U.S. Hospitals Are Asking Their Own Patients to Donate Money - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/business/hospitals-asking-patients-donate-money.html <comment><USER2> Coming from, and only ever having lived in countries that have socialized medical care, I will never understand the general lack of goodwill towards one's fellow countrymen that your country continually rails against it. All to live with a medical industry that is, for all intents and purposes, run by corrupt insurance companies who will bleed you dry sooner than they would cover your bankruptcy inducing medical bills.

I just don't get it.

And now on top of this, having paid an arm and a leg to an insurance company that would just as soon stab me in the back as pay the medical bill my premium is supposed to cover, hospitals want donations? What the fuck is going on?

Sure the medical systems I've lived with aren't perfect, and sure they _could_ be improved. But by and large, knowing that I can go into any medical care facility in the country and walk out fixed, without having to fight for medical care, fight for my right to be treated, fight for my right to have my medical costs taken care of. I would rather have that every day of the week, even knowing that there are others abusing this, than the alternative.

<comment><USER3> >I will never understand the general lack of goodwill towards one's fellow countrymen

Homogeneous populations are required for this. When the US was least diverse, during the 1930s-60s, the public was largely supportive of public social welfare. Despite right-wingers guffawing over European nations importing more "diversity" of late, the US is way ahead in diversifying the nation into islands of "diversity" with a rump "historic" American nation in the outlying surrounding areas. The "diverse" populations (and their "historic" allies) are inculcated with neo-Marxist propaganda that frames the people whose nation they are invading and whose largesse they are seeking to exploit as class enemies. The "historic" population has long sensed this animosity but cannot articulate it publicly and oppose it in a straightforward manner without their opponents, including the vast majority of major media, ostracizing them as dangerous lunatics. The "diverse" are deemed inherently virtuous while the "historic" inherently evil -- blood libel updated for the 21st century. What sane person who is a part of the "historic" American population would support having most of his money taken in tax to support a growing population of people who do not share his ancestry, culture, or values and who view him as inherently evil? Thus we see opposition to social welfare programs that disparately impact/benefit the "diverse" populations.

TL;DR: Most "Americans" are not "fellow countrymen" at all but distinct factions engaged in a simmering war with each other.

<comment><USER3> Alright, I'm the creator of this user account and the one that made it public, and I'm going to claim it back now. Maybe I'm a dumb kid, but I think if any country can maintain a highly diverse population without internal "simmering war", it's the US. The greed of hospitals is not somehow explained by xenophobia. Generations of people born in perverse power structures, doing their best to strengthen and reinforce them, seems much more suitable of an explanation. Genetics will mix and people will evolve. Deal with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hold up. We already have to pay through the nose for medical care, so where is all this money going that these hospitals need to ask for more? Is non-profit a different class that is somehow left out of the con that is the US healthcare system?

<comment><USER5> From the article:

> Ms. Grupp, 66, said she wasn't rich, and was disturbed by the letter. "I > kind of resent it," she said. "I don't think they need the money." The > hospital last year reported nearly $48 million in net income and paid its > chief executive officer $1 million.

This is where it goes. That said, if I could spare $200k, I would if I had the information about which % of that money went to actual equipment and patient services. I think that information is available for non-profits, but I am not sure about hospitals. There will always be admin waste, but the best way to decrease it is to reward more efficient hospitals.

<comment><USER6> A 1 million salary for a CEO of a hospital is nothing thogh. Any specialist doctor makes that much.

Hospitals are pretty expensive and probably super inefficient: they are 30% of NHE spending.

<comment><USER7> Specialist doctors do _not_ make 1 million dollars (exceptions are generally those who run/manage their own business, or run a hospital - basically it's their business role that puts them at that salary range). You can easily look at job ads and see common salaries for different specialties, they very dependent on specialty but they do not even approach 1 million.

<comment><USER8> Plenty of specialists make > 1m without running a hospital.

<comment><USER9> Twice this claim is made with no reference. If there are plenty, it would not hurt to cite a source, rather than make a seemingly baseless claim to the contrary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nonprofit hospitals soliciting donations from former patients is the least controversial thing possible. The part where they screen patients and give them preferential treatment is worrisome. I think the cited bioethicist had it pegged with the "not illegal but unseemly" (paraphrased).

If hospitals are going to treat indigent populations, absent universal healthcare, they are going to operate at losses and require grants and donations to operate.

<comment><USER11> Non-profit is just a tax structure. They make plenty of money and reward themselves handsomely.

<comment><USER10> A quick first point: you're making a blanket statement against a heterogeneous population. Some non-profits are definitely not efficient, and some are very efficient.

The big difference, and there is one, is related to ownership and operations. There are no distributable earnings, and they cannot be sold/acquired. This definitely factors into decisions balancing profitablity and ethics. There are laws about nonprofit compensation, too: [https://www.guidestar.org/ViewCmsFile.aspx?ContentID=3890](https://www.guidestar.org/ViewCmsFile.aspx?ContentID=3890)

<comment><USER11> I'm a physician for a non-profit and I'm going to continue making my blanket statement. But thanks for the link.

<comment><USER10> I am not a physician at a non-profit! But I had read a few years of Tenet and HCA annual reports a while back, and have a few other points of exposure to non-profit vs teaching vs private systems. Perhaps we can agree that there are many opportunities to improve the system in many ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Many hospitals conduct nightly wealth screenings — using software that culls > public data such as property records, contributions to political campaigns > and other charities — to gauge which patients are most likely to be the > source of large donations.

> Those who seem promising targets for fund-raising may receive a visit from a > hospital executive in their rooms, as well as extra amenities like a > bathrobe or a nicer waiting area for their families.

Fabulous.

So when my parents are in their 80s and out of it on painkillers after a surgery, they'll be preyed upon for donations by some fast talking executive who has trolled through their public records to see how much their home is worth.

Are your bedsheets uncomfortable? (guess what - everything is uncomfortable after major surgery) Just donate and we'll fix that for you.

Sleazy to the max.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder what their approach is to 'ungrateful' patients – the ones who get billed every little things, or are otherwise unsatisfied with the service?

It is after all a service in the US. It's transactional. I'm happy medical science solves my complaints, but the way it's set up I'm not often left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude to the hospital.

</comment><comment><USER14> When my Dad told me he was going to donate his house to the local hospital I told him "I'll support whatever you decide."

I pointed out that they weren't a charity and that the CEO of the hospital was paid $1.8 million year. [1]

He changed his mind.

[1] [http://www.mainebiz.biz/article/20150924/DATAJOE/150929969/m...](http://www.mainebiz.biz/article/20150924/DATAJOE/150929969/maine's-highest- paid-health-care-professionals)

</comment><comment><USER15> I am so thankful for the NHS when I see things like this.

<comment><USER16> I like a lot of things about the U.S. over the U.K. but our healthcare system is definitely not one of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This happens in canada too, so im not sure its uniquely a problem of private vs socialized healthcare.

<comment><USER16> Yeah but U.S. and Canadian corporate culture is pretty intertwined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> We already donate a shit ton, like $5000 for a 8 minute ambulance ride or $1300 for an 5 minute assessment in an ER

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd like to throw something out here as maybe a starting point for a discussion: we should immediately make it illegal to have medical insurance in the US. Everything should be out of pocket. Period.

After initial chaos, misery and death, we would have no choice but to restructure healthcare system in a manner that its costs are in line with what people can afford to pay with their salaries.

Ok, that was pretty radical. :)

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't make insurance illegal, but as a thought experiment I think if you banned employers from providing health benefits then you'd find a sudden huge pressure for change. If the wealthy class in the US had to deal with what the self-pay / self-insured deal with, there'd be hell to pay.

<comment><USER21> I'm completely on boar with preventing employers from providing it as a benefit, but I think you may be overestimated how much the wealthy class will give a shit. They can foot the bill for their care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Next thing you know they will have a patreon.

<comment><USER23> I'm sure they'd be very happy to set up a recurring donation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If they can get more in donations than the cost of procuring them, why not ask?

Universities ask alumni to give all the time even though they have already paid. Why not hospitals (many already attached to universities).

To be clear, I think it is a terrible practice but if your hospital sees that it works for the university it is attached to, why not explore the opportunity?

<comment><USER25> I can also walk up to anyone in the street and ask for a hand job. Why not ask?

<comment><USER24> While I tried to make it clear that I found their behavior inappropriate my direct answer in the context of universities and alumni and hospitals and patients is:

If your dad was walking around asking for and getting hand jobs left and right so brazenly that the givers wanted to name your father's dick after then, then you would probably be foolish not to at least try to ask for one yourself and see what happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sure, I'll donate $15 but ask them to consider it a $1000 donation

What, this doesn't make sense? So, about that...

</comment><comment><USER27> Tip for good service? 20%, 25%, Other:

</comment><comment><USER28> This isn't new. There was an episode of Scrubs that brought up patient donations.

</comment><comment><USER29> there are a few hospitals i'd say that's okay for.

[https://www.deborahfoundation.org/pages/about- us](https://www.deborahfoundation.org/pages/about-us)

</comment><comment><USER30> Doesn't seem so radical compared to other systems. I have heard in China doctors will give preferential treatment to patients who give sufficient 'hongbao' (red envelope = money). I imagine (with no evidence) this might be common in many developing world/traditional societies.

So we are just evolving toward that kind of system.

If anything this provides another lever for free market principles to decide who survives based on willingness to pay (WTP - likely familiar to those who went to business school).

<comment><USER9> > I have heard in China doctors will give preferential treatment to patients > who give sufficient 'hongbao' (red envelope = money).

Yes, this is true. Hospital admissions requires approval of a doctor, and you essentially have to out-bribe other patients to get a bed, or even convince doctors to pay attention to you. [Personal experience.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Are hospitals actually struggling?

<comment><USER32> Depends on the hospital, but very possible. It's also very complex.

Sometimes it is just a matter of what you offer as a hospital, the volume of people you bring in, and what you do.

Example:

Obstetrics is becoming a major money looser due to changes in the insurance market. So insurance companies how require a hospital who handle's births to also have a surgery center and be able to handle c-sections in order to insure any birthing. The thing is that requires an on call surge and staff and things that previously a lot of hospitals didn't have.

So in order provide that service the overhead just skyrocketed. Many rural hospitals just don't offer it anymore or if they are / are taking big losses to provide the service.

That's just one area.

<comment><USER33> Thank you for the insight! Can you reveal where you learned this? I would love to get a better understanding of the financials of the healthcare industry.

<comment><USER32> Sadly it's not from an site that covers it all. I too am interested in the topic.

This was just a local news story, they tend to do a good job:

[https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/01/22/rural-clinics- end-b...](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/01/22/rural-clinics-end-baby- delivery-small-town-minn-pays)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> waste of money.

Now, funding a free clinic in a poor area for 50 years is a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER35> Good move. The closer we move our healthcare system towards "pay what you want" and get rid of all middleman positions (both private and government- based), the better.

<comment><USER36> How do you envision "pay what you want" healthcare working?</comment></comment>


Designing and Using Combinators: The Essence of Functional Programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.math.chalmers.se/~rjmh/Combinators/

<comment><USER2> If you follow the link at the bottom, there's lecture notes and sample code for a whole FP class. Worth checking out.

[http://www.cs.chalmers.se/Cs/Grundutb/Kurser/afp/lectures.ht...](http://www.cs.chalmers.se/Cs/Grundutb/Kurser/afp/lectures.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Whats a one liner to describe the Y-Combinator to someone new to FP?

'An generic implementation of a fixed point attractor'

Hmm.. not quite it.

um.. 'DSEL's ? no-one calls them that.. 'DSL' has taken hold, although overloaded somewhat [eg graphical symbol set over UML, or language-in-a- language, the conventional meaning]

<comment><USER4> _Whats a one liner to describe the Y-Combinator to someone new to FP?_

For someone mathematically comfortable with the idea of higher-order functions, it's "a function operating on higher-order functions, that returns a fixed point of its argument". That is, Y(f) = f' such that f(f') = f', where f and f' are both higher-order functions. Of course, I doubt there're many people familiar with higher-order functions and fixed points that don't already know functional programming.

On the other hand, it's relatively easy to get a feel for what Y does if you try manually evaluating it in the lambda calculus. This is easy, since evaluating lambda calculus by hand is little more than repeated string substitution, but it's not really a "one liner".

From a "practical" standpoint of doing anonymous recursion, the way it works can be described as "Evaluating Y on an ersatz recursive function f evaluates f itself, but passes in Y(f) as an argument that f can evaluate in turn." Leaves Y as a black box, but makes it clearer how it creates recursive functions.

Honestly, trying to explain Y to someone new to functional programming is probably pointless. It's weird and mostly useless, since recursive functions will rarely need to be anonymous in practice. I remember understanding Y as being one of those almost transcendental moments where everything finally fell into place and I could comprehend the full power of the lambda calculus. Wonderful, but not particularly useful.</comment></comment>


The NFL wants you to think these things are illegal - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/the-nfl-wants-you-to-think-these-things-are-illegal/ <comment><USER2> The first point is wrong. Retailers don't avoid saying "Super Bowl" because they think it's illegal to say the phrase, but because an advertisement is an offer to sell goods, and mentioning someone else's trademark in that context always creates some possibility of confusing people into thinking that the trademark-holder is the source of, or is authorizing or endorsing, the products being advertised. Creating that confusion about the origin of the product _is_ a trademark violation.

<comment><USER3> > _and mentioning someone else 's trademark in that context always creates > some possibility of confusing people_ //

It's not 'possibility' it's 'likelihood' of confusion that is considered, amongst other factors - eg [http://www3.ce9.uscourts.gov/jury- instructions/node/244](http://www3.ce9.uscourts.gov/jury- instructions/node/244).

The NFL own the RTM (eg serial number 78688906, 77182909, 76572704) and they use it to sell merchandise, TV broadcasts, and clothing respectively. The problem they face is that bowl is a generic term for a [sports] competition (cf [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bowl](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/bowl)), and super is also standard language. You can't use trademarks to prevent a person describing something. Moreover when I say "buy my beer to drink whilst you watch the Super Bowl" I'm not using the trademark, I'm using a description of a sports event. If I said "buy my beer to drink whilst you wear your Super Bowl t-shirt" [assuming the owners have registered the mark for clothing] then I'm using the trademark, but I'm still using it to describe the TM owners goods, quite clearly, and so there's no confusion.

Clearly one could create confusion: "drink our Super Bowl beer" uses the term as if it were a trademark, and moreover as if it were the advertisers trademark.

Isn't "super bowl" just a description of a large sports event ; that would seems to lack the distinctiveness normally required of a trademark for anything that's normally related to sports events. The 2 live marks incorporating "super bowl" would make it _appear_ the the USPTO consider use of the term separate to the NFL's mark as allowable [but I'm not sure they've been properly examined as yet].

<comment><USER4> > Moreover when I say "buy my beer to drink whilst you watch the Super Bowl" > I'm not using the trademark, I'm using a description of a sports event

I think you would also have a difficult time convincing a judge you were not talking about the NFL championship. Application of the law is rarely a "check the dictionary, guys, he's technically correct" thing. Especially when it comes to things like trademark violations (where it's about confusion to the general public)

<comment><USER3> > _convincing a judge you were not talking about the NFL championship_ //

You don't need to. Trademark law doesn't prevent you from referring to people's products, nor their origin, it prevents you from selling your own products as if they were someone else's. The judge doesn't care [shouldn't!] that you're referring to the NFL Super Bowl TM - their concern is whether you're suggesting your product comes from the company that own the Super Bowl trademark (for a limited set of products).

Not even an imbecile would think that "buy X to use whilst you do Y" means that the people selling X own Y. "Buy our gloves for your skiing trip to France" \- oh clearly that company owns France /s.

It's not about confusion of the general public, it's removed from that. Even if you can show that there is no actual confusion (surveys or whatnot) the judge can still decide there is a likelihood of it (and _vice versa_ ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article links to an older Ars article, which links to Wendy Seltzer's blog, which appears to be offline.

Here's the referenced blog post:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140331144544/http://wendy.selt...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140331144544/http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2007/03/18/nfl_clip_down_again.html).

And here's an archive of the entire series of events:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140708110042/http://wendy.selt...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140708110042/http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/dmca- nfl)

<comment><USER6> I tried clicking on the Youtube link inside the Internet Archive to see the clip, but all I get is a message "Sorry for the interruption. We have been receiving a large volume of requests from your network. To continue with your YouTube experience, please enter the verification code below." and an archived sequence of re-captchas that take me nowhere.

Is there a way to actually see the clip?

<comment><USER7> I copied the link location then removed the unneeded part [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4uC2H10uIo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4uC2H10uIo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We need more posts like this and some education to the public. Until people are educated about their rights, crap like the NFL disclaimer will pass for facts.

<comment><USER9> the public? Hell how about educating google/youtube who do take downs against videos that don't even infringe. I can imagine the fun they will have Monday with people uploading content

<comment><USER10> Google is legally obligated to do so by the DMCA's safe-harbor provision (otherwise they lose their safe-harbor status). The problem is with the people who request the takedowns.

In particular, the DMCA (17 USC 512) requires that, in the takedown notice, the sender must state that they have a "good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law", and anyone who "knowingly materially misrepresents under this section that material or activity is infringing" is liable for damages, both to the person who posted the not-actually-infringing content, and to the service provider in their act of taking down and reinstating the content.

This _should_ be a safeguard, and a sufficiently enthusiastic legal team ought to be able to make the argument that there is a lot of knowing material misrepresentation going on. (It's hard for robots to have good-faith beliefs!) But I think very few people have been trying this argument in court. The EFF has been involved in a few, relatively tiny cases, which seem to have been successful, but nobody's been fighting this at scale.

[https://www.eff.org/cases/lawrence-lessig-v-liberation- music](https://www.eff.org/cases/lawrence-lessig-v-liberation-music)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenz_v._Universal_Music_Corp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenz_v._Universal_Music_Corp).

17 USC 512 is pretty readable: I'd recommend reading through it so you understand what the law is and how best to use it to our ends.

[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512)

<comment><USER11> DMCA does get abused on youtube on occasion. But the main complaint is content ID, which is completely unrelated.

<comment><USER10> Does Content ID exist because otherwise Google would run afoul of 17 USC 512(c)(1), that people could argue that Google is "aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent" or something, because even the general public knows that lots of YouTube videos use other people's music?

It doesn't seem like it's in Google's inherent engineering interest to build this system. Of course, that doesn't distinguish from "the law makes them" and "their business relationships make them", but the hypothesis that Google feels beholden to other companies needs a little more evidence.

For instance, Google's 2013 revenue was $50 billion, and $66 billion in 2014, and the _entire music industry 's_ 2013 revenue was $7 billion (2014 data isn't out yet). Placating the music industry doesn't seem like particularly well-directed greed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Be careful when taking legal advice from websites. Ethical rules would probably bar an attorney from writing such an article. (Advice to potentially out of jurisdiction and/or unknown clients, online advice is a tricky thing for bar associations.) I'm not saying that anything is incorrect, just that this sort of advice has consequences.

I would add to the article that while copyright may not limit such speech, contract law is a totally different matter. Check the fine print of you cable contract and/or your NFL package subscription. Even your superbowl tickets (tickets are contracts) will probably have limitations on how you can use NFL content and marks. Everyday citizens may perhaps use the term "super bowl", but someone in a contract with the NFL is not an everyday citizen. The NFL can always come after them for breech of contract, triggering liquidated damages clauses.

This is why many broadcasters avoid using NFL marks even where they have the right to. They have signed contracts in exchange for, perhaps, highlight reals, interview opportunities or other such content from the NFL. This then binds them to whatever speech-limiting terms the NFL may include.

<comment><USER2> > Be careful when taking legal advice from websites. Ethical rules would > probably bar an attorney from writing such an article.

Ethical rules bar giving specific legal advice online, not generally describing the law. Tons and tons of attorneys post general advice about what you should and shouldn't do. To pick a random one that's the first hit on Google: [http://www.bpmlegal.com/tmdodont.html](http://www.bpmlegal.com/tmdodont.html).

<comment><USER12> General descriptions are fine, but saying that a particular person (ie "you" or "the public") is allowed to do something in relation to another (the NFL) boarders on specific advice. There is a difference between explaining the concept of "fair use" and saying that a particular use is fair.

On second thought I do think the article made a mistake. Sure, you can VHS the superbowl, but good luck doing that on a modern TV/cable setup. Recording an HD copy will likely involve bypassing encryption or other content protections. Saying that anyone can "tape" the event is an overstatement. Some "taping" is cool, other "taping" may violate any number of rules.

<comment><USER13> I don't see how specifying "you" and "the NFL" actually makes the advice specific, unless there are specific laws mentioning one of those specific parties. It's just as broad advice as saying that an individual can or cannot describe a copyrighted broadcast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was informative! I always wondered about those statements at the beginning of the games, but never thought about them longer than the intro. I wonder though, even with everything in the article, why Stephen Colbert danced around the Super Bowl by mocking it with his Superb Owl coverage. Seems like the kinda guy/show that would have just used super bowl and exposed what this article is saying. Anyways, I find the super bowl obnoxious, but otherwise love football and most sports.

[http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/gzw6pe/superb-owl- xlvi...](http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/gzw6pe/superb-owl-xlviii---nfl- extra-point-debate)

</comment><comment><USER15> Re "Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited." \- maybe someone should write to the NFL to ask their permission to talk about the game with their friends? Or send in a picture their kid drew and ask if they can put it on their fridge? What would they say?

<comment><USER16> You didn't copy the part where they say you have the rights to private use as in conversations with anyone you choose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Amazing that is legal for the NFL to say that these things are illegal.

<comment><USER18> Freedom of speech can be a strange thing.

<comment><USER2> I feel like lying about legal obligations falls into the "yelling fire in a theater" exception. Especially because it's a commercial broadcast. I'd go so far as to say that it's no different than other contexts in which lying is illegal (insurance fraud, etc).

<comment><USER19> You are the expert and not me but isn't this really like a scorched earth technique? Essentially regardless of whether or how much of a leg that they have to stand on they come at this full force with all of their resources in order to make an example and to make potential adversaries quiver in their presence by their legal might. Even if they would lose and even if they know they are wrong. [1] And even if it costs them money to do so. It scares lesser adversaries and even greater adversaries are not going to advise clients "it's ok" because what do they stand to gain by doing so?

Your thoughts?

[1]Separately I remember as a kid seeing a sign at the horseback riding place that said "ride at our own risk". My dad said "oh they just do that to that you won't call a lawyer and start trouble I mean if they leave a trashcan in the way of the horse and you get hurt of course that means nothing....(was a long time ago but that was the gist). Seems similar to that in a much larger way.

<comment><USER2> I'm just talking about the general philosophical point of making it illegal to lie about peoples' legal rights (e.g. how it's illegal in many states to include unenforceable provisions in rental agreements). I don't think such a law would be an infringement on free speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The worst practitioner of these practices in my opinion is Cusip Global Services.

They say you can't label column in your database "Cusip" without signing a license agreement with them. Furthermore, such license agreements make you force similar licenses upon all your business partners.

<comment><USER21> Citation/link/further information?

<comment><USER20> general info:

[https://www.cusip.com/cusip/cgs-license-fees.htm#cgs- licensi...](https://www.cusip.com/cusip/cgs-license-fees.htm#cgs-licensing- policies-faqs)

as to forcing other business partners to assert that they also are Cusip license holders, I have seen and been asked to sign agreements with such clauses attached.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> They don't say anything is illegal, they say it is 'prohibited'. They don't say who it is prohibited by, and since it's clearly not the federal government you have to assume it's just prohibited by the NFL itself. Of course nobody has to listen to a goddamn thing the NFL says, so why include the message? It's likely a CYA thing on their part, since it gives them the power to essentially disown any event or analysis that is related to their broadcast. Also worth noting is how the NFL is obsessed with law enforcement culture. Lots of the league employees are former police and FBI, so there is a good chance they actually think they have some kind of authority over what a person does or says in relation to the NFL.

</comment><comment><USER23> How is it that they _can_ stop you from displaying it on TV's larger than a certain size, then? I've always been confused about that.

<comment><USER24> Technically anything over 55 inches is considered a public performance. It's leftover from an old law:

[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/110](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/110)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Or its because the advertisers want to get more than one use out of the ad?

The Super Bowl is not the only "big game". In fact its not usually even a particularly great game, and its never a rivalry. So saying "Big Game" instead of "Super Bowl" means they can use the ad again, and maybe even for another sport!

Or its a conspiracy theory. That works too.

<comment><USER26> The Super Bowl is the only "Big Game" they refer to in the ads. Sure there are other "big games", but these are Super Bowl ads pure and simple.

<comment><USER25> You're saying there is _no other event_ that Dorito's could possibly use an ad about "The Big Game" for? That's incorrect, and that's my point.

Why make an ad you can only use once, when you could easily tweak it and be able to reuse it? Like you said, its not like anyone won't know you mean the Super Bowl, when you're talking about _the big game_ on Super Bowl weekend.

<comment><USER27> Can you show me any ad, from any time, for any product, that refers to "the big game" meaning the superbowl and then, after tweaks, refers to some other big game?

<comment><USER25> That's my point - no tweaks are even needed. Why can't I show this same ad, exactly like it is, before e.g., the UNC vs NCSU game?

I could! Unless I did something ill-advised, like saying "Super Bowl", which in fact does only refer to one game.

<comment><USER28> But nobody does, is the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Businesses don't say "big game" because saying Super Bowl is illegal. They say it because even if they're legally in the right, the NFL could easily bankrupt them in court, and it's not worth the risk.

</comment><comment><USER30> Most americans don't even have the ability to record the show. I do, and might if I feel like it, but to be honest it's not worth the disk space. It's a live event so it's just not exciting after the fact.

</comment><comment><USER31> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud)

</comment><comment><USER32> Who cares about Super Bowl anyway. Stopped watching this pointless commercialized spectacle years ago.

<comment><USER33> Millions upon millions of people. Tens of millions actually. Highest ever was ~111 million people. So, sorry, but you don't represent the majority here, and we don't care what your opinions on football are.

<comment><USER34> 111 million people is not the majority of the U.S., much less the world. Compare what the majority considers real football: the world cup (500 million to 1 billion?) Or the moon landing (14% of world population at the time or 530 million). [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televisi...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts)

Also, compare YouTube for really big numbers...

<comment><USER33> I didn't literally mean to say that a majority of the country watches football. Even if I had (incorrectly), It wouldn't change the fact that it's a huge portion of the country watching the same thing at the same time. And as for "real" football, that's really neither here nor there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to start and build a successful hackerspace in your city - <AUTHOR> Like many other smaller cities, the place I call currently my home (Zagreb) has no hackerspaces [0].
Being a newcomer/foreigner in this town, I'm a bit lost tbh finding connections and common interest. Meetup groups are academic and sleepy here. Paris, Berlin and London have great hackerspaces and I can usually find like minded ppl quickly. I think it would be cool to see hackerspaces also in smaller cities and where old + young guys can interact and teach each other.
Has anyone here been involved with building a hackerspace?
How are they are organized and set up?
What is the best way to figure out if there are enough people are in your area to make it a viable project?
Who sponsors these places? e.g. Is it individuals who are providing their private garage or companies who provide the facility? Do I approach companies and ask them if they want to cover some of the facility/running costs?
I can see many of benefits why companies would encourage these spaces such as helping their engineers get broader hands-on skills during after-work activities. And a great network effect for the company where people can easily find a new colleague in these places if their company happens to have a job opening. (all without recruiters and with lower risk because the persons skills are known etc).
If anyone can share some experience? Thanks
[0] http://hackerspaces.org/ <comment><USER2> Persistence.

In the spring of 2009, as a senior at university, I was one of the first few people involved in the movement that became Twin Cities Maker, now a hacker/makerspace in Minneapolis, MN.

Movements start small. The very first meeting was just three of us meeting in a coffee shop after one guy started by boldly registering the web domain and looking for interest.

This eventually grew to a consistent weekly social meeting in the back room of a coffee shop. Over time informality gave way to an official club with officers. We started collecting dues to save money for a lease while still keeping the energy by meeting _every_ week at the coffee shop.

I moved away for work soon after graduating in the summer but initially kept in pretty close contact with the group. By January 2010, with the help of a group-merger, Hack Factory of MN dba Twin Cities Maker officially held a lease to a space in town. Since then they've expanded to lease more of the building. At the Hack Factory you can tinker with electronics, 3d printing, CNC routing, milling, welding, woodworking, textiles,....

Even after acquiring the shop, the weekly coffee shop meet turned into a weekly open house on Wednesday evenings that still runs today.

Credit for this success goes to the individuals who stepped up to volunteer running this crazy enterprise. I have crazy amounts of respect for everyone who's served as an officer or otherwise helped organize things.

After returning to town in 2011 I officially rejoined as a member, although I happened to loose much of my enthusiasm for social tinkering. I was interested, but not committed, so i'd sit in on board meetings but not actually run for office. Eventually, I spent less and less time at the shop.

Since then I've always felt odd talking about my involvement in TC Maker, because other than being one of the first few people in the door, I never personally took much of a real lead role in the organization. By 2013- I was considering myself to just be the longest dues-paying member who actually participated the least.

I'm on another "hiatus" now as I moved to Helsinki, Finland last spring. I'm still on the mailing list, and I still admire the group for doing their own thing and making it work. If I'm ever back in MN and it's still around I'll undoubtedly be involved again at _some_ level.

[http://www.tcmaker.org/blog/](http://www.tcmaker.org/blog/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is crazy! I had the same thought in mind about Zagreb after coming back from London and having fun at Google Campus. We need something like this! Was thinking maybe it could be funded by making it an EU project and/or getting the new government on board to provide a city space (there is a bunch of old abandoned factories, for example the one on the Branimir street), but that takes a lot of bureaucracy and time.

<comment><AUTHOR> get in touch please :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look a week or so back in my submission history, there were some slides by CCC people about two of their hacker spaces.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the pointer Tomte

[https://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/attachments/100...](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/attachments/1003_Building%20a%20Hacker%20Space.pdf)</comment></comment>


The Mindful Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://victorsavkin.com/post/128785099226/mindful-programmer <comment><AUTHOR> This is some great stuff on how to build code, from one of the core team members of Angular 2</comment>


The Frustratingly Unfulfilled Promise of Google Gears - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/006760.html

<comment><USER2> I would go one step further than this article and come out and say it: The idea of taking web apps offline is flawed!

I have watched in amazement as Microsoft, Adobe, Mozilla, and Google has raced to deliver to deliver web apps offline. The idea just doesn't seem appealing to me, and I would think that the vast majority of users also find it unappealing.

The primary strength of web applications is the fact that they are online, accessible from anywhere, shareable, and able to tap into the resources of the web. Take that away and what do you have? A watered down version of Microsoft Office, etc.

<comment><USER3> I agree. Additionally, the first comment under the article makes a very good point:

"I think one of the reasons offline browser applications are failing to take off is that people don't realise that we tolerate browser-based limitations because of the benefits of being connected to the Internet. Once offline, the browser is the last place we want to be."

<comment><USER4> Here here! Of all the desktop software I use daily, Firefox is the most annoying.

To be fair to the developers: it is a very difficult implementation burden to keep up with the complexity and fast pace of change that is the web, with its numerous stakeholders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why Gears hasn't caught on:

From the Gears Developer FAQ: Q: How do I deploy an application that uses Google Gears? A: You should not do so at all.

[http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=69221...](http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=69221&topic=11692)

</comment><comment><USER6> This article aggravated me a bit.

"As for Web developers other than Google, I'm not sure whether they're struggling with Gears, or whether there's simply less interest in offline apps than I hoped and guessed there would be."

Go ask a few and give your opinion. A little research on what _really_ is going on might support the claim of a frustratingly unfulfilled promise. I happen the think Gears was unveiled a bit early--getting uptake is easier when you've demonstrated the toolkit's potential first. But, this just seemed to fall short as an article for me.

</comment><comment><USER7> "We eventually named Gears as the most innovative product of 2007."

How utterly clueless. Gears is a neat browser _feature_ , but it is far from being the most innovative product of 2007 (iPhone, Kindle and SimpleDB are three more likely candidates that immediately come to mind).</comment>


Ask HN: How did you find the startup you're working at? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> whoishiring.io</comment>


Four Reasons Why Parallel Programs Should Have Serial Semantics - <AUTHOR> http://www.cilk.com/multicore-blog/bid/7659/Four-Reasons-Why-Parallel-Programs-Should-Have-Serial-Semantics

<comment><USER2> > "Okay, so what's the catch?" ... Cilk++ doesn't support producer/consumer, > software pipelining, or message passing. ... we're giving something up ... > less is more. The ... advantages ... make up for any loss in generality.

well, there was this joke about a dog, an octopus, and wooden legs.

</comment><comment><USER3> I understand why some people want sequential semantics in parallel programs: it's very easy to reason about, especially for those who are used to sequential reasoning (like most imperative programmers). Certainly, if your goal is to use parallelism to speed up your existing software (and this is, indeed, Cilk's goal) then it makes lots of sense.

But most software programs can accept a little nondeterminism. Object-oriented design (at least, GOOD design) is built around the fact that your object's methods might be called at any time; you're just providing an interface. So (this was a programming language idea I was working on for a while) why don't we make it work that way? Make all method calls asynchronous, make methods transactions upon objects, and just schedule as many method calls in parallel as you can get your hands on. Good for server design, potentially good for parallelizing existing code (you'd still have to go through it and make sure it made sense -- no reaching into other people's objects and tweaking their internal state, etc.)

I guess my point is that while serial equivalence is a strong property, it's not necessary for many programs, and it completely prevents the existence of some, especially server-type programs.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a shame the CSP style of tackling parallel programming hasn't caught on more. The Bell Labs guys know how to do this, see their languages Alef and Limbo. Channels, message passing, etc. Also, a UK university used to have some nice slides about doing the same thing in Occam, including an O(1) "sort pump". They all inherit the concept from Hoare's CSP. Perhaps now some of them, rob, ken, etc., have moved to Google we'll see a resurgence with it.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is this idea that the current approach to parallel programming is wrong. When spawning a thread, there is instantly a huge space of possible paths for the program to go through. The coder then proceeds to prune off all paths that will lead to bad results, with the usual arsenal of mutex, semaphores, locks etc. etc. It's intellectually unbearable.

The alternative would be to explicitly specify which paths are allowable, rather than allow them all and then forbid which isn't.

I don't know how _that_ would work, I don't remember who said it. Still, it feels good.

</comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone read the section in Beautiful Code where one of haskell's designers talks about STM in haskell? I thought the code looked pretty neat. It is a very smooth serial semantic for parallel programming, and really fits the beautiful criteria.

Unfortunately, I've recently read that STM is turning out to have too much overhead in practical applications. Hope they figure it out.

<comment><USER3> I've read Simon Peyton Jones's Beautiful Code excerpt (<http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/node/1964> for those who need it), and it's very nice.

I would be interested in the "too much overhead" article -- can you track it down? I've been researching STM for a while and seen a lot of papers focused on performance and such, so I'd be surprised if whatever the article claims are the problems are not fixable in the long term.

(STM can be nearly reduced to "taking locks", especially if you are compiling, so it really shouldn't be worse than lock-based synchronization, and it's much easier to reason about.)

<comment><USER7> Here you go: [http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=show...](http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=558)

The issue is that STMs have a lot of book-keeping overhead in addition to the locking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not convinced. It looks a bit like spawning threads in Java, but doesn't seem to offer that much more.</comment>


Why College Is a Poor Choice for a Lot of People - <AUTHOR> http://levinotik.com/why-college-is-a-poor-choice-for-a-lot-of-people/ <comment><USER2> Most people don't know what they want to do with their lives at age 18, whether or not they think they do.

The strongest argument against college is an unmanageable amount of debt, which can haunt you for decades, and I have many friends who suffer from this.

The strongest argument for college is the connections you can make which will be with you for life. I know countless people who can trace their career opportunities back to people they met in college, whether or not they even graduated.

Both factors _can_ be overcome. You can pay off your debt diligently, or attend a school that is so cheap this is a non-issue. You can make connections other ways. But you will pay a price one way or another.

In my opinion those two things are the fundamental factors that determine whether or not going to college is a good idea, and should be the main considerations that help you decide whether or not to go. Every other aspect of this discussion seems like a giant red herring.

<comment><USER3> "people they met in college"

For those of us who went to school, think back on the people you hang out with... did you sit next to them in class or meet them in clubs / parties / internships? The people I met outside classrooms ended up being more important than the people I met inside classrooms.

There might be a pretty strong argument for skipping school and doing a 4-year internship, getting a job, or simply living in an apartment in the student area of a big school. I'm claiming that unless the school is in a horrifically high crime area, nobody checks for school IDs at the LISP club meeting or the guest speaker lecture or the frat party or the language conference or the local 2600 meeting or classroom lectures. When I moved to a new area for work I checked out the local schools, couldn't get a tour to fit my schedule, crashed a history lecture, just walked in one day and sat down, pretty awesome experience, so I signed up. This might sound too extroverted for some people but I assure you it was less terrifying than public speaking.

Also there's go to school full time vs my strategy of Saturday morning part time. I met just as many people, if not more, and taking one class at a time is pretty cheap compared to going "all in". Or you can audit either for free or nearly free.

<comment><USER4> You are right about that, but you also have to make a conscious decision to become more extroverted. This is a subject that takes effort and is really hard for some people.

When I was at that age wasn't even aware what I was missing out. College just pushed me into an environment without me having to put much effort into becoming more social.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Somewhat of an aside, but:

If you're a self-directed learner passionate about a subject _nothing about a classroom holds you back_. [1] It sets a minimum pace for acquiring new information, it sets a minimum domain of concepts and to some degree it will influence the order of the first few concepts you'll have to tackle, if you concede to only tackle the subject when the class begins.

I'm endlessly bemused by the repeated assertions of self-identified "passionate", "self-directed" learners that an organized class is some sort of jail cell from which their (self-identified) considerable curiosity and talents cannot break free.

If you are _actually_ passionate, if you are _actually_ self-directed, it may put a crimp in your process for about a week or two until you're so far ahead of the syllabus that keeping up with the topics as-covered in class is no more an obstacle than setting your learning aside to cook or do laundry.

Sure, it can still be an annoying distraction. But it's not a particularly notable one. It's certainly not a pen or a leash.

[1] Slower learners can certainly be harmed by classroom schedules. But one would expect the self-directed and passionate ones would have recognized their predicament long before they entered college and thus realized they need to tackle subjects _before_ they sign up for credit-hours.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, a classroom also gives you access to a very valuable resource: proximity to an expert in the field. Of course, this depends on what sort of school you attend but in my experience if you show dedication and passion in a subject, it is pretty easy to get to know a professor and open a lot of doors that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Try listing Kahn Academy or free open online classes/certificates on a resume.

The only reason I went to college was so I could be taken seriously and offered a job in my career. Before graduating I had 0 calls backs, after I started listing a completed degree I had many many call backs.

College may be a poor choice for some, but if you dont want to get stuck waiting tables or making coffee then its a sure bet with the right major.

<comment><USER8> I think you're probably right from the perspective of a prospective employee.

That being said, having these sorts of discussion may sway _employers_ to have a more open mind to non-traditional ways to become qualified for employment. And if that starts to happen, a B.S. or B.A. will stop being a litmus test and start being one path towards qualification for a job or a career.

This is actually a serious problem. If change in technology and the job market continues to accelerate (will there be long-haul truck drivers in 15 years?), we need to be able to retrain people without demanding four years of full-time education and massive student loans.

<comment><USER3> "we need to be able to retrain people without demanding four years of full- time education and massive student loans."

The destruction of the middle class is a different, although related, issue and note that its always downward class migration not upward. Very few lower class jobs require a degree, so no need for schooling when the jobs go away and the former employees permanently class migrate downward. A more realistic life skill would be learning how to be happy "making coffee" than getting a degree for a job that doesn't exist and never will again.

Cultural engineering to convince people that you're more than your job, or that you should work to live instead of live to work, will eliminate more revolutionary strife than any drone or spy program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Need to come up with a long term strategy for dealing with credentialism. One obvious example comes from the military a couple centuries ago, buy and sell military officer commissions. I think this could work. If the primary purpose of credentialism is stealth enforcement of demographics, making it starkly monetary instead of stealth monetary isn't going to offend those people.

Another interesting aspect is spending your late teens/early 20s in school was, centuries ago, kind of a day care for young adults old enough to get into trouble and young enough to be utterly unable to run the family business (being nobility, owning a factory, stuff like that). So you need a new day care for kids who aren't old enough to play in the big leagues but too old to sit around and get in trouble all day. I propose mandatory national service. There's always .mil or peace corps, other alternatives could be envisioned. Some kind of 1930s CCC organization, perhaps. Something has to be done... there's not enough jobs to employ 22-67 right now, so increasing working years to 18-70 in the future will just doom us. Maybe lowering retirement age would help, what with natural ageism anyway, working years from 18-59 might be the ticket. You can either lower the upper limit formally and cheaply, or informally via ageism and welfare expensively, so may as well minimize costs. Besides, old people vote, and dropping to 59 will probably sell pretty well, so from a practical political view this is required.

If anyone has a better anti-credentialism strategy than buying/selling degrees, or a better baby sitting idea than national service, please reply.

</comment><comment><USER9> > "There's no reason not to…" is not a positive argument for anything.

It not be a positive argument, but it does set a floor for considering alternatives. Whatever you do end up choosing to do with your post-high school years, if it's not college, has to beat what college offers you.

There's a lot to consider. Are you good at motivating yourself to do stuff? Can you think usefully at a high level? Can you chart your own course, using only resources that you, yourself can acquire and integrate, and get somewhere in the four years you'd be giving up by going to college?

Then there's there's this: Are the questions you're asking yourself regarding the decision going to remain relevant after the new reality sets in? Can you trust your 17-19 year old self to make decisions?

I chose not to go to school, and that decision threw me into a purgatory that lasted until the end of my twenties. I lost my goals and ambitions and had to find them later. Now I've found personal traction and am working on personal product-market fit.

I don't know how my life would have been different if I'd have gone to school. I like my life now but I can't use that to say that the college decision I made was good or bad. Maybe it would have been better. Maybe I'd have found the traction I enjoy now earlier had I gone to school. Maybe I would have never found it.

Maybe it's a wash. In that case, it would have been better to go to school, because at least I would have had better jobs and situations while sorting through all my personal stuff to find traction.

School is a good default decision to make in a world where there are very few good default decisions available to make. Think long and hard before you decide to not take advantage of that.

<comment><USER10> Shouldn't the previous decade of schooling before college taught you how to make education decisions?

<comment><USER9> No. The problem domain is more complicated than can be understood and modeled by an 18-year old.

<comment><USER11> I agree with this. Granted this is anecdotal evidence, but I recently graduated from college with a degree in computer science. In high school, I had no classes on computer science. I wouldn't even know where to start nor would I be able to model myself an educational framework to understand computer science as well as college taught me. Now even though high school taught me the framework required to learn a new skill, I just feel that my total unfamiliarity and lack of peers or educators would have made the task especially daunting.

<comment><USER9> I had the ability to pick up new skills myself when I was that age. I taught myself how to program at 10. I was making websites at 15-16. I didn't need school to teach me how to learn. But that's not all school offers. Without a degree, you either have to figure out how to demonstrate your worth as an employee to someone by yourself bypassing all the usual social signalling, or you have to figure out how to be an entrepreneur, again without the benefit of the institutions we already have that evolved to fix this very problem.

Evolution doesn't create perfect solutions to problems, college is by no means perfect, but they do create effective ones, whereas designed solutions often aren't effective because they didn't take into advantage some important premise or edge case. Take this into account when you design the path you're going to take through your early twenties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree with this from a CS perspective but I don't think the argument extends to other fields necessarily.

Part of what college gets you and a la cart self-learning doesn't as easily is the confidence that you know what you don't know. That is also why employers prefer a degree. It tells them you have a complete base of knowledge that was well thought out.

The reason this doesn't work in CS is because practice is so far ahead of the academy in most areas. In other fields, such as physics and history this is not the case.

</comment><comment><USER13> The article is written from the perspective of someone who has not enjoyed the benefits of a college education: The premise is that at ~17 years old (or any age), people know what to learn and how to learn it.

Good college educations require a diversity of classes so students can learn from and about the incredible diversity of _valuable_ ideas and knowledge. The belief that you already know what you want and can dismiss the rest is ignorant and arrogant (usually one follows the other). If you believe that, you most need a college education -- open-mindedness, an intellectual humility, and the desire to seek challenges to your ideas are hallmarks of the well-educated and are major benefit of good college educations; the more I learn the more humble I become! As Richard Feynman said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool."

College has requirements regarding what and how you learn because they know more about it than you do, and would be shortchanging you if they did otherwise. Does a good developer let clients design their own solutions or let them choose bad ones? The educators are experts in their fields and in education; they have experience with thousands (at large universities, even millions) of people getting educations, research on learning, and much more. What do you know about it? I'm not saying that their ideas are all correct, correct for you, or shouldn't be challenged, but it's foolish to discard them wholesale.

The DIY hacker myth is exciting -- people will do it all themselves -- it's the old American rugged individualism. People who follow it limit themselves to their own imaginations, rather than the combined imaginations of a university full of smart people (including fellow students). You can't even imagine what you don't know; if you are dismissing whole fields then you are not even looking.

College is not for everyone, but that's a meaningless truism used as an excuse. The more intellectually able and curious you are, the more an institution full of very smart highly-educated people, experts in their fields, willing to spend months teaching you, waiting for you to walk into their offices and ask them questions, should appeal to you.

</comment><comment><USER14> There's a good case to be made that learning job skills is not the main benefit of going to college: [http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/10/10/bryan- caplan/murray-n...](http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/10/10/bryan- caplan/murray-needs-model-how-about-mine)

</comment><comment><USER15> Well, naturally everything you learn in college is well-known and available very cheaply. The question is how are you going to know what there is out there? I was pretty set on Engineering, and I knew it had something to do with math and something to do with technology, but there's plenty of things that I hadn't seen until I started: Control Theory, Materials, etc.

It's also not easy to know which things are considered important, and which are considered marginal. What should a course in economics contain? If I were to look at the things I've read on the internet, it would be half Austrian Economics, and barely any micro.

There's also a cost issue. Let's start with time. When I look back, everything academic in college could have been squeezed into 2 years. (Three terms of 8 weeks for 4 years.) Now I wouldn't say I'd have a better idea of what to do at age 20 rather than age 22, but looking back I'd rather have the 2 years. I've found numerous ways to do the other stuff you do in college. It's much easier to socialize when you are making a bit of money. And much easier to get a good mix of people when you're not constrained to people roughly your own age, doing something very similar. (Of course you aren't forced to hang out with people at your institution. You just assume you should.)

Then there's money. When I went, the UK system was cheap. Now it's 9K GBP, which is a lot for many people. The US system is quite pricey. There are plenty of stories about people who owe $100K, which really ties your hands when it comes to what to do after. You can't even declare bankruptcy, so you'd better not take too big risks.

<comment><USER16> > which things are considered important, and which are considered marginal. > What should a course in economics contain?

Most online education sites have 'tracks' now - sort of packages of courses, so that you learn not just some particular skill, but the whole related area.

> There are plenty of stories about people who owe $100K

Recently, there was a thread on Reddit from a guy owning 1mil in student loans. 100k is not bad at all by today standards. Get ready for the bubble to blow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I want so badly to leave college.

It's very difficult to stomach the $20k it's costing my parents. I'm not having fun. I'm not making many connections. I'm not learning much in the classroom at all. I feel unchallenged, I feel bored, but the worst of it is I know I could be working harder somewhere else, and learning more in the process.

I should have had the foresight to know the interest I had in highschool for programming was not going to be shared by all of my classmates. I should have taken a year off and grown a bit. I should have tried to take a chance and get an apprenticeship for some startup and see where that took me first. But really, I (like many HN readers, I'm sure) come from a conservative upper middle class town. College for the most part WASN'T a decision. It was a step. And I wish I had the sense to realize that it didn't have to be.

I WANT to be working my ass off. I'm 20 years old. If I'm not working as hard as I can now, what will I really be able to produce at the age of 40? I have one youth. I look around at everyone and their pacifiying drug use. And truly, I was looking forward to partying coming into college, but I grew bored of it in a single semester. It wasn't any different than highschool, just drinking and smoking with kids I barely know and didn't really care for. Reminds me of the underlying feeling in the Great Gatsby; you can be lonely together at many of these parties. I want to be like Nick at the end of it, I want to damn it all to hell, and go move far away to focus on myself and my career.

I'm only in my third semester and I consider it a mistake. I can't imagine it getting much better, I've taken most all of my CS classes and now I'll just be taking random classes completely unrelated to my major to get a piece of paper. I'm discontent with the slow flow of learning that college creates. I feel constrained, and that bugs the hell out of me.

<comment><USER18> The first thing to realize is that the constraints you are feeling are mere social convention, and you don't have to follow most of them. Just because your peers are smoking up and chilling out doesn't mean that you have to do the same thing. It's your life, and your choices. Other people do play into it: you're still gonna want your friends and family to be happy with you, but you don't have to be the same as everyone else for them to be happy. They would probably be happier seeing you be your best self.

The second thing to realize is that there is no shortage of work to be done in this world, merely a shortage of money and motivation to aim towards that work. If you can't find something to aim towards, you aren't exposing yourself enough yet to the real problems that need solving. College can be good for that - wait for the moments in class when a prof says "and no one knows how this works yet" or "someday someone will figure out how to do this and make a million". Then go deep on that problem. You may not solve it, but you'll develop real skills like you want to.

Thirdly, work and school are not a mutually exclusive choice. Yes, your parents will be unhappy if they think you are failing out, and may put up resistance to the idea of a job interfering with your schooling. But it sounds like you are in need of more challenge, not less, and you should be able to spin an internship, job, or project as a good career move to your parents.

You do only have one youth. You should enjoy it. But good work can leave you with just as many good memories as partying it up. Don't be a slave, but don't be a zombie either. Find someone with a similar mindset and go do something cool.

BTW, I started my first startup when I was your age, while in college. My partner dropped out of school to work on it, but I stayed in while working. It was hard. My profs would get mad at me for getting Cs when they knew I was capable of As. But I learned so much more. The Cs didn't really affect my career. Finishing my degree did, and the learning definitely did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "this old-style, formal education that we find in college and graduate programs will become an increasingly niche endeavor reserved for the few for whom it makes sense for one reason or another."

Some academics have gotten this & are trying to change the system; Jose Bowen from Goucher College comes to mind -- [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/education/edlife/a-convers...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/education/edlife/a-conversation- with-gouchers-new-president.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> I did not go to college and I flunked 2nd and 3rd grade. My parents pulled me out of school and tried to teach me at home which had better success than the school system but not much. I dropped out of school at 15 and started working in kitchens washing dishes. A friend of mine worked in an IT department and he started teaching me computer network, hardware and things like that, because I kept asking him to. I fell in love with IT and taught myself over a dozen programming languages and have not had issues with finding a job. Sure I can't spell well, english sentence structure and all that is something I still can't figure out, but I don't let it hold me back. I am in the top 2% of income earners in the U.S. and for my age bracket better than that, I report to the CTO and have had a successful career so far.

My view is you need to find your gift in life and go with it. If it's your dream then you will have the fire and motivation that others will want, if you try to live someone else's dream you will be a miserable person and never at the top of your game or income potential.

The real issue is not college or not college, if you need college to live your dream then do it. Don't expect a college degree on it's own will bring you success and happiness.

</comment><comment><USER21> I fundamentally agree, but there are a few angles it omits:

\- Knowing what to learn. Being interested in something is great, but it usually means you learn a lot about a rather narrow field, rather than being exposed to the breadth of things. A college with its variety of courses and its availability of professors that have spent their entire life on a subject might help to provide a good overview as a preliminary step.

\- Humane disciplines What the article describes is very much applicable to technology and science subjects, but less so if you're going for an arts degree. There the academy plays a way more integral role and a lot of research happens for the sake of being published in scientific / academic publications.

\- Academic prestige / salary. This is probably more in favour of the article. Following up on the previous comment the role of the academy is very different in different fields of study. In liberal arts the academy is the central part of the system and a lot of people working in the field are researchers or otherwise contributing to it. Thus the prestige of teaching at the academy is high – and so is a professors salary when compared to what a lot of the other people in the field make. In technology however this is very different. There's a lot of money to be made in the field and the most prestigious places to work at are intelligent startups or ground breaking companies like Google. Being a professor in the same field yields comparatively lower rewards and – pardon the generalisation – comes with lesser prestige. Especially since even in classically academic fields like research and innovation the tech companies have long ago taken the lead.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is the choice I made (UK based) and 5 years later I can say I'm doing fine and have no regrets. But what does concern me is the way college[1] staff reacted to this decision, from warnings in one to one chats down to outright scaremongering that I was throwing my life away even though I had explained that I could not find a course that I felt would be of value or advance my knowledge in what I __WANTED __to do. This is the same situation my younger sister is currently facing, she would much rather pursue the apprenticeship route to gain practical experience (she is wanting to pursue events management) but her college keeps pushing her back to the university route offering little to no support for her choice and the provided tools for finding apprenticeships or opportunities are next to useless.

Thankfully my family has a history of self-employment so for us convincing family that it is the right path is not difficult, but with colleges acting as very persistent recruiters for universities this will be a very hard decision to make for a lot of people as the advisors parents listen to are saying it is not a viable option.

[1] For those unfamiliar with the UK system college is attended separately before university.

</comment><comment><USER23> The assumption that college is a four year commitment is absurd. AP classes mean you can get credit in high school, or the CLEP test allows adults to quickly get credit for classes. Community Colleges allow you to transfer credits. You can take extra classes, often at no extra cost.

It's only 4 years if you go in taking the absolute minimum amount of full-time credits to get the degree.

<comment><USER24> Very few people, % wise, finish in under 4 years. The average is much closer to 6 years ([http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/aug/11/r...](http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/aug/11/ron- johnson/average-college-degree-takes-six-years-us-sen-ron-/)). You may be in a bubble of extreme high achievers that makes it hard to see the reality of most people. And that's data from all tiers combined, not just low tier schools (does that mean non-ivy?).

<comment><USER23> But the article is about people who are high achievers.

<comment><USER25> There are two types of those: learners and thinkers. The latter have difficulty doing busy work at any speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> An associate at USVP asked me about my lack of degree. Me: "I'm following the Bill Gates model." He: "What, you have a Mother that is a Lawyer and you dropped out of Harvard?" I laughed. They put in a few million. This was a while ago; mileage may vary.

<comment><USER25> Good story! No one asks about my lack of degree. I don't have an education section on my resume. If they did ask, I'd ask in return how exactly it would matter to getting the work done. I'd expect silence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The point is many people go to college and end up at "Enterprise Rent A Car" or T-mobile Store. Is it even justifiable for a person to have take student loans and end up those kinds of jobs. There is true problem here, you do not need college if you are "learning for learning sake" and your college degree does not give bang for a buck if you are going to college to end up in a general job. There are exceptions. I agree with the author.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm glad this discussion is happening more and more. What I think it really comes down to is education doesn't automatically equal school.

</comment><comment><USER28> There aren't very many schools that make your resume stand out. If you aren't going to one of them (Harvard, MIT, etc.), then any cheap, accredited school will do. The degree on the resume gets you past the filtering process, and nobody cares that it is from a no-name school.

</comment><comment><USER29> Like the NBA, all college should be "one-and-done".

[https://medium.com/@timrpeterson/all-college-should-be- one-a...](https://medium.com/@timrpeterson/all-college-should-be-one-and-done- like-the-nba-690555668255)

<comment><USER30> You want one and done? Get an associates degree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> skipping college is probably controversial because you can't make a distinction between doing it because of laziness or because of passion. at the bottom of your heart you know which one it is.

the problem with doing something else is that you will, still, take yourself with you. if high school was crap, now college is crap - it's likely that other thing is going to be crap too.

why don't you do something on the side instead of "smoking and drinking" with people you don't care?

</comment><comment><USER32> You can ride around on a motorcycle without a helmet and wager no harm will come to you; it's a safer bet with a helmet.

<comment><USER25> In this case the analogy is: You can ride around on a motorcycle with a helmet that has a "certified" sticker, or no sticker. Same helmet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> site down, cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bbQiznH...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bbQiznHebDUJ:levinotik.com/why- college-is-a-poor-choice-for-a-lot-of- people/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

</comment><comment><USER34> If you want to get into the US, as a foreigner. A year of college is worth more than a year of work experience.

</comment><comment><USER35> I recently stopped going to college (a few months ago). I've been thinking about the decision for around two years now and it was the best decision I've ever made. I have never been as productive and generally happy as I have after leaving classes.

What I agree most with the article is that college is not the correct decision for those who already know what they want to do or have a specific goal in mind. Attending classes for me felt like a waste of time simply because they did not push me towards my goal. It felt like I was lying to myself every day by going to class just to let society know that "I am going to college, I am doing the right thing". Once I completely (and I mean 1000%) stop giving a s#!t about what anyone else thought or said (including my family), I found myself to be happier, more confident, more motivated, more everything.

Now, everyone still tries to convince me that I should go back. That I never know what the future holds. Honestly, most of my friends who go their degree have jobs that require little of what they actually learned. Not only are they getting paid borderline a minimum wage but they are being routined to death. I'd say 80% are not happy in their day to day which is crazy. I really feel like if things were to get bad, I am perfectly employable without a degree. My projects and experience have taught me 1000x more than I ever learned in a classroom. Actually, I can say that 90%+ of what I know is through my own reading, my own project, my own initiative, my own everything.

My conclusion on the whole debate of college is that if you know what you want, go out there and get it. Just like there is a cost opportunity of not going to college, there is also cost opportunity to GOING. Think about it deeply and do as your intuition dictates.

Notes:

\- I was majoring in business (marketing). I believe, at least in my case, this and many of the liberal arts majors are best learned by doing. If you really have a passion for it, grab some books and practice it. Whatever it may be. As for other studies like medicine, biology etc (the sciences) I've seen it is best to go and study it. My brother is doing medicine and I really don't see how it would be possible for him to not go to college and be able to do brain surgery.

\- I love this phrase from the article and to me it is an issue I feel strongly about. Times have changed, we should too.

"The idea of college education is deeply ingrained in our culture. People seem to go down the college route almost impulsively and the correctness of this path is, for most, unquestionable."

People who have accepted the fact that I dropped out, that see why the decision for me was correct, that are proud of the work and value I am producing, will still try to convince me to go back. I don't blame anyone for this, I think we were all brought up since babies to believe that college is the way to go. I just feel we need to question this belief a lot more. \- Great article!

<comment><USER36> Thanks for sharing this here. I'd love to hear your thoughts on my situation.

I started programming in freshman year (2006) of high school and fell in love with it. I've been coding since, but also started getting excited about startups. A year after graduating from high school, I started one with a couple of friends from college. It's the best decision I've made.. I have learned so much in a few years. I am convinced I wouldn't have learned as much by focusing in school.

I've been in school for about 4 years now getting a CS degree. I started taking less classes per semester last year because I was doing bad in them. I had a lack of interest and also spent a lot more time involved in the startup. That hasn't changed. I have 5 classes left to graduate, but my GPA needs to go up by a lot in order to do so.

There is a lot of pressure from my parents to finish school since I'm almost done, but I'm really struggling to do well in my classes since I'm just not into them. It really feels like I'm wasting my time.. getting stressed about my grades.. and I'm not sure what to do.

The obvious solution is to keep going and finish... but it's a constant battle every week to convince myself that this is the best path and to keep going.

<comment><USER35> The lack of interest kills, I've been there. College will always be there, opportunities won't. Take the semester off, you never know how much your life will change in a few months. Plus, if you have a good amount of projects under your belt, it's likely that you can find a job doing what you like and be able to pay your bills. Remember though, if you do, make a conscious decision to work your ass off. Not necessarily because this is now your 'job' but look at it as a purpose/mission. You must hit X by Y. Really puts the pressure on (the good kind).

More than anything though, ask yourself what you want to do. Analyse all the scenarios and where you would feel happiest. Do you really believe in your work? in your startup? Have your feet grounded and boom, chase your dream like it's do or die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> t

</comment><comment><USER38> The author's linkedin page : [https://www.linkedin.com/in/levinotik](https://www.linkedin.com/in/levinotik)

Education Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University

I wonder if he chose his field himself, or if his parents picked for him, and now he rolled into software development by himself, resenting his parents' choice.

Quick creative application of the legal principle called "Cui bono".

<comment><USER13> It's interesting how many people who advise against college are so well educated themselves. I've seen Michael Bloomberg and Rick Santorum discouraging college or playing down its value, but I bet their kids go to college and probably graduate school.

When people say 'college isn't for everyone', they mean it's for them but not for you. You can see this play out as college becomes more expensive and the province of the wealthy.

AFAIK, the U.S. used to lead in the number receiving college educations; we've stagnated and other countries have passed us. Consider which of those countries will attract more skilled jobs.

<comment><USER39> Isn't that sort of obsolete thinking? We don't have any skilled jobs for our current crop of college graduates. Why train more, just so they can drive busses?

<comment><USER13> > Isn't that sort of obsolete thinking? We don't have any skilled jobs for our > current crop of college graduates. Why train more, just so they can drive > busses?

A few thoughts on that argument:

Unemployment now is moderate and dropping, especially for college graduates. The lifetime income of college graduates is significantly higher than others.

Also, your argument (which I realize is widespread) look only at graduates' initial jobs. College education is not initial job training; it benefits people in many ways, as individuals, as citizens, as community members, as family members, and as workers; it benefits them over a lifetime. To evaluate it based only on one part of life (work), and only on a short period that also is the least significant (their first job) doesn't make sense.

Also, looking at careers: Note that most of the world is run by people with college educations. Future jobs will become more and more intellectually demanding. What is our message to 18 year olds: Abandon your dreams, just give up and drive a bus? From people like Santorum, the message is: Your kids should give up and drive a bus while mine go to college.

<comment><USER39> How many people 'dream' of spending 4 more years studying abstract/obtuse subjects? You can do lots of things; most things in fact, without studying art history.

The money angle is probably valid; the 'dreams' angle is just the opposite of that - folks like to make cabinets, or trek mountains, or write. They don't really want to study math to become an actuarial.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Engine yard rails in the cloud - <AUTHOR>

anybody used rails in the cloud?  thinking of using it for an app that will be small, may have spikes from twitter traffic.
opinions about engine yard rails in cloud vs other systems?
much appreciated.     J <comment><USER2> EY's cloud services are great. I'm using it for Boxcar (<http://boxcar.io>) with a decent amount of traffic. The ease of adding additional instances make it an excellent service. Should you need it, their support guys are sharp.

If you're by chance already familiar with their filesystem layout, you'll feel right at home. If not, no worries - it's not hard to figure out where things persist at. You can write your own custom chef recipes if you have any requirements outside of the standard "here's the list of gems and *nix packages I need installed."

I've used Heroku in the past for "toy" projects, since it's just so damn easy to get something online. It's just lacking, though once you end up doing anything outside of the norm.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've only used it for a toy app, but <http://heroku.com/> (a Y Combinator company) is by far the easiest way I've seen to deploy an automatically- scaling Rails app.</comment>


Why we decided to expose all of our failures to 400k listeners - <AUTHOR> http://advice.datingring.com/posts/why-we-chose-to-bare-all-to-startup

<comment><USER2> Is the 500 error I'm getting some kind of meta humor?</comment>


Scaling Memory-Augmented Neural Networks with Sparse Reads and Writes - <AUTHOR> http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1610.09027 <comment><USER2> Sparse Access Memory is like a differentiable hash table. I'm wondering how many new differentiable data structures could be invented in order to augment deep neural nets?</comment>