Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://avichal.com/2011/10/07/why-education-startups-do-not-succeed/ <comment><USER2> I've told this story before: Back when I was in college, I had a summer internship at a place that was a service center for the K-12 schools in a large county. Microcomputers were the big new thing. We had a facility with one of each kind of computer (Commodore, Apple, Radio Shack, etc.) and all the software we could lay their hands on. Teachers could come in and try things out.

My impression was that the "educational" software was extremely crude and one- dimensional, basically glorified flash cards. Today, the "educational" software is Web based, and more flashy, but still retains that lack of breadth. It's hard and expensive to write interactive software, so a lot of the apps are basically one or two templates, with different sets of data / parameters for different lessons.

 _Here 's a picture. Move your mouse around. When something lights up, click on it, and a little box of text will pop up for you to read._ I kid you not. This is real. Today.

Now I have two kids who are in high school. We have acquired (can't say bought in most cases) piles of educational technology, yet little or none of it was "EdTech." The most glaring example was Microsoft Office. The kids used it to create reports, presentations, drawings, etc. It has been supplanted by Google Docs, which they now use heavily, including for collaborative assignments.

We've played with Jupyter/Python. My son is learning solid modeling using some free app. One of them uses DuoLingo daily, as does my spouse.

Some of their educational technology is still in the analog domain: Musical instruments. ;-)

I think the take-away for me is that we are providing our kids with technology that supports their education, but it isn't written for kids. It's the same stuff that grown-ups use. Jupyter/Python is an example -- it's my primary computing tool for my job. Another common feature is that these are _creativity_ tools, not _consumption_ tools.

<comment><USER3> Part of the problem is that programming is supposed to be "fun", as in "fun and games", not as in a serious topic that you enjoy so much you call it fun.

This is why a lot of programming is taught through graphical games. I'm not knocking Minecraft style programming lessons, they can be very motivational and build up programming skills and thought processes.

Unfortunately, I'm not that kind of programmer. I'm more the type who enjoys scikit-learn and kaggle than xbox. Even as a kid, I was more interested in programming to know who had the advantage in 3v2 rolls in Risk than programming a game itself (in other words, I wanted to program to get insight into a game, not to play the game itself).

But I wanted to introduce my 12 year old to programming, so rather than trying to learn about Minecraft, I helped him install jupyter notebook and showed him how he could automate some of his math homework. We wrote a method to calculate mean, median, range, that sort of thing, and he learned how to feed a series of lists into it, and graph it.

Believe it or not, this pleased him a great deal. He left feeling slightly buoyed, like he'd gained an edge.

But if programming remains an add-on to a school curriculum, who wants to do more math in an after school program, or a summer camp? So "learning to program for kids" will probably remain heavily focused on graphics and games. Which may be ok, my interest in simulating a dice roll rather than programming a game per se may not be reflective of how most kids (who have great potential) are wired.

And honestly, programming Minecraft is among the _best_ of the educational software. Zoombinis was pretty cool, too, even if it was purely a game. Truth his, much educational software just re-teaches math, or history, but with buzzers and rewarding little cartoons for wrong or right answers.

<comment><USER4> I think there's a spectrum from graphical games to full programming. Games can be designed which can explore problem solving, debugging and programming.

For example "Human resource machine" is entirely visual but if you happen to click 'export' you get a very basic assembly language style output. If you never clicked export you wouldn't even realise you were "programming", you were just solving the problems on screen. The game does at time explain the analogies used. If you prod the people they'll describe linked lists but such understanding isn't required to progress.

Moving across the spectrum a little there are games like TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O which do involve programming but with very small instruction sets and graphical debugging and feedback.

These aren't aimed at children so are more complex than would be suitable for children but what I'm trying to get across is that they don't specifically teach _programming_. You won't come out of it knowing python or C. You won't know about stacks or function calls. But they do teach problem solving and the run/explode/debug loop of getting an instruction set to work on different sets of data.

By being games they gameify the process of wanting to reach acheivements while also solving the "what do I build?" aspect of more freeform/creative programming learning which can often be a dead-end without a sense of aiming toward a goal.

I think a Human Resources Machine style game aimed at a younger audience could be greatly impactful on teaching a programming mindset.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah yes, the annual resurfacing of this blog post :) unfortunately I think most of it is still true. I should do a follow up...

Edit: I'll address the comments/thoughts here in a follow up blog post. Glad to see so many people thinking about this space. It's a great thing for the world to have entrepreneurs building here.

<comment><USER6> "The underlying culture will change and expose interesting opportunities in the long term, but probably not for another 5 years."

Given those 5 years have now passed, what's your assessement of the situation now?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The average, middle class person thinks about education as an expenditure, > not an investment.

The way I remember it, middle class folks in Kansas City suburbs really, really care about the quality of their schools and levy property and sales taxes to fund it. Rural Ohio townships where dual earners are making 17k less than the national median for such households may not have a lot of middle class to speak of.

Cost and outcomes have always been a tradeoff. 1:1 tutoring is the gold standard for educational outcomes. We know that from there, outcomes fall as teacher:student ratios rise. This fundamentally puts a cap on returns to improved quality -- if your improved school outcome is comparable to adding one additional teacher per grade level, well, you better be cheaper than those teacher's salaries. And good luck finding that data in the first place. It's not easy to convince folks to run the experimental treatment on their children to get that data.

<comment><USER8> "1:1 tutoring is the gold standard for educational outcomes."

Is it? I'd be interested to see some data to support or refute this. I'd always assumed that students benefit somewhat from other students being around (due to observing how others learn, being pushed to be better etc.), so perhaps the ideal ratio would be in the 1:2 to 1:4 range.

If people have really figured out that 1:1 is better than 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4, I'd love to see that data.

<comment><USER9> I worked in a high school for 5 years teaching English as a foreign language. I was not a great teacher because being a teacher is really hard, but I learned a lot in those 5 years. I will let you in on a secret.

Education is _not_ what the teacher does: it's what the student does. Most people think that the job of a teacher is to organise information and explain it to students to make it "easy to understand". This is just plain wrong. In fact, by doing so you cheat your students because you steal their opportunity to organise information and discover how to understand it.

1:1, 1:2, 1:20, or 1:40 doesn't actually matter from a perspective of teaching material. If we make the teacher the font of all information, then we also make the teacher the bottleneck of learning. I was teaching language and if you want native level fluency and proficiency, then you might need to spend up to native level time acquiring the language. In other words, to get to a 10 year old's ability, it might take you up to 10 years of nearly full time practice. Sorry, but I'm not going to teach you 58,400 hours (10 years, 16 hours a day) unless you have Bill Gates level money to spend.

So, you're going to spend something like 3 hours a week in my class, and only something like 30 of those weeks are going to be productive in a year (if I'm lucky). So that's a pidly 90 hours of instruction per year. I'm going to teach you practically nothing in that time.

This is what is wrong with education.

But getting back to 1:1 vs 1:40. In a 1 hour class, if I have 40 students I can spend just over a minute paying attention to each student. In other words, I'm going to present my pidly amount of information and hope like hell that you're going to do something useful with it -- because I do not have enough time to interact with even one person in the class. If you assume that 1 in 40 students have a behaviour problem (just 2.5%!) you will see that I will expect to be interrupted in every single one of my classes. So probably I won't even be able to present my pidly amount of information. Probably I will just babysit and the students who know how to study will do well, while the others do poorly.

As we reduce the ratio, I have more time to interact with the students. But it's really important to realise that if I waste that time trying to teach the material, I will do no good. So in fact, what I want to do is let the students study and then _watch_ them so that I can can correct their behaviour. By doing that, they can become good students and succeed in studying.

How many students I can handle depends a lot on my class management skills and also on the students. Some students require _no_ intervention. They just need a friendly, welcoming, and engaging environment in which to study. Some students need considerable attention. 1:1 might be amazing for some students, but even 1:10 or 1:20 could be amazing for others (depending on the teacher). Some students like to study alone, some like to study in pairs, some like to study in groups. You have to be flexible.

<comment><USER10> My first day with my new violin teacher, he asked me who my teacher was. I gave the normal answer, and he said 'Wrong! _You_ are your own teacher. I am just here to help you teach yourself.' Have never forgotten those words.

We need teachers who will enable their students to learn for themselves. Only then can the teacher no longer be the bottleneck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I worked for an Education startup a couple of years ago. They had a really good math learning product which blew away the competition in terms of software quality but they didn't achieve exponential growth. It was linear growth but at a very good rate. The trick was to sell directly to schools and educational institutions.

There are new challenges there but it's also very high-reward. You can sell 1000 licenses from a single deal with a school. If you get a government public school contract you could be looking at 100k licenses from a single deal.

I think that companies which do big b2b deals have become greatly undervalued. VCs are so obsessed chasing exponential growth curves that they seem to have forgotten that the earth only has limited population and that buying power has become much more centralized and is becoming increasingly centralized.

<comment><USER12> There is truth to the centralization issue in education, we see more and more deals being done at 100k levels. Makes the current way of doing business on smaller language markets obsolete, I'm not sure it's for the better.

<comment><USER11> I think a problem is that most parents (in the west) don't have any ideas or opinions about what learning tools are best for their children - Most parents are happy to let the education system decide what's best.

I think most busy parents these days tend to see the school system as an end- to-end automatic education machine; you insert a young uneducated child, put some money in it and several years later an educated adult comes out.

With that mindset it's easy to see why it's better to do deals directly with schools than trying to get the attention of the parents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm currently working for an education startup right now. We are struggling. Have been for the past few years. The biggest problems I've noticed:

1\. Cost. When you deal with school districts, you usually sell for X number of devices. So for example, all devices for 5th-7th grade, something like that. When you sell alot, schools will usually ask for volume licensing. Schools don't want to see prices above $5. This goes for devices for the quality of the devices they purchase. Often, the student device is cheap, low- powered, and in the case of Windows devices, packed to the brim with all sorts of software running in the background: web filters, virus-scanners, and some educational apps. Top that off with apps that students install like Spotify and games, it slows the machine down to a crawl or causes problems that might interfere with your software solution.

2\. Different school districts have different needs. Although our software solution was initially meant to be for general use by all schools, we kept running into school district that needed very specific needs to that school or district. That lead to developing new features that only a small handful of school district would use, sometimes confusing users who did not need such features, or didn't even know we had the feature.

3\. If your software solution works with student information systems data, it can often be a nightmare getting school districts to create that data.

4\. School IT teams are...pretty terrible. Or rather, they're swamped with so many issues from so many products and devices, that they care very little as to learn how to deploy your product properly. Have documentation? Trust me, they probably won't read it. You will most likely get an e-mail asking how to deploy.

5\. Trials, trials, trials. Schools aren't going to pay up just because they see a video demo of your product. They're going to want a trial at minimum for half the school year, maybe more. Then...

6\. ...Politics. Decision to purchase needs to be approved by some board.

<comment><USER14> Coming from the grades 9-12 sysadmin side, I might be able to provide some perspective. Every school is wildly different, so I would recommend against applying my perspectives too broadly.

1\. Cost: Windows licenses for student PCs are just under $20/PC/year (for us). Is your $5 software 25% as useful to students as their operating system is? Even worse, the reality is if I put your software on my 1000 computers I'll be lucky if 300 of them use it. That's something to keep in mind when working with per-device licenses. I agree installed system software bloat is a problem. That results from every department having different needs. We might be a little different in that we don't allow students to install/run foreign software (using AppLocker).

2\. I agree different schools are amazingly different. I collaborate with a few other schools around me and whenever we meet I'm pretty floored by how differently each one approaches basic problems. These significant differences really add up and I can understand how supporting schools might be a pain.

3\. It seems like every vendor wants access to my SIS. That's a privilege not granted lightly. I'm generally okay with automated CSV dumps of bare minimum data uploaded over a secure channel, but some vendors have the nerve to request direct LDAP or Oracle database access over the public Internet. No way!

4\. I'll agree school IT teams are generally terrible. Among my peers and schools I collaborate with, I'm the only one with a degree in IT. Many are older and migrated to the role from something else (former math teachers surprisingly often). Some find themselves shoehorned into the role because they happened to be the most technically-inclined among the staff. These guys are uncomfortable in powershell/cmd and typically use contractors or local PFYs to handle technical details. Schools do not pay enough to attract decent talent. I could work for a local company and make 1.5-2x more doing less than I do here, but for now I like this environment.

5\. While video demos can be helpful product overviews. I distrust video demos just as I distrust other marketing wank. I want to test drive the car before I decide to purchase it. That said, I wouldn't expect anyone to let me demo something longer than 60 days. The long time in my case is that exploring new software is _usually_ a backburner project, and I am likely to have other things come up that take priority. I never put production data into trial software however.

6\. Yes, purchasing processes are a pain. I 100% agree. I currently have a request for $60 of printer toner that's been sitting in the requisition process for over a week. Trust me, it's just as bad for us on the inside.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for providing your perspective! I've always wondered what it was like on your side.

1\. I totally understand this. I've actually often wondered what a waste of funds it is when I see school districts purchase several hundred licenses of our product, but only a handful of teachers and students end up using it. I understand though that it's hard to just purchase the right amount of licenses, since you never know if another teacher/student down the line might want to start using it.

4\. Yes, I've been to a few local schools for support and there's quite a few teachers who are handling the simpler IT side of things. From the IT staff that I've met in schools, I think I would like the environment too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article correctly identifies consumer-facing education businesses as being incredibly difficult. I used to work in education and Chegg is the only consumer-facing company I can think of in the industry. Most other education companies have either sold or partnered with schools (Neverware, Clever, Jamf, etc). One of the interesting things with the market is that it's difficult to start penetrating districts since school budgets can vary year to year AND because many purchases have to be approved by school boards. But as soon as you're in, you essentially have a monopoly for a number of years. It's enterprise sales without the immediate huge money payoff. That said, there's a lot of money out there in education

<comment><USER2> I'd add Texas Instruments, with their graphing calculators. They have an extremely low tech product whose prevalence actually detracts from kids learning to make effective use of computation. But they've established a monopoly position by understanding what real problems they're actually solving: 1) Moderating development to within a pace that teachers and the curriculum / testing industry can keep up with. 2) Keeping cheating under control.

Disclosure: I have two kids in high school, both of whom need graphing calculators for their schoolwork. Both would prefer to use Python/Jupyter.

<comment><USER16> I got all the way through high school (AP calculus, etc., high school class of 2004) and through lots of technical courses in college without ever needing a graphing calculator, except once during the AP exam, and possibly once for an in-class exam, for which I could borrow one from the school (the rest of the time I just had a $5 used "scientific calculator" but a slide rule would have been just fine, and in college a laptop with real programming languages on it). Learning arcane features of the calculator's function is not really necessary for the AP exam and is a waste of time, but I would recommend spending a couple hours familiarizing oneself with the basic features before the exam.

Students and parents are often fed a misleading impression of what tools they will actually need to work through a course, and pressured to buy calculators that are not necessary, preying on their desire to succeed at school. I think I was the only student in the class with enough moral outrage about TI's calculator scam to try such a thing, but my impression was that it really had no practical consequences, except for me spending a lot less time than the other students playing low-quality snake, brickout, and tetris clones.

<comment><USER17> The real fun came from _writing_ those low-quality clones :)

It could even be relevant: I used the projectile equations from Physics class for my Artillery clone.

<comment><USER16> Not that there's anything inherently wrong with writing code in Basic or Z80 assembly language, for a very limited device with no proper keyboard, 24K of user-accessible memory, a 96x64 pixel 1-bit display, and no other sensors or output devices, but I'm pretty sure the time could be spent more effectively in some other programming environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> 10-6 This article was written in 2011, and I think since then with the "learn to code" movement becoming so popular and coding bootcamps promising to help people get software development jobs, things have changed a bit--at least for edtech companies teaching programming skills.

There are a ton of popular websites that teach people coding/software development/design skills online now that have grown incredibly over the last few years, but still not really getting to mainstream status. Treehouse, Code School, DataCamp, Udemy, Frontend Masters, Udacity, Thinkful, Codecademy are just a few popular websites where people can learn to code today and all of them have a subscription plan. I don't think any of these have reached "mainstream" status, but there are definitely a lot more websites and applications today teaching people to code via subscription plans than there were 6 years ago.

Whatever your thoughts are on the whole "learn to code" movement, it's clear that the landscape for edtech companies teaching programming/software development has changed since 2011. Will any of these companies teaching people to code ever reach "mainstream" status, I don't know.

<comment><USER18> Thinkful pivoted from a subscription model to being a school focused on job placement a couple years back. Our core products are remote immersive & part- time courses in software development & data science. But tying back to the OP, the immersive program has a no tuition till you're hired financing option, (which a few other schools offer too). It's been pretty exciting hearing the joy from applicants who wouldn't have been able to afford the course w/ traditional financing options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I built Textfyre in 2007 and closed in 2011. Gates Foundation put our ideas in their grant program and put all their resources into existing publishers. Later, Pearson was on NPR spouting many of Textfyre's pitch points. None of these companies have figured out Interactive education or reduced cost or improved quality.

I still believe we could have, but we couldn't convince others. Mostly because a real MVP would have cost millions to create.

But we could have saved states billions by replacing textbooks with online, interactive, cross-discipline content.

The market is closed to startups. The industry is fighting disruption in every way they can.

<comment><USER20> I completely agree that Pearson sells itself as innovative but it is anything but that! Their "mylab" type products aren't innovative. It is just the same old same old. I would even argue that it has been counterproductive because they're now moving to FORCE students to buy new expensive textbooks to get the homework grading code. Pearson has absolutely zero interest in disrupting anything. They only care about building their monopoly on textbooks.

However, I am an optimist and believe that even with well entrenched interest groups (big textbook publishers, school districts, unions etc.) there is still paths to disruption. At a fundamental level, education is simply teaching someone something new. That's it! If you are providing something quality then people will naturally flock to it or share it.

I think the future education startup simply needs to focus on building high quality learning materials. Then either give those products away for free or innovative monetization models (ie. watch 5 video ads to unlock the content etc.). Don't focus on trying to sell to school districts. Focus on going straight to the consumer: students or parents. Every student I know is already going online to get extra homework help, resources, youtube videos etc.

<comment><USER19> The only way we'll change education is to disrupt the classroom from a systemic point of view. We have to prove there is a better way. That can only be done with high quality content newly constructed for interactivity.

This is where Pearson, Britannica, et al fail. They have a library of content created over decades with a guaranteed state-driven pipeline into classrooms. This content is specifically created by old school experts specifically for printed chapters in a bound book.

Creating real interactive content would require content experts work within an interactive digital agency framework, which would require a sizable R&D budget with a lot of trial and error. We're talking millions of dollars spent before a completed product was available.

But here's the upside. Textbooks cost each state roughly $100 per student per year. An online system might charge a fraction of that (Textfyre targeted $1/student/year).

Imagine the state of Illinois saving $99 per student per year over several years.

The investment is risky to a degree, but I view it no differently than Kennedy choosing to go to the moon. You decide to do it. You find the best and the brightest to enable the vision. You enact the vision. There is an upfront cost, but the vision and results would alter the course of history in the world.

Interactive, adaptable education systems are the future. They would be able to reach everyone on the planet regardless of age, gender, politics, class, or any other identity labels.

I have a second start-up (Wizely). I'll probably keep swinging if it doesn't hit a nerve. If I ever have one succeed and make (a lot of) money, I will re- invest my profits into education and what I call positive social engagement.

My advice to ed-tech startups. Find a way to make money, but immediately redirect all profits to attacking the classroom. That's where we need the R&D to go. As the OP said, consumer-based ed-tech has its limits.

The classroom is where we need to drive innovation.

<comment><USER20> I completely agree with you and I agree with disrupting the classroom. A good approach is to simply make an online classroom that has all the bells and whistles of innovative technology - on-demand, free or low-cost, high-quality materials, community interaction and so on. For traditional subjects the existing textbooks are good from a content point of view. They've been peer reviewed hundreds of times. The problem is that it is difficult to just self- study these books and understand the subject completely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Lots of solution-focused dialogue here but from my experience, I've come to believe that education startups fail because the education marketplace is actually a loose confederation of communities and consumer preferences are more akin to individual values and beliefs. This makes it really difficult to market evidence-based solutions or scale your sales strategy.

</comment><comment><USER10> Couple of other causes:

\- It's very hard to measure to value add of education; people have spent lives working on this

\- Only half the value of educational institutions comes from educating people; the other half comes from the credentialing where they pick out the 'brighter' individuals, but measuring how much a credential is worth is almost impossible for most individuals

<comment><USER20> Credentials aren't immune from disruption. Just look at how the trades work. They all are using some sort of independent testing company that certifies people. In the future employers might not care if you have a BA degree if instead you have an electrician certificate or some comptia certification. Those credentials might be more valuable. Perhaps in the future there will be certifications for programming languages that are industry standard. Accountants have their CPA and lawyers have their BAR exam so on so forth.

<comment><USER22> But theirs more than one way to do it :-) and from my dads experience chartered status is more about who you know not what.

And in the USA in particular what point are BAR exams when you get people with ZERO experience of law appointed to senior legal positions - No offence to one of Obamas Supreme nominations but they had no real world judging experience - shades of E l Wisty

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Might have some good points, but:

\- As it says in the post, there is a lot of generalization. And usually generalized advice for something as specific as building a startup is not good

\- This is 6 years old - not sure if it still applies. A lot has changed in the tech possibilities since then

</comment><comment><USER24> There is another facet to this equation. Think about an investment banker. The skills an investment banker learns in college are largely irrelevant to his job.

One could say that his degree was entirely a waste of time, yet in order to qualify for a job in investment banking you need to go to a prestigious school and excel.

I see many spaces where education is largely irrelevant and functions only as a filter to reduce the supply of people who are qualified for a job.

<comment><USER20> That structure won't last into the future. Investment banking is already being disrupted through blockchain ICOs and similar stuff like that. More and more people are just using index funds so there is no need for an investment professional anymore. There will always be the goldman sachs and similar firms but how much people do they really employ?

<comment><USER25> The point is not solely related to investment banking. Education as social signaling will not be disrupted by the blockchain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Unfortunately I'm on my phone and I don't have access to my laptop that has my research on this. Sadly, ed tech doesn't work. The UK realized this. The US is starting to, state by state. This is not to say it can't work. So far the startups have issues with not being able to provide an innovative product that works reliably.

</comment><comment><USER27> What about companies like The Great Courses (formerly teaching company) that takes out full page spreads in the WSJ on a regular basis? Are they still niche?

<comment><USER20> Yup, still niche. If you look at their courses it is primarily consists of unique topics or subtopics of a bigger topic. If they want to be a disruptor then they need to start creating college courses and reduce the price. Create a certification system and create innovative learning systems for the courses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Interesting article! If you're thinking about targeting consumers in edtech, there's a lot of good advice in here. My company mainly sells to medical students, which are a highly incentivized group of consumers, so we can avoid some of the pitfalls mentioned in the article. However, most of the action in edtech is focused on selling to institutions because that's where the money is. The good news is institutions are more willing than ever to try out new technologies if you can convince them you can impact recruitment, retention, graduation rates, etc. Of course, that's easier said than done. Not many startups can wait around for 5 years to do a comprehensive research study. And you get all the classic problems of selling to institutions (and magnified in education): slow sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, politics, etc.

I think an interesting problem in edtech today is there are a lot of "startups" that fit in that dangerous area between a small business and a high-growth startup. You'll find dozens of companies that help improve mathematical skills, create STEM games, or build products for improving reading and writing comprehension. A lot of these companies might grow to be multi-million dollar companies over several years, but they won't fit that "classic" startup growth curve. Since venture money is flowing relatively well (and a few VCs focus specifically on edtech), a lot of these companies get funded. But there's a dilemma for these entrepreneurs: what do you do when you realize that your company is growing 2x each year (which is great!), but not at 10x where your investors want you.

</comment><comment><USER29> What this post is lamenting is the loss of some actor like MECC. We had great software written for students (not adults) at one point. Many of us here have used it and fondly remember it. Titles like Oregon Trail, Reader Rabbit, etc...

Unfortunately, MECC got spun-off from the actual Minnesota education system, then purchased by a giant ed-tech company and left to wither. The endowment that MECC (in its purist form) left behind faded in time.

There is still a lot of great educational software out there. It's just all locked away on a MacOS 9 box, tied to libraries and runtimes that never made the jump to Mac OS X and then iOS.

From the business side of it, we'd honestly need something of a PBS-like software company to reconstruct what we lost with MECC. I think that's the only way it'd work. The software would have to be made, not because it was profitable, but because it needed to be made and was a good thing for our society to have.

</comment><comment><USER30> I understand this article is a bit outdated, but companies like Duolingo or Clever seem to prove a few of the author's arguments wrong.

One would think there would be a market for Duolingo style apps for other subjects, such as mathematics, where the user is simply charged on a subscription bases. Could such a business not survive?

<comment><USER31> People want/need to learn another language for a very wide variety of reasons. While it is "teaching," it's also squarely in its own domain. I'm not sure they'd have an easy time transitioning to Duolingo for math. While I don't have their demo stats, language learning often extends well into adulthood... many corporations will pay for employees to learn a new language, and English schools are popular world-wide. Not as many adults are motivated to learn calculus, which then leaves a younger market with less ability/willingness to pay.

<comment><USER30> I do think that the overwhelming majority of Duolingo users are likely learning on their own volition, rather than for their job.

> While it is "teaching," it's also squarely in its own domain

Could this idea simply be because, for the most part, language learning applications have been the most successful? Other than Khan Academy, which is mostly videos, i've never heard of another company building similar products for other subjects.

I'm not sure whether it's because the market doesn't exist or that it hasn't been tried.

<comment><USER31> Language is pretty unique. You can be interested in, marry into, befriend, worship in, born from, work in, read in, watch in, move to, befriend, and be moved to a new language.

As humanity requires language, learning a new one can happen at any stage of life. Rarely do people spend casual time learning what is typically taught in youth. Yes there are always people interested in TED talks but that's effectively TV. Yes people go back to school but that's focused structured time. Language is better if learned interactively, in both casual and formal settings. I can read a history book and feel accomplished. Reading a French textbook without application won't work as well. Language requires active learning, where as many other subjects do not. Language apps such as duolingo are well suited accordingly (even better would be a really great conversational bot that could help you better pronounce your words).

I'm not saying there aren't other markets, but I am positing it's def not evenly distributed across subject matter.

<comment><USER25> English Central attempts the conversation bot but it is fairly terrible. Competition would be welcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> There's also the issue that single point tech solutions often don't help schools, or districts, in a meaningful way.

This is because "the tech" is just the tip of the iceberg and there's a disconnect between the districts that purchase software and the teachers who are left to try and figure it out on their own.

I wrote in more detail about this issue here:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/11/13/wa...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/11/13/want- a-modern-school-system-technology-is-not-enough/#272169d343c6)

</comment><comment><USER33> I am trying to build an online coding school for kids ages 6-13. I mostly agree with what's being stated because we already have customers in China, Korea, and Japan despite doing no marketing there. They are hard markets to ignore, especially when US parents are a harder sell. In order for us to be successful in the long-term, we must be a cross-border company.

Coding is one of the things that parents are increasingly willing to pay for, but it is still in the process of becoming a middle-class family demand.

[https://block.school](https://block.school)

</comment><comment><USER34> I have a 4 year old, and I have found most of the educational things that work well at a young age are crafts and STEM based kits.

I was looking at the apple app store today as we were waiting for an appointment. It is quite flooded with all sorts of educational apps, but most that I tried were of low quality. Performing a search for the best reading or math app did not improve much.

I think there may be an opportunity here, but it would take a team with diverse talents and not just a team of developers to build something good.

</comment><comment><USER35> I appreciated the point that VCs think about education differently than the masses.

Reminds me of the AirBnB guys pitching their original idea of people renting out their couch for strangers to sleep on and getting thrown out by virtually all of them. "Who would EVER want that??"

</comment><comment><USER36> I joined an edtech company earlier this year: yellowdig.com. I think the thing I'd echo from this post is that time definitely needs to be on your side. Having connections also really helps. I'll keep the points about cost in my back pocket.

</comment><comment><USER37> If you are a startup marketing for the Asian market especially China, feel free to send your BP to me(firstname.lastname@example.com), we are a VC that helps foreign startups (and local startups) understand the very complicated Chinese education market.

</comment><comment><USER38> In China(or South Korea, or Japan), it is totally a different story. Majority of the parents think education as an investment, thus one of the best places to do an education related startup would be in China.

</comment><comment><USER39> Good points. I think the blog post would have benefited from a definition of the "education product" the author has in mind, because otherwise it remains a little vague.

I can think of at least a dozen educational services and products and it's possible/likely the optimal growth strategy would be different for each of these. For example, tutoring service (in person or remote), learning web application, learning mobile app, classic content products (print textbook, digital textbook, recorded video lessons), new-media content products (e.g. new apps or learning modality), etc. Then there is the whole "credentialing" aspect, which we all hope will go away but currently it's still a very important: people are easily impressed by big-name universities, and three- letter degree acronyms.

The "edtech space" is very interesting. The OP is totally right that it's not obvious how to make money given that neither schools nor students have money... (Sure there are rich kids and motivated parents who can pay and they will enjoy the value, but it's a very ugly thing to deny access to knowledge to someone behind a paywall/subscription just because they can't pull out a credit card and follow the funnel.)

In addition to the traditional for-profit startup model, there are big developments in the ed-tech sector by non-profits like Khan Academy. Some of the best learning UX/UI and content to come out in last decade is from KA. More generally, the open educational resources (OERs) are starting to be a thing now... there lots of good open content and there is potential for companies to be "service providers" on top of the vast sea of "commons." Open source gave us an interesting last two decades. Now imagine what will happen when open content becomes mainstream too?

On the other hand being too open with the content and starting with a "yes take it all for free" strategy is a sure way to end up out of runway. How many non-profit projects shut down because of lack of funding. Aren't there always strings attached when receiving funding from governments, NGOs, and philanthropists. What if they change their mind next year? Or two years form now? There is something beautiful and robust about a self-sustaining project like a for-profit startup. I know teacherspayteachers and other for-profit projects that are doing very well. Definitely something to learn there.

It all depends on what you want to optimize for, but the fundamental algorithm in the edtech space remains the same as in all other spaces: deliver more value than you capture and be in the right place to ride the wave up.

</comment><comment><USER40> I must say, I really like how this blog does thorough use cases with deep information about the why things don't succeed. 2 thumbs up!

</comment><comment><USER41> This really is a great read. Reading the first bullet alone is worth its weight in gold.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think what smart.ly is doing is pretty unique. Disclosure: I work there.

<comment><USER43> Would you mind explaining what your company does and why you think it's unique? I visited your website and I am still none the wiser.

<comment><USER42> We offer a free, licensed, MBA course and offset the operational costs via a hiring engine that takes a cut on employment match. Online only, interactive, non-video content. There's also an extremely low-cost, licensed, EMBA program for those people who are already gainfully employed and just want to develop their business / operational knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Thanks for this. Working on an educational cost reduction thing... :)

<comment><USER45> What are you trying to reduce the cost of?

<comment><USER44> The whole damned ball of wax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Top Hat — a Toronto based post-startup — has successfully gone against just about every point in this article. This article is full of whatever the inverse of survivorship bias is.

</comment><comment><USER47> So education != tech education, correct?

</comment><comment><USER48> Because academic-style and bootcamp-style education is largely a bullshit. As opposed to apprenticeship which happens in real business conditions.

<comment><USER49> i would include self-apprenticeship as well since people can learn many things easily on their own now (via internet)... unfortunately taking a bad class can rapidly kill a person's interest, especially if they have already invested considerable time into the subject matter

<comment><USER48> I think you wanted to say autodidactism (which is also legit). Apprenticeship implies following someone.. but yeah, not necessarily face-to-face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Mods, please add (2011) to the title.

<comment><USER51> Done. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Meanwhile, Udacity...

</comment><comment><USER53> Figure out a way to franchise high schools to make them into coworking spaces. All teachers are remote and all teaching happens over skype. The employees on site are there only to make sure the kids dont kill each other. Offer an insane amount of subjects (this is possible since there might be only 30 kids worldwide interested in xyz, now they can take a class on it).

The future of education is something along these lines I think. One could really make a lot of money with this because the costs will be fractional compared with real high school. Also no "athletic departments" fuck that shit.

<comment><USER54> I like the idea. The role of the teacher would be to coach students (like giving them advice, monitoring progress). What was missing from the MOOC formula was real person, in the flesh accountability for learning.

<comment><USER39> Yes, human in the loop is definitely good. Reminds me a bit of the "Granny cloud": [https://youtu.be/dk60sYrU2RU?t=12m](https://youtu.be/dk60sYrU2RU?t=12m) (talk is worth watching from the beginning)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is well written, and frankly off the mark.

If online education got people cushy jobs the way university degrees get people cushy jobs - online education would be massively profitable.

That's not the case. There's nothing else to it.

Regarding online education in general:

Universities/colleges should have to post their full curriculum, lecture notes and all textbooks and chapters used for each class - that's enough.

There's no need for businesses here - just tell us what you're teaching your class, and anyone interested can go read the textbook. Make video lectures available as a bonus for a little bit of money, that's it! A lot of students already don't attend classes and just read the lecture notes and chapters needed.

These online education start-ups remind me of companies that take Craigslist and start adding unnecessary bells and whistles to justify their existence. We already have craigslist and it works folks. Stop trying to make a buck by being so incredibly boring.

<comment><USER20> Universities already do that. Simply go to google, type whatever course you want to learn followed by syllabus. Some of the bigger schools have all the teachers list their syllabus on a central page as well. Obviously it is for the benefit of the student but indirectly the syllabus is the outline of the course - lists textbooks used, chapters covered, homework problems etc. To get notes you might be able to find online somewhere.

<comment><USER55> Great. This is not obvious to most people. Especially people who've never been to university like me.

So the last mile left to accomplish in 'online education' is to standardize the presentation of the syllabus/outline and inform people that that is a viable option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is interesting but not well structured.

Basically consumer facing spending is about delivering cheap services, whether that be babysitting style tutoring, textbooks or slinging a minimally viable educational experience that aligns with government programs.

Targeting schools is an enterprise play. You either have the ability to survive the public school sales cycle, or the connections to get the money people behind charter schools to buy your crap.

Personally, I think this is a shitty startup market. It's an insular industry, most non-content plays have entrenched competition or a bunch of players (Microsoft, google, apple) doing a half ass job for free/cheap. It's easier to do enterpsie style business with normal government entities.

Targeting poor people is dumb because poor folk give zero shits about education. If you have the political juice, targeting a government agency with money to burn on helping poor people makes more sense.

<comment><USER57> "Targeting poor people is dumb because poor folk give zero shits about education."

Don't even know where to start on this...

<comment><USER56> How many low income households are spending money on Kaplan courses?

You may find that harsh, but it's reality. Doing what the author suggested (producing low quality cheap crap) may sound more sensitive, but in my mind is unethical.

Things like Khan academy have traction because third parties pay the bill. Online degree mills have traction because an uncritical third party (ie the government) loans the cash to students.</comment></comment></comment>


Working with the lisp community on IRC - <AUTHOR> http://ryepup.unwashedmeme.com/blog/2008/01/07/working-with-the-lisp-community-on-irc/

<comment><USER2> I think you've fairly accurate described the majority of irc channels related to programming.

I've been running #winapi on freenode for over 6 years (writing windows programs used to be the way to impress your friends before making websites or apps became all the rage).

The only generalization I would make is that people on IRC are just the same programmers you see at work. There are experts (but they don't consider themselves experts), there are beginners, but it's mostly just people working and listening in on anything interesting or to ask a question here and there.</comment>


Execution is Hard - <AUTHOR> http://www.ethanmick.com/execution-is-hard/ <comment><USER2> Execution is hard if you focus on the big end result of the idea. Break the big idea into small concepts or components.

By breaking it down to all the individual steps you do two things: 1\. Create a feeling of progress as each step is completed 2\. Give yourself opportunity to change as you go since you are working on small pieces of the bigger project.

The most important part is just starting something. If you have an idea, figure out the smallest part of it that you can actually start to create today and then do it.

Let's say you have an idea for an mobile app. Start to draw the pages on paper. Get a small notebook and have each page represent a screen. You now have a small "working" prototype.

From there you can use tools like UI Stencils ProtoSketch to make those pictures interactive [https://protosketch.uistencils.com/](https://protosketch.uistencils.com/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> One thing I did't mention in the post, is that sometimes it's hard to see where an idea ends and good execution begins. For example, Google started as just another search engine, with a great search algorithm. But that algorithm came from some great ideas. Also, their idea to get you off their search page as quickly as possible (as opposed to trying and keep you on their site), made it very user friendly.</comment>


Helium: A floating browser window for OS X - <AUTHOR> http://jadengeller.github.io/Helium/ <comment><USER2> This is very clever, but with all the research on the ineffectiveness of multi-tasking, I'm not sure it's a great idea to use it.</comment>


Microsoft's Acquisition Success Rate - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-15-biggest-acquisitions-so-far-2011-5?op=1

<comment><USER2> Ah, Business Insider.

The Daily Mail of tech news.</comment>


A Look at Nanomsg and Scalability Protocols - <AUTHOR> http://www.bravenewgeek.com/a-look-at-nanomsg-and-scalability-protocols/

<comment><USER2> On zero-copy: the article claims nanomsg uses it. The official documentation at [http://nanomsg.org/development- bindings.html](http://nanomsg.org/development-bindings.html) says something else:

> Zero-copy means that the application has to deal

> directly with different native memory buffers, for

> example with blocks of shared memory, or memory pinned

> down to physical memory address (so as to be accessible

> by zero-copy CPU-bypass techniques) and so on. This is

> hard, and sometimes even impossible, to get working

> with languages with automatic garbage collection.

>

> If you still want to provide zero-copy, make sure to

> discuss it on the nanomsg mailing list or IRC channel

> in advance to avoid possible pitfalls.

So, I assume that zero-copy is not used in any out-of-the-box implementation. Maybe someone with more experience can clarify this. The documentations further mentions zero-copy only in the local form of scatter/gather (used with vmsplice etc.), which is distinct from zero-copy to the network layer.

<comment><USER3> Nanomsg API is crafted in such a way as to allow for network-level zero-copy. This is much unlike other messaging products. However, I know of no implementation that actually uses that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interestingly, we do something almost identical using Salt for service discovery (hey, it's built on ZeroMQ, too). We periodically ping all minions and record some information about them that gets provided as pillar data such that we can write out databases hosts and such into environment variables when configuring hosts.</comment>


Apple iPad mini. What Rubbish - <AUTHOR> http://www.integralwebsolutions.co.za/Blog/EntryId/900/Apple-iPad-mini-What-Rubbish.aspx

<comment><USER2> TL;DR: Author is in South-Africa and does not have access to 80%[1] of the apps that are available in the US and "European" stores. He's not ranting about the iPad mini, but about the availability of apps.

What a stupid title.

[1] According to him at least

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm in India and often I see 'this app is not available in this appstore' message (I never kept a count, but it won't be 80%). Since there is no alternative way to load apps, distinction between hardware & software doesn't exist in iPad. If no apps, the device is useless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Stop buying products that only allow you install applications from a single source. Would you reward a car manufacturer that forced you to use only their roads and their gas? You will almost always regret tying yourself to single vendor options.

</comment><comment><USER4> Given that you found so many web pages outlining the problem tells me you could have easily researched this before you purchased the product. You didn't. Your fault.

</comment><comment><USER5> Angry Birds was released in South Africa earlier this week. Almost 4 years later.</comment>


Machine learning revolutionizes software development - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100420161222.htm

<comment><USER2> Revolutions in software development are pretty rare. Developing for the web probably qualifies. Mainstream acceptance of garbage collection as well, probably. This seems overblown.

How is this different from tools like Acovea? <http://www.coyotegulch.com/products/acovea/>

More of a search problem than a learning problem if that's what's really going on.

</comment><comment><USER3> Much better explanation here: <http://ctuning.org/wiki/index.php/CTools:MilepostGCC>

The basic idea is to use machine learning to pick the best set of gcc compiler options for a program. A better optimizer for a compiler is useful but it's hardly a revolution.

Edit: to clarify, this isn't just choosing command-line flags, but using machine learning in the compiler's internals.

</comment><comment><USER4> little bit of sensationalism here...

"compiler optimisation has become a bottleneck in the development process"

Certainly not true for arbitrary development.

"an automatic way to optimise compilers for re-configurable embedded processors"

and they are working on a particular special case...

</comment><comment><USER5> How is this better than JITting?

It seems like most recent performance gains come from runtime/dynamic optimizations, not static/compile time optimizations.

<comment><USER6> > It seems like most recent performance gains come from runtime/dynamic > optimizations, not static/compile time optimizations.

Are you sure? Have you heard of stream fusion for Haskell?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ten times faster? Ten times? I find that completely implausible.</comment>


Nomad Task Versioning - <AUTHOR> https://damienradtke.com/post/nomad-task-versioning/ <comment><USER2> Nomad dev here. Great post! Hopefully I can provide some insights:

> 1\. Templated job files.

While parameterized jobs[0] are a step toward templated jobs, they unfortunately don't address your use case. We'll be adding `-var` options to `run` in 0.7 to allow templating normal jobs like you can template jobs.

In the meantime I think what you're doing is pretty good and should integrate well into a CI/CD pipeline for automating deploys of new builds.

You could consider a specialized templating tool instead of sed like m4, a jinja-based tool like j2cli, or even consul-template.

A number of users also bypass `nomad run ...` and run jobs through our HTTP API instead.[1] While this takes more code, it's easiest to build into existing deployment tooling (CI/CD, chatops, chef, etc) and obviously allows easy manipulation.

> 2\. Better documentation.

Absolutely. We're acutely aware of the need for more comprehensive docs. Expect a "Guides" section to appear in the near future to cover common use patterns like yours!

> 3\. Explicit support for artifact versioning?

Probably not going to happen as it would be little more than an opaque meta var to Nomad.[2]

Although in the upcoming 0.5.5 release we do support Git and hg URLs for artifacts, so you could pull down code from a tag.[3]

We do have other artifact features planned for the near future though (like caching so common artifacts shared between jobs aren't downloaded multiple times), so perhaps some sort of versioning will be added. Not sure what the exact semantics will be yet.

[0] [https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/replacing-queues-with- nomad-d...](https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/replacing-queues-with-nomad- dispatch/)

[1] [https://www.nomadproject.io/docs/http/job.html#put- post](https://www.nomadproject.io/docs/http/job.html#put-post)

[2] [https://www.nomadproject.io/docs/job- specification/artifact....](https://www.nomadproject.io/docs/job- specification/artifact.html)

[3] [https://github.com/hashicorp/go-getter#git- git](https://github.com/hashicorp/go-getter#git-git)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was excited to see a write up on Nomad. I wish it got more attention. I have a question that maybe someone could answer. The author states:

>"Despite its relative immaturity, there are a few things I really like about it"

Can anyone elaborate on what that immaturity consists of at the moment?

Doesn't Nomad largely leverage Consul for resource discovery and the remote exec API, Consul being pretty mature.

<comment><USER2> Nomad dev here. I'd love to hear unbiased answers to your question, but here are my biased thoughts. :)

> Can anyone elaborate on what that immaturity consists of at the moment?

We're pre-1.0 for a reason. While you're right we leverage Consul for discovery and health checks and Vault for secrets, there are still quite a few gaps we plan to fill before hitting 1.0. We need a plugin infrastructure to support volume and network plugins. There's still resource constraints to be added (eg gpus) or improved upon (eg storage accounting). I'd personally love to get secure mTLS bootstrapping via Vault to be as painless as our server discovery via Consul. Lots to do, so expect regular improvements as we move toward 1.0.

tl;dr - The immaturity and pre-1.0 version are due to missing features, not instability or lots-of-breaking-changes.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the reply, good to know.

Is there a current roadmap anywhere I can view? I looked at the Google Group for Nomad but the last roadmap post I saw was 0.4.

<comment><USER2> We have an internal one that we keep private mainly because it changes so often it would be more frustrating than useful to users.

We should still do a better job of making issues for all major work items and probably publishing some sort of high level list of desired features for 1.0.

<comment><USER3> I understand. Maybe you could post the high level list(that's actually what I meant in my other question) to the Nomad Google group?

Do you have any ball park of how far off a 1.0 release might be? Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The proper way isn't to specify artifact checksum?

When you rebuild your "main", you update the checksum and Nomad should see it as a change, no?

I can't test right now, I don't know if Nomad pick the job change and download the new artifact or just fail the check.

<comment><USER2> Yup, that's one way! Still requires getting that checksum into the job file somehow (sed in this example). In the future there will be a -var option for passing template variables in from the command line.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Yamder - <AUTHOR>

I thought about creating a corporate tinder. Kind of like Yammer is Facebook for the enterprise. Yamder could be the corporate Tinder. Would you use this app? How can I monetize it? <comment><USER2> Could you explain more about what a "corporate Tinder" would do?

<comment><USER3> my immediate interpretation is a fairly literal one. e.g. it'd be an app to facilitate something like this: [http://www.metafilter.com/151011/Duck- Club](http://www.metafilter.com/151011/Duck-Club)</comment></comment>


If Sweden and Germany Became US States, They Would Be Among the Poorest States - <AUTHOR> https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states <comment><USER2> Not quite sure where these numbers were pulled from but the median Swedish salary for men are at $40482.89/yr and women at $36687.6/yr, the median of that is 38585.24 in total. Not sure that I can trust anything from this article.

<comment><USER3> The article is just bad propaganda. I say "bad" because it relies on the reader not having spent time outside the USA. You can compare apples and oranges all day. If Sweden suffers from "poverty" than its a type of poverty that looks pretty cozy to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A hopefully obvious case of political propaganda disguised as science. Median income is a pretty shocking way to measure overall wealth.

Edit: A glance at the author's previous work tells the whole story [https://mises.org/profile/ryan-mcmaken](https://mises.org/profile/ryan- mcmaken)

</comment><comment><USER5> There are lies, damned lies, statistics, then, there's this article.

> Now that we've accounted for the low cost of living in Mississippi, we find > that Mississippi ($26,517) is no longer the state with the lowest median > income in real terms. New York ($26,152) is now the state with the lowest > median income due to its very high cost of living.

The amount of fuckery one must do to the data to make New York look more poor than Mississippi is mind blowing.

</comment><comment><USER6> These numbers seem very wrong.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like they're warming up the anti-Bernie talking points machine.

</comment><comment><USER8> The median salary in Sweden is ~$38k.</comment>


Are Haskell selling points being slowly but surely acquired by rival languages? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/inpxxh/are_haskell_selling_points_being_slowly_but/ <comment><USER2> User experience and how it shapes the way you code is what matters, the features in isolation or not weaved together the same way are an entirely different result.

The individual selling points are the smaller part of Haskell's USP.</comment>


36 Analytics Predictions for 2017 - <AUTHOR> http://effinamazing.com/blog/analytics-predictions-of-2017/?utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=content-marketing&utm_source=hacker-news <comment><AUTHOR> Over the past few months our team has been working to collect analytics predictions. We are pumped to announce we have collected 36 predictions to help you get your analytics in check for 2017!</comment>


Making things work - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/books/review/Fukuyama-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> What I get out of this review is that the author has come to an understanding that it feels good to work with your hands. And I agree. I like working with my hands too. I've renovated my house, built a chicken coop and shed. I've built a stone patio and change the oil in my car. These things can be difficult and time consuming but very rewarding, and you certainly develop a respect for the skills it takes to do these things professionally.

However, I would never choose to do these things as a full-time career. I like being a "knowledge worker" and manager and all of the challenges that it entails. I also enjoy the freedom it gives me to choose to do manual labor when I want to. I'm friends with a house painter, general contractor and two fisherman. The painter and fishermen have VERY demanding jobs and worry (now that they are in their 40's) about how long they can continue.

These types of articles and books surface from time to time and they always seem to romanticize blue collar work. In my opinion blue collar work makes a great hobby but in real life it is hard and physically demanding work. I'll happily keep my desk-jockey status.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a very interesting article. I've seen a few families I know push kids into college who were clearly better suited for blue collar work. That just frustrates the kids and the parents who don't understand why their kid just doesn't fit into the college mold. I'm hoping to encourage my children to take whatever path makes sense for them and not force them to be anything that doesn't work for them. I hope that the US starts producing things again and thus blue collar labor is valued more so that kids who aren't really meant for college always have a respected, valued place in society.

<comment><USER4> What the US needs is a really good vocational-level school system. We have a huge gap between universities and trade schools. If we were to formalize vocational/trade schools it would bring much more legitimacy to those careers.

<comment><USER5> Being a resident of Québec, Canada, I find that the CEGEP ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEGEP> ) system employed here is something that other provinces and perhaps even the United States should take a closer look at.

The wiki page can describe the benefits of such a system in much more detail than I can, but I can offer one salient piece of information: the system works, and it works quite well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Timely article, after I (a mechanically disinclined person) just replaced the thermostat on my '93 Camry -- a simple job for most, but hard for me. And a very interesting read.

>The fact of the matter is that most forms of real knowledge, including self- knowledge, come from the effort to struggle with and master the brute reality of material objects — loosening a bolt without stripping its threads, or backing a semi rig into a loading dock. All these activities, if done well, require knowledge both about the world as it is and about yourself, and your own limitations.

I think that most programmers can agree that mastering programming is much of the same -- struggling with and finally mastering the known - and unknown - limitations of the tools we are using. In that regard, we are doing exactly what the mechanic does.

You could rightly argue that the knowledge the mechanic gets can be _applied_ in far more places -- bolts hold the world together, and understanding how to properly loosen one can come in handy. That tricky LDAP bug I solved yesterday doesn't apply to many other places.

The article goes on to discuss the process of rebuilding an engine -- an intricate, hands on task. But the description also points to the mental problem solving that takes place. The mechanic must have a mental model of an engine, so that seeing a small distortion or a slight bend raises an alarm of future problems. Programmers use those same mental models on a daily basis.

My father always says that you don't pay a mechanic to fix your car. You pay a mechanic for their knowledge - their ability to recognize odd operating conditions, their ability to know the internal processes and figure out where the system is failing. That's a _good_ mechanic, and that sounds like a good programmer to me.

I'm not trying to claim that all programmers could be good mechanics, or that the opposite is true -- I almost needed a good mechanic to replace my thermostat, and that's about as simple as it gets! I just think that much more overlap exists between these fields than we might believe.

</comment><comment><USER7> _They can't be learned simply by following rules, as a computer does; they require intuitive knowledge that comes from long experience and repeated encounters with difficulty and failure._

It's hard to try to refute this without sounding like I'm just defending my tribe, but I have to call bullshit on this one. The person who thinks that working with computers doesn't require intuition derived from repeated failures has had very limited experience with computers.

<comment><USER8> I think you misinterpreted the sentence. I understand it to mean: _These tasks can't be automated by a computer using an algorithm; the tasks require intuitive knowledge that comes from long experience and repeated encounters with difficulty and failure._

<comment><USER7> On second read, I think you're right. My bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The part that matters is not if the job is a blue collar job, or white collar job, but if the type of work is a good fit for you. Neither type of work is inherently more valuable, they just have a different set of trade offs that need to be considered.

Although I do appreciate the author's attempt to raise the perceived worthiness of blue collar jobs to an equal level as white collar jobs.

</comment><comment><USER10> This extract was posted last week. Well worth a read... <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html>

</comment><comment><USER11> This supports the observation that the 4 scariest words any homeowner can hear, "You have a problem," are much worse coming from your plumber than from your computer repair person.

<comment><USER12> Actually, I'd take hearing them from a plumber over any other tradesman! (Like a roofer, mason, or god forbid electrician.) :-)</comment></comment>


VW embarks on $50B electrification plan - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-strategy/vw-embarks-on-50-billion-electrification-plan-idUSKCN1NL0JX <comment><USER2> VW is really good at hyping up its theoretical progress in EVs. I guess its PR team got some rough first-hand experience dealing with the emissions scandal and came out of it battle-tested.

But I've yet to see a decent EV competitor to Tesla's cars, and I don't think one will come for at least another few years (and it remains to see how competitive that will be).</comment>


Perl/Linux, a Linux distribution where all programs are written in Perl - <AUTHOR> http://perllinux.sourceforge.net/ <comment><USER2> I have been working on [1] a Lua library that can implement all the functionality to do what is needed to bring up a Linux userspace. I should have a very minimal bootable environment very soon, as I have enough of the network tools, mount and so on implemented to put it together. There is not really intended to be a shell and command line tools though, it is just a library but you could have a REPL console. I am more interested in easily creating small system images to run single applications in, see [2] for rationale, building small testable whole system images that are quick to rebuild. Planning to use Musl libc [3] which is small and easy to debug so you can easily follow what is going on, plus the whole userspace will be BSD licensed.

[1] <https://github.com/justincormack/ljsyscall> [2] <http://www.myriabit.com/ljsyscall/> [3] <http://www.etalabs.net/musl/>

<comment><USER3> Neat ideas, I hope you continue to make good progress! I'm reminded of LuaOS, of course: <http://luaos.net/>

As an 8-bit nerd I'd love to return to the days when there was, basically, just one language onboard the computer, and all vendors just used it. :) LuaOS is a cute way to achieve this, as is your efforts too, if I understand you properly.

Of course such an idea is not so foreign in the embedded sphere, where there are plenty of appliances whose LCD interface are little more than a PUTS/GETS in some shell script, but there is some merit to the idea that the ethos of a single-system-language-onboard as an Open Source target may well be worth a serious effort. I'd love to have a new Tablet paradigm where the entire thing is LuaOS and such things as MOAI are easily onboard as well .. it could represent a brave new effort against the Walled Garden Wars we're seeing ..

<comment><USER4> > As an 8-bit nerd I'd love to return to the days when there was, basically, > just one language onboard the computer, and all vendors just used it. :)

Oh, like a Lisp machine. ;)

(Be careful what you wish for, though; the 'one language to rule them all' world was essentially why ADVENT was written in FORTRAN of all languages.)

(Also: Was it ever just one language? Eight-bit systems always had BASIC and assembly language; for a lot of tasks, assembly language was pretty much _it_ , unless you bought a Pascal compiler or something. Lisp machines had Lisp written in the normal way, Lisp written in an obscure way to improve performance, and microcode. Even old AS/400 systems had COBOL and RPG, which is rather a pick-your-poison dilemma but the choice was there.)

<comment><USER5> Symbolics had C, Fortran, Pascal, Ada and Prolog implementations. The promised benefit of a single-language userspace is in simplifying the tools and debugging and/or making them more powerful. The Linux ABI, ELF, DWARF, linkers, make, and all the awful POSIX stuff is huge and hugely complicated, but you don't really get a lot for it. The other alternative are systems like Plan 9 and software from <http://suckless.org/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember reading about this hack in 2003 wondering if there was any other variations of Linux than just "GNU/Linux". I always hated the term "GNU/Linux" and was looking for an excuse to generalize the name to just "Linux" and win a silly argument with some Stallman following, freedom loving zealots (system admins) at work.

These days Android (being almost 100% GNU free) is a decent argument against the GNU/Linux name for me (although busybox/uClibc stacks on most routers are pretty close as well).

<comment><USER7> Ι'd јuѕt lіkе tο іntеrјесt fοr а mοmеnt. Wһаt уοu'rе rеfеrrіng tο аѕ Lіnux, іѕ іn fасt, GΝU/Lіnux, οr аѕ Ι'vе rесеntlу tаkеn tο саllіng іt, GΝU рluѕ Lіnux. Lіnux іѕ nοt аn οреrаtіng ѕуѕtеm untο іtѕеlf, but rаtһеr аnοtһеr frее сοmрοnеnt οf а fullу funсtіοnіng GΝU ѕуѕtеm mаdе uѕеful bу tһе GΝU сοrеlіbѕ, ѕһеll utіlіtіеѕ аnd vіtаl ѕуѕtеm сοmрοnеntѕ сοmрrіѕіng а full OS аѕ dеfіnеd bу ΡOSΙX.

Mаnу сοmрutеr uѕеrѕ run а mοdіfіеd vеrѕіοn οf tһе GΝU ѕуѕtеm еvеrу dау, wіtһοut rеаlіzіng іt. Τһrοugһ а ресulіаr turn οf еvеntѕ, tһе vеrѕіοn οf GΝU wһісһ іѕ wіdеlу uѕеd tοdау іѕ οftеn саllеd "Lіnux", аnd mаnу οf іtѕ uѕеrѕ аrе nοt аwаrе tһаt іt іѕ bаѕісаllу tһе GΝU ѕуѕtеm, dеvеlοреd bу tһе GΝU Ρrοјесt.

Τһеrе rеаllу іѕ а Lіnux, аnd tһеѕе реοрlе аrе uѕіng іt, but іt іѕ јuѕt а раrt οf tһе ѕуѕtеm tһеу uѕе. Lіnux іѕ tһе kеrnеl: tһе рrοgrаm іn tһе ѕуѕtеm tһаt аllοсаtеѕ tһе mасһіnе'ѕ rеѕοurсеѕ tο tһе οtһеr рrοgrаmѕ tһаt уοu run. Τһе kеrnеl іѕ аn еѕѕеntіаl раrt οf аn οреrаtіng ѕуѕtеm, but uѕеlеѕѕ bу іtѕеlf; іt саn οnlу funсtіοn іn tһе сοntеxt οf а сοmрlеtе οреrаtіng ѕуѕtеm. Lіnux іѕ nοrmаllу uѕеd іn сοmbіnаtіοn wіtһ tһе GΝU οреrаtіng ѕуѕtеm: tһе wһοlе ѕуѕtеm іѕ bаѕісаllу GΝU wіtһ Lіnux аddеd, οr GΝU/Lіnux. All tһе ѕο-саllеd "Lіnux" dіѕtrіbutіοnѕ аrе rеаllу dіѕtrіbutіοnѕ οf GΝU/Lіnux.

<comment><USER8> For those who don't know, this post is becoming a sort of meme on /r/linux . And while I'm all for giving credit where it's due (by calling the OS GNU/Linux), I think, as I said on Reddit, that this copy/paste job devalues the discussion, since it gets tossed anywhere the system is called just Linux, gets downvoted as off-topic and nobody reads it anymore. So it's, IMHO, pointless and counter-effective.

Since I noticed people tend to be a little less emotional here then on Reddit, does anybody have any opinion on this?

<comment><USER9> It's troll copypasta from /g/. It's meant to derail discussion and kill threads. It is actually filtered (meaning you can't post it) on 4chan in order to reduce the number of shitposts. If you see it posted, it's a troll.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This made me think of something: it's my subjective experience that there is a relative dearth of Perl articles/discussion posted on HN. Is this correct? And if so, why is that the case? Hackers don't use Perl anymore? :)

Is anyone here using Perl in a significant way for their startup?

<comment><USER11> re: Perl posts on HN - There's actually quite a lot of Perl articles posted here (and I maybe the main culprit of that!). However only a small subset percolate to front page.

re: startups - Ones that quickly come to mind... Lokku, Blekko, Moonfruit, DuckDuckGo, CareerJet & Adzuna.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This reminds me of the sad fact that most distributions are just repackaging the same old GNU tools, or if embedded then busybox. Where's the innovation/experimentation of base userland? Android (other mobile linuxes probably too) is a nice exception, even though I'm not particularly fond of it as a system, I approve that at least it's trying to be different.

<comment><USER13> Well, there's BSD, Plan 9, Inferno. If you don't want the "same old GNU tools", there are plenty of places to go.

<comment><USER12> I guess I should have specified _Linux_ distributions, but then I thought that would be obvious from the context.

Besides latest stable of Plan9 was 10 years ago and latest stable of Inferno was 5 years ago...

<comment><USER14> I wish there was a way to end this meme, so people didn't keep saying the same dumb thing every time: Changes to Plan 9 are continually integrated, with a new ISO being generated every day. Inferno lives as a Mercurial repository these days, and it too gets updated frequently. In Plan 9, for instance, they recently added a better bootloader and support for timed semaphore acquires (and after that patch, you can now build Go for Plan 9). We even get ports to new systems from time to time, like the beagleboard or the gumstix.

<comment><USER12> Good start would be to edit their respective Wikipedia pages to be more clear on the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hosted on sourceforge to complete the "remembering years gone by" full house.

</comment><comment><USER16> In all seriousness, what year is this thing from? I honestly can't tell if this was someone's idea of a joke in 2000, or if this is someone's idea of a joke in 2012. Both seem equally plausible!

<comment><USER17> > Registered: 2001-03-12 > Last Update: 2009-07-17

So... a little of both it seems.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the info. Also, just out of curiosity, are you a U of MN student or alum?

<comment><USER17> Nope, other side of the country in fact :) Is there another mediocregopher?

<comment><USER16> Not that I'm aware of, but our (is it still 'our' if you graduated ten years ago?) mascot is the gopher.

Of course, the original artist didn't have a gopher picture to go on when he drew Goldy, so he used a chipmunk instead, assuming there wasn't any difference (<http://www.mndaily.com/2003/07/21/goldie-really-gopher>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's nice to study the code and i used some of it for chroot type applications , it's easy to let users play in a restricted environment with perl inside and a few linux utils

</comment><comment><USER19> A user-editable userland is a pretty neat idea, and if your language of choice is Perl, why not? Plan 9 has the pretty neat 'src' command that immediately opens the source file (or main entry point) of a given command.

Given something like file system overlays, individual users forking their own command versions would be a pretty neat idea, albeit it might turn out to be a bit chaotic. Although not much more than e.g. a highly-customized shell or emacs environment.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a hoot! I semi-seriously proposed that we do this at Sun back in the SunOS 4.x days.

Got shot down, of course, as it should have been back then, the CPUs were just not fast enough. Even today, C beats perl pretty handily.

Even so, I think this is pretty cute. Anyone know why it was done? Just because? Or was there a reason.

</comment><comment><USER19> A Rosetta Code-like site featuring Unix utilities for language comparison / code golfing would be a pretty neat idea. Use the V7 man pages as specs, so you don't go overboard.

</comment><comment><USER21> This reminds me of Aurorax, an attempt to have a Solaris distribution with the userland software written in Ada.

Sadly the project seems to no longer be alive.

<comment><USER22> Yes, AuroraUX is generally dead but on the bright sight it initiated[1] the development of GNAT-AUX[2] which is fine up to this day and even compiles Ada for Android devices :)

[1] <http://www.dragonlace.net/questions/quest_003/>

[2] <http://www.dragonlace.net/>

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the tip, cool information!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I could use a lightweigt and fast perl version of SED. There are incompatibilities between sed versions, especially between linux and mac. Therefor a small sed utility that you can ship with every release would be useful.

<comment><USER12> perl -p -e?

<comment><USER24> add -i to edit a file in place

         $ perl -p -i -e 's/\r\n/\n/' file1 file2 file3

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> No one has asked yet, so I guess I have to: is the Perl binary written in Perl?

<comment><USER26> No. The article says:

> The only compiled code in this Perl/Linux system is: Linux Kernel (not > currently built with this project), perl, and uClibc.

The Perl 5 compilers that currently exist all produce code that still needs to be linked to the perl library, which itself is written in C, not Perl. (I don't know the current situation for Perl 6).

<comment><USER27> Rakudo Perl 6 runs on Parrot, which is written in C. Niecza Perl 6 runs on .NET/mono, and its libraries are a mix of Perl 6 and C# code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Interesting idea. I guess the guys who wrote it, learned a lot on this way :)

</comment><comment><USER29> I can't see /bin/sh, and I haven't heard of posix shell implementation in Perl. Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER30> what? no javascript?

<comment><USER31> That's over here <http://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html> (runnable <http://bellard.org/jslinux/>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wish they'd make a serious attempt to do this in python, it'd be do fun to hack up all my programs without having to know C, C++, and every other programming language under the sun. Then again maybe I'm just lazy

<comment><USER33> With rather few exceptions, you only need to learn C if hacking on your userland is your idea of fun. Check out Busybox for a particularly easy one to start hacking.</comment></comment>


Rust-media, a portable media player framework for Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pcwalton/rust-media

<comment><USER2> I believe the intention of this library is to allow Servo to support the <video> tag, correct?

<comment><USER3> And <audio>, and Web Audio, and WebRTC. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> IMO they should write their own decoders. Current C/C++ implementations of media codecs are notoriously buggy.

<comment><USER3> Definitely we'd like to, over time! This is just the start, and contributions are welcome :) Servo's a big enough project that we try to reuse C and C++ wherever possible, while being open to eventual Rust rewrites of those components. We're pragmatic above all else.

Also note that, for patent-encumbered codecs, to meet the goals of being freely distributable we unfortunately have to use the platform's native C and C++ implementations, so we're stuck (until the patents expire).

<comment><USER2> Does this primarily refer to H.264?

<comment><USER3> H.264/AVC, AAC, and MP3.

<comment><USER2> Aha, I had no idea that MP3 was still encumbered. Looks like 2017 is the year to anticipate: [http://www.tunequest.org/a-big-list-of- mp3-patents/20070226/](http://www.tunequest.org/a-big-list-of- mp3-patents/20070226/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


GitHub and Trello: Integrate Your Commits - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trello.com/github-and-trello-integrate-your-commits/ <comment><USER2> I was hoping to see a feature where certain labels could be designated as 'lists', like here: [https://demo.kanban.leanlabs.io/boards/kanban_demo/test_proj...](https://demo.kanban.leanlabs.io/boards/kanban_demo/test_project)</comment>


Mast Brothers: $10 a bar for crappy hipster chocolate (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/571151/the-mast-brothers-fooled-the-world-into-buying-crappy-hipster-chocolate-for-10-a-bar/ <comment><USER2> My BS alarms started going off on these guys when they chartered a _sailing ship_ to transport cocoa beans to their factory, on the argument that you could taste the difference between beans shipped by sail and beans shipped on a ship with an engine (!).

<comment><USER3> I only accept chocolate made from cacao pods transported by African Swallows.

<comment><USER4> But then, African Swallows are non-migratory.

<comment><USER5> At least we are not transporting coconuts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is a reminder that many luxury goods don't have enough intrinsic value to account for their price. In those cases, marketing needs to actually _add_ value to a product, not just inform people of the intrinsic value of a product. This practice is used in almost all end-consumer products on the market.

Seeing an Apple ad of a shiny image of a new iPhone imprints that image into the customers mind, even _after_ they purchase and use the product. Their perceived value of their iPhone one year after purchase is greater than if they have not seen any advertisements, because they keep associating the product in their hands with the very high quality image on TV.

This is what's happening here with Mast Brothers chocolate. The high price itself can increase perceived value ("If it's expensive, then it must make me happy!"), appeal to values held by the consumer ("I support small businesses so I value the purchase more!"), and the packaging or storefront proximity ("Imagine how much value the product is since the packaging is such high quality, or the presentation on the shelf is high quality"). None of these have anything to do with the edible substance they're buying (the "end product").

In fact, I would argue that the end product matters the _least_ for this particular product. Beyond some point, the quality of product does not affect its intrinsic value. Mast Brothers is beyond that point. The marketer therefore must use the above methods to further increase perceived value.

If you are a business owner yourself, you can choose to increase perceived value of your product in ethical or unethical ways. Some customers will detect unethical practices, some won't notice (such as people who don't read this article), and some won't care.

<comment><USER2> Or artisanal products like Mast Brothers' are actually Veblen goods (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good)), where demand for the product is driven by the high price because it lets its buyers conspicuously signal that they're better off than everyone else. Poor people can't afford $12 chocolate bars, so for a person who regularly buys $12 chocolate bars, part of the value to them is the opportunity to demonstrate how not-poor they are. All the markers of authenticity are just there to let the buyer convince themselves that they're doing something loftier than that.

<comment><USER7> I hear this argument about Apple products constantly, and have a knee-jerk reaction to debunk it as the actual reason, when it's more likely motivated by preference.

I just can't imagine anyone even thinking that holding expensive chocolate is going to signal their status, and can't imagine that anyone is so insecure that they would even feel a need to. A lot of people buy overpriced items because they actually believe they are higher quality (whether true or not, like with wine).

Yet, jewelry and expensive watches exist seemingly only for that purpose, so I have to call my own assumptions about others behavior into question on this.

<comment><USER8> > I just can't imagine anyone even thinking that holding expensive chocolate > is going to signal their status

Really? You can't imagine some hipsters having an "all artisanal" food gathering? Or a restaurant serving "all artisanal" dessert?

Some people do things because they are genuine. Far more people do things because they are a fad. Far more do things because it's _profitable_.

<comment><USER7> I can easily imagine them doing that, but I have trouble with the assertion that their reason for doing so is to signal their high status.

The business argument doesn't apply, I'm talking about the consumer side. Of course a business would sell something if it's profitable, regardless of why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As I read the article, I can't help but feel that the tone is exceptionally unfair to Mast Brothers.

It seems the primary charge is that 'some, but not all, of their earliest sold chocolate bars were made from mass-produced chocolate,' referencing bars sold at a flea market (wherein they allegedly acknowledged to a buyer that some- but-not-all were made from mass-produced chocolate).

The article then criticizes them for browsing the largest Chocolatier forum on the Internet for advice... Is this supposed to be a serious criticism?

Then it goes into the quality of the chocolate and alleges that it's overpriced. I would argue that it's subjective, and there isn't anything inherently wrong with strong marketing. Maybe their chocolate isn't that good (I've never heard of Mast before reading this) and they're just convinced it is?

Finally, the article ends with attacks based on mere speculation and attacks on the general chocolate industry as a whole.

I'm not making any judgment on Mast Brothers chocolate one way or the other. It's just that this article has a whole lot of aggressive language propping up some pretty weak evidence.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I found it remarkable that the Mast brothers were rather up front about the sourcing for each of their chocolate bars. If they have the skills and dedication then they should be able to improve their product to meet their marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Stories like this always remind me of the artisanal firewood spoof.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBb9O-aW4zI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBb9O-aW4zI)

<comment><USER12> I love that spoof. One big difference is that the artisans in the spoof appeared to be genuine true-believers, but the investigative articles around this chocolate story seem to allege intentional deception at some points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seeing this article on the frontpage of HN again feels weird.

I am currently going down the deep rabbit-hole of chocolate making and re-read this just recently. Highly recommend the coverage on dallasfood.org as well: [http://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies- behind...](http://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behind-the- beards-part-1-tastetexture/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Curious: what prompted you to get interested in chocolate making? Anything interesting and not-obvious you have discovered or learned so far?

<comment><USER13> 1\. It's delicious 2\. It's nutritious 3\. Too many people eat bad chocolate 4\. There lies a very interesting challenge in creating more heat-resistant chocolate (think climate change) 5\. It's a fragmented, huge market. 6\. I was looking for a hobby involving manual labour that has the potential to turn into a company

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I remember reading about the hysteria of this 4 years ago and wondering if me, a non-foodie, could actually taste the difference in chocolate quality. I finally had my first mast brothers bar recently and...

...yeah. It taste like a slightly better quality hershey's bar, definitely not a $10 bar of chocolate. I was kind of floored, it was actually pretty bad.

<comment><USER15> same, I tried it once, and thought it was bland..... and kinda crappy/cheap tasting.

Now that I have been living in NYC for few years, my BS meter has improved.

There are enough tourists and young people that come and go in NYC, and that propels a whole industry for "expensive/overpriced" but crappy goods and services. Both Brooklyn and Manhattan are the place of 100$ haircuts, just because your barber has a hipster beard....

<comment><USER16> Seems like $100 for a haircut isn't that bad when you'd need to pay $3000/month for a bedroom within an hour's commute, assuming it's a fancy haircut that takes 40+ minutes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Title note: should reflect 2015

<comment><USER18> Not only 2015, but the qz.com article is blogspam compared to the original investigation: [http://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies- behind...](http://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behind-the- beards-part-1-tastetexture/)

The Mast Bros situation has been discussed to death, yawn.

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted the article here - I wasn't aware of the previous discussion on HN. I guess there's probably a decent percentage of other HNers that wasn't aware either.

I also wasn't aware of the dallasfood article either. You raise good points, but I don't know how I could have acted differently...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nice to have some light relief and to see that the world outside tech is just as sketchy as inside. I loved the original expose on Noka, FWIW.

</comment><comment><USER20> Interesting they mention Valrhona, which I get at Trader Joe's for 2.99 or so. It is the smoothest and least bitter 85% chocolate I've found in supermarkets, and slightly prefer it to both Ghirardelli and Lindt. I didn't know anything about it until now.

So they started out reselling (remelting) it for 3x the price. Fake it till you make it, indeed.

</comment><comment><USER21> I actually have a favorite chocolate bar that is about $10, made in Hawaii by Manoa Chocolate [1] They have a factory store in Kailua where you can do a tasting and they show you how it's made. They also sell them in some Whole Foods. No chartered sailing ships as far as I know.

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

</comment><comment><USER22> > Mast Brothers have executed a brilliant marketing strategy, but don't sell > quality chocolate

can't you say this about almost any high volume popular luxury brand?

</comment><comment><USER23> Was someone else recently reading Jia Tolentino's essay on modern scams, or is this just a Baader-meinhoff thing?

</comment><comment><USER24> Maybe by Mast Bros' example there's opportunity for Elizabeth Holmes to pivot into this field.

</comment><comment><USER25> Old news? Any they've amended their ways.

And the 'crappy' label is a bit harsh?

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't really understand why a 4 year old article about a fake chocolatier is relevant to this site.

I actually went to their store in Williamsburg before this drama unfolded, and I remember saying something along the lines to my wife 'Wow, I can't believe this is their only facility, it looks way too small to pump out so many bars'.

<comment><USER12> It can help us recognize parallels (and differences) in our own industry.

<comment><USER26> I guess so, but a more relevant post might have been an article talking about the mast brothers fraud, and how it can relate to a tech industry.

But what do I know. Based on the number of comments, readers love this post, so I was clearly wrong that it was off topic.</comment></comment></comment>


On Port 80 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@maradydd/on-port-80-d8d6d3443d9a <comment><USER2> Decentralized things tend not to work out real well outside of very niche activities. They only work pretty well when there is very strong aggregation in place.

Look at the most decentralized system we have - HTTP/HTML. It works because aggregation systems like directories, search engines, forums, and social networks make it easy to find websites.

Reddit's main value proposition is that it's a powerful niche aggregator of links and forum based content. It's easy for most people to be involved in a subreddit (niche forum). The UX is the protocol. The people are the value.

Decentralization or desegregation of reddit won't solve anything. If anything, people are too lazy to move unless there is a BETTER protocol with more value. So, whatever displaces reddit will have better UX and the people have to be there. Otherwise, it's pretty much a failed concept like diaspora.

</comment><comment><USER3> Of course everything is moving to http(s)/html. It's easier to get users to use their browser than to get them to install something, and they can probably connect; maybe port 6667 is blocked because IRC is dangerous, but port 80 and 443 are likely open.</comment>