Candy Crush Monetization and Virality - <AUTHOR> http://papers.traustikristjansson.info/?p=223

<comment><USER2> I don't understand the popularity of Candy Crush. It's just a less complex variant of Bejeweled style games. Mobile gaming is littered with them. I played for the better part of an hour before hitting the eject button, but plenty of people in the gaming press are enamoured with and addicted to it.

Hell, I even understood the popularity of Rovio's Artillary-like far more than this.

It just goes to show that you don't need a good idea to be successful. Just throw enough dumb ideas to the wind and, eventually, something will sail.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that the game itself is not really better than bejeweled or other similar games. It's the manipulative social strategies that they use to get people hooked and get people to spread the game to their friends that differentiates it from previous games. You can't argue with their success!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you show the webpage source you'll see hidden divs that contains Viagra links and other things ...

There are two possibilities:

1\. OP website was hacked and he has no idea.

2\. This page was purposely build with these SEO "enhancements" and the OP knows.

I would love to hear an explanation from the OP about this :).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I am the owner of the website. I must have been hacked it here are spammy links! How do I get rid of them?

<comment><USER3> It usually depends in what CMS your website is written (like WordPress, Drupal etc ...). You could also ask your web hosting provider if they can help you with cleaning up your website.

Personally, I use a static website generator and I've never had any security problem. I can't give you any particular advice about how you can clean up your website, you could post a question on StackOverflow or do some Google searches once you know in what CMS your website is written.

(From your page source code it seems that you are using WordPress, do some research about cleaning up an infected WordPress site. The first thing that comes to mind is to always keep your WordPress updated to the latest version ... this, however, won't help you now.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I think it is ok for now.

I found and removed the spammy links, and it passes [http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/website-safety- reports/domain/t...](http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/website-safety- reports/domain/traustikristjansson.info) and it came out clean after I removed those Viagara links in header.php.

I also upgraded to the newest version of wordpress and changed passwords. The hackers might have left a back door, so I will need to reinstall everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You missed an important viral driver. You can't play beyond level X without friend recommendations or paying for the privilege.

That feature annoyed the hell out of me but its certainly been beneficial for the popularity of the game. I stopped playing it at that point

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, cool. Thanks for that pointer. I did not play that far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know if it's on purpose, but there're a lot of spammy links in that page. I wouldn't visit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out! I found the spammy links in my wordpress header.php file and removed them. I don't know how they got there.

<comment><USER5> Works OK for me now. All in all, good post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found the spammy links in my header.php wordpress file and removed them. Apologies! I must have been hacked.

<comment><USER6> Is your wordpress installation up to date?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is now...

<comment><USER6> You might find this worth looking at if you're not already aware. Good luck. You'll probably need it.

[http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp- config.php#Disable_the...](http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp- config.php#Disable_the_Plugin_and_Theme_Editor)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> FYI, that page is being blocked by AVG Antivirus. It's detecting a "Blackhat SEO" threat.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I just saw "Exploit Blackhat SEO (type 1720)" by AVG and the browser refused to show anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I just scanned it with:

[http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/website-safety- reports/domain/t...](http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/website-safety- reports/domain/traustikristjansson.info)

and it came out clean after I removed those Viagara links. However, I'll go through and harden my wordpress setup.</comment></comment></comment>


Startup Investor School - <AUTHOR> https://investor.startupschool.org <comment><AUTHOR> I was notified about investor school from y-combinator's channel on youtube and ended up binge watching.

As somebody who has been trying to break into angel investing, I found the startup investor school invaluable. It was great to learn from some of the top names in the field, and I hope to be at the next investor school.

<comment><USER2> It was great, but I did notice was the lack of diversity. Three female instructors (Kirsty Nathoo, Carolynn Levy, and Andrea Zurek) vs. 12 male investors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> It was also livestreaming on youtube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b7EoQTRU88](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b7EoQTRU88)</comment>


Marketing By Teaching and Sharing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sokanu.com/marketing-by-teaching-and-sharing

<comment><USER2> _The best chefs always leave something out of the recipe they teach_ (is this true?) - but they are still teaching valuable cooking skills, just not their signature dishes.

When my business was starting out, I read that the best way to get a high ranking on Google was to provide something valuable. So I published the results of my research (in my area), competing products and so on, and tried to explain the field and the issues, as I best understood them. Not with the attitude of promoting my product, but of promoting the field (I happen to really enjoy teaching and explaining, so this was a happy coincidence). I got massive pagerank from this, in that I always beat institutions and world famous brand-names that happened to have the same acronym as my product (unbeknownst to me).

tl;dr _teaching is SEO_

I once asked a law professor who specialized in IP law, wrote the standard IP textbook etc (in Australia, a "professor" is the top academic position, not just a teacher), about the best way to protect ones copyright in something (I was thinking maybe: get it certified, post it to yourself, register it somewhere etc). He said to publish it as widely as possible, so everyone knows it was yours.

What I gained from this video is that people will _like_ you for teaching them. They would have formed a sort of emotional connection with my business/me because of that - which explains the good reactions I got. This makes sense, because when someone teaches me something valuable, I tend to want to have a talisman or token of them, to capture their mentoring of me. A _mentor_ is a powerful concept, that taps into our notions of parent-child, doctor-patient, teacher-student, god-man. In movies and books, they are prominent; audiences really like them.

tl;dr _mentors are loved_

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if there were any times when the site was down. I was updating the theme while this was posted. Thanks!</comment>


New randomised study shows hydroxychloroquine works when administered early - <AUTHOR> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.22.20040758v2 <comment><USER2> dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22729949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22729949)

(same study with some minor updates)</comment>


Transit of Venus June 5th, 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://venustransit.nasa.gov/2012/transit/ Related article: Hubble to use moon as mirror to see Venus transit http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3936071 <comment><AUTHOR> Related HN article is "Hubble to use moon as mirror to see Venus transit." URL is <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3936071></comment>


Ask HN: Is GoDaddy violating ACPA with new .family TLD? - <AUTHOR> A new TLD .family became available today.  I went and checked for my name on various domains, and the only one that showed it available was GoDaddy, at the price of $1299/year - they mark it as a "Premium domain."
On 1and1 they displayed a 'legal reasons' message.  When I called their support, the sales rep said a "big conglomerate" bought the domain.
I believe GoDaddy bought the domain (and probably others) during the pre-release period and is now selling it at their own "Premium" price.
Considering this domain is targeted at last names and family names (it could be used for whatever, but I think its intended purpose is apparent), I'm wondering if this violates the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act [1]
Specifically it mentions: > In determining whether the domain name registrant has a bad faith intent to profit, a court may consider many factors, including nine that are outlined in the statute: > 6. Registrant's offer to transfer, sell, or otherwise assign the domain name to the mark owner or a third party for financial gain, without having used the mark in a legitimate site; > 9. Extent to which the mark in the domain is distinctive or famous.
Not to mention that GoDaddy could easily query their own userbase and find the most common last names in an attempt to profit.
Anyway, I'm not trying to whine as much as I am genuinely curious about the legality around this, as this domain in particular introduces its own grey area.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act <comment><USER2> I wouldn't be surprised. I used Godaddy once to search for possible domain names. I found maybe 10 or so good ones, and then took some time to think about which one to choose. A couple days later I went to register the one I wanted, only to find that Godaddy had "helpfully pre-registered" it for me (their words on the landing page they parked on the domain) and they would now sell it to me for 3x the price (you know, for the convenience). I looked up the other domains I had searched, and wouldn't you know they were also "pre- registered".

<comment><USER3> Want to know the most annoying thing? They can do that for free. Doesn't cost them a cent, so there is no reason NOT to. See [0] [1].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running)

<comment><USER4> It's not free anymore for gTLDs. There's a fee for abusing the Add Grace Period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> y-satellite It's not GoDaddy. My SO tried to register our family name earlier (after pre- registering for it, even!) and got a similar price.

Querying the WHOIS server for the domain says the following:

"This premium domain is available for purchase. If you would like to make an offer, please contact email@example.com."

Rightside.co is the owner of the TLD. It looks like they've set aside a bunch of common family names so they can charge "premium" prices for them. So helpful of them!

</comment><comment><USER5> No. The term "mark" in that legislation specifically means a _registered trademark_. Unless you are one of the few strange people who has trademarked their own name, you have no grounds for action here.

</comment><comment><USER6> Some domains for .family TLD may be Premium because the registry operator (not GoDaddy) set them as premium. Like cars.family. Some registrars do not offer premium domains at all (only regular domains). Have you search for the domain in [https://www.hexonet.net/](https://www.hexonet.net/) ?

As somebody mentioned, "domain tasting" is not possible anymore.

There is always the chance that some person (not GoDaddy) registered the domain as an investment and try to resell it at a later time: as long as this domain does not infringe on a Trademark, this activity is completely legal (a person that does that is called a domainer).</comment>


Git Koans (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://stevelosh.com/blog/2013/04/git-koans/ <comment><USER2> Amusing and depressing, awesome stuff.

Git's rise to become the de facto standard revision control system has been fascinating to watch.

I think it does provided real benefit over Subversion, but there are also smaller projects where the gain is marginal.

The tooling around (in particular GitHub) and perception that git is the "right" way to do things probably helped it achieve prominence. As well as early adoption by a few high profile projects.

<comment><USER3> It's well designed in the open source philosophy. It's designed for people who are spread all over the world, working together but in seperate, isolated repositories. There probably well are quite a few use cases where Git is not the best suited tool for the task. I don't doubt there are several situations where a team's workflow can be improved and sped up by everyone using SVN, especially if everyone works together and in the same building for the most part.

That being said, most complaints about Git are of its difficulty for newcomers, non straightforward workflow, and lack of clear, concise documentation. Once the concept is reasonably grok'ed, one would likely be hard pressed to find a developer who prefers a centralized system such as SVN over Git.

<comment><USER4> It's well designed in terms of the underlying concepts and functionality, which are (mostly) brilliant. Its user interface is a landfill fire.

<comment><USER5> > Its user interface is a landfill fire.

Are we talking about the same Git? Its command line interface is quite straight forward and very simple to use to perform the usual everyday tasks.

Can you actually point out a single example of what you perceive as a "landfill fire"?

<comment><USER6> Can you give a succinct definition of what `git add` and `git checkout` do without relying on documentation?

<comment><USER5> Is it that hard to understand that `git add` adds files to the list of files tracked by the repository (which is updated when changes are committed to it) and `git checkout` checks out a version that has been previously committed?

I mean, that's pretty much how __all __version control systems operate. Is it that hard to wrap anyone 's head around the basic functionality that is common to any version control system in use?

<comment><USER4> No, it's not that hard to understand. It's also not how Git actually works. You're ignoring, or perhaps forgetting, the concepts of the index ("staging area"), and the many and various things which both these commands actually do, _and_ the fashions in which these sorts of "oh, it's simple, really!" elisions betray those not yet experienced enough to recognize them for the overextended abstractions they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Either I don't get most of the koans or they are intended to disparage git's UX instead of truly enlighten. Is the joke just going over my head or am I not thinking hard enough?

<comment><USER8> A Koan is "a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment"

I think that kinda implicitly means the author considers git to be either paradoxical or illogical. That seems even more clear from the last two paragraphs of "The Hobgoblin".

<comment><USER9> I didn't read the hobgoblin the same way as the author being purely critical. I read it as a defense: a similarity between commands would make it easier to choose the wrong one. Removing a branch is a more destructive than deleting a file, so it should be a command chosen with conscious care rather than muscle memory.

<comment><USER10> That's the absolute opposite conclusion from what the author intended.

<comment><USER11> Are you the author? Or, if not, did the author specify their intended conclusions in additional material somewhere?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This has been discussed on Hacker News before: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5511863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5511863)

</comment><comment><USER13> I was expecting an interactive koan like [http://rubykoans.com/](http://rubykoans.com/)

It's my favorite way to learn the syntax for a new language.

Also, should the checkout one be enlightening? I never thought about it, despite using git every day, but overloading git checkout like that seems like it should be confusing.

<comment><USER14> I think the point is that these things should not require enlightenment, but do. They ARE confusing. These are the kinds of examples that people have in mind when every git thread devolves to an argument over whether it's a good tool, power vs UX, because apparently that's a tradeoff you have to make.

<comment><USER4> Mercurial's UX is miles better, and to the best of my understanding, its guts are conceptually very similar. It's slow on larger repos and histories, but other than that, I don't see why it doesn't get more love.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For those wondering for the first, from the help:

> To avoid confusion and troubles with script usage, aliases that hide > existing Git commands are ignored.

</comment><comment><USER16> Approaches like these seem packed with mnemonic benefits. As I read, I kept thinking about how I would try to assemble something like this about git, and the result is a really sort of intriguing learning experience.

(any other good examples of things like this?)

</comment><comment><USER17> "How can I find out which branch each parent was originally made on" \-- ouch. Ive dreamed of automatically tacking on branch names to commit messages to solve this very issue.

<comment><USER18> As long as the branch hasn't been deleted, it's possible to figure out based on the commits, correct? (Not exactly easy, but possible.)

And if the branch has been deleted, which typically happens after merging, then there's not much reason to know the branch name.

Is there something I'm missing here?

<comment><USER19> > then there's not much reason to know the branch name

Most likely the branch names give you a good deal of information in working out why things have happened.

<comment><USER20> That information should be in the merge commit message. If you merge something git will offer you a default commit message like "Merge branch 'foo'".

(assuming a non-fast-forward commit, where the branch is not really a branch because nothing happens in parallel)

<comment><USER21> So can I ask git to show me the merge commit that relates to the commit I'm looking at?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> To add a bit more context: I think that the author came to use git /after/ they learned mercurial. For a long time mercurial's history was completely immutable, and hg's branches are very different from git ones (the mercurial equivalent of git branches is called bookmarks).

</comment><comment><USER23> On the hobgoblin one it makes fun of how deleting a branch vs a remote use inconsistent syntax.

I would add a third example, deleting a remote branch, which (at least as of 2013) is

        git push <remote name> :<branch name>

Neither `-d` nor `rm`!

<comment><USER24> That hasn't been true since 2010-02-13, when Git v1.7.0 was released.

[https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/RelNote...](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/RelNotes/1.7.0.txt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> there is ClojureScript Koans if you want to learn tiny bits of FP. I held a meetup event once everyone really liked it. Since we were all learning JavaScript already

[http://clojurescriptkoans.com/](http://clojurescriptkoans.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I love koans and I think it is the best way to learn.

</comment><comment><USER27> To be honest, this is the first criticism of Git I've read that I can see making concrete, coherent, _actionable_ points. And I actually agree with some of them.

Most other complaints about git I've seen seem to be of the vague 'but git is sooooo confusing' sort, which just invites people to talk past each other.</comment>


Intel Driver and Support Assistant Will Reset UEFI Settings - <AUTHOR> I've recently installed Windows 10 in my laptop where I already had Linux installed.
After restoring the boot order and booting Windows I installed Intel Driver & Support Assistant to check for outdated drivers, it found one for the integrated graphics card and after installing it I could no longer boot Linux.
To my surprise it had enabled Secure Boot and deleted the Linux EFI entry without asking.
Do you think this is acceptable? <comment><USER2> No, but we've entered an era where it's normal for users to have little/no control over their own machines.

<comment> non-entity That's really sad imo. I wonder how feasible it is to port open source firmware platforms to new boards. Would be a very fascinating task, but also very difficult as I imagine most hardware is undocumented, at least to the general populace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> that's why i didnt use windows 10, i stickly stay on windows 7 and waiting to end of services to move into a linux, not only about the control rule also about the update which is mostly nowadays is make my pc run slower than before</comment>


Uploadd: A minimal upload server powered by Rainbows (includes Rails plugin) - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/capotej/uploadd

<comment><USER2> what is uploadd? how does it work, what problem does it solve and how is it different?

Was facing timeouts and general slowness, in file upload in my app and found uploadd. Although i am still debugging and it i am sure it is a network issue.</comment>


Wait, So 20 Phones On 4 Carriers Outsold 1 Phone On 1 Carrier? Shocking. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/02/iphone-android-sales/

<comment><USER2> Why do people always feel the need to point out that Android is supported by multiple manufacturers whenever the issue of Android vs. iPhone market share is mentioned, as though they think they've just dropped a bomb on the conversation? Is this just some bizarre way of standing up for Apple's honor?

> But comparing iPhone sales to Android sales is comparing an apple to a > bushel of oranges.

No it isn't. The real story is mobile OS market share trends, and how that relates to third-party application development. From that perspective the underlying hardware manufacturers and cellular carriers are largely irrelevant.

However, this particular report doesn't take into account the iPhone 4 sales numbers, so take it with a grain of salt...

<comment><USER3> It's also a re-run -- this article only highlights exactly what lead the mac into almost 15 years of marginal market share and an ad campaign based on poor grammar. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hilariously, I called this 2 years ago in response to a TechCrunch article that said Android would fail.

<http://mattmaroon.com/2008/08/18/android-ftw/>

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the more important point here is that mobile app developers are going to want to get the most bang for their buck. If there are more Android phones out there than iPhones, then the decision between preferred platforms swings in favor of Android (disregarding questions of target-market, demographics, ease of development, etc.). It doesn't matter if the OS is on 1 phone or 20 (ok, well sort of; it does make it more difficult to program for Android when you have to account for multiple screen sizes and hardware capabilities).

<comment><USER6> I think what matters most to developers is the number of customers who are buying apps, and how much they are willing to spend. Right now, the ratio free/paid apps in the Android Marketplace is a lot higher than in the App Store. There is one way to pay for paid apps in the Marketplace, and that's through the tedious Google Checkout. Quite a contrast with the iTunes Store, which already has 100 million credit cards on file.

Even when there are more Android devices than there are iOS devices (which will take a little while, there are 100 million iDevices out there), I doubt Android will be more profitable for developers than iOS (not even counting the inroads Apple is making with iAds). I think Android will have to outnumber iDevices by a factor 2 or 3 before that happens.

<comment><USER7> Someone who gets it.

On top of all that, Google are only allowing a few countries to even sell apps on the store, no Australia yet. And despite all the calls for it to get started, we have not heard any word on when this will happen.

I think that with the average person getting into Android devices, they are going to start to buy more and more apps, but we have not heard for google once again on how well the marketplace is doing, and how much it has changed.

Until those two things change, I will stick with Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Android is enjoying the same pent up demand for a modern SmartPhone that the iPhone enjoyed for a couple of years. If you use Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon and want a phone with a good third party app library and a modern web browser you don't really have any choices. It's Android or nothing. I suspect things will continue to be volatile. WM7, BBOS6, new HP/Palm hardware, MeeGo, etc is going to shake things up. Eventually the iPhone will be on other carriers in the US. In 2 or 3 years things could look completely different.

</comment><comment><USER9> What I find interesting is the Samsung Galaxy S. Despite Android being a "free" OS, which would supposedly enjoy a price advantage over the other OS players (Symbian, Windows Mobile, etc), Android phones continue to be sold at the same price-point (in the US) as the iPhone ($199).

But now, the Samsung Galaxy S is being sold at discount pricing. It can be found for $99 (with contract), and even cheaper.

Over the long term, it will be interesting to see whether Android can support the margins that device manufacturers need, or if competition among Android device manufacturers will drive margins to near zero in a game of volume. I wonder if the Samsung Galaxy S is the first example in a long term trend in discounting with Android devices. So far, that does not seem to be the case, as buzz for the Samsung "feels" mild, while carrier supported devices (Droid, etc) are doing well.

Its certainly more complicated given the third player (carriers), and how they subsidize device purchases, but if manufacturer margins do drop because of significant competition, Apple may be one of the few device manufacturers to thrive in this market.

</comment><comment><USER10> _That is, until Apple gets on another carrier in the U.S. We all know it's going to happen, it's just a question of when. Will it be early next year? Next Summer?_

Next winter? Next solar eclipse? Next ice age? Seriously, did anybody who saw this headline not know it was authored by Siegler?

<comment><USER6> In contrast to the always fair and balanced Michael Arrington, you mean?

In most countries where the iPhone is sold, Apple already has contracts with multiple carriers. Ofcourse, in most countries all carriers use GSM. Until LTE is widespread in the US, Apple's only choice to offer iPhones on other networks is to make one that has a CDMA radio. They may do so, or they could wait it out for a year or two.

<comment><USER10> Except I wasn't talking about other countries, I was talking about the U.S. Nothing you say here invalidates my point. "They may do so" you say. _That_ was my point. We're still waiting for Apple to do something on another carrier. In the U.S.

<comment><USER6> I didn't set out to invalidate your post, just to offer an explanation as to why, in the US, the iPhone isn't offered on any other network but AT&T, and what would need to happen for that to change.

It sounded as if you're not convinced that the iPhone will _ever_ be available on any network other than AT&T. Given that Verizon is by far the largest carrier in the US, I can't imagine Apple not wanting a piece of that action. But fact remains, Verizon is still on CDMA, and that tech has had its best days.

As Steve Jobs said at D8:

 _"Apple is a company that has succeeded by choosing which horses to ride technically, that have a future, that are headed up. Different pieces of technology kind of go in cycles. They have their springs and summers and autumns and then go to their graveyard of technology. We try to pick things that are in their springs."_

[http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/06/01/d8-steve...](http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/06/01/d8-steve- jobs-live/)

<comment><USER3> At least Apple is consistent about choosing bad horses, eh? (G4, G5, AT&T)...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article completely misses the point.

>The real interesting data would be if any single Android phone is outselling the iPhone.

This isn't a handset war, it's a platform war. So, yes, Android outselling iPhone is meaningful, even if Android is available on more carriers and have more handsets. If that's the way to get the bigger user base, then Apple has a suboptimal market strategy.

</comment><comment><USER12> Shocking is the fact that darling, must have, hype phone from 1 (really crappy) carrier is no longer outselling every smartphone under the sun.

That it's no longer "obvious" that if you build just for iPhone you've reached 90% of the market.

That if you're serious about having a mobile pressense, you have to build, maintain, support etc. two rather different platforms.

</comment><comment><USER13> That's the point of open source. Take what in the hands of a single company would be a monoculture and turn it into a vibrant market with lots of choice.

Yes, of course it wins. It's a better development model.

<comment><USER14> Didn't work for Desktop Linux. Many fans of Linux on the desktop would tell you its better than Windows yet it didn't come close to " winning"

Same here. Android owes its success to licensing far more than it does to being Open Source

<comment><USER15> "didn't"? More like "hasn't yet"---and while I don't necessarily predict that desktop Linux will "win", whatever that might mean, it continues to gain market share.

<comment><USER16> "hasn't yet" is the same thing people have said for the last decade.

<comment><USER15> While this is perfectly true, Linux is A) not dead and B) gaining market share, so it is simply disingenuous to claim that it has lost or that it definitively didn't "win". To the extent that it's even meaningful to refer to "winners" and "losers", the game's still on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find it interesting that despite all the buzz about Android surpassing iPhone in sales, the users of the iPhone is still much more loyal than the Android users. A considerably higher percentage of Android users were considering moving to iPhone or another platform, than were iPhone users.

<comment><USER18> This means that while android has explosive growth, apple can sell it's new phones to it's existing customers, which is OK, but let's look at RIM and where they are heading.

<comment><USER6> Customer loyalty is nice ofcourse, and Apple scores well in that department. Of the iPhone owners who were asked, an extraordinary _89%_ indicated they'd buy another iPhone.

What's more telling is that 29% of the Android phone owners said they did _not_ want another Android phone, and 72% of those people said their next phone would be an iPhone.

As for Blackberry, it's all downhill for RIM from here on out. Of all Blackberry owners, only 42% answered that they'd buy another Blackberry, and 69% of those who wanted to switch would choose an iPhone.

[http://gigaom.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/smartphone- switch....](http://gigaom.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/smartphone-switch.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The relevant issue in this article is that this will definitely alter the mindshare aspect of the platforms.

<comment><USER6> I doubt it. We're talking about trend info from a market research firm that estimates that in _one quarter_ , the one preceding the launch of a widely publicized new iPhone model, more customers opted for Android handsets.

And even if next quarter Android handset sales continue to be higher than iPhone sales, iOS' installed base will still be higher than Android's, with all the iPod touches and iPads out there. That's not to say that Android devices won't ever outnumber iOS devices -- that day simply isn't here yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The question that comes to mind after reading the article is "Who cares?"

Nowadays - in my humble opinion - people purchase phones to satisfy a need inclusive of the basic phone call one. Some users think that the X phone is cool or easier to use than the other one. If say the iPhone is cooler than an Android based one, then no article from Techcrunch is going to convince the user to purchase one over the other.

Let's not forget that the people that do not follow stats and capabilities and specifications and purchase a phone because it is cool are not going to read Techcrunch therefore the article brings the "Who cares" question in my mind.

Concluding, don't we have better things to discuss than oh how the mighty iPhone has been surpassed by the even mightier Android one?

<comment><USER7> Who cares?

Well, as an application developer I care.

As someone who runs a mobile company, do I need to start looking at android, and even other OS?

<comment><USER21> why? if you are an application developer you should care about market statistics not what bloggers think of the phones.</comment></comment></comment>


Does basic income solve anything? Grasp the arguments for and against - <AUTHOR> https://www.sitra.fi/en/articles/basic-income-solution-challenges-social-security-labour-market-learn-arguments-topical-hotly-debated-subject/ <comment><USER2> Why is it that discussions of basic income so often ignore the effect of society-wide subsidy on market prices?

It's well documented that prices for a good increase when that good is subsidized. Healthcare is a perfect example.

So what of the effect on economy wide prices when a general income subsidy is introduced?

If UBI is simply a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, we have far too many poor and too few rich for the redistribution to have any significant impact on the lives of the poor. Taxing the rich and gifting the proceeds to the poor will not have a significant impact on their incomes in a nation like the United States.

So that method won't accomplish the goals of UBI in the first place, ignoring the inevitable inflation that would come with such a plan.

On the other hand if UBI is just printed money, then once again we're left with general inflation that would negate any positive impact of the UBI.</comment>


Facebook destroys billions of dollars of shareholder value – Part 2 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@daxaxelrod/facebook-destroys-billions-of-dollars-of-shareholder-value-with-their-open-source-projects-part-10947d5e8f1a <comment><USER2> This is an interesting way to burn absolutely any credibility you have forever.

<comment><USER3> Maybe if you took the first article as being serious. It sounded like satire to me and given this follow up, I assume it is.</comment></comment>


To-do app: Last day to get Thought Train for free - <AUTHOR> https://www.thoughttrain.cc/thought-train-is-now-free-until-the-end-of-april/ <comment><AUTHOR> It sure has been a crazy passed few weeks all around the world. With social distancing, lock downs, closed schools and everything else going on, staying productive has been more difficult than ever.

With that said, to help productivity, I've decided to make Thought Train pay- what-you-want until the end of April.

My own primary use for Thought Train in the last month has been to take notes while on Zoom, Skype or Hangout calls, so I thought that since almost everyone is going to be working from home, I want you to have the same option to streamline your workflow.

Thought Train is a small app with a small audience of loyal users, so it's really the best I can do in this climate to help in a small way.

</comment><comment><USER2> Really love using this app. I purchased it before it was free and would recommend getting whilst it still is!

</comment><comment><USER3> dig it! thanks so much</comment>


California regulator seeks to shut down 'learn to code' bootcamps - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/29/california-regulator-seeks-to-shut-down-learn-to-code-bootcamps/ <comment><USER2> Reading the headline I was like WTF that sounds like government run a muck. Then I got to this part...

"The programs typically last 10 to 12 weeks. Potential recruits are often told that they have a shot at a job or internship at a competitive tech company like Facebook or Google. Tuition costs vary widely. At Hackbright Academy, it's $15,000 for a 10 week program. Full scholarships are available, and students who land a job at a company in the Hackbright network can request a partial refund. At Hack Reactor, where tuition costs over $17,000, 99 percent of students are offered a job at companies like Adobe and Google. The average salary is over six figures, Phillips told me."

To sum up these companies are charging a lot of money (more than college tuition) while at the same time advertising extraordinary results "99% job placement" with the likes of Google and Adobe. I'm guessing that some of them are making false advertising claims with respect to the chances of landing a job and that is why there is scrutiny here. There was a similar case with cooking schools not long ago also in CA[0] After reading that paragraph I'm a lot more skeptical of these companies.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/06/culinary-school- gra...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/06/culinary-school-grads-ripped- off_n_950107.html)

<comment><USER3> Man, I have to say that as someone who has interviewed students from these classes, I would bet a lot of money that 99% of these students aren't being hired. It made me really uncomfortable thinking about how many people in the room had just spent 15k to hack around with some people in an almost "engineering fantasy camp" type environment. I'm all for this law honestly.

<comment><USER4> I participated in App Academy. The program had strengths and weaknesses, but to their credit, they culled the class at the halfway point, and gave folks who had no chance of getting hired within a reasonable timeframe a full refund of their deposit.

There was some bait-and-switch with regard to their "free unless/until you get a job" pitch. I think the competition for students in the space is increasing pressure, and oversight is probably a necessary thing.

In my opinion, students who went on to A-list companies probably could have gotten a job without the bootcamp. But the offer is still compelling if you get a couple months of intense introduction to an in-demand framework, and don't pay anything out-of-pocket (App Academy collects when you get hired).

<comment><USER5> I also participated in App Academy, and there was no culling. The students went on to successfully find well-paying jobs in the tech industry.

<comment><USER3> I find the second sentence to be as ambiguous as possible.

<comment><USER5> > 95% of our graduates have offers or are working in tech jobs now at an > average salary of $91,000.

[http://www.appacademy.io/](http://www.appacademy.io/)

<comment><USER6> that could even be true, but some for-profit schools are notorious for manipulating statistics like that in a variety of ways. Hiring people themselves, paying other outfits to hire them temporarily, offers of terrible jobs nobody would take, and flat-out lying.

That's not to say it's happening here, of course. I'm sure some of these programs are great. But it's something people should consider when looking at any program like this, especially unregulated ones.

<comment><USER5> > that could even be true, but some for-profit schools are notorious for > manipulating statistics like that in a variety of ways.

The people from my cohort are not just statistics to me. I know them personally, and all I can say is that they are very satisfied with how things have turned out.

Also note that with App Academy, the tuition is a percentage of your first year's salary. So the company is incentivized to ensure that students get a job (and the highest paying one they can), because otherwise they don't get paid.

<comment><USER6> No offense intended; I'm glad you and your friends had a good experience. My concern is about the market in general.

I like App Academy's percentage-based approach. That's definitely putting their money where their mouth is. I think the only thing undemonstrated for me is how much difference their program makes. It'd be interesting to take their pre App-Academy resumes and put them in the hands of a good recruiter.

<comment><USER5> > I think the only thing undemonstrated for me is how much difference their > program makes.

It can be difficult for people who have not experienced it to understand the sort of progress you can make in such a short period of time. I obviously can't speak as to the other hiring bootcamps, but the guided pair programming approach taken by App Academy is very effective for rapid hands-on learning. I had taken a CS class or two prior to App Academy, and the difference is night and day.

Also, there is more to the program than just technical learning. There is a 3 week hiring bootcamp, where everyone works together on the job search process, under the guidance of an App Academy hiring instructor. For people new to the tech industry, this is very effective at bringing them up to speed on how hiring works in tech.

At this point, there are many companies that employ App Academy alumni (including thoughtbot, Facebook, Vimeo, Hipmunk, Twilio, and Zendesk), and many have realized the quality of its graduates, and so whenever a new cohort is getting close to graduation, managers from those companies come to a "demo day," where students can show their capstone projects and get interviews.

<comment><USER6> I've been pair programming for more than a decade, so I definitely know how much it can help newbies. My point is more that one way they can skew the stats in their favor is by hiring people who would have been hired by those companies with or without the program. E.g., people whose issue is self esteem, or people who aren't good at self-evaluation, or people who lack the sort of personal connections that let other hard-to-evaluate candidates get their first break.

I'm not saying that's what they're doing, of course I'm just saying that in this market a strong hiring rate alone doesn't prove anything about the program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not really pro-regulation but this might be a good thing. I feel like we're in a _" bootcamp bubble"_ at the moment. As much as I'd like for every bootcamp to have altruistic motives, some seem like a money-grab to me. This is especially evidenced by the smaller and smaller program lengths ("Learn to code in 12 weeks" is now "Learn to code in 8 weeks" or "Learn to do a startup in 4 weeks")[1][2].

Personally, I wish California's community college system would learn to move a little faster, spend $ to hire some talented instructors, and add modern certificate programs in programming/iOS/Rails/Android/UX/DevOps/etc. It's a big system (100+) schools, extremely affordable ($46/unit + lots of financial aid), and a decent length (most certificate programs are 12-20 units or 1-2 semesters).

[1] [http://www.codefellows.org/](http://www.codefellows.org/)

[2] [http://fitzroygsd.com/](http://fitzroygsd.com/)

<comment><USER8> It's interesting that you wish California would move faster and be more innovative regarding various tech-related occupations, but also support regulation of a sector that IS moving faster and being innovative.

Mind-numbing, soul-destroying, California-style bureaucracy is not the answer here.

Instead, I support self-regulation. Other industries have done it. I'd rather see prominent tech academies come together and form their own standards body.

<comment><USER9> What's the difference between self regulation and collusion?

<comment><USER10> Higher education in the US is largely self-regulated via the accreditation process. The government has minimal oversight of that self-regulation, mostly through the GI bill. Self-regulation doesn't mean they collude in a bad way (though there are suspicions that the rising cost of tuition is a collusion problem). Self-regulation is a form of collusion that, when done right, is good for producers and consumers - LEED or certain organic food certifications or academic accreditation are easy ways for consumers to know what they are getting and for producers to limit the negative price and quality pressure of "lemons" (bad products) on the marketplace. And it achieves this effect without heavy handed bans that limit consumer choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Jeez the article itself contradicts the linkbait headline.

 _"Our primary goal is not to collect a fine. It is to drive them to comply with the law," said Russ Heimerich, a spokesperson for BPPE. Heimerich is confident that these companies would lose in court if they attempt to fight BPPE.

Heimerich stressed that these bootcamps merely need to show that they are making steps toward compliance: "As long as they are making a good effort to come into compliance with the law, they fall down low on our triage of problem children. We will work with them to get them licensed and focus on more urgent matters," Heimerich said._

</comment><comment><USER12> This is kind of a bugaboo for me. I am continually surprised by the attitude that seems common in the tech industry that laws governing all other industries are misapplied or useless when it comes to tech. I get that the hacker culture is to beg forgiveness rather than ask permission, but sometimes this causes real hardships.

Imagine they were teaching an older generation of technology: automobile maintenance, say? Or TV repair? And I implied to graduates that they'd get jobs at GM or GE?

It is extremely difficult to check out a new, for-profit school's reputation thoroughly in terms of the success of its graduates and the quality of its instruction. There are thousands of stories of students taking on unsustainable levels of debt to go to culinary school, for example, only to work for peanuts in non-elite kitchens.

What makes software engineering exempt? Alternatively, why should bootcamps be allowed to avoid the law--which applies to all other for-profit post-secondary schools--because they teach Rails and Javascript instead of refrigerator maintenance?

</comment><comment><USER13> _At Hack Reactor, where tuition costs over $17,000, 99 percent of students are offered a job at companies like Adobe and Google._

Am I the only one who is skeptical of this? I'd really like to see the breakdown on this one..

<comment><USER14> I am currently a student at Hack Reactor and I can assure you that the average salary students are offered coming out of the program are a lot higher than 60-80k, and the statistics are real.

I've been very impressed with the program and highly recommend it.

If you're inclined, please refer to this Quora post for additional details:

[http://www.quora.com/Hack-Reactor/What-are-some-suspected- re...](http://www.quora.com/Hack-Reactor/What-are-some-suspected-reasons-why- some-Hack-Reactor-graduates-the-2-are-unable-to-find-software-engineering- jobs-upon-graduation)

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the information -- but this still doesn't spell out any breakdowns of who gets jobs where. This specifies that ~98% get jobs -- but at companies like Adobe and Google? I know plenty of grads from top tier bachelor CS programs at some of the highest ranked schools, and I'd still say that roughly less than half get a job offer at Google. I don't want to sound snobbish... but no doubt these guys would have a better shot than someone who began coding less than 3 months before? Until I see a breakdown it's really hard to say the quote isn't blown out of proportion.

<comment><USER15> From that GP's quora link:

 _We have an internal metric for measuring performance, defined as follows: "Of all those able to legally work in the United States who graduate our class with an intention of seeking software engineering work, how many are able to find such work within three months of graduating?"_

I don't suppose that _finding a job_ could be a requirement for graduation, could it? Or maybe Hack Reactor just has very rigorous graduation requirements, and most students wash out of the program after paying $15k? The link also implies that anyone who is enrolled in college or, more importantly, doesn't take part in HackReactor's job search program isn't "intending to seek software engineering work."

In short, I think they have plenty of ways to fudge a 9x% placement rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The current talent crunch has brought a TON of shady bootcamps to the valley that are preying on innocent hopefuls.

I even built [http://schools.techendo.co/](http://schools.techendo.co/) to help people under-equipped to evaluate these schools. It's a true problem.

[edit]

Related post:

[http://www.techendo.co/posts/are-dev-bootcamps-a-scam-a- hack...](http://www.techendo.co/posts/are-dev-bootcamps-a-scam-a-hacker-s- perspective)

<comment><USER17> it may be helpful to people who are trying to evaluate different bootcamps to attend for you to include some sort of ranking of the top-rated 'schools'

that being said, it's awesome that you made that. I'm not aware of anywhere that lets people evaluate their bootcamp experience and it'll be great if/when more people review what they went through

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "At Hack Reactor, where tuition costs over $17,000, 99 percent of students are offered a job at companies like Adobe and Google."

That seems at odds with my general perception of who Google recruits and of the tough nature of their interviews... Anyone have first hand experience of going through one of these without prior tech experience and then landing a job at Google or other name-brand employers?

<comment><USER14> I am currently a senior at Hack Reactor, and I can vouch for the high quality of education and job prep that HR gives its students. The figures that HR mention are real, and we have students who are now working at places like Google.

For more information, refer to this quora post: [http://www.quora.com/Hack- Reactor/What-are-some-suspected-re...](http://www.quora.com/Hack-Reactor/What- are-some-suspected-reasons-why-some-Hack-Reactor-graduates-the-2-are-unable- to-find-software-engineering-jobs-upon-graduation)

<comment><USER19> "We have students who are now working at places like Google" is nothing like the same as "99% of our graduates receive job offers from companies like Adobe and Google."

<comment><USER20> I love the line "companies like Adobe and Google".

McDonald's is a company like Adobe and Google, in the sense that it has a name and sells things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The regulator wants them to follow the law, as written, by the CA Assembly. Terrible title considering the regulator simply wants them to follow the law -- and says so in the article. Don't blame the regulator here.

Most state's laws for career schools are intended to protect people against scams. So, yeah, a few truck driving schools ripped some GED holding people off. We all suffer including these guys in CA.

</comment><comment><USER22> "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it."

</comment><comment><USER23> Regulators thinking they know what is best for us and cracking down on those who are vulnerable is nothing new.

Such is life in California.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Steve Eisman, the outspoken investor whose huge wager against the subprime mortgage market was chronicled by author Michael Lewis in his bestselling book The Big Short, has set sights on a new target: for-profit colleges"

[http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2010/05/steve-eisman-big- sho...](http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2010/05/steve-eisman-big-short- michael-lewis)

</comment><comment><USER25> I strongly consider attending one of these boot camps, but pulled out at the last minute because I became suspicious of their claims. I'm not saying the claims were untrue, but they were grand enough to make me nervous about dropping over $10,000.

I basically did it the long way. I took as many classes as I could at my local community college (intro to cs, intro to programming, advanced programming, oop, data structures, assembly language and web development). I feel like I got a great education at the CS basics. I think I can code. I know pointers, hash tables, abstract data structures and other things that the boot camps don't even seem to cover, but haven't even been able to get a single interview.

Perhaps the real value in these programs is the career placement.

<comment><USER26> I have been trying learn to code for 20 years went community colleges ect went to tech skills .com ect bottom line the best way to learn is you tube and a hacker,s hear if you want to learn you don,t need to spend 20 k unless you think you need to it is a cult but they have a track and and a method. I have a need codeing system and it is the best because i show folks how to get the basics js frame works and .

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Whether you like her or not, agree or disagree with her, Ayn Rand has two great relevant quotes:

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."

and

"Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."

<comment><USER28> Ayn Rand's opinions don't fit into a hybrid social system like ours. It can only be rationalized in a communist or other totalitarian society.

Can you imagine a corporation with unlimited power that is free to do anything it pleases?

We need government to regulate predatory practices. It would be great if government would step up and regulate healthcare costs and credit card providers a bit more harshly.

<comment><USER19> > Can you imagine a corporation with unlimited power that is free to do > anything it pleases?

Quite easily! It is called a "government".

<comment><USER28> The government has elected representatives. It's not totalitarian.

In a state with zero government regulation, you have just as terrible atrocities.

<comment><USER19> _Some_ governments have elected representatives; while lately very much in fashion, this is by no means a requirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Regulation for this exists.

It's called free speech and the internet. Reputation online is practically _everything_ to the credibility of workshops or services like this. It's a real wonder that people can still use their own minds without a gauntlet for approval. There will come day for that given the technology. It'll be done under the _best of intentions_ , of course. A fool and his money are soon parted. But so too is a fool from his freedom and choice.

<comment><USER6> That depends on what audience they target. For the high end of the market, sure, people will do a lot of research. But if you are a scam artist running a school like this, it will be relatively easy to dupe the less clueful end of the market. For example, you can set up new school every 12 weeks. Or you can fake a good on-line reputation.

Read up on the many scams that for-profit schools are running. Even some of the regulated ones are up to dubious stuff. The unregulated ones, like the "life experience degree" people, are much worse.

<comment><USER29> I share deep concerns about anything seemingly scammy.

Modeling ways in which societies can prevent more people from being exploited is one of my 'hobbies.' There are many paths that can help. The path that's most wise and ethical, I'd argue, is a route that respects more free choice and builds more groundwork for cultural conditions that are _more_ conducive to skepticism and information-based awareness. Many of the current methods of interference, licensing, and monopolistic-fueling procedures -- often under a sheep's clothing of a supposed collective trust -- have countless damaging effects in the long run. It will overwhelm society in other negative ways to gain temporary positives in protection. It erodes progress. It often shifts access _to_ the powerful. I won't get into it here but it's all part and parcel of fueling corporatism in general.

Distrust is critical.

Distrust _should_ pervade consciousness. The opposite happens as a result of many current policies. People start to mindlessly believe in claims more than they already do. I believe there's a large vacuum that waits to be filled where third-party cooperatives fill the thirst that people would otherwise have for vetting trust (e.g. NGO regulatory bodies, quality/certification programs, voluntary submissions to transparency) -- given a remarkably underutilized internet -- except a great push won't happen until a tipping point occurs. The public will have to say enough is enough and reject the double-edged sword of policy. Deferring more solutions to an entity comprised of people willing and eager to wage violence and torture as a method of order: this ultimately grows insidious laws and insidious forms of reasoning as a whole.

There's a good argument that a state can have greater legitimacy when it's relegated to a role as a more supportive backbone of arbitrating claims and disputes, while vastly decreasing corporate control/protection. This would render most executives more vulnerable to loss of assets. This would naturally decrease a person's willingness to be deceptive. A bridge to this model could be as simple as first requiring disclaimers by any independent service that wishes to oppose a status quo. It would allow choice/consent. "This [entity] has not been regulated or verified by [authority]."

Grandmas, grandpas, and the like are naturally more vulnerable. No one wants people to lose their life savings due to natural mental circumstances that beget trust. I'm all for any effort that perpetuates _exposure and awareness_ of scams and lends power to grievances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> These "bootcamps" delude students into believing they can be placed in a good job if they pay up. I've worked with graduates of these programs, and found them to be eager and optimistic, but woefully ill-prepared for professional software development.

I'd love to see more programmers, but this cash-grab bootcamp practice makes our entire industry look bad.

<comment><USER31> > eager and optimistic, but woefully ill-prepared for professional software > development.

Mind elaborating on this? I'm currently going through one of these and am curious for when I am applying for my first post-bootcamp job.

<comment><USER30> Coming from the webapp world: How do you work with a team of people committing to the same repository? How do you review code? How do you find solutions to problems when they're not being spoon-fed to you in a bootcamp? What makes an application reliable? Well-designed? Scalable? When should something be improved upon, and when should it be chucked and rewritten? How can an application be hacked? How do you design DB schemas, and query them efficiently?

These are the sorts of things you implicitly trust a developer to know. The bootcamp students I've seen fail to realize that these are even issues, and get a big wake-up call to when they come up short in their first job. As a result, they struggle at the lowest rung in the ladder, as their coworkers cannot trust them to do any reliable work.

<comment><USER31> Any advice on how to develop these skills? Would it just be experience?

If so, it seems to me to be a chicken-egg scenario where it sounds like you'd need several years of experience to even get an entry-level or "lowest rung" position in the industry.

I view my "accelerator" experience as just that: an acceleration of my learning, so that I can transition (even if it is at the lowest rung) into an industry that I feel is exciting and fascinating. I view these bootcamps as being the beginning of one's education, not the end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Speak of selling shovels during a gold rush!

</comment><comment><USER33> These bootcamp are nothing but scams.

</comment><comment><USER34> What happened to California? It used to be the center of counter culture, now it's biggest symbol of The Man around. It's a big terrified nanny state where everyone in charge seems to be too scared to let anyone do anything cause it might hurt them emotionally or physically.

I've never lived in California, so I may be way off, but it seems like the decline of a once defiant state is a great metaphor for the baby boomers who made it the center of the counter culture. They started off young and angry, fighting against injustice, and as they got older, the turned into the system they were fighting. They became The Man, scared of things they didn't understand and absolutely terrified of not being in control. It's like watching Citizen Kane if Charles Foster Kane was a state.

The quote "the most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution," seems applicable here. Are we all doomed to repeat this fate, to fight the system, accomplish our goals, then become the system as we try to hold on to what we've made?

<comment><USER35> Come to Seattle. It's a tech... nirvana. ;)

Liberal social policies (pot, marriage, choice) but fiscal conservatism (no income tax). Seattle has NIMBYism, but much less so than the bay. Get this: when rents went up, _they built more apartments, and lots of them_ \- what a concept!

South Lake Union has turned into this amazing place with incubators and Amazon and Vulcan and Bio Tech all around. Amazon, a major US tech company, has a downtown campus surrounded by apartments and places to eat! Wow! Why is that rare? No need to get mad at Google's busses that shuttle workers off to the sticks -- just put the jobs next to the people and existing transit. There are also local VCs and angels too -- but if you need to raise in SF/SV, it's just an hour away.

<comment><USER36> Except no gigabit internet. Good luck trying to fuel a tech boom with slow-ass comcast internet.

<comment><USER37> Not strictly true. I have 100Mbps CondoInternet for $60/mo, and could have 1Gbps for $120/mo if my home usage justified it. Availability is somewhat limited - basically, bigger upscale buildings around downtown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I became a little suspicious of the "learn to code" boot camps when the first of I looked at was female only. Why female only in this point in history? My conclusion; at the end of the course--the average Hacker Dude would question the cost if the education, the versaity of "I'm a Koder now, and it only took a few weeks!".

I'm not for a lot of regulation, but in this case I think these schools need a through vetting. They are not cheap, and promise a lot.

Off subject, but I'm still angry that Gov. Brown made it more difficult to become a Realestate Broker. He did away with the 4 year degree requirement, as a fast track to getting a broker's license. It's ironic that Governor Terminator saw right through the B.S., and vetoed the bill. From that point on; I never vote strictly Democratic. And yes--I'm off topic. sorry.

<comment><USER39> > Why female only in this point in history?

Of all the reasons to be suspicious of "learn to code" bootcamps, your aversion to women-only programs has me confused.

"Why female only...?": Probably because the founders of those programs would like to see more women coding. Same reason organizations like "Girls Who Code" exist. The fact that those programs are geared towards an underrepresented demographic shouldn't raise any red flags.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Honest question: Do they similarly attempt to regulate "learn to camp" [literal] camps? Do they go after/regulate GSUSA or BSA camps?

Since they are asserting that these are "post-secondary education" things, does that mean that organizations targeted at children are safe? Are organizations like Hacker Scouts in the clear?</comment>


A Forgotten 19th-Century Photo Technology That Romanticized America - <AUTHOR> http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-forgotten-photo-technology-that-romanticized-america/

<comment><USER2> If you find these of interest, here are some online galleries:

[http://www.wdl.org/en/search/?q=photochrome&qla=en#view=gall...](http://www.wdl.org/en/search/?q=photochrome&qla=en#view=gallery)

[http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=photochrom&co=det&st=g...](http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=photochrom&co=det&st=gallery)

</comment><comment><USER3> Some exquisitely beautiful work there.

It's interesting to compare it to the modern methods of performing this technique, e.g. see [https://www.reddit.com/r/Colorization](https://www.reddit.com/r/Colorization) and [https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorizedHistory](https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorizedHistory)

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazing blend of painting and photography.</comment>


If not Java, why not then go with Lisp? - <AUTHOR>

Given that the current Oracle lawsuit is seriously denting Jave's image, and given that one of the early intention for Java was to drag C++ developers half way to Lisp, do you think now would be a good time to consider Lisp on earnest?
BTW, how does the lawsuit affect Clojure? <comment><USER2> Swap Oracle for Sun, Google for Microsoft, Dalvik for the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine, 2010 for 1997 and I don't see the difference: one big-ass company with a lot of money going after another big-ass company with a lot of money. After a bunch of feisty lawyering, one will pay the other and they'll swap pieces of paper allowing them to go on as before: getting you to write software for their technology stack so they can brag about adoption, penetration, and the unparalleled quality of freely-available libraries for their platform; lather, rinse, repeat.

Regardless, Clojure will remain the best way to survive the twilight of the Java era.

<comment><USER3> Disagree: Sun v. Microsoft was strictly a battle on a licensing contract, not a use of probably generic/bogus? patents against an independent piece of software. And the end result was pretty much the death of Microsoft's version of Java ("Visual Studio 2005 was the last release to include J#" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%2B%2B#Visual_J.23>).

A similar outcome in SCOracle v. Google would be the capping and pretty fast death of Android....

" _Regardless, Clojure will remain the best way to survive the twilight of the Java era._ "

Well, if you're a Lisp fan like me (some Common Lisp fans are fond of Armed Bear Common Lisp: <http://common-lisp.net/project/armedbear/>); others strenuously disagree from both the Lisp (" _Clojure is a terrifying meld of a beloved character and an unreasoning alien onslaught._ [http://www.reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/aqcqx/how_a_common_lis...](http://www.reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/aqcqx/how_a_common_lisp_programmer_views_users_of_other/c0iw1ey) ) and non-Lisp camps.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I hadn't heard that opinion on clojure. It is a weird lisp, but I like that. The energy and interest around clojure, its fresh ideas, and frenemy relationship w/ java are the reasons I think it's the best way to play on the jvm as java goes away.

After ms vs. Sun, ms produced .net. If google settled with sun then did the something similar: net win.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is more to programming language choice than syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Like, economics.

Lisp is not a replacement for Java, and never will be. In the same way that a sports car is not a replacement for the municipal bus system.

</comment><comment><USER5> There are an awful lot of assumptions there... the largest being that this is going to have a large impact on Java. I remember years ago lots of hyperbole about how Microsoft's J++ and Sun's suit was going to spell the end of Java and here we are now...

Other points:

When I've looked at C++, Java and Lisp- I have never been able to see anything that would make me take that 'halfway to lisp' comment seriously.

Clojure is just a language that runs on the jvm. There is nothing about the current lawsuit that should have any technical or legal impact on Clojure.

<comment><USER3> Well, it did largely spell the end of Java on the desktop.

The comment is by Guy Steele and at the very least by finally making GC mainstream I agree.

Clojure as it stands now seems to be safe, although we just don't know what "crazy" things Oracle will do now that it's "weaponized" Java. Just having to think about potential legal issues now or in the future where you didn't previously adds friction where there wasn't any before, which is never good. We're also seeing a lot more interest in the CLR version of Clojure, and to the extent effort is diverted from the JVM version, to that or to ones hosted on something else, this may not be a good thing.

In the longer term, this quote struck me as the most apt WRT to Clojure or any other language that uses the JVM in unusual ways (particularly the GC of functional languages) [http://adtmag.com/blogs/watersworks/2010/08/oracle- google-la...](http://adtmag.com/blogs/watersworks/2010/08/oracle-google- lawsuit-hurt-java.aspx):

 _Forrester Research analyst John Rymer agrees: "I think this lawsuit casts the die on Java's future," he said. "It will become a slow-evolving legacy technology. Oracle's lawsuit links deep innovation in Java with license fees, and that will kill deep innovation in Java by anyone outside Oracle or startups hoping to sell out to Oracle. Software innovation just doesn't do well in the kind of environment Oracle just created."_

As Clojure matures, we'll be wanting to do "deep innovation" (such as in GC) and Oracle has cast a pall on doing that in Java/JVM space.

<comment><USER6> Surely one should credit Visual Basic with bringing GC to the mainstream. Bill got them to copy Algol 68's "Meekly deproceduring to MOID FORM" and beat y'all to it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best thing(s) you shipped in 2017? - <AUTHOR> Hey - 2018 is just one day away! Show the rest of us at HN what you actually shipped in 2017 that you are super proud of! Promote shamelessly, and don't forget to include URLs!<p>I'll go first; after a 10-years-or-so hiatus I finally got back at composing music, and completed 29 songs and 4 albums, this fall only: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4nxDh1lPq0EclBPMNXnYa3 and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgNm_EwMyLBrKp_kmdU3XoA <comment><USER2> I built Aliasbot [www.aliasbot.com]. A Slack app that let's you create custom teams of people on Slack and tag them all at once. Think "@devops the server is down!@!1!".

I did this while finishing my Master's degree and then working full time. It's been a great experience building it and I'm excited to see the growth in 2018!

</comment><comment><USER3> My Dark Souls inspired VR horror/RPG, Left-Hand Path, which exited Early Access last month:

[http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760/LeftHand_Path/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760/LeftHand_Path/)

It's held at mid-80s positive reviews after that, and numerous people have said it's the scariest thing they've ever experienced in VR. A good start to what I hope will be a long career making VR games.

</comment><comment><USER4> Been super stoked on deep dream so I've been trying to ask myself how this could be more mainstream. Maybe get photographers hooked on it. I've been posting my code thoughts on the subject at [http://GitHub.com/drmly/bind](http://GitHub.com/drmly/bind)

</comment><comment><USER5> I overcame my fear of the camera and started interviewing friends of mine to try and broaden my personal network:

[https://theaccidentalengineer.com/](https://theaccidentalengineer.com/)

I'm about 40 interviews deep, and have accomplished most all that I initially set out to do in June.

2018 hopefully holds a lot more interviews, a lot more traffic, and a lot better content :)

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://cherrypick.club](http://cherrypick.club) [http://getpeppy.com](http://getpeppy.com)

</comment><comment><USER7> Coming from system programming, I'm glad I made a website in a 2017 state-of- the-art fashion. React, DRF, Sass, JS... It's really great to see something you made out there in the wild, not just running somewhere in the depths of Linux.

It's a tool to help people with their decision making.

[https://dilectee.com](https://dilectee.com)

</comment><comment><USER8> I launched my startup: [http://www.manypixels.co](http://www.manypixels.co) (site is still very basic but operational - and with happy customers!) and about to hit $10k MRR!

<comment> s-stude Can you explain your business model, please?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Firefox 10.0 for iOS.</comment>


The bomb-hoaxing Harvard student was using Tor, but they caught him anyway - <AUTHOR> http://www.onthemedia.org/story/harvard-bomb-threat/ <comment><USER2> Amusingly, the original FBI affidavit was posted yesterday with a similar title, but it was changed to "FBI Affidavit in Harvard Bomb Hoax [pdf]".

The submitter of yesterday's post joked,

> I guess I should have written a paragraph's worth of inane blog spam to get > my submission title used? I was trying to make this exact point in my > original title. The title my submission was assigned is not the real title > of the PDF either... seems very arbitrary.[0]

I completely understand the desire not to editorialize discussions. That said, this is an interesting case study of how the title of the submission very strongly affects the actual discussion that unfolds. After the title was changed, more of the comments revolved around the actual bomb threat itself, rather than the security benefits (and caveats) of Tor.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6925289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6925289)

<comment><USER3> Thank you for pointing this out.

That was my first submission to HN and I was really surprised to see my submission title changed, and you're correct that the title change directed the conversation away from what I intended. I'm probably not going to start a blog so that I can control the titles of my posts to HN, so I will probably be dissuaded from submitting content in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's worth remembering that security (here including the information security involved in hiding identity) is not boolean. The value of the prize matters. A penny (or a diary) hidden under a mattress can be considered "secure" \- three million dollars can't, especially when people know you have those three million somewhere.

The first mistake this guy made was doing something that made the authorities want to know who he was, and have a good excuse for expending enormous resources (if necessary) to do that. Had he used TOR correctly, it would have been harder for them, but it's very likely they would still have succeeded.

Plenty of people here are making comments that sound suspiciously like advice for breaking the law. I realize that that's not actually the case -- lessons taken from somebody who did something illegal and got caught can be perfectly applicable to someone trying to do something legal, privately. We all should be aware, though, that TOR and other privacy tools (and other non-privacy tools, like bittorrent) have a reputation for being designed for criminals, and it's not a good idea to seem to sympathize too strongly with people who use TOR to send in bomb threats.

<comment><USER5> So what you're saying is "whether a particular method is secure or not depends on the size of the penny"

<comment><USER6> Certainly - the real question should be 'secure against whom?'.

Any security can be broken given sufficient resources and motivation (e.g. if you can't brute-force the crypto, you can brute-force the keyholder, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The very BEST slideshow about using Tor to stay anonymous. You'll see his mistake in it.

[http://www.slideshare.net/grugq/opsec-for- hackers](http://www.slideshare.net/grugq/opsec-for-hackers)

<comment><USER8> Non-SlideShare link: [http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2012kul/materials/D1T3...](http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2012kul/materials/D1T3%20-%20The%20Grugq%20-%20OPSEC%20-%20Because%20jail%20is%20for%20wuftpd.pdf)

Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XaYdCdwiWU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XaYdCdwiWU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fail a test, no big deal. Send a bomb hoax, ruin your life. Interesting choice. I thought Harvard students were supposed to be smart not just arrogant.

<comment><USER10> It produces smart and not-so-smart graduates just like any other school. There are benefits of attending Harvard other than intelligence and education.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Also keep in mind that, from my understanding, he was confronted with this information and then admitted that it was him. This just reinforces the rule... never talk to the police.

<comment><USER12> I suppose he could have claimed somebody else was using the computer he was signed into because he left it unlocked while going to the bathroom or whatever... but in this case, (assuming he is indeed guilty) then I'm fine with it.

It's a dick move, and I'm fine with him being caught and punished.

<comment><USER13> Talking to cops is never good for you.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc)

<comment><USER12> Yes, I've seen the video. My point wasn't that it was good for that guy, but that it was good for _society_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To be sure about _who knows what_ when you use TOR, there is this excellent EFF article [1].

[1] [https://www.eff.org/pages/tor-and-https](https://www.eff.org/pages/tor- and-https)

<comment><USER15> So then is LOCATION visible to the ISP before it hits the first Tor Relay because the ISP knows the real IP Address of the user making the request?

<comment><USER14> TL;DR Yes.

The ISP knows that your IP is connecting to the IP of a TOR relay. (EDIT: the ISP is technically renting the IP address to you, so they obviously know it.)

And the admin of your network knows it too, which is exactly why the guy got caught.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It sounds like they merely looked for who had accessed a Tor network, not that they could tell anything about the communication. Kind of like, "We know the perpetrator entered the grounds through the east gate prior to 9:00am. Security footage shows only 1 person doing that so go talk to him".

<comment><USER17> Thats exactly what happened–he then confessed under interrogation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So basically idiotic "pranks" that would have been done in high school have now moved to colleges costing tens of thousands a year?

You really have to have a shallow life experience to think a bomb threat to get out of an exam is even remotely an okay idea.

<comment><USER19> I'm sure the legal ramifications for him will be much greater than the moronic "pranksters" who pulled stunts like this at my high school in the late '90s.

<comment><USER10> These days those legal ramifications can be quite severe even on the high school level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think it's because he was the only one accessing TOR on a monitored network during the specific time.

<comment><USER4> Almost certainly.

I'm at reasonably large (~15000 students on-campus), and a friend using TOR to do ... something ... got caught not because he was the only one using TOR at the time, but because he was the only one using TOR, ever -- it was just too obvious.

<comment><USER10> How did they know the something was done by someone using TOR on their network?

<comment><USER21> tor exit nodes are easy to identify, if they had the co-operation of site.com then they'd not see the location, but they'd see the exit node.

<comment><USER10> I can understand they can the attack was done through Tor, what I don't understand is how they understood the attack originated on their own network through Tor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> They caught him because he was signed into the wifi network using his personal credentials. Had he went to a Starbucks or McDonalds we'd be having a different discussion.

<comment><USER23> He would have been on survellience video in both of those places

<comment><USER24> However, his use of Tor would mean the authorities wouldn't know which surveillance video to look at.

He was caught because they probably assumed the threat was an internal hoax, checked the logs and found only one or a few internal users on Tor at the right time, then got a police officer to ask each of them if they had done anything wrong [1]. One confessed, and there you go.

Morale of the story: don't do illegal things, and if you do want to do illegal things, have a cover story and don't admit things based on inferences from investigators.

[1] In fact, they probably overrepresented the evidence and then left him to talk himself into being convicted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Back when the whole Snowden/NSA thing blew up, people talked about switch to TOR all the time to keep safe. The problem is, you kind of have to be disciplined and commit to it...and _even if that 's the case_, you might be exposed by uncontrollable environmental variables. The apparent problem in this case was that the student was using Tor at the time of the incident...and I'm assuming he was one of the very few to have been using Tor at that time, and he didn't use it _all_ the time...which makes his Tor usage at the time of the email stick out.

Obviously, he should've just not done it from Harvard's network (and obviously, he shouldn't have done it at all)...but I think it's a good lesson when teaching others about security...know the conceptual limits of the black box you choose to use.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's been a while since I was in the network security and monitoring world so I'm wondering what this monitoring software looks like. It sounds like it has the capability to keep a historical log of the type of traffic associated with each wifi-authenticated user. How detailed is the traffic analysis? How is the data recorded and for how long?

</comment><comment><USER27> So if Guerilla Mail had a chron option to buffer mail and avoid temporal correlation he would have walked?

<comment><USER28> It depends on how many Tor users there are on the Harvard wireless network. If he was the only person using Tor that year, or one of only a few dozen that could all be questioned, maybe not.

<comment><USER29> So if you use Tor there is a certain expectation to be questioned sooner or later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Easy to forget "Anonymous" strongly does not equal "Untraceable".

</comment><comment><USER31> He would have had better luck cutting letters out of a newspaper, sticking them to a page and popping it in the post.

However that is not without its hazards. He would need to evade CCTV and make sure he did not take his cell phone with him to the post box. The stationary he used would also have to be untraceable, so a stack of identical envelopes at home would not be ideal. He would also need an alibi lest any neighbours end up why he was posting letters at 4 a.m.

<comment><USER32> > He would have had better luck cutting letters out of a newspaper, sticking > them to a page and popping it in the post.

That would have required advance planning; seems he did this on impulse or, at least, not far enough ahead of time to use the mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think I just decided to use TOR as often as possible.

<comment><USER34> Get ready to experience the internet at 56kbps again.

<comment><USER35> Also, every Tor/onionweb/darknet/whatever site is around for approximately 53 minutes, and all the link pages were written at least 54 minutes ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> There's always an official good reason why some Tor user gets busted by the Feds, and it's never that Tor itself is pwned. It reminds me of Brits trying not to show that they pwned Enigma during WWII.

If I needed to be shielded from the Feds, and I depended on Tor for this, I'd feel increasingly nervous.

</comment><comment><USER34> "Kim told the FBI he trying to avoid taking a final exam."

<comment><USER37> you found a typo

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> As an aside, do we think that as online courses become every more prevalent that we will see an equivalent of this in the form of DOS attacks?

</comment><comment><USER39> The weakest link is always the end-user.</comment>


The Post Office Railway (Mail Rail) - <AUTHOR> http://www.silentuk.com/?p=2792

<comment><USER2> Fantastic pictures and a very interesting journey into the history of mail in London.</comment>


Show HN: I spent the last 3 years building this geo-enabled survey solution - <AUTHOR>

No Google/Bing/Mapbox/ESRI. Just pure Open Source (30 different OS projects) + Open Data (public domain satellite + OSM + public domain elevation data).<p>60 second video here with link to try it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj6OeTZgzM8&feature=youtu.be <comment><AUTHOR> Base layers: Various datasets from NASA, USGS, USDA and local Counties + OpenStreetMap data (I styled it myself to look like Google Maps).

Mobile App: 98% Cross platform C++ plus 2% glue code for each platform supported (Objective C + Android). Raw OpenGL for the visualization, Webkit + HTML + JS for the forms.

Web App: Python/Django + Angular + Leaflet + Redis + modified Postgres/PostGIS + Custom Postgres extensions + Celery + RabbitMQ + Nginx + Socket IO + Gevent + a lot more stuff! Ask if interested.

</comment><comment><USER2> It is a great tool! I am sorry I have no reason to use it!

</comment><comment><USER3> link to github?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are starting to Open Source all the components little by little. You can find the libraries that have already been opened here: [https://github.com/amigocloud](https://github.com/amigocloud)

There is still a lot more to open up... it will happen within the next few months.</comment></comment>


Don't Use VPN Services - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/CatTheHacker/d049af1f245ca7e6d3d0fd1354bfd327 <comment><USER2> I'll stop when Hulu starts providing their service in Europe</comment>


Two Forms of Mathematical Beauty - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-is-math-beautiful-20200616/ <comment><USER2> I think most mathematical facts described as beautiful fall into one of the two categories of "consequences of definitions" and "shocking connections". The first happens when the structure of your terms is lined up in just the right way as to make a proof feel automatic and clear, every piece follows right from the previous one in a natural way. The second one is rarer imo, and is enjoyable almost in the same way a clever punchline is. A series of facts are setup, and then your viewpoint is suddenly shifted forcing you to recontextualize those facts and see something new. A lot of "elegant" proofs are of this flavor.

<comment><USER3> In my opinion, your comment contains far more insight than the original article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's all beautiful if you know how to look. Fully explaining a blade of grass to its core would have more engineering, biological, physical, and mathematical knowledge than all of mankind's best web startups, businesses, and intellectual efforts combined.

The beautiful irony of the once popular "god of the gaps" argument is that the gaps are continuing to widen toward infinitude each passing day. Each passing day we discover that "knowing" one thing reveals 9 more things we do not. How arrogant it would be to miss the awe-inspiring beauty, consistency, and self- sustaining processes that are everywhere, from mathematics to the physical and beyond.

</comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of Russell's quote - "Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show."

<comment><USER6> Mathematics, at its core, is about tangible and easily perceptible stuff like counting things and measuring space. Through the introduction of layers of notational and conceptual abstractions, many dependencies can be discovered and many claims can be made. They are just "there", but we are seeing them through the lens of our own man-made abstractions.

<comment><USER7> > Mathematics, at its core, is about tangible and easily perceptible stuff > like counting things and measuring space.

I think that it depends on what you mean by 'core'. This is certainly the _historical_ core of mathematics—where things started, and so around which all later developments have accreted—and I suspect it characterises a large part of most 'users'' interactions with mathematics, but I think that there are many mathematicians who would not describe your characterisation as the core of what they do professionally.

(It happens that I can't substantiate that even by a flimsy appeal to my own work, because there is a reasonable sense in which counting things is at the heart of my work (even though it's not combinatorics); but there are other fields that I think don't have that sort of connection informing their everyday work, even though it is of course always there historically.)

<comment><USER6> > but I think that there are many mathematicians who would not describe your > characterisation as the core of what they do professionally.

Those mathematicians are certainly doing something much more intellectually- challenging than counting things and measuring space, but I would argue that those basic activities represent the basic problems upon which most of the low-level math abstractions are built. "Serious" math is about operating at much higher abstraction levels, but it is not disconnected from those low- level foundations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Eh.

There's two kinds of mathematical beauty (maybe more, I'm making this up): concepts and proofs.

The other day I saw a proof of the minimax principle (about eigenvalues maximizing the Rayleigh coefficient) that used a variational problem over eigenfunctions. This is fairly "ugly" mathematics conceptwise, and there are simpler standard proofs, but this one made the top of my head pop out like that emoji. It explains why Rayleigh coefficients have that name, and links practical statistics/ML concerns (low-rank matrix approximation) to light and refraction.

<comment><USER7> Surely that entire comment would be improved by deleting the pointless "Eh." at the beginning?

<comment><USER9> That entire comment would be improved by deleting the pointless "Surely" at the beginning?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article reminds me of this:

[https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/2cultures.pdf](https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/2cultures.pdf)

I especially like the Atiyah quote.

<comment><USER11> For those like me who have bookmarked this to read later but are curious what the Atiyah quote is:

MINIO: How do you select a problem to study?

ATIYAH: I think that presupposes an answer. I don't think that's the way I work at all. Some people may sit back and say, "I want to solve this problem" and they sit down and say, "How do I solve this problem?" I don't. I just move around in the mathematical waters, thinking about things, being curious, interested, talking to people, stirring up ideas; things emerge and I follow them up. Or I see something which connects up with something else I know about, and I try to put them together and things develop. I have practically never started off with any idea of what I'm going to be doing or where it's going to go. I'm interested in mathematics; I talk, I learn, I discuss and then interesting questions simply emerge. I have never started off with a particular goal, except the goal of understanding mathematics.

<comment><USER10> Thanks! I was feeling lazy. The context of the quote is a discussion of whether one solves problems to understand mathematics, or builds general theory (my paraphrasing) to be able to solve specific problems. I read Atiyah's response as "neither."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I forget who of the great men said it but it's stuck in my head that compared to the ellipse ("the general") the circle ("the particular") looks like an idiot's smile. (I guess that's one way of looking at the comparative value of various objects of modern mathematical research.)

</comment><comment><USER13> Reduction to a binary is only useful for producing comedically inaccurate generalizations

</comment><comment><USER14> > Trying to appreciate mathematics without understanding its inner workings is > like reading a description of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony instead of hearing > it.

I personally feel J.S. Bach would be a better metaphor here.</comment>