Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/07/employment_rates_for_stem_ph_d_s_it_s_a_stagnant_job_market_for_young_scientists.html <comment><USER2> Has anyone ever looked at how large some of these graduate STEM departments are by the number of students? When I decided to go back to grad school for maths, I realized that doing a Ph.D. would probably be fruitless. How did I determine this? I went to UC Berkeley, Stanford and UCLA, arguably the best math departments in the country based on the NRC rankings and AMS rankings, and counted up their graduate students. There were over 300 students. THREE HUNDRED. Three hundred brilliant minds with brilliant credentials with at least 300 other hundred brilliant competitors. That's not including the grad students at the other more mediocre schools in California like USC, UCSC, UCSB, UC Davis, UCI, UCR, and, god, I must be missing some. Oh yeah, UC San Diego. I was wondering, then, where are all these brilliant students going to go? Surely, there is not enough openings in academia, even at lower ranked institutions, for these guys. I went and checked for job openings in academia for math tenure tracked appts, and yes, there were only 10 jobs out there at the time. I then started piecing together things I saw in my own life's journey: brilliant mathematicians and scientists teaching and researching at second or third tier research universities. A lot teaching at teaching colleges (at my school, SJSU, there are several math professors from Stanford and Princeton teaching there).

It was then I realized that doing a Ph.D. in STEM is a pretty piss poor proposition. I would highly discourage most people from doing it, unless you really love research, don't care about job prospects or money, and that's all you want to do in life.

<comment><USER3> I was going for a PhD in Math and dropped out for pretty much the same reason. The field was so specialized that nobody really understands anyone else's research, which makes it mostly not-merit-based (politics) who gets hired where. Also, it really wasn't fun. I figured it would be easier to work as programmer and study Math (or other things) in my spare time.

It seems like a waste to spend 5+ years on a PhD and 3-5 years on postdocs just to get a tenured position at the #200 ranked university or to be a permanent-adjunct.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, there are a lot of possible divisions and specializations in Math it's not even funny. Most of them unintelligible to "mere mortals".

Also hard to find a job, especially one that uses your work, unless you work in number theory, in this case you have a job at the NSA.

<comment><USER5> Number theory is an extremely broad field in itself. I'm pretty sure most of it is completely irrelevant to the NSA. If you do a PhD in any theoretical field you'll almost never find a job outside of academia that uses any of your work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A big employer for chemistry PhDs that no one in the West has heard of is Wuxi Pharmatech, a contract research outfit in Shanghai. They do everything, synthesis, discovery, lead optimization, clinical testing, process development, formulation, the whole pipeline. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies stateside have turned into IP brokerages, if you think you have a promising target you buy a startup that has a compound for that and hand it off to your offshore contract firm.

Research, where you need PhDs, has been cut savagely, because of the short time horizon Wall Street demands that is totally incompatible with the realities of research.

<comment><USER7> > the short time horizon Wall Street demands

Companies that sacrifice long term for short term profits will, assuredly, do poorly long term. Their stock price will decline. Investors will see this and will short the stock. The stock will have low P/E ratios.

On the other hand, companies that sacrifice for the short term and invest for the long term will see high P/E ratios, as investors see that and go long on the stock. Amazon is a prime example.

I don't believe that investors (Wall Street) are too dumb to know the difference.

<comment><USER8> Few comments have made me want to downvote as much as this one. I still have another hundred or so points to go until I am allowed so I'll have to settle for explaining to you how much I disagree.

Your argument is a logical fallacy that I see a lot, but doesn't have a fancy Latin name. It is a combination of appeal to authority and circular reasoning so I'll give it a name right now: the Authority Circle. It has the form of:

"I believe X person/company/country is doing something dumb/bad/foolish."

"If it wasn't a good idea, they wouldn't be doing it."

This assumes that person X is smarter than you, therefore the fact that they are choosing to take an action is evidence that it is good. This is a lazy and unconstructive argument and you should be ashamed of yourself. (Unless you are a Wall Street shill doing PR spin. In that case, well done.)

So logically your argument is not well formed; what about factually? The behavior we see in investors is incredibly focused on short term gains and why not? There is no benefit to long term success to a public investor. Once the company (a small percentage of) their money is invested in flames out, they can simply invest in another company and drain them dry until it is time to bleed another one. (Hopefully unloading their stock to chumps along the way at the right time, before anyone realizes they are being sold a sick cow.) We know from history that unless government regulates the stock market, it is a short matter of time until the house of cards collapses. Today, the most long- lived publicly-held corporations are the ones where the CEO has the power to say "no" to intense investor demand for short-term gain. (We are waiting to see how long Apple can survive this now that Jobs is gone.) Everything we know tells us "yes, investors are indeed that stupid."

You have offered no new or useful facts or reasoning to this discussion. I give your comment a 0/10 for your unhelpful waste of everyone's time.

<comment><USER7> My post is not the conventional wisdom, hence I expect the downvotes. But hear me out.

I said investors, not an individual. There are a lot of professional investors who full time investigate a company, in fact Wall Street is full of them. Do I really believe that you (or I) am better informed about a company's future prospects? Why do you believe you are smarter than they are?

Consider (again) Amazon. Why does it have such a high P/E? That is hardly evidence of short term thinking. Why did Microsoft, for the last 10 years, have increasing profits and a shrinking P/E? I submit that investors were pricing the stock based on their estimation of the long term value of the stock.

A CEO once told me he was organizing his company around short term results, because "that's what Wall Street wants". The stock cratered shortly afterwards. He fooled nobody but himself.

Let's put it this way. Give us a list of stocks you believe are overvalued because foolish investors have bid the price up because of long term sacrifice for short term results. Eventually, the chickens must come to roost and the stock must collapse. So I must ask, have you shorted those stocks? Are you willing to bet your own money on being smarter than Wall Street?

<comment><USER8> You open by claiming that you are being downvoted because you are such a free- thinking maverick that you lost the popularity contest with the stodgy conservatives at HN instead being due to any shortcomings in your argument. That's adorable.

Your second paragraph sticks with the same nonsense as your previous post i.e. investors are smarter than us so they have to be right.

Now you try some new stuff so thanks for that. You made a good example of Amazon but since I already claimed that strong CEOs can resist short-term investor pressures and Bezos clearly falls into this category I invalidated this argument before you even wrote it down. It makes me think you aren't really paying attention.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make with the next paragraph but whatever it is there is not enough information there to draw any sort of conclusion. Stocks tank for many reasons including bad luck so one tale of a data point isn't useful.

Your last paragraph is well done. Unlike your other points it took a little thought to deduce why it is incorrect. I do believe there are many overvalued stocks but I am not going to short them. Bubbles can live a very, very long time and shorting them is a bet on when the bubble will pop, not on how big the bubble is, and I claim no special insight or information on the exact time any particular ponzi pyramid will inevitably implode.

Much improved: 2/10 (earned in the last paragraph only.)

<comment><USER7> > CEOs can resist short-term investor pressures and Bezos clearly falls into > this category

Amazon's P/E is currently 503. The P/E for the S&P 500 is around 19. The "investor pressures" are strongly supporting Bezos.

I'm one of them. I'm long on AMZN, with my own money on the line, and it's done well for me. I plan on staying pat.

Whether I'm right or wrong about AMZN's future is irrelevant - what is relevant is that a high P/E is a sure sign of investors betting on the long term future of a company, and not being obsessed with the next quarter. The CEO doesn't set the P/E, the investors do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The economist types who ceaselessly churn out these doom-and-gloom articles about the PhD job market just kill me. Almost every single one unblinkingly equates success with salary. In my field postdocs pay 2-3x what you make as a grad student, while still giving you almost total flexibility to work on the things that interest you, with very little oversight. To a certain subset of people, this is far more attractive than making $150k figuring out how to make people click on ads, or some multiple of that selling your soul to a hedge fund.

<comment><USER10> I like the point you are trying to make, but you go a little off the deep end there at the end. There's nothing wrong with pursuing money.

<comment><USER11> But neither is the pursuit of money any sort of notable goal. It's sort of like, "oh, well, get in line behind the other hoards of people who also want to be rich."

Nobody will care about what you do if this is your goal. On the other hand, if you can tell people "I want to make your life easier by: filling a market gap, changing an industry for the better, making X easier to use, making Y more affordable" then people will care. Thinking more about others than yourself is also probably a good way to actually find a good business!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've seen other stats that suggest PhDs (particularly in STEM) actually have the lowest unemployment rates (around 2.2%) compared to any other cohort arranged by degree attained: [http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm](http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm)

<comment><USER13> Yeah, the article is a bit misleading in its focus on "employment rates". It's using employment rates _on the day of graduation_ , i.e. people who have an offer lined up before graduating. People who graduate and _then_ interview, starting sometime later, aren't counted as "employed" in these numbers. Ultimately almost all STEM PhDs do end up with a job within a year or so, as the article later acknowledges. Later in the article they quote the unemployment rate for STEM-doctoral holders as ~2%, as you found.

I don't think it's therefore a particularly useful analysis. There are a lot of issues with the STEM-PhD job market, but significant risk of unemployment isn't really one of them. Bigger issues are things like whether the opportunity cost is worth it, and the fact that people who go into a STEM PhD really wanting to do _research_ are often disappointed (there are plenty of industry jobs, but many don't really involve scientific research).

<comment><USER14> The fact that Ph.D. holders have the lowest unemployment rate is not at all surprising, given that these people have all undergone extensive selection to be smart and hard-working. This would still be the case even if holding a Ph.D. were completely useless, so it's not really clear how much the unemployment rate is decreased by actually holding the degree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In some areas like biotech, a PhD is almost a union card to work in large corporations doing R&D. Without it, sadly, you won't be taken seriously.

<comment><USER16> Ph.D. bigotry is an artifact of the bad job market, which has just been getting worse for the past 30 years.

There used to be BA-level research jobs. There still are. They're just now filled by PhDs. Basic research is pretty much gone.

Pedigree bigotry is the natural reaction of a society or subculture in decline. When the future is hopeless and the present is uninspiring, people obsess about the past. PhD Bigotry is a way for the brilliant but passed-over (through no fault of their own) to reminisce about the days when they were young and clueless and thought society-at-large gave a shit about anything other than crass commercialism.

Personally, I prefer to bet on the future. Simply due to resource limitations, we'll need to reinvest in basic research if we don't want human extinction (or at least the collapse of civilization). But that _is_ a bet, and we're going to have to demolish some entrenched players in order to have one.

<comment><USER17> I agree, Academia is in decline. Sort of. It's in decline the way journalism is in decline, which is to say: there's more of it than ever, and the people who are Getting It Done are thriving in new, 21st century institutions. But people who just want a job "in the industry", whether it is journalism or academics, are going to have a bad time as vast swaths of "the industry" crumble in response to competition that actually embraces the new value system the internet is forcing on all industries.

Universities will continue to exist, and will do great research, along with being an excellent babysitter for 18-30 year olds who have the means to purchase a babysitter while they focus on their academics (or not). But more and more research will happen outside of the Academy, because research is useful. And for many kinds of research, there are easier ways to get it done than getting a PhD. And that trend will increase.

And the University will lose its place as the de-facto spot for kids and researchers to go.

<comment><USER16> _But people who just want a job "in the industry", whether it is journalism or academics, are going to have a bad time_

Don't look down on those "just want a job" people. When you don't have an income, the need to get one consumes you. Working "for passion" is a luxury of trust-fund kids and people who pulled off their exits before the Valley became a scam.

The idea that it's dishonorable to work for money is classism. Most people have no other choice.

 _But more and more research will happen outside of the Academy, because research is useful._

Sadly, we see the opposite trend. Research inside and outside of academia is melting down. Companies use the results of R&D (open-source software is an R&D effort) and buy "innovation" out of a rigged R&D-ish system (the VC-funded Valley) but no one is paying for it, which means that very little of quality is being built at scale.

Something will bring it back, but it will probably start outside of the US. It will probably involve competition at an international level. I'd love to see it take a friendly form: an all-information-shared (the objective being prestige, not dominance over others) 21st-century moon-shot race between North America, Europe, and Asia on curing cancer. Sadly, history shows that it's just as likely to involve war, because humans are perilously stupid.

Until that happens, I feel like technical excellence is such a nonpriority in this country that it shouldn't surprise _anyone_ that Stanford threw its weight behind Clinkle and Snapchat.

The prestige competition between universities may have had that effect at one time, but now they compete on stupid shit like pampering rich douchebags, overpaying top administrators, and funding idiotic startups like Clinkle as a way of selling "the experience" (your kid might be made founder of the next Snapchat!)

<comment><USER15> I might come a bit late to the party, but I should say not all hope is lost yet. I think there's a lot of inefficiency in the labour market. I'm currently in a really good university doing research, and all the software engineers & computer scientists hired in many labs I know tend to be quite awful, with some exceptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh hey it's another claustrophobic fixed header covering up content. Horrible.

<comment><USER19> Add this to your adblock plus ruleset:

slate.com###article_rollup

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ph.D. allowed for some things:

\- You can deepen your studies and study the state of the art of a given area

\- You can work in some area with all the support needed (equipment, etc)

\- Networking

However, what's happening is:

\- The latest journals are a click away

\- A lot of experiments can be done in a computer setting nowadays

\- Evolution in some areas do not depend anymore on experimentation, and/or the cost for it has gone down.

\- Things are getting more complex and interdependent. To build the first integrated circuit you needed to know less about heat transfers and EM interference than today.

Hence, I believe even the Ph.D. model is getting challenged, as specialists in a very narrow thing won't take things very far as they once did.

<comment><USER20> It is basically impossible to do life sciences research outside of an academic or industry lab, and almost no academic lab will take on someone who is not a student or post-doc.

An individual outside of academia would be unable to purchase supplies due to supplier restrictions, would lack access to journals without piracy, would have no access to expensive required analytical equipment, and would be unable to front the costs associated with regulatory compliance in a lab setting.

While it's true that progress can be made from a simulation stand point, licenses to these software packages are enormously expensive. Without a university appointment or a well established track record, no one is going to be willing to share clinical data with you. Moreover, without any ability to validate the findings from your simulations in a lab / clinical setting, any results would be of questionable value.

Most importantly, it would be extremely difficult for an individual not associated with a university or industry lab to publish their results in a top tier journal.

<comment><USER21> >While it's true that progress can be made from a simulation stand point, licenses to these software packages are enormously expensive.

Can you specify which software you're referring to? For many life science sub- disciplines, there are an increasing number of either open source or low-cost competitors.

<comment><USER20> We use finite element analysis suites in our lab such as Ansys for simulation, and the licenses run into the thousands of dollars per year.

<comment><USER21> Thanks, I was just curious what kinds of modeling software ran upwards of $1000.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's because the financial services sector sucks all of the air out of the room. Look forward to dismal growth for the next two generations as universities and the people who pay for people to go to universities start to raise entrance standards and prices in order to cut down on the supply.

Higher education will get out of the reach of most people again, like it used to be.

edit: I think specific marketing/financial/information services oriented programming/engineering jobs will survive well during this period. Other sciences are going to have to rely on stock fads, bubbles and scams to get any investment.

edit2: It's sad that we're wasting our best performers and best minds like this. You can't have growth if you produce superior minds and squander their potential for making new discoveries or coming up with innovative designs or methods. China is run by engineers - just saying.

<comment><USER23> What does the finance sector have to do with any of this? At MIT, for example, only 2% of PhDs go into finance:

[http://web.mit.edu/facts/alum.html](http://web.mit.edu/facts/alum.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would really like to see an alternative to going to grad school for a Ph.D. spring up for people who want to do research, particularly in math which doesn't require expensive labs. The overhead, the poor job prospects, the cost, the obsession with prestige all need to go.

<comment><USER25> A PhD in math does, however, require a motivated and interested supervisor. A supervisor who can tach you how to write papers, how to get them published, to tell you where you are wasting your time and to help you over the humps that may otherwise stop you. It needs a supervisor who can introduce you to others in the field, even if they live in other countries or on other continents!

That may exist as a culture in Open Source, but does not exist in Mathematics without universities - and I don't know how you make it exist for research that is hard (impossible?) to commercialise.

To do solid research requires a lot of time. Even if you don't need any expensive facilities, you still need a home and to eat, etc. If the government decided to fund maths PhDs directly, they'd need a ready-made corpus of people who could decide who gets funding. They'd need people who have published and who have proved that they know what they're talking about. These people would likely gather in central organisations where they could supervise their charges and collaborate on further publications to prove their bona fides. They may even teach lower level courses to bring in some extra money and share their administrative costs with similar worthies in other subjects...

You can rail against the cost, the prestige, and the lack of faculty positions all you like. Until your proposed solution is more than "do it at home and put it on the internet!", nothing will change.

<comment><USER26> > If the government decided to fund maths PhDs directly, they'd need a ready- > made corpus of people who could decide who gets funding. They'd need people > who have published and who have proved that they know what they're talking > about.

Government research grants already fund maths PhDs and this process (a corpus of people who decide who gets funding) is how NSF, DARPA, IARPA, etc hand out grant money.

One problem is that the university takes a 60% cut off the the top of government grant awards. What for? I dunno, many places, the football team, padding the endowment, building new B-school buildings, hiring an army of mid- level administrators. It certainly isn't to pay for researcher (professor and postdoc) salaries, they are paid from other grants, again, from the government. It isn't to help with the grant award process, professors (and their students) write all their own grants.

The Academic tradition is alive, but the University has become a bloated beast siphoning life from the researchers and the government. What was a support infrastructure has a life of its own. It needs to be stopped.

<comment><USER27> >What for? I dunno, many places, the football team, padding the endowment, building new B-school buildings, hiring an army of mid-level administrators.

Are there really schools where the B-school is a net cost center rather than profit center? I thought it was more standard for the business school to be subsidizing other parts of the university.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone know what happened in Physics in the early 2000s? The number "Employed" spikes from ~30% to ~40% in a very short time span and then falls rapidly to ~20:

[http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/business/mon...](http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/business/moneybox/2014/07/140710_%24BOX_Physics.jpg.CROP.original- original.jpg)

<comment><USER29> Speculation: Dot-com boom, followed by the dot-com crash affected everyone, including academia.

<comment><USER30> Especially related to optical networking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I feel like there's more to this story than what the article and charts show. For example, what's the total number of PhD students over time? Has there been an increase in PhD students relative to demand so that naturally there will be less PhD graduates without immediate employment?

<comment><USER32> Well, if by "demand" you mean tenure-track faculty jobs, there's a plot in the article of that. The answer, which as far as I know is applicable across all fields, is that the number of PhD graduates have risen dramatically while the amount of tenure-track jobs are flatlined or even dropping.

Unless job demand is driven by exponential growth (like physics during the Cold War), it's simple math to conclude that every professor can graduate _one_ Ph.D. student during his entire career for the job situation to be sustainable. Most probably graduate an order of magnitude more than that. (This of course ignores non-academic jobs and the question whether getting a Ph.D. is a good investment for such jobs.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It is worth noting that employment in Eng and CS is up about 5 percentage points from 2010 to 2012 (the last 2 years for which the article has data). Not a huge gain, but I would not consider a 5 percentage points increase (10% increase) to be stagnation.

</comment><comment><USER34> Readers of this thread: [http://we.tl/30KSRwmF0R](http://we.tl/30KSRwmF0R) \- any comments on this talk?

</comment><comment><USER35> I was under the impression that Wall St loves Physics PhDs for quant roles. Is that not true?</comment>


In Defense of Old Grumpy Guy: Get Off My Lawn - <AUTHOR> http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2011/03/in-defense-of-o.php <comment><USER2> _At the same time, the average individual's ability to commit to something of any duration has decreased dramatically._

Citation?

 _It wasn't unusual for a (home-schooled) pre-teen in the 1700s to know Greek and Latin._

Bullshit. Pre-teen or not pre-teen, in the mid-1700s, the majority of Europe didn't know how to read and write.

I don't think it's reasonable to make sweeping remarks like this without real statistics to back them up. I don't have many friends who sit on their ass playing WoW all day and night, and I doubt you do either. Just because these people exist doesn't mean that the whole world is going to shit at record rates.

<comment><USER3> I'd recommend y'all not worry too much about the inaccuracies of his historical contexts.

He actually gets to his point farther down in the article, and his point is valid.

<comment><USER2> Hah, but he _added_ citations! I would never have had this nitpicking opportunity if I hadn't asked!

I know there's a lot of evidence that increased screen time for kids is harmful for studies, so I won't begrudge that point.

Let me argue a point I didn't intend to argue. Suppose the average American (just a reference class that I feel OK making guesses about) really is getting dumber, more hedonistic, and more prone to distraction. Is this going to kill us?

The same technology that is causing problems for the average American is opening up awesome new opportunities for anyone who gives a shit. My life is _way_ better than it would have been twenty years ago; I can get any book I please and it arrives instantly, or in a few days. I can take as much time as I like online and have careful conversations with smarter people than me, or collaborate with them. Anyone can self-publish anything and be judged by their peers on its merit, and I can generally go read it and judge them for myself. These are amazing changes, and it seems impossible to enable these things without enabling WoW players, cat videos, and inane soundbite banter.

Do we need to try to strive to make something out of people who don't care to make anything out of themselves?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As an old guy myself (47), I've found that it's easy to get frustrated when you see youth repeating the mistakes you've made. While I've learned many things over the years that I enjoy passing on to those less experienced, the skill most valuable is the ability to convey that information in a positive and constructive way.

The irony to me is that so many incredibly talented "senior" engineers and business people have awesome lessons to impart but they never acquired the gift of communications. They don't present themselves as the sage elder that deftly imparts wisdom, they feel a sense of entitlement from their age and it shows as soon as they open their mouths.

That said, I really enjoyed reading your blog post Daniel.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Atheism is making one of it's cyclical comebacks to popularity"?

That's bad?

Also

"Over the past couple of millennia, the amount of work required simply to live has decreased dramatically, at least in the western world. It used to be almost your entire life was taken up simply in an effort to survive; now most of us work 40 hours per week and it takes care of all of our needs."

That's not really true. I suggest reading "A Farewell to Alms" ([http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic- History/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic- History/dp/0691121354))

A more accurate description would be something like "After several thousands of years where civilization has made life more difficult for the vast majority of people, over the last 200 years, in a few countries that have experienced the industrial revolution, the effort required to survive has returned to roughly the same level as required by paleolithic hunter-gatherers. Though with significantly longer life spans almost entirely due to a large reduction in infant and child mortality."

</comment><comment><USER6> "Not trying to sound militaristic, but it used to be when a national emergency beckoned, you'd have to beat people off to keep them from volunteering. Now the volunteer is an unusual animal."

Has anybody told Mr. Markham that the US has had an all-volunteer military since the 1970s, or that the biggest national emergency of all was largely met with draftees? (Also, to keep an eye out of double entendres...)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, no one mentions this anymore, but there were huge protests against the draft for World War I. And rather than being able to rely on the volunteers, the U.S. had to draft something like 10 million men for World War II.

<comment><USER8> > there were huge protests against the draft for World War I.

Wilson campaigned against the war, and then turned around and escalated.

FWIW, the WWI draft protests were much less vehement than the Civil War draft protests. (Curiously, the draft protests were much worse in the NE, especially NY and NYC even more so, than the in the midwest and south.)

> And rather than being able to rely on the volunteers, the U.S. had to draft > something like 10 million men for World War II.

Nope. WWII had a surplus of volunteers and they used the draft to manage things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think in the article you confuse old grumpy guy with experienced guy who does not know how to interface with people.

Old grumpy guy to me is someone who is unquestioning in his own views. Does not care if he's wrong and does not give the least shit about what you think or how the world is changing. "Get off my property!" while holding a shotgun sums up this guy nicely.

The old grumpy guy you talk about in the article is someone different. Nobody's going to groan about scalability unless the message is delivered in an antagonizing way. In this case it _is_ the fault of the messenger.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a fairly old guy and I found myself getting bored 1/3 of the way in.

When we were younger, all of us ran into a grumpy old guy (or gal) and told ourselves, "No way I'll be like that." Then we get a little older and many of us realize that we're turning into that same guy. At that point we all have a choice:

1\. Figure out what's important (here's a hint, it's not pre-teens learning Latin) and learn to communicate it in a manner that will actually move people to action regardless of their age.

2\. Become a cranky old guy and wonder why no one appreciates your wisdom and brilliance.

</comment><comment><USER10> _It wasn't unusual for a (home-schooled) pre-teen in the 1700s to know Greek and Latin._

I'd love to see some actual evidence for this. A solid command of either language would require on the rough order of 1000 hours of work (or perhaps only 350 if you had a lot of raw talent and studied effectively). This is entirely reasonable for a member of the educated classes in any era. But were ancient Latin and Greek _ever_ common skills among your stereotypical pre- industrial dirt farmers?

<comment><USER11> No. The people who were being schooled in the 1700s to speak greek and latin were the children of the highest aristocracy. When talking about broad societal trends, they are irrelevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > It used to be almost your entire life was taken up simply in an effort to > survive ; now most of us work 40 hours per week and it takes care of all of > our needs .

...as well as the whims and fancies of the super-rich. If income disparity wasn't so high, I believe most of us would get by working significantly fewer hours per week (which could likely exacerbate some of the problems he mentions). The complexities in government that he mentions act as proverbial rocks in the stream, diverting wealth disproportionately to executives, lawyers, and bankers and keeping those "kids" busy.

</comment><comment><USER13> The last quarter of this post has the real message. The first half will probably snatch most of the comments though because that's where all the controversial ramblings and historical inaccuracies are.

<comment><AUTHOR> I debated going back and arguing each little historical point, but in fact, the response here is a wonderful example of exactly what I was saying. It doesn't matter. Just assume I'm wrong. If my information doesn't fit with a reader's model, the value of what I am saying is lost. With some types of information, there is no way to say it "the right way" -- it's just not going to fit. Perhaps 99% of that information is bad, perhaps not, but if we don't consume it, we'll never know. Several people still never got to the point of the article. So really the comments on HN work as an extended example.

Very meta, and pretty neat.

<comment><USER2> "Everything is going to shit" is a much easier thing to argue about than "you should listen to critical people."

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah but the point wasn't that everything is going to hell, and it wasn't that you should listen to critical people, it's that there are certain criticisms that deserve attention and concern, yet these concepts are impossible to broach with some because it becomes an assault on their way of looking at the universe. You get into endless arguments. This can be confused easily with "everything is going to hell" especially for those who don't want to acknowledge any problems at all. It's grumpy-old-man-syndrome, the other side.

As I pointed out in another comment, this is a attribute of how groups of people relate to one another. Citing my personal view of things only served to frame up my suggestions in the manner I was talking about, which then caused exactly the response I mention.

I think it's a facile argument to say that this is an issue about criticism only. If only it were so simple.

<comment><USER2> OK, sorry for mischaracterizing your point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


NASA's New Horizons Completes Record-Setting Kuiper Belt Targeting Maneuvers - <AUTHOR> http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20151105 <comment><USER2> I hadn't read about this before. From Wikipeida: _The software of the probe runs on Nucleus RTOS operating system. Nucleus RTOS is a real-time operating system (RTOS) offered by the Embedded Software Division of Mentor Graphics for various central processing unit (CPU) platforms. Nucleus RTOS is embedded software and is in an estimated 2.11 billion devices worldwide. ... The Nucleus RTOS is designed for deeply embedded systems applications including consumer electronics, set-top boxes, cellular phones, and other portable and handheld devices. For limited memory systems Nucleus RTOS can be scaled down to a memory footprint as small as 13 KB for both code and data._

2.11 billion devices world wide, and 1 device beyond Pluto. The most wide spread operating system developed by the humans of Earth.

<comment><USER3> That means the average device running Nucleus RTOS is 3.5 kilometers from Earth.

<comment><USER4> And is rising at approximately 250 meters per year.

<comment><USER2> Have you accounted for the rise in quantity of terrestrial devices, or only used the increasing distance of New Horizons to calculate the 250 meters?

<comment><USER4> Good point, that didn't occur to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How MIT OpenCourseWare transformed a learner's life - happy-go-lucky http://mailchi.mp/mit/how-ocw-transformed-a-learners-life <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, Wyatt Arent here. When this article was proposed, it was unexpected and I'm still humbled. It's a privilege to have an opportunity to inspire and help as much as I can. Thanks for your time, keep kicking ass, here's to continued growth and evolution of us all

<comment><USER2> Totally awesome! I just have one question.

When you got blocked or felt like you hit a wall, what did you do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean in regards to a technical issue, or a personal life issue, or something else?

<comment><USER2> Now that I think about it, both. But when I posted, more specifically to technical issues. e.g. When a concept was really foreign what did you do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome.

I just don't understand why we need to donate to OCW. Why can't MIT with its mega endowment fund OCW? Why do ordinary people need to donate to these mega institutions to fund things that mega endowed entities (the government, these mega universities) should be paying for. It's not like OWC is Wikipedia. OCW is associated with MIT. Seems unfair to crowdfund something and then let MIT get the brand recognition. Especially since MIT is so rich.

<comment><USER4> Wikipedia also has a huge amount of money. I get what you're saying, but the comparison doesn't really work =P

<comment><USER5> Isn't 100% of Wikipedia's money from donations? Maybe they don't need to raise money every year, but eventually they do need people to donate. MIT doesn't, they have other sources of funding. That was the point of the comparison.

<comment><USER6> The problem with Wikipedia is that even though they're getting 10x more money than ever, their operating costs are always growing, and they're constantly increasing the amount of money they spend like a runaway train....or so I've read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just today MIT receives anonymous unrestricted $140 million gift.

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/06/07/mit-receives- mi...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/06/07/mit-receives-million- unrestricted-gift/SHAslb66k1qiuvxHB85XcP/story.html)

$13.2 billion dollar endowment.

Operating budget of $3.3 billion dollars.

$1.6 billion dollars in sponsored research.

I think my wallet can safely stay in my pocket.

<comment><USER3> That's what I'm saying!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Over the past six years OCW has aided in my evolution as a self educated programmer as well. I just made a donation.

If you want to donate directly here is the link:

[https://crowdfund.mit.edu/project/6629](https://crowdfund.mit.edu/project/6629)

</comment><comment><USER9> Likewise, OCW is one of the key learning I ever had in my career. Resource crunch and lack of good professor were not a problem with the internet and online course. I took OCW algorithms and data structure course and I still remember all the data structures and algorithms being taught in the course. Not just OCW , I find Stanford edu , Berkeley, coursera and udacity really helpful. Thank you to everyone involved in making online coursework accessible. I feel indebted and thankful to this community.

</comment><comment><USER10> 6.042J (Math for CS) is pretty challenging. Anyone who worked through it have any tips when you're stuck? Maybe slightly easier problems to supplement with for practice?

<comment><USER11> Read an introduction to proofs oriented book such as Book of Proof or my personal favorite:

[https://www.amazon.ca/Mathematical-Proofs-Transition- Advance...](https://www.amazon.ca/Mathematical-Proofs-Transition-Advanced- Mathematics/dp/0321797094)

<comment> FLUX-YOU $150+? Holy fuck.

<comment><USER12> Hammack's _Book of Proof_ is freely available online and has the solutions to all odd numbered exercises: [http://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/](http://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ghost-monk Quick question: as an "new-grad" applicant with two internships AND an internal referral, my application to Google was categorically rejected on the basis that they are "no longer hiring fresh undergraduates for the Software Engineer position". No initial phone screen, just an automatic email.

Given that this self-taught dev was given an interview, would I be better off applying without listing my CS degree and just highlight professional experience, GitHib, etc and say I am "self-taught"?

<comment><USER13> What position was this for?

Maybe they have a quota of new undergrad from a specific school per year (If they assume that every school they go to has at least X% of candidates) or an overall quota.

"no longer hiring fresh undergraduates for the Software Engineer position" might only be for _your_ school for this year.

Also most companies would consider "fresh undergraduates" people graduating soon or who graduated less than 12 months ago so you still have time.

In general you don't want to spam a company for the same position, it's good to wait for 8-12 months before re-applying, so if your desired position usually accept fresh new-grad, you might want to retry before [your graduation date + 12 months] but after at least ~8 months.

> Given that this self-taught dev was given an interview

He isn't a fresh undegraduate, check out his linkedin, he seem to have around 2 years of Dev experience, and 3 of freelance. So he probably didn't fall in the "new grad" track.

<comment> ghost-monk > he seem to have Dev experience [...] probably didn't fall in the "new grad" > track

Good eye. Makes a lot more sense.

> What position was this for? Maybe they have a quota ...

The generalist full-time Software Engineer position. That seems likely, though the wording in the rejection email made it seem like they were permanently winding down recruitment of undergrads for that position.

Everything worked out, as I landed a solid SWE gig at a great company. It just threw me for a loop to think that having a recent graduation date would hurt my application when compared to a non-CS "self-taught" candidate. Thanks for the reply, the info you cited clarifies the situation completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ahhh, makes perfect sense. Someone who has the wherewithal to grind through self study is probably a pretty ideal engineer to hire, even if their education was a bit substandard. It's pretty easy to pick up in an interview if they actually learned the academic bits.

<comment><USER15> University CS courses tend to be heavy on varyingly useful theory, light on practical knowledge. Which, fine, that's like most university degrees even in the most vocational of fields.

So while this dude's "degree" might be substandard (MIT-OCW vs. MIT-MIT), I'd argue their education – at least in terms of applicability and self-direction – is equal, if not superior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> MIT OCW has been incredible for me as well, but I always get stuck on a concept or wish I was in a structured setting. Any tools or tips that helped you along the way?

I was thinking of starting some live study circles for the next topic.

</comment><comment><USER17> What does a "very traditional family" mean?

<comment><USER18> I think it means a conservative family, which not only does not nurture the apparent aptitude of the kid for programming, but maybe also actively prevents it from any further development; due various reasons, but probably mostly, because of their incoherent belief systems.

I've personally had been through something similar, albeit not in such radical way. My parents bought me the eastern block's Apple II clone when I was at age of 8, but despite that, later in my teenage years I had to constantly overcome various forms of pressure – i.e. this computer won't make your living when you grow up, so stop f*cking around and get more interested in your high school material, because as it goes it seems you won't be even able to finish it. We're kind of joking now w/ my parents around that, but boy - it was no fun back then.

<comment><USER19> Why does this still happen in a modern society? I understand the Eastern Bloc wasn't voluntary, but... in Virginia?

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I'm not born under such regime and haven't lived through it, but from my gatherings talking to older people – actually, the eastern block had strong emphasis on various engineering disciplines and solid tradition in computer science. This is not something political in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Do they not offer Videos of Lectures anymore?

<comment><USER21> Most free video lectures throughout the web have been removed due to lawsuits against the institutions for not providing subtitles for the disabled.

<comment><USER22> I think you're thinking of what happened to UC Berkeley, but I'm not sure this is true of "most" lectures.

After all, many lectures already have subtitles, some lectures were produced outside the U.S. or not produced with Federal funding, some lectures were produced by institutions that may disagree with the interpretation of the law advanced in the Berkeley case, some lectures were produced by institutions that may not have been targeted with such claims, and some lectures are hosted by entities other than the institutions that produced them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hope he makes it at Google with only a pdf where most hold a Phd or at least a double Msc.</comment>


Ask HN: Does Anyone Write Code With an iPad? - <AUTHOR>

Here's the situation - my main development machine (an early 2008 MacBook) is on its way out. It has served me well, but the wireless card is shot, there are stress fractures and missing bits in the case, and the display is just plain beat up. I've been mulling getting a MacBook Air or Pro (or an Ultrabook running ArchLinux), but I've also been considering one of the new LTE iPads.
I remember seeing an article on HN a few months back written by a guy who had started writing code on his VPS through an iPad. This is roughly the same setup I'm looking at. Has anyone else tried this? Would they recommend it? Am I just better off getting an actual computer?
Thanks, HN. <comment><USER2> I tried using just the iPad and the on-screen keyboard took up too much of the screen for my liking. Bought an Apple Bluetooth keyboard - it was better, but function keys, etc are not fully supported. Eventually went back to using a MacBook Pro. For me having a keyboard; not having to prop up the iPad; and being able to function without a wireless broadband connection dropping out, slowing down is a more productive experience. And ... I really prefer to have bigger screen. Sometimes use the iPad in a Logitech dock as a second screen with AirDisplay - now that is convenient - but not on the road.

In your situation I would seriously consider getting a MacBook Air.

<comment><USER3> I don't necessarily recommend coding on an iPad at this point in time, but if you're going to try and use the iPad as a laptop replacement, you're probably better off getting something like Kensington's KeyFolio case+keyboard units[1]. I've seen 'em in action and they seem to work pretty well.

[1] [http://www.kensington.com/kensington/us/us/s/1615/keyboard-f...](http://www.kensington.com/kensington/us/us/s/1615/keyboard- folio-cases.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've attempted it. I use Panic's Prompt to SSH back into one of my machines and program from there. I do not have an external keyboard for the iPad, but using the on-screen keyboard is just a pain. You have to think how you are going to be switching between the different on-screen keyboards to find very frequent used keys like brackets, parens, semicolon, etc. This works in a pinch but not for long periods of time.

With having an external keyboard it's another pain to reach up and touch your screen to switch apps. Just stick with a laptop, you will thank yourself in the end.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here is that original blog: [http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped- my-macbook-...](http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook- for-an-ipad)

Would be interesting to know if he is still happy with the arrangement

</comment><comment><USER6> Writing code on an iPad would require an external keyboard and a propping mechanism - both of which have their problems.

When working with an iPad half the keys on the external keyboard are useless. And it just so happens that these 'useless' keys are the ones we hit a lot while programming.

The propping mechanism should be sturdy enough to not fall over since tasks such as alt-tabbing now require that you reach over and touch the screen, which should ideally be situated at a distance of 20inches from your eyes when typing. Shuffling between touch gesturing and typing wastes a lot of time.

For these reasons, an iPad would make a pathetic medium for coding. However, there was a link recently to an iPad IDE which focused on trying to get a lot of work done with as little typing as possible. I haven't tried it out yet, so can't comment on how useful that would be.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've tried. It just never goes well. I tried remotely accessing my desktop at home. nope. tried all the text editors on the iPad. Nope.

every attempt to code on it has ended in me saying "next time I'm buying a macbook".

so no, do not try. you want a laptop.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've done it before, but it kinda sucks without an external keyboard. Even then, not optimal - having to switch between apps to view docs or test in a browser is kind of a pain.

Just get a computer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the external keyboard would be a must. Thanks for your thoughts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've tried coding on my webOS... thing.

It's relatively easy but I don't think the tools are there yet. You'll definitely be more productive with an actual keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER10> i don't have an iPad, never even touched one:(</comment>


Facebook completed the first fastMRI image reconstruction challenge - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/facebookai/status/1201161467145465858 <comment><USER2> Fb and more...</comment>


A Refined Content Security Policy - <AUTHOR> https://webkit.org/blog/6830/a-refined-content-security-policy/ <comment><USER2> The article links to a demo of the inline hashing capability (Content Security Policy Level 2) in new WebKit / Safari Technology Preview, and I notice it also works in Firefox beta (49) and Chrome beta (52) on Android. Do these browsers support this inline hashing or are they just falling back on the 'unsafe-inline' in the policy?

It's cool that Safari dev tools allow you to compute the hash of inline scripts and styles. I only know how to do it for external assets using OpenSSL!</comment>


Show HN: Uncoverly – The place to spend your entire paycheck - <AUTHOR> http://www.uncoverly.com/category/gadgets

<comment><USER2> I hope this doesn't seem harsh. Instead of stark and minimalist, your site seems a little bland and generic. It suggests just another foreign and probably a scam site rather than the sort of arty and hip, cutting edge look (that I think) you may have been going for.

Also, nothing jumps out to me. You list the names of items and the pictures are smallish. Say why they are cool and/or make the picture larger so I see the detail.

Finally, your description says they are from Amazon, so why wouldn't I just go there myself? Your response is that you are curating the list for me, making it easier. However you haven't proven any trustworthiness or authority, so I have no desire for you to curate for me. I'd rather just go to Amazon directly or find one of the dozens of other already well established Amazon curating sites.

Hope I wasn't too much of a Debbie-downer. Despite my critique, you've got a project out there, so props to that! Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey @thekevan: thanks for the detailed comment. I appreciate the suggestions (more details, bigger pictures, something to convey authority) and your interpretations on the minimalistic design. And you're right, you are definitely free to just browse around on Amazon for cool stuff -- the idea here is that if need some inspiration or are not sure what you want, this could be a nice starting place of pretty cool, well designed products are already laid out for you. I should try to communicate this value better - thank you for the feedback!</comment></comment>


Google bans cryptocurrency ads - <AUTHOR> https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/7648803 <comment><USER2> I was listening to terrestrial radio the other day and was surprised to hear a radio advertisement beckoning retirees to cash in their 401ks to join the cryptocurrency future of Bitcoin and Ethereum. The bubble is too big for Google to slow it down and it has grown beyond the realm of tech savvy geeks into something fueled by hype and hubris.

<comment><USER3> From the best tweetstorm ever on topic by Sarah Jeong:

[https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/953464303960469504](https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/953464303960469504)

> All of this has gone too far!!!!! It was fine when you paranoid dorks were > out there scamming each other, please leave the normies alone!!!!!!!!!!!

<comment><USER4> All her tweets on the subject are great

>Internet rando 2: What about people who live under oppressed governments with unsound currency

>Me: Only if the problem with their currency is that it's not volatile enough and the transaction speeds are too fast

>"People are sick of the Federal Reserve, sick of bailouts, sick of inflation. You know what we need? Internet money with the usability of PGP and the stability of BART service"

<comment><USER5> I loved this tweetstorm, but I must say, it's never taken me weeks to take a BART trip, but it's definitely taken me weeks to clear a BTC transaction.

Like hey, BART isn't _that_ bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good. I accidentally turned off my ad-blocker a few days ago. Almost all the ads I saw were variants on "Be paid for using your phone - download our app to mine crypto!"

I've worked in ad-tech. Part of the problem is the scale is too large for advertising networks to check all the adverts. If you run a newspaper, you get to see and approve the ads before running with them.

Online, at best, an advertising network might see the initial ad & landing page, but then it is rapidly changed once live.

<comment><USER7> After Facebook announced it would stop crypto adverts I continued to see them for quite a while.

Facebook detects text in ads and will alert you when there is too much. I imagine it also reads that text and therefore would be quite easy to auto flag ads with "ICO" "Crypto" "Coin" in them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I believe this to be a good decision. Investment should not be driven by advertisement but by facts. In my experience, any investment advertisement tying to appeal to mass audiences is fraud. This is no different for cryptocurrencies and reminds me of the penny stock scams.

<comment><USER9> I feel the same way about prescription drugs. Those are for doctors to prescribe, not for patients to request.

<comment><USER10> Going to disagree with you. Doctors often have incentives to prescribe certain drugs over others that aren't necessarily the best drug. If it's legal to advertise to physicians then it should be legal to advertise to consumers. Ultimately the consumer is in charge of their own health and should have a say in their drug choices.

Let's think of another industry — tires. Is a consumer typically an automotive engineer or a mechanic? Then why should it be legal to advertise tires to consumers? Ultimately a mechanic will have to install the tires. However, that certainly shouldn't preclude a consumer making their preferences known. With meds, a doctor can always say no — and they should and do if it isn't indicated for the particular affliction.

The idea that consumers need to be shielded from information is a bit weird to me.

<comment><USER11> Flagged for an egregious false equivalency. To pretend that the basic understanding of a tire and it's function and a understanding of the mechanisms of most prescription drugs is a stretch that will tear the fabric of credibility.

"This is a good tire, it will last longer than most and will serve you well. It is highly unlikely to interfere with any other parts of your car"

VS.

"This is a enzyme inhibitor that will degrade the signalling molecule cyclic guanosine monophosphate which will prevent smooth muscle relaxation. It could have unforeseen interactions with any number of different commonly imbibed chemicals."

<comment><USER12> Or even something like

"We don't even know about all the things this molecule could do inside your body, but one of the things we do know about turns out to be pretty useful, and so we have made an arrangement with the physicians cartel. You have to pay one of them to monitor your individual situation to make it less likely you die or suffer some horribly grievous injury. In exchange, they will absorb some of our product liability for the most frequent and least severe side effects. This is usually a win-win-win, but sometimes it's just win-win for us and the physicians and a loss for you."

When you want to pump people full of newly developed and recently tested chemicals, you do need someone capable of reading and understanding the publications of medical studies, and keeping track of all the recommendations published by the professional association. Auto mechanics do have a similar, less extensive sort of training in that they need to do the same kind of thing with service bulletins, but tire maintenance is one of those things that anyone with the right tool can do, like changing oil and filters or replacing brake pads.

Knowing what cryptocurrency is right for you is even simpler than that. None of them are. Even the very first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is still essentially in beta release, and not suitable for consumption by the general public. Anyone who can't or won't admit that the technology is not yet ready for wide- scale adoption is selling you vapor, and will probably run off with your money, leaving you with a bag of wooden nickels. That's why the ads are coming down. Every last one of them is a fraud, like the snake-oil panaceas of unregulated frontier pharmacologists that were pretty much just booze and opioids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good. The amount of crazy ICO's I've seen is staggering. Most of them are surely scams in some sense. Reddit is filled with them.

<comment><USER14> What I think is most bizarre - I have friends with really decent businesses that try really, really hard to get a few hundred thousand in funding. And yet I see the most _terrible_ ideas with an ICO cap of 20 million dollars. Still people throw in the cash. Ideas with literally no need for a blockchain. But "everyone will be able to spend the token on [insert terrible idea]!"

'The most bespoke electric hypercar! With blockchain!' [http://www.arrinera.io/](http://www.arrinera.io/) \- I mean really?! I heard someone talking about "LGBT on the blockchain" the other day - "We'll aim for a conservative $40million ICO." Ridiculous.

<comment><USER15> How much money is actually raised during ICOs? Market cap is based on marginal pricing, so it's completely meaningless in a cryptocurrency.

<comment><USER16> I always wonder who actually validates the money when somebody says they raised $20 mil in a private ICO. What keeps people from just claiming that to make other investors more willing and give an appearance of legitimacy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Did Google ban all scam ads out there? Is predatory lending banned? How about magical thinking supplements, systems, and other scams?

Also, wallets? What did the crypto wallet makers do wrong?

This, my friends, is monopoly capitalism at its finest; when corporate interests are threatened they come down on information exchange, which means they can disappear products. And since it's privately owned and not state owned, everyone's okay with it morally. Because cryptocurrency is naughty.

Let's ban drug discussion, too, it's naughty. How about hate speech, let's disappear search results for that. Who needs Big Brother when a massive surveillance apparatus that, quite frankly, is a headache to avoid (although I use duckduckgo and Firefox for all non tech stuff) can also disappear ideas and products without a popular vote or accountability?

One plus of all this is I won't have to see the Crypto Genius Reveals Next Bitcoin ad with the pic of the guy staring off in the distance in crooked glasses. Always hated that one.

<comment><USER18> Are you proposing that an ad for a placebo is as damaging as an ad encouraging people to gamble their life savings (bonus: on what may be nothing more than a pump and dump scheme)?

As an aside, I'm not sure what drug discussion or hate speech has to do with this at all.

<comment><USER17> _Peter Hetherington, chief executive of IG Group, Europe's largest retail trading website, said consumers would be "more likely to end up with reputable brokers and proper regulatory protection" following the changes.

But he warned that there were wider implications for financial services, saying: "Big American tech companies are increasingly influential in deciding how financial services products are marketed. This is fine if they get to the right answer . . . but a worrying precedent if they do not, since the normal checks and balances do not apply to their decisions."_

("Google to ban cryptocurrency adverts", _Financial Times_ , March 15, 2018)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I support the ability for Google to make this decision but we should not be celebrating this as a good thing. Instead, it should strike fear. Google has a disproportionate amount of influence through its ads and cannot act in the best interest of all individuals.

<comment><USER20> The harms deriving from the possibility of doing bad must be balanced against the harms deriving from unwillingness to do good. Allowing toxic ads should strike fear as well, that browsing online is an unsafe "back alley" full of scams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Since Facebook banned them I've seen a surge in them on Twitter. Will be interesting to see what they do, and whether it contributes anything meaningful to their profit situation.

I'm actually glad Google are (at least for the time being). Whilst rogue ICOs and crypto-pumpers are still working their stuff, the market is much more akin to back-street gambling and since there are already regs on AdWords for unsavoury ads, this fits the bill.

<comment><USER22> I see lots of ICO ads on Instagram, which uses Facebook's ad network. Probably they banned them only on Facebook, not in their ad network completely, or just lots of ads left unbanned.

Also lots of russian money scam ads posted from temporary accounts, this may be explanation why ICOs aren't banned too: they ban, but new ads are posted again and again.

<comment><USER23> i always see the scammiest ads on instagram (free yeezy'z)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We've created a generation of people who will do anything they are told to do. Now these big corps and governments feel like they have to baby-proof the world because we've created a bunch of lemmings who will give all their money to an ICO because a banner told them to.

<comment><USER25> > we've created a bunch of lemmings who will give all their money to an ICO > because a banner told them to.

It is a problem of basic finance education which should be part of the school curriculum. People also buy a lot of stuff they don't need or include false claims because a banner told them to.

<comment><USER26> I was just saying this the other day. I have been a steep learning curve about retirement accounts, mortgages, etc. There should really be a financial curriculum in high school, possibly all four years. This is basic information that everyone should be aware of.

<comment><USER23> isn't there some personal responsibility to teach yourself these things and not be stupid? Why do government funded schools have to teach people everything? And what subject will we cut to teach these things?

<comment><USER27> Couldn't that same argument be used against anything we currently teach in school?

The obvious answer to your first question is: It has severe detrimental effects to our society, and we'd all be better off if people were taught the basics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Finally James Altucher can go back to doing what he does best.

<comment><USER29> Underrated comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why only mention cryptocurrencies in the title? There are other financial products listed...

<comment><USER31> "Advertisers offering Contracts for Difference, rolling spot forex, and financial spread betting will be required to be certified by Google before they can advertise through AdWords. Certification is only available in certain countries."

This isn't rocket science:

"Hey, we shouldn't be supporting cryptocurrency advertisement any more, this could lead to trouble for us in the upcoming year and may be unethical"

"Why don't we take a look at all risky financial products that aren't easily understood but are marketed at layman investors"

"Great idea!"

"Definitely let's leave binary options out with cryptocurrencies, but we'll just leave in stricter controls for financial products which aren't complete scams"

<comment><USER32> Sounds like the opposite way FB handled Russian paid political ads for the US election.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> About time. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg)

<comment><USER34> Another talking parrot head.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm really interested in cryptocurrencies and excited about their future, but I'm disgusted by their use as a platform for scams. I'm afraid that I support this, and I really wish people in the cryptocurrency community would do more to educate people about scams.

Of course I suppose it's futile. Once this kind of mania takes off it takes on a life of its own.

<comment><USER36> Are you interested in crypto-assets if they're not structured like a Pyramid- Ponzi scheme, where wealth is redistributed weighted towards the earlier adopters - or are you excited about the potential of blockchains?

We already have currencies that worldwide could be transferred to a blockchain crypto-asset structure via governments destroying money ('take out' of traditional circulation) to put onto an immutable digital blockchain ledger, as opposed to someone receiving currency of choice in exchange (E.g. I give you this digital thing you call a 'coin', and you give me $1 USD).

If the main value is truly in the decentralized and immutable ledger aspects, then its use can eventually be State/government-mandated, instead of gaining collaboration through unreasonably incentivizing its adoption, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Finally, some sense of responsibility kicks in.

Another platform is LinkedIn, where I have been getting a ton of invites from "Blockchain Experts", "ICO Experts" whom I have never heard of. Some of my connections are connected to them but I think that's more of a blind "Accept".

If you connect, I've noticed they immediately start promoting coins or ICO. Massive scam going on here. Hope LinkedIn bans these fake promotions too.

<comment><USER38> Hard to know if they're even real people or just bot-driven accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > Cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial > coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and > cryptocurrency trading advice)

The question here is where they draw the line. What about tools, software and services around the ecosystem but not promoting any particular cryptocurrency or related to trading?

I can see how it makes sense for them to block wallet ads for now seeing just how many forked scamwallets buy ads for e.g. MyEtherWallet to trick users into giving them their keys.

However, there are a growing number of companies offering services and products for the business sector that could get seriously affected by this.

As an example, it's clear that they won't ban HyperLedger consultants (HyperLedger is a blockchain platform without a cryptocurrency), but how about Ethereum consultants?

How about SDK vendors?

<comment><USER34> Because people here are uninformed and the ad ban was on phishing ads not ico related stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Probably they found 90% of the ads are frauds or just plain fraud like in their proposed amount you will gain from buying the said cryptos. Bitcoin would not need advertisement for example.

<comment><USER34> Nah it was more targeted at phishing scams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I find it interesting that this seems to be negatively affecting the blue chip coins. One might think that less competition would drive investors to them, not away.

<comment><USER42> It's almost as if the cryptocurrency markets are completely irrational and have magnitudes less value in them than their market caps claim to, and on top of this are pumped up even further by scammers printing fake money (Tether) to bolster the prices. Almost...

That said, I don't think the price dives have anything at all to do with advertising, and more to do with the fact that the bubble is slowly deflating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> More discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582266), though it is interesting to hear it straight from the Google's mouth.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does this include software services related to cryptoasseta?

<comment><USER44> As somebody in the process of building a "cryptoasseta" app - I wonder that too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> ELI5: why does the world need a larger number of cryptocurrencies vs fewer/one instead?

(I'm not holding any position, I just want to understand the logic for either case)

<comment><USER46> Going off-topic, but I want to ask whether writing "ELI5" is really necessary? I find it too much of a redditism and while it doesn't seem to contravene any hn guidelines, I get the feeling that "simple" questions would garner a better audience without the ELI5 prefix. There's perhaps also the problem of it being an unnecessary abbreviation, specific to another community.

Alternatives (even though it takes more keystrokes) could be along the lines of "pardon my ignorance", "I'm new to this" or even simply "can someone explain". I bet these would receive just as good (if not better) responses.

Anyone agree or disagree?

<comment><USER47> I think you are overthinking it entirely

<comment><USER46> That could well be true, so I thought I'd throw it out there to check if I was (comparatively) the only one who isn't really a fan of "ELI5".

So the other alternative is to have more ELI5 prefixes for questions. It's something I never question on reddit since that's where it has orginated and flourished, but since this is hacker news I figured it'd be safer to overthink than underthink.

<comment><USER45> Y'all motherfuckers best overthink on hack her news

That's what I always say...

But seriously - we need a method for which is accepted where individuals can ask elementary questions for topics they have less knowledge than an expert in the field.

Thus, I think that "ELI5" encapsulates this.

What I am opposed to is suppression of sharing knowledge. So don't shut people who use a moniker/meme from gaining the info they seek. Educate them and expand.

So, if you have some better way of expressing " __ _Hey I don't know anything about this subject, please give me some simple pointers, thanks"+_ __

Edit: I just realized we said the same thing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Thank god oh no, actually thanks to Google. I don't have to see stupid Youtube cryptocurrency video ads which are mostly FAKE and a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER25> It is interesting to note that OTOY will launch RNDR (Render Token) [1] in Ethereum and their advisory board includes Eric Schmidt from Google [2].

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

[2] [https://home.otoy.com/advisory-board/](https://home.otoy.com/advisory- board/)

</comment><comment><USER49> Facebook: Hey everyone! No more cryptocurrency ads.

Google: We're banning them too.

Big Pharma: But not us right?

Google: No, we appreciate your business...

Facebook: How much are you looking to spend??

<comment><USER50> Dumb comparison. At least medicine heals people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Now if only they would ban the 50-second, unskippable, "legal steroid" ads that are popping onto YouTube...

</comment><comment><USER52> I wonder how much of current ad revenue (Google/FB) is coming from cryptocurrency related companies and how this might negatively impact their earnings.

However, it may be a small amount or they both factored this change into their forecasting before announcements.

<comment><USER53> google is way too big for this to matter.

<comment><USER52> After reading about the timeframe, I now think this might be a reason they are blocking ads starting in June, if something is bad, why not stop now, instead of at the start of a new quarter. (when these ads may have likely scammed people for a few more months)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Well, that explain the bunny token ad I was seeing 1 hour ago :-) On serious note, it will take some time to implement.

I am actually glad they did it. This should make it harder for ponzi-like schemes to get traction, so hopefully, it will make price less volatile.

</comment><comment><USER55> I remember being appalled that Japanese subway cars had FX trading ads targeted towards retail "investors" as a fun and easy to make some money. I hope that this hasn't proliferated to cryptocurrencies as well.

</comment><comment><USER56> Does it mean I can't advertise the points project on Google? [https://pointsproject.org](https://pointsproject.org)

</comment><comment><USER57> I thought it was a fad that had already passed. I'm sort of surprised to see this level of discussion about cryptocurrency.

</comment><comment><USER58> Now all the alt-right and conspiracy bloggers who got kicked off of adwords will have something to advertise.

</comment><comment><USER59> ICO = IPO without all those pesky regulations and gated access.

Which is both good and bad, of course.

<comment><USER42> No, it's just bad. It's the stupidest thing ever. ICOs are so incredibly stupid that it's mind boggling.

"Hey, give us $50,000 and we'll give you a token that will hopefully be worth 10x once we dupe a bunch of other suckers like you! If you're _really, really lucky_ we'll build something marginally useful and might even use that token you bought to power it! Now you can use your $50,000 in tokens to power a decentralized photo sharing app that you could have gotten for free by just using google drive! Woww!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I guess this means no XRP/Ripple ads, a company Google has heavily invested in?

</comment><comment><USER61> Google doesn't allow ads for legal medical cannabis or headshops.

</comment><comment><USER62> The bubble is too big, dont be evil

</comment><comment><USER63> (cynicism) Can we now assume that Google will be getting into cryptocurrencies in some way in the medium future?(/cynicism)

</comment><comment><USER64> google has right to do this but I do think this is a bad move. Filtering and censoring is opposite to what google claimed what they were doing.

</comment><comment><USER65> google lost the blockchain race..

</comment><comment><USER66> Good riddance!

Source for statement: [http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/02/coinhoarder.html](http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/02/coinhoarder.html)

</comment><comment><USER67> Google also shut down my google cloud Compute Engine server without notice, as I tried to run a mining pool. "Mining" is against their TOS (wasn't mining). Wonderful future. Moving to Amazon works fine for now...

<comment><USER68> Was it a free account, I'm betting it was a free account because:

> Customer may not use the Services to engage in mining cryptocurrency;

<comment><USER67> No it wasn't. I was paying for a large VM $200 / month. Also I'm paying for their managed Postgres.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Google doesn't even allow ads for _legal, medical_ cannabis or headshops.

<comment><USER70> Nor tobacco, firearms or alcohol as I understand it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> 1\. Sell all your bitcoins.

2\. Ban advertising on (one of?) the largest online advertising platform(s).

3\. Wait for bitcoin to crash.

4\. Buy bitcoins again.

5\. Profit!

<comment><USER42> > Wait for bitcoin to crash.

Don't need to do any manipulation at all for that to happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> As always the typical hn reader is completely oblivious to the actual reasons why Google banned crypto related ads. For those who don't know, phishing has been plaguing Google ads and that is likely their primary reason for doing away with crypto ads, NOT because it has anything to do with ICOs. But why bother preaching it to the wrong choir... You guys know everything here.

</comment><comment><USER72> I hate scams myself, but what gives google the right to judge on this matter? Shouldn't they be following the guidelines of local governments?

<comment><USER73> They are a service provider and can decide what to allow and disallow on their platform.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I run my own business but I don't do sales calls. Should I hire? - <AUTHOR> Backstory: I run my own software business. It is an API platform directed at developers and most of the content is highly technical. I started the company a few years ago. I'm the solo founder and it nets me a healthy salary. I handle support. I have started to see an increase in interest from large businesses and enterprises; I'm unsure if I want these high-touch customers.
Problem: I do not do sales calls or demos.
I have yet to be able to close a deal whenever I do sales calls, thus I have recently begun opting out of them all together. I have the aforementioned larger companies reach out to sales@, but I tell them we do not provide phone support or sales calls. However, we do provide email and live chat support.
This restriction is usually not an issue for small to medium businesses, but I'm realizing that it is an issue for larger businesses.
I believe my main hesitation with sales and demos is that it makes me uncomfortable (social anxiety?) and it has never resulted in a sale, only lost time. I also do not enjoy the long sales processes spread over several calls spanning several weeks.
I prefer to keep sales and support text-based so that I can answer on my own time, and also refer back and reduce support load in the future for duplicate scenarios.
Is this such a bad move? Do I look unprofessional when giving said answer? Should I look into hiring a part time sales person to handle these calls and provide demos of the platform? <comment><USER2> > Is this such a bad move?

Atlassian famously had no sales staff > [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-18/this-5-bi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-18/this-5-billion- software-company-has-no-sales-staff)

Still, if you're ready to grow -- a smart play is to hire someone WHO can take lead on the mundane, time-sucking stuff you hate to do.

A larger question-- what's your vision for this business now? What is it that you _really_ want?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for that link. Very insightful! I want to continue to grow my business, but I like the low-touch aspect of my business as it currently is. I don't really want that to change but I also don't want to hinder possible growth channels. I'd also prefer not to hire (I like being solo) and at most, I would bring on a sales consultant.

I guess I'm more looking for a way to communicate the fact that we don't do sales, but still continue discussions with those larger clients over email or live chat.

But I'm stumped on the necessary messaging to accomplish that.

<comment><USER2> > I'm more looking for a way to communicate the fact that we don't do sales, > but still continue discussions...

Seth Godin has two key questions to lead with -

\- Who's it for?

\- What's it for?

Perhaps a 2-3 minute video explainer can cover those items and describe how you work. Close with, 'still interested in working with me? Sign up here." Not everybody will appreciate the approach. Of course, you don't want to work with everybody.

A good marketing/video consultant can help polish-up the presentation.

Incidentally, Tim Ferriss recently interviewed the author of a book on $1M+ One-Person Businesses, might give you some ideas > [https://tim.blog/2018/06/07/one-person-businesses-that- make-...](https://tim.blog/2018/06/07/one-person-businesses-that-make-1m-per- year/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Rather than saying no, pick what you think is a ludicrous number for a price for said services. If they balk, you're in the same spot. If they don't, you just made way more money than you can imagine.

Also, most companies don't bother actually calling support. They prefer email as well. You can limit it further by having a named support contact and require they do the calling. If that person is in your time zone that reduces the impact and coverage period substantially.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd agree that most companies do prefer email for support, but not for sales. That's my main hurdle. I'd like to find a way to communicate to leads that we don't have a sales staff, but I'm not entirely sure how to do that without sounding unprofessional, if that makes sense.</comment></comment>


Why does wine brand popularity not follow a power law distribution? - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamedevblog.com/2011/04/what-is-it-about-wine.html Short blog article posing that exact question. The article is otherwise devoid of facts or hypothesis, but I'm very much interested in hearing HN's thoughts, since it's a very interesting question. <comment><USER2> Because running a winery that produces distinctive wines and having that winery crank out hundreds of millions of cases a year isn't that feasible. It's not like Coke where you can just produce more of the same product with the same process without affecting the character of.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wine popularity absolutely does follow a power law distribution. The leading brands are ones like Yellowtail, Woodbridge, Beringer, Cavit, and Sutter Home.

<comment><USER4> The quick answer is "no, it doesn't, nothing does":

<http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/491.html>

The better answer emerges if you think about the example a little more closely. The big power law brands driven by customer appreciation are in media -- people love Lady Gaga (say), so she sells gazillions. Nobody loves yellowtail or sutter home. Many people love Screaming Eagle or Chateau Lafite. However, wine is an agricultural product; you cannot produce more bottles of a great wine than you can grow in some very particular fields in a year. The way scary hit-driven industries work is that you sell things way above marginal cost to everyone who wants them; in wine, since there's actually scarcity, very few people who love a brand can get as much as they want of it, so the prices at the top are insane (recent vintage screaming eagle is indicated at $2-3k per bottle), but the brands are smaller.

I'd guess the way to think of it is like the music industry before recording devices or electricity -- sure there are stars, but because supplies are limited nobody can by a megastar.

<comment><USER3> I don't think you read the original blog post...

But good for you, since it was crap and my only goal in that comment was to point that out quickly and politely.

<comment><USER4> At the peril of being annoying long after the fact, I did read the post, and he does have a point that's a little deeper than your rejoinder: wine does not have the competition-destroying superstar effect we see in categories with less constrained supply. Your examples are not comparable to the kind of market position the players mentioned in the original post have. The favorite brands do not drive out the smaller players. Is that a "power law" or not, well, hard to say; if it's purely size-based, sure, but if we're talking about the way that a big brand dominates a market, no, there is no such thing in wine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> wine is probably more like cereal. In any case there were about 300 million cases sold in the US in 2008

Here are rankings of the top wine producers by case in 2008

[http://www.winebusiness.com/wbm/?go=getArticle&dataId=54...](http://www.winebusiness.com/wbm/?go=getArticle&dataId=54412)

E&J gallo - 68 million constellation - 59M The wine group 44M</comment>


Why is Open Source built with closed tools? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@velmu/why-is-open-source-built-with-proprietary-tooling-17f0871d5f58#.qcx264ppw <comment><USER2> To the question at the end, Yes. It's answered above in the article itself

> the value of "freedom" diminishes when proprietary > products offer a better > overall experience

In the end, if the cost is relatively trivial compared to the time to do it yourself, and the friction caused by the closed offering is significanly better than FLOSS alternatives, The closed solution will rule the roost.</comment>