Solar System Likely Once Had Another Gas Giant Planet - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=solar-system-likely-once-had-anothe-11-09-19

<comment><USER2> Not much detail in that. Here's the author's Arxiv submission <http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.2949>

</comment><comment><USER3> Too bad, I was hoping to hear it was eaten by Jupiter.</comment>


What Really Boosts Your Productivity? - <AUTHOR> http://www.kanbanchi.com/what-really-boosts-your-productivity <comment><USER2> I know that this post is basically a marketing plug for Kanbanchi, but the article, from an statistical perspective, is severely wrong.

Other than the usual warning that "correlation does not imply causation", putting Luxembourg in the dataset makes me cringe: Luxembourg's economy is based on Taxes[1] ala Tax haven, which, for this purpose, is like passive incoming for the whole population. There was an scandal here in Europe about this not so long ago[2]

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

 _In 2013 the GDP was $60.54 billion of which services, including the financial sector, produced 86%. The financial sector comprised 36% of GDP, industry comprised 13.3% and agriculture only 0.3%_

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/05/-sp- luxembo...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/05/-sp-luxembourg- tax-files-tax-avoidance-industrial-scale)

</comment><comment><USER3> Through a lot of trial and error I have found that doing actual work increases productivity more than anything else!</comment>


How We're Handling VAT at Gumroad - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gumroad.com/post/110080508463/vat

<comment><USER2> The law has always been (since like 2001 or whatever, when VOES was put into place) that cpanies outside the EU were required to pay VAT to the location of each customer.</comment>


What is the process for submitting a Zero Day vulnerability? - <AUTHOR>

Hey there guys,
I've found a Zero Day vulnerability (Just URI XSS) though it is affecting anywhere in the range of ~6M websites (according to Google).
I was wondering what the process I should follow is. (Report to vendor, wait for them to update software then disclose?)
I also was wondering the legality of this, am I likely to get into any kind of trouble here?
~JungleCats <comment><USER2> You could read up on <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsible_disclosure>

Preferrably contact the vendor directly without publishing your findings online. Give them time to fix the issue. If they do not react and you feel there is a great danger if you do not disclose the existence of this vulnerability, publish it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there netcorps,

Thanks for the reply. I think that's the way I'll go about it.

Much appreciated!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Watch out. Each vendor / website has processes you may want to follow. You could also get in touch with <http://www.us-cert.gov/>. They are helpful in providing advice and guidance.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the reply, I'll be sure to bookmark the link.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk: I will "eat my hat" if a competitor's rocket flies before 2023 - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/elon-musk-i-will-eat-my-hat-if-a-competitors-rocket-flies-before-2023/ <comment><USER2> The headline elides the critical part of Musk's criteria: "[I]f that rocket _flies a national security spacecraft_ before 2023."</comment>


Stay focused - New research on how to close the achievement gap - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21569680-new-research-how-close-achievement-gap-stay-focused <comment><USER3> Thanks for posting - it's fascinating to see the results of the KIPP program down the line! It reminds me of Finland - they have no standardized testing and less of a focus on pure academic results, and yet they are near the top of the world for education results. Their entire system is geared towards growing the resilience and emotional intelligence in each child - <USER2> counselling, individualized student guidance, free school meals and easy access to health care are available for every student. It's more holistic than a pure academic focus. Resilience and drive - more than anything else it's what's needed in business, so perhaps this shows it's what's needed in life too?

<comment><USER4> It's likely that the good outcomes in Finland are primarily the result of the student body, not the education system. Non-Finnish students attending school in Finland tend to perform about 50 pts worse on PISA than Finnish students.

[http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth- abou...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa- scores-usa.html)

<comment><USER5> Be careful, people will claim you are supporting racism ;)

<comment><USER6> It is a little racist to see a difference in test scores and assume that it is 'likely' due to race. There isn't much in that post (which is pretty good) about _why_ the scores of immigrant Finns are lower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _But schools have experience creating classes that raise test scores. Figuring out the best way to help youths develop "grit"_

Schools have extensive experience developing "grit". Go out to the football field or basketball court and those same knuckleheads are showing more 'grit' than anyone in the chess club. The reason they don't have 'grit' with respect to academics is because they aren't interested. Getting them interested is mainly fodder for cliche-ridden Hollywood claptrap.

</comment><comment><USER8> The article seems to contradict what I previously read about KIPP [1]. I thought KIPP also heavily emphasized 'emotional intelligence' going so far as to giving their students t-shirts emblazoned with the "Don't eat the marshmallow" slogan. The words refer to the famous Stanford experiment on delayed gratification.

It seems the article (or Paul Tough) does not provide a balanced, complete analysis. Perhaps the colleges the kids dropped out of overemphasized academic achievement. It could be that emotional intelligence plays a role in the long- term success, of which college may or may not also be an ingredient.

[1] [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all)

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder what he means when he calls persistence and curiosity non-cognitive?

</comment><comment><USER10> Education policy is the issue that drew me to participate on Hacker News,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4728123>

and I'm glad to see that so many participants, from the founder on to the newest member, enjoy thinking about and checking facts on education issues. There is very good research on boosting student achievement in another charter school network, the Uncommon Schools network

[http://www.uncommonschools.org/our-approach/thought- leadersh...](http://www.uncommonschools.org/our-approach/thought- leadership/teach-like-a-champion)

that produced the book Teach Like a Champion.

<http://teachlikeachampion.wiley.com/>

[http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470...](http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470550473.html)

Practicing the techniques in that book is improving my own teaching as a private-practice mathematics instructor.

There are a lot of stupid comments that suggest that the main disadvantage of the United States is its ethnic diversity, but the real disadvantage the United States has is low expectations all around, from the most advantaged students

<http://educationnext.org/when-the-best-is-mediocre/>

[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest- blog/2012/08/29/lo...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest- blog/2012/08/29/look-east-young-man/)

<http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented/>

to the least.

<http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf>

The hypothesis that "race" differences matter most in the United States educational achievement profile is thoroughly discredited,

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/nisbett2012groupdi...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/nisbett2012groupdiffs.pdf)

and meanwhile there is abundant evidence--for the rare American who speaks or reads any language besides English--that school systems in other countries sometimes provide a better learning environment simply by expecting more of students,

[http://www.de.ufpe.br/~toom/travel/sweden05/WP-SWEDEN- NEW.pd...](http://www.de.ufpe.br/~toom/travel/sweden05/WP-SWEDEN-NEW.pdf)

including, by the way, often learning a second language just to receive school instruction or a third language as a core part of the secondary school curriculum (both of which were part of my wife's experience in Taiwan when Taiwan was still part of the Third World). If further research on KIPP and on The Uncommon Schools network continues to alleviate the effects of the de jure racism in United States public schools that survived into my lifetime, and also gives the lie to ongoing excuses for racism, so much the better.

AFTER EDIT: One more point on the subject of international comparisons in education is that the TIMSS and PISA series of tests don't wholly agree in methodology,

[http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brown-center- chalkboard/posts...](http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brown-center- chalkboard/posts/2013/01/09-timss-pisa-loveless)

and hence don't wholly agree in conclusions, although the United States plainly doesn't do as well in educational achievement as its high level of spending on public schools would warrant.

P.S. Every time I see a Hacker News discussion of this subject I reflect that my occupation (supplemental mathematics lessons for advanced learners in mostly suburban school districts in one of the states in the U.S. with the highest academic achievement) wouldn't exist if United States schools were really doing so well for the brightest. See my user profile for more details.

<comment><USER11> You're clearly more of an expert than I am on this (although your tone seems unnecessarily condescending), but I was hoping you could articulate in a clearer way:

What's the accepted explanation behind the vast racial divide in scores? Is it a proxy for poverty? Is it a cultural issue? My understanding is that white + asian Americans, on PISA tests at least, perform at a level that would put them in the top 5 countries in the world, were they alone. I'm not interested in race-based theories -- those seem obviously wrong to me -- but that fact does seem to stick out. Can you explain what the prevailing theory is? Or should I be ignoring that data?

Also, do you have data to support your "rare American who speaks or reads any language besides English" gibe, or was it just offhand snark? The famous Arne Duncan bit cited people who speak more than one language in their home, and the only other data I could find was a gallup poll (suspect already) about people "able to have a conversation in a second language" -- about 25% of Americans.

EDIT: I should stress that my natural bias is irritation at arguments that try to layer European policies over American populations. Forget race -- I don't think it's interesting -- but it seems a lot easier to to design an education system for a culturally homogenous society than a culturally diverse one. This is akin to when people were exclusively blaming the American health care system for a higher mortality rate rather than, say, the massive obesity rate in this country.

<comment><USER10> To answer your specific question, there is a quite long article by Roland Fryer at Harvard to explain where "race" differences in educational achievement in the United States began and what needs to be done to further narrow the divide.

[http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Fryer_R...](http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Fryer_Racial_Inequality.pdf)

The early situation during my lifetime is well summed up by a quotation from _America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible_

[http://www.amazon.com/America-Black-White-Nation- Indivisible...](http://www.amazon.com/America-Black-White-Nation- Indivisible/dp/0684844974)

by Stephan Thernstrom and Abigail Thernstrom (which is a thoughtful book about the history of relations between the "white" majority and black Americans). Its description of public schools in the south sets the scene for today's legacy:

"The poverty of the South and the blindness of its planter-dominated leadership to the need for an educated labor force made the region the educational backwater of the country. School expenditures per pupil in Georgia in 1940, for example, were 42 percent of the national average; they were even lower in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Those were figures for both black and white students; blacks of course fared worse than whites. Thus, in 1940, Alabama spent 3.2 times as much per pupil on whites as on blacks; Georgia 3.3 times as much; South Carolina 3.8 times as much; Mississippi a staggering 7.2 times as much. In the most heavily black counties of the Black Belt (so-called because of the exceptionally rich dark soil), per-pupil expenditures for black children were less than one-thirteenth of what was spent on whites. A pamphlet documenting such inequalities issued by the National Conference of Fundamental Problems in the Education of Negroes in 1934 observed wryly that 'if we assume the democratic principle of equal educational opportunity for all children, it would appear that it takes seven times as much to teach a white child as a Negro. As Booker T. Washington used to say, it is too great a compliment to the Negro to assume that he can learn seven times as easily as his white neighbor.'"

As that book points out, and as Roland Fryer points out in his more recent publication, today spending disparities are nowhere near that large (although they still favor "white" students in most jurisdictions), and now cultural factors and specific school practices are most at issue in the current divide. But the divide is narrowing, and has narrowed quite a bit in my lifetime, and there are identifiable improvements in United States schools that could make it narrow further.

On the language background of Americans, see

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/are-we- real...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/are-we-really- monolingual.html)

for a recent report, based on the United States Census data, and an earlier Gallup Poll result

[http://www.gallup.com/poll/1825/about-one-four-americans- can...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/1825/about-one-four-americans-can-hold- conversation-second-language.aspx)

with different methodology. I had three grandparents, all born in the United States, who spoke a language other than English at home. The United States has long relied on immigrant families keeping their heritage languages (as in the case of my grandparents' families) to have people in the population who speak a language other than English. I have been a contract English-Chinese interpreter for the United States government and other clients. By test, I reached a high level of proficiency in a second language. But I would see highly proficient English in use among mixed groups of young people from other countries throughout the time I lived in Taiwan, and there is no comparable phenomenon of anywhere near as many Americans who grow up in English-speaking homes learning a second language of any kind. Singapore, by contrast, has four official languages from four different language families, has a population that spoke NONE of those official languages at home as recently as a generation ago, and yet has achieved good educational results in English (the sole medium of primary and secondary schooling) during my lifetime. Singapore is a very diverse country that has been more successful in getting good schooling results for that diverse population than the United States has. Similarly, repeating my previous comment here, my wife used a second language (Mandarin) to receive all of her schooling, and then learned a non-cognate foreign language (English) beginning in secondary schooling, and so is genuinely trilingual, a rare condition among Americans in her generation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My primary concern with the privatization of education is not that charters, like KIPP, can't and won't educate students effectively and efficiently. As a teacher I understand that there are many ways in which our educational system can fundamentally improve.

My worry is that the incentives of private enterprise could very well lead to an education system that doesn't strive, as a core mission, to education all Americans to a high level.

If we did transition to a privately held education system we would, naturally, need to consider whether or not funding would be guaranteed by the government (as is currently true, within bounds). If funding is guaranteed it seems like that cost of education would explode. Private programs would have few incentives to restrict overhead and procurement costs, as is true in contemporary military procurements and fee-for-service healthcare delivery models. Schools would be operating, after all, in a persistent, non-voluntary market.

A second – and more damaging – possibility (if funding is not government backed, though it seems likely to take place regardless) is that that private educational institutions would be incentivized to either reduce the quality of education provided to low performing (and thereby low-value) students – perhaps through low-overhead online coursework (which has not yet proven itself an equal method of educational delivery – see failure of K12 Inc. online schools) - or to outright reduce the availability of education to low- performing/low-value students. While this clearly undermines the long-standing tradition that all children the United States must be provided with an equal education, we might find a corollary in the current national conversation regarding healthcare availability, or lack thereof, for the poor.

In this case, it is unlikely that withholding education would carry the same moral difficulty for the public as restricting healthcare does when a poor individual comes to the emergency room with a grave injury. As such, these low-performing/low-value students would likely be allowed/encouraged to drop out of primary and secondary charter education (which we already see, for instance through zero tolerance conduct rules, in small charter school populations of ELL students and students with cognitive/behavioral problems) – or they would fall onto a governmental supported educational system specifically tailored to their educational/SES class. It is possible that this safety-net education system would allow for more specifically tailored education practices – however, judging by the historically tiered and inequitable education system we see today (Reese, 2007), (Kozol, 1992) it seems unlikely that these schools would constitute anything more than a dumping ground for struggling students.

It is, instead, more likely that these safety-net schools would be highly stigmatized and exacerbate negative self-perceptions of students' future economic opportunities (Ogbu, 1987) while also limiting students access to academic knowledge and skills necessary to enter a modern workforce (Oakes, 2008). The reframing of the term "public education" to carry the same connotations as "public house" or "public hospital" is already underway – as discussed by Lee Raudonis, former executive director of the Georgia Republican Party.

[http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/11/28/charter- sc...](http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/11/28/charter-school- amendment-debate-far-from-over-next-up-in-the-georgia-legislature-redefining- public-schools/)

If we're not concerned with education as a primary empowering force for personal advancement and an initial level playing field for all Americans, then we can just move along.

For me, as a white/middle class/privately educated k12 teacher – it is something to protect against.

Readings (in order of use): Reese, W.J. (2007). Public schools and the common good. In History, education, and the schools (pp. 141-158). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.

Kozol, J. (1992). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. Chapter 3: The Savage Inequalities of Public Education in New York (pp. 83-132).

Ogbu, J. (1987). Variability in minority school performance: A problem in search of an explanation. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 18(4), 312-334.

Oakes, J. (2008) Keeping track: Structuring equality and inequality in an era of accountability. Teachers College Record, 110(3), 700-712.</comment>


New Mozilla CEO is allegedly anti-gay marriage – Firefox developers boycott - <AUTHOR> http://betanews.com/2014/03/24/new-mozilla-ceo-is-allegedly-anti-gay-marriage-firefox-developers-boycott/

<comment><USER2> Isn't this an indirect boycott? Those are illegal.

I'd guess every CEO has some opinion that many employees/vendors/clients disagree with. In a professional world, we don't use personal affects to guide business decisions. I.e. we buy groceries from the checkout guy that is anti/pro guns and don't blink. Why is this CEO any different?

<comment><USER3> Mozilla presents itself as a progressive, world-changing organisation. It deliberately attracts supporters with that messaging.

Look at the drama surrounding raising money through advertising, clearly Mozilla is considered different from a random internet business. So I think it's understandable that it might spill over into related areas of concern for progressive, world-changing types.

Having said that, I think Mozilla's CEO doesn't really have any power to apply his bigotry other than donating money he's earned from Mozilla, and he could probably earn even more elsewhere, so I'm not sure there's much need for a boycott..

<comment><USER2> Agreed. I think maybe exposure to the Mozilla crew might even broaden the guy's horizons. He might change his mind. No need to write him off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In general this seems like a morally contentious issue. Assuming that a large majority of Mozilla employees support gay marriage, and that Mozilla has no corporate policy against gay marriage, it seems questionable whether an entire company should be boycotted due to the political views of one member of that company.

</comment><comment><USER5> "As more and more people wake up from the slumber of ignorance and see the light in supporting gay marriage, there are still people that refuse to evolve." \- what a subtle expression of a subjective point of view :).</comment>


Royalties for Author of Economics Textbook Exceed $42M - <AUTHOR> https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2015/02/a_280_college_textbook_busts_b.html <comment><AUTHOR> Buying a textbook for $280 is an economics lesson in itself.</comment>


41 Things I've Learned By 40 - <AUTHOR> http://thomsinger.blogspot.com/2006/06/41-things-ive-learned-by-40.html <comment><USER2> I'm not normally one for these kind of lists but there is some real good advice in here.

For the HN startup community I would draw attention to:

      39. Nothing produces results as much as taking action.
      37. People do business with people they know and like.
      25. You are a "brand". No matter what you do it effects your reputation.
      19. If you are not knowledgeable about wine...Don't fake it.
      16. Find a mentor.
      15. Be a mentor.
      18. Be-friend your competitors.
      13. You do not have to be smart to be successful. Tenacity trumps intelligence.
      10. Writing a book is hard work. Promoting a book is harder work.

and encourage you to read them as business (as well as personal) advice: read You as 'Your company', 'Wine' as 'any technical subject', 'book' as 'App/Product'.

<comment><USER3> #13 reminds me of one of my favorite PG quotes:

"In most domains, talent is overrated compared to determination--partly because it makes a better story, partly because it gives onlookers an excuse for being lazy, and partly because after a while determination starts to look like talent."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is funny, my personality traits align well with this article. I have given out very similar advice to others from time to time. It is funny but opportunity does really shine on those who have a positive outlook on life. I was once told that I was naive for looking at the positive aspects of people and not holding their flaws against them.

It was painful because it was part of an, I am dumping you speech from a woman that I loved and who believed that I was always going to be a pipe dreaming looser. She never believed in any of my ventures and thought that I was an idiot who just did not get that there where crappy people out there.

No matter how hard I tried I could never convince her that it was a philosophical view of the world and that while I knew there where negative people, I had to be above it or would be consumed by it. Part of being above it is assuming people are good natured until they prove you wrong. I have been blessed with so much opportunity by believe that there where people like me.

The best advice I was ever given was right after this event by my grandfather in which he told me, never compromise your values and never get jaded, once you do, you start to repel good people and close the door on opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER5> This post is old. And it doesn't matter one bit.</comment>


Porn Site Breaks Down Searches By Country - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/13/porn-site-breaks-down-searches-by-country-surprising-no-one/ <comment><USER2> That's kind of fascinating. Just looking around a bit, it seems very common in most parts of the world covered to search for one's own nationality as the most common term (Norwegians looking for Norway, Argentines looking for Argentina, etc). Americans seem to look for genres like teen, lesbian, mom, bbw, etc. Even big states like CA, NY, or TX don't seem interested in searching for people from their own states.

I don't know how representative the samples are, nor how correct my impression is, but I found it interesting.

<comment><USER3> I'd imagine that's because much of the net is US-centric by default and there's less variance/no language barrier between NY/CA/TX, as there would be between, say, Brazil/Argentina or Germany/Norway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm guessing that this site is biggest in one country (USA?) and alot of those other countries have small sample sets to go on. Searches in many non-US countries are very specific to one porn star, which seems odd.

Would need data on traffic by country to clarify that. If this kind of thing is important to you, that is...

<comment><USER5> Checked out some European countries and most seemed to have reasonable results until I got to Iceland. The results from Iceland do indeed suggest the sample set is way too small for some regions.

<comment><USER6> How about countries like Romania... 'Mom and son'. -What?

<comment><USER7> That one is listed for Hungary too. Looking at local sites and it seems that it's quite a popular fetish here.

<comment><USER8> Is there much of a fetish for gay koreans and gay grandpas in Hungary?

It seems more likely the results are dominated by searches from one person, especially when there are no results for Slovakians or most of the Balkan states at all.

<comment><USER4> On the same note, everybody in Peru would be searching for gay porn if their sample set was representative.

<comment><USER9> well, i'm glad chile has company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some of these just come across as though someone said, "We have to come up with ten search terms for each state and country - do something so that every location gets ten results!":

1) Kentucky's #1 search term is "free gay porn" - pretty specific relative to all the other terms elsewhere

2) Iowa's #6 is "backroom casting couch" but Wyoming's #3 is "brcc". That's either poor data warehousing practices, or an intentional choice to say "People who type the term in are differentiated from people who use the acronym." I'm assuming that it's poor data warehousing or small sample size given how "milf" is in almost every state but not one state has the fully- spelled out version.

3) Mississippi's results are skewed relative to what most people think about Mississippi. For a state that is supposed to be 60% Caucasian[1], their top search terms are not very Caucasian-like. I'm thinking small sample size here.

4) Connecticut's #10 result is "lisa ann"

5) Maine has both "ebony" and "black" as top search terms

6) Most of the South American listings have some variation of the country name.

7) Every result in Peru is gay. Clearly this is either small sample size, marketing, or "other".

I'm surprised more people aren't focusing on the "dirty data" (pun intended). Clearly something is weird with the data - it's either working on small sample sizes, or there's been some poor work done to get it to this point (not enough work done, for example).

[1] <http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/28000.html>

<comment><USER11> "lisa ann" comes up in a large number of countries, too. I'm really not sure how to interpret that.

Israel's #3 search was "college rules". Not "college".

Nigeria's #3 search was "things i jack off to".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As I saw this news story over and over on different sites, all I thought was.. who is the PR genius behind this?

What better way to establish yourself "The World's Biggest Porn Search Engine." than having non-porn media legitimize you for free?

<comment><USER13> What is a "porn search engine"? Wouldn't _google_ be the biggest?

<comment><USER11> It very well might not be, depending on how you define "porn search engine". If you mean "search engine on which porn searches are _ever_ conducted", then sure. Otherwise, it's far more up in the air.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Having worked on search engines for over 10 years and seen what people search for first hand from the logs, these lists are the PG-13 version. Which is for the best. Some things cannot be un-seen.

<comment><USER7> So can we get a Rated R version?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hm. They labeled Oregon "Nevada", there is no info on how many searches these lists represent, and I'm not sure what half of these terms mean (most bizarrely "Straight (gay)"?) - but otherwise it's very interesting. I would have assumed a priori that stereotypical national fetishes feature more clearly, but instead people seem to search for their own country in the first place.

<comment><USER16> > (most bizarrely "Straight (gay)"?)

There's a whole subgenre of gay porn featuring 'straight' men having sex with other men.

It varies from 'guys who look "passably" straight' to 'guys who are "straight" and have girlfriends but get tricked/coerced into having sex with other men".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, South America really, really likes gay porn. Look at Peru--every one of the top searches is tagged "(gay)". I wonder why that is; are many Peruvians gay? Do straight Peruvians simply not view porn?

<comment><USER9> i think they may be based on very small sample sizes.

<comment><USER18> or straight peruvians simply use a different search engine for their porn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Strange how Asian is top ten USA, even moreso than Ebony considering there are more African-American men and women in the U.S. than Asians. The more general terms (Teen, College, Creampie) would most likely primarily show Caucasian stars.

<comment><USER11> One reason for this is that "ebony" gets split with "black", whereas "asian" isn't strongly split by anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> India likes rape.

<comment><USER21> And chinese dig japanese

<comment><USER22> And Kentucky favors gay porn. I wonder about the sample size.

<comment><USER23> Check out the preponderance of ebony porn and black gay porn in the Deep South. Virginias, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia.

<http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map> for comparison...

<comment><USER24> Most of these groups are very small with little influence (though some are very active politically, though it isn't listed, the Sons of Confederate Veterans loves to make life hard for state legislators and Governors). Many of these are literally holes in the wall, like The Redneck Shop in SC (not discrediting racism in the SE, but most people have other things to do with their time).

What is really going on: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Black_belt_counties.png>

Also you have a disproportionate number of historically black colleges in the South as compared to the rest of the US. Upper-middle black households are more likely to send their kids to schools like Spelman and Morehouse and if kids like anything, they like sex.

<comment><USER23> Awesome, thanks for this, this is good data literacy

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> People in iceland like strange stuff, compared to other european countries.

edit: as other people noted, the sample size is probably too small there.

</comment><comment><USER26> Its interesting how most of the "racist" southern states(sc,ga etc) have ebony as the top search term.

</comment><comment><USER27> Bug: It thinks Oregon is Nevada.

</comment><comment><USER28> Have you seen Peru? How does that country sustain itself

<comment><USER29> What are you insinuating?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> now i need to go watch what a creampie is. it's rather popular here in the US

<comment><USER11> I'd honestly advise using Urban Dictionary instead. A creampie may or may not be disgusting, but if it is, you'd probably prefer a textual description.

<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=creampie>

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Lebanon: into weird stuff.

</comment><comment><USER30> ohh lord the middle east needs some help finding the good/non-whacked out material</comment>


Factbook: Facebook, Corrected - <AUTHOR> https://factbook.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> A project by Avaaz: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz)

Please listen to this podcast episode where they explain the concept of "correct the record" and why social media platforms should implement it to battle disinformation: [https://radiopublic.com/function-with-anil-dash- GEvN2g/s1!df...](https://radiopublic.com/function-with-anil-dash- GEvN2g/s1!df363)</comment>


Ack is a grep-like tool, optimised for programmers - <AUTHOR> http://www.betterthangrep.com/ <comment><USER2> It's also worth checking out The Silver Searcher: [https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher](https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher)

<comment><USER3> _How is it so fast? Files are mmap()ed instead of read into a buffer._

It's hard to believe this would give a significant performance boost. Is there evidence of this?

<comment><USER4> There is a nice (and often posted) mailing list post explaining some of the reasons GNU Grep is so fast:

[http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd- current/2010-Augu...](http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd- current/2010-August/019310.html)

He mentions: "So even nowadays, using --mmap can be worth a >20% speedup."

<comment><USER3> Now I'm burning with curiosity. I have to know why! My plan:

\- replicate the experiment, confirm --mmap shaves off a non-negligible amount of time. It could be that his computer happened to be running something in the background that was using his harddrive, for example, which would skew the results.

\- look at the code, figure out the exact difference between what --mmap is doing and what it does by default. Confirm that the problem isn't in grep itself (it's probably not, but it's important to check).

\- dig into the kernel source to figure out the difference under the hood and why it might be faster.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if it has to do with not having to copy data back and forth between kernel and userspace. My mildly uneducated thought is that you could do this with splice() or whatever, but mmap is an easy drop-in replacement.

edit: I've been reading your posts for a while and I like them, but I keep wondering, why do you have sillysaurus1-2-3?

<comment><USER3> That's what has me so curious, because it doesn't seem like copying between kernel/userspace should account for a 20% speed drop. Once data is in the L3 CPU cache, it should be inexpensive to move it around.

Regarding my ancestry, I'm sillysaurus3 because I've (rightfully) been in trouble twice with the mods for getting too personal on HN. I apologized and changed my behavior accordingly, and additionally created a new account both times to serve as a constant reminder to be objective and emotionless. There's rarely a reason to argue with a person rather than with an idea. Debating ideas, not people, has a bunch of nice benefits: it's easier to learn from your mistakes, it makes for better reading, etc. It's pretty important, because forgetting that principle leads to exchanges like [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7700145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7700145)

Another nice benefit of creating a new account is that you lose your downvoting privilege for a time, which made me more thoughtful about whether a downvote is actually justified.

<comment><USER6> Possibly the OS is doing interesting things with file access and caching and opting out of that has benefits for this particular workload?

...

I just skimmed the bsd mailing list email on why grep is fast which was linked up-thread, and it seems that's somewhat the case. It sounds like since they are doing advanced search techniques on what matches or can match, they use mmap to avoid requiring the kernel copy every byte into memory, when they know they only need to look at specific ranges of bytes in some instances. At least that was the case at some point in the past.

 _Finally, when I was last the maintainer of GNU grep (15+ years ago...), GNU grep also tried very hard to set things up so that the _kernel_ could ALSO avoid handling every byte of the input, by using mmap() instead of read() for file input. At the time, using read() caused most Unix versions to do extra copying._

P.S. Nice attitude, it earned an upvote from me. Which is probably one reason why your third account has more karma than my first.

<comment><USER5> Right, I think the point of boyer-moore is that it allows to eliminate / skip large chunks of the text during the search.

So the assumption is that those pages don't even ever get swapped in, but I think that'd only be the case when the pattern size is at least as large as the page size (usually 4KB!), which is not the case in the example in the mailing list. So the mystery continues!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use ag[2], which is pretty much the same as ack, but even faster. The other day I was using it to find all instances in all projects of a list of problematic method names[1], in case anyone wants to see a real world use case.

[1]: [http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/108471/no-output- usi...](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/108471/no-output-using- parallel-in-tandem-with-ag-or-ack/108472#108472)

[2]: [https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher](https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher)

<comment><USER8> The only annoyance with ag is it does not have ack's quick filters e.g. ack --py versus ag -G '\\.py$' (and ack's type flags can include multiple file extensions).

<comment><USER9> It does have them now, update to the latest release :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For Java programmers who use Silver Searcher or ack, this lets you search all jars in a directory tree for a given string. Requires GNU Parallel:

        function ffjar() {
          jars=(./**/*.jar)
          print "Searching ${#jars[*]} jars for '${*}'..."
          parallel --no-notice --tag unzip -l ::: ${jars} | ag ${*} | awk '{print $1, ":", $5}'
        }

Because it uses parallel it spreads the workload across CPUs. I use this frequently when I have to update/rewrite/create build scripts, and I know a class exists but not which jar file it lives in.

<comment><USER11> That's pretty neat! I use the following (slower, but short enough that it sticks in my memory so I can do it at a colleague's machine):

      find . -name "*.jar" | xargs -tn1 unzip -l | grep SomeClass

<comment><USER12> `xargs` also has a `-P` flag which will instruct it to spread work over multiple processes. Given that you already have `-n1`, adding a `-P 0` will have it automatically spread out over all your CPUs.

<comment><USER13> Be aware that xargs does not deal nicely with race conditions: (Parallel grep) [http://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/man.html#differences_be...](http://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/man.html#differences_between_xargs_and_gnu_parallel)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It should be noted that "faster" is due to the fact that it limits itself to searching the subset of files that have code extensions.

I've tested grep against ack and ag for large text files and grep won handily, especially the latest version of grep.

Also note you can use GNU Parallel to run multiple greps

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I think it's important not to throw grep away. Ack is really for when you don't know or can't be bothered to explicitly mention the (several) specific files to search.

<comment><USER15> > I think it's important not to throw grep away

Exactly. There's no reason that you can't have grep AND ack AND ag in your toolbox to choose from.

<comment><USER16> Sure, there's no reason, but it still sucks to have 3 tools for essentially the same task due to defects in each.

<comment><USER14> Can you elaborate on these defects

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For some reason, it took me one or two minutes of rereading to realize it was ack, not awk. I think this website was going to be some ironic trash-talking about grep. Then I saw "written in Perl" and I got so confused my head almost exploded.

Anyway, neat tool. Will check it out soon.

<comment><USER18> > I think this website was going to be some ironic trash-talking about grep.

Andy Lester, the primary author of ack, is one of the nicest guys I know of. You wouldn't see any trash-talking on that site. He even changed the name of the site from "better than grep" to "beyond grep" [1].

In fact, he gives props to similar tools like ag and others [2].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5578304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5578304) [2] [http://beyondgrep.com/more-tools/](http://beyondgrep.com/more-tools/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm assuming the title got rewritten? It is probably important to note:

"ack versions 2.00 to 2.11_02 are susceptible to a code execution exploit. Please upgrade to 2.12 or higher ASAP."

<comment><USER20> The 2.12 version was posted December 3 2013, so no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I couldn't live without this tool today, very useful to quickly find where _that_ method is used for example.

<comment><USER22> Is it better than just searching the project in your IDE?

<comment><USER23> I seem to find things faster than my coworkers. The ability to quickly filter out non relevant files and do nested searches of the searches is the strong point. Unix as an IDE and all.

<comment><USER3> Examples, please? If you have the time.

<comment><USER23> These are just a few examples I do pretty frequently:

Nested Search:

      ag functionName | ag moreSpecificContextLikeArgs

Find variable changed yesterday:

      git log -p --since yesterday | ag varName

Find controllers changed yesterday:

      git log --oneline --showfile | ag controllers

What files did I work on last week:

      git log --name-only --oneline --author me --since 1.weeks

How many JS commits did I do last month?

      git log --since 1.months --author me  --name-only | ag -i '\.js$' | wc -l

How many JS commits did I do on each file last month?

       git log --since 1.months --author me  --name-only | ag -i '\.js$' | awk '{arr[$1]++} END {for(i in arr) print arr[i]," - ",i}' | sort -r -n

Change a "classname" from MyClass to BetterName:

      ag MyClass # verify it only finds what you think it will
      ag MyClass | awk -F':' '{print $1}' | sort | uniq | while read line
      do
        sed -i' ' 's/MyClass/BetterName/g' $line
      done

<comment><USER24> Nested searches are handy. They can also be used to find cases of one thing within a few lines of proximity to another:

        ack -C5 firstThing | less
        /secondThing

One bonus ack trick that I like also like is bulk loading into Emacs for further manipulation (e.g., multi-occur and then occur-edit-mode):

        emacsclient -n `ack -l functionName`

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> [https://github.com/monochromegane/the_platinum_searcher](https://github.com/monochromegane/the_platinum_searcher) I use pt for stuff which is not in git, written in go and it is fast

<comment><USER26> Pt also has first party builds for Windows and Mac

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's worth noting that if you're always searching in a git repo, git-grep is pretty comparable to ack and you already have it installed.

<comment><USER28> Totally, I use it all the time now. Here's a pretty great writeup on git grep that was on HN recently: [http://travisjeffery.com/b/2012/02/search-a-git- repo-like-a-...](http://travisjeffery.com/b/2012/02/search-a-git-repo-like-a- ninja/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> My ex-colleague introduced this to me and I thank him every time I use ack. It is really so much better than grep. I have set up a bunch of aliases to search by file type and it makes me so productive.

</comment><comment><USER30> I used Ack a lot when I was coding Perl (it's been a while). After I switched to Ruby, I used rak [1], which seemed easier to use most of the time, and nearly identical.

However, when you just want to find stuff fast, it's annoying to have to deal with Perl/CPAN or RVM/Rubygems, especially when the dependencies are not installed on your server/workstation.

That's why I've switched to silver searcher (ag) [2], as it can be installed with any OS package manager (brew, apt, yum).

[1] [http://rak.rubyforge.org](http://rak.rubyforge.org) [2] [https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher](https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher)

<comment><USER31> ag is not available as a package on debian stable. Ack is though; as ack-grep. So if you don't want to mess with CPAN that's fine. The non-CPAN instructions are right on the website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The problem with such tools is often their lack of ubiquity. I don't want to start using ack, forget a lot of my grep knowledge, only to ssh into a server and need grep.

The benefit of grep's ubiquity outweighs any small advantage ack has in usability.

<comment><USER33> ack is a tiny perl script that you can simply wget and add to your path. I hear what you are saying, and I think that it applies to a lot of utilities, but not ack. Imho ack is so much better than grep that it is worth the hassle of having to install it every now and then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Old thread here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6075083](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6075083)

</comment><comment><USER35> Similar tool in pure Python: [https://github.com/eliben/pss](https://github.com/eliben/pss)

<comment><USER36> Thank you for this! `pip install pss` is one of the first things I do on a new computer :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's a list of other tools for search source code besides ack at [http://beyondgrep.com/more-tools/](http://beyondgrep.com/more-tools/), including other grepalikes and indexing tools like ctags and cscope.

I suggest that you need not limit yourself to only one tool for your code searching. Toolboxes FTW.

</comment><comment><USER37> Grep is just as good, and with the recent order of magnitude speed improvement on non-C locales that they made -- see [https://lwn.net/Articles/586899/](https://lwn.net/Articles/586899/) \-- which may not have made its way into distros yet, it's easily the best option.

I have a simple wrapper over egrep (see [https://github.com/sitaramc/ew](https://github.com/sitaramc/ew) ) that adds those little extras (ignoring binary files, ignoring VCS directories...).

I'm sure it's improved since the days I tried it, but I tend to be permanently prejudiced against tools where the author can't/won't document the file selection logic and says "there's really no English that explains how it works" when someone asks.

</comment><comment><USER38> Ack is great, but watch out if you have any source files with unusual file name extensions. Ack will only search file types it knows about. Also if you have your whole source tree in your editor or IDE, then you may as well search there instead.

<comment><USER39> Addressed in ack's FAQ [0], and in its own section of the manual [1].

The manual explains: "This is done with command line options that are best put into an .ackrc file - then you do not have to define your types over and over again." Then comprehensively describes options for both command line and .ackrc.

[0] [http://beyondgrep.com/documentation/ack-2.12-man.html#faq](http://beyondgrep.com/documentation/ack-2.12-man.html#faq)

[1] [http://beyondgrep.com/documentation/ack-2.12-man.html#defini...](http://beyondgrep.com/documentation/ack-2.12-man.html#defining_your_own_types)

<comment><USER38> Yes, I should have added "by default".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Yeah, I think grep sucks as well, that's why I created my own little ack thing

(since it's in a sorry state I won't post it here, and it will attract the rage of people for not being compatible with grep/in python/no docs/etc)

</comment><comment><USER41> How does this compare to cscope[0] ?

edit: or ctags[1] ?

\---

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cscope](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cscope)

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctags](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctags)

<comment><USER42> cscope and ctags are language syntax dependent searching tools for c-like programming languages. They let you search specifically for all instances of a function names 'foo' for example. Ack is instead just a normal pattern matcher like grep except that it has some cleverness by which it knows not to search certain file types and directories. It will return all lines which match a string rather than just variable names or functions.

<comment><USER41> cscope lets you search for arbitrary text strings and egrep patterns as well.

      "The fuzzy parser supports C, but is flexible enough to be useful for C++ and Java, and for use as a generalized 'grep database' (use it to browse large text documents!)"[0]

Exuberant Ctags supports 41 languages[1], incl. javascript, Tcl, Ruby, TeX, awk, etc.

I was wondering if there are obvious ack killer features or areas where it's remarkably superior.

[0] [http://cscope.sourceforge.net/](http://cscope.sourceforge.net/)

[1] [http://ctags.sourceforge.net/languages.html](http://ctags.sourceforge.net/languages.html)

<comment><USER15> They solve different problems. Ctags and cscope index a corpus of source code, usually tied into another tool, like Ctrl-] in vim. ack searches the files every time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I recently found out about git-grep. It's good and quite fast.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is there a tool that is to find what ack is to grep?

<comment><USER45> It depends what you mean... as others have mentioned[1], neither ack or ag are particularly fast compared to grep, they just give you a lot of specialized context (search the right files). As such, what would be to find as ack is to grep? A find that automatically filters out files that are not source code files?

[1] Things might have changed since the last time I personally tried this, at the time grep was significantly faster, especially for fixed string searches -- but then again, I never tried to coerce up a command line that gave the same kind of output that ack/ag does (which could probably be hammerd out with help of awk). So don't take my comment to suggest that these tools aren't valuable, just maybe not for the reason some people (notably not the authors of said tools) claim.

<comment><USER44> > find that automatically filters out files that are not source code

Not just that but an extensible set of file type filters that are simple to invoke is what I had in mind. E.g., the tool would let you perform searches like

      find++ --Python  projects/archive/200?

or

      find++ --video trailer

where in the latter case the hypothetical find++ would refer to my config to get a list of video file extensions and then print a list of all files in the current directory and its subdirectories with the word "trailer" in their name. For better effect it would ship with useful filters like "\--video" by default.

<comment><USER45> Right. It's not entirely straight forward to link up the mime database (via eg: file) and generating filters for use by find. Basing filters off of filenames isn't a very good idea -- and actually a little regressive in my opinion -- after all project/bin/foo (executable) might be a python or perl or whatever script -- not just a binary file.

But first getting all files via find, then testing with file, and finally matching against mime-type doesn't sound like something that's going to be as fast as possible...

I tried to see if maybe gvfs (gio - gnome io) could help, but couldn't really find anything directly applicable (although there is a set of gvfs command line tools, like gvfs-ls, gvfs-info, gvfs-mime).

<comment><USER15> > after all project/bin/foo (executable) might be a python or perl or whatever > script -- not just a binary file.

That's one of the big features of ack that the find/grep combo can't replicate is checking the shebang of the file to detect type. In ack's case, Perl and shell programs are detected both by extension:

      --type-add=perl:ext:pl,pm,pod,t,psgi
      --type-add=shell:ext:sh,bash,csh,tcsh,ksh,zsh,fish

And by checking the shebang:

      --type-add=perl:firstlinematch:/^#!.*\bperl/
      --type-add=shell:firstlinematch:/^#!.*\b(?:ba|t?c|k|z|fi)?sh\b/

Run `ack --dump` to see a list of all the definitions.

<comment><USER45> I'd prefer checking the magic numbers in general (or resource forks) -- and list based on mime-types -- rather than just shebang/extension. I'm sure there's frameworks ready for doing this -- both gnome and kde (among others) have been working on this for a while. You need it do be able to display (correct) file icons, for example. And once one goes down that route, it might be beneficial to leverage one of the frameworks for file-search (from locate db to something based on xapian or what-not) -- rather than find-style traversal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I used this for a while, but got bitten by the fact that, by default, it does not search all file types. :-/

</comment><comment><USER47> Been using ack-grep for years. In systems where it's not installed I just use grep -Hnir

</comment><comment><USER48> Is there a code repository somewhere? Can't seem to find one...

<comment><USER49> [https://github.com/petdance/ack2](https://github.com/petdance/ack2)

I'll send Andy a PR about putting the Github link on the site somewhere.

<comment><USER15> [https://github.com/petdance/beyondgrep](https://github.com/petdance/beyondgrep) is the repo for the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'll stick with grep, thanks. M-x rgrep in Emacs works great.

<comment><USER51> 'M-x ag', is just a package install away:

[https://github.com/Wilfred/ag.el](https://github.com/Wilfred/ag.el)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> This has found it's way to HN a long long time ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=975511](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=975511)

</comment><comment><USER53> Why did they choose the same name as minix compiler ack ([http://tack.sourceforge.net/](http://tack.sourceforge.net/)) ?

</comment><comment><USER54> And just to warp things even further, use ack to find the files you're after, then run through grep:

        ack -f --css | parallel grep search_term

</comment><comment><USER55> I thought we were done with this already? [https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher](https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher)

</comment><comment><USER56> Seen [http://beyondgrep.com/security/](http://beyondgrep.com/security/)

Didn't read further.</comment>


Will the startup bubble make programming obsolete? - <AUTHOR> http://www.isaacsukin.com/news/2012/04/22/will-startup-bubble-eventually-make-programming-obsolete

<comment><USER2> "Will the surge in demand for widgets make widget-makers obsolete?"

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, so it was a sensational title. The point was more that we're in a bubble caused by a lack of engineering talent, and the point about obsolescence was just me trying to figure out what it would look like to solve that problem.</comment></comment>


Seaforth 40C18 embedded array processor - <AUTHOR> http://www.intellasys.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60&Itemid=75 SEAforth 40C18 embedded processor has 40 cores and operates at low power. In fact, the company claims that SEAforth uses 28 times less power and runs 240 times faster than other competing systems.<p>Chuck Moore, the inventor of Forth language is one of the co-founders. <comment><USER2> I wish them luck, but a 40-core Forth processor sounds like it needs to come with a free Chuck Moore to program it.</comment>


Stalemate: Are you building a culture of silence? - <AUTHOR> http://morgamic.com/2012/04/26/stalemate-are-you-building-a-culture-of-silence/

<comment><USER2> I've run into these issues again and again throughout my career and personal relationships. My twenties were especially difficult. I may now only be realizing how much my very early years of my parents bickering, stone walling, and passive aggressive behaviors we're the very habits I ended up reproducing.

I think I've made strides. I've started recording the rules I've adopted for my emotional life; I'm calling it my emotional framework. :) Feel free to fork, etc.

<https://github.com/aantix/emotional_framework>

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing, I'll check it out. I think the "Resolving Internal Issues" part is valuable and a place where I struggle myself quite a bit. Keeping a living document like this is a great idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just left an environment that was eerily similar (on a point to point level of the article) a few weeks ago, after management started panicing that their new product (which is a pivot of the code base) was slipping (almost day-for- week in some aspects). It was getting so bad that only one of the developers would actually show up in the office (and everyone else working from home) just so that they didn't have to deal with the awkward silences. Nobody wants to speak up or admit responsibility, so mistakes are swept under the rug.

When you remove the ability for individuals to speak openly and freely (either because of pedestals, political reasons, or silos), you lose the dynamic that allows for true innovation to foster with your development team. Calling an all-company meeting to say that "We're not going to promote anyone to any new position, we're going to hire everyone externally" doesn't feed the team/company spirit, it makes you feel like you're in a dead-end job...and when you feel that you have no motivation/skin in the game, your quality of work, life, and support start to diminish.

Ultimately, I started seeing that I was becoming miserable in spending any time working, and I started to notice the quality of my own work starting to diminish as I started to take on less and less risky moves; something that is completely unacceptable to me. While I've left without a formal offer in hand, (and I'm confident that I'll find something that works for me) I've found that I've been in a BETTER mood, knowing that I don't need to deal with the stress, the mis-management, and the 'zombification' of my former coworkers. I'm happier -- and that's what matters the most to me -- and I've now noticed first hand what the warning signs are so I can avoid places like this in the future.

<comment><USER3> Sorry to hear that, but I'm glad you're happier and I hope you find something soon.

Getting ahead of it, obsessing about culture and addressing things before they get bad are so important for leaders to do but sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle... :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> They sound true, but are they really true?

It's one thing to dispense advice, it's another to have it grounded in cold hard facts.

<comment><USER3> I think there's certainly some conjecture mixed in with experience, but if you want something a little more focused I wrote this a while back: [http://blog.mozilla.org/webdev/2011/08/08/pragmatic- growth-f...](http://blog.mozilla.org/webdev/2011/08/08/pragmatic-growth- from-2-to-40-in-4-years/)

The "Build a culture people want to be a part of" section is probably most relevant.

But really, most of the concepts are so simple that you could find them in a children's video about bullying: <http://www.brainpopjr.com/health/relationships/bullying/>

<comment><USER6> That mozilla one is especially great and covers some things I've worried about with work culture. Especially great are the give people credit and laugh rules.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some collective blind-spots amongst people working on AI? - <AUTHOR> i.e. Many of the people share similar backgrounds, so would expect them to have common blind-spots. <comment><USER2> Very few people work on AI. ML is not the same as AI. I am yet to see a computer do a single intelligent thing. I am actually rather bothered by this marketing ploy among CS professionals.

To answer your question though, I feel like (and this is a speculation on my part) that most ML researchers have specialization in 1 field yet the vast majority of problems require some sort of deep understanding of multiple fields at once.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Many of the people share similar backgrounds

Not sure where you get that from. I find significant diversity in academic backgrounds amongst the people who do ML/AI. Some folks in my company include: Mathematicians, Biochemists, Physicists and Computer Scientists. I used to work with an awesome person who had a Poly Sci background. So yeah, things are all over the place.</comment>


Google Plans To Expand Cloud Computing Services: Think AWS On Steroids - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/12/google-plans-to-expand-cloud-computing-services-think-aws-on-steroids/ <comment><USER2> "One example that came up during the roundtable was to give developers access to Google's automated translation services, which can translate Email and webpages with a fair amount of accuracy almost instantly." and "another could focus on location/geo services."

Combine that with Google Goggles and what an explosively useful app that could be while traveling!</comment>


PG, if you could haved joined 3 Y Combinator start-ups from any session, which would they have been? - <AUTHOR>

I know it's a lot like choosing between children, but I'd still like to know. <comment><USER2> He can't answer this without dissing the remaining groups he did not choose.

<comment><USER3> Exactly.

<comment><USER4> I thought that was exactly why blored was asking...

<comment><USER5> It is. The problem is that what pg says will have a real impact on y combinator companies.

Even if we disregard its effect on cliques, and even if you disregard the morale issues that could result from the mentor saying "you're not as fun as these other guys," relationships with investors and end-users could be harmed. I gather that's not the sort of thing you should carelessly mess around with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's my bets (maybe I'll corner pg one day and find out if I'm right):

1\. Loopt (this is the only one I'm sure is on the list)

2\. reddit (news.yc is rather overwhelming evidence)

I'm on to pure speculation at this point...but I'll take a stab:

3\. Zenter (the only thing I think makes this possibly not as likely is that they sold so quickly...I think pg might like to shoot for something bigger and more world-changing this time around, since he already has plenty of money...maybe Weebly or Buxfer would be number three in that case, while Parakey probably gets disqualified for the similarly early exit)

But, I obviously can't speak for pg, and I'm just making stuff up based on limited knowledge. Take it as you will.

<comment><USER7> This list is more or less identical to YC's most successful companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How about another question. Which companies were furthest from your expectations, e.g. failed when you expected them to succeed. I suppose you just don't fund companies you don't expect to succeed, so every failure disappoints.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I say: \- Loopt \- Zenter \- One of this session's companies (probably those English guys that were looking to hire at the beginning of the session)</comment>


Show HN: Email that keeps parents in the loop - <AUTHOR> http://www.hastwoparents.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I put this together to solve my own problems, using Flask and Mailgun. The tricky part was rewriting the Reply-To header and storing the MessageId, so I can make sure that folks don't get dropped. (Piano teachers are notoriously poor at using Reply-All).

Yes, I know it's a default bootstrap theme. (I apologize).

</comment><comment><USER2> We just set up a third gmail. Use it for all family rather than individual stuff. Typically my email clients just check it alongside all my other accounts, and my wife gets an auto-forwarded copy.

But this is just as good.</comment>


What a 16 year old thinks about how Facebook is changing our society. - <AUTHOR> http://mmoorejones.com/2010/10/25/what-a-16-year-old-thinks-about-how-facebook-is-changing-our-society/

<comment><USER2> He (you) is (are) only 16 so I give him (you) some leeway here but this makes the same mistake a lot of technology pundits do in assuming users will have to adapt to technology rather than technology adapting to users.

The idea that you simply won't be able to maintain multiple social circles in 5 years is patently absurd. Mother's should not have to hear about their son's sex lives and Son's don't want them to. The fact that Facebook currently makes that happen is a flaw in the technology not a flaw in society.

<comment><USER3> Maintaining Facebook's privacy settings seems like a lot of work just so your Mom can maintain a view that you're asexual.

<comment><USER4> There's a _huge_ difference between knowing that something is true and wanting to be reminded about it constantly in graphic detail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >I urge everyone to adapt to these social changes and not try to fight them. Resisting the inevitable is counterproductive. Adapt to them completely, and conduct yourself in a manner that [...]

Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

<comment><USER6> Do I get cool bionic implants if I accept the new wave?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always been a weirdly private person. It mostly stems from my family, mostly because my mom has a motormouth, her parents who were the equivalent of the high school bully that could expose your every flaw, and I also learned some hard lessons about kids when I moved around a bit in middle/high school, developing an (un)healthy level of paranoia and social anxiety.

I have best friends/groups that I've managed to keep completely separate for more than five years. Maybe because of this, even on facebook I've managed to keep up the segregation after nearly 6 years through self-censorship and facebook features like friend lists. I think Facebook was also the first site I used (not counting ones requiring a verified identity) where I actually used my full real name to sign up (although I created several fake accounts first to test the waters)

My point is, if it's really, really important to a person to keep their lives separate, it is possible. It's not easy, but it's possible. Whether or not it's healthy and worth the time that it takes are the questions you have to ask.

</comment><comment><USER8> There are some valid points but it exasperates that there is no way out. There is: simply not use Facebook, or if you use it, use it carefully.

There is a reason I do not link my Facebook account from my professional website and/or Linked-in account. And there is a reason I simply not use Facebook to share my private life with anybody.

The thing is that I have a private life which I don't want the whole internet to know about, sure I may want to share something with my real friends but I'm so old fashion that I prefer talking about it in a pub...

In the end I think people will learn not to be careless.

</comment><comment><USER9> Incorrect, Facebook or the company that kills Facebook will figure out how to convey multiple identities from a single account.

Facebook will soon enable us to better manage multiple identities in the same way that Outlook's delay send feature helps us with working all hours of the night.

Eventually photos from your xmas party will only be viewable by your coworkers and photos from burning man will only be viewable by burners.

<comment><USER10> Facebook already allows you to group friends together and assign permissions based on those groups. I can post a status update _right now_ that everyone except my family can see or a status update only my high school friends can see.

<comment><USER9> Yep, it is a bit of a PITA to setup but once done is well worth it in avoiding social faux pas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Facebook already has groups. So make your friends group, your family group, your coworkers group, and your BDSM group, and when you post anything, make sure you mark which group(s) to post it to. Facebook actually makes it pretty easy to do so. The author mentions groups but basically claims laziness as an excuse.

And of course, if you don't want anyone knowing what you're thinking or doing, DON'T POST IT.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's not that hard to keep social identities separate. Don't add your Great Aunt Mildred as a friend on Facebook. If you really must, it's not like it's difficult to make separate accounts (annoying maybe, but not difficult).

Or, don't use Facebook at all.

<comment><USER13> I consider the fact that we want our Great Aunt Mildreds to have a false idea of who we really are to be a flaw in our culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't get this facebook thing just like I didn't get AOL and myspace before it.</comment>


Combinator - A simple Hacker News client for Windows Phone - <AUTHOR>

I've recently published my first Windows Phone application, Combinator. It's a very simple Hacker News client and it's completely free.
Download Combinator v1.0 (Marketplace): http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=a5275a3f-6611-48f6-bd62-7382eda4c028
Download Combinator v1.1 (.xap file): http://www.mediafire.com/?s8m1wch8dj8wpk9
Thank you for your feedback. <comment><USER2> I get this message "Hacker News API access request exceeded. Please try again later." Initially i was able to see the "new" items but not anymore.

Edit: I was able to view the "top" items. When i tried to view the comments,app took me to the actual article instead of comments. Looks simple and neat. This is a good start, I like this so far.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks interesting, I'll try it out. The other HN app on WP7 tends to randomly explode for weeks at a time, so this is greatly appreciated.

Edit: It would be really nice to browse comments, not just the link article. I tend to enjoy the comments more than the original link.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks very pretty. I'm an iOS guy - I've never envied Android but would like to try a Window Phone 7 sometime... It's a fresh look.

I don't have a Windows phone, so I can't test it. So my only critique could be about screenshot #2: Why so much wasted space on the bottom?

<comment><USER5> >So my only critique could be about screenshot #2: Why so much wasted space on the bottom?

The orange space at bottom is actually a menu, which is opened by clicking the "..." button at the bottom of screenshot #1.

> I've never envied Android but would like to try a Window Phone 7 sometime

Believe me, once you try, you'll never go back ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very nice, it looks promising. I can't find any way to view comments, I think the list font could be smaller, and please use a png for the splash image instead of a jpeg. Hacker News is one of the main sites I browse on my phone, so a dedicated app is ideal :)</comment>


Show HN: Netflix-Like Proxy Detection for Your Website - jonathan-kosgei https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/threat-intelligence-api <comment><AUTHOR> Nice idea and appealing market but I think this business model is on the wrong side of history when it comes to censorship. Freedom and anonymity for people cannot be realized without granting the same rights to bots.

<comment> jonathan-kosgei Thanks :) It's less geared towards censorship and more toward keeping potentially malicious users at bay for example preventing credit card fraud, preventing users from signing up for multiple free trials that kind of thing.</comment></comment>


Call-A-Spy – The first hotline for reaching out to secret service agents - <AUTHOR> https://call-a-spy.org/ <comment><USER2> Fourtopsitis</comment>


Streisand Effect - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect <comment><USER2> I think the Icke conversation is the best modern example of that. After his stream was banned London Reel, the youtube channel hosting it claimed that after the removal, they were able to crowd fund their own live streaming platform. They also hosted another Icke interview on it that they claimed attracted over 1 million live stream viewers.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best example of this this week.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/gd3o3...](https://www.reddit.com/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/gd3o39/pos_assaulted_23_innocents_then_was_put_down_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

</comment><comment><USER4> Been posted here several times. Re-upped because of the Amazon thing?

<comment><USER5> Probably because of this:

Popcorn Time repository unavailable due to DMCA takedown

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075484](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23075484)</comment></comment>


Trump Expected to Bolster 'Buy American' and 'Hire American' Directives - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-expected-to-bolster-buy-american-and-hire-american-directives-1492477200 <comment><USER2> I was reading that Finland does preferential buying from companies based on financial transparency - given what I've seen in Fortune 50's where I've worked (offshore stocks to hide income and avoid taxes by both senior executives and the company - derivatives used to hide money already in the US and make it disappear offshore), I'd like to see that for all companies which are allowed to do any business in the United States. We need to stop the rich from stealing the wealth of our entire society.</comment>


Immutable JavaScript data structures, backwards-compatible with arrays, objects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rtfeldman/seamless-immutable

<comment><USER2>
      var array = Immutable(["totally", "immutable", {hammer: "Can't Touch This"}]);

      array[1] = "I'm going to mutate you!"
      array[1] // "immutable"

I find it a little weird that the result of trying to mutate an immutable object is to silently fail the mutation. Couldn't this hide errors where the developer expects something to mutate because they didn't realize it was immutable? Shouldn't it throw instead?

Edit: After reading the documentation more thoroughly, I saw "All the methods that would normally mutate the data structures instead throw ImmutableError." Looks like the first section isn't actually accurate then?

<comment><AUTHOR> (Library author here.) Unfortunately, in JavaScript it's not possible to override array element reassignment behavior. You can call Object.freeze on the array, which makes reassignment silently do nothing, but you cannot override it to throw an exception.

The reason the docs say "the methods that would normally mutate..." is that in the specific case of _methods_ (e.g. array.push()), the library can and does override them to throw exceptions.

I would certainly prefer to make that example throw an exception, but it's simply not possible in JS. :)

<comment><USER3> Object.freeze will throw if you `'use strict';`.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very true...I should note that in the documentation. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder what the performance of this is. While functional languages like Haskell are optimized for these kinds of data structures, I doubt Javascript runtimes currently are. We've been bitten before by writing code in too much of a functional style and getting terrible performance, so benchmarks would be really useful before we'd start to use this.

<comment><USER5> Haskell and Clojure both use structure-sharing data structures, which allow immutability without the cost of copying the entire structure whenever you want to make an update. They also use laziness to improve the performance of their data structures.

If you want an implementation of these ideas in JS, Immutable.js [0] or Mori [1] are the leading libraries. seamless-immutable doesn't use these techniques, so it probably wouldn't perform well on large data sets. The benefit of it is that the immutable objects can be used as drop-in replacements for their native JS equivalents in some situations.

Full disclosure: I've contributed to Immutable.js

[0] [https://github.com/facebook/immutable- js](https://github.com/facebook/immutable-js)

[1] [https://github.com/swannodette/mori](https://github.com/swannodette/mori)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good timing. I was thinking about taking a look at immutable.js after the HN post a couple of days ago [1] and now I have an alternative to compare it with.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541496)

</comment><comment><USER7> How does this compare to [https://github.com/facebook/immutable- js](https://github.com/facebook/immutable-js) ? Has anybody used both?

<comment><USER5> From what I can see, seamless-immutable basically just enforces immutability on native JavaScript data structures. Immutable.js on the other hand, implements full persistent data structures, which give much better time complexity guarantees about important operations. Immutable.js also has a rich API designed for manipulating immutable data structures and uses lazy evaluation for methods like map, filter and concat, which really improves performance when chaining chose operations.</comment></comment>


Apple Maps in iOS 13: Sights Set on Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.macstories.net/stories/apple-maps-in-ios-13-sights-set-on-google/ <comment><USER2> One thing I noticed in the new Apple maps is traffic lights and stop signs in the Bay Area. Really handy when navigating.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if Apple will release Apple Maps on Android.

The additional information can go a long way towards improving their mapping services (provide better traffic info, give them a better idea of what parts of the maps need improvements, allow them to offer a popular times feature, etc).

<comment><USER4> It would be a good business move to do so,but the extra engineering effort is probably rather large.

<comment><USER5> Why would it be a good business move?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Offline maps. Google enables offline downloading of maps for certain areas on-demand, and Apple doesn't. Any offline caching Apple Maps may perform is entirely invisible to users."

This has been one of the primary reasons I haven't switched to using Apple Maps. Big bummer.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's lovely but by the time this will come to Asia I doubt people will still be using it</comment>


Con Artist costs Google millions - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204624204577176964003660658-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwNTEyNDUyWj.html

<comment><USER2> The problem in this story isn't Google, or the con-artist, or the drug- dealers, or the people buying the drugs, or Canadians, or GNU hippies or people born on Wednesday or whatever they're trying to spin it as... the problem is the US government. The government has no business attempting to regulate voluntary transactions between free individuals, or trying to regulate how people medicate themselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the problem is more nuanced than that. The regulatory ability of the government is a premise of governance; governments are designed to invoke fear of a Leviathan force so that the polity does not fall into a state of nature. The argument that less governance is good governance is a slippery slope one, since it is hard to determine where the cut off should be; should it be drugs, should be weapons, what can you trade volutarily? On the other hand, government is/should be a reflection of its polity. I would argue that the majority populace in the US would still agree with the notion that 'drugs should be banned', 'prostitution is illegal' (voluntary economic transactions between two individuals). I, like yourself, do not agree with this view but the puritanical hangover that still afflicts the political base causes the government, and the its operators, to make such laws. So it is more of a reflection of our society than anything else.</comment></comment>


The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secret-shame/476415/?single_page=true <comment><USER3> The secret shame of the middle-class isn't their credit debt, it's that they are poor decision makers. The author completely glosses over this, only dedicating a single line to the elephant in the room:

> "I made choices without thinking through the financial implications"

That's it. Full stop. You bought a car without having a stable job. You bought a house way outside your earning ability. You bought fancy clothes and gadgets without having the cash to pay for them. Don't blame credit, you did this to yourself.

<comment><USER4> Are they poor decision makers, or were they poorly taught financial concepts? Were they ever taught how to budget, how to see the actual cost of borrowing, etc.?

<comment><USER5> Does buying something you don't actually have money for, something that requires education? I mean, that's just self explanatory.

<comment><USER6> Understanding "don't actually have money" is something that requires education.

With the way things are, it's very easy for someone who hasn't been explicitly educated otherwise to look around and just assume that buying all you can and making minimum payments is just how things work.

<comment><USER7> I think understanding this is a big part of it, and is something Megan McArdle mentions sometimes in her columns.

The idea is that we see lots of people around us who we think are very much like us. And we see that lots of them have a house with 3000+ square feet. And lots of them drive an Escalade. And lots of them have their kids on travel sports teams. And lots of them have this and that and the other thing. Every time we see that people around us _tend to_ have such a thing, that suggests to us that we can afford it too.

The thing is, we make each of those observations independently. We don't generally take a complete inventory and see that Family A is paying for those sports activities, but doesn't have the top-of-the-line cable TV package; while Family B has the cable TV but goes without the annual vacation to the Caribbean.

We tend to want _all_ the things that we observe that _much_ of our community has, without thinking too deeply about the fact that none of them actually have all of it.

 _EDIT - <USER2>

<comment><USER8> It's not just people making these choices on the basis of what they observe: they're actively being influences to make poor financial choices.

Advertising spending is at around $200B/yr in US media alone.

... And how much of that would you say is targeted at getting people to make good financial choices for themselves?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm always baffled by one thing in these sorts of articles - the belief that paying the minimum due on your credit cards is the right thing to do.

I'm not going to pontificate about living within your means or whatever, obviously people have reasons for doing what they do. But I don't understand how so many people are cheerfully paying the minimums and treating credit as basically an extension on their salary.

I have seen this at work as well, people making low six- figure incomes paying minimums. I've even had someone tell me that paying in full is bad for your credit score.

Is this a generally held belief? Do most people pay the minimum?

<comment><USER10> My understanding is that having 0% credit utilization is slightly worse for your credit rating than having 1%-10% credit utilization. That doesn't mean that you should only pay the minimum. My approach is to regularly pay them down to a $10 balance; it's possible this is pointless because it's rounded down to 0% in their calculations anyway, I'm not sure.

<comment><USER11> If you carry a $10 balance, you're probably giving up the free float. Since I pay the card off each month, I get between 31 and 61 days of free float on purchases. If I don't pay it off in a given month, finance charges accrue from the date the charge is posted.

As to having utilization on the card, normal usage is enough to ensure that there is always a balance due on the card anyway. (If you spend money on the card regularly, the payment you send in August is for things you bought in July and by the time it posts, you have more August charges on the card, meaning the balance is only ever zero if you do a massive return or if you have a multi-week spending embargo hit at just the time the credit company pulls your report.)

<comment><USER10> > If you carry a $10 balance, you're probably giving up the free float.

Not sure what the mechanics are behind the scenes, but I keep an eye out for interest charges and I haven't seen any for years.

> meaning the balance is only ever zero if you do a massive return or if you > have a multi-week spending embargo hit at just the time the credit company > pulls your report.

I think I implemented the $10 policy because I wasn't using my cards very much at the time. Your system makes the most sense for anyone who uses their card regularly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >"You are more likely to hear from your buddy that he is on Viagra than that he has credit-card problems," says Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist who teaches at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and ministers to individuals with financial issues. "Much more likely."

What!? This... Isn't even remotely true. Maybe it's just my peer group and family but complaining about money problems is extremely, extremely common. Other than my coworkers I know more people who talk about lack on money then don't.

It kinda gets old though because I see the complainers complain then go out and make terrible financial choices. I have a friend whose always complaining about money yet he's buying expensive clothes for his wife, bought two brand new cars (one for the wife), and a motorcycle. While complaining he can't afford groceries. Then goes on several vacations. These people actually have enough money to fund a pretty decent lifestyle if they just worked to get out of debt then worked to budget.

Seems people just want to buy the things they want no matter their ability to pay for them. And banks are happy to lend money to finance this lifestyle. So we have more advertising, more credit, and more things to buy.

I think there's a cultural expectation of perpectual debt. Like everyone always has multiple "car payments" and a "house payment." Need something? No need to save for it, just take out a loan and add it to your monthly payments. That's how people get in trouble - leaving no cushion.

I just find it hard to get through this sort of article, making it seem like average-to-good income earners, someone earning $50,000 a year, are victims of some sort. I went without for a long time to get myself out of student loan debt and the get myself to a place of economic security. If I can't afford something, I don't buy it. It's not hard concept, but it does require going without. I also don't think paying these people more would help - they would just spend more.

<comment><USER13> Yup. I essentially learnt how to manage my finances by watching my parents fuck it up over and over. Burning so much money on a wedding that they had to file for bankruptcy. Carrying balances on their credit cards for years (even when they could easily pay it off). Finally getting a chunk of money as a lawsuit settlement and buying a $18,000 TV (yeah, a $18,000 TV. What the ever living <beep>. They had their share of bad luck, but nothing that couldn't have been worked around by making even marginally better decisions ($18,000 bucks used the right way can go a loooong way...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you could have written this article, read every post in this blog: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/)

I was a spendthrift for years, and even regular raises couldn't get me ahead. This guy teaches you how to not only save money, but take _pride_ in not having the latest and greatest everything. This, IMO, is what makes spending within your means sustainable in a society that looks down on those without the proper social status markers.

If you're in an economically depressed area where the richest family in town doesn't have a pot to piss in, your poverty isn't you fault, and we should have a better safety net that helps people up to more valuable careers. If you have means, save your money, and take _pride_ in not being suckered in by people selling you stuff that won't make your life better!

</comment><comment><USER15> It's easy to say "they are stupid, they should have thought about it before making those decisions."

When I think back i was very stupid at 18, but that's the age everyone expected me to go to college, and everyone told me it's ok to take a loan because with a great education I'll have the best job, and it will be easy because I'm super smart. Everyone encourages an young dumb 18 year old to get in a large debt like it is nothing.

Then, "do you have good credit? Get a good car cause you don't want to be thinking about fixing it, you want to focus on your studies"

Then, "buy a house, otherwise you are throwing money away every month while you could be investing in your own home"

This is something totally normal, it's the system. It's so ingrained in us (at least in the US) that not having these debts is socially shameful.

<comment><USER16> I'm sure it is partially a cultural thing. What steps did you take to reduce your debt after you realised it was holding you back?

<comment><USER15> I got lucky, i was denied all these things. Sure at that age i was ashamed to say i dropped out of school cause i could no longer pay out of pocket. My school mates were uncomfortable when i talked about taking the bus. And when i couldn't buy food with at lunch with a credit card, i simply didn't eat.

Today i can pay $400 for an emergency, most my friends can't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At the heart of it is piss-poor basic education. Math, reading comprehension, decision making, critical thinking.

Budweiser is the king of beers, it says so on the label. The World Series is the world championship in baseball. etc etc etc.

However - this is great for the overall economy. The US is breeding the perfect customer, that can be sold anything at any time.

You can see it in startups too, you can sell product based on a powerpoint, a "vision". 9 out of 10 with nothing behind it. It would never, ever, fly in Germany for example. People there assume a scam before anything else.

So, shit for individuals, great for the overall economy. Pick your poison.

<comment><USER18> You only need 3rd grade level math to understand budgeting. The problem is lack of discipline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article is from May 2016. Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533567)

</comment><comment><USER20> The best line i heard from a guy in my route is this

When i was 20 i wanted to make 100k by 30

When i was 30 i wanted to make 1m by 40

When i was 40 i didnt care about money

And now in my 60s i want to die $3m in debt.

<comment><USER21> Put another way (I saw it on a Citibank billboard, but it probably originated elsewhere):

"Why do we spend our youth chasing money and then our money chasing youth?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think it's surprising that as individuals we've allowed the depth of our safety nets to shrink. After all, we've been telling ourselves for some time how important it is to strengthen the safety nets provided by the government (and generally, have actually done so).

Given that we're telling everybody that there's a fallback available for many kind of problems, we should expect that people will de-emphasize the amount they sacrifice for their own such purpose.

So the stats quoted in the article, about how much margin people have for rainy days should be supplemented by information about the net value of the benefits they will, or could, derive from the government. What's the NPV of their expected Social Security and Medicare benefits? What can they expect to get in aid from Medicare or CHIP-type programs? What would their unemployment benefits be, should it come to that, or food stamp and related programs?

</comment><comment><USER22> Another thing we need to learn from this: just how high Taxes are in the US. The middle class is getting hit really hard with this. US govt spends 38% of GDP, so for the average person, they're losing 4/10$ they earn: though it's not all from income. And it's worse than you think, because it's not just about the income you make. When you spend that income, the purchasing power is much less because everything costs much more due to the high taxes. Example: Day care costs 1500 instead of 1000$ per month, etc, etc. And it's much worse in states where living costs are high: like CA and New york (where the author lived).</comment>


Ask HN: What browser do you use? - <AUTHOR> Firefox is my main browser, and I am really fed up with the constant lag and slowness. Won't use Chrome because treestyle tabs baked into the interface is important for me. I have tried the various addons for Chrome that help with managing tabs, but they don't cut it for me. also, Chrome phones home. I know there are Chromium based alternatives that don't do this, but still - tree-style tabs. FF is also phasing out support for addons that support treestyle tabs, has been discussed here before. I'd like to know what other HN users use for their browser. Personally, I need treestyle tabs, lastpass, something akin to firebug, a session manager, something like foxyproxy, and a good adblocker. <comment><USER2> I use Firefox as my default, Safari for apps that crawl in Firefox. I too look around for alternatives once or twice a year.

I recently force-enabled multiprocess FF on a machine that usually crawls due to memory starvation, and it's felt much snappier than before, though heavy single page apps are still not its forte.

If I ever switch, it'll probably be to Chromium. Safari is fast, but the URL bar is unusable and it's not very customizable and the Dev tools are meh. I'm avoiding Chrome for privacy reasons and Chromium for battery life reasons (and also because of 12 years of inertia and muscle memory).

I've looked at Opera and Vivaldi and the like, but their features seem to be aimed at power users of social media, not at developers or someone looking for an old-school browser experience.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use Firefox, I couldnt complain about lag, except for slightly underpowered machines maybe where Chrome does seem a tad swifter.

These days there isnt much choice though, its Gecko, Blink or Trident (or is it EdgeHTML now?). All the apparent alternatives are pretty much shells.

</comment><comment><USER4> I use Opera. Rationale: it's as fast as Chrome, and it does solve the main Chrome problem for me: Ctrl+Tab switches tabs in the MRU order.

It doesn't have the treestyle tabs though. Actually I never looked into it, sounds interesting. Hm.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use several browsers. Among them is Chromium rather than Chrome. It does a reasonably good job of managing separate 'users' and I use them for accessing social media...I don't stay logged into Facebook on my main browser for similar reasons to not using Chrome logged into gmail.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pale Moon

</comment><comment><USER7> Chrome

</comment><comment><USER8> Chrome</comment>