Ask HN: Do companies accept self-taught programmers? - <AUTHOR> I'm really bored in college help me(don't know what to do,waiting few hours just for college instructor,learning classic turbo c++, always get distracted by foolish when I'm thinking about my project/an idea)
I living in indonesia, is there any website out there to find a job. Thank you very much! <comment><USER2> Yes.

I've hired >50 engineer in the last 12-18 months. They are experienced hires I will grant you, but education is something I barely look at on a resume. In fact, I can't even tell you how many are self taught vs not, but I suspect it's 30%+.

It's a little different for junior engineers, as it can make a difference, but in my experience the only thing you can ask for from _any_ engineer, which is especially true for junior engineers, is: attitude and aptitude.

<comment><USER3> Would you mind if I asked how you test for attitude and aptitude?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Typically with years of experience substituted for a degree.

For example, if hiring someone with a CS/MIS/CIS degree with 4 years experience. We'd accept 8 years experience in lieu of a degree.

If you find learning in college boring, what do you think this field holds for you? You have a world full of knowledge you could be learning if you're bored, no professor is preventing you from becoming knowledgeable across many programming disciplines.

It seems you don't even have a rudimentary idea of what goes into building software yet, you just want to skip ahead to the getting paid part.

If you can't build your project/idea already, why would someone pay you to work?

Keep learning, you've got a very long way to go. Good luck!

<comment><USER5>
      "...with 4 years experience. We'd accept 8 years experience in lieu of a degree."

I don't necessarily think this is a bad policy, but the idea of counting someone's freshman year at university as a year of experience makes me chuckle a little.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't have degree and I worked in the second largest internet company in Russia (where university degree is mandatory for 90% of population due to soviet mindset).

Currently, I'm in process of interviewing with London Office of Facebook. They told me that they don't care about my degree. The only important thing is my skills. Also, I had conversation with Google HR, he told me the same. Ripple Labs has very advanced position for C++ developer and they don't care about your degree at all.

But I found that average tech companies care much more about degree than Google and Facebook.

So answer to your question:

Yes, top-tier employers in tech industry don't care about degree. But in order to get there you have to gain your first experience in average companies and it will be harder than with degree (but it's not impossible).

Degree is very important to getting work permit in USA (H1B visa), Canada and many other western countries.

I got my work permit in Sweden without any degree, but salaries here are low.

If you dream about California, you have to get your degree even if it's super boring.

<comment><USER3> California is home to a world of startups in San Francisco that don't care about a degree. If you can prove yourself to be curious enough and have enough verifiable experience to back up your abilities, the startups will come for you.

<comment><USER6> I totally agree with you. But in order to get H1B visa, I should have bachelor degree or 12 years of documentary proved experience. I have 12 years of experience, but I can prove only 8 years because my first employer doesn't exist anymore. So it's a visa issue, not employers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes and no.

Do startups accept self-taught programmers - definitely yes.

Do companies in general accept self-taught programmers - yes.

Do large fortune 500 companies accept self-taught programmers - generally no.

There are exceptions to this rule. If you're self-taught and have done something amazing, like created your own programming language used by thousands of programmers, or you've got years of experience in some area thats hard to find experts in, like realtime systems programming then they'll make exceptions and you can get in.

If you want to work in R&D you're going to need a PHD, the only exception here might be in startups.

But aside from the big players, you can almost always substitute experience over education. Given two programmers, one with 3-4 years experience and the other with a bachelors degree and no experience, its actually the case that exp will trump education just about every time, especially on general programming positions and in the startup community, where all that matters is what you can do and have already done.

Overall though, do yourself a favor and finish up your degree, you'll always have the advantage over candidates that don't have one.

</comment><comment><USER8> Short answer, focused on the USA's job market: Yes, with some effort you can definitely find companies that don't require a degree.

Long answer: The long-term trend has been that it's becoming harder and harder to get by without a degree. It's just supply and demand in action. A long time ago, people with programming skills were hard to find, and companies had to settle for hiring whoever they could find.

But people with programming skills are becoming increasingly common nowadays. Supply is starting to catch up with demand. That's making it harder to find a job that doesn't require a college degree than it used to be. Now companies start having an incentive to add a degree requirement just to reduce the number of applicants they have to consider.

Even if there is not a degree requirement, it's only going to get more common that you find yourself competing directly with people who are similar to you in every way except that they have a degree and you don't. When that happens, they're likely to pick the person with the degree. It's just the safer option from their end.

<comment><USER9> About 4 years ago I interviewed a candidate who was great; did whiteboard exercises well, knew a bunch about data structures, had good design sense and some exposure to systems programming (this was for a group doing drivers and so forth for the Xbox). He was young, but we were all happy with his performance and frankly we wanted him on our team.

We all said "Hire this guy."

Turned out he didn't have a degree, and a director said "Nope."

Okay, so that director is an asshole. Everyone says that he's an asshole for this decision (and he is an asshole for other reasons, too -- MS still hasn't fired him and I have no idea why not). I go to him and say, "Guess what college I graduated from?" and he mentions some place hifalutin' and crazy and a little embarassing. "Nope, I'm a drop-out from (certain cow college). Also, those really good engineers Greg and Frank? They don't have degrees, either. So why don't you give this kid a break, he'll be great."

And he was.

So . . . the results will be mixed. I can say that most of the engineers I work with do not care about educational background, they care about knowledge and experience, however you got it. The various and gormless filters you may have to go through probably _do_ care, especially at larger companies.

Once you have sufficient experience, though, nobody will care.

<comment><USER8> There are all sorts of anecdotes on both sides of the story. The one that I go back to is programmers I know who don't have a Bachelor's but do have jobs at companies with hiring managers who have enlightened ides about these things. And y'know what? They are starting to find themselves indentured to those companies because prevailing attitudes on the subject are continuing to shift.

A lot of them are now thinking about getting a bachelor's degree from some online program as a defensive move. Small companies go under or get acquired without much warning, and big companies can have managerial turnover without warning. Either way, not having a bachelor's degree leaves them at increased risk of being in a situation where they're getting overlooked for jobs or raises.

I think this is a really important trend to bring to the attention of any young person who is seriously considering dropping out of college to go into industry. It might be fine right now, but take a look at the long view and consider that this person is going to need to be maintaining their career for another 40 years at least.

Personal anecdote: My grandfather only had a high school diploma. He ended up being an extremely accomplished corrosion engineer, and invented some of the key tools and technologies that are used to maintain oil and natural gas pipelines. Does his experience imply that it would have been wise for my brother (also an engineer) to try and skip college? No, not in the slightest. The economic circumstances of the job market for engineers changed in the intervening decades, and the prevailing attitudes within that job market changed right along with them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was in a similar boat. Classes did nothing but made me yawn, spent time creating web apps for myself and for personal group of people. Soon, people realize that is your specialty, got a few part time job as a web developer during college through invitation. It was good to know how a paid job works. I quit college seeing no hope of willing to complete it, then several years later, started to work in a company for a year just for the sake of it, now I go independent getting enough work without asking for one for years all thanks to the knowledge I acquired back then. If you're imterested in a tech, dive into it, create something out of it, so you and others realize what you're capable of. Take your time to learn what you like, it pays off well later as you have no time to learn deeply after you start working as schedule becomes more important than quality of your work most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was in the same situation and after 3 years of open source projects, figuring out what language I wanted to stick with and finally nailing a interview "after many many strange ones" I got a great job. I've quickly grown in my company and others look to me for guidance "I actually introduced them to git".

I hated general college classes that weren't related to programming and sitting in rooms where after a semester people still didn't know how to add a image to a webpage. Now I've learned so much working 50 hours a week getting challenged left and right by so many real life issues.

There are plenty of jobs open to self tought programmers around me they simply want you to master your language and stack whatever that may be and my problem was trying to be a jack of all trades like trying to learn Ruby 3 days before a interview.

<comment><USER12> So what did you stick with? Im having the same dilemna...I think PHP, Java, JavaScript and C# are the way to go. So far focusing on just js and php has shown noticeable improvements...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> No it doesn't matter for getting hired, it does matter for borders.

Since you're bored get some experience while in college and that will help out immensely, also the most important language to know is English, from your writing I'd really recommend brushing up.

Lots of sites like elance / remote programming jobs to find freelance work, don't burden your studies with the pressure of a full time gig.

</comment><comment><USER14> 95,476 jobs posted [http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=%22bachelors+degree%22&l=](http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=%22bachelors+degree%22&l=)

5,308 jobs posted [http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=%22in+lieu+of+degree%22&l=](http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=%22in+lieu+of+degree%22&l=)

<comment><USER15> Instead of "in lieu of degree" you should've looked for "or equivalent technical experience" or something like that. That's what job ads usually say (Still true that having a degree gives you more job openings, but it's not that big of a difference).

<comment><USER16> Also, just because an ad says "bachelor's degree" doesn't necessarily mean it's required. Businesses have a problem they need solved and there are very few problems that _require_ a BS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Do you have a portfolio? This is likely the most important factor. Proving your skills is a good start.

I think every programmer is self taught to a certain degree. You learn very little in tertiary education when compared to working 40+ hours a week as a programmer - in my opinion of course.

I learn by doing things, whereas others learn better in different ways.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER18> Having any sort of degree + experience can be an advantage. For example, I'm a programmer, but have my Bachelor's in Music and a whole previous career worth of experience. Achieving a college degree shows perseverance.

Spend some time working on your idea outside your studies. If you are already in college, you've already made a huge investment. Take advantage of the resources (including professors) and the network you have available to you during this time.

Do extra work, especially if you don't currently have a job or are raising a family right now. So many people piddle away this time and skip through college as if it doesn't cost thousands of dollars a semester (even if you didn't pay it, someone had to), or if it's some magical job-providing mechanism.

Get back to your studies and start your projects!

</comment><comment><USER19> If you're already in college and borde with your CS course, stay there and study something else. Knowing programming plus anything else will make you more attractive than someone who just knows programming. Especially, now that 'everybody' is teaching themselves programming.

</comment><comment><USER20> That's a hard question and I expect there'll be lots of wildly different answers. This is applicable to me, as an EU college non-CS dropout.

What matters most is to show competence. If you can make someone interested in some things that you've built, you can probably make do without a degree, but you'll have a tougher time getting through the door.

My two cents is try to stick with your formation, while you build yourself something impressive. Chances are you'll pick up something useful and the social network of peers will help you at least as much as the formation itself.

Best of luck whatever you choose!

</comment><comment><USER21> Many already said but I also would like to say yes as a college/university dropout.

Programming was my biggest interest since I was a child. So started with Basic, then moved to ASP 3.0, then C, then web programming with PHP and now, at the age of 32, I am still working as a full stack developer and getting paid well.

The hardest part of self-education is to learn best practices and how to do things on a large scale. So learning the syntax is easy but getting the principal and methodologies will take some time and practice.

</comment><comment><USER22> I also thought I would be bored with CS (well not with the subjects... with the nerdiness) so I decided to study design at University. I knew that whatever happened I would always eventually end up doing a lot of code as it's something I always enjoyed doing even if just for the sake of learning how something works.

Now I'm a web developer and after having worked in one of the most interesting design studios in my country I'm pretty sure my previous choices helped a lot broaden my horizons.

<comment><USER22> The Advice I give to a lot of people on the importance of school is that one should use it to learn the things you wouldn't learn by yourself anyway. So sometimes boring might be good if it's useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It seems likely introductory courses will keep you bored if you are already interested in programming and/or CS. There is a lot to be gained from the higher level material, but you can also be productive with self-taught skills in many application development environments. To grow with your career, though, you will need a deeper background than self-taught programming skills, whether it comes from a parallel study of CS concepts or general scientific or mathematics training.

</comment><comment><USER24> Start working. You won't learn programming until you actually do it. You can always do some kind of degree online in the meanwhile (or afterwards when you have time). That should keep the credentialists at bay. There are lots of websites where you can pick up paying gigs: elance, odesk, guru, ... The point is, however, that you will have to be able to do the job, or else, they'll expel you from the job and they'll just get someone else to do it instead of you.

</comment><comment><USER25> Never got a CS degree (got one in management, but that's a joke of a degree). I can say that i really feel lacking in maths, and it's nearly impossible to compensate by just googling, and it made me troubles with some projects. Otherwise i made quite a successful career and never had a problem getting customers/jobs. So forget it, if it's not one of the world's top IT schools (obviously these are not found in Indonesia), it is as good as nothing.

</comment><comment><USER26> tl;dr - YES I have hired personally self taught programmers several times.

But I wouldn't suggest you to quit college and seek for a sw developer job. In most cases those (usually talented) developers have knowledge gap when it comes to algorithms, data structure or deep understanding of the HW / OS. Thus, you might be able to find a job right now, but in time you will need to catchup or you will have hard time to compete other developers with formal education.

</comment><comment><USER27> Sure, as long as you're able to provide value to a company, you can get a job. I recently got a job at a startup as a frontend developer, after going through a 3 month coding bootcamp. I had been learning coding on my spare time a couple of years before that, but no formal CS education. As for websites, use Upwork to get some clients. Won't be well paid, but it's a start and will help you grow your portfolio.

</comment><comment><USER28> Yes they do.

Interviewed a few self-taught programmers. Some kind of test task and an interview says more about candidate than line with degree in resume.

<comment><USER29> This is true. That said, I'm not sure how true it is in Indonesia.

Many very attractive jobs will be outside Indonesia. Immigration without a degree can be very tricky...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can we fix the glaring typo in this article title?

</comment><comment><USER31> Some will, some won't - concentrate on smaller companies, and have a portfolio of your achievements. Try to target a niche. Don't be put off by rejections, you only need one yes and you get infinite lives.

</comment><comment><USER32> short answer is yes, just make some things that show your knowledge. But I wouldn't suggest to drop out.

A little bit longer answer: I'm from Germnay, I've studied architecture but I've decided last year I want to make my hobby my job, and I've applied for a few jobs and got some offers. On a sidenote our (sofware) architect did never finish school.

But I have a huge knowledge gap compared to my coworkes who have studied CS. I personally feel inferior to them. So I'm going back to university to study CS. I would suggest you shouldn't drop out.

</comment><comment><USER33> Which Company? Company A? Company doesn't hire, people in the company do.

Answer to your Question - "It depends".

A question to your question - Can you make company feel stupid enough to even think about a college degree?

</comment><comment><USER16> You probably don't need a degree but you might someday regret not having one and it'll be much harder to go back later. So my advice would be to ride it out and keep up with the hobbies.

</comment><comment><USER34> Try this two site

[http://hackerearth.com](http://hackerearth.com) [http://interviewbit.com](http://interviewbit.com)

</comment><comment><USER35> work on your own projects whilst doing whatever you need to complete college? most degrees require miniscule amounts of work. I graduated top 5% of my class and basically never attended....

</comment><comment><USER36> tl;dr - Yes.

Studying is still very important and valued by a lot of companies. I'd recommend to study in something else "complimentary" that passionate you and learn/improve in software engineering outside school to have a more diversified skillset. That's what I did 4 years ago, landed my first software engineer job and now had the opportunity to move to London because of that!

</comment><comment><USER14> In order to get a job, you have to get an interview. You are way more likely to get an interview with a CS degree, then without. It really doesn't matter how good of a self-taught programmer you are, because no one will take you seriously. In my experience, side projects and code tinkering are discounted during the interview and hiring process - I agree, this is dumb.

I don't like or agree with any of the above, but that's how most of the world works. Put in the time, get it done. 10 years from now you will be very happy you did.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've never been asked about my education (or lack there of) in an interview. Can't speak to Indonesia, though.

</comment><comment><USER38> programming is a blue collar job, no degree required. Try climbing the ladder in a technical company (not a startup). You won't have the skills and understanding to assume the responsibilities of higher positions. It's been this way for a long time. Programming can be taught at a vo-tech.

</comment><comment><USER39> TL;DR --> You can find programming jobs flooding on the internet 24/7/365\. If you have confidence in your skill, theoretically speaking, you'll get a job in an hour or less. Just search for "freelance programming jobs online".

Learning C++ course on college may not do much to enhancing your problem solving capabilities in programming because when the classes are not fun itself (as you mentioned), I can assure you that you will not learn much but detest the programming classes itself and I regret to tell you this but you may end up renouncing programming itself, which you just said you want a job in. Albert Einstein said that after a year or more of mind-numbing classes in highschool that did nothing to excite his creative potential, he found that the same scientific concepts that fascinated him in the past felt utterly distasteful for almost a year when he entered college.

Finally, after reading half of the Internet's how-to on "how to code" and "how to be a skilled programmer", one answer was always common in all of them:

\- THINK OF AN IDEA AND WORK ON IT.

They mention that if you don't have a purpose to learn to code, you shouldn't learn to code at all. So, let me link to eye-opening articles that debunk the myths of programming I found in this thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823985).

\- [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2013/11/03/productivity- hacks/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2013/11/03/productivity-hacks/) \- [http://blog.codinghorror.com/please-dont-learn-to- code/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/please-dont-learn-to-code/) \- [http://norvig.com/21-days.html](http://norvig.com/21-days.html) \- [http://www.invokemedia.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/venndi...](http://www.invokemedia.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/venndiagram.png)

When you build apps or websites that do something you wanted, only then you gain the confidence and skill to work for others on their projects, isn't it? And that time will come when you will be overwhelmed by the number of jobs you can apply to. So, "no skill, no job". :-)</comment>


Windows Phone 8.1 has my attention now - <AUTHOR> http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WindowsPhone81HasMyAttentionNow.aspx

<comment><USER2> If you throw out the barometer for the best mobile platform being the platform with the most robust selection of Apps, Windows Phone is the clear winner in every other category. It really does deliver the best user experience, a feature which was lauded on the original iPhone, but now ignored by critics and fanboys.</comment>


Terence Tao: Evidence for mathematical conjectures short of proof - <AUTHOR> http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/guessing-the-truth/#comment-3711

<comment><USER2> "The Mathematical Experience" goes into this in pretty good depth.

[http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Experience-Phillip-J- Davi...](http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Experience-Phillip-J- Davis/dp/0395929687)

<comment><USER3> Upvoted for bringing up _The Mathematical Experience_ in a relevant way.

If I could get everyone to read just one book about mathematics, that book would be _The Mathematical Experience_. More than any other book, it gives the actual experience of what mathematics is like.

Much of it is accessible to someone who is still in high-school. And yet it has valuable lessons for people who have PhDs in the subject. I know a number of mathematicians who say that it explains why they went into math. And I can say that in its pages I can find explanations of both what caused me to love math, and eventually to leave it.

<comment><USER4> For anyone interested, a new book by Reuben Hersh is scheduled for this Christmas: "Loving and Hating Mathematics: Challenging the Myths of Mathematical Life".

[http://www.amazon.com/Loving-Hating-Mathematics- Challenging-...](http://www.amazon.com/Loving-Hating-Mathematics-Challenging- Mathematical/dp/0691142475)

[Edit: I asked why you left math, out of curiosity, but then I realized you might have a blog...]

<comment><USER3> I take it you found <http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-i-left- math.html> then? :-)

<comment><USER4> Yes, exactly. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This discussion is even more interesting in the context of natural sciences, since no scientific law is ever proven. What were the odds, in 1850, that Newton's laws would be "disproved"?

From Jaynes' _The Logic of Science_

 _It depends entirely on this: Against which specific alternatives are we testing Newton's theory?

For example, if you ask a scientist, "How well did the Zilch experiment support the Wilson theory?" you may get an answer like this: "Well, if you had asked me last week I would have said that it supports the Wilson theory very handsomely; Zilch's experimental points lie much closer to Wilson's predictions than to Watson's. But just yesterday I learned that this fellow Wolfson has a new theory based on more plausible assumptions, and his curve goes right through the experimental points. So now I'm afraid I have to say that the Zilch experiment pretty well demolishes the Wilson theory."_

I think that the first ~6 chapters of the book should be required reading for anyone in the natural sciences. An early drafts can be found here: <http://www-biba.inrialpes.fr/Jaynes/prob.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> The whole discussion of which Tao's comment is a part is well worth reading for those who enjoy such things: lots of interesting ideas there.

</comment><comment><USER7> On a related topic, what are some examples of well-known conjectures, generally believed to be true, that were later proven to be false?

<comment><USER8> The Kelvin problem: what is the optimum way to partition 3D space into identical cells, such that the surface area between them is minimized? Lord Kelvin conjectured that the Kelvin cell gave this optimum partitioning. This conjecture stood for 100 years until Denis Weaire and Robert Phelan found a better cell in 1993.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaire%E2%80%93Phelan_structure></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are these user-acquisition numbers good for a dating site? - <AUTHOR>

I have an online dating site (The Matching Game - http://www.thematchinggame.com) with the following user-base numbers:
- 3,000 Daters - 60% Women - Average Age 23 - $1.27 User Acquisition Cost
I have no idea how these numbers stack up against other sites that are out there. I know the user base is small, which is why I'm asking. Need to figure out if there's any chance of making enough money to keep the site running as I scale it up.
Any insight would be very helpful. <comment><USER2> In my opinion, the User Acquisition Cost looks pretty high, but I can't be 100% sure as scaling is q question of monetization. I guess it all depends on how you monetize, i.e. what percentage of user become paying customers.

The men/women ratio looks promising though to make it a success!

<comment><USER3> As someone in the know, I have to say you are completely wrong.

At that UAC, you could turn a nice profit just upselling users to join Match.com or eHarmony.com.

Your biggest problem will be maintaining a UAC that low at any sort of scale, unless you've discovered some magic bullet which means you'll be the next PlentyOfFish.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any idea what UAC you need to maintain in order to turn a profit via upselling? Doesn't have to be too specific, just looking for ballpark numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How did you get 3,000 people to sign up and post their pictures?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mostly we've been advertising through adwords, Urban Dictionary, and stumbleupon.</comment></comment>


Storyteller: Create A Website With Content From (Virtually) Anywhere - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/11/sparkart-storyteller/

<comment><USER2> Happy to answer any questions anyone may have here. I am on the team building storyteller :-)

<comment><USER3> Looks like a very cool concept, any idea on when invite will actually be sent out? Also do you have any public docs or other content to look over?</comment></comment>


Frank – Truly Private Messaging - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/frank/id533797294?mt=8

<comment><USER2> Except by installing it they know who you are...</comment>


A shell command to create JSON: jo - <AUTHOR> https://jpmens.net/2016/03/05/a-shell-command-to-create-json-jo/ <comment><USER2> Source code on Github: [https://github.com/jpmens/jo](https://github.com/jpmens/jo)

Looks like GPL license. Cool!</comment>


Why do professional photographers charge so much? - <AUTHOR> http://www.modelmayhem.com/education/photography/291-why-do-professional-photographers-charge-so-much

<comment><USER2> I wrote a long guide for Reddit's photography section about how to monetize a photography hobby: [http://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/1bxf6e/the_busi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/1bxf6e/the_business_of_photography_which_is_going_to_be/) , but the subtext is "Don't bother." For most people there's not enough money in it.

Photography as a profession is currently bifurcated: there are a smallish number of high-end shooters (of whom it sounds like Bickley is one) and a very large number of Guys With Cameras (GWCs) on Craigslist, Model Mayhem, and elsewhere. The temptation is obvious: photography is fun, it's possible to product decent images with cheap gear these days, and a lot of people want to give professional shooting a go.

But the reality is a lot harder:

 _Let's say you want to make a living as a full-time photographer, and let's set a reasonable middle-class lifestyle at $45,000 a year (your number may be higher or lower). If you're trying to bill at $50, your take-home is probably closer to $25 an hour. To make $45,000, you'll have to bill at least 1,800 hours per year, or 35 hours per week, 52 weeks a year, paid. Adjust those numbers accordingly for vacations, illnesses, etc. (you don't get two weeks of paid vacation as an independent contractor)._

Yet a lot of people are comparing real professions with GWCs who just got a D7000 and will shoot for $75 to "get experience." There is a demographically infinite number of these guys. So when average people see how much real professionals cost, they blanch, because they're often comparing pros to GWCs. Some GWCs can be reasonably good. Almost everyone charging over $100 an hour is really good. But there's little middle ground anymore.

One other note: Bickley might be shooting with an $8000 D4 or 1D-X, but by now many of their predecessors can be bought for $1000 – $2000. The OMFG AMAZING cameras of 2008 (Nikon D700, Canon 5D II, Sony's FF camera the name of which escapes me) that lots of pros shot with are $1000 - 1500, and for most purposes at base ISO they're still awesome and overkill. There are still reasons to buy $8000 in gear, but it's possible to produce equivalent work in many situations with much less.

 _edit_ : Also, the first $8000 camera one buys is absurdly expensive, but when a new model appears most people sell their old one and use the proceeds to buy the new one, while using the cost of the new one as a tax write-off. Almost no one buys a new $8000 camera from scratch every year.

<comment><USER3> If your heart is not in it 100%, "don't bother" is good advice.

Photography is a profession for those who either "picked their parents well" or can't stand not to do it, i.e. your life's passion.

<comment><USER4> >> If your heart is not in it 100%, "don't bother" is good advice.

Very true. I would bet that many budding wedding photographers will realize that they're in over their heads the first time they deal with a bridezilla, mob or mog (mother of bride/groom) on the day of the shoot.

Being a pro photographer requires you to be really good with people, especially the bad ones. It's not just enough to be good with a camera.

<comment><USER5> I shot a wedding as a favor for a friend of a friend, and even though the entire wedding party was a joy to work with, it was some of the most intense and exhausting work I've ever done.

I've loved photography for my entire life, but I don't envy the people who shoot weddings for a living.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My wife and I recently had a professional photographer come out to take photos of our newborn and it was quite frustrating. Apparently it is common for photographers to not give you your digital copies after the shoot. We _can_ however purchase separately a digital copy for an individual photo at $25 a piece. Want an 8x10? $50. Want to post the entire session to Facebook for your family to see? n*$25. I asked what she normally earns from prints on average from a shoot and offered to just pay that for the digital copies, but she wasn't up for it. Also, how long does she have to keep my photos to allow me to order more prints? 3 months? 6 months? What if I want a print a year from now? What if she goes out of business next week?

So for me, charge what ever you want to charge for the session, but for goodness sakes, give people their photos. That is what they are paying you for.

<comment><USER7> No, it's not, if you RTFA you would see that you're paying for their time and talent. The photographer still holds the copyright to those photos because they took them. Some photographers will be happy to license or even sell the rights but that's going to be a significant extra charge. It's the difference between buying a print of the Mona Lisa and buying the Mona Lisa. That digital file is their negative and you could very easily take that into Photoshop, make it look like it was painted by a clown and then put it up on your website with the photographer credit. You can do that if you want but you're going to pay for the privilege.

<comment><USER8> My employer pays for my time and talent. Freelancing programmers are paid for their time and talent. I, however, assign copyright over my works to my employer, because that's part of the terms of my employment. If photographers want to extort $25 for a .jpg, that's fine, but let's not pretend it's anything more.

I'd rather buy my own camera and learn to take photos properly than pay $25 per digital copy, it would be more fun.

<comment><USER7> Contract, for-hire photographers aren't employees. Freelance programmers give up their copyright willingly. Just because you negotiated badly doesn't mean photographers have to as well.

Go buy your own camera and learn to take photos properly! I would encourage everyone to do that. The exact moment that you grasp mastery of photography will be the day that you understand why photographers don't give up their copyright or hand over digital files to you.

<comment><USER9> > Freelance programmers give up their copyright willingly.

No, they give them up because that's _the entire point of hiring a freelancer_. It sounds absurd to pay someone to create something but not actually get that thing for yourself. That's what the money is in exchange for.

<comment><USER10> > No, they give them up because that's _the entire point of hiring a > freelancer_.

Not really. My clients are paying for results, and part of those results include a license to use the code I write forever.

But I never give up the copyright. I frequently re-use techniques, libraries, modules, etc across clients, and in fact would be stupid not to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> HN's reaction to this is really odd.

I remember an article that was posted here a few months back where a photographer complained about this exact same thing. That people did not want to pay for high quality images done by a professional. He was criticized for not "getting with the times", that anyone can take a picture so he better drop his prices!

I guess this article is written much better and has hard numbers to describe how little most photographers are making. But I wonder if the developers who complain about people lowballing them for their knowledge/experience are the same ones who tell photographers that they need to charge lower prices.

<comment><USER12> I think the problem with Photography is the democratization of the form.

If you hand an unskilled photographer a good camera, they could accidentally shoot a few damn fine photos, where as with paints, you almost guaranteed you will not accidentally paint a great painting, or as a developer, accidentally code a great project. This cheapens photography as an art form.

Having dealt with many clients with poor photography, I will say, not enough people are willing to shell out for good photography and good digital dark room skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem is with the phrase "so much". I actually don't think the average photographer charges much at all.

The problem is really with the customer's perception of the value of a professional's time and the work that they do.

It doesn't help when Canon produces ads for an entry level DSLR that ends with the bold statement "This ad was shot with this camera!". It ignores the fact that the ad was likely shot by an expensive professional with additional expensive lighting equipment and a staff of assistants. When a customer starts to think "All I need is a nice camera, and I can do that too!", you've got an uphill battle when it comes to educating customers about the value of a professional.

On HN, I'd bet that many of us have probably encountered people who have read or seen books with titles like "Learn HTML in 2 hours" or "Learn iOS programming in 7 days" and think that spectacular apps and sites can be created with little to no effort.

<comment><USER13> "The problem is really with the customer's perception of the value of a professional's time and the work that they do."

Actually I think it's the opposite. It has to do with the photographer's overvalued opinion of their work. How many family budgets can justify $500 for a set of family portraits? How may budgets can justify $1500 for a set of family portraits?

There are a lot more Hampton Inns than Ritz Carltons for a reason. Every photographer thinks they are the Ritz Carlton.

<comment><USER4> >> How many family budgets can justify $500 for a set of family portraits? How may budgets can justify $1500 for a set of family portraits?

Not many, I guess, but the reality is that $500 will buy you an "average" photographer (i.e., a Hampton Inn). The really good ones cost way more than that.

I would argue that having a professional portrait is a bit of a "luxury" purchase. If you don't want to pay $500 for a set of family portraits, then you can always find someone you know with a camera to take a photo of your family for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why do professional _Xs_ charge so much? Because they can do something you can't do as well, that's why you hired them.

<comment><USER15> Trivially true and uninformative. The article explains what, exactly, a photographer does better.

<comment><USER14> I wasn't suggesting not to read the article but that the same applies to all crafts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The entire industry has been overtaken by technology somewhat, but the pricing hasn't caught up. A serious professional with professional gear? He can charge what he wants. But for most of the semi-pro weekend-warriors? They're going to find constant downward price-pressure because it's not the '80s anymore and the quality of their work isn't really that much higher than a layman with $500 of equipment, at least outdoors.

People put up with it because of historical inertia, but it's not going to get any better for most photogs.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not a fan of these "photographer justifying their costs of business to amateur models" rants.

Like any profession you have the cost of doing business and the prices that you set. If someone can't afford your prices then you simply don't take them on as a client. If your work can't bring in clients at the price you feel is fair, the you should re-think you prices, approach to work, marketing to attract the clients that can pay, or find a new profession.

<comment><USER18> This is not a rant. Also I think it is informative. Sometimes the public needs education - after all there was the situation with gaming PCs in the early 2000s - you had to explain to the people while if they want quality you cannot drop before a certain threshold.

<comment><USER17> The public doesn't need to be educated because the public rarely hires professional fashion photographers. A professional fashion photographer should be making their money from brands and modeling agencies.

The problem is that many photographers do vanity work for amateur models who for many reasons (age, location etc...) will never make a career as a professional model. Professional models don't pay for their own photo shoots. They're working enough contracts to not have to fill their portfolio with spec work, or are represented by an agency who will cover the costs of a shoot.

Many photographers who shoot fashion style portraits and make a bit of money doing it, consider themselves professional fashion photographers and expect to be paid as one. The problem is that they'll never command the same prices by doing portfolio work as they would doing work in the industry for brands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm a part-time photographer and I shoot portraits frequently. I learned pretty early on that it's almost impossible to make a living at. But, I really enjoy the creative outlet and it gets me away from coding all day.

At first, I charged a low per-session fee and tried to make money selling prints and digital rights on a per-image basis. But really, I don't like that model at all (neither did my customers) so now I charge a higher session fee and personal use rights to the images are included, in full resolution.

Most people don't realize how much time is spent in post-production. I spend hours re-touching. Not to mention, the time it takes to learn things like off- camera lighting and the cost of the gear associated. But, I'm not complaining, it's fun to learn.

I don't really profit from photography but it does cover some of the cost of my gear and it's just plain fun to do. Trying to make a living with photography would be extremely difficult, but clearly some people are able to pull it off.

</comment><comment><USER20> Most minor professions from house builder to car salesman have a little bit of institutionalized dishonesty built in to them. This has creeped in by increments over a long time and so doesn't strike the practitioners of these professions as dishonest at all because "that's the way it's always been done."

People with a fresh perspective will compare it with other, less "storied" professions and it will feel (perhaps rightly so) like a scam.

Do some research and negotiate up front. If you make an unexpected demand at the end thats quite different than the usual, you'll make the photographer feel as if they are the one who's being scammed. If they know up front that this shoot is going to be different than "the norm", they will often be surprisingly willing to think differently.

</comment><comment><USER21> $500 for five hours with a professional photographer seems very really reasonable to me, far from overpriced.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, call it a wedding and the price triples or more.

<comment><USER7> Weddings only happen once. I can come give you a free second shoot of your baby pictures if I totally bomb the first one. The risk in shooting a wedding is much higher.

<comment><USER23> This can't be over stressed. I've a friend who used to work as a shooter for several photographers. A good photographer won't let a freelancer anywhere near a wedding utill they've proved themselves on less critical jobs. The stress is unbelievable and the liability is enormous, both in dollar terms and in reputation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My only pet peeve is with the photographers who still think it makes sense to price by the print.

Please just set a price for your services and then give me the files. Printing used to be a value-added activity. It's not anymore, unless you're doing something unusual.

</comment><comment><USER25> I get the impression from several comments that many people think that if you just state in the hiring contract that you are hiring someone to make a "work for hire", that will mean that you own the copyright.

Not so, at least in the US!

To be a "work for hire", one of two things must be true.

1\. It is a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment. The key word here is "employee". A contractor is generally NOT an employee for purposes of copyright law. Whether or not one is an employee is determined by looking at a bunch of factors, including who provides the tools for the work, the duration of the work, whether the hiring party has the right to assign additional work, the hired party's role in hiring assistants, benefits provides, and many others.

2\. The parties expressly agree in a written, signed, instrument that the work shall be considered a work for hire __AND __it is a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas.

Things like wedding photographs probably cannot be construed as falling into any of those types of works listed in #2, and so cannot be works for hire, no matter what you say in the contract. Copyright will belong to the contractor (unless you manage to somehow actually end up with an employer/employee relationship under #1, which is hard). If you want copyright, write the contract so that you are buying the copyrights from the photographer.

</comment><comment><USER26> I love how this breaks down the time involved outside of the actual picture taking. It is similar for other professions as well; you pay for the hour that you are with them but it covers the hours outside of that time as well.

</comment><comment><USER27> A client is paying for studio time, digital copies (specified in consultation), and the desired outcome for images.

The photographer is paying for studio rental, time spent post processing, the CD/thumb drive for digital copies. The rest is divided into varying percentages for employee salaries, rent, food, and miscellaneous but necessary costs such as gas, medical/business/car insurance, clothing and entertainment. Don't forget, Uncle Sam wants a cut so a photographer must set aside money from each session and every sale for taxes every year.

Printed copies may appear outrageously expensive but, the photographer has to purchase the paper, ink and maintain the machine. They may send out images to be printed and have to pay for such services.

Photographers most often want to print their own images to ensure proper color/saturation handling - this speaks much about the quality of the image. Printable copies may be made available to the client and the photographer stands to lose much on the little profit they gain from prints when the client takes home high res images; this will show in a larger outright cost for the CD with printable images. The photographer will(should) state how long they will retain a copy of the images in their records so you may return for more prints within that specified time limit, or purchase the printable images when you are able to do so.

</comment><comment><USER13> Personally, I will only have family photos done with photographers that offer a DVD with images as part of the package. That is my opinion and how I choose to spend my money. There are photographers that offer DVDs, so obviously there is a market for it. And those who are good photographers and business people will find a way to be successful in that market.

My problem is not necessarily with the price, but the way prices are structured. People balk at paying $25 per print because they know it's a ridiculous price for a print. Even the highest end online printers are in the $2-3 range for 8x10. But we as consumers also know that you can get very good quality 8x10 prints for half that. So they rightfully question why they are paying $25 for something they know costs the producer 1/10th the price. In a world of $1 apps, $25 prints are bound to get some push back.

I understand the photographer needs to make money, so don't whine about all of the burdensome costs. Give me a bottom line and let me decide if you are worth it or not.

Last comment ... if the photographer is complaining about time spent retouching and post-processing, then they need to either improve their photoshop skills or improve their photo skills. If it's your job, you'd better get shots right out of the camera that need very little editing or touch ups.

<comment><USER28> _If it's your job, you'd better get shots right out of the camera that need very little editing or touch ups._

So your preferred development environment is cat(1), then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is an industry ripe for disruption. I took a half assed shot at it last year (still online but left for dead) with shutterhire.com

My basic concept was that at some price photographers would give away all the digitals, customers should be able to "use" them (but not sell them) as they wished, and that people should choose photographers almost exclusively on the quality of their work. The business would be a marketplace fee for arranging the transaction.

I ultimately gave up due to personal priorities (children / day job) and a complicated legal mountain to climb (who owns copyright? Do you force everyone into a contract?).

If anyone wants to pick it up I'd be happy to share the code.

</comment><comment><USER30> Because that is what the market will bear.

<comment><USER18> There is a rapidly growing class of professional hobbyists - people that throw a lot of money and effort into shooting just for the fun of it. I would not be surprised if this puts somewhat downward pressure on the prices in that industry except in the top tier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Something those who think "work for hire" and "you should own the IP" don't seem to understand... a huge part of being a good photographer is being a good EDITOR, and learning to keep only the very best images. I'm not a "professional" in the full time sense, but I've released professional work. My "keep rate" is 2-3%. I'm simply rejecting 49 out of every 50 photos I take. I do not EVER want ANYONE to see those other 49. Many are just plain bad, and even the good ones aren't good enough for my critical standards.

Because of this, I would not under any circumstances sign a work-for-hire contract as a photographer. No good photographer I know would do that.

Something else to consider... for many photographers, the editing process is inseparable from the photo. The in-camera raw image is only an intermediate step. I don't know how many times I've been asked for a complete set of raw images by models or performers (I mostly shoot dance performance), and they've reacted with surprise to my flat NO answer. I'm not willing to let someone else make aesthetic decisions on my raw images, except perhaps in cases where I consider the person an artistic peer and treat it as a co-project.

<comment><USER32> Somehow sports journalists do a lot of work for hire and it doesn't ruin their reputation.

<comment><USER31> Sports journalists don't have to worry about some bridezilla taking their images, soft-filtering them and adding glowing pink hearts, and publishing every single one, no matter how awful. Their work-for-hire is going to professional editors. This is a VERY important distinction.

<comment><USER32> Actually, it's not a distinction at all, because the fear is unwarranted. There is no realistic impact that such a bridezilla can have on a photographer.

<comment><USER31> There is if artistic integrity matters.

<comment><USER32> art is a completely different subject from works created for hire

<comment><USER31> No, there's coupling involved. Every paying job I've ever gotten as a photographer, I've gotten due to my artistic qualities. This isn't universal, but it's common. So releasing work that undermines my artistic integrity also undermines my commercial appeal.

Besides, art is WHY many of us take up photography! When you just whore out your work for money, it's demoralizing. You think less of yourself as an artist, and as a person.

<comment><USER32> I'm not denying that such an image could possibly besmirch the name of a photographer, I'm just denying that it could have such the reach that it would require such destructive terms as exclusive copyright. It's the same sort of classic conflation and/or misunderstandings of impact and likelihood that plagues security audits.

And it's only demoralizing if you subscribe to the notion that "art" is more important than "work" or that "work" is less important than "art". These are largely conceits that are forced on us by our culture, so you'd basically be letting other people's values make you a depressed mess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you hire a photographer and simply want digital copies of the photos you took, then you deserve what you get. You are making the mistake of thinking what the photographer is doing is simply capturing images. There's no reason to pay them a lot because they aren't providing a very good service.

A lot of newbie photographers do indeed cater to this segment of the business. Those photographers suck and do not wind up making very much money. It is the typical race to the bottom.

Photographers who are successful are creating experiences, and high-end presentations of their work are part of that experience.

If all you want is digital copies, then hire your Uncle Bob with a case of beer. Chances are he has the same high-end equipment a good pro does, and probably knows how to use it, too.

This same issue is true for a lot of professionals, not just photographer. The digital revolution has greatly lowered the barrier of entry, and that's a good thing, but it also means a lot of the photographers you are dealing with in the marketplace just aren't any good.

</comment><comment><USER34> This reminds me a bit of the article posted yesterday about lowering margins on website development.

We are living in an economy where technology is enabling a variety of self- service options to professional services.

These self service options are often dramatically cheaper than retaining a person with professional experience. For example paying $10 for a site building application vs $1000 to hire a web designer.

The answer of course is to sell the benefits of professional skill to your client. The trouble of course is that often clients themselves have terrible taste and are bad at distinguishing good work from bad. The website they built with yellow text on pink background may "look amazing!" to them so the difficult part is making the case to them that many of their customers will be put off by this in a way that may cost them sales.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't make my living as a professional photographer, but have done enough jobs and shoots to have a good feel for it. People who think photogs charge too much have the wrong perception of photography: they think that the hard part of photography is taking the picture (and perhaps knowing how to operate the camera)...and since anyone can, once in awhile, take an amazing photo with something as simple as a phone camera, then why should pro photographers get paid so much when their "work" can be done by amateurs?

In my experience, shooting the photo is the easiest part. Being "there", as in, the right place to shoot the photo, is even more critical. Is your child getting married? Do you really want to experience their wedding vows with a 10-pound camera held in front of your face?

If your photoshoot is non-documentary...i.e. you want to photog to help create a scene...well, now you're not paying for just a photographer, but a creative director.

And of course, a good camera is just a part...sometimes a very _small_ part, of a good photo. Lighting equipment matters much more...and while you may have a great $1000 prosumer camera, you probably don't have $1000 to $10000 in lighting equipment (or the assistants needed to operate it).

And finally, the least fun part of all: editing and organizing the photos. I've heard that editing video takes about 10 hours per minute of usable video...the ratio isn't as drastic for photography, but even photogs with a good workflow (such as a Lightroom setup), can spend hours editing down to the best dozen photos out of a thousand.

To reiterate the point: shooting a photo with a camera is the _fun_ and easy part. The rest of what it takes to make a great photo is what you're paying the big money for.

<comment><USER36> It is the same with any artistic endeavour is it not? Putting it into technical terms, anyone can write a bit of code but not everyone can put together a product. Lots of people can fix a problem in a piece of code, and yet a lot fewer of them can fix the fundamental issue.

As with most things in life there is an external view which cannot see the nuances, and an internal view which sees all or most of these challenges.

Trying to evaluate the 'value' of something without internalizing the challenge of providing that something doesn't work.

<comment><USER35> I think this is really the case...and so we could easily turn this into a discussion over lines-of-code as a misguided metric for judging programmers.

But your comments remind me of Picasso...it's fair to say that some of his work could be physically done by an amateur. But Picasso was prolific at drawing, including realistic figures. One of the best exhibits I've seen showed how he started with drawing realistic objects and then, in later drafts, deconstructing them to the surreal, deceptively simple forms that they eventually take in the final product.

But I think the illusion of parity is especially strong (and deceptive) in photography. Because you can literally know nothing about a camera except how to push the shutter and you can still produce a fantastic photo...whereas with drawing/painting...the physical act of just _doing_ them is a barrier, nevermind actually making something.

<comment><USER31> Camera software and automated exposure and focus have drastically reduced the technical barrier. As a photographer, I'm both amused and appalled by people who spend two grand on a camera, leave it on "Auto", realize their photos suck, and wonder if they should buy an even more expensive camera.

If you don't have a computer best-guessing exposure for you and you don't understand exposure yourself, you're screwed. If you understand exposure, you don't NEED the computer to make guesses for you. My expensive DSLR is set to manual, so I don't have the computer "guess" the wrong thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've dabbled in professional photography a bit. I can tell you, you don't get rich as a photographer. To become a really good professional photographer you have to put about 5-10 years into it. There are a lot of cost, from equipments to other things. Not to mention the basic cost of doing a business. Answering 10 clients to just get one. Commuting, transportations, etc. There is a lot of cost in post-production. I occasionally shoot weddings. And I spend 3-4X as much time in post as the hours I spent shooting a wedding. So if you're charging $200/hr. You really making $40/hr. This is not does include commute cost, equipment wear and tear or rentals.

The best gig I've ever gotten was for a client who flew me to Lake Como, Italy for a week. But you had to envy the view while you were shooting all day :)

</comment><comment><USER38> Oh, how we will laugh at this article when this inert industry has been disrupted.

</comment><comment><USER39> I had the luck to find a photographer for my wedding who was willing to give me high resolution versions of my photos. He didn't even charge more than the others I contacted before him.

The other thing that bothers me with all the rest of the photographers I contacted for the job was that they all want to sell you their overpriced albums, prints etc on top of the photographer's price. The guy that got the job in the end explicitly told me, he doesn't arrange for prints, but if we want them he can recommend and arrange it for us but we get to pay the printer directly and not him.

</comment><comment><USER32> The thinly veiled condescension of professional photographers like this is why I eventually got out of the business.

It never upset me that the models didn't understand the business or that I had to explain what was going on. Of course they don't know what are common contract terms for photographers, they aren't doing the photographer's job and they've never done the photographer's job.

It's no different in software contracting. Of course my clients don't have a flipping clue what it takes to make software; that's the entire point of them hiring me.

And keeping exclusive copyright--while I know is completely common--is straight up ridiculous. Sure, if you're David LaChapelle, you probably will be making money off of the images themselves at some point, rather than just the session fee. Of course, if you're David LaChapelle, you're also not taking gigs from the subject of the pictures, you're getting hired by magazines who are also hiring the models for you, and the magazine will demand the copyright.

But the vast majority of your garden variety wedding photographers and "Glamor ShotZ!" photographers aren't going to do jack with the photos. Who the hell is going to want to buy photos of YOUR wedding other than YOU? At most, they're going to stick them in their portfolio and use them as advertising. The exclusive copyright of those images is so completely valueless that the only reason the photographer could possibly want them is to gouge the customer for prints. It's disingenuous rent-seeking.

<comment><USER40> Of course, they get the benefit of charging you _per copy_.

<comment><USER32> right, yes, that's what rent-seeking alluded to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Is this any different to purchasing a program but not getting the source code?

</comment><comment><USER42> Whatever the time is to do the shoot + every hour of experience and learning until the start of the shoot.

</comment><comment><USER43> Unemployment doesn't cover all of their living expenses? My first project manager at HP went into photography several years ago...and so did many of the other displaced workers during post-2008.</comment>


In jail for being in debt - <AUTHOR> http://www.startribune.com/local/95692619.html

<comment><USER2> If you're interested in some well thought out commentary related to this type of thing, check out: <http://earthblognews.wordpress.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> While I agree it seems absolutely abusive to throw people in jail without explanation over a $250 credit card debt, the principle of being jailed over debt is not always shocking to me. It would have been very appropriate for the banking executives who committed their bank's customers assets to credit market swap agreements worth billions while knowing perfectly well that they weren't able to honor the bill if it ever came due like it did last year! Isn't that also jailing over debt? Wasn't that due in this case?

<comment><USER4> Yes but they are protected by limited liability. Legal (criminal) enforcement of debt is a slippery slope and one that I do not support. If a corporation defaults on debt they are protected under limited liability. In this case an individual is not. It not only gives corporations and unfair advantage, but it is very prone to abuse of the system. As evident in the article publicly funded resources are being used to secure private funds. I don't want my money being used to pay Vinny "the cop" enforcer to shake people down. The fact of the matter is don't give credit to people who have no credit worthiness.

The knew the risk, jacked up the cost of credit for those individuals based on it and now they want to enforce payment from an individual that they knew where high risk in the first place. If they can extort payment, then they should have given then the cheapest credit available given that they are guaranteed to recoup their money.

This stinks of predatory practices and the whole lot of them should be strung up in the street. Credit ratings exist for a reason, and if these companies willfully ignore those ratings then F __* them. OK now I am worked up.

<comment><USER2> Credit ratings are a joke in modern times...they no longer serve the purpose for which they were created, and the approval formulas are vastly different.</comment></comment></comment>


Realtime web app architecture with Thoonk: a series of tubes, not tables - <AUTHOR> http://andyet.net/blog/2011/nov/18/realtime-web-app-architecture-with-thoonk-a-series/

<comment><USER2> Awesome. When I first heard of Thoonk, I failed to grasp its utility, but after reading this I can't wait to try it out.

The ease this will afford in isolating features is really exciting. Anybody else think this after reading the article about Williams, master of the comefrom?

<comment><USER3> Ha! I read that just before writing the Thoonk blog post!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why do you think Redis is the best choice here? Did you benchmark other approaches and databases? What are the disadvantages of using Redis? How specifically does Redis help you make the app realtime? You said you scaled to 10s of thousands of users on a single server. What specs did that server have and what workload did you put it under? Did you write to disk during those tests?

</comment><comment><USER5> Curiously just this morning I came across Derby (<http://derbyjs.com/>) which is another realtime framework that has a similar dependency on redis 2.6.

Derby seems to be more of a tradition mvc architecture. I like the idea of feeds in Thoonk, certainly worth some investigation.

<comment><USER6> Racer (<http://racerjs.com>) is a specific part of the Derby project which compares more directly to Thoonk, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Really interesting stuff.

The naming of the types is slightly confusing. If I understand correctly, a "feed" is kind of like an unordered set (if you ignore the IDs) or a hash (using the ID as a key), while a "sorted feed" is like an array?

<comment><USER3> I agree. I'm unhappy with the names -- I'm trying to avoid naming things the same as Redis.

A feed is in publish order (not a set). Edited items are brought to the top.

A sorted_feed lets you publish at whatever end/index you want. You can also move items to a different index. Sorted feeds give you reposition events as well.

If nothing else, I'll fix this with documentation for 1.0.

<comment><USER7> Got it. Unrelated question: how would you compare Thoonk to Storm? Thoonk's "jobs" seem vaguely similar to Storm streams.

Also, I threw together a little REPL that makes it little easier to play around with Thoonk.js: <https://gist.github.com/1378241>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I kept getting faked out by the &bang, thinking that it was an incorrectly typed HTML entity.</comment>


List of topics for real world software engineering - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/enkidevs/curriculum/wiki/List-Of-Topics <comment><USER2> I guess, I'm not a real world software engineer then. Too bad

<comment><AUTHOR> What would you like the title to be?</comment></comment>


Free Online Graph Paper / Grid Paper PDFs - <AUTHOR> http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

<comment><USER2> Neat idea, especially if you only need one or two sheets of the stuff. Any more and you're probably better off heading to an office supply store (if only to save on costly printer ink).

<comment><USER3> If you have a laser printer it is probably cheaper to print, or use your schools printer for hw, I remember doing that for isometric homework assignments because the paper was too expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great idea.

Considering the great variety of patterns they offer, I wonder if they should add aperiodic tilings!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperiodic_tiling>

</comment><comment><USER5> The gamer in me wanted to see a hex grid option - but the poor site design made me miss it the first time.

The left hand nav and the big Ad at the bottom made it not obvious that there was more below.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't even feel like visiting that page ever again. It's SO full of ads to the point of chocking. I would rather buy a bunch of graph sheets from my local store.

<comment><USER7> Use an ad blocker. I did not see a single ad on that page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Smith charts? (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_chart>) 10m ISSF air rifle/pistol targets?

</comment><comment><USER9> All you have to do is print it out!

</comment><comment><USER10> Since you're into music, I'd like to see some score paper there too .. that could have come in handy recently!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm into music?

<comment><USER10> Well, the first 4 links on the page are to music related topics - Royalty-Free Music, Music FAQ, Music Licenses, Scoring Services - so I just sort of assumed.

Unless of course it's not your page .. : /

Anyway, I later noticed it _does_ have staff paper, so my comment was useless and wrong in not one, but two, ways. Cool huh.</comment></comment></comment>


Announcing StellarX - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/stellarxhq/announcing-stellarx-7dd62c168c2f <comment><USER2> Excited to see Stellar becoming an open marketplace for assets. Hope this platform is executed well.</comment>


(Response to 'YC is a Cult') A Note on Cults & Productivity - <AUTHOR> http://www.socialbias.com/a-note-on-cults-productivity/

<comment><USER2> During your startup lifestyle, how many hours of productive work do you get accomplished per day?

<comment><USER3> I'd guess around 12-14 hours of actual thinking and working time. At a normal startup as an employee, I'm guessing you'd average around 10 hours, but more around crunch time

<comment><USER4> And then I assume another 2-3 hours of "dicking around" with RSS or other non- valuable computer activities?</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: RuinMyHistory pollutes your search history - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/FascinatedBox/RuinMyHistory <comment><USER2> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is fairly easy to detect the noise generated by this kind of tools and retrieve the real history, for example: users can generate a bunch of fake entries in their browsing history but if at the same hour every day they visit the same websites, well, that is some regularity that can be exploited.

Anyway, history can be sold even with noise, in this case users will see mostly ads about products in which they are not interested in, which could be, I think, much more annoying.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is not an effective countermeasure against logging your browsing history, which is what all the fuzz is about currently. Your browsing history is made up of the list of sites you actually visit.

Also, Google was always able to do this, and do so legally, even before the latest bill passed.</comment>


Guy Kawasaki interviewed about Truemors on "On The Road With iV" - <AUTHOR> http://www.clubenetwork.com/index.php?option=com_seyret&Itemid=220 <comment><USER2> the Joel Spolsky one is really good to listen to. He has some good advice.</comment>


NSA knew about Juniper backdoors and kept quiet about them - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/us/2015/12/24/nsa-knew-about-juniper-backdoors-and-kept-quiet-about-them/ <comment><USER2> This article is blogspam of [https://theintercept.com/2015/12/23/juniper- firewalls-succes...](https://theintercept.com/2015/12/23/juniper-firewalls- successfully-targeted-by-nsa-and-gchq/). Submitters: when an article is just a rip of a more original story, please submit the original story instead, as the HN guidelines ask.

We've buried this submission because it is a dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10784595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10784595).

<comment><USER3> Hi Dan,

I often see submissions labeled as "[dupe]" and I've came across some of them myself. In these cases, what's the proper/best way of "marking" them as duplicates? Usually, I just hit "flag" but I feel that might not be the best way.

Thanks for all you do to keep HN awesome!

<comment><USER2> Flagging is the way. If the story gets flagkilled and has a single comment pointing to a previous HN submission, the software displays [dupe] instead of [flagged]. [dupe] also shows up if a moderator marks the item as a dupe.

We're probably going to extend flagging to ask the user to pick from a list of reasons, one of which will be "duplicate", so this mechanism may change somewhat in the new year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The ability to exploit Juniper servers and firewalls will pay many dividends over the years." \- NSA [1]

This is the first time I have seen any snowden document. I am stunned, they talk like black hat hackers, only caring about themselves and not the people using that tech.

1\. [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2653542-Juniper- Oppo...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2653542-Juniper-Opportunity- Assessment-03FEB11-Redacted.html)

<comment><USER5> > This is the first time I have seen any snowden document.

Seriously? Then there's interesting[1] reading available[2].

[1] For various definitions of "interesting" ranging from "meh" to "OMGWTF" depending on your interpretation and politics.

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_%282013%E2%80%93present%29)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The document:

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2653542-Juniper- Oppo...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2653542-Juniper-Opportunity- Assessment-03FEB11-Redacted.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> If the NSA/GCHQ knew about those backdoors but didn't introduce them it's even more worrying.

Finding/buying a zero day exploit is what most SIGINT intelligence organizations around the world could more or less easily achieve.

Penetrating an organization to the point of being able to introduce foreign code into their products which remained there for at least several years, as well as launch a fairly sophisticated crypto attack which would only benefit some one if they had the ability to tap into large scale internet traffic isn't something that many organizations if at all outside of the NSA-GCHQ coop should be able to achieve.

Russia and China are quite far behind, Germany and France don't have the budget (as far as appropriations goes, if they wanted too they could surely find the money), Israel could pull the exploit off both technically and operationally but it most likely lacks the ability to gather internet traffic on wide scale (it is probably one of the best out there as far as wireless sigint goes but it lacks the resources to be able to tap into world wide internet cable infrastructure) which makes it unlikely that they would introduce the VPN backdoor (unless it was for a very specific target, although Juniper together with ZTE pretty much rule the Iranian ISP market). This either means that either Russia and China are playing way beyond their presumed level of both capability and competency or there are other players most likely private hanging around the court which should is even more frightening.

Ofcourse there's still a chance that the NSA not only knew about those backdoors but actually introduce them but at the time being all the supportive documents just show that they discovered them rather than introduced them.

<comment><USER7> I'm curious what your reasoning for thinking Russia and China are behind israel on this is? Surely Russia and China have put a lot more resources into this than israel even has...

<comment><USER6> China maybe, Russia so far not really, the reasoning is simply based on what we know about their current offensive cyber operations and capabilities and their commercial market presence as far as general cyber security technology goes, in that regard China is a potential strong contender but Russia is far behind (Putin's intellectual spring cleaning and general crackdowns really doesn't help them to advance).

Israel is currently the 2nd largest exporter of cyber security solutions in the world it's mandatory military service means that virtually every employee of those companies served in their military intelligence or signal corps and since they are in the reserves until their mid 40's continues to do. Israel is in general is largely held as the strongest player at least as far as technical capabilities go after the US/UK coop. And they also have a very strong humint and general intelligence capabilities which would allow them to penetrate an organization like Juniper (Juniper having an R&D center in Israel also helps).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Edward Snowden says the opposite is true; he's suggested on Twitter that NSA probably _alerted_ Juniper to the backdoors.

</comment><comment><USER9> As a taxpayer, a voter, and a tech entrepreneur, I'd really like to see our government put significant money behind securing our infrastructure. There are so many important open-source products that could use better funding and high- quality security reviews.

<comment><USER10> I would say this is far more serious than that. If true, this means in order to satisfy their charter they allowed just about every other government agency, company, and defense contractor to fall victim to this vulnerability causing hundreds of billions of dollars in potential damages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > There's been speculation about whether the UK, China or > the NSA are to > blame — but today's revelation strongly > suggests that it might have been > the US.

Why would the NSA infiltrate Juniper to change the Dual EC DBRG parameters, when the standard parameters are already exactly how they want them?

There is a good chance they noticed that their attacks against Dual_EC_DBRG weren't working - but to reveal that pre-Snowden would prove that they knew the private key and were exploiting it.

That said, I understand there was more than one back-door disclosed.

<comment><USER12> FWIW, I believe people have said that Juniper was always using non-standard EC DBRG parameters. The backdoor changed those parameters to something else. So the NSA wouldn't have already had the parameters they wanted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> NSA is an intelligence agency. As a stakeholder in all of this, they have absolutely no benefit to disclose the backdoors. In fact, who says they aren't in part responsible for said backdoors? We all know financial support for ideological gains is something American authorities excel at.

<comment><USER11> Their primary mission is to defend (including both protecting US information security and gathering intelligence) - cases like this show that they have compromised their direct information security defence mission to further their offensive capabilities.

<comment><USER5> According[1] to Dan Geer[2], the intelligence community is all offense:

        Chris Inglis, recently retired NSA Deputy Director, remarked that if we were
        to score cyber the way we score soccer, the tally would be 462-456 twenty
        minutes into the game, i.e., all offense.  I will take his comment as confirming
        at the highest level not only the dual use nature of cybersecurity but also
        confirming that offense is where the innovations that only States can afford
        is going on.

[1] [http://geer.tinho.net/geer.blackhat.6viii14.txt](http://geer.tinho.net/geer.blackhat.6viii14.txt)

[2] (among other credentials) CISO at In-Q-Tel</comment></comment></comment>


VR optics and why inter-pupillary distance (IPD) means too many things - <AUTHOR> http://tomforsyth1000.github.io/blog.wiki.html#%5B%5BVR%20optics%20and%20why%20IPD%20means%20too%20many%20things%5D%5D <comment><USER2> > It's actually astonishing how often developers accidentally switch left and > right eyes in code – effectively having the ICD be negative rather than > positive – and it takes ages to consciously notice, if ever. But your > subconscious notices, and you will end up being sick, and you won't know > why!

This is the most amazing anecdote in the article to me. Is the brain able to use this reversed-perspective data to determine distance and scale, or does it give up and pick a single eye? Is it like those glasses that flip your vision upside down, in that you'll get used to it after a week, and have to readjust to the way things normally are afterwards?

<comment><USER3> The effect of swapped cameras is sort of 3d-ish, but doesn't look quite right. When you switch it to correct it pretty much instantly looks way better.

<comment><USER4> Is it like how a Magic Eye picture looks when you cross your eyes to "match" the sides rather than relax and focus in the distance?

<comment><USER5> Yes, exactly analogous!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Valve Index has an IPD adjustment slider on the bottom. I can tell that it does...something...but, with very wide margins, I can't tell what the right setting actually is for my eyes. Anything +/\- a hell of a lot all just looks fine. So maybe it doesn't actually matter that much.

<comment><USER2> In this article's terminology, I think that slider controls "IAD", and the reason why it doesn't change much is explained under the subheading "Collimated images"

<comment><USER6> > _In this article 's terminology, I think that slider controls "IAD"_

Of course it does; obviously the slider doesn't move your pupils. But it's meant to compensate for your personal average IPD. I think you're right that the collimated images section probably explains the result, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a pathologist, I spend a fair chunk of every day using microscopy optics which are in every way equivalent to AR's IPD problem. The honest answer is your brain has to learn to integrate those two images, and it will take months of daily use for multiple hours, with associated headaches, neck aches, back pain, etc to figure it out exactly right, but the trick is that by then, you won't have figured it out exactly right. By the time everything snaps into place, you brain will have also learned to snap it into place. My eye-brain system gathers information through oculars in a way that others do not. It's a matter of physical training, like so many things.

That's not to say quality doesn't matter. My undergrad is in physics, and the quality of the oculars in a clinical microscope puts to shame pretty much everything else I've seen. Even telescopes at the tops of mountains aren't as nice, ergonomically.

<comment><USER8> Somewhat related - I made the mistake of putting effort into learning how to stereo free-view Google Cardboard / Daydream VR apps. At the time it was kind of interesting what it felt like.

Except I must have made something super-sensitive in my visual system, to the point where now it's almost TOO easy to stereo-fuse repeated patterns — though having said that, my visual system is kind of different I think anyway. Now if I see repeated patterns I'll start getting phantom stereo fusion if I keep my eyes looking at one spot and relaxed too long. It's not distressing or anything, it's just really unusual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article was interesting an informative, but it's really surprising to me that all humans have the same sized eyeballs. I would never have guessed that!

<comment><USER10> What I'm most curious about is what mechanisms control that, given the most obvious one to me---shining light through the developing lens and determining if the retina is getting good image resolution---is obviously impossible inside a body.

<comment><USER11> The actual mechanism might be something like that!

Nearsightedness is often caused by the eyeball developing to be too long. It's actually dramatically increased in some places in Asia, where 90% of schoolkids can be nearsighted. [1]

There's a lot of research pointing towards biological processes involving contrast (which is probably a decent proxy for focus) being involved in eye development, with maybe different visual stimuli (due to more time spent indoors) being a potential cause of the increased myopia rates because it doesn't activate the specific mechanism in the right way. [2] [3]

[1] [http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/07/why-up-to-90-of- asian-...](http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/07/why-up-to-90-of-asian- schoolchildren-are-nearsighted/)

[2] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004269891...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698917301372)

[3] [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does shortsightedness and astigmatism matter much for VR or are the hardware lenses so strong that your eye incorrectness becomes just rounding error?

<comment><USER12> I have horrible far vision and can't see without my glasses in VR. I also have a very pesky lazy eye and need a prism in my glasses lenses.

Whatever your eyes have you will bring with you in VR pretty much.</comment></comment>


Nutrient density - <AUTHOR> http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article17.aspx

<comment><USER2> I was thinking about writing a fairly short "no bs nutrition for nerds" post. would anyone be interested? I think there was a recipe thread awhile back and in the comments a couple key points were hit, but this hitting the front page indicates that maybe there's some interest again.

<comment><USER3> Here you go: [http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-to-the- prima...](http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-to-the-primal- eating-plan/)

<comment><USER2> terrible imo. he contradicts himself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any reason to regard this as anything more than yet another crankish diet? The usual signs are there (extravagant claims, "for the details, read my book", "patent pending", distinct shortage of actual science).

<comment><AUTHOR> The list of nutrient dense foods is interesting. I actually posted this with a different title "A nice list of nutrient dense foods" It's nice to know what are the most nutrient dense foods, because they are the healthiest - they have the highest nutrient/calorie ratio.

<comment><USER5> If you want a list of healthy foods, consult a doctor or scientist. Eating according to this guy's list is a quick way to severe health problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you kidding? Eating a lot of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, and nuts are not going to give you severe health problems. It will most likely make you a lot more healthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is also the complexity of how much the food is cooked and whether it is consumed along with other complementary food that aids in its digestion. I had once heard of a theory that children left to their own devices in the presence of healthy food will eat what and how much they want and still remain healthy- even in the case of a child that prefers to repeatedly eat the same food. It's as if their instincts tell them what to eat and what not to eat by making them averse to a food whose nutrition they have had enough of.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nutrient density, like he says, isn't the only factor in determining what makes food healthy.

For example, food which tastes delicious and raises blood sugar makes us 'high'. Being high is bad for the body (please note, I'm not saying it's _wrong_ ).

Note also that whether something tastes delicious depends on how we interpret the experience and therefore healthiness is not wholly attributable to the foodstuff in question.

To complicate matters still further, _worrying about food_ is surely unhealthy, isn't it?

</comment><comment><USER8> If I read this chart correctly, it says that by eating more green vegetables and fruit, a person will consume significantly more nutrients than a person who does not.

This advice is certainly unnecessary for Americans, who generally eat only from the first two columns.

However, it could be helpful for the few that eat exclusively from the lower half of the third column.</comment>


Google Analytics is lying to you - <AUTHOR> https://www.tallprojects.co.uk/articles/google-analytics-is-lying-to-you/ <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not in Analytics.

I'm not sure that the comparisons here are apple-to-apple. The first graph compares "visits counted in WP Engine Blogs" versus "Sessions counted by Google Analytics". How does WP Engine Logs count visits? Analytics uses a specific deduplication scheme for sessions -- e.g., a user visiting twice within 30 minutes only counts as one session.

There are ways to explain how visits would show in logs but not in analytics, but I find it difficult to believe that 2/3 of these blog visitors are using a tool that blocks requests to Analytics.

<comment><USER3> I agree. The article skims over the consistencies in the way data is recorded in the two tools. My experience is that Google Analytics is much more sophisticated, whereas tools which query server logs are more "as is".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I dont know what processing wp is doing to track "real" visitors via logs. But I have rolled my own analitics and I had the same discrepancy as the article from GA when using server side visitor tracking. Once I started to only track visitors who actually rendered and loaded our javascript it was only 1 to 3 percent discrepancy. My guess is the logs are picking up way more bots that dont load javascript.</comment>


Most developers have never seen a successful project - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/11/most_developers_never_seen_successful_project/ <comment><USER2> That can't be right, sounds more like a grab for consultant dollars :-). I've been 25 years a developer, and never been on a failure. Had one small one cancelled - but for business reasons. I have seen one spectacular failure - that was great sport to watch, lots of project plans, and project managers - they decided to write their own control language as part of the project - doomed from that day on. Seen some others that didn't work out as well as they could, but seen many, many go into production successfully.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is mostly correct. I have been a part of a number of product development projects and most of them turned out to be a failure - financial crisis, market shift etc were the reasons.</comment>


The Wreck of Amtrak 188 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/magazine/the-wreck-of-amtrak-188.html <comment><USER2> > Even today, it's not hard to reach the tracks if you want to; plenty of > holes and gaps remain. A sergeant with the Philadelphia Police Department > told me that the rail bed is popular with addicts and dealers. "And let me > tell you," he said, "you couldn't build a fence high enough to keep them all > out."

As with software piracy, the solution is not to make the tracks unreachable - that's impossible. Instead, make them less desirable than the alternative.

For people trespassing to walk on the tracks to get somewhere, add good sidewalks or park paths. For people crossing between one building and another, add official pedestrian crossings and signals, or build bridges and tunnels that are nicer to walk than trying to hop even a 4', no-barbed-wire fence.

For addicts and dealers, make non-dangerous drugs legal. I am not sure what to do about dangerous drugs and other crime that needs a secret place to meet, but I think access would make this much easier.

People walk a rail near me because it's literally the safest way to get from the town (restaurants, the park, ice cream, shops, the river a little off- screen to the southeast) to the high school and the Stoney Creek neighborhood to the North:

[http://i.imgur.com/0pBaSa4.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/0pBaSa4.jpg)

Division is not walkable. Lamareaux is mostly, but the sidewalk crosses back and forth, traffic is fast, and the railroad is much more direct.

</comment><comment><USER3> With all this talk about self-driving cars, it's really depressing (and tragic!) to see so little progress on self-driving trains (Positive Train Control).

Think about how much easier self-driving trains are to implement! There's already no expectation that a train can swerve to avoid the unexpected obstacle, there's already digital switching to make sure the train goes in the right direction and instruct the engineer to stop, and the retrofit problem is much easier, since all locomotives are part of a fleet (as opposed to privately-owned cars).

<comment><USER4> The problem with PTC, that the railroad companies are totally incompetent in making this, demanding, knowledge intensive kind of software. I know people charged with this at a large railways corp and they are terribly underqualified.

<comment><USER5> You'd think they could bring in experts from other countries that have implemented this already.

<comment><USER4> Railroad companies are old, arrogant businesses, who would never consult anyone.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Social Networks and Social Information Filtering on Digg - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/25237/Social-Network-and-Social-Information-Filtering-on-Digg <comment><USER2> I read the abstract and -- pardon my ignorance -- decided not to read the rest.

It basically says that, referencing the friends feature, users tend to like submissions made by friends, and thus this type of "social filtering" may be useful in targeting information. The paper concludes with "Promising or perilous, social media appears to be the future of the web."

I'm sure it gets more interesting, but in terms of common sense, you won't lose much by reading the summary I just gave.

What I want to know is how a social network, designed to a certain style, with a certain target audience in mind, needs to change itself to suit its changing audience, based on the socially filtered information the users produce.

The article also mentions tyranny of the minority. One front page, many users. Limited resources. Competition of resources. A useful discussion would be on what kind of design approach would allow more flexibility in distribution of resources.</comment>


Ask HN: What should I use for feedback? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on a small personal website to host some small things (starting with a dashboard widget), so I'm looking for a feedback solution.  Ideally, I'd like something with a free account, as I do not have much traffic thus far.  I don't need a lot of features, and I'd like something where I could just drop a form onto the page vs. redirecting to a separate site for feedback collection.  I'd appreciate any suggestions you'd have for what I should use, as well as what I should stay away from. <comment><USER2> Google Spreadsheet Form is free, simple and good for basic stuff - [http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe...](http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=87809)

You can also checkout Wufoo.com and KISSinsights.com</comment>


Ask HN: Can I still develop web sites with a text editor? - <AUTHOR> I love the web because I believe it is a great leveler. I do part time development but have come to realise I don't have the time or know how to maintain my own VPS. Reason, I have a full-time job that does not involve developing web sites. I have started exploring static site generators, namely [Hugo](https://gohugo.io/). Why Hugo, because I don't have to install anything, just an exe. My type of application.<p>I have started looking a CSS libraries like Bootstrap and Foundation. The moment I want to customise something I need to install Sass, Gulp or Node. More applications I know nothing about that I need to learn and maintain. What is your pain-free web development stack? <comment><USER2> Linux Mint (OS) APT-GET (ubuntu package manager) NPM (comes with node.js, package manager) Bower (built on top of NPM) Git / your preferred Git UI (obviously xD)

Personally, I like brackets.io or the Atom text editors. Although those are to your personal taste. I do almost all dev inside text editors except for stuff like file management etc.

Linux is amazing for keeping everything up to date and generally having tons of support and great open source apps.

</comment><comment><USER3> Instead of customizing, override. It will also make updating your CSS framework as simple as changing a url.</comment>


Bill Gates on Finding a Vaccine for Covid-19 [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oEcxMfwJnw <comment><AUTHOR> Was very surprised to see the number of anti-vaxxers in the comments.</comment>