Pensieve: An intelligent repository for the million things in your head - <AUTHOR> http://www.pensieve.ai/ <comment><USER2> Wonderful product! I use it all the time!

Oh ... vapourware ...

How I _hate_ these posts that pretend that this thing exists and is wonderful and tells you everything it can do and how it will solve all your problems, and only then tells you to sign up so you can get told when the miracle occurs.

Closed. Good luck, hope it works out for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Colin, I'm sorry to hear you feel that way. We're working hard to make Pensieve a reality, but we need to know that we're building the right thing. If you really are excited by the potential of an idea like this, we'd love to hear from you about how you would use it and what features it would need to be most valuable for you.

<comment><USER2> Where will the data live? If it's outside my servers I can't use it.

How will it decide what's important? We have _so_ many things that automated systems have declared unimportant and yet which turn out to be critical.

Currently commercial spam systems are running at around a 10% false positive rate. Quite simply, we can't rely on them. Why would your system be any different about deciding what's important and what isn't? Critical information is often not recognised as such until significantly after the fact, and very well may be in a throw-away comment.

So we have a system that crawls our email archives, chat logs, and other data sources, and uses an automated word2vec-like and tf–idf system to find similarities. Then we have a browser that makes the database look like a wiki - you just click on links till you find what you want, usually just one or two clicks away.

But I have _no_ idea what you're building. The description is of something magical that will solve all your problems, but it doesn't say anything about what it actually does. The web site is slick, but it makes it look like you have something ready to go. Then the rug is pulled out from under me and it's clear that while you might have something in development, you don't have a product.

Why not be honest? Say up front you're working on this and offer decent inducements to get quality feedback on people's concerns, what they use, what their current system gets right, their pain-points, and what they'd like to be able to do but currently can't.

This may be unjust, but the site feels dishonest. I know it's the current trend popularised by some book or other to pretend to have a product and see how many bites you get in order to gauge your potential market, but it puts me completely off. I now don't feel like I can trust you.

To address your actual questions:

Would I use it? No idea - you haven't told me why I would. What features would be valuable? No idea, I don't know what it might be able to do.

What do I want? A machine into which I type a vague query, it asks for clarifications, then gives me a definitive answer, or a definitive "That's not in my records."

So there you are, 400 words, 10 minutes of my time. Even though I feel cheated by your web site I hope you find that useful, and wish you the best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really appreciate you taking the time to write this down. To be fair, we found someone who thinks about this problem as much as we do. So maybe the books weren't wrong after all ;) It sounds like you've built something inhouse and are using it. Would you be open to us emailing you to learn more about it?

<comment><USER2> Feel free to email me and I'll tell you what I can, but my time is _severely_ limited, and my colleagues are totally paranoid about talking about _anything_ that's in-house.

But you can always ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a neat idea but unless I can operate my own private version then it's not really useful.

I've got a private wiki that provides essentially the same function. It's not as convenient to add new notes, but that convenience comes at the cost of organizational sanity.

I tried using Evernote for this purpose and what I discovered was unless you can control it yourself then it sucks. Eventually they're going to have money problems or they'll get DDoSed or whatever and suddenly this vital resource you've learned to rely on is not available when you need it.

You might as well use notepad & nextcloud.

There are only 2 things an app like this can offer to make it 'special' compared to the thousands of other available methods. Searchable tags, and a convenient UI.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We're definitely thinking about tags - even beyond just making them searchable. A lot of people run into issues like forgetting what tag they used and having a user-feedback and a UserFeedback. Also issues when a project name changes and so tags need to be migrated. Do you have that problem? What do you mean by private version? Do you mean running it on- premise?

<comment><USER3> Yeah I would rather have a php based webapp that I can download and install on my own server, than any sort of SaaS thing. I hate SaaS, I think it's a kind of gamble, I am gambling that the people providing that service will be successful and operational until I quit using it.

But in the real world that isn't always the case.

However with a localized application that I can download, install, and run without any reliance on "the mothership", if the developers should go belly up (obviously nobody wants that), I can at least continue to use the software for a length of time while searching for a suitable replacement.

That's just one example. There's other things, such as data security, short term outages, and so on. In general SaaS has always been a terrible idea. It's good for corporations, but it sucks for users, and computing is about what's good for the users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Omg I can't wait for this! My team and I were just talking about this problem. Just signed up for your waiting list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your signup form is behaving strangely. Seems like a state management issue. Text input gets narrow onmousedown.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately this is a known issue with css display: grid. What browser/version are you using?

<comment><USER5> Chrome latest

<comment><USER6> Yeah, that's where I've seen it as well. Unfortunately it's intermittent (which is probably why it's still just a known issue).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I currently use a git repository for this purpose. It would be nice to have a better interface for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. How do you use it? Like a key-value store?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love that line 'Conversations that begin with "Got a minute?" are almost never that short.' Use it so often! :D</comment>


Safari Extensions Gallery - <AUTHOR> http://extensions.apple.com

<comment><AUTHOR> And a mandatory Safari 5.0.1 update to make it work correctly...</comment>


Does the Movie Fed Up Make Sense? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-the-movie-fed-up-make-sense/

<comment><USER2> Originally when an Inconvenient Truth came out, I was a bit annoyed by a few things (can't remember what now) which I thought were misleading about the science or at least the presentation of the science. I got over it.

I feel the same way about this right up. I've been saying for ages that the best way to get over the climate change 'debate' is to not debate the 'facts', but to simply recognize that we can't pollute the earth. Give a hoot, don't pollute (as we used to say in Canada). Tough to have anybody argue against that logic, I don't care who you are, give me any example of where polluting the environment is a good thing.

I take the same view with stuff like this. You don't/shouldn't need parents or governments to tell you that eating lots of sugar or fast food is bad for you. Is it the answer to the obesity epidemic? Maybe yes, maybe no (I suspect yes), but even so, it is an answer to overall health.</comment>


Financial realities of the iTunes App Store - <AUTHOR> http://appcubby.com/blog/files/financial_realities.html

<comment><USER2> It was meant to be an overly simplistic look at the finances, not an actual financial statement (notice the nice round numbers). I didn't make this clear in the post, but our third app is already paid for and will be released soon. I'm not out of the woods yet, I know that, but I'm headed the right direction. And that's saying something in the App Store at the moment.

David - App Cubby

</comment><comment><USER3> That blog post has some Holy Mother of Accounting issues. We could start with 32k loaned from family NOT being income. The business is funneling money the wrong way, guy! Actual income does not cover your dev expenses! And you need paid marketing!

<comment><USER4> yeah , it was interesting. It is a little difficult to actually see what they are making , but it appears they have paid for some marketing either 12K or 7K depending on if the 5K free marketing 'income' is applied to the expense

<comment><USER3> Here's my attempt:

Income:

Realized Sales: $32,000

Accounts Receivable: ~$7,000 (reading graph)

Subtotal: $39k

Expenses:

Programmers: $29,000

Advertising: $2,000

Administrative[1]: $5,000

Artists: $4,000

Debt Service: $1,800

Subtotal: $41,800

[1] I smell a new MacBook, or someone _severely_ overpaid for lawyers.

\----

Total: ($2,800)

Ignore the charity -- that is not a business-related expense. Ignore the source of your starting capital -- I don't care whether it is a loan, selling your car, or using cash you have on hand, it _is not income_. Ignore the salary paid to yourself -- transferring money from one pocket to another pocket does not improve or hurt your financial situation.

What does this simplified picture produce? The correct conclusion: this business is _losing money_. Sales are in a downward spiral while advertising is active and the blog author apparently thinks that taking a month off of advertising and then turning it back on again is going to goose himself to profitability.

That is fantasy.

I think everyone who sees dollar signs in their eyes when they hear of the App Store needs to be sent to read this article. Here is a guy who has sold almost $40,000 worth of software and STILL LOST MONEY. At the moment all he has to show for it is a swiftly declining residual revenue stream (it will probably fall below the costs of debt service by the end of January) and a pile of money owed his family.

<comment><AUTHOR> you're making a quick assumption without knowing more about his methodology and long-term strategy. I talked with him at length last night at a developer meetup, and he's now in a position to capitalize on the technology assets he had developed for $30k. He's in a much, much, much better position than half the gumball developers on the store now.

I wouldn't be so quick to write-off people's real-world testaments like that, especially when they are courtesy enough to open their books for other people to evaluate and apply. You sound like the armchair critics on TC, TBH.

<comment><USER3> I am 150% in favor of real-world evidence and sharing information with other entrepreneurs. That is why I make all my businesses financial numbers public, too. (Not the usual sense of the word "armchair critic".)

What I am not in favor of is sugar-coating assessments out of social concern. Why do we put things in graphs? To draw conclusions out of them. The conclusion you draw out of a downward-sloping sales graph is not "Things are looking up!" The long-term strategy, which is laid out in the blog post, is to repeat the tactics (advertising) that failed before, seemingly without regards to understanding why they failed the first time.

(Which is fairly simple: it is virtually impossible to achieve a conversion ratio high enough to justify that price point with a ten-cent ad. You need to either charge much more or have a back end revenue stream. The App Store is not conducive to either. I pay six cents a click and sell an app for $25 and it takes significant work to make money and those numbers.)

 _He's in a much, much, much better position than half the gumball developers on the store now._

I agree with this assessment, which should be tattooed to the inner eyelids of anyone thinking of publishing for the store.

<comment><USER2> More assumptions. The App Store does not conform to any discernible business norms. The downward slope looks grim, but sales can bounce back at any moment and for any number of reasons. One of which is that we will be featured on wired.com tomorrow!

We've got some amazing new features that will be released before the end of the year (again, already paid for), and could spark another few weeks of above average sales. Even if the sales don't bounce back to the peak levels, we're leveraging our existing code base and will be releasing several new apps in the coming months.

As far as my long term plans... did you read the whole article? I said that I'm NOT going to do any major marketing until something changes. I'm focusing my efforts on what has worked so far: creating great apps and working with Apple and the press to get free marketing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


EA: Fired and lost Overtime pay compensation - <AUTHOR> http://translate.google.ca/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftechno.lapresse.ca%2Fjeux-video%2F201302%2F27%2F01-4625810-jeu-video-les-heures-sup-sans-limite.php&act=url

<comment><AUTHOR> The original article is in french, I submitted a link that translates to english (google translate).</comment>


Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html <comment><USER2> "We don't call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism."

We do refer to "Newtownian physics" to refer to pre-relativity and pre-quantum mechanics.

I think this is a non-issue. The people who think evolutionary theory stopped with Darwin aren't going to pick up on that because you use a different name.

<comment><USER3> I believe the author is referring more so to the people that tend to think that one person came up with, and wrote it since its attached to a persons name. It also makes for a good (read good in their heads) excuse why not to believe it. I know I have experienced that poor logic in conversation before.

<comment><USER2> It's not an excuse, it's a rationalization. The difference being that once you address the problem they claim to have, they still won't care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem is that once they stop calling it Darwinism, what do you call it, to keep it distinct from ID? They can't just call it evolution, since IDers don't all deny common descent, old earth, etc. and can thus claim the evolution label for their theories. It has to be called something like "evolution only by natural selection" or "natural evolution" or somesuch. But then this sounds too restrictive and gives popular credence to the ID rhetoric of "why are evolutionists so cloes minded?"

An added problem is that ID doesn't even have to appeal to a god or aliens. They can just restrict their theory to a more Lamarckian idea, that animals genetically engineer themselves, either intentionally or by happenstance. Once they do this, then the theory fits entirely within a naturalistic paradigm.

So, I'd say the essay is right. Darwinism has a problem of rhetoric on its hands.

<comment><USER5> You don't really need to entirely eliminate the idea of ID. You just need to ensure that the accpted mechanism is evolution. If you can convince ID advocates that the mechanism for design was that of evolution, then, who gives a crap? You're just arguing for or against God at that point.

<comment><USER6> It's not just arguing about god though. ID makes statements of fact which it is unable to back up with experimental evidence. Evolution makes statement of fact which it _can_ back up with experimental evidence. So the two should not be conflated (at least in the scientific realm).

Outside of science (philosophy?) they are nowhere near the most "out-there" of theories.

<comment><USER7> _Evolution makes statement of fact which it can back up with experimental evidence_

No. Evolution (specifically biological macro-evolution, which is what ID and science disagree upon) does NOT make statements of fact.

Both ID and Evolution make conjectural (non-factual) statements and then look for evidence that supports their specific view. The only problem is that none of us have empirically observed how life really came about, so we have no basis on which to say that the end results (or evidence) for a process is really correct.

Let's review science first -- evidence in science is only authoritative when you can (without fail) repeat an _empirical process_ X and come up with the end result Y (the evidence). Don't you see the problem of trying to define an umempirical process by the evidence? This is basic rationale, you have no way of knowing WHAT produced the evidence because it is unempirical.

So I can see why Bio. Macro-Evo. is nice. You get to bullshit about what you think X process should be, bullshit about how you believe X process should produce Y evidence (more importantly -- with no empirical observation to prove that X indeed produces Y), and then go on a search for Y evidence to confirm all your bullshitting. When you find Z evidence instead of Y, simply say that X process actually produces Z evidence to make it look like you have a whole bunch of Z evidence to back up process X. Meanwhile, everyone forgets that you actually have to show X process _empirically producing_ Z evidence to even logically conclude that the existence of Z evidence is a valid byproduct of the existence of process X. Brilliantly rational science we have there.

Both ID and Biological macro-evolution are the equivalent of a pack of toddlers that have no concept of forensics and criminal behavior attempting to explain what happened at an extremely complex crime scene. They know a bunch of people died (the end result), and that's it. Logically and rationally, that's all they can know.

<comment><USER8> Wrong on many levels. First:

 _"The only problem is that none of us have empirically observed how life really came about, so we have no basis on which to say that the end results (or evidence) for a process is really correct."_

Evolution makes no attempts to describe how the first living cell came about. Evolution begins from the first cell, and goes forward from there. The study of how that first cell formed is called Abiogenesis.

 _"Let's review science first -- evidence in science is only authoritative when you can (without fail) repeat an empirical process X and come up with the end result Y (the evidence)."_

Predictions made by science can speculate on the outcomes of a particular experiment _or_ on the ability of a hypothesis to explain past outcomes. Without the second half of this statement you can discard all mathematical models, including the science of the big bang, star formation, weather/climate prediction, and nearly all of social science.

 _"Brilliantly rational science we have there."_

Science, when done well, does nothing of the sort. What you have described is poor science, and there is poor science much the same as there is poor coding. However, Evolution is a framework arrived at from many hypotheses, many experiments, and many logical arguments put forward by many individuals over the past 150 years. You would do well to first comprehend some of the arguments before dismissing them out of hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do we have to associate evolution with Darwinism?

For that matter, why do we keep associating ID with Creationism?

Fuzzy words lead to fuzzy arguments.

<comment><USER6> At least for the second point, that's because IDH _is_ Creationism. It purports that somethings are irreducibly complex and must have been designed by a creator. Which is basically the same thing (scientifically) as Creationism.

<comment><USER9> ID == given any set of conditions, the cause of those conditions may be natural or an external agent (or a combination) ID presumes an external agent.

 _Arguments_ for ID include complexity and the watch, etc. _Application_ of ID may mostly be by religious people.

But ID itself is just common sense. You make an observation -- have a perception. You acknowledge that you either 1) believe you understand everything about how that reality occurred, 2) believe you understand a little but one day will understand everything, 3) believe that agencies unknown to you created that perception and the true cause lies in another set of facts unknown to you. (eventually understandable or not)

Maybe I'm missing something, but that's how ID theory looks to me.

To make a factitious example, lizard people from the planet Xypton diverted an asteroid millions of years ago and killed the dinosaurs. The fall of the dinosaurs has an ID basis then. But I doubt we'll see a lot of lizard people churches anytime soon.

It's just basic epistemology.

<comment><USER10> > But ID itself is just common sense.

Hardly, rather, it is common ignorance. ID is creationism, plain and simple. Its primary premise that the universe is too complex to have been an accident and thus must have been created absurdly ignores that its chief objection must also be applied to this supposed creator.

If the creator doesn't require a creator, then neither does the universe, making the whole hypothesis absurd. And it is just a hypothesis, not a theory, and cannot be in any way held up as an alternative to evolution by anyone with half a brain.

<comment><USER9> You're making an attack on religion. I was explaining ID.

I understand that religious creation-type people use ID as a shield from which to launch their anti-science attacks. I got that. What I'm trying to explain to you is that ID, as a way of knowing something, is a separate thing. In my opinion, people who mix up ID and creationism, _from either side_ , look like morons. They're two different things.

It's like attacking people from the American South as being KKK rednecks. Yes, there is that part. But to mix it all up is to display a lack of understanding and a willingness _not to think_. Not thinking is bad. Better to understand ID and then attack creationists than just lump it all together. Ignorance is one thing, but stupidity -- the willful continuation of not learning -- is another. That's bad on any side of a discussion. When the science guys start acting stupid, you know the discussion is in trouble.

<comment><USER10> > You're making an attack on religion. I was explaining ID.

And you're still pretending they're different things. You might like to think that ID is just a thought process, separate from religion that one can use to assess anything but that ignores the reality that ID isn't used in that way by the vast majority of its believers.

It's used as a shield for creationism for those attempting to corrupt our legal processes. ID is a word, and it means what most people use it for, not what you want it to technically mean or what you thought it originally meant.

The purpose of words is to communicate, those words are owned by creationists, so if you're really attempting to just communicate and get others to think then it's up to you to choose a better word that doesn't already have massively negative connotations.

Trying to talk about ID in absence of religion is like trying to talk about hacking to grandma while ignoring the fact that to the larger majority of people hacking means committing a crime.

<comment><USER9> _those words are owned by creationists_

Okay. We've passed the point of reason now. I concede.

<sarcasm>Yes. There are special words that are owned by special people. If you use their words, you must like them/take their side/want to be one. That's a much more reasoned argument than I was trying to make.</sarcasm>

I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We all know an idea is worth nothing until it's turned into a product. Maybe Darwin didn't invent evolution but he turned it into a product (a book) and sell it to people. That's why the unknown farmer who maybe got the idea before him shouldn't be remember and we should remember Darwin forever.

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems like a straw man to me. I know of no Darwinists who fetishize Darwin.</comment>


New Diagnostic Architecture Overview - <AUTHOR> https://swift.org/blog/new-diagnostic-arch-overview/ <comment><USER2> This is really great, as Swift's error messages aren't great when working with anything moderately complex. SwiftUI in particular seemed to stretch the abilities of the type system to the breaking point, and I'm glad to see that work is being done to improve error messages there instead of failing with mystifying reasons when people make reasonable mistakes.

<comment><USER3> > SwiftUI in particular seemed to stretch the abilities of the type system to > the breaking point,

Past the breaking point. SwiftUI brought several new language features just to make it possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Compiler errors in SwiftUI have been especially unhelpful. Is this something that this effort is intended to improve?

<comment><USER5> I've noticed that when editing the ContentView in SwiftUI, errors will sometimes be attached to a totally unrelated line (OTOH, forgetting to unwrap an optional returned by NumberFormatter.string() showed

        type of expression is ambiguous without more context

on a straightforward Text() expression halfway up the file). The only way to find the actual source of the error is to undo every change until the error disappears, and coupled with sluggish compilation times this becomes a real pain. I hope they address this issue as part of their improvements.

<comment><USER6> This is literally given as an example in the article. No hope required.

<comment><USER5> Oh wow, you're right, at the very top. Skimmed right over that. Thanks for pointing it out.

I guess SwiftUI exacerbates the problem since expressions are necessarily very deeply nested.

<comment><USER6> The last example in the SwiftUI section is also an "ambiguous type expression" example with a fairly complex nested view.

It seems to be a problematic diagnostic they have particularly focused on resolving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an awesome article and great learning opportunity.

The article describes the mental model needed to understand the operation of the swift type error diagnostic system with a high level of clarity.

Thinking through how this system works provides a super valuable learning experience for a wide audience of readers.

</comment><comment><USER8> The diagnostic improvements are great. Unfortunately many of these examples show how serious of a mistake it was to require explicit numeric conversions all over the place.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm really happy to see this effort! I participate in the rustc project dedicating myself mainly to diagnostics and ergonomics and I believe that the industry hasn't scratched the surface of what can be done through error messages. In Rust, my own personal rule of thumb is that the compiler should be your first tutor and act as a pair programmer. Rust has one advantage for doing so that was arrived to "by accident": the fewer things are valid code, the bigger the distance between valid and invalid code. In the boundary of these two areas there is code that can be reasonably imagined to be valid by somebody who knows a fraction of the rules of the language. I call this the "negative space" of the language. You can think of a case (again, in Rust because it is what I am familiar with, but the ideas can be applied to any language) like

        fn main() {
            let x = "a" + "b";
        }

which is invalid Rust due to _reasons_ , but the compiler emits the following output[1]:

        error[E0369]: binary operation `+` cannot be applied to type `&str`
         --> src/main.rs:2:17
          |
        2 |     let x = "a" + "b";
          |             --- ^ --- &str
          |             |   |
          |             |   `+` cannot be used to concatenate two `&str` strings
          |             &str
        help: `to_owned()` can be used to create an owned `String` from a string reference. String concatenation appends the string on the right to the string on the left and may require reallocation. This requires ownership of the string on the left
          |
        2 |     let x = "a".to_owned() + "b";
          |             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Is it perfect? No, it is verbose and you could make the case that the language should be extended to accept the code as is. Because we have design constraints that don't let us accept the code, we've extended _the compiler_ to support the construct in order to provide the fixed code, while simultaneously allowing the language to conform to its constraints. The hard part of this is that now your compiler is as complex as it would have to be to support the superset language. Also, the less negative space there's in the language, namely, the more expressive it is, the less you can apply this strategy

I am reminded of a recent tweet: "We spent decades trying to invent a sufficiently smart compiler when we should have been inventing a sufficiently empathetic one"[2]

Edit: if you have to Google to understand what the compiler is saying, I consider that a bug. File tickets for confusing diagnostics!

[1]: [https://play.rust- lang.org/?version=nightly&mode=debug&editi...](https://play.rust- lang.org/?version=nightly&mode=debug&edition=2018&gist=10cdf4ca498752f184e1998dac97b566)

[2]: [https://twitter.com/mostlysafe/status/1176170363266449410](https://twitter.com/mostlysafe/status/1176170363266449410)

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a discussion about introducing "descriptive" diagnostics of the same style happening on the Swift Forums at the moment - [https://forums.swift.org/t/pitch-extended-error-messages- dia...](https://forums.swift.org/t/pitch-extended-error-messages-diagnostic- naming/28754).

I this it's a great idea and with new diagnostic architecture described in the blog post it would be relatively easy to archive.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the diagnostic produced for similar example using new diagnostic architecture:

error: binary operator '+' cannot be applied to operands of type 'String' and 'Int'

_ = "a" \+ 1

       <comment> ^ ~

note: overloads for '+' exist with these partially matching parameter lists: (Int, Int), (String, String)

_ = "a" \+ 1

           ^

note: candidate expects value of type 'String' for parameter #2

        @inlinable public static func + (lhs: String, rhs: String) -> String
                                      ^

note: candidate expects value of type 'Int' for parameter #1

        public static func + (lhs: Int, rhs: Int) -> Int
                           ^</comment></comment></comment></comment>


California Supreme Court: age bias case against Google can move forward - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_15683556

<comment><USER2> It would be interesting to see what exactly Urs said about this guy, in what context, what this guy's personality is, etc. Being an "old fuddy-duddy," while without a settled meaning, I think basically is a way of saying that an old person is acting childish or unprofessional. If that's so, one easy way not to run afoul of the law is to say that the person acts childishly or unprofessionally. Of course, you should also document concrete examples of the same. For example, if the person in question frequently shoots down proposals in meetings by saying the moral equivalent of, "That's not how we did it back at Bell Labs," just say that. Also, saying the guy's ideas are "too old to matter" is a dick move IMO. If you want to abandon rational explanations for why you don't like someone's ideas, just say, "We're not going to do that, end of discussion." No need to get personal.

This goes back to my personal doctrine of trying to say exactly what I mean. I find that some people try to solve problems by saying things designed to get a person to do what they want, but without being direct about it. On more than one occasion I've observed this has led to hurt feelings where I think the direct approach -- just ask for what you want -- would not. For example, if your coworker bothers you while you are trying to work, "Hey, could we talk later? I am trying to work," would probably be received a lot better than, "Damn, dude, you talk a lot." This example is contrived but I have observed concrete cases not too different from this a number of times.

Anyway, hopefully no one reading this article is stressing out about not having a demographically appropriate workforce, because it seems very unlikely that alone will be enough to get you into trouble.

<comment><USER3> It'd difficult for me to imagine anyone at Google (at least in that era) using the term "fuddy-duddy". None of the quotes sound like anything I ever heard or over-heard, which of course doesn't prove anything, but it's not the culture that I ever observed.

<comment><AUTHOR> When things reach a lawsuit stage, they often take on a surreal air and become increasingly disconnected from what is likely to have happened in fact. Lawyers embellish, witnesses develop convenient memories, and those with a motive or agenda will tend to shade their testimony in ways that promote their case (on one side or the other), whether or not this conforms with exactly what might have happened. I don't mean by this that most people intentionally perjure themselves (they usually don't). I mean only that, once it all goes through the lawsuit grinder, what emerges may or may not be recognizable to those who actually went through the experience or who know the environment. Often, it isn't. Just a sad fact of life of what happens when people start fighting in the courts.

<comment><USER4> That might be the case, but another thing that might be at work over here is that people do have biases/prejudices that they are unwilling to expose in front of others. Someone smart enough can easily hide their real feelings on a subject in most situations, but as soon as they get annoyed, threatened or angry it starts to come tumbling out.

Perhaps, over here he simply encountered a few people with unresolved issues and got a raw deal because of it.

On the other hand, this happened when Google was relatively young an interesting question is, what happens in large organizations? When you hire people they tend to bring their baggage in them. So, now the question becomes how can a culture be created that allows people to transcend their prejudices?

I just don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is actually bad for older job seekers no matter what the outcome is, just because of awareness. The next time a skilled but borderline elder candidate applies to a younger company, the company will probably have a higher chance to pass on the candidate.

<comment><USER6> Especially if the candidate's name is Brian Reid. He must not be planning on ever working again.

<comment><USER7> If he wins the suit he won't have to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Google asserted in court documents that Reid was fired because the program he headed was being eliminated and because of poor performance."

Hopefully the Google Wave crew is not reading this. (some sarcasm intended, if Google started laying off people for working on a project that ended up being eliminated then employees would be fearful to be placed on anything not established.)

<comment><USER9> That's "and," not "or." Wave team members don't need to worry unless they suck.

<comment><USER10> Specifically regarding Wave, all the information from Google states that they loved it, and will most likely continue using it internally, which they did for months before it was announced. The technology they developed to build the product is also being slowly integrated into their existing products (GIS's redesign seems like it took some of the ideas of wave) as well as being available for integration in new products.

Regarding this article, this was 6 to 8 years ago, and Google didn't have its 'persona' it has now. It was still a company struggling to gain market share and I would imagine they wanted developers that strived to push the boundaries of what the web could do. Reid very well could have not had that same goal, being an older generation who already had an ingrained idea of what the internet was and was unwilling to work towards a more dynamic internet. This is all my personal speculation based on personal assumptions, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Obviously any kind of discrimination sucks, but I have a hard time getting worked up over age discrimination. It is not like sex or race where you are hampered from the start and never have a chance to show your potential. Everyone is young then gets old. Systematic age discrimination just creates a market opportunity for businesses willing to hire old people. You could say the same opportunity exists in the sex and race cases, but they have the potential to be self-fulfilling prejudices--people locked out of the workforce from the start--whereas the age one doesnt really perpetuate itself.

signed entitled young white male

</comment><comment><USER12> This case is interesting to me, because I've always been under impression that in USA you can hire and fire whomever you want. Which is not the case here in Europe, where workers are protected like endangered species if they're on permanent contract.

<comment><USER13> I'm glad Google had the balls to fire this guy. Judging from the article, I was working with someone similar to this guy. He had a Phd and had been in the business many years. His code was terrible and he acted very childish. The company I was working for at the time did not fire him. He did subsequently leave which was a relief.

<comment><USER14> Reid was no coding slouch. He won the 1982 Grace Murray Hopper award for Scribe. [http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=5356574&srt=all...](http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=5356574&srt=all&aw=145&ao=GMHOPPER&yr=1982)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "[At Google,] young 20-year-olds don't necessarily see a place for tremendously talented, experienced 50- and 60-year-olds." - Reid's Lawyer

Definitely. Rob Pike and Ken Thompson are neither talented nor experienced.

<comment><USER16> Don't forget Vint Cerf!

<comment><USER17> Peter Norvig is certainly quite the young upstart.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Does Everyone Look Hotter in Sunglasses? - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/06/why-does-everyone-look-hotter-in-sunglasses.html

<comment><USER2> I may be the exception to the rule but I think most people look significantly LESS hot in sunglasses. And the larger the sunglasses the larger degree of less-hotness. I never understood it, myself.</comment>


Europe Joins The Talent Wars - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/22/think-hiring-is-tough-in-the-valley-now-europe-joins-the-talent-wars/

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it just the capitals / large cities that struggle? There must be pockets of talent all over the UK and Europe.

I particularly don't want to move to a capital / large city. But I would move for a company based near the coast for example.

<comment><USER2> Hamburg is close to the coast, not too big and from what I've heard a couple of startups make a nice living there. The german variant of Über is based in HH IIRC.

I don't actually think that Berlin is struggling. It's hard to hire as a small company because there's bigger fish in the pond that can offer better pay/more interesting projects but if you're at least semi-well connected you should be doing ok. It's just that Berlin has been extremely cheap for quite a while and is now catching up to what I actually regard as a rather average level. The cited example of a PHP Dev with 2 years experience and a 180K wage is certainly an outlier. Experienced devs should probable average at around 60K/year, costing the employer at around 100K.

<comment><AUTHOR> Love Hamburg, a great place for sure (I freelance there). Although best kitesurfing spot is about 150km up the road at st peter-ording. But actually I meant Uk coast to stay near family :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Quoting the CEO of 6Wunderkinder as "Berlin needs less hype" is a paradox in itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> 100k for a 2-year experience php dev? Can anyone corroborate that claim?

<comment><USER2> Possible, he might be a very bright and promising kid. Average: certainly not. I regard this as statistical outlier. I'd offer 50-60k max for a 2 years php dev. We do have a large influx of people from Spain and Greece lately - they're legally allowed to work here without any visa and the unemployment rate drives them here.

However, if those numbers are cited it's difficult to know which side you're hearing. An employer in germany has to pay health care and social security etc., which adds another ~40% on top of the wage - so they might have cited that number to compensate for differences in the american model (private healthcare paid by the employee).

<comment><USER4> Senior level software engineer here- I just relocated to Berlin from SF and I'm not seeing it. I've also talked to a lot of other programmers / employers of programmers here and no one has ever spoken of salaries that high.

If these salaries were real, I would not be trying to do side-projects full time from home!

<comment><USER5> Care to share what range are the salaries are in?

<comment><USER2> From what I hear I'd place the average for a solid experienced dev at around 40k-60k Euro per year with a pretty wide spread [1]. It's hard to tell though, I might be living in a bubble :)

[1] 3+ years, at least one larger scale project. Knowledge of more than 1 programming language

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It may be new to TechCrunch, but there's been a talent deficit in London for years now.

<comment><USER7> And yet I regularly get recruiter emails looking for "rockstar" developers who'll work startup hours... for £25k (~$38k). Thanks, but no thanks.

<comment><USER8> You hit the nail in the head here. From what I saw while living in London, Singapore and now in Germany is that the problem is not with the talent, but with the right compesation. There are so many hackers out there, but "rockstars" or "ninjas" for 25K GBP is an insult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. 180k. Where can I apply?

<comment><USER10> Don't get too worked up. High cost of living plus high taxes mean your take home pay is considerably lower than what you get in the USA.</comment></comment>


The Sequel To SICP - <AUTHOR> http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/symbolic/spring08/ <comment><USER2> BTW, sickest class ever. Most of the dev team at Dropbox took the course. It's a mindbender, plus you get to hang out with Gerry Sussman.

Pretty much every lecture is spent examining a different programming approach and demonstrating that it's either trivially implemented in Scheme, more elegantly implemented in Scheme, or actually not worth implementing in the first place.

<comment><USER3> sounds really interesting. the course page has sets of projects, and assignments, but are there lecture notes up online anywhere?

<comment><USER2> Most of the lectures are on the ad hoc side. I don't recall ever seeing any of the notes (Sussman and Hanson prefer actual overhead slides to Powerpoint) going online officially, although there might be some student notes? It's been called 6.891 in addition to 6.945.

edit--Here's what I could track down:

[http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/symbolic/spring07/reading...](http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/symbolic/spring07/readings/)

<http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/symbolic/spring08/code/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is no sequel to SICP. It's just a course, not a book. There was already sort of a sequel (<http://mitpress.mit.edu/SICM/>), but it's far from new.

<comment><USER5> Presumably, fiaz is referring to SICP the class (6.001 -> <http://sicp.csail.mit.edu/Fall-2007/>) rather than the book.

The posted course site is not up to date, because as far as I know 6.001 is no longer being taught at MIT. (<http://www.eecs.mit.edu/ug/newcurriculum/index.html>)

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought I was being clever but in the end I've ended up confusing people. I think you can take it as you want to.

By using the word "sequel" in the title, I was implying that there is perhaps some hope for future CS students to be inspired by the beauty that was in the SICP class and book. I took a class that was based on the book at the University of Minnesota and it still stands in my memory as one of the best classes in CS that I have ever taken.

My love for the class and book is so deep that sometimes I'll flip through the three copies I have (one first edition, and two distinctly different printings of the second edition) just to remind me of how beautiful hacking can be...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Scheme. Barf.

<comment><USER7> What don't you like about scheme? Specifically, what don't you like about scheme used as a language for teaching?</comment></comment>


Up to 37% chance of 9+ earthquake on entire west coast within 50 years - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_subduction_zone#Prediction_of_the_next_major_earthquake

<comment><AUTHOR> As discussed in techzing daily 13 mins in: <http://techzinglive.com/?p=450></comment>


Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej: One of the World's Longest-Reigning Monarchs - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/13/asia/thai-king-bhumibol-adulyadej-obituary/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Yes it's a CNN article. Unlike most CNN articles this one is actually pretty informative (if you don't know that much about Thailand, anyway) and worth a read.</comment>


Ask HN: Are marketing problems like technical/design problems? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a programmer.  My co-founder is a designer.  Through the course of developing our product we expect to encounter many technical and design problems.  I'm quite confident in our ability to solve those.  While I don't know any of the specifics of the technical problems we will yet encounter, I know the gamut of what I've done in the past, and feel most of these are just a matter of time and effort (lots of effort some times) to solve.   My greatest fear, is developing/designing a good/great product having no one show up.  I have no idea how to solve a marketing problem.  I have a hunch that it's also just a matter of time and effort.  Are there people out there that view marketing problems from a similar perspective as I view technical problems: for a good/great product it's just time and effort to acquire customers through marketing, or do some good products seem to fail for unknown reasons despite good marketing?<p>As a sub-note, our product is a game with an advertising/in-game purchase revenue model. <comment><USER2> I assume you meant promotion; the term marketing usually includes product (design), price, placement (ie. distribution) and promotion.

Making marketing decisions is basically the same thing as making any decision: You need to determine your goal, identify barriers you need to overcome in order to reach that goal, and then execute.

The difference to technical decision is identifying the barriers. With technical problems, the relevant cause of the barrier, namely the object or software, is under your control and easy to alter. It's also easy to measure the effects of any change. Thus, identifying barriers is rather easy.

With promotional decisions, the cause of the barrier is basically the market, that is: some group of people. They are not under your control, altering their behavior is usually very hard, and measurement is an art form since you often don't know who they are. Therefore, identifying the relevant barriers is often a mix of experience, intuition, and guesswork.

Of course, there are lists of common barriers (ie. causes why people don't buy or buy elsewhere) and for each of them, there are common methods to overcome (or answer) these.

For example, a game is a typical experience good: you can only judge the value after having played (and payed for) the game. Thus, mistrust is a likely barrier to overcome. Typical answers are offering a trial, a demo or a guarantee, setting the price to zero, etc. -- the "low commitment" route. A different route could be using "high-reward" signals: promoting the (high) production costs, setting a rather high price, producing high-quality in-game videos, buying TV time for ads, offering trials to only selected journalists, etc.

As you can see from the example, money may be a necessary ingredient, sometimes lots of it. Thus, promotion is also a function of the price (or rather, the revenue model).

However, since you seem to go the "low commitment" route, already, your central problem will be "selection": Why play your game instead of one of the million others?

A common answer is "relating" or "bounding" -- appeal to something a target audience wants to be (or thinks it is). For example, Listerine's 'Always a bridesmaid, never a bride' appealed to what the audience wanted to be (namely someone's wife). Marlboro's 'Come to Marlboro country' appealed to freedom and independence. So, another ingredient is creativity, so to say.

If you have that, your promotion only needs to communicate this particular trait. The rest is finding out what people do, view or read who should be interested in this particular trait and go for it.

Then, you really just need time and effort to promote your product successfully.

Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's very helpful, sounds like we'll need to brush up on promotion. You sound rather well versed in this, thanks a bunch for taking the time to write such a thorough relpy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What technology platform would you use for an Medical Records app? - <AUTHOR>

I was thinking, would it be possible to modify Joomla sufficiently. I haven't worked with it before and i don't want to end up with a square peg situation.
The other option being using frameworks Django perhaps to build it from scratch.
What would you people suggest? <comment><USER2> Don't try to make Joomla into a medical records app. That way lies heartbreak and a pile of code that does something but that you can never quite trust.

Build from the database out. And please use encryption appropriately.

In the US at least you are dealing with HIPAA which has a deep set of requirements your system will have to meet.

And you are dealing with crucial information, if you screw up medical records such that crucial information is left out or garbled or lost you could potentially kill people.

So use tools that give you a clear view into the development process and let you track, record and correct the system as you are building it.

Use whatever language the team is most familiar with and don't think that any framework will make your work easier unless you already know that framework well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Medical records? Ethically your number 1 issue is security now, and it may be legally also depending upon where you're building this.

While a web framework is a great place to start for things like this, I do implore you to keep the medical records that it stores as far away from the Internet as possible, if you can. At least consult really good security guy if you must have them on the net.

Opinions:

Both are notionally MVC web packages.

* Joomla: Joomla is actually a CMS - and most medical records are text, so - maybe it'd work - but I'd be worried about the burden of the cruft, as well as laying your own security over something that's designed for publishing stuff. It'll be quick to get something up, though.

* Django: You can build any kind of database, CMS or virtually anything you can see on the web in Django - so I'd start there. Django has usable security out of the box, too.

Joomla is PHP and Django is Python, so in the interests of code reuse I'd personally go Django every time. Some quite big desktop apps are built in Python, so you'd be in good company.

</comment><comment><USER4> I like SQLAlchemy as my DB abstraction. Then you aren't tied to a web app. However, for starting I use pylons, and have been playing with FormAlchemy. It gives you a simple admin interface, but you can customize all you want.

</comment><comment><USER5> You should use a platform that you already know well. Starting from scratch with a new framework/language is certainly fun but I don't recommend it for paid projects unless you have a solid experience and expertise and very confident about your abilities.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do have some experience in Django. I've never worked with Joomla before. The app i was referring to is more like a protoptype for now.</comment></comment>


1-kilobyte chess game - <AUTHOR> http://1kchess.an3.es/

<comment><USER2> Of course 30 years ago there was "1K Chess" for the Sinclair ZX81 (Timex/Sinclair 1000 for US readers) - which, despite the name, was actually just 672 bytes of code. (The program had to run in a machine with 1K of memory _total_, which obviously included space for the machine's workspace and display file - itself ingeniously optimised to only occupy memory space for parts of the screen that had been printed on.)

[https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/1K+ZX+Chess](https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/1K+ZX+Chess)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here is chess in 1 kb, written in 6502 assembler for the KIM-1 -- in 1976!

[http://www.benlo.com/microchess/](http://www.benlo.com/microchess/)

The instructions say, "If you are an above average player, you may find that the MICROCHESS program is below your level ..."

</comment><comment><USER4> Just tried the 2 KB (fast) version as White. Trapped Black's queen on my 7th move.

Mate took 20 moves or so total.

</comment><comment><USER5> Got stalemated with a bare king against four queens and stuff.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow -- that's impressive -- 1kb -- really?</comment>


One Letter Domain - <AUTHOR>

We have the chance to acquire a single letter domain at a competitive price for our start up. It will be the largest single expenditure from the angel round/seed and we're considering on whether it is actually worth it.
We own the brand name .com domain and the single letter domain is brand related.
I was wondering what you guys thought on this and whether it would be money better spent elsewhere.
I have to admit it does look cool. <comment><USER2> Is it a .com/net/org?

If it's one of those random country TLD's not related to your own country or the name of your business, i'd say definitely "No."... if it's a .com/net/org or the TLD makes up part of the business name (eg i.bm, which doesn't exist, but is an example of what I mean) then maybe.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on your business plans pretty much.

If you're appealing to the very internet illiterate, the single letter brand is very useful.

However, there might be some problems; eg trademark issues in which case you'll lose the domain to the trademark holder. So, not only do you have a premium for the single letter but you also have to pay lawyer and court costs for it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some great feedback and I mean we have had some talks of re branding simply because at this stage we can.

It's going to be a hard one.

I guess some respect would come from press and blog given that not every start up comes with a single letter domain.

Then again would the money be better utilized in plain marketing.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm obsessed about branding, names and domains so if I had the money I would most definitely buy it. But in your situation? Doubtful. You already have the brand .com so how are you going to use this one, as a cheap url shortener domain? Or is it for a cool domain hack which you are going to use as your main domain?

</comment><comment><USER5> You've probably already researched it, but if not, look into leasing it with an option to buy. You might give up a sliver of equity, but you could keep the cash free and used for things which your angel/seed round investors (and you, pre-realizing-the-domain-was-available plans) had intended.

<comment><AUTHOR> MrMike I actually stupidly enough haven't even thought about that. Someone did mention it but I just thought it would be a solution not suited.

Maybe it could be something to explore...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Out of curiosity, who "offers" single letter domain names? The only two single-letter domain .coms I could find are:

      x.com => Paypal,
      q.com => CenturyLink (???)

Even if someone had the money, which organization decides who can register these?

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd have to imagine that in the early stages, money should be spent that improves the customer-product fit, and its never worth it spend significantly on a domain name. If you gain a lot of traction, then it may be worth it in the future.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not worth it.

A reasonable variation on a domain would be one that includes some line of work, e.g. if it were gardening you could get "z-gardening.com" instead of "z.com" and probably save a ton.

<comment><USER5> I think that, depending on the type of product/service they're offering, it could definitely be worth it. If it's a consumer product targeting less computer savvy folks, the shorter/easier the better. If it's something my parents would use, and they could go to "z dot com" instead of "z dash gardening dot com". On the other hand, if it's a site that targets HNers, then it's probably harder to justify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> the incremental impact on success bewteen a good and single letter .com domain name is less than the incremental impact of a great hire, at any early stage startup.</comment>


Change Your Definition of Success and Failure Becomes Impossible? - <AUTHOR> http://litlift.com/why-this-wont-fail

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a link to my new novel writing software project and the reasons I think it's going to be successful. I'm curious to know whether you all would consider this a success as well?</comment>


Problem after update to PS3 firmware - <AUTHOR> http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-3-Support/Problem-after-update-to-4-45/m-p/40712247#U40712247 <comment><USER2> Not bricked since it still boots stuff and can be fixed. Oh well, everyone's taken a liking to say they are bricked - it sounds so much more dramatic.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I'll allow the usage of "bricked" if recovery requires opening up the device and connecting via JTAG. That's effectively dead and unrecoverable by any normal consumer.

But c'mon, a device that you can fix by sticking in a USB drive with a patch is not bricked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-19-playstation-3-u...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-19-playstation-3-update-4-45-bricking- some-consoles)

This story says the offending patch has been pulled offline.

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/06/19/playstatio...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/06/19/playstation-3-update-4-45-reportedly- bricking-systems/)

affected systems estimate:

Aftermarket HDDs, 500GB-1TB ~90%

Stock 500GB models ~8%

Stock 120GB models ~2%

Stock 1st-gen fat models ~ 0%

<comment><USER6> Heh, it's worth noting that the Forbes source for those "numbers" is a Redditor who is ballpark estimating based on user reports in a forum.

Didn't realize we were in a time when Forbes sources were nearly unsourced Reddit comments.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1gmrmx/do_not_update_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1gmrmx/do_not_update_your_ps3s_new_firmware_brick/calqjiq)

<comment><USER7> At the top, over the article: "Paul Tassi, Contributor". I think the official articles are written by "..., Forbes staff". There's not much distinction these days between the core and the affiliated people. (not that this is an excuse)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What happens if an official update bricks your device and the warranty expired?

<comment><USER9> Happened to me and I was SOL. They wanted me to send it in and pay about 200CAD for repairs. I yelled till I was blue in the face, but no dice.

<comment><USER10> Wait for the company to realize what's going on. Wait for said company to release a patch to fix a problem that was obviously their fault to begin with. You face can return to it's normal color now. Jumping to conclusions like "SOL" is a bit ridiculous

edit: I'll gladly take a downvote for this, you're talking about screaming at customer support and IM getting downvoted. Constructive group we have here.

<comment><USER9> This happened during another wave of bricked PS3's about a year ago. One year later - same shit is happening to PS3 owners, no real addressing of the problem happened.

My device has been stuck in a perpetual (failing) update loop like many others. No patch was ever released. There's no known way without specialized hardware (PS3Key) or out-of-warranty RMA. I don't want to invest in either solution.

<comment><USER11> My device does something similar. When a new update comes out, 95% of the time the update will fail. When that happens, it continues to fail no matter how often I retry.

Through much trial and error, I found a way to make the update work every time. This may look stupid, but I swear it works:

      1. Try the update. It fails.
      2. Turn off the console.
      3. Take the hard drive out.
      4. Turn on the console. It will fail to boot and shutdown.
      5. Put the hard drive back in.
      6. Turn on the console. The update will start again and succeed.

I have no idea why this works, it makes no sense to me. But it's been working this way without fail for a few years.

<comment><USER9> Thanks man. I tried this out to no avail. When I realized that I was faced with a hefty RMA bill, I tried both removing the battery and letting its settings RAM clear overnight as well as booting without a hard drive. Both had no effect unfortunately.

In my opinion, it's a poorly designed update mechanism that makes it prone to failure. There should be some redundancy built into the process so that the machine can always force itself back to a "known-good" state and at least access the recovery menu.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> These may not actually be bricked but I had an old ps3 that actually was bricked after the update following the psn hack and consequent month-long outage. This ps3 had linux installed on it at some point (from back when ydl had a ps3 tailored distro) but that was overwritten by a sony update that I grudgingly agreed to since I didn't want to give up my access to psn. When psn came back up after the long outage I got on immediately and the update was downloaded, but as soon as it finished and before any indication of a restart I heard a 'click' and it was gone, forever. Sony told me they would 'pass on' my info about having linux legally installed previously but admitted nothing and it remains useless to this day. Luckily, I received a new one as a gift... but now I am afraid to update it ;) I'll wait a couple days I think to be sure.

</comment><comment><USER13> It will be interesting to see how this type of situation would be handled in the XBox One, which can't play games unless you're checking in online. It's not like you'd avoid connecting in order to see if people have problems with a patch.

<comment><USER14> If you've paid for PS+ your PS3 will switch itself on in the middle of the night (optionally; you can disable it) to sync, download and install queued titles and most importantly apply patches.

I wonder how many people woke up to broken consoles?

But really, you can unplug the new Xbox, it's just that if the situation goes on for more than 24hrs you won't be able to play anything (Sony 'resolved' the situation within hours by removing the problem patch).

<comment><USER15> " But really, you can unplug the new Xbox, it's just that if the situation goes on for more than 24hrs you won't be able to play anything (Sony 'resolved' the situation within hours by removing the problem patch). " not sure what you mean by 'resolved' when scores of people are complaining Sony just bricked their consoles.

<comment><USER14> If you want to try to prevent your Xbox One from receiving the broken update by unplugging it from the network, then you will still be able to play your games so long as Microsoft pull the update within 24 hours like Sony have done. As soon as they do that, it's safe to connect again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Seeing all the drama about XBox One vs PS4, I can't help but laugh. The PS4 may seem a better solution (lower cost, more freedom) but then I remember, this is Sony. Gaming network hacked many times, company that attacks hobbyists that hack on the hardware _they_ own, and then situations like this.

<comment><USER17> OP not about PS4. Don't care.

(seriously, are you trying to start another PS4 / XB rage thread? Stop trolling)

<comment><USER16> No, I'm not. In the same way that a post related to the iPhone somehow magically turns into a discussion about Samsung and "rounded corners", when the original article had nothing to do with those issues. My point is situations like this are further indications of Sony's incompetence, yet there's plenty on HN who will be standing in line to give them money when the PS4 come out, as if it's a different company without all the fails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would imagine they can roll out the rootkit PR campaign almost unchanged. In order to protect our IP, sometimes extreme measures have to be taken ... Along with a healthy dose of the ole "In order to save the village we had to destroy the village"</comment>


Mapping Out Your Web Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.judegomila.com/2009/05/mapping-out-your-web-startup.html <comment><USER2> I like the way it shows that the core site is but a part of the overall strategy. An important part, but just a part.

It's also a good reference to use to answer the question "What does the non- tech founder do?"

Well, see all those other boxes? Figure out how they apply best to you.

</comment><comment><USER3> I actually have a map similar to this that I devised to make sure I'm spending the right amount of time in the right ratios. This was to solve the age old question of "How much time should I spend coding vs other stuff?".

But, it was broken down differently: Product, Marketing, Sales, Business Strategy, and Customer Support is how I have my groups organized.

Suspiciously absent from this map is Customer Support, which I see as very integral part that supports Sales (helps convert free to paid) and Marketing (good support = good word of mouth). A good CS strategy is extremely important for a small business.

Also, one should think of the Core Product and Retention as one group, because you really can't have one without the other.

</comment><comment><USER4> this is a repost from a while back. couldn't find the original discussion thread to link to, tho. eit.

<comment><USER5> previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=634494>

<comment><AUTHOR> woops, Sorry about that! I wonder how it got through HN's filter.</comment></comment></comment>


Save your Bandwidth- Start downloading files directly in your Dropbox - <AUTHOR> http://www.boxmydownloads.com/

<comment><USER2> There are already plenty of media downloaders that provide their own file space and integrated playback ability. For example put.io.

Loading large files to Dropbox, where you cannot stream them, seems like a step back.

Besides, the site is a bit confusing to me. You should be more clear about the difference between the paid and the free plan.</comment>


Microsoft extends AirSim to include autonomous car research - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/autonomous-car-research/ <comment><USER2> A project like this from microsoft makes me sad that they killed Flight Simulator. It was such a quality product with a dedicated fan-base, and really could have used one final round of modernization to work better on current gen hardware.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great work thus far, Shital. I'd love to work on the AirSim team with you. Where can I apply and what skills should I sharpen to achieve my goal?

</comment><comment><USER3> Does AirSim provide a facility to obtain, augment, and simulate sensor signal noise for our algorithms?

</comment><comment><USER3> What are the core objectives for building AirSim and what types of research projects will benefit most?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm the lead developer on the AirSim team. Please let us know if any questions!

<comment><USER4> Good job Shital and team. May I know what type of testing we can do with AirSim? is it perception control or MPC or something else?</comment></comment>


The bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/bright-side-of-sitting-in-traffic.html <comment><USER2> I was driving on CA-46 last week and had 5 mins of driving at 55mph left to get onto I-5. Suddenly, all traffic just stopped. I booted up google maps on my iphone and saw the remaining segment (to I-5) yellow. After a few mins, it had turned to red, and I hadn't moved an inch. It was very impressive to see the data change in such a real time fashion. Of course, it was too late for me.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 This is a really neat idea, and it sounds like they tried to cover many conceivable privacy concerns from the get-go...

But given the fact that you have to enable this (by running Google Maps) each time you start a car trip, it makes me wonder how much useful data it will actually collect.

Also what if you leave Maps open on your phone while you walk around the city? I would imagine that would skew the data as well.

<comment><USER3> _Also what if you leave Maps open on your phone while you walk around the city? I would imagine that would skew the data as well._

It sounded to me like they only show the data if there enough reportings to give them confidence. So, even if someone did leave it on while walking around they would be an outlier in the data and more than likely ignored by Google until they started to fit in again. Also, if you're walking around I'd imagine you're unlikely to be on the road, more likely on a sidewalk which should show up in the data as not quite on the road and therefore less likely to be accurate. I suppose there is also the case of a lot of people walking around on the street, but I'd imagine that traffic isn't moving very fast if there are a lot of people doing that anyway.

I for one would love to get my hands on some of this data. My first thought when I saw this was a road-based version of FlightCaster but it could have all sorts of applications. I predict that Google Maps will get a lot better at routing you around congested areas in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like another app that iPhone can't participate in.

<comment><USER5> Agree. Google +1. Apple -1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The downside is right now running Latitude slows your phone to a crawl after a few days <http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3453>

</comment><comment><USER7> The people who generate the traffic news bulletins for local radio stations have had this sort of system for years - it's not wrapped up in trendy terms like "crowdsourcing", but it is very similar.

They take phone calls from the public about traffic problems, log them all down in a system called Regis and are able to identify trends and blackspots from the years of accumulated data. Now, if the traffic news people could somehow make use of this GMaps data...

</comment><comment><USER8> Wasn't this the whole point of Dash Navigation? I love how old companies can totally obliterate new startups' differentiation with a quick, single stroke. Now, Google Maps needs to be better integrated with turn-by-turn directions (like Dash was) to make this a real killer.

<comment><USER9> I was just commenting on that with a friend. Poor Dash, all that VC and no customers. Mixing hardware into your startup isn't easy and brings an extra level of risk. Dash never struck me a particularly good Navigation Device, tho. Would you buy a top notch navigation device with traditional traffic reporting, or a second rate one with fancy traffic that only works in a few cities? When you go to reinvent a market, realize that your goals are to

      1) do everything that your competitors do
      2) do some things better

Just solving for (2) won't help you win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like an idea Seth Godin posted a while back, iirc:

[http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/an-iphone- ap...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/an-iphone-app-t.html)</comment>


Social Media: Are you convinced yet? - <AUTHOR> http://brolik.com/blog/social-media-are-you-convinced-yet/ People are spending 4.6 hours per week on social networks, surpassing email at 4.4 hours per week, according to the TNS "Digital Life" survey of internet users around the world (Sept. 2010).<p>Still, there is hesitation and sometimes denial from C-level executives concerning the value of social media marketing, especially within small businesses. Even with convincing arguments from marketing directors, you have to wonder why CFOs and CEOs are sitting and waiting for more financial proof before they carve out a line for social media in their budgets, as if ROI (a very specific financial measurement) is the only metric to quantify the value of social media spend. What about brand saturation, engagement, loyalty and reputation with consumers? <comment><USER2>
      No.  Next question?</comment>


Ask HN: How exactly apart from taxes, can  income inequality be reduced? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 1\. Universal, affordable health care and strong policies to help families out. This reduces this sort of inequality of life.

2\. Fair and equal access to both preschools and end-of life care. For example, Norway's nursing homes cost 80% of your pension, no matter what your pension is. And you are only eligible after you need more than a (free) nurse coming to your home 6 times a day... because it is cheaper.

3\. Fair and equal access to quality schools, including college, university, and trade schools. This should be decoupled from the property / income taxes of an area. One school might have higher maintenance needs one year, while another does not and providing it at a large scale makes it easier on all.

4\. Job contracts for all, no matter if you work part-time in a fast food place or you are the head of a coopration. In addition, unions being available for all - including management. This reduces some strife between the two since it is the different unions that are actually negotiating.

5\. Being able to easily find out other people's pay and tax rates. This is going to be uncomfortable for many, but it will encourage transparency.

6 Support for those that aren't making enough to fill their individual needs so that they have access to all the tools that are needed for the modern world - this includes cell phones, clothing, computers, and internet access. This also would mean that caseworkers have the ability to make exceptions for those that have higher expenses for whatever reason. Strict poverty lines are rough for many folks and leave lots out in the cold.

<comment><USER3> How does number 2 work?

If I have saved my whole life into a pension, 80% gets taken for my end-of- life care. If I only saved for the last 5 years of my career, 80% gets taken. Not sure how that makes sense.

<comment><USER4> A pension is dispensed by your employers or by the government. It doesn't come out of your own savings.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I use the word pension to mean DC scheme as well

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We did not exactly get a fair shake when it came to those trade deals like NAFTA that Clinton signed back in the 90s. It hollowed out all the decent jobs in manufacturing that were supporting families in this United States.

I am not arguing for protectionism, but just go and try to do business south of our border in the same way they do trade with us. The trade deal is not symmetric on both sides.

People who craft these trade deals do some in secret, just look at the TPP deal going on now that is very controversial. Then the deal is rammed through approval, and there is little transparency.

How about making things a little more transparent? How about letting the public take a peak and have a little more time to digest what is being written?

<comment><USER6> Tarrifs on any goods coming from countries whose environmental and labor laws do not match or exceed our own.

What good are our laws to protect our environment when the goods that are sold here destroy some other part of the world?

What good are our labor laws when your sneakers are made by a ten year old across the oscean?

Don't like tarrifs? Then raise your standards to ours. It's not protectionism, you can lower these barriers with a few pieces of legislation. It's on them to fix the problem not us.

Fair trade not free trade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> We live in a time of Big Data. I think of Walmart - where they use hidden cameras with facial recognition to track all their employees (as well as monitoring every call.) This makes me think that money and power in a society should come with obligations - and one obligation should be to submit to monitoring. We need to track the wealth of rich people - and all their backroom deals to avoid taxes, manipulate laws, influence politicians, and their use their money in our society. Our society should have a say in all those decisions, since they impact and define our society. This would also allow our society to put a fee on their transactions.

We need much less monitoring and regulation of typical citizens, and much more monitoring and regulation of those who control our lives. That will help us get control of many of the non-transparent tricks used to hide their huge wealth - offshores, derivatives, fake accounting, charities, trusts, and offshore payoffs with under-valued stock.

<comment><USER8> Not only that but we need to look at just how much of the current tax income is diverted into the military industrial prison complex around the world, if that money went back to ordinary people you wouldn't necessarily need to raise current tax rates to support basic income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You could start by making option pools bigger than 10% for employees. Right now facebook is work 340B and has 13k employees that's about 26M per employee. Adding an extra 10% for employees that went deeper into the workforce would have transferred a lot of wealth.

</comment><comment><USER10> Taxes actually encourage spending, whereas low taxes seem to encourage holding onto wealth. If you can spend X to build your company and write that off, that's better then giving it to the government. There is the persuasive argument that when rates were super high (90%), this spurred investment and jobs.

Also make exec compensation a bigger issue to stockholders. I think I read the Norwegian capital fund is trying the latter.

</comment><comment><USER11> The gold standard. The decoupling of currency to gold corresponded with increasing income inequality. Decoupling currency from gold put control of interest rates in the hands of central bankers, who lowered those rates as times passed. The inflation of the prices of financial assets and lowering of yields as a result of lowering of interest rates meant it became harder and harder for the working class to save their way into financial independence. The group of people who originally held the assets reaped the benefit of higher asset prices, allowing them to borrow more against their assets to purchase more capital, and as prices rose, it was like the ladder to financial independence slowly lifted away from the ground, too.

</comment><comment><USER12> Well changing the main focus of human existence from making profit and consumption to something else will help a lot :)

</comment><comment><USER13> By making everyone poorer by hurting free trade

"You can't prevent great variations in wealth without preventing people from getting rich, and you can't do that without preventing them from starting startups. "

[http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html](http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html)

<comment><USER14> Paul Graham deeply misunderstands the argument against inequality, and he's also dead wrong that starting startups is what makes most people reach. Most wealth is institutional and/or based on rent-seeking. Starting startups is not rent-seeking.

After writing this article, Graham was justifiably annihilated by journalists, fellow VCs, real economists, and founders.

YC-funded founder: [http://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/paul-graham-wrong- inequali...](http://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/paul-graham-wrong- inequality.html)

Mark Suster: [https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-i-don-t-celebrate- income...](https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-i-don-t-celebrate-income- inequality-84290db74956)

Harvard sociologist: [http://qz.com/586563/paul-graham-just-accidentally- explained...](http://qz.com/586563/paul-graham-just-accidentally-explained- everything-wrong-with-silicon-valleys-world-view/) and also [https://medium.com/@girlziplocked/paul-graham-is-still- askin...](https://medium.com/@girlziplocked/paul-graham-is-still-asking-to-be- eaten-5f021c0c0650)

Roundup of several economists: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/14/what-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/14/what- silicon-valley-doesnt-understand-about-inequality/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't know the answer, but I think education should be the first step. For me that's the best way to give everyone a "fair" chance. I don't know near enough about policy to suggest how to stop the top 1% from getting even bigger until they own everything.

<comment><USER7> Actually, I don't think that will work. I understand that the increasing wages for education over the past decade have been a chimera. In fact, those wages have been stagnant compared to economic growth in the USA, while others wages have fallen. So there is the impression of higher wages for more education only because we look at wages relative to other peoples wages.

In addition, I think the requirement for education for everybody to do well just doesn't make any sense for a society as automated as ours. We should be able to have a great life for everybody - with much fewer requirements that everybody get advanced degrees. Our focus on education is a symptom of our broken economic system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Break up corporations that have grown to large and powerful into smaller chunks, turn the chunks into worker co-ops.

IMO, regulating bad behavior of huge international corporations is a losing game. It addresses the symptoms of the size of corporations, but not the problem.

If you're a small government fan:

Doesn't it make sense that governments have to grow to compete in power with these huge NGOs? If they were smaller, the regulation of these entities could be passed onto city and/or state level governments where the people are (supposedly) better represented.

</comment><comment><USER16> Basic universal income and let machines do the menial work.

</comment><comment><USER17> Introduce moderate inflation. Make it a losing proposition to hoard wealth.

Tax estates at a level that breaks dynastic wealth building. Cap retirement generational tax-exempt IRA rollovers.

Require more transparency for LLCs and other corporate structures to use the banking system. Corporate ownership should be conpetely transparent.

Reduce the ability of large real estate holders to harvest losses.

<comment><USER11> We want inflation in wages, deflation in assets like houses, stocks bonds. i.e. the opposite of what's occurring, and what's occurring is the suppression in interest rates. Raising interest rates will cause the inflation you're talking about over the long run - predicted by the Fisher equation: nominal interest rates = real interest rates + inflation. (Real interest rates are constant over the long run).

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What's wrong with income inequality? I see no reason to attempt to reduce it.

The goal is to become the very best, not accept mediocrity to please the less- ables.

Surely, you wouldn't like the idea of penalizing smarter students just so that everyone get equal grades. What's different about income?

<comment><USER2> Some income inequality is natural and needed. Some people strive for that sort of success. Others are perfectly happy making less because their life focuses on other things - like artwork and family and other such things.

But when income inequality grows to the point that people are having trouble even getting what the "best" have decided is needed to make it in the world, or even having enough healthy food to eat, it becomes a big problem.

And you are mixing things up - it isn't about giving everyone the same grades. A smart student would be challenged more, and the dyslexic student would have education so that they can keep up. The thing boils down to having unequal access to basic things in life and unequal access to _opportunities_. Health care, choice in healthy foods, which college you go to and the quality of your education are often linked to what your family income is when you are young. Even those sorts of things up, and the inequality in income doesn't matter as much.

In countries that have helped those sorts of things greatly, the bottom level isn't so low. You can still get filthy rich and other such things, but you get more responsibilities in the form of taxes. It just winds up that this sort of system winds up with less of a difference between people's incomes, but if you can do it without fixing the income thing, income itself won't be an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> We must first consider the purpose of money and the purpose of employment. Money's purpose is to allow distribution of credit based on the amount of _value_ that an individual or other entity has provided to society. Employment's purpose, in the broader sense of the term, is to allow an individual to provide services to society while expecting _fair_ compensation in return. By "fair", I mean not unbalanced like slavery, where slaves indeed were compensated (with food and shelter) but not in a manner commensurate with their production.

Perhaps the biggest problem with common understanding on the topic of value is that people fail to distinguish not only _how much_ value an entity produces but also _what type_ of value an entity produces (or _doesn 't_ produce). If I buy a bank repo house for $50k and sell it for $250k after doing essentially nothing but posting some pictures and descriptions of the place Online, then the only value I actually created is in the pictures, descriptions, and paperwork that I did. Say I spent 30 hours doing all these tasks. Then say the average person would agree that a fair pay rate for this type of work (papers, pictures, descriptions, and some phone calls) is $50/hour. The real value that I would have created would thus be 30x50, or $1500. Yet the sale of this property would net me at least $180k, after any expenses. Note the difference between value created (<$2k) and net gain ($180k).

The problem here is the discrepancy between value created and money "earned". It seems that a large portion of society is okay with this discrepancy. For example, many people see nothing wrong with gambling or Lottery, despite both involving accumulation and distribution of money without any value being created. Until the majority of society agrees that people shouldn't be paid more than the value they personally create, we can expect extreme income inequality to exist and persist. If ever society can change its mind on this matter, we might expect the following:

1\. There is an income cap, based on the realistic maximum amount of value that a human can create. The actual value is based on scientific investigation into the amount of value (not money, but actual value to society) created by the smartest and most skilled humans. The cap would be somewhere in the ball park of this maximum value (perhaps a little higher, just for good measure). For example, I am willing to bet that a human is not capable of creating more than 100x that of the average (median) human in terms of real value. Every time we look at a scientific advancement of the past, we see that although person X came up with the idea first (and hence usually got all the credit for it), there were a bunch of other people working on the same idea, many of which only a handful of years behind X. Not only that, but the person usually was in the right place and right time, with the right connections, to achieve what he or she did. If you took random other persons and put them into that exact same situation, many would have accomplished a similar feat. Certain discoveries were meant to happen around certain times.

2\. All now known and future known types of exploitation are prohibited. Any accumulation of wealth where the person gaining the wealth is not producing significant real value is outlawed. Such accumulation of wealth is deemed to be in the same category as counterfeiting since it funnels money from the actual producers to someone else. Examples such as the real-estate investor described above would be eliminated by government programs whose purpose is to deal with such situations as bank repo properties in a responsible and production-centric manner.

3\. There are well-funded government programs whose purpose is to facilitate relocation of individuals currently working in non-productive positions into positions that make a positive difference for society. These programs are optional for these individuals, but nevertheless any non-productive positions are phased out of society.

4\. Inheritance is capped at half of one lifetime's worth of median income (based on society in general). Hence, if the average person makes $6M in his or her lifetime, then $3M would be the maximum allowed by _anyone_ to be passed on to any heirs. Remember: The goal is to promote productive individuals, so we cannot have people born into a life that doesn't require being productive.

I'm sure a bunch more changes would be needed for the best result, but the above may serve as food for thought.</comment>


Good algorithms developer, bad algorithms developer - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.nanit.com/good-algorithms-developer-bad-algorithms-developer-239846b5bb00#.9cogqz5hn <comment><USER2> There's a concept in writing called "the Mary-Sue". It originated in fan fiction where someone wrote a Star Trek "episode" featuring a new character the precocious young Mary-Sue who was particularly flawless in every single way. The best at physics & engineering, the prettiest and most emotionally intelligent, probably awesome at kung fury or whatever...

The problem with this flawless character is she was both totally unrealistic to read about and boring.

That's how I feel about this piece.

"The good developer always meets their deadlines, the bad developer doesn't"

How trite!

The word algorithm is redundant & distracting in this piece at best, at worst it is misleading. What aspect of this article could actually help you improve you "algorithm development" as opposed to any old "development"?

Not terribly impressed with the article.</comment>


Space party: First beer brewed for off-planet drinking - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/05/space-australian-for-beer.html <comment><USER2> This makes me proud to be Australian.</comment>


Ask HN: How to get rid of laziness to read? - <AUTHOR> I always have some 10 tabs open in my browser. I feel like reading the article, but it ends up in the pile of open pending tabs. Those tabs will be open for some days and new articles take place of the old tabs. I feel like I am being greedy with choosing the articles to read, but laziness engulfs my desire to read. How to overcome with my laziness? Suggest some hacks or workflows to tackle this! <comment><USER2> Schedule some time to read the stuff you open each day.

Do it again tomorrow, and each day.

Three weeks later you have a new routine.</comment>


Newell: We have to convince EA to come back - <AUTHOR> http://www.develop-online.net/news/38470/Newell-We-have-to-convince-EA-to-come-back

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm a bit out of touch, but, it seems to me that the role of "publisher" in today's world should have changed far more than it has. I would imagine it to very much include digital publishing as well.

I always found it odd that online storefronts (like MS' Xbox Live and Sony's PS Store) still require games have third party publishers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Really hope EA will bring Crysis 2 back to Steam and of course release BF3 on Steam. It will definitely bring EA more money!</comment>


What Makes Nigel Richards the Best Scrabble Player on Earth (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-makes-nigel-richards-the-best-scrabble-player-on-earth/ <comment><USER2> For the benefit of anyone who expected that the article might actually answer the question posed in the headline, you can skip ahead to the final paragraph:

> So, really, how does he do it? As Richards said in an interview posted on > YouTube, "I'm not sure there is a secret. It's just a matter of learning the > words." All 178,691 of them.

It's a reasonably interesting article otherwise, though, and worth the few minutes it takes to read if you're interested in Scrabble.

As for how one man can stand so far above the competition, though, I'd suggest it's mostly due to the sparsity of serious professional Scrabble players. And if it's possible to be the world's dominant Scrabble player and have lifetime earnings of only $210,000 in your late forties, it's understandable why there aren't that many people devoting their lives to professional Scrabble.</comment>


Can you gamify content curation? This startup thinks so - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/video/woisio-closed-beta/ <comment><USER2> I don't why, but I think there is no link to the startup's website he's talking to. Here's the site I think <http://woisio.com/>.</comment>