly by age is illegal, while doing so indirectly is legal. I think 12 years of education should be enough for most people and we shouldn't require unnecessary schooling to let people have the college experience.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for your insights on age discrimination issues and housing experiences. That said, there can be communities of all ages that are vibrant spaces to be in -- and which also have places within that are gathering spots (e.g. libraries, cafes, bars, workplaces, churches, non-profit organizations, sports leagues, etc.) for people with something in common (whether age or interests or work or whatever). And I'm not just saying that because I am mid-fifties. :-)

Also, while young people obviously do like to hang out with similar-aged people for all sorts of reasons (including to find romantic partners), there also is value in encountering a diversity of experiences. When I was in college, informal interactions with older people, whether RAs, grad students, older returning students, staff, and faculty (outside classes) provided many formative experiences. And likewise, interactions with younger people (like tutoring a faculty member's kid) provide opportunities for personal growth through teaching, coaching, and mentoring.

Even at college, how many people can the typical person get to know or have as friends or romantic partners? How many friends and romantic partners does a typical person need to be relatively happy? What does it take to provide those opportunities?

Many people 100 years ago used to find that in cities perhaps (especially walkable low-rise ones like Philadelphia) -- but cities have changed for many reasons (including ones Jane Jacobs wrote about). Still, even now, many people flock to some cities for social connection opportunities. (Even as they may later in life flock elsewhere to raise families for various reasons...)

I am not saying most of the cities we have now in the USA are ideal for making social connections -- especially compared to many older European cities that are more walkable and were built with people in mind and not cars. Places favored by some religious communities (e.g. Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh where Mr. Fred Rogers really lived in a real neighborhood) may sometime be more community-promoting given, say, for observant Jews a cultural need to walk to a social hub one day a week which affects the urban layout generally in a positive way. In that sense, perhaps the Protestant Mr. Rogers benefited from neighborhood architecture shaped in part by Jewish traditions? Searching on "walkshed" can turn up some interesting results, for example: [https://www.walkscore.com/cities-and- neighborhoods/](https://www.walkscore.com/cities-and-neighborhoods/)

Potentially a good aspect of social media is it may (paradoxically) help people find local people with similar interests to arrange physical gatherings. But arranged gatherings are not the same as spontaneous repeated meetings in common areas -- which has been the basis of the formation of most friendships. Still, one can ask how all that could be made better.

Consider, for the bigger picture, the intersection of architecture, culture, and friendships: "How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult" by David Roberts [https://www.vox.com/2015/10/28/9622920/housing- adult-friends...](https://www.vox.com/2015/10/28/9622920/housing-adult- friendship) "Our ability to form and maintain friendships is shaped in crucial ways by the physical spaces in which we live. "Land use," as it's rather aridly known, shapes behavior and sociality. And in America we have settled on patterns of land use that might as well have been designed to prevent spontaneous encounters, the kind out of which rich social ties are built. ... For the vast majority of Homo sapiens' history, we lived in small, nomadic bands. The tribe, not the nuclear family, was the primary unit. We lived among others of various ages, to which we were tied by generations of kinship and alliance, throughout our lives. Those are the circumstances in which our biological and neural equipment evolved. It's only been comparatively recently (about 10,000 years ago) that we developed agriculture and started living in semi-permanent communities, more recently still that were thrown into cities, crammed up against people we barely know, and more recently still that we bounced out of cities and into suburbs. So everything about how we live now is "unnatural," at least in terms of the scope of human history. Unnatural doesn't necessarily mean bad — our long lifespans are unnatural too — but it should remind us that the particular socially constructed living patterns common today have shallow roots. There's nothing fated or inevitable about each of us living in our own separate nuclear-family castles, with our own little faux-estate lawns, getting in a car to go anywhere, never seeing friends unless we make an effort to schedule it. ... As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other, said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This is why so many people meet their lifelong friends in college, she added. ... This kind of spontaneous social mixing doesn't disappear in post-collegiate life. We bond with co-workers, especially in those scrappy early jobs, and the people who share our rented homes and apartments. But when we marry and start a family, we are pushed, by custom, policy, and expectation, to move into our own houses. And when we have kids, we find ourselves tied to those houses. ... Say you're a family with children and you don't regularly attend church (as is increasingly common). There are basically two ways to have regular, spontaneous encounters with people. Both are rare in America. One is living in a real place, a walkable area with lots of shared public spaces, around which one can move relatively safely and effectively without a car. It seems like a simple thing, but such places are rare even in the cities where they exist. ... Walkable communities are very difficult to find in the US, and because there is such paucity of supply relative to demand, they are expensive, accessible only to the high-income. Places where they exist tend to have absurd zoning restrictions that prevent growing them. ... The second, even more rare, is some form of co-housing. ... The idea behind baugruppen, and co-housing generally, is that it's nice to live in an extended community, to have people to rely on beyond family. It's nice to have bustling shared spaces where you can run into people you know without planning it beforehand. It's nice to have nearby friends for your kids, places where they can play safely, and other adults who can share kid-tending duties.... Both these alternatives — walkable communities and co-housing — sound exotic to American ears. Thanks to shifting baselines, most Americans only know single-family dwellings and auto-dependent land use. They cannot even articulate what they are missing and often misidentify the solution as more or different private consumption. But I do not think we should just accept that when we marry and start families, we atomize, and our friendships, like our taste in music, freeze where they were when we were young and single. We shouldn't just accept a way of living that makes interactions with neighbors and friends a burden that requires special planning. We should recognize that by shrinking our network of strong social ties to our immediate families, we lose something important to our health and social identities, with the predictable result that we are ridden with anxiety and loneliness. We are meant to have tribes, to be among people who know us and care about us. ..."

At first glance, sure, it may seem to make sense to ask how can we recreate the college social experience for people 18-22 without the high price of "University". But a deeper question is perhaps: how can we have a culture and architecture that promotes friendships? While also still having access to natural settings that are also improve mental health?

Here is a quote about an even deeper aspect of all that related to depression (which can strike people even in the "best" college where social needs are perhaps met -- but others might be neglected like getting enough sleep, omega3-s, sunshine & vitamin D, exercise, downtime & creativity-provoking- boredom, purpose, and so on): [https://tlc.ku.edu/](https://tlc.ku.edu/) "We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, sleep-deprived, socially- isolated, fast-food-laden, frenetic pace of modern life. (Stephen Ilardi, PhD)"

So, an even deeper and more general question is: how can we have a culture and architecture and economy that promotes life-long wellness and happiness?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know about the legal question, but I think universities are setting themselves up for pain by arguing that the online experience they've been offering isn't substantially different from the in-person experience they had been offering. It's easy to imagine people calling their bluff on this, choosing to do remote learning even after COVID-19 goes away if it will save $100k+ over 4 years, and a subsequent contraction in the number of universities we need to educate people.

<comment><USER12> Universities are not arguing this.

If you read the article, you'll see that the universities in question have already, voluntarily, given partial refunds to students prior to these lawsuits.

The lawsuits are demanding even more refunds while the students still want to collect the remote education. If the Universities were faced with this decision up front, it would have been better for them to furlough all employees and simply delay education until after Coronavirus.

Instead, they made the best of the situation and tried to do right by the students as best they could within the financial, legal, and ethical constraints of Coronavirus. In my opinion, it's not reasonable to demand universities operate at a loss to provide the remote education at a rate less than it costs them to operate (which I suspect may be happening already in some cases). We're all making compromises under the circumstances.

I'd be more sympathetic if these students were requesting to defer their education until after Coronavirus and were willing to forgo all education and credits in the mean time. Demanding both the education and a refund isn't exactly fair.

<comment><USER13> Georgia tech offers a fantastic online CS masters program for $6.6k (1/6th of the cost of on campus degree).

I highly doubt that these universities have offered even close to a 5/6th refund to their students.

<comment><USER14> Eh, qualify fantastic. It's great in that the courses are difficult, and if you complete them it will signal you are smart computer scientist; it's backed by GaTech's name brand and the diploma is the same as the on-campus diploma.

It's not fantastic in that the courses vary wildly in quality, are mostly taught by teaching assistants, can require 20 or more hours of (busy-ish depending on course) work per week, and just like undergrad, you will struggle and be forced to teach yourself the material instead of being taught a significant portion of the time. Usually the textbook is much more informative than the lecture; your life is better if you own many textbooks on the subject since often the lecture information density and coherence is poor.

What I'm saying is, the course lectures are pretty mediocre for ~40% of offered courses. OMSCS is valuable because it's cheap and prestigious, not because the instruction is high-quality. It's great for self-starters, auto- didacts, and hard-workers with background in the subjects (admittedly, most students from decent engineering schools will qualify).

<comment><USER13> Fantastic in that you can easily graduate debt-free with a degree that sends a strong signal in industry.

The alternative is graduating 6-figures in debt, and having missed out on all the benefits of on-campus learning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was taking a class that transitioned online. (University extension school, biostatistics). So the networking and campus related activities don't relate to me. At the extension school, some classes were taught online already (this one was in person only).

I felt the teaching staff made a pretty huge effort to get things online and running well. I'm sure they weren't getting paid more to make the transition.

There was a general feeling of, this sucks but lets through it. It was a lot more work for faculty and students (It takes longer to learn material remotely, at least for me..). I don't think diplomas will have asterix next to them, saying "finished online", like the article indicates.

Going forward, what tuition is going to be if classes are online in the fall is another issue. I'm guessing universities will charge what they can.

<comment><USER16> My guess the tuition will be similar in price. However, if it were me going to college at this time I would seriously consider skipping a year/semester if they did that. Get a small time job somewhere and help get ahead of the loans I already racked up. But that is just me. It became crystal clear to me a few years ago that these schools had gone off the rails price wise. My wife was taking 1 class. The book was more than the class and the previous semester you could not buy used. Ironically the class was micro economics.

<comment><USER17> I would love the option to be able to skip a semester or two of college, but unfortunately if I made that choice I'd lose all of my scholarships and it would end up costing me more than whatever I'd make in the meantime :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Reddit's "AskReddit" subreddit had a question recently hosted with a title something along the lines of "How did your college financially screw you over in this crisis?" The answers were varied and often ... "shocking" is the wrong word, because I have come to expect a kind of compulsive money-grubbing from many universities ... perhaps "flinch-inducing." Certainly the local subreddit for my city discussed similar money-grabs, nickel-and-diming, and general high-handed behavior interspersed with a general lack of competency.

Even universities with some staggeringly large endowments will cry poor and point to the endowments being tied up in various investments, which _did_ take a turn down at the start, but looking at the Dow I see that the numbers are nearly back to what they were in May of 2019.

Many universities are staggeringly bloated, yet squeeze their faculty via adjuncts, then squeeze the adjuncts in turn. Why pay tenured faculty rates when you can throw in an adjunct? And then why pay the adjunct well? After all, we have these enormous administrative budgets. Having had access to some historical employer data and performing general tracking as part of a "make sure that the input is within historical limits" sanity check, I noted that staff, "important" staff, had grown massively over a decade.

Now the on-campus college experience, for which so much is subtracted from student accounts in funding various events and facilities, is largely remote, well, that "value-add" is now a "where's the beef?" moment.

<comment><USER19> This is the thread the parent comment is talking about, I think.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gqb30j/uni_stude...](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gqb30j/uni_students_of_reddit_what_is_the_biggest/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > "In my personal opinion, I can deliver the same quality of education online > as I could in person."

Although this statement is debatable to begin with, it also misses a huge point. Even if the quality of an online education is the same, many students cannot learn as anywhere near as well in that environment. They paid tens of thousands of dollars for in-person learning, so for that to be replaced with something entirely different in form really sucks.

<comment><USER12> As the article stated, many of these universities did give partial refunds. The students are demanding even more refunds while still collecting the education.

I'm curious: Would you consider the same argument valid for workers forced to work remotely? Would you be upset if a company decided to cut workers' pay in half during COVID19 remote work under the assumption that some workers can't be as efficient remotely? After all, the company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for in-person work, but now they're getting potentially worse remote work.

<comment><USER21> > As the article stated, many of these universities did give partial refunds. > The students are demanding even more refunds while still collecting the > education.

To be clear, the article doesn't state that partial refunds of tuition have been offered, but that "many did offer partial refunds of dorm and activities fees."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anecdata from my little corner. My 'non-profit' university's president is at 800k, his VP is 500k and multiple other admin officials in similar range. It is hard not to have a bitter taste as they just offered the students $500 grant application for their COVID19 trouble.

If there is one good thing about this pandemic, it is shining a light on all this.

<comment><USER23> And from the other end of the spectrum, at my University of California campus, the top salaries are all in the 300k range, and all go to world-class engineering and sciences faculty who bring in millions in research grants each year. The chancellor, deans and one coach also break 300k, but that's it.

So, different schools, different governance models, different outcomes.

<comment><USER24> Looking at UC system, I see that UCSB chancellor received $415k compensation, 9th highest at UCSB, but only 750th highest across UC campuses! Top two salaries went to athletic coaches at UCLA.

[https://dailynexus.com/2018-09-06/ucsb-payroll-totaled- appro...](https://dailynexus.com/2018-09-06/ucsb-payroll-totaled- approximately-500-million-in-2017/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think the offshoot of this will be that student/university contracts are about to become massive one sided EULA's with all liability on the student side.

</comment><comment><USER26> Refunds are a pretty hard thing for universities to do though, in a lot of cases the money has already been spent. If the question is how much they charge for next semester (assuming closure or mostly online learning) then I think there's a stronger argument to not charge students as much.

The student perspective is basically that you're already paying so much, that the least the university can do is do good on what's being paid for or in the event where that is not possible, simply don't charge for what's not going to happen in the fall.

<comment><USER27> _> in a lot of cases the money has already been spent_

Then they can take out loans or go bankrupt.

I mean, if you paid for a Ferrari and the car dealer can only give you a Corolla, they owe you a refund - irrespective of how big their rent and salary bills may be.

<comment><USER12> If they were forced to choose between going bankrupt and having traditional in-person classes, they would be offering in-person classes right now and allowing people to "opt-out" to the remote version.

These companies aren't arbitrarily choosing to educate people remotely. They're adapting to the situation.

Likewise, it would be unreasonable for employers to cut people's compensation for working remotely under the assumption that remote work is less efficient and therefore the company deserves a refund.

<comment><USER27> And maybe a car dealer couldn't deliver your Ferrari due to difficult circumstances beyond their control, and giving you a Corolla is the best they can adapt to the situation.

But they're _still only delivering a Corolla_ so you _don 't have to pay the price of the Ferrari they promised you_

<comment><USER12> But you're not car shopping and this isn't a Ferrari vs. Corolla scenario.

If you read the article, you'll see that the Universities did give partial refunds. These students are demanding even more refunds, while still collecting the education.

The education is still delivered, just through a different medium. If we believe that engineers can work just as effectively remotely, why can't we believe that educators and educate just as effectively remotely? It feels like HN is picking and choosing when remote is good vs. bad based on how it personally benefits the commenter.

<comment><USER28> People do not pay to get only the education. Yes, it is a prominent part of it but more important are the facilities, the community and the networking capabilities. With remote teaching, everything else except learning is lost.

There's no reason to pay the sums the universities are charging considering you can get the same education from almost any university.

<comment><USER12> > There's no reason to pay the sums the universities are charging considering > you can get the same education from almost any university.

I think you're arguing against something other than the Coronavirus and remote education situation at this point.

<comment><USER28> No I am not. Due the current circumstances, the universities are not able to provide the facilities and the networking capabilities to the students so they should not be required to pay the full amount.

Also, as the students are going to be home anyway, the differences between universities shrink. If the education is somewhat similar in a university A and university B, but university A is five times more expensive during the normal times, why should the students of university A pay five times as much as the students at the university B. They have lost the reason why they pay so much for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's interesting that the short term solution of not giving refunds will likely cause long-term pain for universities because they are then admitting that remote is "the same as" in person. Most of the university value is in the experience. I'd predict that if colleges don't admit in person > online and don't offer refunds, then many students will decide to save the $150K over four years and just take online courses, then live in an interesting city to get that life/social experience.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think this will boil down to:

a) What did the college promise?

b) Did the college deliver it?

Since there's unlikely a formal contract involved, they'll have to make a case with the public marketing and value prop which includes peers, access to professors, dorm life, state of the art labs, extracurriculars, a beautiful campus, alumni network, job fairs, etc.

Most of these colleges have spent years devaluing the content itself by putting it online for free and now that's one of the few things they're still offering.. for the small price of $X0,000/year.

<comment><USER31> While I agree tuition is too high, people have gone a little crazy with using the most expensive outliers as examples. Average tuition for state schools in 2018 was around $9,000 and I don't think that includes financial aid and scholarships.

And to complain about the coat of private schools is a bit like browsing around in a BMW dealership and complaining about how everything is too expensive.

Not to mention that if you are low income, there are lots of very nearly free options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Few people I know with children in private schools(k-12) are planning on paying full tuition regardless of weather the next academic year is virtual or physical...

<comment><USER33> Same with me. My kid is in an international school. The school offered an insultingly small refund that made a lot of parents angry. Not me personally, because I understand that their largest cost by far is teachers, and that cost does not go away unless they furlough the teachers, which is a big problem since they probably can't get them back when they reopen. Second thing is that most parents depend heavily on the daycare aspect of school which is not being delivered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> A related thread from later today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346858](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346858)

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder how many US colleges will go under if many students dont return after the covid vaccine appears. Many were already hurting from a small GenZ cohort, competition from well-paying non-degree opportunities (now dubious), and current administration strangulation of immigrant scholars.

</comment><comment><USER36> Investors should step in and pay the kids off (since these lawsuits are either guaranteed losers or will take years to settle). Then in exchange take a % of their future earnings. Vary the % and timeline based on the degree they're seeking.

<comment><USER37> This is indentured servitude, and expressly forbidden in the United States.

<comment> barry-cotter No it isn't.

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

> An income share agreement (or ISA) is a financial structure in which an > individual or organization provides something of value (often a fixed amount > of money) to a recipient who, in exchange, agrees to pay back a percentage > of their income for a fixed number of years.

...

> Common Concerns Indentured Servitude

> However, advocates of ISAs contend that since students have no legal > obligation to work in a particular industry, and since it is illegal for > investors to pressure them into a certain career, students are no more > "indentured" than those with a student loan. In fact, someone with a > traditional student loan has less choice than someone with an ISA, because > the student with a loan needs to be in a career where they make at least > enough income to cover their monthly payment, whereas someone with an ISA > can choose to never make any money, and would never owe the investor a dime.

<comment><USER38> Someone who does not make any money doesn't need to care about student loans either. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the debt collectors can only collect what exists. They can't force you into the debtors prison. As long as you don't have anything, you don't have to worry about anyone coming after you (in the USA).

<comment> barry-cotter If you have assets you need to care about debt but the same is not true of an income share agreement. You can have assets without income from sources other than selling those assets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Colleges should just open up. Young students are low risk that they're unlikely to be very sick if/when they contract disease. There will be some old or unhealthy staff members that can be protected.

California and NY have stronger lock down rules, but people should just transfer to Texas, Florida places that are more open.

<comment><USER40> While true that younger people are less at risk than older people, that risk is non-zero and significant.

You also ignore that students don't isolate themselves within the walls of the college. They are a part of that community, using dining and retail facilities, traveling home, visiting nearby cities, etc. That puts their parents and families at risk, locals at risk, etc.

<comment><USER41> Not to mention the majority of professors would be considered at least moderate risk. Maybe I just had a particularly good experience but I got to interact with a number of profs quite a bit during undergrad. Paying for in- person with only a bunch of TAs just wouldn't be worth it IMO, plus things like campus events would also have to be limited. It would take most of the benefits of the college experience out of the picture. I think gap year is the way to go for anyone that can make it work, regardless of whether the schools try to do online only or make accomodations for in-person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Faculty member at a top-tier CS school. For most of the faculty where I am, an hourly consulting fee in the range of $500-1000 is reasonable. If you take the low-end of that range ($500) x 3 hours of class time per week ($1500) x 12 weeks of class you get $18,000 worth of expert time. Multiply that by three classes and you get $54k of value each semester, so even with non-trivial tuition it is still a pretty good deal. Likewise, FAANG et al recruit very heavily from our school so there is additional value-add.

I personally came from modest means and have a ton of outstanding student debt and was hesitant to go the faculty route precisely because I think the higher education in the US can be financially exploitative, but there are places where the high tuition is in fact a bargain based on market rates for the expertise. Likewise, nearly all faculty at top-tier CS schools can make way more in the private sector - we do this job because we really enjoy mentoring and work hard to make sure our students get the best education possible.

<comment><USER43> That kind of consulting fees for 1:20 shared time with so many other students on topics they don't control flow of ??? (i.e. I don't get to choose the specifics on topic you are "consulting" on or dictate what and how you teach me).

I wouldn't be able charge $ 10,000 - $20,000 for a 1:1 consulting session ! There are very very few people in the world who can command that kind of premium</comment></comment>


What's are some methods to implement partition rebalancing in key value store? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Have a look at Hazelcast. It provides you very nice HA replication framework and KV stores pluggability.</comment>


Bitcoin Nordic brings Bitcoin to 300M people in the Middle East and North Africa - <AUTHOR> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93352.0 <comment><USER2> Finally someone targeting the markets where bit coin is most likely to succeed.

TBH, I'd love to see all the bit coin startups band together and focus on Africa. It's 1/6 of the world's population without a legit banking infrastructure. In fact, the less traditional banking a country has, the better a target market they are. Bitcoin solves a problem they have, whereas in places like the US and Europe it is merely a better mousetrap and only in the long term. Short term it is worse.

Besides countries in Africa, I would target countries based on inflation and currency volatility. The greater the inflation, the more demand there will be among regular people for for a currency free of inflation.

<comment><USER3> I completely agree. There's one problem though. Not that many African people there own computers, or even mobile phones. But next year they should start getting pretty usable $50 Android smartphones with the new low-power Cortex A7 and higher-performance versions of Android like JellyBean and later. I here there already is one around $800 that is pretty popular there. So the phones are coming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Iran might really need it these days.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty cool, let's hope it doesn't push the currency higher.</comment>


Recession Is Over: Long Live Depression - <AUTHOR> http://seekingalpha.com/article/153037-recession-is-over-long-live-depression <comment><USER2> Ironically, this guy doesn't understand that the stimulus spending is the only thing that has stopped the economy doing what happened in 1930, when a _real_ depression happened. [http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/a-dark-age- of-ma...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/a-dark-age-of- macroeconomics-wonkish/)

<comment><USER3> Yep. The 'Internets' are full of back-seat economists that never took an intro to Econ course while in college. Heck, most never took _any_ college course, yet they know it all and then some. Keep singing the same song and sooner or later you'll be right. Then you can say, "I told ya so!!!"</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Commercial licensing of code that runs on R - <AUTHOR> We are trying to bootstrap our startup with R analytics, the only thing that is restricting us from going ahead with R is the licensing (GNU GPLv3).
1. We would love to know whether we can build the analytics logic in R and sell it but also restrict them from accessing the code?
2. Can we release our algorithm alone as a separate bundle and let the users install R and other runtime libraries; we at runtime run our scripts on top of the R installation? (The libraries which would be installed might be GPLv3.)
3. We also find enterprise versions of R (Oracle/Microsoft/Alteryx etc.,). How are they able to price it? We are not sure if they are releasing the source as and when required. If they aren't releasing the source, how is that possible? <comment><USER2> Any answer you get here won't substitute for the opinion of a lawyer. Never build a company on shaky or non-existent legal advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Im just trying to make myself clear that there is problem, not taking it as a legal advice. Mostly looking out for other options or better be aware etc.,

<comment><USER2> That's exactly my point. You need a lawyer to tell you if there's no problem, a small problem, or a large problem. The armchair lawyers on HN may give you confident-sounding answers, but the advice won't be sound enough to build a business on.

Consulting a lawyer about this should cost you less than $500. You can usually find startup lawyers who will work for equity (or just the promise of future business) if cash is that tight.</comment></comment></comment>


Elwha: Roaring back to life - <AUTHOR> http://projects.seattletimes.com/2016/elwha/ <comment><USER2> The resiliency of nature and the speed with which it rebounds is both astonishing and important. What a great piece of journalism -- so rich in detail and beautifully written.

 _The hum of the generators is replaced by the river singing in full voice, shrugging off a century of confinement like it never happened. Nature's resurgence is visible everywhere._

<comment><USER3> Yes, it was wonderful to read. The coloring of the mice and otters. The before and after undersea graphic showing the beach creation was well done. A solid article with the right amount of visual treats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> American Rivers has a map of dam removal projects: [http://www.americanrivers.org/initiatives/dams/dam- removals-...](http://www.americanrivers.org/initiatives/dams/dam-removals-map)

</comment><comment><USER5> An amusing event during the removal, person takes wagon wheel from old lakebed and is fined by park. [http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20120706/NEWS/1207...](http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20120706/NEWS/120709984)

</comment><comment><USER6> The National Park Service has a series of videos about the project for those who are curious.

[http://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/elwha-ecosystem- restora...](http://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/elwha-ecosystem- restoration.htm)

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes, yes, nature and trees, that's all very nice but I'd like to know how much electrical power generation was lost by demolishing these dams and, if it's a significant amount, how that power generation is being replaced. We didn't build dams just for fun.

<comment><AUTHOR> This article states the dam was no longer worth the costs involved in maintaining it. According to Wikipedia:

 _by the early 21st Century, the combined power output of both dams only provided the equivalent of 38% of the electricity needed to operate one paper mill, the Daishowa America mill.[citation needed]_

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwha_Dam#Construction](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwha_Dam#Construction)

<comment><USER7> Fair enough, then, thanks. I suppose I'm just automatically suspicious of this sort of cheerleading, even in a situation where it ultimately makes economic sense.

<comment><USER8> > even in a situation where it ultimately makes economic sense.

For me, one of the nice things about living in Washington State is that the choice that makes the most economic sense is not always the one that is chosen. It would make a lot of economic sense for Seattle to sell off huge chunks of its massive parks system, but that doesn't happen. Tree removal and water protection ordinances are the norm and they are, by and large, enforced. There's a healthy respect for the nature found all over the state.

(I'm not arguing that "not following the economic choice" is the majority outcome; far from it. But coming from a state that lived up to the rule of streets in suburbs--bulldoze all of the trees and name streets after them--and pushes its Congressional delegation for exemptions from environmental rules in order to get man-made lakes built, it's a nice change.)

<comment><USER9> Oh, economic rationality is a pretty weak constraint. Keeping your parks makes perfect economic sense---you'll just have to be aware that they are part of your consumption spending and account for them as such.

(And ultimately, all economic activity is to produce consumables one way or another.)

<comment><USER10> Moreover, even if some powerful lobby were able to show that it will derive modest benefits from bulldozing all of Seattle's parks and replacing them with temples of consumerism, it doesn't follow that doing so would make economic sense for the people of Seattle or the people of Washington in the main, once negative externalities are taken into account. It's not that you can't put a price on nature, it's more that humans don't do a good job of it when they even try, and law that takes this fact into account is good law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love camping at Elwha. If you ever get a chance, the Olympic Park Elwha camp site is right next to the river! Not very developed (no showers, but I still think they had some plumbing).

</comment><comment><USER12> Impressive artwork, love way how the animations react on the navigation events. I've never seen such nice webpage.

</comment><comment><USER13> Dam, that's gotta hurt!</comment>


Going Through a Divorce on Social Media - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/itsover-going-through-a-divorce-on-social-media-11567001177?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> The ProJared saga is probably the best/worst example of a bad, _very bad_ online divorce story.

His wife discovered he was having an affair with a friend when she found the two sending nudes on his phone. Which led to finding that Jared was sending nude selfies and sexting with underage YouTube fans. All put out on Twitter.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProJared](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProJared)</comment>


Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can't Shake Their Reputation as a Menace - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/health/e-cigarette-vape-njoy-bankruptcy.html <comment> xkcd-sucks To be fair, there are still people people in decision-making positions who were alive in the "4 out of 5 doctors smoke Marlboroughs" days.

And, it's hardly more hysterical than other american public safety fears re: terrorism, children, drugs etc.</comment>


The Britishisation of American English - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19670686 <comment><USER2> _"that sort of London glottal stop", dropping the T in words like "important" or "Manhattan"._

So I agree with the premise of this article, but the glottal stop is found in many regional American accents.

The internet removes language barriers from lines drawn on the ground, and this small difference has sped up a still very, very slow process started by television. Language is evolving towards a single shared language, right now we can see the regional differences falling away between nations. TV has dissolved much of the regional differences within the US. The difference is still there, and probably always will be, but its a lot weaker than it was a few decades ago.

<comment><USER3> The use of the glottal stop for the /t/ in "Manhattan" is how New York City natives born throughout the 20th century generally pronounced it, other than possibly elite class speakers. And you're correct that such glottalization occurs in other contexts in many regional US accents. The suggestion that this might be a result of recent British English influence is absurd.

<comment><USER4> It's actually more likely to be a holdover from _very old_ British English influence - the Irish and Scots press-ganged white slaves who fled into the hills of Virginia and became the rednecks of coal country. I know that's where I get most of my dialect, even though I grew up in Indiana (so I also get a Blues-Brothersish Chicagoan avoidance of theta, to end up with that unique Hoosier accent that non-obsessives don't notice).

London doesn't have a monopoly on glottal stops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cute. Their sidebar isn't all that accurate, though. "Called Joe" a Britishism? 'Fraid not, chaps. Booking a flight? Also not that British. And "an American would say" is more than a little offensive, although surely not intentionally.

Also they missed "wanker" - which has been used a lot lately. It's a good word.

<comment><USER5> Non-American here, and I failed to see how "an American would say" is offensive. It seems to me that it's just pointing out the differences, which doesn't ring as offensive at all. Would you care to explain? (I am genuinely asking this question out of curiosity, not criticizing)

Also, +1 on "wanker". It is indeed a good word.

<comment><USER4> Sorry - in politics, the worst possible thing one American can do to another is to imply that they're not really American. I'm a liberal from Indiana - that may or may not mean anything to you - but somebody identifying me as a not-quite-American based on something I say that maybe sounds too posh really raises my hackles, even as I realize, full well, that it's a really stupid reaction.

Even then, I didn't really notice it until I'd read three things I say that _an American wouldn't_. Dammit. It's like the time that chick in Germany tried to tell me I don't speak English, just American. I may not know everything, but by God and St. George I am the utter master of my dialect and precisely how and when it differs from whatever we Anglophones deem "standard".

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the clarification. I thought you were implying that BEING called an American was offensive, instead of the other way around. I understand now.

I also didn't see the implication of being "not really American" if you don't say it that way, but I see what you mean.

Funny story about the girl in Germany, though. :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe eventually the Britishisation will extend to returning the 'u' to colour so I make far, far fewer typos.

Although it's interesting see the cross-pollenisation that seems to be happening linguistically thanks to media shifting both ways across the pond. Often used to be American imported media flowing into Britain with very few things leaving, but it seems like there's more American Doctor Who fans than British ones now.

<comment><USER7> I still think it's funny that for a culture that was so at odds with the French that their slang for toilet is named after a line of French kings, they still spell things like the French ("colour" being one example, "theatre" another).

As to Doctor Who, well, it's more soap opera than science fiction these days (and has been for a while), so it's no surprise that it's wildly popular in the states.

<comment><USER8> > I still think it's funny that for a culture that was so at odds with the > French ... they still spell things like the French ("colour" being one > example, "theatre" another).

But the word descends directly from the French language; 30% of English is from the French, it's largest influence (another 30% is from latin, 30% from Germanic, and the rest from other sources). So it's not that we are choosing to 'spell things like the French': the word IS French, as are countless other words. It's our biggest source of vocab.

<comment><USER9> Also, we don't. Colour =/= couleur.

<comment><USER10> and "theatre" is not spelled like "théâtre"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From the article: "She sees this as clearly tied to the publication in the US of the first Harry Potter book. Dozens of words and phrases were changed for the American market, but ginger slipped through, as did snog (meaning 'to kiss amorously') - though that has not proved so popular." I think this is one of the correctly described mechanisms for the spread of British terms into American English. The Harry Potter novels are wildly popular here in the United States, and as I recall the later novels (which were published simultaneously worldwide to prevent pirate editions) were less edited to match United States usage than the earlier United States editions of the novels.

"The use of university, rather than college or school, for example, may well be used by Americans to make sure they are understood outside the country." I definitely consciously use the term "university" (which was the proper name for my undergraduate institution of higher education) when I want to be understood by Canadians, who don't read "college" with the same implication as Americans do

Here in Minnesota, anyone can regularly hear BBC broadcasts by rebroadcasting on Minnesota Public Radio, and there are other parts of the United States where BBC is available over the air, besides much of British broadcasting being available over the Internet.

For college-educated adults, a great way to pick up interesting bits of British usage in English is reading The Economist, one of my favorite sources for new submissions here to HN. For many young people across the United States, one big source of exposure to (regional) British speech is participation in youth soccer programs, which are often coached by British expatriates.

For all that, we would have to describe the expected future path of English to be further koineization, with more simplification of structure and worldwide spread of useful words and phrases, as an astounding variety of mash-ups of second-language speakers use English as an interlanguage all over the world. In other words, sometimes the American way of speaking will join the pattern of world English, and sometimes the British, and no doubt sometimes Caribbean or African or south Asian or southeast Asian varieties of English will join in as well.

<comment><USER12> The "university" vs. "college" usage in America is also influenced by the increasing trend of local community colleges initiating four-year degree programs and dropping the word "community" from their names.

Despite offering a limited set of bachelor's degrees, these schools are still regarded as somewhat low in prestige, so those who obtained their bachelor's degrees from more traditional institutions have begun to emphasize the difference by saying "university" instead of "college".

IIRC, the distinction in usage arose from the fact that when the first "institutions of higher learning" were founded in America, they were initially quite small, and intended to merge together into larger universities as additional institutions were subsequently founded; instead the individual colleges ended up expanding as independent institutions and ultimately dividing themselves into multiple "departments". It wasn't until the 19th century that the term "university" began to be used by American institutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think in British English it is more common to say 'best before date' rather than 'sell-by date'.

One 'Britishisation' I wish the US would get is 'I couldn't care less', meaning I care about some thing as little as possible, yet in the US they insist on say 'I could care less' which makes no sense.

<comment><USER14> I don't think that's British vs American, that's more proper grammar vs improper grammar. You wouldn't hear anyone of any stature seriously trying to suggest that "could care less" is American English. My opinion is that it's one of those things people hear spoken more than they see written and the tendency to say "could'n care less" (without the hard stop on the 't'). Kind of like something I see on HN quite often, "kind've".

<comment><USER15> It's got nothing to do with grammar. "I could care less" is a perfectly grammatical sentence - it follows all the rules of English sentence construction. Similarly, "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is also perfectly grammatical, it just doesn't make any semantic sense.

<comment><USER16> And so we move from discussing pedantic points of language to discussing tangential points that are even more pedantic. :)

<comment><USER15> If we're going to talk about language, then it's far from pedantic to insist on using it properly while doing so.

<comment><USER16> I was poking fun, but complaining about the use of the word "grammar" here is quite pedantic. Swapping the word "grammar" for something more strictly correct would have yielded no improvement to the conversation.

<comment><USER15> > would have yielded no improvement to the conversation

thats true freehunter didnt need to use the most best word in order to get acrost the course grain jyst of his thaughts but at sum point the lak of exact language use does become a hinderance to smoothe discorse and i guess id rather air on the side of accurasy and preciseness and ask the same of others even if that meens i risk being thaught a pedant

<comment><USER16> Yes, that's exactly what the conversation looked like when he said "grammar" instead of "semantics". I'm glad you've saved us from such dereliction of discourse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have acquired many of these by means of exchanging email with British customers. It's nothing worth getting anyone's knickers in a twist about, I rather fancy some of the phrases. Cheers.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's also the distinct English dialects spoken in the various former colonies. These tend to more closely follow the original English and so, by way of analogy with a certain international institution, people talk about Commonwealth English.

It's interesting how the entire shape of Australian English was set by the early settlers -- you can still distinct dialects of Strine spoken in different parts of the country. Or the way that the vowel-lotto that New Zealanders play with "Unglush" has a lot to do with the heavy settlement of NZ by Scots.

I guess eventually we'll all speak the same English. It'll give the French something even bigger to hate. _Manifique_.

<comment><USER19> I know it was a tongue in the cheek comment, but if you want to attack the "French", try to at least do it correctly.

It is "magnifique".

<comment><USER18> Quelle horreur, my mother will be mortified.

(I know I am)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's a good semi-serious rant by comedian Brian Limond on the reverse (though I have a feeling that there are plenty of other rants on this topic):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnGPgCVJUsI>

I would claim not to mind it, but when I think for a minute I realise that the spelling of various words like "fibre" annoy me, as well as the mm/dd/yy format (and "November 15th" instead of "November the 15th"), and describing football/sports teams as "it" instead of "they" (i.e. "Real Madrid is on an amazing run of form" vs "Real Madrid are on an amazing run of form").

<comment><USER21> I really wanted to like Limmy's show, I really did, but after 3 episodes I found I'd barely laughed, and even then only at Deedee's overanalysis of what the hardest item in his kitchen was.

<comment><USER20> Yeah some of the sketches are a bit tough, but overall I like him. His twitter is ridiculous though, worth following for at least a week or so - you'll see what I mean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Unlike in the UK, there is no anti-ginger prejudice in the US, she says - Americans think of warm, comforting things like gingerbread."

As someone who grew up in America (with not ginger, but slightly reddish hair) I find this to very untrue. There's even a whole South Park episode* making fun of gingers, and there's few things more American than that. Maybe it's a relatively new thing, but I doubt many young Americans think of warm ginger bread.

* [http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s09e11-ginger-...](http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s09e11-ginger-kids)

<comment><USER15> The gingerbread comment is silly, but I think that any supposed anti-ginger prejudice in the U.S. is firmly tongue-in-cheek. I don't think I've ever heard anyone _seriously_ disparage red-haired people here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > _The same thing might be influencing a trend that Yagoda has spotted for > Americans to use the day, month, year format for dates - 26/9/12 rather than > 9/26/12._

Is this actually happening? I see YY(YY)/MM/DD sometimes (that's what I use, albeit with hyphens), but I've never seen an American use DD/MM/YY in the US.

<comment><USER23> My wife always rolls her eyes when I fill out forms with dates in YYYY-MM-DD (ISO 8601) format. I feel it's my duty to help in this small way to liberate people from crappy date formats. :)

For electronic record keeping, the benefits over the American standard of m/d/yy or the British standard of d/m/yy are plain.

<comment><USER16> My wife doesn't seem to care too much, though I think she's asked me about it before. The big benefit is that it's nonambiguous. No one is going to see YYYY-MM-DD and be confused about the date (YY-MM-DD is a different story for at least a few more months). Natural sorting in electronic systems is a huge plus, though.

<comment><USER4> My wife is Hungarian, and so does YY-MM-DD anyway. (Although rolls her eyes that the MM isn't a Roman numeral.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What disappoints me most about this article, though, is that it failed to point out _why_ this is happening. More than any time in history, people using different dialects of English are in regular, day-to-day contact on the Internet. We may not share time zones (especially those crazy Aussies) but it's telling that we turn out to like each other a lot, and trade our favorite words and insults.

So in closing, the authors of the article are a bunch of wankers.

<comment><USER24> What a naff article. That girl in Gilligan's island wasn't called "ginger" for nothing.

Sodders!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if there'll be agreement on 'irony'. In British English, the ironic happening must necessarily be unintentional. It doesn't have to be unknown, just go against the intentions of the act (eg: an anticrime bill that the beat police know will raise crime)

In contrast, Americans often use 'irony' in an intentional manner. Selecting an ironic t-shirt to wear. Or the phrase that clued me into this: "The photographer has arranged the model's foot ironically".

</comment><comment><USER26> You mean Britishization? USA USA</comment>


Rust for beginners - <AUTHOR> http://blog.prasoonshukla.com/rust-for-beginners

<comment><USER2> Wow this blog post actually got me excited to look more into learning Rust (just read the intro and wrote a hello world 2 months ago), definitely on my to do list after I finish some current projects i'm stuck on at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you really should. That was my intention with this post all along.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recommend a secure password manager - <AUTHOR>

This week alone we've been discussing:
* KeePass – questionable security
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727297
* LastPass Security Notice
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9721212
I currently use KeePassX which is synced on my Dropbox and also have a key file on my USB.
From your experience, which password manager is the good choice? And what syncing, additional security layers (like key files, YubiKey...) could be used to gain maximum protection of the sensitive information? <comment><USER2> > From your experience, which password manager is the good choice? And what > syncing, additional security layers (like key files, YubiKey...) could be > used to gain maximum protection of the sensitive information?

Every time someone asks 'which one has the best security', the first question you need to ask is - what's your threat model? Because that will impact what your requirements are. Personally, my threat model includes people physically getting hold of my laptop or phone, people using my computer when I'm not around, keylogging/malware, or websites having their passwords breached. It doesn't include the NSA, nation-state adversaries, spear-phishing attacks.

This impacts which software I use, how I've set it up, and my use cases.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't really see anything wrong with Lastpass. The secrecy of your vault (the encrypted passwords) depends on the strength of your master password. If you have a strong master password, the fact that someone managed to make off with some hashes should not bother you. To use a horrible simile, it's like when you have a bank vault filled with a lot of valuable stuff and three doors. Someone tried to rob it, put a dent in the first door, but couldn't get through them. Some people are flipping out that the door got banged on, but I don't really understand that because the door is still doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but I don't really see the trouble right now.

</comment><comment><USER4> Password Safe? [http://pwsafe.org/](http://pwsafe.org/) Originally designed by Bruce Schneier: [https://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html](https://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html)

I have found it to be good enough for me but then I only use it on one Windows desktop with occasional syncing to a laptop.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Links to related threads:

* KeePass – questionable security

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727297)

* LastPass Security Notice

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9721212](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9721212)

<comment><USER5> The first one is KeePass2.

KeePassX is still good. [https://github.com/keepassx/keepassx](https://github.com/keepassx/keepassx)

<comment><USER6> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727592](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727592) ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What are your platform (OS/device) use requirements?</comment>


The FCC Still Doesn't Know How the Internet Works - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/12/fcc-still-doesnt-know-how-internet-works <comment><USER2> EFF claims that caching is not a integral part for ISPs. They use Sonic as an example, but why no mention of other ISPs? Doesn't this link say otherwise?

"For unanticipated traffic spikes, Comcast absorbs the excess traffic by automatically spreading traffic to multiple CDN caches in the same metro. Comcast has over 100 separate caching locations in the U.S., and spreads its CDN traffic to multiple proximate physical locations in each major metro without a tradeoff in performance. These CDN locations are strategically deployed across the U.S., which (1) enables delivery in large metro areas and (2) more evenly spreads demand to prevent congestion that commonly impacts high throughput HD video and large file downloads. In addition, the Comcast network is well interconnected with many other networks. This enables high- quality content distribution, and allows content to be localized for distribution just as effectively."

[https://www.comcasttechnologysolutions.com/blog/how- comcasts...](https://www.comcasttechnologysolutions.com/blog/how-comcasts-cdn- handles-traffic-spikes)

<comment><USER3> The CDN is a service they sell to content providers, to do part of the hosting for them. It's not part of their internet service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To be fair almost none of those points, while completely valid, are within the FCC's charter.

The only regulatory mandate the FCC has with regard to internet is to ensure that ISPs offer uniformity of pricing and service as those schemes cross state boundaries (interstate regulation of wires and transmission), which isn't the problem net neutrality aims to solve.

<comment><USER5> I used to believe that also, but it turns out the FCC does the FTCs job when it comes to telecom and the internet (anti-trust etc) in the context of media. Personally I think that's the most important issue here, in my opinion the FCC is doing a job the FTC should be doing.

<comment><USER4> Good point. I really wish congress would codify this so that things like net neutrality would have no excuse for contention.

<comment><USER5> Yes indeed. My opinions around "net neutrality" would change a lot IF the FTC was responsible for the media component, as it sits the lobbing allows for too much conflation of issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd like to know if "they" really don't know, or simply someone(s) were tasked to come up with some arguments and those in power really don't care how accurate it is or not.

<comment><USER7> The problem is shoehorning the internet into a regulatory scheme devised in the 1930s for telephone service that was modified pre-modern internet (in 1996). The regulatory scheme was designed to regulate Southern Bell, a telecommunication service, who used to dial into an "information service" like CompuServe, without harshly regulating CompuServe.

But broadband ISPs sort of operate as both and neither. You can call them either an information service or a telecommunication service depending on how you view them. But there are problems with both labels.

Which led the FCC labeling cable broadband an info service and DSL a telecommunication service. That ruined the DSL market in the USA until the FCC decided to label all ISPs as information services.

In 2015, the FCC switched back to telecommunication service because they lacked the power to apply net neutrality to an info service.

Really, we need a new regulatory scheme, but good luck getting that through congress.

<comment><USER8> The DSL market was doomed to failure not because it was classified as a telecommunication service, but because it is technically inferior to cable. DSL's limited range and bandwidth causes it to have spotty coverage and generally slower speeds than cable. Slower speed by itself might not have been fatal, but it also caused even more spotty availability of TV service over DSL. The inability to offer "triple play" service made DSL unattractive compared to cable even for people who didn't care too much about the speed of their internet service.

<comment><USER7> In most of the world, DSL is more successful than cable.

Title II also prevented telecoms from replacing DSL with fiber lines that could do all of that. After Title II ended, AT&T and Verizon suddenly poured money into Fiber.

It's important to note that even the Obama era FCC didn't want Title II actually applied. They just used it to get net neutrality. They suspended almost all other Title II rules.

<comment><USER8> What? Verizon rolled out the bulk of its fiber service between 2005 and 2010 at which point it halted new roll outs. AT&T has been pretty miserly with it's fiber roll out until just the last year or so when they accelerated deployment as a condition of their merger with DirectTV.

<comment><USER7> Title II was removed from Verizon's service in early 2005. Before then they had to do local loop unbundling and reselling.

In 2015 it was added back, but with almost all Title II rules suspended. Like price controls, unbundling, reselling, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his job depends upon his not understanding it!"

</comment><comment><USER10> For calling the FCC out on their lack of technical knowledge I find this quote rather lackluster from the EFF.

"Every machine translates IP addresses from machine-order to network-order;"

No. Network order is big-endian, and for big-endian architectures there is no translation that occurs.

Also, "As the FCC would have it, an Internet user actively expects their ISP to provide DNS to them."

Yeah, they do. Just because most users don't know what DNS is doesn't mean they don't expect it. They expect their Internet connection to work and part of that is DNS resolution. Come on EFF you can do better than this.

<comment><USER11> Isn't that a rather pedantic swipe? How many machines do you know which are still big-endian?

DNS resolution is done by your operating system; just because ISPs provide DNS servers doesn't mean that's a service they're solely responsible for considering you can switch DNS servers at any time, with the exception of ISPs who wrongly prohibit such things. In many cases DNS resolution is sped up by changing DNS servers; weird that eh?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If the FCC doesn't know how the internet works, why does the EFF want them regulating it?</comment>


CodeChip – A freelance-style market for code modification and help - <AUTHOR> http://www.codechip.co

<comment><USER2> Nice idea

</comment><comment><USER3> We took "Show HN" out of the title, because it is for things that can be tried out now: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah okay. Sorry about that, wasn't aware of the posting rules</comment></comment>


Mystery towers going up all over Cincinnati area - <AUTHOR> https://www.wcpo.com/money/consumer/dont-waste-your-money/mystery-towers-going-up-all-over-cincinnati-area <comment><USER2> It's a sad sign of the loss of community control, when they can't even find out who owns the towers being built.

<comment><USER3> Foxconn? /s</comment></comment>


We found only one-third of published psychology research is reliable – now what? - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/we-found-only-one-third-of-published-psychology-research-is-reliable-now-what-46596

<comment><USER2> Now let's see if someone can reproduce the author's research reliably...</comment>


The real-world effects of digital health - <AUTHOR> http://impact.rockhealth.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> (OP) I help run a Rock Health portfolio company and sometimes feel divorced from the outcomes we help enable. I thought this was a great project to show how technology helps real people.</comment>


The Decline of Facebook As A Social Network - <AUTHOR> http://jimlastinger.com/2011/04/the-decline-of-facebook/ <comment><USER2> The main problem this person faces but glosses over is the fact that they've added people they don't know. Why do that? It makes no sense and will only cause you to get annoyed.

I am quite proud of the fact I only have 100 FB friends, because I know each and every one of them. I lot of people I know from IRC and work refer to me as the Facebook Nazi because I won't add them, but they're not really my friends and I don't want to know what they're doing at 5am in the morning.

Toughen up a bit, delete those people you added because you know a tiny bit about them and things'll become that much easier to deal with.

This is exactly like the "Oh I get SO MUCH email" posts and then you find out the person signed themselves up to 50 email lists, 20 "email me when you get a new comment/status" things etc. Don't sign up for crap you don't want, it's that simple!

[Edit was just spelling fixes]

<comment><USER3> > I am quite proud of the fact I only have 100 FB friends, because I know each > and every one of them. I lot of people I know from IRC and work refer to be > as the Facebook Nazi because I won't add them, but they're not really my > friends and I don't want to know what they're doing at 5am in the morning.

Maybe it's a personal shortcoming, but this is the main reason I still don't have a Facebook account. I don't want to have to explain to people I have to see every day why I don't want to be Facebook buddies. It causes awkwardness in real life, and getting status updates form people I actually like (but still might not care where they ate dinner last night) isn't worth the hassle.

<comment><USER2> You find this? All I've found is it makes people all the more desperate for me to add them, as if I'm hiding some super social parties from them or something.

I don't find it awkward to tell people "Sorry but I only add people that'd let me sleep on their couch at 5am in the morning" - in fact it often makes them feel awkward usually because they don't want to admit they'd not let me in!

<comment><USER3> I meant that it might be a personal shortcoming that I'm not able to be that blunt with people I have to see on a regular basis. I respect your system and wish I could carry it out, but for me, it's just something I really don't want to deal with. Whatever serotonin fix I would get from Facebook isn't worth it to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you do not friend people you aren't friends with, you do not have this problem. For real friends who are annoying on facebook, that's what the little 'x' is for on their updates.

I imagine it's harder if you're even just a little bit internet famous, but most people aren't.

<comment><USER5> I started two podcasts on CNET, Loaded and The 404, so I have some people who friended me on FB because of that. My solution? I hide unmercifully. If I don't care about someone, or they post 1-2 status updates I find irrelevant, they get hidden from my feed. I have 1k+ friends, but I still get the signal : noise ratio that I like.

<comment><USER6> Your problem is cured by creating a Facebook Fan page. Many famous people's Facebook problem could be cured with that.

<comment><USER5> At the time, I didn't have the ability to create a fan page... and now I don't work at CNET, so now I have random left over fans.

Def not the end of the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When 'Status'es on FaceBook became automatic Wall Posts, and therefore persistent, I commented to a few friends that this one simple change altered the nature of Facebook from a social facilitator to a social inhibitor. Before, if you wanted to know what your far-away friends had been up to, you had to call them up or send a letter, forcing some level of social interaction. Now you just have to dig through their wall posts.

It was once nice, simple, succinct. A 'phonebook with pictures.' Now, it's sterile and noisy, and not even useful as a phonebook.

[Edit:] This persistence of data I feel drives and encourages the issue the author describes - friending people you don't know just to see what they're doing (and to gain access to their photos, et cetera). There's a simple and obvious solution to the 'complete strangers' issue, but I don't feel that is the real problem.

</comment><comment><USER8> In response to all the "Don't add people you don't know" comments, I think it should be pointed out that this isn't always an option.

Drama and politics variously meant that I had to accept requests from people who posted far too many meaningless status updates. Blocking, hiding, muting etc. don't work when you need to respond to 1 out of the 100 posts they send your way.

If it was possible to filter, mute, mark-as-read on a programmatic basis as it is with email (Love gmail filters...), I might not have been forced to delete my account.

People can't take it personally when you delete your account, but not friending, unfriending, hiding, or blocking can all be considered personally offensive actions.

</comment><comment><USER9> Recently I have been seeing an increase in the number of such posts titled 'Decline of facebook', 'collapse of facebook' or some other theory trying to explain why facebook won't stand the test of time. The point here is, why are we bothered? There are people who like it, and there are people who don't. The user base of facebook has reached a point where any categorization becomes too big a demographic hence no matter which feature one would talk about, there are takers and there are haters. It is all about which side is heavier here.

Facebook and twitter, in the initial phases of their global boom (after facebook moved out of it's college/university paradigm) was used as a global social networking tools by geeks, bloggers and web designers. People who have a very different look on how the internet should be. And even though these people 'make' most of the obervable internet (read: web), it is important to know that facebook also caters a whole lot to the social networking junkies who love the loads of like buttons, and a rush of social media. While some of may think it is lame, it is rarely a question of lame or cool, but what keeps the site running.

Either ways, these articles seem to offer quite a narrow demographic when they try to provide any insight or an opinion. And that is because, 'Facebook users' today is a demographic so large that it approximates quite good to the law of averages. Above and beyond, my only point is that, only time will tell.

<comment><USER10> You are right, the user-base is far too large to be properly accounted for; and that is the root of the reason why there are so many articles about FB's decline is that some of us wish for it. Think about it: who writes these articles? The same basis of geeks, bloggers and web designers that consider that FB has become overpopular and loaded with a plethora of useless features (game apps, "like" buttons for pointless activities, etc.), and that some users tend to update their statuses too much and too often. Which is the main reason why smaller, and arguably better communities like this one can thrive. It is all a matter of who gets to call the shots regarding what the Internet should be like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't have this problem. None of my friends have this problem. It looks to me more like user error of adding people you don't know and adding spam apps than it is Facebook's problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I wrote the article. Thanks for the thoughts, but I've never added people I don't know or apps I don't use. Spam apps I was referring to are from other people that show up in my stream or wall, those "Billy answered a question about you" posts.

<comment><USER12> Maybe "people you don't know" is a little strong. But you wrote,

 _Back when Facebook was new . . . the friends that you had were people that you actually wanted to keep in touch with._

That's still the case with me -- I only make friends with people I want to keep in touch with. The friends _you_ have may have changed in character . . . but I find that hard to parse as Facebook's fault.

It seems to me that regular prunings and a less promiscuous friending policy would solve your problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This resonated with me:

"Personally, it feels like my Facebook stream is becoming an email inbox. I get a lot of messages, a few of them matter to me, and there are lots ... that are just spam."

</comment><comment><USER14> What is the use of FB for businesses? Advertising ?

<comment><USER6> The same as not for business. Its just another communication channel with its own advantages and disadvantages. So, yes, that and more.</comment></comment>


FreeBSD Unix for Linux Sysadmins - <AUTHOR> https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2020/5/2_FreeBSD_UNIX_for_Linux_sysadmins.html <comment><USER2> >The main benefit FreeBSD has over Linux is speed

....Oh boy.</comment>


Are Designer Sunglasses Worth the Price?  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704518904575365362932852610.html?KEYWORDS=sunglasses

<comment><USER2> Rational arguments against the purchasing of veblen goods - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good> \- don't hold much weight. Being "worth the price" doesn't entirely mean how good they are glasses but how good they are as fashion items too, a point this article totally misses.

Disclaimer: Wearer of Benetton glasses that I _know_ are mass produced and overpriced when classified merely as glasses.

</comment><comment><USER3> Questionable assertions about overpricing (as petercooper discusses) aside, this article is interesting if only to demonstrate the vertical integration of Luxicotta. FTA: "The eye doctor telling you that you need a new pair of glasses, the sales people helping you choose them and the people who design and make the glasses all work for the same company. "

That sounds like an enviable position for lots of companies. At the same time, it provides insight into current internet heavy hitters' strategies. For example, Google's fiber networks and internet tools (Chrome, JS libraries, etc) are probably all designed to improve the efficiency of their cash cow (search).

</comment><comment><USER4> I've worn various Oakley sunglasses for years paying $100-$200 each. I usually keep them 3-5 years before they get too beat up to keep wearing. I've tried switching, but I haven't found any optics that I liked as much. I guess it could be a mental thing...dunno.

One thing the article didn't touch on was comfort. I hated wearing sunglasses until I bought Oakley Zeros years and years ago. They were so light you could forget they were on.

The next time I need glasses I'll go out and try to find some cheaper ones that fit my criteria instead of being lazy and just picking up another pair of Oakleys :)

</comment><comment><USER5> It's worth it if you're willing to spend the extra money to not see too many other people wearing the same glasses.

</comment><comment><USER6> How is this Hacker News?</comment>


What Happens When You Don't Pay a Hospital Bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/medical-bill-debt-collection/596914/ <comment><USER2> In my case I just had to get my insurance company involved. The insurance company had to call the hospital few times to "remind" them that they weren't supposed bill me for certain items, per their contract with the hospital.

In other cases I just wrote on the bill, in big fat marker, "bill my insurance." The bill very quickly went away. (And I got a much more reasonable bill for my co-pay.)</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I find a gallery of developers' home pages? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on redesigning my personal home page. Is there anywhere I can look at a gallery of homepages for other developers to get some ideas? If there isn't such a think, just comment with a link to your home page! <comment><USER2> I am saddened that no one has responded!

Here is a list of sites made in Jekyll if that helps:

[https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/wiki/Sites](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/wiki/Sites)

</comment><comment><USER3> cssmania.com features heaps of site designs.</comment>