Apple: Rotate tracking IDs on iPhone each month - <AUTHOR> https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/privacy-thats-iphone-but-is-it/ <comment><USER2> "That means we could still get relevant ads"

Ugh, if you're an advocate for privacy, please don't perpetuate the delusion that users actually want "relevant" ads, or that these ids are solely used for that purpose.

<comment><USER3> Well I would actually prefer if ads were relevant. Relevant to whatever it is they're next to though, not necessarily relevant to me (because frankly that's no-ones business).

Same with youtube's recommendations. At this point over half the recommendations are almost entirely irrelevant to what I'm watching, and usually only have a vague connection to something I once watched, except for the ones I'd actually already watched.

<comment><USER4> There's a risk we miss the point point in this discussion (as every time the topic comes up). Even here on HN there are those who don't mind or even actively want "personalised" ads. We'd assume the community here is aware of the wider risks of surveillance or "social manipulation platforms".

The real issue is choice. I personally choose privacy over personalisation. I also understand that businesses need revenue - so I pay for e.g. email rather than using an ad-supported service.

My issue is that I can't choose privacy. I've taken reasonable steps to make it difficult for Google, Facebook at al (ad blockers, pihole, etc.). But I'm realistic to know it's an up hill struggle. I've never had a Facebook account (nor instagram/whatsapp) but I know I'll exist as a shadow profile.

Whether ads are good or bad; whether they're personalised or not, and if so how, isn't the fundamental issue. I've no issue with those that do want personalisation (assuming they understand the consequences obviously). The issue is that I can't choose. And everything G/FB/etc are doing is focused on building ever more walled gardens, so it becomes ever more difficult to exist outside them.

<comment><USER5> You can't choose because your choice is expensive for the business. The famous saying by Wanamaker is exactly about that: you can waste less money by targeting people potentially interesting in the ads. This is the strength of Google, FB and the rest: they can funnel the money where they're more likely to generate more money and easily convince the accounts they're more efficient than indiscriminate advertising via TV and other channels where you can't profile the customer. You, a disobedient citizen, are just an obstacle in this scheme. This is one big reason any revolution in this area is extremely unlikely to happen.

<comment><USER4> Very well put, if depressingly so!

> easily convince the accounts they're more efficient than indiscriminate > advertising via TV and other channels where you can't profile the customer

Does anyone know of any studies here? That is: is there demonstrably better return on "personalised" ads vs. contextualised?

I don't expect Google/Facebook would publish anything other than support for the former. I'd love to think there was some evidence to suggest they're selling snake oil. That may be wishful thinking, but worth asking anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The posturing is quite strong with the Mozilla Foundation. It is quite laughable that the Mozilla Foundation would take this "holier than thou" position, considering that they (Foundation + Corporation) are pushing : tracking (telemetry), ADs (Pocket), malware (studies), MITI[1] (Ministry of Truth) and DRM (EME) in Firefox. The sad part here is the fact that the Mozilla community does not seem to care one bit about these issues[2].

At this point, I trust Apple more than I trust the Mozilla Foundation or the Mozilla Project (the bar is quite low for Apple). The Free Software / "Open Source" community has a critical problem with project supporting organizations pushing for things that undermine privacy, security and freedom to make a little bit of cash. If we don't address these issues now, it might not be possible to fix them in the near future.

[1] Mozilla Information Trust Initiative : [http://archive.is/jcJWg](http://archive.is/jcJWg)

[2] For those who say : "you can turn these things off", this is not an excuse! Telling a new user that they have to fiddle with `about:config` settings out of the box is not acceptable.

<comment><USER7> > For those who say : "you can turn these things off", this is not an excuse!

The telemetry is opt-in, the setting pops up once on first run. Ads are not tracking, you may disagree with their very existence, but they're not a privacy concern. Calling studies "malware" is just disingenuous. I don't see what MITI has anything to do with the rest. DRM does suck, but _not_ having it would be literal popular suicide, and in the current browser landscape, would literally mean letting Chromium take over even more than it already does.

<comment><USER6> > The telemetry is opt-in...

It is not "opt-in". The popup tells you to change those settings and if you don't do anything, it is on. Just by unchecking the box in settings does not turn off all telemetry.

> Calling studies "malware" is just disingenuous.

I guess you don't remember the "Mr.Robot" incident[1] that we were not suppose to know about and many did not consent? Pushing an update with "Studies" enabled by default and then pushing this malicious software is not consent!

> I don't see what MITI has anything to do with the rest.

Mozilla* is not in a position to be calling out other companies when they themselves are guilty of doing the exact same things.

[1] [https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/16/firefox-mr-robot- extensi...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/16/firefox-mr-robot-extension/)

<comment><USER8> > I guess you don't remember the "Mr.Robot" incident[1] that we were not > suppose to know about and many did not consent?

That was not malware. I will explain this a thousand times if I have to. If you didn't manually configure its secret setting, it did _literally nothing_.

<comment><USER9> So, we can install software on people's computers and take up space on their hard drives without their permission now and it's not considered malicious? OK!

<comment><USER7> Malware has a definition[1] :

> Malicious computer software that interferes with normal computer functions > or sends personal data about the user to unauthorized parties over the > Internet.

Taking up a couple KBs of space to do nothing is not even comparable. From a moral standpoint, was it okay from them to install that extension on people's computers? No. Was it malware? No.

[1] [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=define+malware&t=h_&ia=definition](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=define+malware&t=h_&ia=definition)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't even get why Apple supplies this functionality anyway.

Instead of rotating they should just do away with it; it's not like this functionality is to their users benefit.

<comment><USER11> They provide the functionality for people like my friend who loves to see bass guitar ads and does because he is tracked.

They also provide the ability to turn it off (set the ID to all 0s) for people like me who spend a little bit of effort to avoid ads.

If you are in one group stop pretending the other doesn't exist. (Also more generally applicable life advice)

<comment><USER12> > If you are in one group stop pretending the other doesn't exist. (Also more > generally applicable life advice)

I'd argue your friend would be better off not being tracked and just Googling bass guitars whenever he feels the need.

Let's not pretend ads provide any benefit to humans, they manipulate us psychologically with the intent to part us from our hard earned money. In addition, they often drain our batteries at extreme rates and can contain malware and or lead to outright scams.

Your counterpoint to this is you know a guy who likes to see new bass guitars?

<comment><USER11> Feel free to argue with him. He's not ignorant of all the harms, trust me... I've brought them up when we've talked.

<comment><USER13> People who want to see ads are the exception. I'd argue that it would be better if Apple used id=0 as the default.

<comment><USER11> more likely people who care either way are the exception.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Previous (lively!) discussion from _this morning_: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19670024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19670024)

</comment><comment><USER15> Windows just asks user if they want an advertising ID during "out of the box experience". Why not petition Apple to do the same?

<comment><USER16> Because Windows is complete garbage from a privacy standpoint. Even disabling every metric visible to the user Microsoft still allows their own ad network to track you. I do not believe they are honest in the user privacy sphere.

<comment><USER17> Nice rant, but how is this relevant to GP's comment?

<comment><USER16> Microsoft is an ad network. They went on a buying spree 10 years ago snapping up various ad networks. Windows 10 is riddled with ad tracking software and even when you disable every checkbox during OOBE there are still more that are enabled you cannot disable. If it was such a good idea they wouldn't use it.

I don't trust any of their ideas on protecting your privacy just as I don't trust a fox to guard a hen house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can't help but think that initiatives like ad-id and DoNotTrack are a diversion at best than actually addressing the real problem of user-tracking and malvertising. This is simply Shirky's Principle at work [0].

Some people argue for tougher regulation and laws-- sometimes regulations have resulted in solidifying hegemony of established players (telecom industry, for instance), and laws have worsened the situation when government has its skin in the game (key disclosure laws, for instance).

Can't leave it up to the _free markets_ either, but, they seem to get things right. Privacy oriented alternatives to existing tech today are facing a hard battle given the growth opportunities they leave on the table. I guess, we are poised for a tech breakthrough that'd settle it in favour of the users [1]: I hope when WASM goes non-web and cross platform, all kinds of apps are compiled to WASM and something like uBlockOrigin would simply shut all the trackers down on all platforms at the application layer. Of course, there are problems at other layers, for instance baseband on mobile phones that are known to track location, and ISPs that keep tabs on traffic flowing through their pipes...

[0] [https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky- prin/](https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/)

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullrun_(decryption_program)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullrun_\(decryption_program\))

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a foolish idea. Rotating IDs on a slow basis like a month would mean that big players can still easily create statistical cross-device graphs based on traffic and activity patterns and link your rotated IDs (or link them probabilistically). Small players who can't afford this effort would lose or shift business to Android-only.

</comment><comment><USER20> So if I go into Srttings -> Privacy -> Advertising and click "reset advertising identifier" once a month does that accomplish this manually?

It's not a perfect fix but adding a once a month calendar todo seems like a good short term fix for the privacy conscious.

<comment><USER21> Yes. Technically speaking, it does what the Mozilla author proposed.

You'll end up getting a lot of ads for apps and services you potentially already own, which is the "downside".

FWIW: Worked in mobile ad tech for five years so I know this space.

<comment><USER20> >You'll end up getting a lot of ads for apps and services you potentially already own, which is the "downside".

Thanks for the clarification.

I don't mind that. I usually get product recs from things like Wirecutter. I much prefer the model where a site I trust recommends a product, then get a referral bonus when I buy it on Amazon than tracking my web history to "nudge" me.

Since iOS can't let me use extensions, many of the tools I use to protect my privacy (adblocker, JS whitelisting, etc) aren't doable on iOS. So even small hacks like this are interesting to me.

<comment><USER22> there's an App called AdGuard

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't have Advertising option. Is this only available in certain jurisdictions?

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd pay extra $100 for the iPhone where unique ID is editable. Even manually, no schedule needed. Win win for Apple and for customers.

<comment><USER25> You can reset the identifier already. I assume you are not looking to supply a particular value?

<comment><USER24> How do I do that?

I used one app that banned me arbitrarily by iPhone ID. I'd want to reset it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This seems strange to me.

If we're going as far as to advocate cycling tracking IDs each month, that means that at each switch, we've lost our "relevant" ads until we rebuild them up. So why not go full on no tracking IDs?

With Apple pushing privacy as being the factor that separates them from their peers, I don't see why they wouldn't have privacy on by default in this area. Apple Ads are gone now, right? So no skin in the game?

</comment><comment><USER27> Apple seems to have a vested interest in privacy. I hope that this petition falls on the right ears.

<comment><USER28> Interesting to find out more options, I didn't know about "location-based ads" setting which was in a different place than the "advertising" menu. Plus, I always wanted location-based ads, so wanted to enable it, but it was already enabled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Not terribly relevant for those of us who use safari only for everything, because content blockers.

</comment><comment><USER30> Can websites read that ID? Or is this about apps?

</comment><comment><USER31> Oh no, one more JOIN. That will show them!</comment>


Show HN: Hotel Fastpass – Hotel Service Reimagined   - <AUTHOR> https://assemblymade.com/hotel-fastpass <comment><USER2> Why? Hotels must maintain in room voice communications so why?</comment>


Office Parties Feel the Chill - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/style/office-parties.html <comment><USER2> Maybe it's just my inner-millenial but I really dislike office Christmas parties. This year my company rented out a large theatre with a buffet of goose and free beer/cocktails/wine all evening. It started at 6pm and most of the attendees were gone by 10pm, and we are a young company with many in their 20s.

I feel like it was really a party for a few outgoing people and those in HR. A Christmas bonus would have been a much nicer way to say 'thank you' for the previous years work.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely this. At a place I worked previously, due to a tight budget, instead of doing the sensible thing and not having a party (or letting teams organise their own smaller bashes), the company cheaped out and rented a basement somewhere into which we barely all fitted. It was cramped, noisy and expensive. One employee got drunk and had a fist fight with the restaurant management after knocking down the sliding wall between us and the next room of 'revellers'. It was totally grim, but all in the name of being the kind of company that has Christmas parties. I handed in my notice the next day iirc.

<comment><USER4> It seems odd that you would forget whether or not this event precipitated you quitting a job.

<comment><USER5> He was the one that knocked down the partition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article seems to be sponsored by Escape the Room, whatever that is, with its own ad-style paragraph.

"A less philanthropic but still debauchery-free experience can be had at Escape the Room, an interactive game site where as many as 10 people are shut in a room and have one hour to solve a puzzle..."

Could be an example of the pay-per-mention market (there was an article about this last week on HN)

<comment><USER7> Escape rooms have become quite common and they're provided by many different actors. Given how many there are on Manhattan alone it's difficult to pinpoint exactly which one they mean. If this is advertisement, it's not money well spent.

<comment><USER8> What is the business structure, though? Are all "escape rooms" independent operations, or are they more of a franchise?

I was curious about the "Escape Room" phrase itself - it sounds like a brand, but I did an USPTO search for a trademark, and surprisingly, there's like a metric ton of ones matching ".* ESCAPE ROOM .*".

<comment><USER9> Completely independent rooms AFAIK. Have seen them in Brazil and here in Sweden, it's just a type of game, not a franchise... Much like a "haunted house" is a type of attraction and not a trademarked franchise-based business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think in general going out just isn't as much fun anymore as it used to be. You're constantly monitored from all sides by people with mobile tracking devices and any misstep will be broadcasted to billions through YouTube because people think it's fun to show your drunk ass claiming you're the Queen of England to everybody. Preferably with your name and LinkedIn profile in it.

Of course that scares the shit and fun out of people.

I don't think any records exist of my (innocent) missteps thank god, but I do feel the pressure if I'm at an event like that since smartphones became more common. I see people filming other people dancing while commenting negatively about it. Really intimidating. Better make sure we don't stand out in the crowd, unless you're the minority of people that really craves other people's attention in any way.

</comment><comment><USER11> >>Executives surmised (perhaps wisely) the party's meager attendance wasn't enough to justify the $300,000 price tag. So, two years ago, HBO offered its employees an afternoon off with their co-workers to volunteer at a charity instead.

That's some reward.

<comment><USER12> Deloitte (or at least part of Deloitte) have a charity day. I don't think it replaces their Christmas party though.

Anyway, according to one of my colleagues who used to work there, everyone really liked it, it was a way to get help out the community, with the added bonus that you're still getting paid.

The cynic in me assumes that they just do it because it's bloody good PR.

<comment><USER11> Most Investment Banks give a couple of days a year, some give a day a quarter (in the UK at least).

This is also unrelated to Xmas Parties though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I feel like the odd one out in these comments... I like the christmas party, but then again I love free beers :)

</comment><comment><USER14> I actually like Christmas party (it helps I was working for great companies and with colleagues I actually like and I don't go out as much as I'd like).

I didn't stay very long this year because I had other things to do, but one thing that surprised me was to hear one of my male colleague objectifying his direct reports (female and married).

I have had until then the odd chance of only noticing offensive comments from female colleagues (rarely and I'll admit, not the most representative). After the month we've had dropping our heroes, that felt… uniquely heedless? and just plain wrong.

Anyway: this is an advertorial but it felt timely.

<comment><USER15> Did you call him up on it? You don't have to be aggressive/self-righteous about it to let someone know what they are saying is not ok.

<comment><USER16> He/she mentioned offensive behavior from both male and female colleagues. Why not call out both?

<comment><USER15> You're right I should have.

The reason I mentioned the Male one, was the recency in the story, and probably a little bias on the topic.

My bad :(.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I guess after a year of slaving and treating coworkers like garbage they don't want to bond especially over non alcoholic drinks.

</comment><comment> d--b This reminds me that 10 years ago, Marc Jacobs came to his $1m arabian-nights- themed christmas party dressed up as a giant camel toe. Different times indeed.

</comment><comment><USER18> My company has 13 employees, and was just 8 for a long time. So they adopted the policy of inviting partners/significant others as well.

It really changes the tone of the Christmas party, in a good way. And it's a nice gesture for the partners/significant others, making it easier for them to tolerate the occasional late nights.

A really great idea IMO, though it's probably hard to scale up.

</comment><comment><USER19> Office parties are a great form of getting to know each other for employees in multi site companies. It is a way of keeping in touch.

Also, knowing the faces behind the names in Slack gives you some common grounds for verbal communication.

For me office parties are almost an vital part of cooperation.

</comment><comment><USER20> We may need segregation based on gender at the work place

<comment><USER21> Totally. Probably by race too, to avoid those potential uncomfortable conversatioms and inadvertently racist remarks. Parties should be safe spaces.

/s

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Paywalled

<comment><USER14> It appears to be an advertorial, so you are not missing much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Oh no.</comment>


Ghidra source code officially released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra <comment><USER2> Someone, with the time to be project maintainer, fork it and license it under the Crockford license.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#%22Good,_n...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#%22Good,_not_Evil%22)

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought the source was released at the same time as the tool...

<comment><USER4> There are some interesting pieces of all the sources that were missing then, which, it seems, appeared now.

If one wanted to compile everything locally or modify every piece of it, one was not able to do before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> GIVE US ALL OF IT!

</comment><comment><USER6> Never heard of it, never cared about it. Why is it on Hacker News? (Edit: Well, maybe that's why...)

<comment><USER7> Because it has relevance to actual hacking. Unlike vast majority of other submissions.</comment></comment>


Are you having any (professional) "I told you so" moments? - <AUTHOR> It could be positive ("I'm so glad I convinced Management to let us set up for working remotely" or "I'm so happy we tested for a ridiculous setting on scalability testing") or negative ("If you had let me set up the server to [whatever] we would not be in this pickle"). <comment><USER2> Personally, I'm quite strongly against "low risk investment" because black swan events happen quite often. It's crazy to take out a 3% loan for an investment that returns an average of 4%/year. Maybe your government can't take your house away, but a warring government could.

</comment><comment><USER3> I sold a bunch of stock a year ago that I got from a company. I could no longer could look but the price tripled after I sold. I sold as it seemed overpriced / risky. It's now trading for less than I sold it for. I told me so!</comment>


Startup Quote: Joshua Schachter, founder, Delicious - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/2639791658

<comment><AUTHOR> Reduce. Do as little as possible to get what you have to get done.

\- Joshua Schachter (@joshu)

<http://startupquote.com/post/2639791658></comment>


Some guy builds a VR time machine that lets them relive their past - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHyNYfFfXlg <comment><USER2> That was some high quality production

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh that was really cool.

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazing story</comment>


How We Got 1,000+ Subscribers from a Single Blog Post in 24 Hours - <AUTHOR> http://www.groovehq.com/blog/1000-subscribers/

<comment><USER2> Super useful article, thanks for posting! This is the true way to manage a content marketing strategy. Build relationships, but go about it in a very organized, targeted manner, and they will pay off long term. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree! Most entrepreneurs are focused on short term results these days. So when they're reaching out to people for help, all they do is send a link and call it a day. But I believe in building high quality human-to-human relationships. I think the marketing game is all about helping each other to create win-win situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't sound "fluffy or buzzwordy" at all. It sounds like obvious common sense that unfortunately many people lack, or don't care enough for.

</comment><comment><USER4> Thanks! Looking forward to applying this advice to my next Kickstarter (and to my current one, if time allow).

</comment><comment><USER5> If "Github/Google/Amazon is Down" isn't bad enough on HN, it's "How I got 1000 followers/subscribers/lemmings in 24 hours".

Seriously.

<comment><USER6> Maybe I fell for it, and shouldn't feed the trolls, but did you even read the fine article? It was _packed_ with actionable information, even down to templates you can grab to do the same thing.

This is _highly_ relevant content for HN.

<comment><USER5> I'm griping, not trolling. I disagree with the relevancy to HN, and every other marketing "build your followers" posts.

<comment><USER6> Fair enough. I think it's relevant to HN because when the hacking is over, sometimes it's necessary to make money From what you built. There was a post recently where a guy built an awesome piece of software, but had almost no users. If he reads this article, that could change, and maybe from all the money he makes from users he could afford to hack on another great piece of software. So this article could enable people to hack more.

That's why I think it's relevant to HN. Why do you think it isn't?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apollo 11 Dismembered - <AUTHOR> http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/apollo-11-dismembered/

<comment><USER2> Good article, but I disagree with his future shock theory. I happen to have grown up in Eastern Europe. When communism fell you had a flood of new technology pouring in. The society, from a technological point of view, was leapfrogging tens of years in a matter of months or short years. He had computers, color TVs, calculators, more TV time than ever before, all the electronic appliances you can think of, and so on. People weren't future- shocked, quite the opposite. There was this general vibe about what new things the future may bring, a general feel of optimism, of embracing anything new, especially science and technology.

What was different? Education. The level of science education all the way to high school, and arguably beyond, was and still is much higher than in the US. In a way, the brains of most people were more ready to absorb all this new information. It's like having an athlete train in a closed room for years and all of a sudden letting him run freely. What we have in the states is not only muscle atrophy, but also brain atrophy. There are of course pockets of resistance, but the overall trend is negative. Sadly going back after years, I've noticed a similar mental laziness taking place even there. When the hunger for more is fulfilled, complacency settles in...

<comment><USER3> I agree. I don't think his "future shock" explanation really holds water. If anything, the last few decades have demonstrated that most people are far more tolerant of change than they themselves might have even predicted they'd be.

Case in point: cellular phones. I remember when they first came out, first the wired-in car phones, and then the "bag phones" with the lead-acid batteries. And almost immediately you had a class of people saying "I hate those things, I'll never own one." Anyone older than 20 or so can remember a lot of backlash as phones started to get smaller, cheaper, and more popular. Very few of those people are still without cell phones. A few holdouts here and there -- I know a couple, we all do -- but fewer and fewer every day. The vast majority of people who initially rejected the technology as being too disruptive were brought around, sometimes grudgingly, into accepting it. The same story repeats itself over and over with many new devices or technologies.

We tend to vastly underestimate our own ability to deal with change, even very disruptive change. The whole concept of "future shock" was a manifestation of this underestimation; it didn't happen this way.

The explanation for the failure of the US space program, I think, is much more simple and is put forward in one of the comments to the linked piece: during the Cold War, Americans were content to spend large amounts of money on Apollo, in order to beat the Soviets to the Moon. Without that competitive aspect, public interest disappeared.

People are simply not as willing to spend money on pure exploration as they are on a meaningless competition between nations.

If you could frame the current space program in some sort of nationalistic, competitive terms -- perhaps versus the Chinese? -- people would probably be interested again. But since the public perception is that the US "won" the space race, and that nobody is currently that close (although the gap is narrowing), large investments like we saw in the past are simply not on the table.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The political tides of a given era do not necessarily equate with the level of general intelligence in a society, and the author (I think) stretches it when he says that we have done nothing since Apollo because we are a nation of idiots who refuse to give priority to scientific goals.

The moon project was given high _political_ priority because of the cold-war impetus to outdo the Soviets. Substantial funds were devoted to the project and the goal itself was specific, symbolic, and achievable (as it turns out, though the underlying effort was obviously an amazing achievement).

Once that was achieved, nothing of comparable impetus has arisen in the space program to excite the public imagination in a similar way, and it is the public imagination that sways political decisions, not abstract judgments made in the name of advancing "science."

Average people may be largely ignorant of science but they like what it brings into a society even if they don't understand how it comes about. The American infatuation with "progress" for the past couple of centuries has largely been tied to a national pride over scientific achievements and nothing has changed in this area. A century ago, they were proudly boasting of Thomas Edison; today, they boast of Silicon Valley.

I would guess that it is not so much an antipathy to science that has caused politicians to pull back on the space program as it is a general loss of focus in that program that has caused the public to look at it with apathy. No public support. No political support. No political support. No "billions in funding."

The appallingly low level of scientific knowledge in the general population is real but is likely not (in my judgment at least) the cause of this particular phenomenon. The author does make his point with great vigor, though, and the piece is fun to read.

</comment><comment><USER5> "We're having a debate in this country over whether or not evolution is true. They have half a point- evolution isn't science, not anymore. Today it's technology."

What an excellent point.

</comment><comment><USER6> We have a government spending trillions of dollars with plans to spend more and he suggests spending billions more on space travel? The real solution is to eliminate the regulatory barriers to private space travel and sell off NASA to interested private parties. The Moon might not be their first priority, but we would have a much more vibrant space program and the costs for larger missions would drop dramatically.

<comment><USER7> The problem is that they worry foreign companies will muscle into the picture.

Imagine if China landed the first Moon Base in 2020 and was wellestablished there before the US even landed another astronaut. Highly unlikely BUT the fear is there - and with that fear comes the other one; strategic habitation of the Moon establishes something of a superiority over other countries.

Summary: the US govt. will guard NASA as long as it can. It can use it to make sure that it holds onto much of the tech (or at least controls who makes it).

<comment><USER8> Can you think of any strategic value to the moon? I can't.

<comment><USER9> Helium-3

In a nutshell human beings have depleted helium reserves on planet earth to the point that within 20 years we run out. Now you say, big deal, no more party balloons. But little do you realize that the manufacturing processes for just about everything super technical requires helium. It's a big enough deal that both Russia and China are developing standalone robotic systems to harvest helium-3 from moon rocks where its found in great abundance due to the suns constant bombardment of the surface rocks which creates the substance. Helium-3 is also a core ingredient in fusion reactor processes and as such is required in great quantities to sustain the fusion reactor operations.

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.08/helium.html>

So there is a strategic value which while not important at this moment, will likely be a driving force in space economics in 20 years...

<comment><USER10> Can't you get Helium-3 from Asteroids (or so) in case someone blocks the moon?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is one of the best pieces I've read in a while.

Definitely worth your time.

<comment><USER12> I agree with all of the points. The knowledge of science across the population as a whole is decaying in the US. Could've edited better.

<comment><USER13> It's more meta than that. If _knowledge_ was decaying yet _interest_ remained high, then that could be addressed straightforwardly.

What's happening is analogous to children believing that meat comes from supermarkets, not farm animals... Accomplishments of science and engineering are taken for granted. But mobile phones and MP3 players don't grow on trees...

<comment><USER14> I wonder if this is a general truth, just hiding a bit.

Take, for example, some bad PHP-webprogrammer (or RoR, or whatever). They will wonder what the hell some 'webserver' is and why you need one and what's all that fuss about networks, ports, routing, security and such. (Please don't kill me, I just needed an example for ignorant people in software industries and this one was the first to come to my mind :). In other words, the abstraction of such a Web framework creates a certain ignorance and even missing knowledge about the underlying mechanisms.

And now consider this: A child gets food from the supermarket and does not know about the cow behind this. Looking at this from a bit further away, these two patterns look awefully similar, because here we have an abstraction AGAIN (the supermarket, similar to the web framework), which hides the actual infrastructure (cow, butcher, truck, ...). And again, there are people showing heavy ignorance and even missing knowledge about the underlying infrastructure.

Certainly, I do not know how to butcher a cow or drive a truck either, and I am unable to configure a webserver in a dark room with a blindfold and one hand tied behind my back, but I certainly know that these things happen behind the abstraction.

So, is this a certain indicator of ignorance, if one just uses abstractions and never ever looks behind the abstraction?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The author seems to be a bit misinformed.

 _because there are only a few shuttle missions left. After that, nada. Nothing. Zilch._

True, there are only a few more shuttle missions(<http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle>). However this isn't the end of manned space exploration, check out the Orion spacecraft(<http://www.nasa.gov/orion/>). NASA recently tested MLAS(<http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/missions/mlas.html>).

 _Oh sure, NASA talks about designing a space plane- but they've been talking about designing a space plane since before Neil took his ride- and I ain't seen one yet._

NASA has worked on this, many pilots of the X-15 qualified as astronauts, though I would not consider this a space plane either. Several Single Stage to Orbit ships have been built(none of them coming close to orbit)(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-stage-to-orbit>).

 _NASA isn't going back to the moon, not any time soon._

Bah! Constellation program, (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Constellation>)

It bothers me that posts like this with such misinformation exists. Does NASA not have enough publicity to get this information out there?

<comment><USER16> > Bah! Constellation program, > (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Constellation>)

Ares and Constellation are dead, except in name. The NASA budget has been reduced to a level that is incompatible with completion of the program. I've read NASA insiders acknowledging this on semi-public message boards.

See this, for example: [http://www.spacepolitics.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/04/grif...](http://www.spacepolitics.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/04/griffin-goddard-speech.pdf)

> But work at the staff level continues out of view of the nation's elected > leadership, and in the recent passback to NASA from the Office of Management > and Budget, the news is not so good. After a small increase this year, > Exploration Systems at NASA goes down by $3.5 billion over the next four > years. When combined with earlier reductions of almost $12 billion during > the Bush Administration, well over $15 billion has been extracted from the > Exploration Systems budget in the five short years since the new space > policy was announced. Funding for lunar return in the Constellation program > was already less than $4 billion in the years prior to 2015. This was to be > allocated to early work on the Ares 5 heavy‐lifter, and the Altair lunar > lander. With only a half‐billion dollars now available, this work cannot be > done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> We should be actively colonizing space to increase our survival chances. However, behind every technical reality, there is a far more important economic reality. First, the need for a back-up planet isn't that high yet. Second, NASA isn't self-supporting. It can't amplify its achievements like business can. Putting men on the moon was the peak of what it could do without requiring an unrealistic change in the nature of people. The market needs to step in and develop a genuine space flight and colonization industry. This is a slow process, but has already started.

In general, if you think a large group of people are idiots, you should count yourself among them. People are competitive creatures and won't all step in the same direction because you want them to. They'll act in their own interest. They'll do business. That is how mankind achieves things.

Think distributed.

<comment><USER10> I guess we won't colonize space with a profit, if we can't even colonize the seas economically. See seasteading (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading>).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you want to go back to the moon:

1\. Give the terrorists a space Program. We didn't go to the moon because we thought it'd be neat up there, we went to beat the Soviet's asses. That's why Americans were interested then, that's why they'd be interested now.

2\. Make gains clearly applicable to world power. Gee oh I wonder why the US was so willing to invest millions and millions into rockets. Might it have something to do with the fact that they used the same technology to give themselves the ability to put a Nuke in striking distance of anything on the planet? The government only gave a crap about the Moon because it pleased the people and because it made their death-weapons possible.

People are no dumber now than they were then. In fact, people are loads smarter. Look at the devices they use on a daily basis!

Why is there some need to lament the state of humanity at every turn? Guys, it's not really that bad. Everything's going to be OK

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice rant. If I think about it long enough, it's depressing. So I won't. I'll code something instead.

(Sometimes I think the reason I program so much is because the big issues seem so futile. This is one thing that I _can_ do something about right now, so I do.)

<comment><USER20> Gandhi just started out alone on a "big issue", and he even saw ROI during is lifetime.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Xezilaires – a simple PHP library to read structured Excel files - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dkarlovi/xezilaires <comment><AUTHOR> A lot of businesses use Excel as their means of storing and exchanging any sort of structured data.

This PHP library allows you to define a PHP class and a mapping (using column names or header labels) how you'd like to transform the said Excel into the PHP value object. Then you iterate the Excel sheet one row at a time and get a PHP object for each row, which you can for example store to the DB via an ORM.

Since it's using Symfony Serializer, you can also create custom denormalizers, like converting a random date-ish string into an instance of \DateTime.

More features (like validation, proper streaming serializers for very large data sets, etc) are planned.</comment>


Venture Capital's Massive, Terrible Idea For The Future Of College - <AUTHOR> http://www.theawl.com/2013/01/venture-capitals-massive-terrible-idea-for-the-future-of-college?src=longreads

<comment><USER2> I disagree with the whole idea that lower quality is such an awful thing. I feel like the entire article is written through a well-educated American lens that doesn't understand why this is so revolutionary.

This has nothing to do with people who are already in universities, it has to do with all the other intelligent people, all around the world who have never had the benefit of a high quality education. And I suppose, the people in America who never had that opportunity either. To deny them that and force them to wait for some sort of 'high quality' education to come their way is ludicrous.

These sites aren't perfect but they will get better and nobody is arguing that they are amazing or that one day they will come to replace the experience of being on campus, but they are a great substitute for people who can't afford that.

Smartphones aren't exactly a replacement for mainframe computers but they're doing a great job at bringing computing to a huge number of people who are using it as a gateway to the web and all that offers. I think that's a good thing.

<comment><USER3> It's not even about being "lower quality". It's about building another medium for learning outside of highly expensive brick and mortar institutions.

I'm a huge fan of MOOCs. It makes no sense that everyone in America should aspire to getting a 120K bachelor's degree - a university education isn't meant for every career or person or life stage. I think we have this false belief that every American should aspire to getting a university education when in reality, the ROI of a university education is not always net positive. I've seen so many colleagues struggle with huge debt from graduate programs that did did nothing for their career prospects.

And it's not even that - learning shouldn't start or stop at a certain age. For example, I'm in my late 20s and wanted to learn how to build web apps. I like learning in structured environment, so Udacity worked perfectly for me. In 3 months I took an intro Python course and then a web app course led by a Reddit co-founder.

Would I have learned better through an undergrad university course? Maybe. Could I? It'd be pretty much unfeasible, given I was working 50+ hours for a tech firm and commuting between SF and South Bay at the time.

Anything that helps people learn is a good thing.

<comment><USER4> Yes. I took some Coursera classes and it was better than reading the relevant Wikipedia articles in terms of how much I learned and retained. Net win for education IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an attack piece, and a bad one at that. It's the same, weak attack anti-MOOC people always make which involves a few anecdotal smears on a few of Salman Khan's lectures, a completely false claim that MOOCs are trying to do no more than drive empty facts into students' heads, and an anecdotal filled, rose-tinted, hand-waving defense of the value of a traditional college education. I hear the same weak arguments raised against remote working. People love to extol the virtues of face-to-face communication and intangible experiences, all in the defense of stale traditions and broken, out of date models, but they rarely have any practical solutions for bringing education to the masses that doesn't involve spending an ever increasing amount of money.

We live in a time where information is more abundant and accessible than ever, yet the old guard are doing everything they can to keep it locked up in ivory towers to be doled out bit by bit, in person, for a hefty fee, to anyone willing to rack up tens of thousands of dollars of debt. After all, that money is the only thing keeping the old guard afloat. It's always fascinating to hear the swan song disrupted industries. First they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then, they fade away.

<comment><USER6> Mass distribution of learning material has been around for a few centuries and has yet to replace the process of _guided learning_. The problem is simple: while it's possible to amass facts and skills from reading and listening, it's much more difficult to produce complex works of value without feedback on the process.

Doing mathematics isn't just applying rules and techniques. It's about knowing how to reason, and writing a proof in a way which communicates your reasoning clearly to others. You can get started by following along with proofs from a lecture, but in order to really ingrain the techniques in your brain, you have to write proofs of things you've never encountered before. Someone has to _read_ those proofs, and give feedback on where your reasoning was unclear, incomplete, or flawed. They can suggest a different notation, or a shorter path to the same solution. Good teachers will leave notes: "this is a cool idea you've developed here, and it points towards this area of complex analysis we haven't talked about yet."

In psychology it's not enough to memorize a summary text and a smattering of papers. You need to be asked questions. "There's a critical flaw in this paper's sampling methodology. Can you find it? How would you improve it?" "What kind of systematic bias can we expect in these results?" If nobody asks those questions, and helps you hone in on the answers, you'll miss out on half the text. You'll be unprepared to evaluate the quality of others research--or to design experiments of your own.

This process can't be automated yet. Human beings have to read and respond to your work, preferably at interactive latencies.

<comment><USER5> There absolutely can be a feedback loop. Look no further than the many self taught programmers that frequent HN. Effective learning can and does happen without high paid PHD level professors, large marble floored auditoriums, and football stadiums.

<comment><USER7> This is nothing new, through history there has been a large range of people who have self taught from books. However, and I agree with the basic point, many people have failed to self-educate through books, and it is not clear to me these people will suddenly do much better with MOOC.

<comment><USER5> MOOCs are much more directed than just picking up a book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really don't get things like Coursera et. al. Textbooks have been available for purchase far before the modern university existed, but the only thing stopping people from teaching themselves and making a career out of it is the degree. I would far prefer a site that just made certifying knowledge of a given subject easier, replacing the BA, so you can cover e.g. Multivariable Calculus over three weeks instead of three months. As it stands, these online "schools" don't offer anything that you couldn't get before, and in fact are perhaps worse because they offer the illusion of having proof of knowledge (when people would be far better served just proving that they know something outright with personal projects).

Furthermore, there are vast areas of education that require small student:teacher ratios, if only for grading papers. Peer reviews can only go so far, and they are really only good for the center two quartiles of the class: who the hell grades the top person? How does she improve? And don't even mention the performance and studio arts.

I think we (and the founders of these places) have a somewhat warped perception of how effective these courses are because our subject areas (math- heavy) are extremely easy to test and quantify progress, but the other subjects are just as critical to society's well-being.

And let's not forget the other side of school: learning work ethic, forging an identity, and how to function in society. Physical colleges are worth far more than the sum of their parts (though probably not what they are charging).

I would love to be proven wrong!

EDIT: I think we would get a much, much, much larger return on the investment by improving the quality of our community colleges, reducing the stigma of attending them & other state schools, and encouraging more people to attend vocational schools instead of a degree that won't get them a job.

<comment><USER9> I agree with some parts of your post, such as the challenges of evaluating students in more qualitative disciplines through a virtual medium, and disagree with others, such as the notion that the college experience, if I'm reading this right, is the optimal way to forge an identity, function in society etc. etc.

But I think the edit is the most important point here. I really think community colleges, vocational training, and a focus on helping young people evaluate their ambitions in life should be a goal of our society in the coming years. Too many people clog up universities studying things like business and psychology because they've been told it's "the next step."

I believe most people would be happier and less indebted if they were given a cheaper, and arguably more valuable vocational education, job training, and a career, which would enable them to buy stuff, raise children, and stay out of debt, which is enough for a lot of people to be happy.

Furthermore, I think this would spell the end for a lot of colleges and universities I feel serve no purpose except to employ educators and swindle students. I mean, do we really need UC Merced and Cal State Stanislaus? What do these institutions accomplish? I'm sorry if this is an offensive or glib point, I readily admit I'm a bit inebriated at the moment, but I'm just not sure why we have these "in between" schools. Are these guys better off than the people at the CCs? I just don't think so.

<comment><USER8> > is the optimal way to forge an identity, function in society etc. etc.

Well, pretty close. I'm against saying one thing is optimal for everyone, but I think that it is better for many people than going straight into the work force. I'm 100% positive it could be replaced by something else, non-academic, but I'm not sure what it is. The person who does is probably a genius.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A very well reasoned piece. It reminds me of this piece from Hamilton Nolan: [http://gawker.com/5968116/hubris-high-socks-and-other- habits...](http://gawker.com/5968116/hubris-high-socks-and-other-habits-of- the-most-powerful-people-in-the-world)

Personally I find the whole techno-libertarian/utopian side of valley culture quite scary - I guess it's the part where some people decide they want to "fix" everything, without really making any effort to understand what (if anything) is broken to begin with.

<comment><USER11> I'm skeeved out by technolibertarianism too, but I disagree that this is a well-reasoned piece. It's a guilt- by- ideological- association hit piece that at one point has its cake and smears it all over its own face by linking Coursera/Udacity to Michelle Rhee and the scandals of low quality _classroom_ education. It's quick to toss in references to "Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists" or throw Khan Academy under one or more imagined busses, but did you notice that in its attempt at a takedown on an "overview of US history" video at Khan, it didn't even ask the question of how coherently secondary school courseware handled the same subject?

I feel like the reviews I've read from subject matter experts on Coursera courses have been positive. I don't feel like individual problem courses on Udacity damn the whole medium. I can understand how people who thoroughly enjoyed their years at college would feel threatened by alternative paths to the same goal, but it's the goal that matters, not the college life experience.

<comment><USER12> > but did you notice that in its attempt at a takedown on an "overview of US > history" video at Khan, it didn't even ask the question of how coherently > secondary school courseware handled the same subject?

My theory: that would probably be an article unto itself. A good friend of mine, who's a 7th grade social studies teacher, shares the author's disdain for Khan's handling of history. He cited disjointed events, without any explaination of how they were connected, stating it was very "this happened, then this happened, then later THIS happened probably because of this which happened between this and this..." -- no coherent historical narrative, and ultimately more difficult to understand. It's easier to remember events when you understand their causes and purpose, rather than just their place on a timeline.

After watching Khan's Intro to CS videos, I'm inclined to trust my friend's assessment.

As far as Rhee is concerned: The crux of the argument is, ambition non- educators who try to "fix" education have a tendancy to make it worse. Rhee and the VCs fall into the same category. It's also worth noting Education reform movement has started to turn its sights on higher education as well- We got a taste of that from Bill Gates, which his thoughts on college rankings (Which probably need to be fixed, but not in the way Gates, and reformers, are proposing).

<comment><USER13> History is just facts. Narratives are usually made up by someone investigating those facts. Narratives differ between historians depending on their sympathies.

I think innovative education should stay away from history. Most of it is history of politics. Only some percentage of it is actual knowledge and none of it is of any use to almost anyone.

<comment><USER14> You should elaborate on this idea. If we can understand better why the study of history is largely useless, then we might be able to use that knowledge to reason about why other subjects held dear by traditional academics are also harmful. I think literature is even worse than history. What they are studying are not even facts! Just make believe stories. There is no ROI on make believe nonsense, right?

<comment><USER13> I'm not saying that history is harmful, only that it's mostly useless. I have nothing against literature. I like fiction and discussing fiction. I think people educated in literature might contribute to culture by inventing interesting stories themselves by reusing and remixing concepts found in respected literature.

I don't really like the prominence given to history of politics as it's currently taught because for me it's just uninteresting fiction that only strong point is that something similar perhaps sort of happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Most of the classes I've taken have been great. They are certainly comparable to in-person college courses and have delivered incredible value to people world wide at a very small cost per student.

It's all advantages with no disadvantages.

This disruptive model of course is an absolute terror to the large number of poor teachers and colleges providing substandard classes while saddling their students with debt.

It's no wonder that on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, a ridiculous and contrived hit piece is published by those from the dinosaur set who are in the process of being obsoleted because they can't keep up with progress and are unwilling to retool.

</comment><comment><USER16> I did the original ai-class, plus a couple from coursera, and a couple from udacity. I also have a bachelor's degree.

The quality of learning from these online courses totally trumped my in-person degree. For me, the ability to rewind certain parts of the lectures over and over was incredibly useful, and I was able to save time running certain parts at 2-5x speed. The use of pop-up quizzes every 5 minutes really forced me to learn the material. The fact that the content was produced for online presentation made a big difference compared to simply recording a traditional lecture.

</comment><comment><USER17> Udacity and other online courses are great for people that already know how to learn. These sorts of programs won't help people that don't know how to learn on their own. However, I will say I can count the classes in college that couldn't have been replicated in an online format on two hands. All of theses classes still could have benefited from putting lectures online. The thing that is lacking in online courses is in-depth, in-person discussion in settings of about 30 people. Forums like this are great for teaching critical thinking. My favorite class in college was an undergraduate anthropology class that focused on a different topic each week. There were two different perspectives (in journal articles) and you'd be assigned one to defend in the next class. I think this kind of thing is hard to replicate in digital settings. Thoughts?

<comment><USER5> 30 people is a completely arbitrary number, arrived at not because it was the optimal class size, but because of resource constraints.

<comment><USER17> It's absolutely arbitrary, but it's a small enough number that everyone has a chance to contribute to the discussion. With this particular class it had nothing to do with resource constraints... maybe more to do with how many students were interested. I didn't have a single anthropology class after 101 that had more than 35 people in it (and this was at a large state school).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are many problems with the current crop of MOOCs, I'll be the first to admit that. In their current state they are not an alternative.

That said, the argument advanced against them in this article and numerous times on this and other boards is elitist and out of touch. "These lectures do not compare to the ones I sat in at UC Berkeley/Stanford/MIT! people watching them are not getting a REAL education!" Not only is it a classic "no true Scotsman", it also neglects to note that increasingly all large courses at large state universities are adopting a model not unlike the MOOC model. Lectures are increasingly posted online, and coursework is now almost always a blackboard quiz. Projects are submitted online, no paper copies are ever even created. Office hours are available, true, but often they are with a TA who is only slightly more than a glorified Tutor. All of these are transparent time and money saving moves on the part of the departments and professors.

Students rarely object as online classes give them more flexibility to work (something rarely mentioned in these kind of articles). Everyone wins on one level and loses on another. The quality of education drops as a consequence, but we're talking second and third tier schools here so it doesn't exactly make the news. All things considered, I might as well be taking MOOC at this point. I personally prefer Coursera to blackboard. More variety and no nagging advisors telling me I don't have the prereq. The tools and ui are better too! And its free!

</comment><comment><USER19> We live in a different world. Currently the most important things are the ability to get, filter and process information and not the ability to store it.

Most of the courses I have taken by coursera and edx were a blast. But I have experience and good math background.

We as a society should refocus the primary education on "rapid obtainable literacy" in any given topic. The student must be able to obtain the critical mass of knowledge that will help him to navigate on its own in the MOOC, and then we will be able to leverage the new educational startups.

</comment><comment><USER20> There is no reason that you can't have a teacher lecture students over the internet or lead a discussion over the internet, using voice, voice and audio, or just chat. There is no reason why students can't do interactive labs with help from teachers online.

So I think that in most cases, there really doesn't have to be any qualitative difference between online and in person learning.

But there are lots of advantages, starting with the increased ability for students to work at their own pace. And for computer assisted learning, i.e. interactive learning activities on a computer, possibly graded automatically by a computer. Also the ability to communicate online can be a big advantage over having to physically walk to an office hours or library. And of course the obvious one is the ease of distributing electronic textbooks and other learning materials online. Or for example delivering a live or recorded lecture online to an audience of 10,000 students from all over the world rather than to an audience of 100 students at some expensive university.

This is just one of many areas were social institutions are lagging far behind technological progress. The arguments against using technology are not rationally motivated.

</comment><comment><USER21> I regret wasting my time reading this long and rambling mess...

The author apparently didn't even bother to take a single MOOC class. Instead only acknowledging watching 9 minutes of a single 18 minute video (the class has 13 in total) for Kahn Acadamy's US History class. Strange considering we are talking about college and this Kahn class targets middle or high school students.

The author is also apparently unfamiliar with many of the basic features, such as discussion forums, or major advantages, such as timing flexibility (learn when you can for as long as you can) of MOOCs. Or that many of the students are not even in the US.

However there is a link to an interesting blog post previously posted to HN "Napster, Udacity, and the Academy" which makes the software is eating the world argument for education.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4773857>

</comment><comment><USER22> " _Wouldn't it make more sense to just fund education to the levels we had back when it was working?_ "

In good times investing in innovation is a luxury. In bad times it is a necessity. The returns on the present education model are not covering the costs in many cases.

<comment> barry-cotter When was education working and who was it working for?

As a means of social control, a method of inuring people to being ranked, judged and told what to do it works wonderfully[0]. It is not about learning or it would not start so early, at least not for teenagers[1], nor would there be so much homework[2]. Doing lots of work that you dislike because you have been told to do it is good training for the world of work for most though. Every large school system is lineally or organisationationally descended from one designed to produce good soldiers[3].

The school system works just fine for childcare, for socialising people to accept random authority figures telling them what to do and for reducing creativity. It does what it's meant to, even if no one who's in charge will acknowledge that's what it's function is.

[0] <http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html>

[1] [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/07/sleepy-kids-learn- less...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/07/sleepy-kids-learn-less.html)

[2] [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/06/only-do-math- homework....](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/06/only-do-math- homework.html)

[3] [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/05/schools-are-for- war.ht...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/05/schools-are-for-war.html)

<comment><USER23> I agree with the substance of this. Passing on wisdom is not the first, second, or even 3rd point of "education" anymore. Its basically a state- sanctioned childcare/socialization programme. Its cleverly mandated under the legal authority for education, but one should make no mistake as to its purpose, and this is one of the many great trojan-horse examples of government-gone-wild in the name of "compassion". All those kids at failing inner-city schools are just being soul-destroyed for a life of minimum- subsistence-wage menial labour.

<comment> barry-cotter "I agree with the substance of this. Passing on wisdom is not the first, second, or even 3rd point of "education" _anymore_."

Emphasis added

At no point, ever, has there been a state education _system_ where passing on wisdom or knowledge was the first, second or third point.

 _All those kids at failing inner-city schools are just being soul-destroyed for a life of minimum-subsistence-wage menial labour._

Actually most of them don't end up working, and they sure as hell don't end living at a subsistence level. The bottom 5% of US income has a great standard of living by global standards. And any soul destroying that's going on is pretty much universal, not confined to members of the underclasses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> While I agree that we're still a far way from replacing the classic university model with online courses, I feel that pointing out the flaws of any individual lesson video is a limited and weak argument in this debate.

Not because it's wrong to point those flaws out. But because classic educational courses don't expose themselves to such transparency. I can think of a good number of classes I sat through that if they were put on YouTube for the convenience of critics to rewatch and nitpick, they would be as mock- worthy as the examples the OP uses

</comment><comment><USER25> That's some pretty loaded language and interesting choice of quotes there...

</comment><comment><USER26> can go in this list: [http://www.smbc- comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2873](http://www.smbc- comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2873)

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm a top 10% student that goes to a top 30 engineering school. I haven't gone to a lecture or bought a textbook in over 2 years. My grades haven't suffered - they're mostly a function of time spent doing homework and going through the lecture slides.

For undergraduate students - a physical college is now mostly unnecessary (excluding some lab work). Research students - not so much.

Another thing. Arguments against any new technology saying "Oh, but you can't replace that!" are always going to die. Lowering the cost of something by a factor of 100x changes everything.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Wouldn't it make more sense to just fund education to the levels we had back when it was working?" Short answer: NO.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. That was a truly bizarre statement. People who continue to claim that our education problems will all be magically solved by throwing more money at the problem bewilder me unless they're the ones directly benefiting from that money, that is. Tuition rates have been rising out of control for decades, but education is a big problem right now. More money did _not_ solve the problem.</comment></comment>


True size of Africa - <AUTHOR> http://tariq.co/true-size-of-africa/ <comment><USER3> Not only is this lifted without proper attribution from someone else's work; the only added content is the words "Peter's projection" at the start, which in the space of two words manages to make all of the following mistakes:

1\. The person's name is Peters; the "s" is not possessive.

2\. The projection was devised independently by two people; Gall got there before Peters. It's therefore usually called Gall-Peters nowadays.

3\. The map shown does not use the Gall-Peters projection, either for Africa or for any of the other regions fitted into it. (It's all Mercator, but with Africa scaled up to make its area correct.) The appearance of Africa in the Gall-Peters projection is unusual enough that no one who actually knew anything much about maps would make this mistake.

4\. The _Economist_ article to which the page links has its own version of the "true size of Africa" graphic (which is not the one looted for the "Brain Junk" page) that uses a different projection also devised by Gall. But this is also not the "Peters projection" but a quite different one.

I suppose those mistakes are what Tariq Rauf is asserting the copyright on.

(It may be worth noting that Kai Krause seems to have explicitly put his graphic in the public domain, so there's nothing _illegal_ in what Tariq Rauf has done here. That doesn't stop it being extremely unimpressive.)

</comment><comment> olog-hai Why is Kai Krause not credited?

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/cartograph...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/cartography)

<comment><USER4> It's funny that the footer of the tariq.co page states:

"All content copyright Brain Junk © 2014 • All rights reserved."

Even though apparently the one piece of content on the domain is owned by someone else.

Good times!

<comment><AUTHOR> haha sorry, did not expect this to go anywhere, added source.

<comment><USER5> So you copied his content and claimed ownership and submitted in hopes of attracting HN views? Nothing sketchy there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since we're comparing sizes... Let's do it with continents!

1 Africa

= 3.35 Australias

= 2.86 Europes

= 2.20 Antarcticas

= 1.67 South Americas

= 1.23 North Americas

= 0.69 Asia's

Now, in term's of population:

1 Africa

= 35.10 Australias

= 1.38 Europes

= 227669.04 Antarcticas

= 2.60 South Americas

= 1.89 North Americas

= 0.25 Asia's

<comment><USER7> I wonder if there's a usable ballpark measure for "habitable land"? E.g. you could say that large parts of Siberia are effectively uninhabitable, along with some parts of the Sahara desert and a good portion of Australia, and most/all of Antarctica. Of course habitability isn't really a binary function with a solid definition, but it'd be interesting to get some kind of rough estimate, especially when looking at land area and population in parallel.

<comment><USER8> That is a good question.

I think of the huge countries, Brazil is probably the one with less useless land?

Brazil harshest environment is the quasi-desert plains in the northeast non- coastal region, it rarely rains there because the coast has lots of hills high enough to block rain (thus the coast is very rainy too), but it is not a complete desert (yet... overuse of land in agriculture is slowly transforming it in a desert).

Brazil has no crazy areas of desert, tundra, or other non-fertile areas, the only parts "hard" to live as human are the rainforest (because it is too dense, nothing you cannot fix by making your own clearing) and the marshy area (because to live there you need to figure how to make a floating house or a house that don't flood).

US has the Arizona desert, and some snowy mountains, Canada half of it is just ice, Russia too, half of it is ice, China has a huge desert plus the himalaias, and the largest countries in Africa usually are large because they extend the border to the middle of Sahara because of natural resources, it is not really useful land.

And Australia has that very dry outback where you cannot have proper farming.

<comment><USER9> Navigable rivers is the big problem. Extensive navigable rivers is what made and continues to make Europe and North America such premium pieces of land. Siberia, Brazil, and Africa have all had the problem that moving stuff in and out is super energy intensive.

<comment><USER10> This is an interesting point. Can you suggest some reading to find out more about this? eg. what got you thinking along these lines?

<comment><USER11> Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's a pretty cool Vidsauce video on this. The most popular version of the map that causes this misperception also causes Greenland to look much, much larger than it really is.

<comment><USER13> The Mercator Puzzle demonstrates this quite dramatically:

[http://gmaps- samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/poly/puzzledra...](http://gmaps- samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/poly/puzzledrag.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Where is Alaska fitted into the picture? Alaska is part of U.S. and adds substantial weight to its size.

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of What Fits Into Russia: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm6HzN5YVI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm6HzN5YVI)

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow, I thought China was much larger than America(as in much much larger); Africa though I already knew was a fucking giant.

Accurate maps of the globe are enlightening.

<comment><USER17> China, the US and Canada are all nearly the same size (9.5 million, 9.1 million and 9 million km^2, respectively).

Russia on the other hand is significantly bigger (16.3 million km^2) - <USER2> than even Antarctica (14 million km^2).

<comment><USER18> Wikipedia says 9.6, 9.8, and 10.0 million km^2 respectively. Do these numbers include something (e.g. water) that the numbers you quoted don't? (They also peg Russia at 17.0 million km^2)

<comment><USER17> The numbers are land-only, but there are multiple conflicting ways of calculating it often due to land disputes. For instance, Taiwan/Tibet/etc. wrt China

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_area...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_area_%28graphical%29)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The author forgot a part of Italy

</comment><comment><USER20> Yes. I get it. Africa is big. Whoopty-freaking-doo. Stop polluting HN with this irrelevant fluff, please.

</comment><comment><USER4> I know that the average American has some issues with maps -- I think we've all seen those videos where some chubby schlub is asked to point out the United States on an unlabeled map and winds up sticking his finger in his eye. Or his nose. Or butt. Or France.

But Hacker News readers: I really hope the general size of the African continent is not news. Knowing the general size and arrangement of the continents is _basic_ geography...</comment>


Ask HN: Would you ever buy a guide on how to be a "business guy" cofounder? - <AUTHOR>

1 question/click survey here:<p>https://www.wedgies.com/question/524c98909baa9d020000003c/ <comment><USER2> Just some constructive criticism:

\- You created a text post submission that only includes a link. Why not just create a link post?

\- Your poll asks a question contingent upon conditions ("Would you ever") but then the only choices are non-conditional interest or disinterest. I don't think you'll be getting useful insight from this.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know, man. The question of "Would you pay/buy X" seldom has any value.

Most people would say "Yes" because anything "interests" them and there's no money on the table. Put a price on that, and you'll see people have cold feet.

In my opinion, it'd be more pertinent to have some page where there's actually a button to "Buy" the thing to actually see how many people made the mental decision to actually pay real money for it. Not just "hypothetically".</comment>


Tables vs CSS: CSS Trolls begone - <AUTHOR> http://iamelgringo.blogspot.com/2009/02/tables-vs-css-css-trolls-begone.html <comment><USER2> Lets call them zealots since they're mostly not really trolls.

CSS zealots are a lot like TDD zealots. Both CSS and TDD have huge, _huge_ benefits that you shouldn't write off before you actually take the time to learn them. The problem is the zealots talk about them as panaceas and ignore the fact that there is no one methodology that separates the pros from the amateurs. Instead they use their expertise in one tiny niche to prove to themselves how their work is so much better than the majority of similar work due to a few arbitrary criteria. Then they form small self-congratulatory communities to pat themselves on the back about how brilliant they are and how much everyone else could learn from them.

These are the people who you find trolling your blog. Usually they aren't even particular skilled at what they do, which is why they cling to dogma and feel the need to attack other people.

But let me be clear. I haven't layed out a website using tables since 2001 (and I used tables for 5 years before that), once you develop your mental model of CSS (and browser deficiencies) there are actually only a few edge cases where tables are easier. CSS can actually solve 90% of web design challenges more elegantly than tables. CSS makes it easier for designers to and developers to work together (I am both). There are many techniques which are only available in CSS. All future technical developments in web design will be in the realm of CSS.

So it really is worth the time to slug it out with CSS and figure out what's what. That said, web design coding (ie. HTML/CSS) is just one tiny piece of a huge potential set of web development skills. Why does google put CSS inline? Because their design considerations are driven by 100 things that are so far over CSS Zealots heads they can't even fathom it: scalability, latency, back- end HTML generation, js compiled from other languages, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> RE: _Why does google put CSS inline? Because their design considerations are driven by 100 things that are so far over CSS Zealots heads they can't even fathom it: scalability, latency, back-end HTML generation, js compiled from other languages, etc._

From: [http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/100/beauty-of- simplicity...](http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/100/beauty-of- simplicity.html)

 _But the original [Google] home-page design was dumb luck. In 1998, founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were consumed with writing code for their engine. Brin just wanted to hack together something to send queries to the back end, where the cool technology resided. Google didn't have a Web master, and Brin didn't do HTML. So he designed as little as he could get away with._

<comment><USER3> What does the design of google back in 1998 have to do with the inline CSS argument?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a big hunch that design decisions at 75% of Alexa's top 20 sites aren't really based on CSS idealogical purity, scalability, algorithmic complexity or back-end html generation issues. I think those decisions are based on plain and simple expediency and frustration. Much like my decision to go ahead and use tables.

I think that's what guided Google's decision in 1998, and I still think that's what guides their decisions now.

<comment><USER3> What guided Google's decision back in '98 was to deliver the most kickass search engine ever, the sooner the better (I guess). From that point to now it's a matter of perfectioning every single aspect of their creature, to ensure a great UX (therfore fidelization).

What makes a great UX? A clean UI, a fast service and possibly no hiccups (to make it very short). The UI has changed _a lot_ from 98 to now (check out web.archive.org) and so did their HTML code. A _single line_ HTML page is obviously a conscious decision and so is the inline CSS.

I don't know you, so I have no idea on your experience in this field, but when you get to deal with I'm not saying huge, but decent amount of users you simply _have_ to deal with scalability under every single aspect. If you don't, chances are you end up delivering a crappy service OR you spend WAY more money (bandwidth, cpu power, etc) than you actually need to.

EDIT: google is obviously more than html and css, and if you really want to have an idea on how they are paranoid with performances you should check out their google app engine documentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The people preaching 100% CSS design are purist, they're people that love design and love CSS. These are the Eric Meyers, Doug Bowman and David Shea's of the world.

The way you see beauty in "perfect" code, they see in pure designs.

But there are benefits to their methods. Usability, accessibility, SEO, increased caching and reduced page load times are all side-effects of "pure" CSS designs.

I'd suggest taking the 80/20 approach to CSS. Take the best of what works and then just get it done and move on.

Also, my time limit for CSS problems is 1 hour. After that I use the best solution instead of the perfect one.

<comment><USER5> What does "pure CSS" page offer in terms of usability and accessibility that a mixed-use table/css page wouldn't?

If anything, CSS would be worse as its difficult to render the same across all the different browsers and platforms. With fixed width tables, you can pretty much guarantee your results.

I'm not advocating either and tend to try to use as much CSS as possible but sometimes you spend twice as long to achieve an inferior result. After many years of working with HTML, I think most people find that happy medium.

<comment><USER6> In theory, it offers better separation of content from presentation. For example, a news article that renders in one column on-screen and two columns printed. Or that renders as columns for a sighted user but is read aloud in the correct order for a blind user.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't, not even in theory.

CSS did a good job of freeing us from layouts that were dominated by concrete layout, stretchy invisible gifs and so on. But CSS does not separate content and presentation. CSS still depends on concrete layout to work. You often can't have a feature of your style that doesn't have a div or whatever attached to it. (The pseudo-selectors are a horrible hack to try to fix this.)

The problem is that we were all collectively duped into not wanting things that CSS didn't give us.

An example: I used to lay out the music and entertainment section of my college newspaper. With CSS, you can't even do a multiple column layout that flows, and PageMaker had that on day one.

Sometimes, I would design a headline that ripped right through articles in the middle of the page. Even diagonally. I can't imagine how you could do that in CSS, without tedious calculations and placing concrete divs into your text.

Even if some of what I've said is possible, very, very few designers seem to be able to cope with this. The evidence is that most of them struggle just to get two-column layouts that don't even flow, if one judges by the number of tutorials.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Article summary in 3 sentences (apply these rules to whatever you want, not just table usage!):

If big sites do it, it must be okay!

If I can't be bothered to do proper research to learn _why_ one should not use technique X, the reasons must be trivial and stupid!

If I am too lazy to learn how to do something properly, I must justify doing it improperly _somehow_!

\</comment><comment>

I haven't used tables for page layout in roughly _a decade_. I think I used a table improperly for the first time since then last week, when I was laying out a form and couldn't get it to render consistently after a Javascript update. I don't consider this the end of the world, nor do I take it to mean that CSS is unnecessary and I'm going to go back to pretending it's 1999.

The problem with sensationalist bullshit like this article is people will read it and form an opinion based on it, without doing their own research. Do your own research (and looking at the table counts of Alexa Top 100 sites doesn't fucking count as _research_ , FYI). Learn the _real_ reasons why you shouldn't use tables for layout (or why to adhere to various other web standards). If you don't find those reasons compelling enough to switch, _then do whatever the hell you want_ \-- at least you know _why_ you're doing it.

Learn that if you choose to use the proper methods, all the layouts have already been made for you, so you can be as incompetent as you'd like and still layout a page better than Google (and yes, Google are complete shit bags when it comes to adhering to Web Standards. Thankfully, what Google does should be irrelevant to you!) Finally, at the end of the day, just because you use tables occasionally doesn't magically mean CSS IS DEAD. I can't think of a sufficiently funny metaphor for this obvious fact because I am too god damn pissed off.

<comment><USER9> "Do your own research (and looking at the table counts of Alexa Top 100 sites doesn't fucking count as research, FYI)."

Yes. Yes, it does count as research. When you see people who have done what you want to do, looking at how they did it _is_ likely to guide you in how you should do it. That doesn't always work, but it's a damn fine start.

<comment><USER8> Even if I concede that it's a damn fine start, it is not research sufficient to jump to the conclusion that (a) CSS layouts are overcompensating (based on a "hypothesis" taken out of thin air) and (b) people who believe using tables for layouts is bad are wrong based on said research.

Edit: He also managed to not even properly conduct this simplistic research considering that many of the tables used on the sites were used correctly, e.g. for _tabular data_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The CSS Problem has been solved. There are a large number of people in the world who can take any arbitrary design and make it work in all browsers using compliant XHTML/CSS.

In fact, there are so many, that the rate to do such a think is between $100 and $200: [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291US...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291US304&q=css+slicing+service&btnG=Search)

In my mind this leaves only two defenses for not having a website done in (roughly) proper CSS + HTML:

1\. You believe that it is _better_ to layout pages in tables.

2\. You can't do it personally and don't have $150

<comment><USER11> Or

3\. You just don't care.

which is by far the most common explanation in all situations of this type.

<comment><USER10> I fail to see how that is different than #2? Maybe I should have said "don't want to spend $150".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dude what you need in your life is something like malo. It allows the simplicity and elegance of the nested tables paradigm but with out the cruft of using tables! <http://code.google.com/p/malo/>

Personally I have an abstraction layer which allows me to express my layouts as s-expressions and then be rendered either as "html" (tables, great for quick development) and then rendered to "xhtml" (divs + css) for when I am polishing things up.

Right now it is written in php (yes the s-expression reader and everything, and yes it caches the interpreted files so the overhead is worth it) and I plan on releasing it on googlecode when I am happy with the "interface" of required methods for each "layout adapter".

edit: I forgot to mention malo is like 9 lines of css w/out comments.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the pointer to Malo. I have looked at 960.gs and Blueprint as well before I decided to use use CSS Reset and then my own layout using the same technique as 960.gs

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Inlining styles can be a good way to boost performance for webpages that tend to be viewed once and left, like Google or Yahoo's home page.

<http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html>

It seems as if having external CSS is only good for scalability due to caching. If you knew a page wasn't going to be revisited, you would inline it to save an extra http request.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm not a CSS purist by any means but I think heavy use of nested tables can be a real hassle for the visually impaired. I think if you find yourself putting a table within a table strictly for layout, you should at least consider other alternatives.

Personally, I like using tables for forms, which makes it relatively easy to line things up for both the labels and the input elements, and it also makes the css rules fairly straightforward to read. I'm sure CSS purists might disapprove, but I think it's a good tradeoff and hopefully not much of an additional hassle for screen reader users.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm sorry but I don't see how you can write an article comparing Tables to CSS and not mention Internet Explorer...not even once! In my experience, the only reason I've resorted to tables for layout is when I need to worry about IE compatibility (well, that and when I actually want a table).

This is also why the author's argument doesn't interest me in the slightest. Claiming that "all the popular sites" use tables is nothing more than an appeal to authority. Furthermore, it's a blind appeal since the author doesn't even consider the backwards compatibility logic in using tables.

If you're going to tell me why tables are better than CSS, then tell me why tables are better than CSS. Don't just show up to the argument with a bigger gun...

</comment><comment><USER17> Am I the only person who finds CSS easier to write and easier to wrap your head around? I don't think I could go back to tables without a significant effort in changing the way I do things. CSS has just become natural. Maybe the author just needs more experience or practice.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've always been confused by google's use of tables and inline styles in their homepage also. Is it to shrink the file size and send less over the wire? Is it to maintain support for IE 4 or some other archaic browser?

Using one of the css frameworks like yui grids or malo gives you table like designs quickly and easily. Yeah there could still be cases where a table is easier for layout but I feel like there are less and less excuses for that.

<comment><USER19> Tables probably for cross-browser support with minimal code size.

Inline css and javascript for 1 http request instead of 3. Much faster, and less load. The content-length of the google home page is 2752 bytes (gzip).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there any reason you can't use an unordered list with one of the pre-made jquery tree plugin's to give indentation, collapse and expand?

<http://jquery.bassistance.de/treeview/demo/>

<comment><AUTHOR> It would probably work, but then, you're creating a work-around for a CSS shortcoming with javascript.

<comment><USER21> How so? You'd be effectively solving the problem using both CSS and JavaScript they way they were intended, as opposed to using tables for layout, which has always been a hack around HTML's lack of any other layout support. Seems like if you're going to reject one approach on the grounds that it's too hackish, it'd be the other one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463234>

</comment><comment><USER23> Really? You use Photobucket and Rapidshare as examples of sites whose design examples you want to follow?

I'm certainly not a CSS purist, but I'm sure you could've found better reasoning than "all the big guys use tables, so I should too."

<comment><USER24> He's not saying they have wonderful design. He's saying that most of the top sites liberally use tables, which is interesting given that they probably have some pretty great devs and an infinite budget.

I've walked the same road as the author has and currently use tables for layout and CSS for text style, paddings, margins, borders, colors, backgrounds, rollovers...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> He references Google finance. Google finance only uses tables for tabular data, not layout which goes against his own point....

I completely think this is cheer leading for anti-CSS trolls.

</comment><comment><USER26> as long as it works, it doesn't matter if you use CSS or tables. The end users just don't care.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm very wary of people who cling to principles as if they're sacred truths that shall never be broken. I think these sorts of things serve better as guiding principles.

</comment><comment><USER28> Learn the pros and cons and then use whatever fits the job better.

</comment><comment><USER29> what? i think you are focusing on the wrong problem people.</comment>


What is the "smart programmer" language in 2020? - <AUTHOR> Thinking about Python Paradox [1], which language has interesting design and seems to have a bright future because it is drawing a community of "smart pepole" now?
My background is data analysis and Julia seems very enticing (I also think there is a lot of good design in R's tidyverse).
While python in 2004 was great, when I was thinking about it now, the adjective that I come up with is "tedious". It is my main lang at the moment though.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html <comment><USER2> Honestly, from what I've seen so far you've pretty much named it: Julia.

<comment><USER3> One of the main reasons I started looking into Julia was because someone smarter than me in the DOE CSGF program was using it (specifically Miles Lubin, who was working on JuMP[1] at the time). I don't know if that's a good way to choose programming languages, but one way or another I'm definitely a Julia convert now. Come for the community, stay for the multiple dispatch!

[1] [https://github.com/JuliaOpt/JuMP.jl](https://github.com/JuliaOpt/JuMP.jl)

</comment></comment><comment> a-saleh I.d.k. I would say choose your language based on the community and the problem you are trying to solve.

I.e. my next team project that won't be in Python would probably be in Rust, as other colleagues are pretty excited about it.

My personal stuff might be something a tiny bit more obscure, i.e. Haskell, Ocaml, or even some APL dialect.

</comment><comment><USER4> My personal answer would be K/shaktidb[0]

[0]: [https://shakti.com/](https://shakti.com/)

</comment><comment><USER5> The smart language is MBA. Go into management because that's where the money is and you'll never need another language.

If you really want a language, then the two you mentioned are good. We just started using a ton of python at my company in the past 2 years for data science and AWS.

<comment><USER6> Are you... aware of SDE salaries?

<comment><USER7> Average here is € 59 814 / year

<comment><USER5> Average US engineer makes about $95k. Software managers average $130k.

<comment><USER8> Source? Those seem rather low.

<comment><USER5> Glassdoor. It's a national average, so your specific area may be higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> zig, pony.</comment>


How can I get a mentor/co-founder in the US while outside of it? - <AUTHOR> I am based in a country with limited talent. I would love to find a tech mentor who is open to being a co-founder to automate one aspect of my idea. How can I do this?<p>Also, I am interested in building a web app to send invoices. If anyone is interested in mentoring me let me know how I can get in contact with you. <comment><USER2> Are you looking for free help or are you willing to pay?

<comment><AUTHOR> oh absolutely. I am willing to pay.

I will add right here that I am interested in using python (django or fastapi). I know the basics about python, but really limited in html, css and javascript.

<comment><USER2> You can hit me up if you like, I am openly seeking both am advisor and to be one.

Email is in the profile</comment></comment></comment>


Google ReCaptcha targeting non-Google browsers - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/9vmsyp/google_recaptchas_targeting_firefox_and_other <comment><USER2> Anecdotally, Google is almost unusable on Firefox and Tor. Long captchas on almost every web search.

Makes sense I guess, but it's not fantastic.</comment>


Billions in Profits, No Taxes: How the Tax Code Let 26 Companies Off the Hook - <AUTHOR> https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-tax-billions-profits-no-tax-bill-822428/ <comment><USER2> The difference is between GAAP profits, which are what the companies report to shareholders, and the taxable profits calculated in their IRS filings, which is full of subsidies and incentive programs.

Roughly speaking, GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) is the internationally accepted way of doing accounting. GAAP is a perfectly reasonable way to calculate taxes due, but congress long ago decided that they want to incentivize certain behavior through the tax code. It's probably worth noting that cutting the 'red tape' on the tax code has proven to be politically unpopular. There are a lot of incentives that are being used for things like clean energy, business investment, hiring welfare recipients, parental leave, etc. that won't be easy to ax. The recent tax code changes did strengthen a few deductions and remove a few others, but this sort of behavior is far from new.

</comment><comment><USER3> Delta made $5B in Profit? Wow. I thought airlines had razor thin margins...</comment>